Thought # 1 What do “engaged students” look like? Are they students who are moving around the room to different stations every time they hear a timer? Are they students who know signals or cues for everything that occurs in a classroom? Are they students who are “having fun” completing lots of “hands on activities”? ....or are they students involved in authentic reading, writing and problem solving?
Thought #2 What is professional collaboration? Can real collaboration be mandated? Can authentic collaborative groups be assigned by someone outside the group? Which should come first – a collaborative group or a problem or project that needs to be addressed? … or maybe real professional collaboration occurs when professionals see a problem or project that needs to be addressed and come together to meet the challenge.
Thought #3 Mountains of testing…. DIBELS …. Theme Tests …. Progress Monitoring…STAR …SAT… Is it beneficial to the student? Is it helpful to the teacher? Is it used to inform teaching? Is it developmentally appropriate? Is it worth the time and resources? … Or maybe we should think about …. Individual conferencing, keeping student portfolios (not portfolios of bubble-in-the-one-right-answer tests, but portfolios of student writing, or other more authentic products), keeping anecdotal records of student learning behavior.
Just thinking…
No comments:
Post a Comment