After reading Chapter 3: The Three Guiding Questions, I was thinking to myself that it wasn't necessarily any new information, but it certainly was a friendly reminder that our teaching can really be simplified into those 3 guiding questions (which also relates closely with our "Focus" book study, but I'll save that for my next post!). I was just filling out a pre-observation form today that answered these 3 questions and it is just a good way to reinforce what is truly important in your lessons and be intentional with our goals, objectives, and assessments.
Something that stood out in this chapter was the importance of PLCs and sharing student work/assessments with our grade level team members, as well as our fellow teachers a grade above and below us. I most definitely agree that the best work we can do for ourselves, our students, and our teaching practice is sharing what we know and learning from other colleagues; however, I feel like inevitably there is just never enough time!! Our Wednesday afternoons become filled up with many things that are definitely important, but I feel like they don't always have direct impact on improving my teaching practices, nor allow time for real collaboration with others. So I do agree that using these 3 guiding questions are the basis of our instruction, but I would like to have some more collaboration time for real, meaningful conversations with my team about our students, our lessons, and our data.
One last thing that I enjoyed reading was the comparison of our teaching teams to the Tour de France team because as it states in the book, "no one wins alone". The more teachers and staff work together and support one another, the greater the outcomes are for every child.
I wish there was also times to gather with younger and older grades in order to see the big picture and where we want our students to eventually get. In math I also try to use the same vocabulary they will be using in future grades to get them use to it - but it is hard to know what is expected of them in future grades. I wish there was some sort of outline of where they are headed.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I too agree that this chapter didn't really seem like new information, but rather a reminder. I particularly liked how you talked about the need to have more meaningful collaboration with our colleagues. It seems as though there is always a "task" to finish for something else that while yes is important, it leaves little time to talk about data in our grade level teams. Then again, does it ever feel like there is enough time in this job for everything you want to get done?! :)
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with having more time for collaboration! My Wednesday afternoons are spent either billing for medicaid at the DO or out at the private school that I provide services to, so this year I am never able to attend the Wednesday afternoon meetings at Pioneer. In years past, I have been able to attend more of the meetings, but this year there was no option for changing my schedule around. I wish I had more time to check in with teachers to see how my students are doing in class instead of waiting until the IEP meetings. I would love to collaborate more with teachers to make sure we are meeting each student's need in the classroom and during speech/language services.
ReplyDeleteWhen your PLC meets, is it productive? That is the most important thing. Not quantity time, but quality time.
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