October 13, 2023 "Show me how to do like you!"
During my childhood, one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs described the plight of a child who longed for someone to show him how to tap into his performative genius. What could be more frustrating than knowing you could be great if only someone would demonstrate the basics? I hear a similar refrain from teachers who have been tasked with providing Structured Literacy to their students despite minimal professional development and background knowledge.
The trainings are engaging, and the handouts make great references, but I still don't know HOW to do it.
As a trainer, it is my job to meet this challenge by finding ways to equip instructors with skills and not just confidence. Ideally, any teacher learning a new pedagogy or content area should have the opportunity to shadow and co-teach with expert instructors before working independently--just like we did in college. However, with a national shortage of teachers at all experience levels, this is just not possible in our current educational climate. Like all adult learners, teachers lead complex lives, so they have come to expect PD that can easily fit their busy schedules. Hence, online courses and training videos are now the primary modes for upskilling teachers.
Creating asynchronous courses is a breeze compared to finding high-quality videos! Too often training videos are voice-overs of experts giving a summary of best practices with clips of busy classrooms in the background. It's not difficult to find videos of adults using SL techniques with children, but many feature pre-service teachers or instructors working with one or two students.
For me, the ideal training video features the every-teacher working in an authentic setting with youth who look, sound, and behave like regular kids. It should focus on one technique and be under ten minutes. Lastly, but most importantly, it should be vetted by a government agency or organization with authority in the field of Structured Literacy.
Some of my go-to sources for videos:
During my childhood, one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs described the plight of a child who longed for someone to show him how to tap into his performative genius. What could be more frustrating than knowing you could be great if only someone would demonstrate the basics? I hear a similar refrain from teachers who have been tasked with providing Structured Literacy to their students despite minimal professional development and background knowledge.
The trainings are engaging, and the handouts make great references, but I still don't know HOW to do it.
As a trainer, it is my job to meet this challenge by finding ways to equip instructors with skills and not just confidence. Ideally, any teacher learning a new pedagogy or content area should have the opportunity to shadow and co-teach with expert instructors before working independently--just like we did in college. However, with a national shortage of teachers at all experience levels, this is just not possible in our current educational climate. Like all adult learners, teachers lead complex lives, so they have come to expect PD that can easily fit their busy schedules. Hence, online courses and training videos are now the primary modes for upskilling teachers.
Creating asynchronous courses is a breeze compared to finding high-quality videos! Too often training videos are voice-overs of experts giving a summary of best practices with clips of busy classrooms in the background. It's not difficult to find videos of adults using SL techniques with children, but many feature pre-service teachers or instructors working with one or two students.
For me, the ideal training video features the every-teacher working in an authentic setting with youth who look, sound, and behave like regular kids. It should focus on one technique and be under ten minutes. Lastly, but most importantly, it should be vetted by a government agency or organization with authority in the field of Structured Literacy.
Some of my go-to sources for videos:
In late September, I was fortunate to work with FUSD teachers in support of their district's "moon shot" initiative: all students reading on grade level by 1st grade. I shared this video to demonstrate how to teach morphophonemic decoding, more commonly known as word attack. What a find!
This teacher is the G.O.A.T!!! You can find more of her brilliance here.