Stacy GH Garbos
sg1261@nova.edu
CIT 609-ol1
Special Topics in Curriculum Design I
Implementing the knowledge and skills gained through professional development is one of the final steps of completing that professional development practice-- the final step being, reflecting on the outcome after implementation and adjusting to better meet the needs of students. Below are three example of how I implemented the knowledge and skills gained through Professional Development.
LLI- Leveled Literacy Intervention training taught teachers to break-down the many components of literacy (structure, comprehension, work analysis, etc.) and teach them to students in smaller groups and on a deeper level. The students RRR leveled texts are first analyzed and data on the student's needs is collected. I have been providing LLI to a group of students for the past six months and have seen quite an improvement in their reading comprehension and fluency. For example, one student was able to grow 5 reading levels after six months. We worked on the student's fluency, his comprehension of given texts, writing about the texts, and word/vocabulary. Although these results are not typical, they are possible. Most students are able to grow 2 levels per cycle of LLI.
RRR- Reading Running Record training taught teachers to properly code and analyze student's reading in order to plan out next-steps for guided reading instruction. Provided with these tools, I was able to assess students' strengths and weaknesses and group students according to their needs. During guided reading groups, I worked toward strengthening the students' areas of concern. For example, many of the students seemed to struggle with being able to utilized the author's purpose and the type of text structure utilized by the author. Now armed with this information, I formulated essential questions and activities that assisted the students in being able to dig deeper into this aspect of the text. Now armed with a new understanding of this skill, many of the students were able to raise their reading levels and explore more complex texts.
Planned Learning Community- During our PLC's, administration and colleagues gather to learn and develop our skills as educators. During one such PLC we discussed materials and instructional methods (best practices) to be used in the classroom. We all were asked to consider and write essential questions to drive the lesson, that would fit within Domain 2 & Domain 3. Each educator shared their thinking and discussion ensued regarding-- what rose that question to the level of Domain 2 or 3, and what could elevate it if it had not reached the desired level. Following this discussion and practice I was able to create essential questions to present to my students. The questions were found to provide the desired effect; students were able to make connections previously not seen and better understand the presented lesson standards.