Professional Meeting

Fourth Grade Professional Meeting

During my clinical placement at Irondale Community School, I was able to
attend a 4th grade, grade level meeting. This meeting took place the week before
ACT Aspire testing was going to occur. The teachers discussed any students
they needed to move around, basic procedural processes that must be followed,
and any other minor details that they wanted to review. Not only did the teachers
talk about the logistics of the test, but they also discussed the anticipated
struggles of their students. The teachers admitted to the fact that their classes
were not fully prepared for this test. Many of them had just begun teaching
multiplying fractions to their classes. The teachers recognized this problem, and
they were trying to teach them these concepts and skills before the test arrived.
After discussing Aspire testing, the teachers conversed about an upcoming field
trip they were going to venture on. The 4th grade is going to Oak Mountain State
Park before the school year ends, and they had to discuss the details we covered
in the field trip we had to design for our unit. The teachers discussed how many
buses they were going to need. The number of students that would be attending
the field trip, the number of teachers that would be present, and the number of
chaperones that were going to come along all impacted this decision. The
number of people that were going to be on the trip impacted the number of
school buses, because the buses had to accommodate for all of the attendees.
The teachers decided they wanted to aim to have enough chaperones where
they would not have to be in charge of a specific group of students themselves.
The teachers wanted to have the opportunity to float around and make sure

students were behaving themselves. If any problems were to arise, the teachers
would take the children causing the problems, and they would continue on with
the rest of the field trip. Once the teachers changed some of the plans, they had
to change the price of the field trip as well. Once the school talk was completed,
the teachers began discussing birthdays, baby showers, and a weight loss
competition. The conversation quickly turned from discussing educational
matters to discussing social aspects of their job and relationships.
After attending this meeting, I realized how easily a conversation could
change when participating in a grade level meeting. It is important to have
structure to the meeting and have a direction you want to take. While these
teachers discussed some matters that were important to their classroom, they did
not collaborate with one another. While this could be how the school functions, I
believe there could be a lot of collaboration taking place between these teachers.
This sharing of ideas and resources could improve student achievement, while
also keeping the teachers on track.

Professional Development
PLP Log
Dr. Haralson, Rebecca Hastings, Julia Sansom, Cadric Moulton, Lindsey Harding

Date
February
3

Chapter
s
1 and 2

February
24

3 and 4

March
18

5 and 6

Summary
Prior to meeting our first time, we decide to divide the
book into 4 sections, each consisting of 2 chapters. I led
the first meeting we had. Before we met, I thought of
questions and interesting points that stuck out at me
during the first 2 chapters. When beginning the
discussion, we were all in agreeance that the first 2
chapters were harder to read. The book began with a
slow start, because it was giving a general overview of
the text. This section introduced the idea of making
students thinking visible through engaging ways.
Throughout our conversation, we decided that teaching
in this sort of manner is challenging in our education
system today. Many times administrators want to teach
traditionally along with teaching to the test. If a teacher is
going to teach to the test, it may be more challenging for
that teacher to use strategies that encourage her
students to make their thinking visible.
Our second meeting was led by Lindsey and covered
chapters 3 and 4. Many different questions were asked,
including how we would establish routines in our
classroom. There were several different positive aspects
of routines that were discussed. Through discussion, we
can to realize that the author called these thinking
strategies routines. We found this interesting, because
it is not necessarily the natural way to think about these
strategies. When a teacher is planning her lesson, she is
going to think of strategies that she can use to enhance
the lesson and benefit the students. This book makes
the reader consider thinking of these strategies as
routines and finding ways to incorporate it into the
classroom frequently enough where it can become
routine. We also discussed which strategy was our
favorite out of this section, and we shared the impact we
believe these strategies can make in the classroom.
The third meeting was held virtually through a blog
setting. Everyone posted a question for each chapter
that was read, and we responded to all of the questions.
The format of this session allowed each of us to fully
think through what we thought about the questions and

April 20

7 and 8

share those thoughts thoroughly. We were all able to

share our thinking with one another, because we all had
to respond to each of the posts. All of the strategies that
were discussed are very helpful to a teachers
instruction. Learning these strategies now allows me to
have more insight when going into schools to teach
effective lessons.
Julia and Cadric led our final session on the last 2
chapters of the book. Our final discussion consisted of
what we have learned from this book and how we can
implement these strategies in our daily teaching. While it
may seem hard to think in this manner, these strategies
can change the way a student thinks for the better. It can
create deeper class discussion and develop a more
thorough understanding of the topic. Students are able to
think outside of the box rather than being limited to one
correct answer. Dr. Haralson asked us to sum up our
take away from the book in one sentence. While this was
a challenge for me to do, I decided to say, This book
has opened my eyes to new ways of thinking and
implementation in the classroom.

Reflection:
The book Making Thinking Visible is a book that opened my eyes to new
things and challenged the way I would want to lead instruction in my classroom. I
never considered children needing to open their minds more and think in the way
it discussed. If the book did not give specific strategies and case studies, I would
have been lost. Because the book included these detailed examples and
strategies, I am now able to see how they can be used in the classroom.
Whenever I have a class of my own and know my students personally, I want to
choose a couple of strategies to use for instruction on a regular basis in order for
it to become routine in the classroom. If they can learn how to think outside of the
box and not constrict themselves to the bare minimum, they will become better
learners without even trying. In my unit, I included the strategy See Think Wonder
to open and close one of my lessons. Not only will I use that strategy, but I will

also include the Claim Support Question strategy in my teaching, and I will also
utilize the Zoom In strategy when opening a teaching portion of another lesson. A
closure activity our students will engage in is the Think Puzzle Explore strategy.
Finally, I used a List Group Label concept sort to review all of the material we
learned throughout the unit.

BARC Linking Literature Session

In February, the Birmingham Area Reading Council held a Linking
Literature session at Vestavia Hills West. I attended this session not knowing
what I was going to get out of it, and I walked away with new insight towards
literature and a free picture book! During this session, we broke into small groups
to hear from local teachers about what they are doing in the classroom. The
break out session I went to discussed how the teacher used peer work to teach
her lessons. Instead of pulling everything she wants to teach from a textbook,
she allows her students to dictate what they are learning. When they are working
on writing pieces of literature, they have different needs than a textbook may
guess they need. She evaluates their work and allows that evaluation to
determine what lessons she needs to teach. If she sees they are struggling with
sentence structure, she knows that is something they need to focus on. This
teacher not only assesses their work and uses that information to determine what
is being taught, but she also uses previous students work as examples. If
students read writing that has been written by other students their age, they are
going to be able to understand the writing on a greater level. This teacher has

seen a lot of improvement in her students writing, because she has been
teaching intentionally.
During the whole group session, a professor from UAB shared her favorite
pieces of childrens literature that are new releases. She had all of the books on
display so we could see them in person. She showed us several pages from
each book, allowing us to see samples. Many of the books were her recent
favorites, and she read several lines from them in order to get us hooked as well.
Some of the books were fun stories, while others were great picture books to
supplement lessons. One book is intended to reach a young audience who is still
learning how to read. It gives a step-by-step instruction on how to read a book
through engaging pictures and a simple storyline. Another book had an inspiring
story that would encourage students to embrace who they are.
Overall, by the end of this conference I felt like I had acquired a lot of
knowledge about new childrens books that are out on the market that are great
to include in the classroom. It was also encouraging to participate in this event
with current teachers in the Birmingham area. There are people in our school
systems that care about what they are doing and want to make it the best it can
be for the students. Experiencing this connection was an opportunity I was able
to participate in.

PLC Reflection
Spring semester of my junior year provided the opportunity to work in a
Professional Learning Community. Having this experience opened my eyes to
what it is going to be like when actually teaching at a school and being a part of a

grade level team. As a teacher, I cannot choose who I work with; rather, that will
be chosen for me. I have to accept who I work with and learn how to
communicate effectively with each one of my colleagues. Working in a PLC gave
me a small glimpse of what that is going to look like. As a PLC, we worked on
numerous assignments and made decisions with one another. Because I did not
choose who was going to be in my PLC, I had to learn to work with peers who
function differently than me. We work on tasks in a different manner, and we
have different ideas on how to do things. Overall, we learned how to work well
with one another and complete assignments that must be accomplished. Being
assigned a PLC and having to meet numerous times over the semester opened
my eyes to tendencies about myself that I was not aware of. I learned the
different work habits that I have, and I also learned certain things that make me
tick specific ways. While I would not have chosen to work in the particular PLC I
was placed in, I was able to learn different lessons about dealing with other
people and about bettering myself.