April+16,+2010

LITERACY
• Make anchor charts that explicitly label to text-to-world connections • Better planning before reading : build understanding / knowledge ahead of time • On lesson plan, emphasize your focus so you can stay on track • In Kindergarten, start categorizing connections as “big” or “small” • Be precise, use scripts to help students stay engaged
 * “small”: “My auntie’s name is Hazel.”
 * “big:” what it feels like to get lost in a mall

MATH
• What strategies can we put in place so students are more independent, with these thinking strategies? • How do we make math-to-math connections? What do they look like? • Give students more chances to talk about what they are doing in math – create a protocol? What does sharing look like? (“Sharing most benefits the sharer, not the audience.”) • Do more think-alouds – model how to make math-to-math connections • Make meaningful, concrete connections to things students are interested in • Make more math-to-world connections • The importance of the visualizing step in math problems • Problems with debriefing at the end of a lesson:
 * Students are doing real thinking, but they aren’t so independent with it, so the teachers’ job is harder
 * lack of time
 * lack of focus (from students)
 * not sure about the quality of pair sharing

Whole-group Reflection
• The schema group talked about Text to World – but we need to think about it more often • Want to use the word “schema” with kids • Thinking about big connections vs. little connections – connections that really help you understand the story (how do we do that in K) • Brain Map model from second grade – people liked this • Wondering vs. Questioning – what language to use? • Overlap of skills: you use visualizing to predict, etc. • Use the image of a file cabinet of strategies
 * Lots of conversation around how to connect to the world in all disciplines
 * Farms and Food in first grade does it naturally
 * Record all connections, then go back and mark the ones that are “big” and really help you understand the story.
 * This leads into synthesizing / big ideas in later grades
 * Keep records of connections kids make – see who is thinking the same way
 * “wondering” helps them actually ask questions; when you ask for questions you often get comments
 * Teaching the reading strategies in isolation (one week on connections, one week on predictions, etc, instead of using several at once – how to do it? Which is better?
 * Focus on one strategy for a while, then another, then start to blend them

Strategies we will try for next time:
Having more focused lesson plans (focused on one strategy) • Keshia • Denise

Using the idea of “mental files” • Samara (in science) • Shakera (model using think-alouds) Teach what a schema is • Jenna

Work on making clear math-to-math connections • Heidi • Annie • Isabel Protocol for math sharing • Merry More think-alouds • Jen

Text-to-world connections • Nicole • Rachelle • Pam • Jill

Next Steps:
• Come up with a K-2 systematic gesture and picture of students making all the connections • Maybe think about visual representations of files (file cabinet in your brain)
 * Make a display in the hall of the picture symbol
 * Take a picture of students doing them
 * Make a video
 * Heidi will send out what she has done

Feedback on today

 * People want more time to hear about the other book that they didn't read (like our first group)
 * People want more time to hear about what each other are doing in our classrooms: maybe have small groups who are trying similar things share out to the whole group
 * Sort of like during the inquiry cycle in the fall, where grade-level teams shared out -- there was really good cross-fertilization
 * More whole-group sharing, but using a protocol so we hear all voices
 * Do sharing in small groups or whole group instead of pairs, so we can hear from more people
 * We really like doing this -- it feels like really valuable professional development, and we have so many resources in our group.