I am lucky to work in classrooms where teachers are implementing the Teachers College units of study in writing. Over the last five years, a professional priority for me has been to attend TC’s workshops. Luckily, I have a few colleagues (and very close friends) who make the journey to New York with me in October and March. Twice a year, we attend the Reunions, and we also have a fabulous time visiting the city (I love New York). There’s a lot of learning and laughing that happens.
Personally, I believe Teacher College has the very best professional development. It’s helpful to hear about the curriculum from the people who created it. I also love that the staff developers are always rethinking the work. For example, I recently attended a writing institute with Lucy Calkins. She had the audience members look at a video that TC created (can be seen on their Vimeo site) and she had us focus on who was doing all the work in the lesson. The audience certainly talked about the strong delivery of the lesson from the teacher, but you couldn’t help but notice that the teacher did most of the talking. The kids were not doing the majority of the work. Lucy’s point was that the Project was rethinking the work around small groups. Small group work interests me because I find it’s what teachers mostly want help with.
For the next few weeks, I’ll be working in a first grade classroom helping the teacher implement some of the small group lessons suggested in the unit. We often spend so much time on the planning of the mini-lesson that the thought of planning small group feels overwhelming!
Hopefully I’ll share some of the lessons we implement and maybe it may help you provide small group instruction in your classroom too.
Happy Monday!
Melissa
P.S. Tip for the day... when working with children the person who is doing all the talking is often doing all the work!
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