4. I can . . .
Describe the work of professionals in my content area
Plan work time so that my students are doing the
GENUINE work of learning, i.e. reading, writing, and
talking to think and problem-solve.
5. “Are my students doing the work of
historians, mathematicians, scientists,
readers, writers, artists, musicians. . . ?”
8. YET. . .
My students can’t work independently for 2/3 of the
time
My classroom will be chaos once I release them to
work on their own
9. To work for 2/3 of the time, students need . . .
an end in mind
Meaningful purpose (Relevance) for their work
work broken into chunks
work that challenges them (Rigorous), yet that they can accomplish
a catch that allows a time to talk about learning
a shift in task or text
feedback to indicate they are moving in the right direction
10. questions to ask to truly learn about your students:
Tell me more about
that.
How did you figure that
out?
Why did you choose
that?
Why does this matter?
What do you mean by
that?
11. WORKSHOP
EXPECTATIONS
Learning Targets posted as “I Can” Statements
1/3 Teacher Talk Time, 2/3 Student Work Time
Opportunities for Student Choice
Established Procedures and Routines
Mini Lesson with 4 Components
Conferences to Learn and Teach
Teacher Aims to Confer with Each Student in a Two Week Period
Teacher Takes Conferring Notes
Students Provided Opportunities to Debrief Following Work time
Teacher Utilizes Debrief Data to Plan Mini Lessons and Conferences
Students given relevant, purposeful work to do during
work time
12. “Pick one important thing to do from the list.
Because assessment, planning and instruction
are a cycle, anywhere you start will impact the
rest of what you do. Trust yourself. Trust your
students. You can do it!”
Thoughts from
Sam Bennett
On the screen as teachers are moving into the meeting space.
Before beginning the module, allow teachers the opportunity to think a bit about engagement and respond to the following prompt in a two minute quick write: If you are to work on a task for 45 minutes, what do you need in order to remain engaged for the duration of time?After the two minutes of quick writing, ask participants to share out to the group – record these needs, as we will refer to them later in the module.
Modules this year have given teachers the opportunity to learn about the philosophy behind the workshop model of instruction and the various components of the model. In addition, teachers have had a chance to apply these learnings in their classroom.Today’s module will focus on the largest portion of the pie chart – work time – the time when students are able to read, write, and talk in order to get smarter about the content and the learning goal.
Address the “I can” statements individually so that teachers have an expectation for what they will learn and be able to do by the end of this module.
Have teachers brainstorm the wide variety of work that professionals in their content area do. Once they have individually brainstormed, ask them to choose an article on the table and annotate it. As they read their focus should be on the skills professionals in their content area need. Model this with article on skills needed to be a teacher.Finally, allow the quotation to fly onto the screen before proceeding to slide 6. The purpose is to allow teachers the time to reflect upon that question before moving on to the next portion of work time which will allow them to consider the work students should be doing in their classroom.
Remember that Work Time is the opportunity to shift the work of the classroom . . .the talking, reading, writing, analyzing, problem-solving, collaborating, creating and producing . . . to the students. It is the teacher’s chance to listen and learn more about his/her students’ understanding. Keeping in mind what professionals in their content areas do, ask teacher to fill out slide 7 in groups, noting what they need to do more of and less of in their classrooms in order to model the work of scientists, historians, musicians, artists, actors, mathematicians, etc.Sam Bennett and CrisTovani will repeatedly remind us to never ask our students to do “fake work” or “work only done in schools.” For example, there are no readers in the world who read and fill out worksheets about their reading. Readers do read and annotate their text.
This is a handout for teachers to brainstorm the work of (fill in professional here). For example, in science students should have the opportunity to publicly communicate the results of their work, as opposed to merely sharing it with the teacher. Scientists communicate their findings!Share out! Identify those skills that thread throughout.
Despite the great opportunities extended work time allows for student to work and teachers to confer with them, teachers are consistently voicing these concerns.The purpose of this slide is to recognize these real concerns, and move quickly to looking for solutions.
Teachers were asked before the module began to consider what THEY need in order to stay engagedfor an extended period of time. Ask them to look at the list they created as a group and decide what students need (hopefully, they will determine students need similar things). The list on this slide is what new teachers in our district decided were their needs!
This slide should piggyback off of the student need for feedback during that extended period of work time. During the 2/3 of the time students are working, the teacher not only has the opportunity to provide the necessary feedback to keep kids digging back into work, but also to learn more about each student’s progress toward mastery of the learning targets. Remember this is accomplished through conferring with individuals or groups of students. When conferring, remind yourself to ask kids questions you do not already know the answer to.
“Choose one thing to do differently, and see what you get! The beauty of learning is that everything is interconnected, so no matter where you start, it will affect a whole bunch of other things.”
Ask teachers to debrief on what this means to them as they strive to provide opportunities for students to do the work of professionals during work time in their classrooms.
Long term planning is the key to providing purpose and meaning to the work students do during work time. We will begin to look at how to plan with an end in mind.
