#TCRWP Reading Institute 2020
I miss:
- the participants
- the staff developers
- Riverside Church
- Horace Mann
- the up close and personal feel of the FRONT row of the auditorium
- the subway
- being asked for directions on the subway
- living out of “carry on”
- coffee meet ups
- packing my lunch
- dining out on the NYC cuisine
- the bookstores
- the impossible and usually untimely return trip home (AKA stranded in NYC on the 4th of July)
- the conversations as we walk past our location, to the wrong Starbucks, or just wandering
- meeting up with #TWT friends
- meeting up with #Voxer cousins
- squeezing in a #G2Great chat (and what time zone am I really in?)
- meeting up with #CuriosityCrew
- and leaving the world behind for that short interlude . . . no TV, few phone calls, few emails.
Thanks to the pandemic, it’s truly a Brave, New World.
Conversation and chatter seems non-stop . . . even if it is typed into a box! Or in a break out room!
It’s Wednesday night. Past the mid-point. My brain is full. It’s leaking. Time to let something out!
My choice session today was all that I envisioned. (Envision- my #OLW)
And then some.
Grand slam?
Winning game of the World Series?
Kentucky Derby winner?
Gold Medal at the Olympics?
30 minutes of pure bliss.
Head nodding,
Amen-shouting,
Fist-pumping,
Zoom waving,
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
Title: The Six Most Important Things You Can Do with Your Students Who are Reading Below Grade Level Benchmarks
Find some paper or point to your fingers.
What are your 6 Most Important Things?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6
You don’t have to fuss over the order. Look at them. Are those the six most important things you believe in?
Are you sure?
Are you really sure?
I had a difficult time choosing this session. There were three choice sessions that I needed to attend according to the titles. This session was not #1. However, I made a guesstimate on the “Six Most Important Things” and I wanted to know if I was right. So I chose this session.
Here were my six:
Know your students / Relationship
Feedback, Self-assessment & Goal-setting
Talk about reading / Rehearse
Stuff to read
Reading, Reading, Reading every day
Was I close?
No bets.
No money.
30 minutes invested in checking my understanding.
Thoughts?
Here were Hannah’s Six Most Important Things.
One small corner of my brain organized and ready for tomorrow’s learning.
So by tomorrow night I can be back at one of these stages . . .
Summertime,
Summertime,
Sum, sum, sum, summertime Learning . . .
It’s the best!
#TCRWP 19: Conferring, Small Group and Transfer
It was a typical ending to the Reading Institute. Filled with knowledge, new thinking, ideas from thought partners and then. . . WHAM! Unavoidable delays at the airport.
Choosing to harness the gift of time was difficult. I wanted to complain so I did but I also wanted to take a look back at this week, a typical week at #TCRWP where as a learner I was drinking from the fountain of knowledge at the same rate and intensity as the water erupting from a fire hydrant!
What was I working on?
How did it go?
I’m still thinking of the three levels of transfer from Alexis Czeterko’s choice workshop, “Teaching for Transfer: Remember What You Learn is for Life! Supporting Transfer of High Level Skills across the Year and across Disciplines” and how these also REALLY apply to life.
The three levels were:
- Across Units
- Across the year/years
- Across Disciplines
How does that work in real life? I’m still thinking on that answer, but I did have some “aha’s” as I thought about my learning during this week.
We were challenged to think of a way to share our learning in our advanced section, “The Intersection of Conferring and Small Group Instruction (3-8),” with Hannah Kolbo. And as I struggled with a way to collect, organize and synthesize my learning across the ten hours this week, I abandoned idea after idea. (Yes, many solely because I knew of no way to capture them on paper!)
This is my first draft attempt. I had to make conscious decisions about some things that just didn’t fit into this draft. I was wishing for a flap to hide them under. Or a second layer or even third layer. Or a way to visually construct something with moving parts. But it is what it is. A draft with room to revise, rethink, and perhaps to reimagine.
Many of the big ideas are included.
One area where I continue to grow and learn is in the broadening of my definition of texts. After all, life isn’t really ONLY about texts and print or digital resources. There were so many examples of “reading” at the airport that didn’t involve words. So many nuances. So many choices.
So many pieces to pull together and weave into the fabric and soul of my own literacy life as well as my learning life during the days, weeks, and months yet to come.
What did you learn this week?
How will you hold onto your learning?
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