March Lead Teacher's Meeting

Tuesday afternoon, I attended the latest meeting for lead teachers. We met at Performing Arts and discussed a number of things.

1. March 28th Inservices - On March 28th we will report to a as of now undisclosed location for inservices. I will be attending AP Lit training. Robin and Brian, I think, will be recieving further Language! training. Everyone else will report to a general session where they will receive training on three topics:

1. Fluency
   
2. Vocabulary
3. Explicit Instruction

The first two inservices are meant to further discussion and exposure to topics covered in last year's CORE training modules. The third topic is a newbie, and Anne says it follows the "I do, We do, You do" philosophy. She explained that this is the opposite of "implicit instruction," which I kind of think is related to the message from the Superintendent's article in the BPS report. In this article he argues that direct instruction (like Language!) is essential as "children can learn at an advanced rate if educators deliver instructions that are consistently clear, reducing the likelihood of misinterpretation and confusion." Anyway...there it is.

2. Fluency - We talked about fluency, talked about it some more, and then addressed it further. Teachers went over strategies, we got tons of handouts, and we addressed commonly heard concerns. I have tons of handouts. My scanner is temporarily on the fritz (and I am looking for a new program...argh), but as soon as it is up, I will scan them in and make them available. I believe you will be receiving them at the inservice anyhow. Here's the important information. In May, Anne will be sending out fluency passages by grade level to every teacher. We are to administer these fluency assessments four times and record the data for every student. Data will then be submitted back to Anne. In the meantime, we are TO CONTINUE WORKING TO INCREASE OUR STUDENTS' FLUENCY. ANNE SUGGESTS FIVE MINUTES PER DAY, AND SHE ASSERTS THAT IT IS EASY TO SEAMLESSY INTEGRATE THE PRACTICE INTO THE THINGS WE ARE ALREADY DOING. (Excuse the caps/bold combo. I'm not shouting. I just want to make sure anyone who merely skims still receives this message.

I'll be posting more information today when there's time, as we have the Barack Obama initiative up and running, and much, much more. Giddyup.