25 Days of Classrooms: Intentionality

This month I am sharing stories from
classrooms in Berwyn South District 100.

Day 7: Intentionality with Maribel Gálvez (3rd Grade Bilingual, Pershing)

 

     I'm a literacy coach, so of course I love a good reading lesson.  When I walked into Maribel's third grade room, I found myself in the middle of her reading block.  Students were reading paper books, in English and in Spanish, and using their iPads to stop and jot narrative elements, like the characters and the setting.  Students were engaged, and able to tell me exactly what they were supposed to be doing, even though I had missed the actual mini lesson.  How is that?  How were her students able to articulate the learning goals so clearly?

 

     Maribel is very intentional.  As it turns out, she not only has content and language objectives posted, but the students share them at the beginning of the lesson to the class.  They then identify the language domains that they will be practicing, and then she teaches the lesson.  The students work independently, and at the end they gather together to review the content objective and share out.  I find it impressive that Maribel uses her clarity of content objectives to reflect on the learning that happens in her classroom on an hourly basis.  Talk about reflective teaching!

     Bottom Line:  Teachers who are able to articulate the learning goals they have for their lesson before they teach it are more likely to have students hit their learning targets in an efficient manner.  Teacher clarity has a large effect size, as John Hattie would say.  :)

 

     Maribel's room is filled with intentionality that results from teacher clarity, from the TV remote they use to change the language channel, to the layout she chose for her classroom library.  If you ever get a chance to ask her why she chose to do something, please do.  Her answer is bound to be full of reflection and thought.