Reflections...

This will be your last and final blog entry! I can hear your sighs of relief from here!! Ahhh....

What I would like you to do is to reread each of the posts and every one's responses, paying particular attention the the journey you have been on. I have done this with some of you and if you actually print them out you can see how your thinking has changed over time. It is really quite a remarkable record of you and your growth and the processes you have gone through along the way. For each of you it is individual and unique.

As this is our last blog I am really asking that you take the next few weeks before our last class to write a reflective entry that "shows" us your individual journey and how talking, reading with and observing your colleagues has impacted the changes you have made and also to set yourself a goal for where you plan to go next. This entry will be your longest entry of the year and it should take you the next few weeks to complete. I would also suggest that you write it on word and then copy and paste it so that you don't lose it!

Here are some quotes that you might consider in thinking about your journey...you do not have to respond to them, I just thought they might inspire you along the way!

"The language of education, if it is to be an invitation to reflection and culture creating, cannot be the so-called uncontaminated language of fact and 'objectivity'. It must express stance and must invite counter-stance, and in the process leave place for reflection, for meta-cognition. It is this that permits one to reach higher ground, this process of objectifying in language or image what one has thought and then turning around and re-considering it"
Jerome Bruner

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
- Marcel Proust

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." Carl Rogers

“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn - and change” Carl Rogers

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius

Observations...

Please post your observations here...feel free to respond to one another as well.

Change...

Please read and respond to the following....

"In reality 'learning' and 'change' are synonymous. Change is not an issue if it makes sense to and is 'owned' by those involved. An appreciation that change is a continual process, involving confusion and difficulty, is vital for future learners. 'It is not change that kills it is the transitions'."

Conversations and Conferring...

As we continue to work to think this through...I am wondering what you have tried with your students in terms of strategy instruction and conferring. What kinds of conversations or teachable moments have you discovered through this way of teaching? Think about a conversation you have had with a child or a small group of children and write about what you discovered that you did not know before. "Show" us that conversation in words here on this blog. Celebrate these moments by remembering each detail of what was said, the expression on the child's face and the interaction between the two of you. This does not have to be an interaction of great proportions or success, just an interaction you can recount, remember and really reflect upon. Does this interaction demonstrate a "shift" in your thinking and or teaching?

Inferring

In the process of inferring we have to take the time to really slow down our thinking and retrace the path we went through in our minds automatically that allowed us to infer. Identifying this process and the schema involved can be a challenging one. As one person stated in class after our work with the wordless picture books, it is almost like we can infer and then have to think back to what the schema was that led us to this inference.How does this fit in with your thinking about emerging readers? What about all of the other strategies and processes you engaged in with a wordless picture book where there were no words to decode or pronounce? How much of reading is deeper level thinking versus the surface work of decoding etc.? What does this make you think about in terms of our instruction

Not answers as much as thinking....

Wow! There are so many questions lingering out there! This is good news. It means we are all in a place where we are trying to figure out what works best for ourselves and our students. This week I am going to ask you to go through the wonderings (from last week's post) of your classmates and choose one of their questions to do a quick write in thinking about the quesiton that you choose!! Be sure to post the question you will be writing to and who that question came from!!

Wonderings....

What are you wondering about in terms of reading and reading instruction? What questions do you have around the ideas that have been floating around your buildings? What are you hoping to get out of being a part of this group for another semester?
Take a few minutes to do a quick write about what you are wondering about. It may end up as a list of questions or it may be that you will pose one or two questions and end up writing about them. Remember, when you do a quick write, just let your thoughts flow. This is an exercise in figuring out what you are thinking and wondering about and you may not even know until you begin writing!!