Do you need Reading Professional Development this Summer?
Turning Point Teacher Collaborating
Educational Innovation 360 enjoys providing monthly Professional development programs to schools! It’s something we pride ourselves on, whatever you can envision-we can make it happen. Last week, we were at Turning Point Academy supporting their teachers develop strategies to improve Reading Comprehension. We asked them to step outside of the curriculum and recreate the unit opener connecting their ideas to the broader community.
Is Your Curriculum Scripted?
Often teachers say, “The curriculum is so scripted.” Turning Point teachers were excited and ready to re-design and rework while writing in their Teachers Edition. Together we worked to support the curriculum with current research practices and teacher ideas to make the text come alive. As a team we created a plan to dive into reading comprehension and actually highlight the things that are working in the classroom with the current curriculum and what are some struggles. Ei360 calls it Grows and grows and together we created a chart that focused on their individual school needs.In the beginning we explored, “what education looks like in the Digital Age?” We started off by discussing what brain research tells us about teaching students who are Digital Natives. We talked about how our incoming students have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video-games, phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Our students process information in a unique way that is different from teachers; the digital immigrant.
Digital Immigrant or Were you Born with Technology
Most teachers are digital immigrants, who use technology but do not rely on it for their main source of knowledge. Teachers tend to adapt to their environment; they turn to the internet for information second rather than first- or may read the manual for a program rather than assume the program will teach them how to use it. (Marc Prensky)Part II of the Professional development focused on diving into the curriculum. Much of our brainstorming ideas moved into creating scaffolds to infuse the curriculum with opportunities that will allow students to explore different forms of media, we talked about setting clear goals and using Universal Design for Learning.Turning Point worked very hard during the Professional Development searching for opportunities in their curriculum to add inserts that would support the needs of their students. Together we went over every step necessary to include when teachers are starting a new concept or unit. The steps are listed below:
Collaboration between Turning Point Teachers
Step 1: Hook or Unit Opener: How can you wow your students and related content to their current context. What are your activities to engage the learner and what is their digital connection?
Step 2: Connection: How is the story related to their life, the overall theme, vocabulary, genre, and text features. What are you doing to prepare students to read the selection.
Step 3: Reading: How are you helping the student understand the story? Are you using Blooms Taxonomy? What are your scaffolds for reading and how are students using their strategies to grapple with the story?
Step 4: Re-Reading the Story: Can the students understand the story enough to organize their thoughts onto paper. How are students organizing their ideas? Getting ready to write.
Step 5: Write & Discuss: Let’s have a whole group discussion about what we’ve read, no teacher talk but student led and the teacher is the facilitator.
Engaging in Disucssion
Value in Ongoing Professional Development
Overall the team received much value out of the collaborative style of Professional Development. If you have included all five steps in your introduction of a book, theme, or topic. Students will have much to share whole group and with the world. I know the teachers had wonderful time, because when Ei360 left the school site, there were over 10 pages of ideas that teachers had on every component of reading comprehension and many of them have connected with our Facebook group! Some of the collaborative moments were exceptional, I know I will use for future Professional Developments to come.Ms Dunn, Principal. Turning Point Academy:
Professional Development on Reading ComprehensionPrensky, Marc.
Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants https://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf