What is a great way to get ready to go back to school? I chose to go to a 2 day workshop led by Anita Archer.
Day 1
4 Big Ideas for the day that deal with the Design of Instruction
Big Ideas #1 Focus on Critical content “Teach the stuff and cut the fluff.”
Big Ideas #2 Break down complex skills
Big idea #3 Provided Systematic Instruction Use a consistent routine to teach- always include in the opening, an attention-getter, review and preview, the main lesson and in the closing have a review, preview and independent work. Don’t run out of time to do the closing
Provide Explicit Instruction of concepts (vocabulary)
Step 1- Introduce the word. Show the word, tap out the word to teach pronounciation and fluency
Step 2 Present a student friendly explanations. Tell the students or have them read the explanation
Step 3 Illustrate the word with examples. Use different kinds of concrete, visual or verbal examples
Step 4 Check students understanding. ask deep processing questions, have students discern between or examples or non examples, Have students generate their own examples.
Big Idea #4 Provide judicious practice A great way to help students learn spelling it is to have daily spelling practice and HFW writing practice on white boards so the teacher can monitor the students success and the student can practice the words accurately and correctly.
An interesting fact that I learned that English has the most words in the language and my friend, Allyn found a link with more http://www.lingholic.com/how-many-words-do-i-need-to-know-the-955-rule-in-language-learning-part-2/
PEC! PEC! PEC! Praise, Encourage and Correct (Here I am trying to use Google Drawing:)
Day 2
We started with a review of yesterday.
Here is a link to Anita Archer’s website on explicit instruction. www.explicitinstruction.org
Big idea #5 Elicit Frequent Responses
Why do we want Active Participation? It contributes to a positive learning environment, it promotes learning and it is also an embedded formative assessments. Active Participation promotes learning because it makes the students Rehearse- Retrieve- and Retain!!!
Big Idea #6 Carefully monitor responses
When students use a white board instead of paper, students learn better because they know the teacher will see their answer so they are held accountable to show their learning.
Looks like sounds like charts for all activities are one of the best student management tools, they are even better than rules!
Big Idea #7 Provide Feedback
Big Idea #8 Maintain a brisk pace
Here is the link to the lps homepage and resources provided by the district and Anita Archer, http://home.lps.org/cipl/anitaarcher/ for lps teachers to have access to.