Wednesday, August 10, 2016

#MTBoSBlaugust Day 10: Planning PD without me

So I finally realized knew of the reasons I've had such have a hard time planning out the PD I'm going to be delivering to my math teachers thus year. It's because I'm not sure when my mom is going to need me and I don't want to have my teachers miss some great professional learning because of my family issues. My mom has been sick for 8 months now and is under hospice care at home and we're not sure how much longer she's going to last.

So knowing that the unknown is ahead I've decided to embrace some various forms of PD. This year instead of all the PD being done in person or with their PLC I'm going to have my teachers do learning walks or walk throughs every few weeks. I want them to first do them with other math teachers and then after the first month or so start walking through classrooms from other content areas. I'm going to give them a form to fill out either on paper or electronically so everyone will still be held accountable but also so they can reflect on what they may have observed or picked up from the classrooms that they want to implement in their own classrooms.

I'm thinking the teachers will enjoy this so they can get a chance to see other teachers when they're in their zone and also because then they can give me even more feedback on what they would like further help with in the classroom.

Here are some of the questions and reflections that I'm planning on using from my APs previous form as well as some of what I've used as a teacher before.
- What did the teacher do build background with students in order to motivate/engage the students?
-What classroom management strategies were in place or observed?
- Describe how the teacher differentiated and scaffolded the instruction for various learners.
- What other SCALE/SIOP strategies did you observe that would be useful in your own classroom?
- What is something you are taking away from your walkthrough and want to implement in your classroom?

Any ideas, thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated! If you've participated in something like this before please let me know what worked or didn't work for you. I'm looking forward to really planning these out and letting the teachers make the most of their own PD!

4 comments:

  1. I really like this idea, especially the other content areas. What types of questions/observations do you plan to ask?

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    1. I'm still working on hashing it out but here are some of the questions that my AP used and wants me to try to integrate.
      - What did the teacher do build background with students in order to motivate/engage the students?
      -What classroom management strategies were in place or observed?
      - Describe how the teacher differentiated and scaffolded the instruction for various learners.
      - What other SCALE strategies did you observe that would be useful in your own classroom?
      - What is something you are taking away from your walkthrough and want to implement in your classroom?

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  2. In my school we do learning walks every month. I would be happy to discuss what we do, email me at yelena.melnichenko@rcsdk12.org.

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    Replies
    1. Ooo, I will definitely be emailing you Yelena! Thanks!

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