I posted recently (actually last year) about a book, Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov. Great book! I am excited for the school year to start because I received a grant for my school to do four book studies over the course of the 2013-2014 school year! Teach Like a Champion is one of the books along with The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners by Carol Ann Tomlinson, Now I Get It: Strategies for Building Confident and Competent Mathematicians by Susan O’Connell, and The Café Book: Engaging All Students in Daily Literacy Assessment and Instruction by Gail Boushey. You might be thinking, “Why on earth would you attempt four book studies in one year? How will you get that done with efficacy?” No need to worry! I will explain!
Our campus has some specific needs, as does any elementary campus (my baby just started crying so I will try to be brief).
1-We need more differentiated instruction, especially as we prepare our students for the STAAR test this year. Our whole campus will student The Differentiated Classroom once a month, with a different grade level leading the discussion for each chapter at our staff meetings.
2-We need more “tools” for effective teaching and classroom management, hence Teach Like a Champion. We will also use our staff meetings for this – viewing videos and short presentations on the strategies of the month that the leadership team will be looking for during walkthroughs that month (we each do 25 walkthroughs a week – principal, assistant principal, and me – the instructional coordinator). Since the book has 49 strategies, I expect we will not get through them all this year, and save some for next year!!
3-We need to build a stronger Professional Learning Community, so I will be using the last two books to create “true” book studies (everyone will be expected to read the whole book and respond). All literacy teachers will study The Café Book, and all math teachers will study Now I Get It (yes, those teachers who teach both will participate in two studies). I am creating an online environment for the teachers to discuss these books each month, and we will also meet during the week… pending my principal’s approval.
The overall goal of these campus-wide book studies is to improve student engagement and achievement by changing the way we think about our teaching. We all have room for improvement, and the best way to improve is to research best practices and learn from each other. The best part is the books were all paid for by the DeSoto Education Foundation! Thank you sooooo much!!
