1. Regional Professional Learning Day
High School English Teachers
Tech Valley High School
October 20, 2017
Kathy Cioffi

2. Welcome! Rational for the day
Sharing best practices
Collaborating with peers
Recording new ideas—expanding your toolbox
What do you hope to take away from today?

3. Our Goals Sharing lessons and best practices
Collaborating with high school English teachers from other districts
Creating lessons that promote active student learning and other best practices.

4. Targets Agenda Create groups of 4
Each group agrees to share one lesson plan
Groups will rotate
Consider questions on share out template
Reflect on best practices
We will summarize ideas and takeaways from today
Discuss your needs for PD

5. Who is in our Group?
Pair up with someone you don't know and answer the following questions:
What is your name?
What district and grade level do you teach?
Why are you passionate about teaching?
Now join another group introduce your partner to your new group

6. Warming up the Brain
Imagine you are in a classroom of a highly effective teacher:
What would you see?
What would you hear?
What would the students be doing or saying?
Write one comment per post-it note
Affinity Activity

7. Affinity Activity STEPS:
In your group, find Post It notes and chart paper.
By yourself, identify at least three ideas and write them on separate Post It notes. Place note anywhere on chart paper.
When all group members have finished, everyone reads the notes. As a group, begin moving the notes around so that you are grouping them together in categories that will help organize the information. This will require discussion in the group and eventually you will have categories that organize all the information.
Generate a heading for each category.
As a group, decide how you will present your information to the rest of the class. As part of the presentation, describe how you decided on your organizational structure.
Present your information to the entire group.
TODAY, we will just do a gallery walk of the charts and then RE-GROUP!

8. 8 Things to Look For…

9. Please,
Move to new groups of 4.

10. First Share Out Share your lesson with your group
Reflect with your group, record new ideas
Why do you consider this lesson to be a best practice?

11. STUDENT ENGAGEMENT— How critical is this for student achievement?
tips#
As you watch the video, make two columns titled I NOTICE, I WONDER and jot notes. Be sure to include Teacher Participation Techniques (TPT’s) you notice.

12. Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner
On-the-Spot TPT’s allow teachers to quickly gauge the depth of student understanding of concepts being taught.
They are activities that require little or no advance preparation.
You can insert several in a lesson the minute you notice cognitive disengagement or disconnect.
Or you can plan to insert them strategically in select spots within your lessons.

13. On-the-Spot TPT’s
“ You can have the best lesson and read the most intriguing books, but if you’ve lost your students, your wonderful lesson wasn’t as wonderful as you had hoped. For me that was a huge wake-up call, that one lesson where I looked up and realized no one was with me. See, in my head, it was going great. But it was going great for me, not for them!” Courtney Cislo

14. On-the-Spot TPT’s Think Pair Share Quite Writes Quick Draws
Chalkboard Splash – Used to allow entire class to see collective responses of their peers.
Create a sentence starter or prompt
Ask students to copy their responses onto random or designated places on chalkboards, whiteboards, or chart paper. Could use Post It notes.
Similes – ask students to compare two unrelated things:
Create similes using some of the topics you are studying
Ask students to formulate an explanation for how the simile might be true.
Ask students to share with their partners or small groups or in a chalkboard splash

15. Quick TPT’s
Numbered Heads Together – allows all students to be held accountable to relay information that was learned during a group activity:
Have students count off to assign each student a number
Inform students that all group members will need to be able to present their group’s information
During debriefing call out the number for the team member who will be presenting
Thumbs Up When Ready – This TPT allows students to take even a brief time to process their reflections to a prompt. This is critical if you want quality responses:
Ask students to reflect on your prompt
When they have a thought, or are finished, they should put their thump up as an indication that they are ready to move on

16. TPT’S
Thumbs Up/Down Vote – Many teachers use this frequently to either agree or disagree:
Ask a question for which a yes/no or agree/disagree response is appropriate
Ask students to put thumbs up or down to show response
FOLLOW THROUGH!!! All students must vote. Don’t move on until they do
Finish with a Pair-Share in which students justify their rationale

17. TPT’s
Does anyone use Literature Circles?

18. Please,
Move to new groups of 4.

19. Second Share Out Poster Session Share out Choose different lesson
Outline lesson on chart paper
Respond to questions in second share out
Post chart paper
Visit other posters
Record comments/questions on the poster
Retrieve original poster, reflect on comments
Whole group wrap-up

20. INQUIRY BASED LEARNING
teaching relating to diversity
for-text Mocking Bird questioning

21. PROJECT – BASED INSTRUCTION
Project Based Learning is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge.
ntn

22. Please,
Move to new groups of 4.

23. Third Share Out In groups of 4, sit with somebody new
Whole group share
Select a lesson to work with. Discuss with your groups the bullets on the Third Share Out:
Differentiation
Engagement
Rigor
Inquiry Based Learning
Reflect with group, record new ideas

25. Please,
Move to new groups of 4.

26. Fourth Share Out Each group selects a lesson to present to their group
Groups listen & consider questions from share out template
Use phrases to respond
I like the fact that…
I wonder if…
A next step might be…
New learning is shared with whole group

27. LUNCH 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Stuyvesant Plaza has many eateries – turn right on Fuller Road. The Plaza is at the end of Fuller.
Please adhere to our time schedule.
When you return, please meet in the cafeteria.
A new sign-in sheet will be there for you. You MUST sign back in.

28. Wrap-up Thoughts Think-pair-share:
How can you apply today’s learning to your current setting?
What learning will you take away, based on today’s conversations?
Whole Group Share:
What is one thing you can take away from today’s workshop?
Everyone will share one.
Survey

29. Thank you!