The Task:
In order to meet the goals of our work together and to honor the time of each participant, you will need to bring a piece of work or dilemma from your practice that you will share in your small group.
You will need to bring six copies to distribute among the participants in your small group.
Not sure what kind of work to bring? Below are some helpful ways to think about bringing work.
- Student work that you wonder about. For example, you might be wondering about the work because it is so different from what the student usually does, or because you thought it was interesting and engaging, but the student completely missed the point of the assignment. The work might even be puzzling, or confusing to you; perhaps you wonder what others would see in the work, or what you might do next to support this student.
- The student work you bring to the table can be anything students produce: written pieces, drawings, math problems, science labs, 3dimensional structures students have built, artwork, power point presentations, journals, portfolios, videos of student presentations or performances, drafts and/or final pieces. The work can be from any grade level, any subject matter area, carried out in class or at home… In short, anything that a student has done or created will be fine.
- For this option, you need only one piece of work from a single student. While you may want to bring the assignment or prompt, it is not necessary.
- Please remove the student’s name from the work, and, if you have made comments or corrections to the work, do your best to white them out.
- Teacher work that you have created that you would like to revise. For example, you might want to revise a unit or project or lesion or assessment because some of the students did not meet your expectations, or because a certain group of students consistently falls short in this subject area or on this type of assignment. Perhaps you wonder why some of the students didn’t seem adequately prepared, or why some didn’t seem to understand the assignment itself, or why your assessment criteria didn’t match the work the students produced. You might find yourself asking questions similar to these below
- A handful of students don’t get really engaged in this particular assignment. How could I improve the assignment so that it works for all students?
- All students completed this final math exam, but their performance was spotty, and now I’m not sure their work really tells me what I need to know about their learning. How might I revise this assessment?
- For this option, you should bring a copy of the assignment and the assessment criteria/rubric you used, as well as a piece of student work that illustrates your concern.
- Leadership work that you have created and around which you are looking for feedback. This might be an action or improvement plan, a letter you’re thinking about writing to parents or staff, a survey. What is the work you produce in your role as school or teacher leader that you know would benefit from the perspective of others?
- A dilemma you may be facing in your practice. Dilemmas are puzzles, issues that raise questions, ideas that have conceptual gaps, something about process or product that you just can’t figure out. By their very nature, dilemmas usually contain some tension. Some examples of dilemmas include: In an era of standardized testing, how do I measure what matters? What is the value of play in the first grade classroom? How do I design hands-on projects that are intellectually rigorous while tapping different ways of demonstrating knowledge?
Questions that are helpful to consider when framing dilemmas include:
- Why is this a dilemma for me? Why is it important?
- If I could take a snapshot of this dilemma, what would others see (and what artifacts could I bring to help them see it, e.g., samples of student work or teacher work)?
- Whose practice do I hope changes? [If your answer is not “yours,” you’ll need to change your focus. You will want to present a dilemma that is about your practice, behaviors and beliefs, and not someone else’s.]
A Final Thought:
As you decide what work to bring, please keep in mind that it should be something around which you have a genuine question or concern. The work should not be a “show piece” effort. While it can be wonderful to share our student’s outstanding achievements (and our own), often there is more to be learned from sharing what didn’t work, what fell flat, or what stumps us. To do our best learning for the students under our stewardship, we need to bring to the table that which comes from our wonderings and confusions, from our failed efforts and uncomfortable dilemmas.
