[ProfessionalDevelopment 1376] Re: descriptive reviewjhalaesl at aol.com jhalaesl at aol.comWed Jul 11 09:31:28 EDT 2007
this reminds again of The Teaching Gap research. The Japanese model highlighted in the book emphasized the lesson/technique/approach NOT the instructor. The line of questioning in the teaching team (required in public school settings) is How can we change the activity to better help these students learn? (not what did I do wrong?) A tweaking process similar to what you describe occurs on-going. This back-to-the-drawing-board method allows varied learning strategies within a group of students. I recommend some time reading the study. Joanne Joanne Hala Literacy Services Jointure for Community Adult Education, Inc. Raritan, NJ In the Adult Multiple Intelligences study we used the descriptive review process with the 10 teacher researcher partners. It's a protocol by which a group of practitioners focuses on one teacher's work at a time using multiple rounds of comments. There are variations on the protocol but here's how we implemented it: The teacher presents her question or a dilemma, usually with sample student work or sample of her teacher research data as well as some context for her class and program. In the first round, the other participants can ask clarifying questions only. A clarifying question involves factual information only, no opinions or judgements. In the next round, the participants offer suggestions and recommendations using phases like, "I wonder what would happen if. . ." rather than, for example, "You should . . ." Each person can make only one suggestion at a time or they can pass. It usually takes at least two rounds for all the comments to come out. The presenting teacher does not respond to them until the end. This ensures that the feedback does not become a dialogue between two people. The facilitator ensures that the feedback does not make the presenting teacher vulnerable and also summarizes the comments at the end of each round. The process worked well because it was so focused and engaged everyone in considering one person's work at a time. Some of the comments and suggestions gave us ideas for other types of sharing and PD activities that we did later with the same teachers. Silja Joanne Hala Literacy Services Coordinator Jointure for Community Adult Education, Inc (908) 872-9573 (908) 359-7744 fax -----Original Message----- From: Silja Kallenbach <skallenbach at worlded.org> To: professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov Sent: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 9:10 am Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1375] Re: descriptive review In the Adult Multiple Intelligences study we used the descriptive review process with the 10 teacher researcher partners. It's a protocol by which a group of practitioners focuses on one teacher's work at a time using multiple rounds of comments. There are variations on the protocol but here's how we implemented it: The teacher presents her question or a dilemma, usually with sample student work or sample of her teacher research data as well as some context for her class and program. In the first round, the other participants can ask clarifying questions only. A clarifying question involves factual information only, no opinions or judgements. In the next round, the participants offer suggestions and recommendations using phases like, "I wonder what would happen if. . ." rather than, for example, "You should . . ." Each person can make only one suggestion at a time or they can pass. It usually takes at least two rounds for all the comments to come out. The presenting teacher does not respond to them until the end. This ensures that the feedback does not become a dialogue between two people. The facilitator ensures that the feedback does not make the presenting teacher vulnerable and also summarizes the comments at the end of each round. The process worked well because it was so focused and engaged everyone in considering one person's work at a time. Some of the comments and suggestions gave us ideas for other types of sharing and PD activities that we did later with the same teachers. Silja ********************************************* Silja Kallenbach, Director New England Literacy Resource Center World Education 44 Farnsworth Street Boston, MA 02210 tel. 617-482-9485 fax. 617-482-0617 skallenbach at worlded.org www.nelrc.org Get free resources about ABE/ESOL-to-college transitions at www.collegetransition.org Teach critical thinking with The Change Agent, a social justice publication for the adult education community, available at www.nelrc.org/changeagent >>> "Cristine Smith" <cristinesmith at comcast.net> 7/10/2007 3:22 PM >>> Ira: I haven't heard about Descriptive Review; could you tell us something about it? (Meanwhile, I'll go Google it!) Thanks. Best...Cris Cristine Smith Assistant Professor Center for International Education University of Massachusetts 285 Hills House South Amherst, MA 01003 413-545-2731 cristine at educ.umass.edu -----Original Message----- From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Yankwitt Ira (79K755) Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2007 2:57 PM To: professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1366] Re: ProfessionalDevelopment Digest,Vol 22, Issue 10 Hi Cris, I am one of those practitioners who would be very grateful if you developed that guidebook! I recently took on a new position overseeing professional development in a program that has over 400 teachers, working in 150 different sites throughout New York City. While some of our teachers work in large learning centers, where up to two dozen classes take place at any given time, others work in church basements or CBOs, where they may be the sole instructor. What every one of the teachers I've spoken to has said is that they want more opportunities to share questions and ideas with their colleagues. I think that having a tool and a structure to guide that process would be invaluable. I'm wondering if you, or anyone else on the list, has seen the K12 literature on Descriptive Review? I am only familiar with it from discussion with friends who work in elementary education, but I'm curious if it may be an approach that could guide the kind of embedded, practitioner-led PD that you've described. Any thoughts on this? Thanks, Ira Ira Yankwitt Director of Program Initiatives Office of Adult and Continuing Education NYC Department of Education ----- Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:06:32 -0400 From: "Cristine Smith" <cristinesmith at comcast.net> Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1362] Re: from Cris, job-embedded professional development To: "'The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List'" <professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov> Message-ID: <002a01c7c314$aaabda60$bc797780 at provost.ads.umass.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Susan: Great questions! Job-embedded PD is a little different than the practicum idea, I think, because job-embedded PD assumes a group of teachers working together; the facilitator's job is not to know anything necessarily about the content but just to set up the group's activities ("OK, now let's share artifacts.what if we now work on a new lesson plan", etc.) Having said that, while mentoring or coaching is usually one-to-one, NCSALL experimented with a model of PD called "mentor teacher groups", where one experienced teacher was trained to be a "mentor" to five teachers, and the teachers all met BOTH with each other in a group and one-on-one with the mentor. If you want more information about this type of PD, see the Mentor Teacher Group guide at: http://www.ncsall.net/?id=1015 As for your questions, here are some of my thoughts: o How would the mentor/coaching teachers be chosen? K-12 seems to just assume that more experienced teachers will mentor newer ones. In my experience, there has to be an affinity between the two participants (practitioner and mentor or coach). Assigning people has its dangers because what if you just don't respect the person who has been "allocated" as your mentor or coach? The best way, I think, is to let teachers choose who they want to mentor and coach them. However, this isn't always possible because of funding and job constraints. The best we can do sometimes is to give people some choice either to be mentored or coached by a particular person.or not. But for job-embedded PD, the group of teachers can choose themselves whether they want someone from their midst to facilitate (hence, the need for a guidebook for job-embedded PD facilitators.I really do need to write this, I think!), or whether they want to ask someone from the state or district or program PD system to help them. But again, the facilitator of job-embedded PD is not supposed to have all the "content" answers but rather a facilitator of the group to work together to figure out itself what it wants to do o How would we keep supervision and evaluation out of mentoring/coaching? Barkley had really solid ideas about what language to use to distinguish the two, but some of the program directors I've spoken with want it to serve both purposes. Partly, I think we just need to say over and over again that PD is PD and it is NOT supervision and evaluation. It can NEVER be both at the same time because the nature of PD itself (at least GOOD PD) is such that a teacher has to feel free to express their needs, areas of difficulty, etc., and that is the antithesis of what teachers want to do when evaluated. Keeping PD (whether it is mentoring, coaching, job-embedded, workshops, whatever) separate from supervision really hinges, I think, on the mechanism and activities of the PD. For example, peer coaching has a particular protocol for observation and feedback. The coach or observer doesn't just come in to your classroom, sit in the back and watch for any little thing you do wrong or right (that IS supervision). Peer observation requires that the coach and teacher meet beforehand, and that the TEACHER gets to tell the coach/observer what particular feature of teaching or learning s/he wants the coach to observe and collect data on. Then, there has to be actual data collected, not just subjective opinions. So, for example, a teacher might ask a coach, before the observation, to count the number of times that the students ask to have the instructions repeated (to gauge how well the teacher is delivering instructions). Or a coach might count the number of minutes that particular students are waiting for the teacher to come around and correct their work. Then, after the observation, the coach and teacher sit down and the coach describes the data s/he collected about THAT particular question, and the teacher and coach analyze it, debrief, think of options for new strategies for improvement, etc. The one thing the coach does NOT do is just say any old thing s/he thinks she saw in the person's teaching. In this way, teachers know what is being observed, they define the problem or issue, they get real data (not just opinions) about what happened in the class, and they get help thinking of alternative strategies. It also goes without saying that no report or official documentation is written for inclusion in someone's personnel file (another difference between mentoring/coaching and evaluation). o How might this work in a community college setting where there is little tradition of mentoring teachers? I haven't ever worked in a community college setting, so I'm not sure about this, but I would guess that there's as little tradition in community-based or LEA adult ed programs for mentoring OR job-embedded PD as there is in any community college. The answer is that the program/school/college leadership has to be supportive to alternative PD, and figure out how to change structures so that teachers can meet with each other and in groups. o Has anyone had experience with paying coaches and coachees? Like all PD, both the coach and the "coachee"/participant should be paid for their time, by getting paid PD release time. It's no different than any other PD: teachers should be paid for their time, facilitators/trainers/mentors/coaches should be paid for their time, including prep time to organize and plan the PD. I can't imagine that there would be any reason why coaching or mentoring should be any different than what we advocate for any other PD. (Easier said than done, but we have to keep pushing on this until all policymakers "get it"). Hope this helps. Best.Cris Cristine Smith Assistant Professor Center for International Education University of Massachusetts 285 Hills House South Amherst, MA 01003 413-545-2731 cristine at educ.umass.edu ---------------------------------------------------- National Institute for Literacy Adult Literacy Professional Development mailing list ProfessionalDevelopment at nifl.gov To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/professionaldevelopment Email delivered to cristinesmith at comcast.net Adult Literacy Professional Development List - Topic-of-the-Month http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Topic-of-the-Month Research on Professional Development and Teacher Change - Guest Discussion Archives http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Research_on_Professional_Development_ and_Teacher_Change Professional Development section of the Adult Literacy Education Wiki http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Adult_Literacy_Professional_Developme nt ---------------------------------------------------- National Institute for Literacy Adult Literacy Professional Development mailing list ProfessionalDevelopment at nifl.gov To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/professionaldevelopment Email delivered to skallenbach at worlded.org Adult Literacy Professional Development List - Topic-of-the-Month http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Topic-of-the-Month Research on Professional Development and Teacher Change - Guest Discussion Archives http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Research_on_Professional_Development_and_Teacher_Change Professional Development section of the Adult Literacy Education Wiki http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Adult_Literacy_Professional_Development ---------------------------------------------------- National Institute for Literacy Adult Literacy Professional Development mailing list ProfessionalDevelopment at nifl.gov To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/professionaldevelopment Email delivered to jhalaesl at aol.com Adult Literacy Professional Development List - Topic-of-the-Month http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Topic-of-the-Month Research on Professional Development and Teacher Change - Guest Discussion Archives http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Research_on_Professional_Development_and_Teacher_Change Professional Development section of the Adult Literacy Education Wiki http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Adult_Literacy_Professional_Development ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. 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