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!

Chets celebrates 175 live lessons to the Schultz Center!

Today we completed our 175th lesson live to our professional development site at the Schultz Center! The concept originated as a collaboration between Dave Conte at the Schultz Center and KK Cherney at Chets Creek. It uses video conferencing technology with equipment that is owned by the Schultz Center. We first began over five years ago sending live lessons to the three Literacy 101 classes (k-1, 2-3, 4-5) at the Schultz Center. The Schultz Center gave us a topic every other week and then we found teachers at Chets that were teaching a similar lesson and asked them to teach a lesson live around the topic and debrief afterwards with the teachers in the Literacy classes at the Schultz Center. The goal was to produce a "real" lesson that the teacher would actually be doing instead of offering a "dog and pony show." Those first teachers were such risk takers! They had no idea what to expect (almost anything that can happen has happened live! - including kids losing teeth, throwing up, a fire drill!) Many of the teachers visibly shook as they began those first lessons. Even then, they almost always said they were willing to do it because they knew what it would have meant to them to be able to visit a real classroom early in their own careers. Opening your door and showing the world what you do can be frightening in a culture that had done so little of that! Transparency has not always been the name of the game in education. Over the years we added the first live lessons to the Academy of Mathematics and the Academy of Science. We did the first lessons for the Literacy Leaders (the Academy of Reading). We spent a year broadcasting lessons back and forth between Chets Creek and Carter G. Woodson, an inner city school in our county. We even broadcast a lesson live to Hollywood, CA for a presentation at the National America's Choice Conference - even dealt with the four hour time difference!

We have been fortunate to have leadership at Chets Creek in Principal Susan Phillips that has allowed us to do "whatever it takes" to accomplish the live streams. She has released technicians and coaches from their normal responsibilities to support lessons. She has paid for subs when they were needed out of her own budget. She has encouraged reluctant teachers. She has praised every single teacher that was willing to take the risk with kudos in her weekly Memo and often with a coveted award at the end of the school year. KK Cherney, our Media Specialists, has also been a huge part of our success. She has been our "larger than life" cheerleader and has NEVER said no. She, along with JB Boyd, have operated our equipment and dealt with every type of problem there is! They have been unfailing in their knowledge and support. Our coaches, too, have stopped whatever else they may have had on their plates, to work with teachers when they wanted to discuss a lesson or wanted someone to come watch the day before or wanted someone to co-teach the lesson with them. They have offered whatever level of support the teacher needed for the debrief from sitting with the teacher and answering the tough questions to simply standing in the shadows as their major cheerleader. So many times someone could have said, "It's not worth it." "It's too hard." "We can't do this." "I don't have time." "Why should we do this? What are we getting out of this anyway?" but those words have never been uttered.

Our founding Principal Terri Stahlman taught us that we have a moral and ethical obligation to share what we learn with our colleagues. Susan Phillips continued that mantra and it continues to be a cornerstone of our work today. Besides well over 2000 visitors who have visited us by actually walking our halls in the past five years, we have hosted thousands of others virtually through video conferences. I think we have been fortunate to have the opportunity to do these lessons. We too have benefited from both our successes and our mistakes. Each has been a new learning opportunity. We have benefited from making our work transparent.

I applaud the many, many Chets Creek teachers who have trusted us enough to say yes when we have asked and I personally thank Dave Conte for always believing that we could do it. Terry Kasza, Schultz's technician extraordinaire, has also supported us through every lesson. Ann Peterson, another important player from the Schultz Center, has led the K-1 Literacy 101 debriefs from the beginning. She has also never failed to protect our reputation and smoothed out any "not so perfect" lessons by finding the best in the lesson to discuss. She has often e-mailed our teachers to let them know how much they are appreciated. I think she has always understood how difficult it is for teachers to put themselves on the line, but her kind words and notes have made a world of difference.

I am so very proud of this body of work and the difference that it has made, not only in our county but in our own professional development. I can't wait to see what the next five years will hold! So... bring it on!

Skills Block

On Friday Maria Mallon and Cheryl Dillard (the "Mall-ards") used video streaming to broadcast a live first grade Skills Block lesson to the First and Second Grade Literacy Leaders (about 180 lead literacy teachers - one from each school) who were having a day of professional development at the Schultz Center. The lesson (about 30 minutes) was quick-paced, fun and interactive. The teachers called the students to the carpet with a song from Jack Johnson - Curious George (the sound track), "We're Going to Be Friends." The teachers started the Skills Block with fluency practice as they read their Class Promise together, adapted from Debbie Miller's Reading With Meaning.
Next came their Morning Message which was a review of all of the skills that they have been learning (vocabulary, phonics, phonemic awareness, punctuation and capitalization including quotation marks, and spelling). The class worked against a timer (8 minutes) to edit as many of the mistakes as they could, children coming up one at a time to correct a single mistake. At the end of the 8 minutes, the teacher underlined and corrected any mistakes that had not already been identified and counted those mistakes. She then subtracted the number they missed from 100 to post a class score! They always try to beat their score from the day before!

The class then reviewed both a vowel combinations chart and a blends chart as a choral reading. 

Vowels chart

The children also recited the vowel combinations from the chart which they do every day. They are so familiar with this chart that you actually hear them saying the appropriate line while they are writing and trying to figure out what letters to write for an unknown word. Sometimes you will see them go up to the chart and find the picture at the end of the line and then trace their finger back to see what the letters look like that make that sound. In some classes copies of this chart are also put in the child's writing folder. One of the things we want to see is the transfer of skills taught in Skills Block to the child's actual reading and writing.

The children practiced sight words by singing assorted sight words to the seasonal tune of "Jingle Bells." This version of the song was written by one of our first grade teachers and was shared with the grade level. This particular version uses some of the words introduced during the first two nine weeks of the Houghton Mifflin Core Reading Series. Since so many of the Literacy Leaders asked for these words (you could use any sight words you want to practice by matching syllables to the original syllables in the song), I'm posting the seasonal "Jingle Bells" and an earlier "Row Row Row Your Boat" below. Next month it will be a new tune with some new sight words.

To the tune of "Row Row Row Your Boat"

I jump two three four

go on here and where
we said you are not in five

who does not live away

once upon is my to do

what they pull for one

he can find the too before

two three four and done

To the tune of "Jingle Bells"

flower bird

children grow

mother of all call

paper so she try first love

today her funny cat

picture these

people fly

father see five fall

family friend eat every room

our world a blue green house

Next the children did a quick word sort. The teachers set up three columns - words that have the ou, oy, and ar sounds. First the teacher let the children hear the word (phonemic awareness) and then let them see the word (phonics) to place it under the correct category. The category and word cards that she used were from a Lakeshore kit called "Chant and Sort Vowel Cards."

For vocabulary the children practiced antonyms as a matching game with the whole group and then went to their tables to play a form of "Go Fish" with antonym (opposite) cards.

At the conclusion of their Skills Block lesson, Maria and Cheryl debriefed with the Literacy Leaders explaining how they had decided on the activities for today's lesson, what had come before this lesson and what will follow. Although their lesson was unique to the needs of their population of kids at this time, it gave the Literacy Leaders a view into the thinking process the Chets' teachers use to draw from all of the resources that are available to them as they match the resources with the on-going assessment they use as they watch how their children are working with each new and reviewed skill.

Science Live!

This morning first grade teacher Debbie Harbour used video streaming to broadcast a Science lesson live to the Academy of Science teachers who were meeting at our district's professional development sight at the Schultz Center. Her lesson was part of the district's Learning Schedule on Water.


Debbie called her children to the carpet with a Science song that teaches the scientific method.  The words go like this:


Science Workshop SongWe use science every day
To help us make predictions.
Classify, estimate, this helps us communicate.
Process skills will teach us ways to make new observations.

Debbie then began her lesson with a KWL chart to find out what the kids already know about water and what they want to know. One of the things that the children wanted to know had to do with safety around the water (a good lesson for Florida children!)

Integrating technology, Debbie then showed a quick video of water safety and gave the children their group assignments. Each table of children was given a different location (beach, pool, water park, pond, river) and asked to design a group poster of safety rules around their specific water area. Debbie actually gave the children a checklist for their posters making sure that they were very clear about the expectations.

The children quickly got to work. Looking around, anyone would be impressed with how engaged the children were as they discussed the rules and pictures they wanted to include on each poster. You could tell that this group of students has done many group projects before because the rituals and routines for this type activity were firmly in place. Debbie closed by showing some of the children's poster work.

After the Science Workshop the children went to read independently as Debbie debriefed the lesson she had just taught with the Science lead teachers at the Schultz Center.

Video Streaming for Professional Development

Video conferencing is not exactly new and innovative. It's been around for years but what is new is the way we've used it this week. We have the video conferencing equipment at our school because for several years now we have been sending live lessons to our professional development sight. One year we even sent lessons to an inner city school and debriefed the lessons together every other week. Last year we video streamed a lesson live to a national conference in Hollywood, CA! We have even video conferenced a few planning meetings with trainers at the Schultz Center, but for the most part, we have been on the giving end. Because we are so used to opening our classrooms to each other, teachers at Chets Creek have been willing to do the same thing to others in our county. We have long felt that we have a moral and ethical obligation to share what we do at the Creek so we have made staff available to help support the video streaming. It takes one person at our school to set up and run the equipment and then monitor while the lessons are being taught and another to just be there in case there is a problem with the children while the teacher debriefs with the class at the other end of the camera. Not only has our principal been willing to shuffle schedules to meet the needs of the video streaming but teachers have been willing to open themselves up - to be transparent, believing that to do so makes us all better. Can you imagine doing a lesson for 150 of the Literacy Leaders in your grade level from throughout the county? Our teachers do that regularly! One of the reasons that we have the equipment is because we have been so open and willing.

With all that said, we are now looking at ways that we might use this video conference equipment in other ways. This week, when we realized that we had 14 teachers who needed a training for ELL being offered by the Schultz Center, we asked about having it video conferenced to our school, if we were willing to provide the facilitators at our end. Although the Schultz Center trainers doing this particular training had never video conferenced, they were willing to give it a try and the session did take place very successfully. It certainly was a perk for our teachers not to have to travel for the training. You have to have a very forward-thinking and flexible administrator to put that together so easily!

We have mostly used this equipment for professional development and have only begun to look at possibilities for instruction. Melanie Holtsman collaborated with the museum last year video streaming a live lesson for her gifted students. Now we are looking at other places that might have the equipment so that we could do virtual field trips. How cool would that be! For instance, maybe first grade could visit the great barrier reef as they continue their study of Australia. Of course, it would mean having the kids come to school in the middle of the night for the experience because of the time differences, but that in and of itself might be lots of FUN!

Video streaming has Restarted!

Continuing our mission to share what we learn, video streaming started again at Chets Creek this week. These are live lessons that are broadcast as they happen from the classroom to our professional development site, the Schultz Center. Yesterday kindergarten co-teachers Julia Lewis and Laurie Thomson (pictured on the left) video streamed their Readers' Workshop Share Chair, a Writers' Workshop mini-lesson and work session before they stopped to debrief with the kindergarten and first grade teachers who were attending Literacy 101 at the Schultz Center. Later in the day third grade teacher, Jenny Nash, video streamed a Readers' Workshop along with a tour of her classroom to 2nd-5th grade teachers who were also at the Schultz Center attending an intermediate Literacy 101 class.

Today veteran video streamer Michelle Ellis taught a small group lesson in her kindergarten classroom using materials from the new reading adoption while kindergarten teachers at the Schultz Center looked on (pictured on the right). This group of teachers, however, are Literacy Leaders who have been chosen by their own school to be model classrooms in our new reading adoption. As Michelle finished the lesson, her teaching partner, Debby Cothern was at the Schultz Center to help with the debrief.

From now on, I will only be highlighting the first grade streams done at Chets Creek since my focus this year is first grade. For a review of all of the streams including pictures (and sometimes videos!) you can join the educational Ning or check Suzanne Shall, our Standard coach's, blog. There may be a few days delay on getting the videos up since we are doing all the editing in house, so please be patient!

HOLLYWOOD!

I have been away for the last week in Hollywood, CA for the America's Choice National Conference. Many exciting things happened at the conference. Below are some of my reflections from a Kindergarten prospective:

• Maria Mallon and Haley Alvarado videoed a live kindergarten lesson as it was happening from the East Coast in Jacksonville, FL to the West Coast of Hollywood, CA! Wow! Not only was the technology amazing but Maria's kindergartners were working on deciding when a narrative piece is good enough by using a class-written rubric! How much I admire these teachers who were willing to take a risk and teach a lesson for the very people that wrote the Design!
• Debbie Harbour presented our kindergarten work with vocabulary. She explained the professional learning community that had formed around the need to deepen our vocabulary work. She explained how we studied the work of Beck and McKeown and then wrote a vocabulary unit around 12 well known kindergarten read alouds  She showed some of the data results as we prepare to revisit and edit this "work-in-progress" over the summer.
• Debbie Cothern and Michelle Ellis, looping K-1 teachers, shared our journey as we have raised the level of our standard-based bulletin board work.
• As a Special Education teacher I presented on the intensity of my interventions as I was reminded of the small window of opportunity that we have with our young at-risk learners to make the most difference. This continues to noodle around in my head as I try to figure out how to make the most of the rest of this year with the childen that I teach.

Most of all I was reminded of the incredible people that I work with every day - people who were willing to blog this conference live - even though none of us had ever done it before - people who were willing to come together and discuss new ideas over dinner - people who believe in and embrace the possibilities! I have always believed that I have the best job in the whole world, so this was just a reminder that it really is true! This is the place where dreams really do come true!

Shared Reading

Today the Schultz Center's Literacy 101 visited Randi Timmons and Elizabeth Conte's classroom. Now I have to admit that it's pretty brave to invite a classroom of teachers into your class the week before you have Winter Break (with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads!) but the Timmonte Team did just that and showed just why they have such an outstanding reputation. Randi and Elizabeth invited their children to perform several of the shared readings they have been practicing this week for the teachers who dropped in through live video stream.

The first was a song, He'll be Drivin' 8 Big Reindeer sung to the tune of She'll be Comin' 'Round the Mountain.  Songs are a wonderful way of having kindergartners learn to match the words they say to the words they see, to learn that text runs left to right and top to bottom, or to learn where to start reading a piece of text.

The next was a holiday poem that stressed color words. This poem was introduced to teach the students to use intonation with punctuation which is a part of fluency. We comprehend text better when we use intonation with punctuation so we know how the author intended for the text to sound. Randi and Elizabeth used "echo reading" (I read a line, then you read a line) to teach the poem, but will move to choral reading (we all read together) and then to students reading parts as the week continues.

The final piece was a story that the students wrote as a language experience together with the teachers. The purpose of this piece of interactive writing was to encourage the students to use the vocabulary words that they have been learning as part of their Vocabulary Unit  in their writing. This too was taught by "echo" reading to provide the most support since the text is challenging reading for most of the kindergartners.

After the shared reading, Randi and Elizabeth joined Haley Alvarado and Meredy Mackiewicz who were teaching at the Schultz Center today for a debrief via live video stream. The Timmonte Team shared other poems, songs, a morning message, a class promise, big books, and chants that they have used and will be using when they return from the holiday. Shared reading can be used for Readers' or Writers' mini-lessons, Skills Block or to teach and reinforce content in Science and Social Studies. The only requirement is that you enlarge a piece of text so that all the students can see it together. This is a differentiated technique as it allows your highest readers to actually read the text but provides support for your most challenged readers to read along. 

Live at the Kinder Creek!

Letter Combinations

Today offered another live demonstration from Chets Creek to our County's professional development sight, the Schultz Center. The live demonstration came from Maria Mallon's Kindergarten classroom. What was different this time around is that teaching Literacy 101 at the Schultz Center were Chets Creek Kindergarten teachers Meredy Mackiewicz and Haley Alvarado. Literacy 101 is a yearlong course that meets every other week for K-1 teachers in the county who are new to the county or who are new to the Readers' and Writers' Workshop.

Initial Blends

On this blog, we last peeked into Maria's Skills Block on 10/11/07. This time around she included some of the same activities such as her Good Morning song, a song with the children's names, and the class promise, but today, activities around initial consonant letters and sounds have changed to letter combinations as seen in the first photograph, initial blends as seen in the second photograph and an activity with magnet letters used as final consonants. Each of the first two charts is recited with a steady beat with a student leader.

Final Consonants with magnetic letters

The 30-minute Skills Block is broken into many quick and fun activities. To break down the time requiring the children to sit on the carpet, Maria adds several songs and dances (see photograph to the right) that allow the children to move using a number of different academically-oriented CDs.

Songs and dances for transitions

Maria continues the Skills Block with an activity around word families (-ug, -ot). This activity also includes a song that invites children to practice blending onsets and rimes. After the children have spent a few more days on the word families, these shapes will be added to a Word Family Word Wall in the back of her room. The final activity is modeled and then children finish the activity at their seats. This final activity requires the children to write 4 words from the -ug word family and to draw matching pictures. Maria's Skills Block is well paced, interactive, and FUN!

As the children exit the room with team teacher, Julie Johnson, Maria takes the teachers on a tour of her room. She shows them her Vocabulary Word Wall, an example of the books that are contained in an individual Independent Reading bin this time of year, what a leveled library for Kindergarten looks like, and some of the titles of her genre baskets. All in all, teachers in Literacy 101 got to watch a master teacher at work, Maria had a chance to share some of things that have worked for her, and Haley and Meredy had the opportunity to take a risk and teach adults for the day instead of children. Looks like a win-win for everyone to me!

Video streaming: Readers' Workshop

Duval County is very fortunate to have a professional development site called the Schultz Center in Jacksonville. All of the county's professional development runs through this state-of-the- art facility. One of the most popular Schultz courses is Literacy 101 which gives teachers a background in Readers' and Writers' Workshop. For three year Chets Creek has had an agreement with the Schultz Center to provide live demonstration lessons through video streaming. Literacy 101 drops into Chets Creek classes and watches a specific lesson. After teachers at the Schultz Center watch, the teachers teaching the lesson debrief from Chets Creek. This is real time observation and sharing.

Today Literacy 101 dropped into Haley Alvarado and Meredy Mackiewicz' co-taught kindergarten Readers' Workshop.

The lesson began with a musical introduction to the Readers' Workshop using Jack Hartman's Ready to Read.

The mini-lesson was the perfect 4-parts (from Lucy Calkins The Art of Teaching Reading) lasting about 12 minutes:

1. Connection - The teachers began by connecting today's lesson with yesterday's lesson. Yesterday the children looked at a familiar fiction book (Goldilocks and the Three Bears) and compared it with a non-fiction book. The class began a chart of non-fiction features that the teachers quickly reviewed today.

2. Teach - The teaching focus for today's lesson was to add to the non-fiction list, so the teachers showed the students some features that were in a non-fiction text that they would not see in their familiar fiction books.

3. Active Involvement - For the active involvement the teachers had the kindergartners turn and talk ( Can you believe it? Kindergartners turning and talking after 7 weeks of school?!) about the non-fiction features that they had noticed. After a few minutes of talking with partners, the kindergartners returned to the group and "shared out" what they noticed. The teachers added to the list.
4. Link - To link the lesson to the independent reading which followed the mini-lesson, the teachers put a sticky note at each child's place so that they could put the sticky note on any page where they noticed a non-fiction text feature.

As the children transitioned to the independent work period the teachers stopped to debrief their lesson with the Schultz teachers. Some of the debrief was around the lesson but much of the conversation was centered around the positive discipline that Haley and Meredy use in their classroom and that the teachers had seen demonstrated during the viewing.  

After the camera was moved out of the room, the children continued reading until Haley and Meredy were ready to close. At Closing the children shared their sticky notes of the non-fiction text features that they had noticed in their independent reading. 

Video streaming is an excellent tool for teachers in a professional development class because they have the opportunity to see real teaching as it happens with a chance to ask questions of the teachers. It's also good for our teachers because it gives them a chance to share their learning - to make a difference. It's a win-win for us all!