Making a Difference through Book-of-the-Month

Mrs. Phillips reads the
book-of-the-month to the faculty.

When people ask about why Chets Creek is what it is, I know that it is our school culture and results that they are asking about.  Building culture was by intentional  design from the very first vision of the school.  It was the starting point for everything that followed and is partially responsible for the incredible results we have gotten over the years.  Part of that culture building included the design for professional development.  Over the years professional development has taken many different forms.  Some designs have endured over time and continue to bring us together for collegial work.  Those are the ones I am highlighting through this series of blogs about professional development that makes a difference.

Teachers follow along as Principal Phillips

reads the book-of-the-month.

Book-of-the-Month -  The idea for Book-of-the-Month was to choose one children's book every month that could be shared with the faculty who would then share it with the students in their classrooms so that the entire school had a common text for discourse.  This sets the Principal up as the instructional leader for the school.  The Principal introduced the book to the faculty (and nobody can read a children's book better than Susan Phillips!) and then each teacher introduced it to her children.  This practice of introducing monthly books has been continuous through the past fifteen years at Chets Creek,  although it has taken many different forms.

Working in small groups

In the beginning, I think the principal chose books just because they were good books for children, and she was somehow drawn to each of them on a personal level. She chose the very first books to "motivate, encourage and inspire."  They were culture building books. Eventually part of the Principal's presentation each month was a "point paper" that included why she selected the book and ideas for how the book could be used.  Some years the books-of-the-month emphasized vocabulary strategies, writing and reading strategies.  These presentations of strategy work always included an activity to first demonstrate and then practice the strategy so that we felt like the students in the Principal's class.   Even in years when the emphasis has had more of a language arts slant, the Principal has tried to demonstrate principles that could be used across disciplines and across grade levels with the goal of engaging all teachers in the conversation.

Teachers working with book-of-the-month with Principal Phillips.

In the first years, the books were given to the teacher and they belonged to her but it didn't take many years for us to realize that as those books left the building with teachers that left, that we probably weren't being the best steward of our very limited resources.  Now the books go to each classroom and they remain in that classroom, which has helped to build a strong library in each room of good books that can be used as touchstone text. You can imagine how the libraries have built up over time with six to nine quality books added each year for 15 years!  These are books that the teacher knows well because she has studied them as books-of-the-month and that students know because they hear them and see them through the years.  It's easy for a teacher to pick up a BOM to make a point without having to read the entire book because the students are familiar with it.

It has not always been easy for the school to afford to buy books-of-the-month.  The fact that there have always been books each year, even though funds have been so limited, is a testament to the tenacity and creativity of Chets Creek Principals!  In fact, in years where there wasn't a book every month, it is most often due to cost.

Not only have the books been the linchpin for teaching many different strategies and ideas over the years, they have provided us with common ideas that have led to conversation across grade levels and across disciplines that strengthen our relationships which effects our results. It's all woven together.

I could talk about so many of the books that have made a deep and lasting impression on me but I will stick to just three examples so you can see the impact, at least  through my eyes.  I am sure, if asked, each teacher would have her own stories of favorite BOMs and books that have made a difference in her life and in her classroom.

One of our earliest Books-of-the-Month was  Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archembault.  This was not a book that was entirely new to me but not one that I had studied with much depth either. However, it was to become a book that would change many of my assumptions about studying books together with my peers.  Before presenting this book to the faculty, Dr. Stahlman asked the Leadership Team to read the book with the idea that we would discuss it at our following meeting,  (sort of a preview to the faculty presentation) so... I read this picture book about a small Native American boy and his grandfather.  I do not remember the specifics of our book talk at that next meeting but I will never forget the electricity in the room as we discussed what we had read and our interpretations.  I realized that I had missed much of the story including that one of the main characters was blind- which is a major point to understanding the text.  It was the first time that I really truly understood the power of a book talk and how conversations with my peers could change and deepen the way that I interpreted text.  That book talk changed the way that I taught and what I did with book talks in my classroom from that day on.

Several years later, Knots on a Counting Rope was integrated into the kindergarten homework during the month of November when kindergartners celebrate Pow Wow.  The young Native American boy was an Iroquois, one of the tribes that we study.  Teachers read the story aloud several times during the month (now that everyone had the book because it had been a Book-of-the-Month!) and explained to the children that the grandfather in the story had a rope and that he tired a knot in the rope each time he told the young boy a story. The rope represented time. Kinder teachers then sent home a length of rope with each child with information for the parents of how to find a reading of the book on-line. They asked the parents to tie a knot in their child's rope each time they told their own child a story about their family.  The children returned the lengths of rope at the end of the week and shared some of their family stories with each other and with the class. The fact that the work that was born out of this book has endured for 16 years is a testament to its original power as a book-of-the-month!

America's White Table by Margot Theis Raven is another book that made a lasting impression, not just on me but on an entire faculty and an entire school of children.  "America’s White Table is the story of a little known tradition outside the military of setting a remembrance table to honor the brave men and women who have served in our nation’s armed forces.  The white table has served as a solitary and solemn reminder of the sacrifices made to ensure our freedoms.  On Veteran’s Day Katie and her sisters are asked to set this special white table in honor of her uncle who served in the Vietnam War.  As the girls set the table their Mama explains the significance of each of the items and shares the story of their uncle’s captivity and escape."

As we walked into the presentation for America's White Table on Veteran's Day, the Media Center was completely dark except for a single spotlight in the ceiling that shone down on a small table with a white table cloth.  The ambiance completely quieted the teachers as they took seats in this theatre in the round.  As Principal Susan Phillips began to read this solemn story,  Media Specialist KK Cherney, dressed in black, began to add the symbols to the table.  As Susan closed the story and a bugle began to play Taps, I don't think there was a dry eye in the room. We are a school with many military families with many moms and dads and husbands deployed at any given time, but more than that we are patriots who understand sacrifice.  The faculty was so moved by this book that they asked Mrs. Phillips to present it to every grade level... and she did - to all 1300 students! In the years since that first reading in the week leading up to Veteran's Day the table is set in our lobby and on Veteran's Day Mrs. Phillips repeats the reading of this patriotic BOM for new teachers or anyone that would like to attend. As many times as I have heard this book and seen this powerful demonstration, it still brings tears to my eyes. What are we teaching?  We are teaching patriotism but we are also teaching the power of words to create emotion.

The final book is one of our newest books this year, Mr. Ferris and His Wheel by Kathryn Gibbs Davis that goes with our circus theme.  While I cannot know if it will have the staying power that other favorites have had, it made an explosive impact immediately on our work. With this book came the new strategy of sketch noting.  Sketch noting is an individualized visual technique for taking notes that brings a new meaning to "stop and jot" or "stop and sketch" or just general note taking and writing about reading. It requires you to synthesize so that you can represent an idea. We probably all do it when we take notes ourselves with arrows and asterisks and boxes around important information, but sketch noting encourages those types of organizational sketches and more that brings meaning to text and to our notes.  Many of the reading teachers were first introduced to sketch noting through Reading Council with a demonstration by Reading Coach Melanie Holtsman.  Their reaction was, "Why can't we teach content teachers to do this too. so we are all working together on this idea together?"  Thus was born a strategy that crossed grade levels and content areas and was the perfect BOM strategy.

Karen Meissner's first grade bulletin board featuring sketch noting to a readaloud.

As teachers bought into the idea of how sketch noting could help students organize and remember information, we saw blogs, and standard-based bulletin boards (like the kindergarten board above) and examples of student work shared all over the building such as the second grade examples below.

Second grade examples of sketch noting

This is the impact that so many strategies that have been demonstrated with books-of-the month have had on our work.

Sometimes the books-of-the-month make us feel - laugh or cry.  Sometimes the books help us understand a new concept or strategy through demonstration and practice, but always they give us a common vocabulary and text to discuss our thoughts and reflections.  Books-of-the-month as professional development lifts the level of our work and brings us together. How fortunate I have been to spend the last couple of decades learning with children's literature as the focus!

Making a Difference through Book Studies

I am often asked what makes Chets Creek so special.  "Special" can be defined many ways but when I think about what is special, one of the things I think about is our professional development.

Book Studies - One of the things that has always set Chets apart is the way the administrators and teachers have embraced book study as one arm of professional development. The first school wide book study, Improving Schools from Within by Roland Barth, was completed  before the school even opened.   The school actually pulled students and faculty from three different elementary schools in the area.  In the fall preceding its opening in January, the faculty gathered together each week at one of the schools and began reading and studying Barth's ideas. Barth's book is a foundational "how to" book for administrators and teacher leaders on how to make a difference, a blueprint for school reform.  Barth sets up the steps for how to create change or how to lay the building blocks for a new foundation.  From his work emerged the foundational vision, mission and core values for Chets Creek Elementary that were to become the cornerstone for all that was to follow. As teachers left those meetings and talked about what they were doing, you could see the sparkle in their eyes.  They were inspired!  So, from the very beginning,  Chets was able to dream the impossible dream and then create the type of school culture that is rare in public schools but that was to become the hallmark of its success.    What an appropriate beginning!

The following year was my first year at Chets.  Like all new teachers at CCE, I was given Barth's book at my Chets' orientation.  I had already been teaching for nearly twenty years in seven different elementary schools in four different states, so I recognized immediately how different Barth's ideas were from anything I had ever experienced as a teacher.   For the first fifteen years, Dr. Stahlman and then Mrs. Phillips, started all new teachers at Chets with the gift of that book because they wanted new teachers to understand that they were stepping into a culture that thrived on collegiality.  They wanted the newbies to understand that they were walking into... a family... on a mission to make a difference in the lives of children.  As time went on, the book became unnecessary, because the culture itself provided the lessons.

By the next year, the county had adopted the America's Choice School Reform Design.  How much of the book study agenda in those first years was part of the America's Choice Design and how much of it was Dr. Stahlman is hard to tell.  The Design was based on state-of-the-art research, but its implementation was by a Principal who was innovative, creative and an out-of-the-box thinker, so while America's Choice may have laid the foundation, Dr. Stahlman took their ideas and ran.  Book Studies became a staple in the pantry of professional development ideas. Susan Phillips had carried that same torch as she took over the helm but has added her own torch of flaming red hair, fun and passion.

Lucy Calkins' The Art of Teaching Writing was the first book study that I remember during my first year at Chets.  The Leadership Team, or at least most of it, began meeting as soon as the book came out, with Dr. Stahlman facilitating the conversation and always asking the hard questions. We met at Starbucks and I'm pretty sure it was off the clock. Dr. Stahlman bought the books and gave them to each of the six to eight of us that were interested in meeting (a practice that continues to  this day - if you enroll in a book study, the book is a gift for you to keep and mark up as you like!) I had never had anyone give me a professional book!  I was in awe... and totally hooked on this community of learners!  We were all so anxious to get our hands on this new book and to start reading and studying.  We had so many questions.  As we began reading and meeting, our conversations were full of excitement, curiosity, and... how to embed these practices at Chets.  For me, this discourse about educational issues, reform and design with my colleagues was invigorating.  I couldn't stop my mind from bubbling over.  I could barely wait to share what I was learning through my reading. One of the added benefits of meeting together was that as we met, fellowshipped and shared our questions, fears and dreams,... we also became friends.  I  don't think we finished that entire book (it's a l-o-o-o-n-g book! ) but I do think we were all changed by that experience, because we realized that as we sat together and talked about the ideas of what we were reading, the learning deepened, questions were answered, the fog of misconception cleared and the impossible became possible. As we began to trust each other, we weren't afraid to show our vulnerabilities, confusions, and fears. We were able to argue, debate and we actually learned to listen.  It sounds so cliche now to think that the book study was an "aha" experience... but for me,  it was.

We knew immediately that we wanted to take that same book study experience to the teachers, so we offered an elective book study of that same book.  Dr. Stahlman purchased the books and  we set up a schedule to meet off the clock.  I think about 20 teachers signed up for that first elective book study.  This experience mirrored that first excitement.  We learned so much from each other. You could walk through the hallways and see the implementation of the ideas from the book study - workshop models,conferring,  peer review of writing, partner work, examples of writing everywhere... as those reading and working through the book took the lead.  As for me, going through the book a second time only enhanced my experience and helped me deepen my understanding.  My first time through was about "big picture," but the second time through was about the nuts and bolts.  Dr. Stahlman really wanted to reward those first teachers who took a risk, our early adopters, so instead of a final meeting, she surprised the group  with a half day substitute and had us take the group to a local Book Store with a $20 gift certificate for each teacher to pick out a few books for her classroom.  I don't know if it was the gift certificate or piling into cars and heading for the bookstore with a half day out of the classroom that was the most fun, but it was so unexpected and... thrilling!  Teachers were almost giddy with the suspense and excitement.  For me, I think it was just the idea of being appreciated that meant so much.

After those first experiences, book studies have continued in many different forms through the years.  Now we try really hard to make sure we offer book studies before, after and during school "on the clock" to show our respect for a teacher's time.  I guess we average about two-three book studies a year and have offered them in Reading, Writing, Math, Science, Technology, and Leadership.  Sometimes, grade levels have asked to study a book during their grade level time or sometimes Council Groups (which are vertical subject leadership groups) have requested to study a specific book during their scheduled time together. The Leadership Team selects a book to study every year.  Sometimes we all study the same or different books during our Early Release time.  The money has gotten much tighter over the years to buy books, but basically, if a group is willing to meet, read and work through a book, it is provided... somehow!  Time is also at a premium with so many new mandates, but we have stayed true to what we know works and teachers have continued to respond.  Below is a list of some of the books we have studied over the past few years.  This is not an exhaustive list, but as at look at it, I have to admit it is pretty impressive. It does give you an idea of how professional development has been spiced up by providing what teachers need and what they ask for over time.

Culture/Community Building 
Insidethe Magic Kingdom, Tom Connellan

The End of Molasses Classes, Ron Clark
Revved, Harry Paul & Ross Reck

How Full is Your Bucket, Tom Rath and Donald Clifton

Raving Fans, Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

FISH!  and FISH! Sticks, Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen

Who Moved My Cheese, Spencer Johnson

Leadership 
Improving Schools from Within, Roland Barth

Results Now, Mike Schmocker

Shaping School Culture, Terrance Deal

Standards for Our Schools, Marc Tucker and Judy Codding

Professional Learning Communities at Work, Richard DuFour
School Leadership That Works, Marzano

The Teaching Gap, Jim Stigler

Masterful Coaching, Robert Hargrove

Leverage Leadership, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo

A WholeNew Mind, Daniel Pink

Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

TheDisney Way, Bill Capodagli & Lynn Jackson

The Radical Leap, Steve Farber

New Work Habits For A Radically Changing World, Price Pritchett

The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, John Maxwell

The Heart of a Leader, Ken Blanchard

Developing the Leaders Around You, John Maxwell

Good to Great and Great by Choice, Jim Collins
How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins

Mission Possible, Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn

Zebra’s and Cheetahs, Michael Burt and Colby Jubenville
Greater Than Yourself, Steve Farber

Shine, Larry Thompson

Blink, Malcom Gladwell

Mindset, Carol Dweck

Math
Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics, Li Ping Ma

Young Mathematicians at Work: Addition and Subtraction, Catherine Twomey Fosnot

Young Mathematicians at Work: Multiplication and Division, Catherine Twomey Fosnot

Young Mathematicians at Work: Fractions, Decimals and Percents, Catherine Twomey Fosnot

Teaching Mathematics Developmentally in the Elementary and Middle School Grades, Van de Walle

Number Talks, Sherry Parrish

Literacy 

First Grade Writers, Stephanie Parsons

Second Grade Writers, Stephanie Parsons

Craft Lessons – Teaching Writing, Ralph Fletcher

The Art of Teaching Writing, Lucy Calkins

The Art of Teaching Reading, Lucy Calkins

Mosaic of Thought, Ellin Keene

The Fluent Reader, Timothy Rasinski

Growing Readers, Kathy Collins

Classrooms that Work, They Can All Read and Write, Patricia Cunningham

Literature Circles and Response, Bonnie Campbell

Literature Circles Voice and Choice in the Student Centered Classroom, Harvey Daniels

Nonfiction Matters, Stephanie Harvey
Is That a Fact? Tony Stead

I Read It But I Don’t Get It, Chris Tovani

Guiding Readers and Writers, Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell

When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do, Kylene Beers

About the Authors, Katie Wood Ray

Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown 
Creating Robust Vocabulary, Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown

Is That a Fact? Tony Stead

On Solid Ground, Sharon Taberski

Reading With Meaning, Debbie Miller

Words, Words, Words, Janet Allen
Words Their Way, Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnson

Wondrous Words, Katie Wood Ray

Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding, Stephanie Harvey

Learning to Learn in a Second Language, Pauline Gibbons

Units of Study for Reading and Writing, Lucy Calkins

Fallingin Love with Close Reading, Christopher Lehman and Kate Roberts

Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning, Pauline Gibbons

Pathways to the Common Core, Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, Christopher Lehman
What Really Matters: Response to Invtervetion, Richard Allington

Science 
Understanding by Design, Jay McTighe, Grant Wiggins

Inquire Within:  Implementing Inquiry-Based Science Standards, Douglas Lewellyn

Primary Science: Taking the Plunge, Wayne Harlen

Inquiring into Inquiry Learning and Teaching in Science, Jim Minstrell
Nurturing Inquiry:  Real Science for the Elementary Classroom, Charles R. Pearce

Science Workshop:  Reading, Writing and Thinking Like a Scientist, Wendy Saul

Science for All Americans, F. James Rutherford

Active Assessment for Active Science:  A Guide for Elementary School Teachers, George Hein

Teaching Science with Interactive Notebooks, Kellie Marcarelli

Science Notebooks: Writing About Inquiry, Brain Campbell and Lori Fulton

Technology 
Web 2.0New Tools, New Schools Gwen Solomon & Lynne Schrum

Web Literacy for Educators Alan November

Integrating Literacy and Technology Susan Taffe & Carolyn Gwinn

Leading 21^st Century Schools, Lynne Schrum and Barbara Levin
Connected from the Start, Kathy Cassidy
 

Teachers meet together over the summer to work
on vocabulary activities after reading Bringing Words to Life.

The results of Book Studies have been profound.  For instance, after studying Beck and MeKeown's vocabulary work Bringing Words to Life, a group of six kindergarten teachers spent the summer writing vocabulary activities based on the book to be used with the read aloud stories they would read the following year to their children.  They continue to use these vocabulary activities today and now sell them on Teachers Pay Teachers as "Star Vocabulary" and donate the proceeds to the charity, Promise to Kate.

Another example - After the faculty studied Fish! the Principal opened the Chets Creek Crab Shack in Pike Place's Fish Market-style and served fried fish, gift certificates, laughter and fun to remind teachers in the middle of the year to "choose their attitude, play, make the students' day and to be present in the moment!" This became an annual event and is a much-anticipated stress reliever each year.  It reminds us about the joy every day in teaching!

Welcome to the Chets Creek Crab Shack!

And a final example - Several groups studied Richard Allingtons'  What Really Matters: Response to Intervention when we were trying to figure out the RtI process.  We were able to take the tangled, flawed system that was being imposed on us and to develop a better in-school system that made sense and that got results.  Understanding the research and how all the pieces fit together made a profound difference in our work and we were able to give the system what it mandated but to also really do what was best for our children.

I could go on and on about how different books have made a difference in our quality of life, our decisions, and our teaching at Chets, but you get the picture.  Ask any teacher at the Creek about her own experiences.  They are as individual and unique as the teachers themselves.

So why is this particular form of professional development so powerful?  I am sure there are professional lists of reasons, but these are the benefits that I see from my own personal experience.
1.  Book Studies introduce new knowledge and push learning.  Teachers learn from teachers and through dialog. Teachers teach each other, explore new ideas and noodle new possibilities when they have the time and a vehicle for spending time together.
2. Book Studies offer long term, embedded opportunities for practice.  Each teacher has a room full of children to practice and refine new ideas and if things don't work, a  teacher can always come back next week and share her experience and reflections - and ask for suggestions.
3.  Book Studies promote natural accountability.  If all the participants agree to try something, it's hard to just blow that off, when you continue to see and meet with those same folks!
4. Book Studies naturally help teachers develop collegiality.  After talking together and meeting in each other's rooms, teachers are more likely to visit each other when they have questions at other times, or are looking for someone to bounce off a new idea, or just need a stress reliever. Teachers begin to feel safe - to be risk takers.
5. Book studies offer teachers a way to form professional and personal relationships and friendships.  Teachers share both professional and personal ideas, problems and solutions that lead to conversations and relationships outside of the Book Study.

The biggest deterrent to Book Study is teacher apathy. All teachers have times in their lives when they simply cannot take on one more thing, which is understandable, but every teacher also needs to commit to times that they continue to develop their skills, not just by adding points for re-certification but by making a commitment to engage, learn and improve as a professional. When a teacher thinks they no longer need to learn, in my opinion,  it is time to leave the profession!  That's what Book Study offers - a relevant topic with people that will hold you accountable. If teachers are not signing up for book studies, there is a reason.  Examine the reasons before bashing teachers - maybe it's the presenter, the timing, the topic, crushing paperwork, too much going on...  It's not a teacher problem, it's a culture problem.

My advice for administrators and instructional leaders:
1. Buying the book for each  teacher to participate in a book study is a necessary perk.
2. Listening to what teachers want to study and balancing that with what you think they need to study is just plain common sense if you want engagement.
3. Model your expectations by being an often and enthusiastic participant in any book study.  Never go unprepared.  There's nothing that makes teachers perk up more than when the Principal becomes a learner in the trenches beside them!
4. Make sure teachers can earn re-certification points for doing the study. Unfortunately, it's a rather novel idea to have relevant work for professional development re-certification, so surprise them!   Make sure you do the paperwork to give the teacher maximum benefit for their efforts!
5.  Notice and praise implementation of book study ideas often!  Teachers, just like our students, never get tired of hearing what they are doing something right.

I feel very blessed to have had the experience of working at a school where book studies have always been available.  I have loved the idea of picking and choosing my own course of development.  After all, I do consider myself a professional and having the learning right here, so available, makes it easier for me to realize my personal goal of continuing to improve my practice.  I have learned so much from my colleagues and have grown to respect their time, talent and wisdom. There is nowhere I have learned more than right here with the people who are walking the talk.

Making a Difference through Demo Lessons

People often ask me how Chets Creek Elementary became the school that it is.  Why did the teachers open their doors in the beginning and let their colleagues in?  Why did teachers agree to do  demonstration lessons?  Why did teachers come in droves to Book Study groups that were often scheduled off the clock?  What did we do to make the culture what it is?

Creating and sustaining the culture at Chets is not really my story to tell.  The inspiration and design for the culture building piece at Chets goes back to the founding vision and first Principal, Dr. Terri Stahlman and then to our current Principal Susan Phillips who was left with the mission of sustaining the culture.  How to create and sustain a culture in a high performing school is their story to tell.  However, what I can say about teaching in this school for so many years is that professional development has played a significant role in and continues to support the culture.  To me, the biggest pieces of professional development that have served to bind us together across the years are demonstration lessons, book-of-the-month, and book studies.  Through a series of three blogs, I would like to share my view about how each of these has played a part in supporting our learning over time.


Teachers watching a demonstration lesson as it unfolds.

Demonstration Lessons -  It is demonstration lessons that are at the heart of our PD.  These are lessons where one teacher teaches while other teachers watch.  After a demonstration lesson, there is always a debrief where those watching list all the positives that they saw and then also ask questions about things they didn't understand.  Some years we have called those Warm and Cool Comments and in other years, "Glows and Grows." With new groups, the comments are usually superficial, because they don't yet trust each other but in a Chets group they jump right to the heart of the matter and get to the core questions, the new information, and the wonderings for implementation. Regardless of the group, the conversation is always enlightening.  The teacher that presented the lesson usually stays to listen and answer questions and to reflect for the group on how she thinks that lesson went and what she might have done differently.

I am not sure who did the first demonstration lesson at Chets Creek, but it was Dr. Stahlman's vision that if we were going to get good at this work, we would have to learn from each other by opening up our classrooms and watching each other teach.  It was not easy to prepare a lesson and stand before your peers and present it.  I will never forget my own first demo lesson.  It was shortly after coming to Chets.  I was a 20 year veteran of the classroom, but in all those years I had only had a very small handful of people watch me teach and those were usually principals at evaluation time.  I was so nervous that Stacy McCollough, whose students and classroom I was using for the lesson, brought over a trashcan because she thought I might throw up!

I think if you ask any of the teachers that do demo lessons,  they would all agree that they were pretty shaky that first time.  It is risky.  What if you fail and the kids are terrible?  Maybe the others will find out that you aren't as good as they think you are.  I'm sure on some level those thoughts go through everyone's mind, so why do we even agree to do the demo lessons?  We probably could say, "No!"  but most of us don't.  You never want to disappoint the person asking, because they have faith in you, and... you know they will help you, if you need it.   I guess it seems like a compliment to be asked.  Besides Chets Creek is a place where it is safe to grow, learn and make mistakes!  And there is this mantra that if you know something, you have a moral and ethical obligation to share it for the greater good! Maybe that sounds corny, but we became a community of learners early in our history.  Instead of trying to be the best teacher, we became a community that believed our best was only as good as our weakest link and that we could only get better by supporting each other, not competing against each other, so... we have learned to work together.  We demo because we know that those watching understand how we feel, and that they know we are taking a risk and... they know they might be next!

Teachers debriefing a lesson they have just watched.

 Of course, as time went on we learned that having something unexpected happen in a demo lesson was  inevitable.  It was okay and that was most often where we learned the most.  We discovered that teachers don't want to see the "perfect" lesson with the "perfect" kids.  They want to see the lesson that doesn't go so well and the class with the "challenging" child, so they get some ideas on how to handle those things when they happen... and they always do!   In fact, it is those "unplanned" happenings that often exploded with the most honest, pure and deep conversation.

After teaching a lesson teachers
debriefing with an audience of teachers
at the professional development site.



Teachers at our county's PD site watching
 and then debriefing a lesson with the
teachers through videostreaming.

It wasn't long before the "demo lessons" broadened to groups visiting our school.  For about five years we hosted over 400 visitors a year literally from around the world who came to watch lessons!   Then for several years we video streamed 175 live lesson to our county's professional development site. The professional development instructors would let us know what lesson they needed when and we would match their needs with what was being taught at the time.  We tried not to present anything artificial, but instead we strived to present actual lessons as they were being taught.  It took leadership that was willing to say "whatever it takes" and lots of trust and collegiality between the school and professional developers to make those lessons a reality, but that was usually managed!  We would film the lesson live while it was happening at Chets Creek while a classroom of teachers taking a class at our county's professional development site from all over the county watched the lesson and then  the teachers who taught the lesson would debrief through videostreaming. While this might not seem like such an amazing task today, at the time the technology was so new that most of us had never seen anything like it. Talk about risk taking!

Professionals from all over the
world watching a lesson live
at a national convention in Hollywood, CA
from CCE in Jacksonville, FL!

One time we even videostreamed a live kindergarten lesson from Chets Creek across the country to a national conference in Hollywood CA.  You can imagine the headaches trying to do the lesson live with kindergartners with the time change and with the technology challenges of the time!  I don't know whose crazy idea that was, but, like I said, we had become risk takers!  Those years or videostreaming live lessons and doing so many lesson for visitors gave many teachers a chance to get comfortable with the idea of opening up their classrooms.  Most became comfortable with the transparency.

We also began having professional development days once a week so one grade level met each week and those days always began (and still begin) with a demo lesson.  I think if you asked teachers, they would tell you that this is a part of professional development that they look forward to - at least the observing part - and one of the activities where they feel like they have learned the most. It also opens up dialog between teachers.  It is not unusual to watch a demonstration lesson and then go back to the teacher later in the week to ask about a resource or a behavior technique or to ask for help in getting your class from where they are now to where you want them to be after watching the lesson.  We know that watching a lesson live is much more memorable than just telling a teacher about a concept. The advantage of the lesson live in your own school is that the observing teacher has ready access if there are questions about the lesson later on. The resource is right there to go back to any time! And that  leads to collegial friendships and partnerships.  From a leadership standpoint, when you have your finger on what the grade level needs, then it's easy to guide the demonstration lessons to meet the need.  Of course, that takes an experienced instructional leader (principal or coach or Leadership Team).

What demo lesson have done is to breakdown the walls of teachers' classrooms.  For years we taught in little isolated cubicles.  We never watched another teacher teach and we never had feedback on our own teaching except through artificial evaluations.  The practice of demo teaching allows us transparency, the ability to observe and take from the observation ways to move our own teaching to the next level.  It takes a lifetime to learn this work, and one thing I know for sure, it cannot be done alone. Demonstration lessons open the doors, provide the camaraderie for open dialog that continues to be a hallmark of our success.

How do we sustain the culture of collegiality?  By embedding demonstration lessons as a cornerstone of professional development! Learning at its finest!

The Board Walk

One of the well-organized boards that my group discussed

I have written about standard-based bulletin boards often at this site.  Over the summer I was most distressed when our Union negotiated that schools would no longer be required to do standard-based bulletin boards as a step toward paper-reduction.  I am thankful that as the year began our school's Shared Decision Making group voted to continue with the bulletin boards.  I have always thought that the boards are such a great opportunity for self-reflection, for looking at alignment and a way for teachers to look at student work, really reflecting on what the students did and how they did it.  It is a window into the instruction that is going on in the classroom.  How appropriate that our school would vote to continue a practice that is time-consuming but that they see value.

To honor that work and time they put into SBBB, teachers have often reflected that if they are going to put the work into the boards, they would like to know that someone is reading them and they would like some constructive feedback.  So... at Early Release this week, we did just that.  Our faculty went on a "board walk."  Teachers were assigned to a group of three and were given a list of three boards to visit in a certain order so groups were not on top of each other.  One teacher was assigned to capture the conversation on a chart that asked for comments/compliments, wonderings, and next steps.

As I joined my group (which was all teachers teaching different grade levels) I overheard several teachers in other groups wondering how their boards would be received by the group that was reviewing it. Hmmmm...  As we approached each board we looked for a title, standard, a description of the task, 3-4 pieces of student work and commentary on the student work.  Of course, many of the boards had extras such as pictures of the students whose work was displayed, photos of other students in the classroom involved in the same work, artwork in borders and surrounding the boards, rubrics, etc.

One of the things that hit me immediately is how a well organized board is so much easier to read and understand.  Seems obvious, I guess, but sometimes it was hard to see which commentary went with which piece of student work or it was hard to understand the task because the teacher included so much that it was hard to really focus on the point of the board.  I also noticed that the format of the commentary made a difference too.  Bulleted commentary was especially easy to read or commentary that was in a t-chart format with the standard on the left and an explanation of how the student's work met the standard on the right.  This walk certainly gave me a unique view of the boards and set me thinking about how to design a really significant board.

The charts of collegial feedback that we filled out went to the Principal to review.  The names of the teachers that reviewed the board were not included.  The paper will go to the teachers who completed the boards.  Wonder how the feedback will be received...

This was really a very stress-free and constructive way to look deeper into bulletin boards that teach. I hope that we will do this again, maybe with different group configurations such as looking at the grade above with your grade level or looking at one board in each grade level, k-1-2-3-4-5 all in the same subject.  Or maybe the Academic Councils could choose some of the best boards in the building and have the teacher stand with the board and explain her thinking to groups of colleagues...  Oh, the possibilities are endless!

Number Talks

A year ago before leaving for summer break,  I received a new Math book, Number Talks,  from our Assistant Principal, Suzanne Shall.  She said she knew I would like it and even spent some time to show me the part I should read over the summer.  I did.  I am not a Math person but this book was pretty easy to read... although I did glaze over some of it, I think, because I just didn't have enough background knowledge to anchor some of the ideas.  Very few K-1 teachers choose early childhood because they want to be Math teachers.  Most of us dream of teaching children to read and we just teach the basic math fundamentals.  But today the expectation for Math is different.

Our first grade Math lead, Cheryl Dillard, taught several teacher meetings over the year from the book and I would reread the chapters again, each time internalizing more of the information and trying pieces in my classroom.  I knew it was making a difference because I could hear the difference in the conversation and vocabulary that the children were having.  But I knew that what I really needed was a Math book study where I could read each of the chapters again, ask questions, and have discussion and instruction to help me implement the strategies into my practice.  I really needed to understand the big picture and then to put the pieces inside that master plan.  I asked for the book study early in the year for K-1 teachers that were interested, but the books are expensive, and at our school, the perk of doing a voluntary book study on your own time is that the Principal tries to find the money to buy each participant the book.  I don't know about where you teach, but where I teach, money is really, really tight and she simply couldn't find the money to buy the books, even though we all agreed that this was instruction that was really needed in our primary school.

I knew time was running out and I knew I still needed the professional development (it's really all about me!) so I asked if teachers would buy their own book, could we do the book study?  But... the Principal was really adamant that teachers should not have to buy the materials to teach if they were willing to give their own time to do extra professional development.  Finally, with only six weeks left in the school year, the Principal somehow found the money and eight teachers came together for a book study, taught by our Assistant Principal (we do not have a Math Coach).  Is this ideal timing?  Heck, NO!  But we had no trouble getting these teachers to commit, meaning that they would be meeting all the way until the last week of school.  No teacher REALLY wants to be reading, thinking and meeting the last week of school and no Assistant Principal (who is also the testing coordinator) really has the time to plan professional development to inspire a group of K-1 teachers.  It's just too much with everything else going on as the school year closes.  BUT... meet we did and the time was engaging and filled with electricity and excitement.  We were able to think about what we HAD done this  year and how we would do it differently next year with all that we were learning.  We had a chance to discuss how it all fit so perfectly into the county's new adoption of EngageNY.  For me, it put the pieces together.  I will never teach Math the same way and probably for the first time in my career, I know exactly what I should be doing with my youngest students that are struggling. I actually have techniques and strategies that will make a difference.

We are sending the best prepared first grade Math students that we have ever sent to second grade, but I can't wait to see where we are able to take next year's group.  I just can't thank Susan Phillips (she swore she had to sell one of her kidneys to pay for the books!) and Suzanne Shall enough for making this professional development a reality.  I can only imagine how many children will benefit...

Opinion Clines

Scaffolding Language Scaffolding Learning: Teaching English Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom by Pauline Gibbons is the Chets Creek book study that I have been attending led by our Reading Coach, Melanie Holtsman.  There are about fifteen teachers who meet each week after school from first through fifth grade, including a couple of Math teachers. We only meet for forty five minutes so Melanie has quite a challenge to get us thinking. The third strategy from Chapter 3 that I have tried  is called "opinion clines." (I admit that when Melanie explained the strategy I doubted it could be used with first graders!)

The idea is to arrange items in a line representing a continuum.  Student need knowledge to be able to make decisions so I decided to use the characters from our Kevin Henkes Author Study.  The students know these characters well and relate to these characters.  I put a continuum on the board with "worried" at one end to "never worries" on the other end. The challenge was for the students to use their knowledge of  Kevin Henkes' characters and to place each of the characters on the continuum using reasons to support their opinions from the books. Putting Wemberly at the worried end was a no brainer. He is the main character in Wemberly Worried, but making a decision of where Sheila Rae, the brave and spunky Lilly fit was a little more challenging. Soon the discussion and disagreement started.  The students argued back and forth using examples from the book, and accountable talk, to try to change opinions.  When we couldn't come to a consensus, the students voted and the above is the continuum the students finally agreed upon.  Not bad! 

Trying Something New: "Hot Seat"

One of the great things about teaching at Chet's Creek is that we are always involved in a book study. Right now we are reading Scaffolding Language Scaffolding Learning: Teaching English Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom by Pauline Gibbons with Reading Coach Melanie Holtsman. It is an especially timely book as our second language population continues to rise each year.  Melanie always tries to tie the words we are reading directly back to something that we can do the next day in our classroom, so that the learning sticks!

This week we read Chapter 3, "Collaborative Group Work and Second Language Learning."  This chapter talks about the philosophy behind collaborative work and why it works so well with our EL students and then gives some suggestions for group and paired activities across the curriculum.   Melanie always tries to have us practice something as if we are students so that we can better understand how the students feel, so... we practiced  "Hot seat" where a student pretends to be a character from a shared book  and answers question from the class as if he were that character.  Melanie always asks us to try out one of the strategies that we are taught so we can share for the next time (is she a great teacher, or what?)  So... as we left, my co-teacher and I talked about how we could use "Hot Seat" as a strategy in the author study of Kevin Henkes that we are deep into right now.  We really want to eventually do some close reading using the lens of looking at one of the characters, Lilly, because she appears in several of the Kevin Henkes' books, but we knew her character was "too big" to begin this activity.   So my co-teacher volunteered to do the first round and pretend that she was the character Wembery from Kevin Henkes' Wemberly Worried. Wemberly worries about everything so she was an excellent first choice for us to pick.  I explained the game to the children and then reread the book, telling the students that they should look for parts in the text that led them to questions for Wemberly.  This book is FULL of the things Wemberly worried about so the questions came so easily.  Enjoy the video snippet of Tracy playing the part of Wemberly as the students ask her questions, using the text!

After about five minutes one of the students came up and whispered in my ear that he thought he could be Wemberly, so "going with the flow" (as Grandma suggests in the book) we had him take the "hot seat."  He did a remarkable job!  The students were so engaged.  Our ELL students DID ask questions!  Tomorrow we will try Sheila Rae, a strong Kevin Henkes character, and then next week, our ultimate goal, Lilly!

Speed Dating at School!

I don't know if you've ever done speed dating, but it's not something this married lady of over forty years has ever considered!  However... as the Leadership Team at Chets Creek pondered a fun way to help teachers get to know each other better (we are almost a hundred teachers strong!), Principal Susan Phillips came up with a novel approach to the problem.  She suggested an activity that resembles "speed dating," with more seasoned teachers on one side and newbie teachers on the other.  She gave each side four questions to start the conversations and then rotated every five minutes!  Oh my! Such a joyful hum of conversation sprinkled with bursts of laughter.  Such a fun way to get to know some new staff members!

The Principal even let us ask her questions to close.  She was really honest with her answers so I'm pretty sure lots of teachers learned things they didn't know about her - but... I'll never tell!

Math TDE

I realized today - once again - that I work with some amazing teachers.  My mind is so full, it just might burst!

Today was a first grade Math TDE.  We began with a demo lesson with Cheryl Dillard.  Cheryl is our Math Lead and so understated.  When you ask her about this or that, she just tells you what she's doing, like it's just another simple idea.  Then when you go watch all those "simple" ideas put into action, you are simply blown away.  There is no curriculum for the skills that Cheryl adds to Math every day - no book of Math Journal ideas, but she has the innate ability to look at her students, compare them to the standards and where they need to be, and find the exact activity to move them in that direction.

Cheryl teaching decomposing

Math Journal

I really wish I had videotaped this entire lesson because I find I need a rewind button because I am continually thinking, "How did she do that?"  It's just effortless.  There are so many new ideas that I find I have to prioritize.  I'll implement this one and that one right now and then after a couple of weeks of adding those to the routine, I think I'll add that other one.  By then, of course, Cheryl has moved on to the next.  I sit here just thinking how thankful I am that I have teachers right down the hall in both Reading and Writing and Math that help push my thinking.  We have talked about pushing the children's thinking up a continuum and that's exactly what happens as we begin to debrief this lesson.  It pushes my thinking up the continuum and there is new learning.

Math Coach (She's really the AP-we don't have a Math Coach!) Suzanne Shall was ready to push that continuum too as she reminded us of all the reasons that we are where we are.  She reminded us of the early days when we embraced Stigler and the TMMS study and realized that students from other nations were coming to take some of our highest paying jobs in the US because we didn't have enough students prepared to take them!  We recalled the days when we realized that the Math education in our country was severely lacking and how we slowly and painfully switched our thinking to embrace a more conceptual math.  Because we adopted Math Investigations so early, we now have the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of that labor as we have students in high school, college and in the job force who were part of this new Math wave.

Suzanne had us work problems that our current students will work in second and third grade and it was obvious that we still need to bump up our own thinking.  What Cheryl proved to us is that our children can think at that level and they can do this work.  I remember how dubious I was in those early years that we were expecting too much and how I worried that what we were doing might not be developmentally appropriate, but now I realize that if we allow students to begin to work at that concrete level for as long as they need, that they will have the building blocks to naturally move to representational and abstract thinking.

I am not a Math guru.  I have made it my life's work to teach children to read, but as I have ended up teaching Math these last years, I have found a new challenge and interest.  I can get just as excited when the light comes on as a child embraces and understands a Math concept as I ever did as they unlocked reading.  And I have to say...  I'm really proud of the Math work going on in my classroom...  There's a pretty strong foundation being laid...

As we left our TDE, Suzanne had us do one last exit ticket, that I have reproduced below - always teaching the example of what it is she wants us to do...

First Grade Math TDE  Exit Ticket

1.        Please mark the circle to represent the topic that allowed you the most reflection.

5	Classroom Observation; Debrief  (Dillard)
	Shifts in Math:  TIMSS, 3-Prongs of Math, Instructional Implications
1	Instructional Sequence of Math (Concrete-Representational-Abstract) w/Engage NY video Alignment: Standards, Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment- Grade 1 and 2 Lessons Tweaking Student Sheets; Creating Exit Tickets
6	Analyzing Addition ; Subtraction Student Work- Beginning of Grade 2, Unit 1
1	Second Grade Work Session Video (Justo ; McLeod)
	Beyond the Standards- cardinality, equality, and decomposing

2.      What is one thing that you will implement in the next two weeks?

o   Reteaching one on one to clear up misconceptions from previous day during skills block.

o   I will target 3 skills during calendar as well as work on 3 skills during the block. 3 days of journal and 2 days of number bonds.

o   Move students from concrete to representational in small group support.

o   Differentiating student sheets for higher level students.

o   Analyzing student work for their next step.

o   Skills Block- use exit tickets for small group & one-on-one instruction.

o   Run a better skills session.

o   Incorporate instructional concrete instruction

o   I want my skills block to include more of what I saw in Dillard & Mallon’s room. Add the hundreds chart, guess my number, asap!

o   Adding more of what I saw in calendar math this morning into my math centers.

o   Using math games more because they are very beneficial.

3.      What is one long-term implementation goal that you have?

o   Look more closely at the standards to guide my instruction toward second grade.

o   Becoming more comfortable with the addition strategies.

o   Pushing the rigor of the work to allow students to problem solve and explain.

o   Rewrite student sheets with larger numbers & exit tickets before I start a unit.

o   Strategies for next step (2^nd grade) push to the next level!

o   Having students always talking about how they reached an answer to a problem, giving them enough time to explain their answers.

o   Have a good flow during the math block by making sure all materials are prepared and ready. Kinds knowing routines.

o   Moving toward written visual representations with my students instead of using manipulatives which will get them ready to show expressions.