Speaker Reflections: Junior Fall 2014

By: Brittany Bisese

Dr. Betsy Rodgers- 2003 National Teacher of the Year
Dispositions & Teacher Quality
October 30 th , 2014

Dr. Betsy Rodgers served thirty years in inner city schools and won National
Teacher of the Year in 2003. From her experience, she has learned the importance of

teacher dispositions and the critical need for high quality teacher training to produce
high quality teachers. Professionalism and positivity are two key components of the
disposition of a highly effective teacher. Thus, teachers must immerse themselves in

opportunities to develop in these areas in order to achieve an overall positive disposition.

Also, after retelling her experience of assigning students to classrooms for an inner-city
school in Jefferson county, it is clear that there is a high need for quality teachers,

especially in urban areas. She recounted her experiences of having to doom children
regularly to a lost year under an ineffective teacher. No child should ever have to

endure these circumstances and have no other options than to be placed under a lowperforming teacher. Thus, in order to produce highly effective teachers, Dr. Rodgers

recommends that teachers be rigorously trained in best practice strategies so that they
can masterfully implement these strategies into their classroom.

Mrs. Puchta- Trace Crossings Elementary Math CoachEvaluation of Investigations Curriculum

Introduction:

October 28 th , 2014

Today, Mrs. Puchta, the Math Coach at Trace Crossings Elementary School

led a Professional Development Seminar on Investigations Math Curriculum. The

teachers of Trace Crossings are required by school administrators to teach

Investigations to fidelity. This means that they are expected to meet the goals and
intent of the program. This means the teacher should not just teach to the book
verbatim or ignore it completely. The teachers goal should be to ensure that the

students attain the goals of the curriculum. Thus, teachers must find the balance
between the curriculum and outside resources. Teaching to the fidelity of a

curriculum is typical of most elementary reading and math curriculums. The main

goal of Investigations is for students to be able to understand the why behind math
concepts. In each curriculum, there are 9 units except in Kindergarten there are 7

units. She mentioned that at times, the curriculum can be a little wordy, but overall,

the structure of this curriculum is beneficial to the development of student knowledge.

Beginning of Unit:

At the beginning of the unit, the Overview section tells the teacher what is

going to be done each day in each lesson for the unit. The Mathematics in this Unit
section informs the teacher why learning this concept is important and how students
can apply the concept practically in daily life. She strongly recommended reading

through this section to be able to ensure that students are receiving instruction that

includes why the concept is important and where it can be found in the world. The 10
Minute Math part of lessons is added to the lesson for extra practice. The calendar is
an example for this 10-Minute Math in Kindergarten. Also, the Differentiation

section, which has a skinny student workbook that accompanies it, gives the teacher
resources to vary instruction for higher and lower level learners.
Units:

All of the lessons for a unit are compiled in a chart at the beginning of the unit.

In this chart, the teacher can find exactly what they will be doing, materials needed,

Professional Development needed before the lesson, and more. On the lesson plans, there

is a step-by-step instruction for what to do each day, there is a recommended teacher

talk that the teacher should be sure to discuss within the lesson, and ongoing

assessments to be performed throughout the lesson. Each lesson lasts about an hour,

provides an opportunity for students to talk with other students, and for individual
student practice.
Professional Development:

This section explains the concepts more in depth so that the teacher has

thorough content knowledge of the skill. This section also holds an assessment section,
which gives examples of what meeting benchmark goals look like. These examples help

the teacher decipher students level of performance with each skill. The dialogue boxes in
this section hold actual conversations that happened in a real classroom. These help
predict what classroom conversation may look like, predict where students may get
tripped up, and gives strategies to help get kids talking to other students.
Implementation of Investigations:

There is also a guide for implementation, meaning practical ways that the

curriculum needs to be enacted in the school. This includes what workshops should look
like, how classroom should be set up, classroom routines, and other practical ways that

this needs to be implemented. Finally it includes variations to change up ways that the
content is presented.
Handbook:

These were purchased for 2nd-5th students to work on with parents at home.

However, some of the topics the parents dont understand and they get frustrated with
the school because they cannot help. This shows the importance of educating parents
about new methods of math instruction.

Advice:

She gave a few pieces of sage wisdom. If in a classroom where students are

talking with one another, note how that is happening because that is a very hard end to
achieve. It takes teacher modeling, creating a strong classroom culture, turn and talk

time, and more. The first step is asking students to talk about what student said, then

what their partner said. This helps them to be active listener. The teacher should also

implement the me too hand signal and point of interest if they have a disagreement to
encourage classroom participation. Also, when teaching math it is all about the

questioning. Instead of telling, the teacher should ask students questions to clarify
understanding. These questions should allow the student to reflect on their work and

clarify their understanding. Each teacher should have a few (5-10) strong questions (or
variations of these questions) to ask students. One of the most important questions is
How did you know? Even if they are wrong, it is valuable for the teacher to student

thinking. Also, we want to ask students this question often so that they dont think they
are wrong just because someone is asking them about their thought process. It also gives
value to their thought process. Finally, she talked about how every student needs to try
before the teacher will help.

Dr. Patti Wood- Gifted and High-Ability Learners Workshop

November 17 th , 2014

In todays session, Dr. Patti Wood taught us myths and realities of gifted
learners, how to identify and then differentiate for gifted learners in the classroom. We
began our discussion by talking about different myths and realities of gifted learners

including, the myth that gifted students can not get a good education on their own, the
reality that labeling students gifted leads to special treatment and issues, and the

reality that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnic minorities are
harder to identify.

Then we discussed, the difference between high achievers and gifted learners.

High achievers tend to answer questions correctly, understand concepts quickly and
listen attentively. They may be very organized and be rule followers. However, a gifted
learner is one who is curious, has unexpected ideas, and is a critical thinker. In the
classroom, they may be disorganized or seem unmotivated. Through a series of

assessments and listening to the observations of students and parents, the teacher can

assess if the child is truly gifted. This assessment in Alabama is in the 2nd grade and
it is important for the teacher to understand that these tests to do not assess the
students creativity but their cognitive thinking instead and that IQ fluctuates

throughout life. Then before planning instruction, the teacher should pre-assess the
student to see what the student already knows.

Then we learned specific strategies for differentiating for gifted students. There

is a difference between enrichment, which is extending the depth of the content taught

and acceleration, which is moving the students faster through the curriculum. Instead
of just giving these students more of the same work and tutor other students, teachers

should use more effective strategies for differentiation. These techniques include flexible
grouping, tic-tac-toe boards, menus, open-ended journal prompts, graphic organizers,
and think pair share. The key to each of these tasks is incorporating higher level

thinking through structuring questions based on Blooms taxonomy. We also talked

about strategies such as cubing and problem based learning to help students access
higher levels of thinking and metacognition.