Hey Everyone!
I am back and before I get going with this post I MUST shout out Tessa at Tales from A Blog Designer for my beautiful and brand spanking new blog design! She's awesome to work with and gets your blog up and running in no time!
I am currently in Alexandria, Louisiana at the National Whole Brain Teaching Conference and can I just say I am soooooo excited about the coming school year!!! I am moving to 1st grade next year and to be quite honest was not happy about the move because I absolutely looooooooooooooove {you hear me} third grade! Despite the extremely tough year I had this year, I still love third but I am embracing the change and challenge, and being here at the WBT conference has definitely sparked the change of heart.
On Day 1 I was completely out of it because I drove 9 hours from Atlanta to Louisiana solo but I still absorbed a ton of great ideas from THE great Chris Biffle himself, as well as the lovely Farrah Shipley. Currently in my classroom, I use Class-Yes, Hands-Eyes, the 5 rules {modified}, the Super Improver's Wall, and gestures. I wanted to attend the conference to get a better understanding of other classroom management tools like the scoreboard, Teach-Ok, Mirrors, Three-Peat etc. When I tell you I was invigorated about each of these practices even through my haze and disorientation, {9 hours people!} I really mean it! Coach B also went into further detail about the progression of the levels of the classroom management tools like the practice cards and dealing with backtalk. A huge part of me was all.....where was all this with this past year's 3rd graders????? *hits head* I'm all in now!
Day 2...man on man did we learn a lot about WBT writing. The entire day was spent on writing with Coach B leading the morning and afternoon sessions with breakouts in between. I was really excited about the components of oral writing, the genius ladder and triple whammy sentences during my breakout with Mrs. Shipley, but I was totally floored and completely sold on WBT writing when Coach B taught us the history of western civilization using WBT Writing "Brainies"! Western Civilization! Hours later I can still tell you about prehistoric times, and the order of the civilizations! WHOA!
Tomorrow is Day 3 and the last day and I will definitely be back to share more. I just had to get this post in because I am already planning how I intend to implement WBT fully in my first grade classroom in conjunction with all of the other systems and techniques I use. Wib on y'all!
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
I'm back and Professional Development
Hello fellow teachers and bloggers after a very long hiatus I am BACK! I had to step away for a while because the past few months have just been beyond rough. In addition to the normal stresses of beginning a new school year, crazy changes and a thoroughly rambunctious group of third grade "darlings" {yeah, just a bit of sarcasm} have had me in the pits. Didn't have anything nice to say so I thought it best to retreat. I've decided that this year is a test of my ability to remain optimistic, strong and focused. I intend to do all three so without further ado onto the positive...
The past two days have been fall break for my students and professional development for me. My school is a Thinking Maps School. We use thinking maps at all grade levels and have implemented their use in our lesson plans in every subject. This is our second year using Thinking maps and I really really like using them!
Using thinking maps reinforces higher order thinking skills, and helps students organize and share their thinking in meaningful ways. The professional development we had today and Friday takes Thinking maps to another level with a program called Thinking Maps: Write from the Beginning and Beyond.
I really enjoyed the training although in the back of my mind I kept thinking of things I could be doing in my classroom {don't we all think that?!!}. The focus of our sessions was how to incorporate thinking maps into our writing instruction with a routine geared towards each genre and type of writing. What I liked most about this training was the grade specific goals, the rubrics, and the routine for expository writing. I am so excited to begin this with my students because thinking maps have already greatly improved the quality of their writing.
Some highlights from the training:
-Specific criteria for expository writing including number of sentences or paragraphs required at each grade level
-the difference between analytic improvement rubrics vs. holistic rubrics
-the thinking map used should be driven by the purpose for writing {ex. writing to explain parts begins with a brace and then turns into a tree map}
-focused modeled writing should be done with students at least 3 days per week
-class proficiency reports not only inform areas of strength and need for improvement but also possible mini-lessons
-orally rehearsing in pairs provides opportunities to use their thinking map to get their piece flowing
My team has already begun discussing how we will implement this program in our writing. One aspect we all agreed upon was the necessity to integrate writing with the content areas. I will be back to share our implementation and also intend to do a full thinking maps post.
Until next time...
The past two days have been fall break for my students and professional development for me. My school is a Thinking Maps School. We use thinking maps at all grade levels and have implemented their use in our lesson plans in every subject. This is our second year using Thinking maps and I really really like using them!
Using thinking maps reinforces higher order thinking skills, and helps students organize and share their thinking in meaningful ways. The professional development we had today and Friday takes Thinking maps to another level with a program called Thinking Maps: Write from the Beginning and Beyond.
Some highlights from the training:
-Specific criteria for expository writing including number of sentences or paragraphs required at each grade level
-the difference between analytic improvement rubrics vs. holistic rubrics
-the thinking map used should be driven by the purpose for writing {ex. writing to explain parts begins with a brace and then turns into a tree map}
-focused modeled writing should be done with students at least 3 days per week
-class proficiency reports not only inform areas of strength and need for improvement but also possible mini-lessons
-orally rehearsing in pairs provides opportunities to use their thinking map to get their piece flowing
My team has already begun discussing how we will implement this program in our writing. One aspect we all agreed upon was the necessity to integrate writing with the content areas. I will be back to share our implementation and also intend to do a full thinking maps post.
Until next time...
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