Pictured Below Right: Principal Eboni Harrington and WBT's Chris Biffle combine forces to give a "10-Finger Woo".
A colleague at school persuaded our principal to invite Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) founder Chris Biffle to do a day-long PD on this highly engaging instructional approach. www.wholebrainteaching.com. I'd used elements of the
approach for a number of years and, this year, following
visits to the site to explore the webinar archives, decided to expand my repertoire to include several more pieces from the program's rapidly growing set of strategies.
My students really responded to the new instructional components (the classroom management pieces alone are worth their weight in gold) and cursory evaluation suggested that they were retaining more from the various lessons where I used the tools and, as the approach proclaims,my learners were enjoying having the 'golden thread of fun' woven through their learning experiences. Good stuff, right? Of course. The angst? How could I meld this into the non-negotiable structures/systems of my school efficiently?
The three-day State of Maryland International Reading Association Conference (SoMIRAC) was an amazing experience. The conference was held in the Hunt Valley Marriott where scores of excellent presenters shared ideas, research, tools, and strategies on a range of relevant and, some might say, critical topics. Of particular note was the focus on Common Core State Standards (www.mdk12.org). Workshops, keynotes, presentations all laid out a festal board of information, strategies, and approaches with warmth, humanity, and passion.
(L to R: Sharon Draper, Donald Leu, Valerie Ellery, Jay McTighe)
(L to R: David Afflerbach, Robert Probst, Kylene Beers, Ralph Fletcher)
Each one of these extraordinary educators, authors, and researchers sparked and inspired me. Even with the end of the school year looming on the horizon, I felt there was so much more to be learned and, decidedly, so much more to be shared with my students before I pack up the classroom.
Authors Draper and Fletcher encouraged teachers to go easy on themselves, to recognize that while there is a lot to be done, we must be gentle with and care for ourselves so that we can be there for our students. Yet other presenters highlighted the wealth of information and skill-building tools we teachers need to bring to bear at this moment if we are to effectively make use of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and prepare learners to be more than passive bystanders in the world.
McTighe's (and Wiggins) recent recast of the Understanding by Design (UbD) planning template to capture CCSS dimensions seems simple enough on the surface. The significance to instructional planning, however, strikes me as monumental. Beginning with the end in mind and crafting assessment that actually tells us if our learners are learning is daunting giving an already jam-packed day with just enough planning time to take care of administrative tasks.
Crafting learning experiences that develop their higher order thinking and build their ability to effectively communicate that thinking makes me wonder about how little is changing in terms of the logistical structures, systems, and schedules of our urban public schools. Continuing deep budget cuts continue to make this a lingering puzzlement for me. The conference left me wondering how I could get a handle on my planning in a way that would allow me to be efficient yet dig deep enough into content to craft truly meaningful learning experiences for my students.
To top things off, on the first day of the conference, I managed to when a raffle that yielded me a one year license for a reading assessment tool that I'd been drooling over. On the the conference, my $20 contribution to the SoMIRAC Scholarship fund netted me a bounty of raffled booksthat are valued well over $200! Heady stuff indeed. I came home feeling like I'd eaten too much Godiva chocolate and with books -- or plans to purchase books -- by each author.
