I sure thought about how I can maximize my position as Academic Instructional Coach with new and veteran teachers alike. I met with 2 teachers this week at different places in their career, yet, both young in the field of education. One I spent time with going over how to design a lesson while the other I just tried to provide him with an overview of our school/district. A reminder of individual needs within one building.
With our district choosing to go into NTI for the first grading period I thought a lot about how my role will look. I decided am going to begin coaching on how to teach without an audience. Guess what? That starts with purposeful planning and being very intentional. Funny, how it all circles back to my purpose for this blog! I love it!
Leadership for Differentiating Schools & Classrooms by Carol Ann Tomlinson & Susan Demirsky Allen explain that planning and preparation show if a teacher has knowledge of content and pedagogy, their students, are selecting (quality) instructional goals, have knowledge of resources, can design coherent instruction and are preparing to assess student learning. For virtual learning we are going to focus on everything for the first few weeks with the exception of knowledge of students. New year equates to new students; unfortunately in a pandemic we will lack the personal aspect of getting to know kids; at the very least it will take us a bit longer. Teachers under a pandemic are experiencing uncharted territories; but do not fret; when you plan with purpose and intentionality students will learn and thrive. YES, they will thrive; so long as you keep your expectations high, be available, well planned, and enthusiastic...you'll watch them reach their goals with pride.
Step one know your content and pedagogy. Content is pretty basic and years ago (many years ago) it seemed that was the end of a teacher's job. Teach algebra, teach Spanish, teach English literature, etc. With the responsibility of teachers changing and growing and our knowledge of the brain and how students learn at varying levels we are expected and required to go beyond lecturing our content from the front of the room.
In walks pedagogy. "Pedagogy in education concentrates on the different learning styles of students." This is from Schoology's blog and article Pedagogy in Education: More than just a buzz word, https://www.schoology.com/blog/pedagogy-education-more-buzzword. We are held accountable for student learning and therefore we must know HOW they learn and since they do not all learn the same we must differentiate. Differentiate? WHAT? We haven't even begun planning, now I have to differentiate? Yes you do because it is best practice and will provide the opportunities for learning. (It IS part of planning, no worries.)
Non-traditional Instruction or NTI lends itself to differentiation and may help you feel more comfortable with ensuring you differentiate when we all come back to the school building. Let's go back to Tomlinson and Allen's text and learn what a differentiated classroom looks like. Pg. 96 provides an outline; I will share some of what they listed.
- Flexible groups
- Students responsibility for learning is fostered
- Provide a mechanism for students to get help when the teacher is busy (or not online)
- Provide ongoing learning activities when they need help but the teacher is unavailable
- Less lecture more investigation
- More small group or individual
- Allow for a variety of response types
- Provide conference time between teacher/student
- Vary in difficulty
- Allow for student choice
- Vary in time allotted
- Reflect student's learning goals
- ....
Looking above I feel better about NTI already. Setting specific office hours will allow me to provide feedback through conferencing as needed. Utilizing Google Meet for live instruction that is recorded for those unavailable. Purposefully placing students into Google Meet chat rooms for small group time. Ensuring all students can access and use their email for communication when the I am not online. High expectations holding students accountable for the work. Providing models and exemplars yet allowing for student creativity. Each of these can be built into my planning.
Alright, enough to think about for the week ahead. I look forward to your comments or questions. I will see you next Sunday! Happy Planning!
Sincerely,
Holly Walker, Ed.S.
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