Watching Myself Grow

Last week I spent some time in a school delivering professional development. For two days I taught lessons, on Wednesday in a 6th grade classroom and on Friday in a 7th grade classroom. I taught in front of a dozen teachers, two principals, an assistant superintendent, and about 160 students. On Thursday, I played host to visiting teachers while my colleague Heather taught a lesson in high school. I am feeling a little raw around the edges.

There is no reason for me to feel battered and bruised. Heather and I undergo a debriefing protocol that includes norms cautioning the teachers to start with positive remarks and remain focused on the lesson, not the teacher. The teachers were kind, and their constructive criticisms were spot on. The host teacher in the 7th grade classroom gave me an easy method to determine if students had understood the lesson (thumbs up, thumbs sideways, thumbs down to indicate degree of understanding). I was in total agreement that my sloppy method of asking what they had found successful and confusing seemed to be an afterthought in my lesson. The debriefing conversations were interesting and focused and served the purpose of refining my lessons and helping the teachers who had observed me to adapt the lessons for their own purposes.

So why the self-doubt? I didn't experience a love fest, and I had been setting myself up for one. We are charting new territory in delivering professional development (PD), and I, being a retired teacher and having achieved some success in the classroom, was hired to be one of the two teacher facilitators. We are receiving some outstanding training ourselves so I set out to deliver only the finest lessons and world-class PD. I spent hours anticipating the needs of the teachers, embedding strategies into the lessons, and considering an engaging delivery. I wanted to offer the school something special; indeed, I thought I had to.

It turns out that the most significant contribution was to myself. And I believe I can make the case that this is what our method of delivery is all about. We are all teacher leaders. In a few months, their teachers will be conducting the lessons with other teachers observing and then they will sit in the very seat I sat in for debriefing. I am a model for what the powerful experience of debriefing can deliver--a time and a method for reflection on classroom practices.

Sure, I got kind and supportive comments, but even more important were the insights I gained for myself because I was placed in a position where I had to observe myself and my lesson. I was very conscious of the immediate changes I had to make because I hadn't considered that the goofy narratives 7th graders tend to write don't readily adapt to expository writing. (Can a man-eating donut lend itself to an informative lesson? Only if you have the insight to change it to "man eating a donut" and write a treatise on obesity.) I was thrilled to realize in my fourth coverage of the lesson that I always insert narrative into my own writing of expository pieces which confirmed my belief that if students develop informational pieces from their narratives, their pieces will be more interesting to read. Finally, my most important assertion for teachers was that we should all be modeling our messy first drafts in front of students instead of only sharing our finished pieces. It took an act of courage for me to develop and deliver a lesson that required cold writing on my part, but I was delighted when I discovered I could think in front of students and didn't have to do all my thinking after class.

I might not always deliver a stellar lesson, and I am inching toward giving myself permission to not demand it of myself. Instead, the most important thing I may be offering teachers is my observation of how the process of teacher reflection works. I will continue to observe how I change as a teacher and watch myself grow.

Note: The lessons I delivered were adapted from Jeff Anderson in Everyday Editing and Gretchen Bernabei and Dottie Hall in The Story of My Thinking.

Help! There's Only One of Me!

I am currently offering professional development to teachers. At a session last Friday, we broke into small groups to discuss quotes about classroom practices such as using mentor text and teaching argument writing. The discussions were lively and the feedback forms showed that participants liked the small group strategy we employed, with the three facilitators each being discussion leaders. However, one participant left us a question in the parking lot, a poster where questions written on Post-its can be "parked" so the questions don't meander around in your brain.

The question asked how can the activity be duplicated in a classroom where there is only one facilitator, the teacher? My response--

There are ways to nurture students so they can also become facilitators of small group discussions. You might begin by modeling a small group discussion using the fishbowl strategy, in which an inner circle is surrounded by an outer circle consisting of the rest of the class. (You might participate in the inner circle during the earliest discussions, and, as students become more comfortable, you move to the outer circle.) The inner circle engages in discussion while the outer circle observes, takes notes, and, following the discussion, asks questions of the inner group. There are guidelines for the discussion including taking turns and only allowing statements that can be supported, and there are guidelines for the observation. Follow the link for complete explanations.

Assigning some of Kagan's cooperative roles (found on pp. 14:10-14:12, with a paragraph about team discussions on 14:12) is a remedy to a discussion in which one or two students do most of the talking. Assign a Gatekeeper who makes sure all participate and a Taskmaster who makes sure the discussion stays on topic. Additional roles could include Recorder, Reporter, and Encourager. The work of the recorders and reporters can be instrumental in determining the quality of the small group discussions.

We encourage teachers to write along with students, and so, too, we invite them to participate in small groups, rotating on a schedule that works for them. Students will learn to function without the constant presence of the teacher if they can count on an occasional, but regular, presence.

Take the risk of training students to be facilitators, and you'll discover the rewards of a fully-engaged classroom with students who are learning to share your passion for your subject.

Kagan, Spencer. Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA: Resources for Teachers, Inc., 1994. Print.

Sterling, Shirley, and Laura Tohe. "Teaching Strategies: Fishbowl." Annenberg Learner. Teaching Multicultural Literature, n.d. Web. 4 Sep 2013.