#cyberPD Week 1: DIY Literacy (Ch 1, 2 Bonus)

Week 1: Chapters 1, 2, Bonus 

I've been enjoying everyone's responses to our first section. I really love all the sketchnotes being created. I might try that next! After reading the selection for this week, I reread and found 10 quotes that struck me as especially meaningful. Here they are:

"The tool is there to help students do more, better work on their own. So we must always ask ourselves, 'Are the teaching tools I offer my kids really helping them to grow?'" (page 2)

"We are able to shift currents in our teaching when we step back, reflect upon the root issue for a student, group of students, or class, and offer a concrete, practical,visual tool to help address that bigger problem." (page 3)

"However, a chart or a bookmark keeps those strategies front and center, and allows your students to refer to and choose what will work best for them, gives students not just an understanding of the skill but a flight plan they can refer to whenever they are feeling off course." (page 5)

"Showing work via a micro-progression, or another teaching tool, is deeply rooted in practicality and the everyday, but the branches of this work reach toward the sky of big ideas and goals for kids." (page 7)

"Teaching tools create an impact on students' learning because they help students hold onto our teaching and become changed by the work in our classroom." (page 7)

"In a way, demonstration notebooks contain a collection of extreme makeovers. That is, they curate examples of work that explicitly show vast improvement (and clearly name the moves to make that improvement happen). Because this collection of demonstrations is housed inside a notebook, it is portable and easy to use when gathering small groups of students." (page 14)

"Then micro-progressions allow students to set goals, using the next level to plan and envision their future work. A micro-progression creates a visible path for your class to follow as they lift the level of their work." (page 18)

"In Getting Things Done, David Allen (2001) argues that our brains can only hold so much without some organized assistance. In fact, research shows the physical act of writing activates the part of our brains that bring desired information to the forefront, triggering us to focus and set intention (Klauser, 2001)." (page 19)

"As Meeno Rami wisely writes in Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re) Invigorate Your Teaching, 'an accomplished teacher must be connected. If we expect our students to be active, responsible and independent digital and global citizens, we need to be models for them. If we are striving to create a system where the role of the teacher is no longer the lone expert in the room but a co-learner, we need to model that for our students, as well (2014).' 
Having a trusted community of educators provides a place to go when trouble hits. We need professional friendships to get smarter and grow, but also to have a lifeline to email, text, or tweet on a Sunday night when we need three strategies for adding imagery to informational writing." (page 25-26)

"This do-it-yourself process uncovers how one actually performs a reading or writing skill and helps name the strategy in a way that is teachable to others. It helps you figure out a HOW on your own. Plus, it is rooted in real writing and reading work so the HOWs you discover will feel authentic to you." 
(page 31) 

My thoughts: I love how Kate and Maggie describe tools and the ways they can help students bridge the gap from instruction to implementing the new learning. It's really helped me reshape how I think of tools, charts, and strategies. I especially appreciate the notion that teachers would authentically engage in reading and writing and then be metacognitive about their process to figure out how to best teach students!