Sunday, June 19, 2011
Chapter 11
As educators we are always searching for research based practices that work for most students. Chapter 11 explains what to look for in new practices. Page 263 list several reserach principles that are applicable for all students k-12. This past school year our school adopted the Kathy Robinson writing program. I truly believe it is a great program, but how it is set up and designed is a little overwhelming. Most of the lesson our designed around a hour writing block and our scheduled only alloted for two 45 minute writing blocks. So it became a little hard to affectively implement the program as needed. At the end of the school year we met with the 4th grade team and discussed what are the most important skills 3rd graders needed to perform well on the 4th grade writing test. I believe this will keep us more organized as a grade level next year when implementing the writing program. I also hope I have the oppurtunity next school year to sign up for some professional development courses on language arts especially in the area of writing. Although we just adopted a new writing series, I find the checklist on page 275 a great tool to have when it comes time to adopt a new program. How often our school district allowed to adopt new programs?
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In Topeka, the elementary schools seem to adopt a new series every 5-7 years. However, they don't usually adopt a straight writing series, but choose a reading series with a writing component. During the first year of the adoption, there is much professional development provided to the teachers. After this, usually it's only provided to the new teachers.
ReplyDeleteI would like to hear more about this program. I don't know how I could establish getting an hour time block in for just writing. I would probably have to implement writing into other content areas. I do believe it's good to adopt a new series every few years.
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