Well, since I haven't posted many reflective blogs, I'll post a quick one to share what I'm planning for next week. I've been reading What Really Matters in Response to Intervention: Research-Based Designs by Richard Allington to prepare to lead staff in a book study over the summer (this is voluntary for staff, but I have 14 that are interested!)
According to Allington (and my own personal experience as a teacher), "the proportion of the school day allotted to whole-class instruction is a predictor of a school's academic achievement. The more whole-class teaching offered, the lower the academic achievement in that school." Allington provides a data-gathering tool to examine the distribution of whole-class, small group, and side-by-side lessons (teacher is working with an individual student) in general education classrooms. I've made my own google doc form to share http://docs.google.com/View?docID=df3fnv6m_1ffhv82ct&revision=_latest&hgd=1 I will use this form to get into EVERY classroom TWICE each day to tally the method of lesson delivery. At the end of the week, I will then use the 5th collumn to determine the percentage of observed lessons during the week (based on 10 observations) that were using whole-class instruction as the method of delivery.
As part of my professional reading in Allington's book, I also plan to send this document http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df3fnv6m_3fgfh5zd2 out to all staff in my weekly email. We won't be starting our book study for a while now, and there are many teachers that could benefit from reading this list to reflect upon their current practices.
PrincipalJ,
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear how the data gathering is going. Have you really been able to get into every room twice each day for a week? How long are you staying? Any preliminary results?
I am also an elem. principal. I struggle in my second year just getting into rooms at all some days.
Anyway, I'd love to hear how it is going.
Thanks.