Saturday, August 28, 2010
Classroom and School Structures
As I read the chapters for this week I was pleased to discover that I have been previously exposed to many of these research based best practices. Most have been discussed as part of other courses in the MAT program. Also, I am foutunate that my school provides professional development oppurtunities for our teachers and we have literacy coaches providing support. I teach in a Title I school. We are NI5 this year. The majority of my students are economically disadvantaged and we have a large number who read below grade level. As I said, I have heard of most of these strategies, but I am still experimenting with how best to use them in a chemistry classroom. I am beginning my third year teaching, and so far it is my best, but I want to continue to improve. Our school is committed to improving and we are working on professional learning commumities within our building. We stated a "Freshman Academy" this year with teams to help our 9th grade class be more successful and insure that they reach the 10th grade. We also have common planning for our subject area and are developing commons assessments. I really believe that our new principal is heading in the right direction for us to become one of the 90/90/90 schools discussed in the text.
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Very exciting, Lorie! There are schools with teachers and administrators that are making improvements. It sounds like you have the leadership and support to make a difference. I look forward to hearing more!
ReplyDeleteWe have a literacy coach as well and it has been very helpful. She comes into our classrooms and does vocabulary games with out students to prepare for our tests and does various readings, among other things. We also have a literacy class with her once a month to discuss various strategies we can use. I'm like you since we've been exposed to several of these ideas but it is nice for me to see strategies that I can use in the math classroom. It seems there are a lot of strategies that can be used in other subjects but it is difficult to find things in my content area.
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