A faculty and staff that models life long learning for its students must continually strive to refresh and innovate their practice by engaging the larger world and continuing to take on challenges in order to think globally but act locally. At The Phillips Brooks School, we promote that engagement by offering our faculty meaningful professional growth and development opportunities. Such opportunities nurture the intellectual life of the school, encourage leadership, and spark innovative teaching, all for the benefit of PBS students.
Included here are some of the highlights of last summer’s activities that faculty initiated and brought back to their classrooms.
Summer 2009:
Margie Tully & Joyce Roby
Kindergarten & Library
Responsive Classroom
We had the opportunity to attend the Responsive Classroom Workshop in San Francisco for one week in June. The Responsive Classroom approach is exactly what we are trying to do here at PBS with our social learning program and fits together well with our constructivist approach. In a Responsive Classroom, students are given opportunities to experiment and problem solve, while teachers ask thoughtful, open-ended questions. Our children can make choices in their learning and teachers reinforce respect and caring, which makes the children feel valued. Like PBS, Responsive Classroom believes the social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum, and the greatest growth occurs through social interaction.. This training has helped us both to improve our approaches in helping our students grow in socially and academically safe environments.
In Kindergarten, the Responsive Classroom concept of “Morning Meeting” has been implemented. A full morning meeting takes place each day and goes through 4 steps; greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message. It is an important element of the Kindergarten class to help build community and create a safe place for all of the children to share and learn.
In Library, the morning message portion of morning meeting has been introduced. All of our students, ELC - 5, are greeted outside of the Library with welcome messages that invite them into the room, and give a hint about their activities in the library for that day.
Ellie Seddon & Kelly Hoy
Third Grade & Fifth Grade
Literacy Learning and The Development of Thought
We went to this wonderful workshop, Literacy Learning and The Development of Thought, in Alburquerque, New Mexico in June. The main presenter was Elin Keene, the author of Mosaic of Thought and an expert in the field of metacognition. The workshop was based on Keene’s theories of how understanding unfolds and the importance of teaching comprehension skills in a structured and sequential manner. The workshop brought us to think about the world we live in today, and how this effects the children we teach. Keene believes that we do not spend enough time nurturing what she calls “the Renaissance learner” in ourselves. We found it is important to nurture this “Renaissance learner” as all children have the potential to be great thinkers and it is our job as teachers to push them to live “intellectually engaged lives.” There was a strong focus on how to lead a successful discussion, and to get children actively engaged with their intellectual sides.
We have already implemented the activities and lessons learned at the conference. In Third Grade, the concept of using picture books as mentor texts has been introduced. Picture books have been used in mini-lessons in our writer's workshop. An example of this is When The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant, used to demonstrate a circular ending, how to begin and end a story in the same way, and how to demonstrate beautiful language to describe simple things.
An activity in place in the Fifth Grade classroom promotes a rich discussion among students. They are asked to read and discuss the lyrics of a song. Through this exercise, the children have more opportunities to interact, using increasingly sophisticated oral language with their teachers and fellow students.
Barbara DeMartinis, Jennifer Macfee, Stephanie Hubbard
Fourth Grade & Second Grades
Fountas & Pinnell Training
This past summer, the three of us teamed up to attend the Fountas and Pinnell Training Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. This training introduced us to a comprehensive reading assessment system that is directly linked to classroom instruction. The Fountas and Pinnell system provides teachers with ways to document student progress and develop reading comprehension. This system works by providing a more standardized practice, through the use of appropriate texts and instructional strategies for each grade level.
We developed a series of faculty trainings with what we learned at the conference and have been working with each of the grade level teachers. All teachers have now completed the first phase of the Fountas and Pinnell training and are ready to start their assessments. The reading assessments help to determine each student’s independent and instructional reading levels. Our teachers will use recording forms to go through assessment protocol that records information about each student’s reading accuracy, self-corrections, comprehension and fluency. This helps to guide our instruction for each student. It also helps both teachers and students find the “just right” texts for personalized, productive reading. The assessments will be conducted in the fall and spring of each year and will document reading progress across the school year as well as across grade levels.
Click here for more information on Fountas and Pinnell.
Coach Drake & Coach Jackson
Physical Education
Elementary Physical Education Workshop
We attended the Elementary Physical Education workshop at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo this summer. This week-long workshop was packed with various sessions relating to elementary Physical Education.
One of our workshops emphasized the work being done on “brain research” as it relates to physical activity and academic development. We found that one example of this is juggling. The action of juggling stimulates both the right and left sides of the brain and helps the eyes to practice tracking. Tracking is then applied academically as a major factor in learning how to read and write. This year we will be spending more time with various games and activities, like juggling, to have students using both the left and right brain.
In our general session, we heard a “message from one student,” given by a former student, Ronnie Massalyer. She spoke about her experience in school and how Physical Education positively impacted her life. Ronnie touched on the safety she felt at school and the personal attention that her teachers would give her when they recognized she was having problems outside of school. Ronnie thanked all of us for what we do and wants us to extend that message to all of our great teachers. It was a very touching message that has greatly impacted us and motivates us to continue making a difference in our students’ lives.
Tamara Dibble
Music Teacher
California ACDA Conference at ECCO
This summer I attended the California ACDA conference at ECCO. Rodney Eichenberger was the head clinician. The conference also included many interest sessions, conducting classes, voice classes and round table discussions. This was my third summer at ECCO and every time I go, I bring back resources, contacts, literature, and mentoring that inspires me and improves my teaching. Rodney Eichenberger is truly amazing to watch and work with. Here are some of his comments that I will always remember.
- Making a circle on the 2nd or 3rd beat vs. simply changing direction-slight but definite tuning problem.
- The quiet body is always the most helpful in complex meter.
- Anytime my body moves in the direction of my beat, I lose energy.
- Circles are a conductor’s best friend. Great for lift of line/text accentuation; wonderful if you get lost.
- If I want to get a forward motion, make each successive downbeat (or even each successive beat) a little higher on the plane than the previous beat. Gives shape and direction!
- If fingers are spread or parted, the sound will slip through them like sand and will be breathy.
- We always overwork ourselves when we have complicated rhythms.
- Want POWER? Don’t rebound continuing in the same direction/don’t go past each beat. It’s much stronger simply to change direction.