Saturday, May 19, 2018

Prioritizing


We’re getting close to that time of year when we reflect back and look forward, and this can be a good time for helping teachers prioritize their activities and routines.  Here’s an exercise suggested by Shawna Coppola* that works well when coaching individual teachers or teams.

First, ask teachers to choose which part of the day or content area they want to reconsider (if their secondary teachers, you can skip this step!).  Next, make a list of everything that could potentially happen (or that the teacher(s) did this year), during that part of the day.  Don’t get too specific; the idea is to list generalizable, repeated activities.  For example, don’t list “Read aloud of James and the Giant Peach,” list “Teacher read aloud,” or maybe “Teacher read aloud while students draw the scene.” Keep going until you run out of steam (or chart paper, whichever comes first!).  Hint: If you’re working with just one teacher, the list can be made on a piece of paper.  Or, go tech for this activity and create the list digitally, projecting if you’re working with a group.

Next, add another column to your list.  Across from each activity listed, put the purpose of the activity.  There may be several.  For example, with a teacher read aloud, some purposes might include: modeling fluency, building vocabulary, practice visualizing. 

Now it’s time to look for overlaps in this second column.  Do students have  lots of opportunities for building vocabulary but not much time spent practicing skills independently? Based on prevalence of skills, teachers can prioritize their learning activities, potentially eliminating some and making their pedagogical plate leaner and cleaner.   

As an end-of-year reflection, this activity gives teachers a time to focus their thinking over the summer on the activities at the top of their priorities list.  If used as a back-to-school activity, it might help teachers feel less overwhelmed and more purposeful if they lighten their load.

p.s.  You might try this activity yourself with your myriad coaching duties!

*Find Shawna at: http://blog.stenhouse.com/archives/2018/03/30/mentoring-new-teachers-podcast-episode-ii-social-emotional-learning/

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Pop songs for end-of-the-year reflection (I plan to use some for teacher reflection as well):


Encouraging an appreciative attitude in the classroom:


Ask, “What makes you angry?” to involve students in civic engagement:

How should we assess things that matter?



Big ideas for increasing engagement:


That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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