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Twitter chat update: Our first twitter chat for our book study Minds on Mathematics Using Workshop Model to Develop Deep Understanding in Grades 4-8 will be this coming Tues night July 30th at 7:00 PM CST, 8:00 PM EST. We will use the hashtag #momathchat for our chat. Please join in and feel free to invite any other math teachers. Anyone is welcome to participate. Hope many of you are able to join in! If you have never joined a twitter chat I will be sure to do a blog post (or link some resources) explaining how it all works. Make sure you have a twitter account if you want to join the chat.
This chapter really gave me lots to think about as I plan to confer with my students this coming school year. I did some conferring last year, but I didn't use a systematic approach and I did not do a good job of collecting data on students. I collected data, but I don't think it was meaningful.
I look forward to implementing the three-step approach as I confer with students. I like the idea of breaking the session into research, coach, reflect/record. I need to spend some time thinking about the best record keeping system to use while conferring. I don't know if it makes sense to go digital or not. Has anyone used a digital system for conferring? I would be curious to hear about the pros and cons. I am visualizing that if I used a paper system I would maybe have a separate clipboard for each class hour. I'm not sure if I would want a separate sheet for each student or not. I have my workshop class this coming week Tues-Thurs so I will have some dedicated time to focus on everything we have been reading about in our book study.
I do have to say that last year when I conferred with students the class was great about not interrupting. I would have each student come up to the front table to meet with me. If someone was at the table the other students knew they were not allowed to interrupt for anything short of an emergency. The students handled it just fine, but I really only conferred on days they were working on the computer based MATHia program. Doing it this year during work time on challenging tasks might be a different story.
I think it will be important for me to set up the guidelines and expectations for conferring in our classroom right from the beginning of the school year. What excites me the most is making a connection with each individual students, especially that small percent that rarely volunteer in class. I will be able to gain valuable information and data that will help me personalize learning for my students. I think that is one of the key reasons for implementing a workshop model in my classroom. I'm getting so excited to see how this all works our classroom this fall.
Twitter chat update: Our first twitter chat for our book study Minds on Mathematics Using Workshop Model to Develop Deep Understanding in Grades 4-8 will be this coming Tues night July 30th at 7:00 PM CST, 8:00 PM EST. We will use the hashtag #momathchat for our chat. Please join in and feel free to invite any other math teachers. Anyone is welcome to participate. Hope many of you are able to join in! If you have never joined a twitter chat I will be sure to do a blog post (or link some resources) explaining how it all works. Make sure you have a twitter account if you want to join the chat.
I look forward to implementing the three-step approach as I confer with students. I like the idea of breaking the session into research, coach, reflect/record. I need to spend some time thinking about the best record keeping system to use while conferring. I don't know if it makes sense to go digital or not. Has anyone used a digital system for conferring? I would be curious to hear about the pros and cons. I am visualizing that if I used a paper system I would maybe have a separate clipboard for each class hour. I'm not sure if I would want a separate sheet for each student or not. I have my workshop class this coming week Tues-Thurs so I will have some dedicated time to focus on everything we have been reading about in our book study.
I do have to say that last year when I conferred with students the class was great about not interrupting. I would have each student come up to the front table to meet with me. If someone was at the table the other students knew they were not allowed to interrupt for anything short of an emergency. The students handled it just fine, but I really only conferred on days they were working on the computer based MATHia program. Doing it this year during work time on challenging tasks might be a different story.
I think it will be important for me to set up the guidelines and expectations for conferring in our classroom right from the beginning of the school year. What excites me the most is making a connection with each individual students, especially that small percent that rarely volunteer in class. I will be able to gain valuable information and data that will help me personalize learning for my students. I think that is one of the key reasons for implementing a workshop model in my classroom. I'm getting so excited to see how this all works our classroom this fall.
I'll be anxious to see what type of record keeping system you come up with and how the conferring goes in your classroom. I'm excited and nervous about trying this all at once as well! It's going to be a fun year!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see what we all come up with this year. Hope you can join our twitter chat Tues night!
DeleteI am thinking of using a system of table groups in paper/pencil form. I just find it faster to do record keeping in paper/pencil form. I also feel like it is easier to access for IEPs/parent meetings. I'm loving all the great information and ideas, but I'm starting to go on overload of all that I need to introduce. Can anyone add to my bulleted list?
ReplyDeleteYou are apprentices pg. 52
How to solve group issues pg. 59
How to reflect and community pg. 63
Discourse pg. 76, 78, and 81
collaboration and establishing community
I also personally have to introduce interactive notebooks and Cornell notes
Kristina, love your list. I think the key, at least for me, is to find a way to incorporate these into your mini-lessons. You won't have to spend an entire class period covering these things, but let one be your focus during your mini-lesson. For example, during the first week of school, I've got kids working individually, in groups, and with a partner on different days. Each day, I'll explain my expectations for "work time" with this type of grouping. Of course, we will need to revisit these expectations, but at least they start getting the idea right away!
DeleteI have been thinking a lot lately about the best way to introduce the workshop model to my students. Luckily I am taking a grad class on this the next three days with my PLC team so we will be able to discuss our thoughts on how to best implement this for success. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
DeleteKristina,
DeleteI have similar thoughts as you. However, I would love to chat with you about your implementation of interactive notebooks and Cornell notes. These are both things I am looking into doing next year. Last year I did use Cornell Notes and it worked really well, however, I plan to tweak what I did last year. I'd love to hear how exactly you use them in your class and I can let you know what I did last year and how I plan to change it a bit. And I haven't done much with interactive notebooks, but I really want to use them. Do you have an success stories with these? Can you fit these in with the time frame is gives you for a mini lesson? Again, I would love to chat with you about these things-either on here or by email. Mine is jilliancmorris@gmail.com
Feel free to email anytime!
-Jillian Morris
Would love to hear more about record keeping. I would love something electronic, but I haven't come up with anything that I think will work on the fly. I wonder if a Google form would work (thinking "out loud" here!).
ReplyDeleteSherrie, I love your comment about getting to connect to the kids. That is what I miss most about teaching in an elementary school...really getting to know the kids. With 150+ kids it seems every year that there are too many that I really don't feel like I know.
I actually used a google spreadsheet last yr for conferencing. I didn't really care for it. The only nice thing was having everything on one document, but it was cumbersome to try and scroll through the data. Our ELA teachers do quite a bit of conferring so I may need to pick their brains a bit.
DeleteReading this chapter made me excited to start the new year. Our language arts teachers at our school have been doing the workshop model for the last few years and there were times last year when I thought I really knew some of the students; then I would be talking to a language arts teaching and because of all the conferring that they do in their room, I realized I knew little. I wanted to start conferring more in my classroom, but I really struggled with what questions to ask and just the how. This chapter seemed to help. "To confer us to intentionally create opportunities to honor learners' ideas by listening and learning alongside them."
ReplyDeleteI know that teachers get bogged down with paperwork and emails, but we must remember that learning is what matters the most. Save the other stuff for later.
I liked the dialog that they provided with each step and the chart on page 143 that shows the difference between a typical classroom and intentional conferring.
I teach the ELL students at my school and I see from the box on page 144 how beneficial this can be for them. Meeting individually or in groups both have a time and place.
Conferring consists of 3 steps: research (find out what their doing and their thinking this far), Coach (nudge them forward), and Reflect (make sure learner understand and record information). I think what I will struggle with the most is coaching, because I need to work on being a facilitator/coach, rather than giving the answers or making it too obvious. I loved the conferring questions on page 147- I need to print this and keep it with me.
I see the benefits of explaining why you are conferring and setting expectations for that time. That will really help with interruptions.
-Jillian Morris
www.morris6411.blogspot.com
Great thoughts Jillian. I too feel like I have a much better idea of how to confer effectively with my students this year, after reading this chapter. I think she did a nice job of breaking down the 3 components of conferring. Thanks for sharing!
Delete