{"id":65,"date":"2019-01-01T20:37:28","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T20:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/?p=65"},"modified":"2019-01-01T20:37:28","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T20:37:28","slug":"the-best-pd-ive-done-in-ages-other-than-c21-obvs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/2019\/01\/01\/the-best-pd-ive-done-in-ages-other-than-c21-obvs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best PD I’ve Done In Ages (other than C21 obvs)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every fall, I meet with my assistant head to discuss my own professional learning goals for the year. This year, I\u2019d like to shift my classroom routines and lessons to focus more on oral communication. During our discussion, I told her about a teacher I know of, Richard Smith, who took the potentially drastic step of removing desks his Grade 7 and 8 core French classroom because his focus is so high on oral communication that he doesn\u2019t feel he needs permanent desks. (He uses whiteboards around the room and clipboards for each student when they do writing activities and assessments.)<\/p>\n

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Since my school operates with a 1:1 laptop program in its middle school, which I love, I don\u2019t know that I\u2019d ever remove desks entirely, but my questions were these: What oral communication learning activities is he doing with his 7s and 8s each day? How can I incorporate some of them into my own classroom?<\/p>\n

In my chat with my assistant head, she encouraged me to plan a visit to see him teach. I\u2019d seen Richard speak at various conferences in the past; however, being able to spend time observing him directly would be even more meaningful. Richard was graciously open to having me visit for the day; however, he is in Ottawa, and I\u2019m in Toronto. Not exactly a day trip. To make this work, my husband and I booked a family trip to Ottawa one weekend in December, and we planned to stay an extra day, so I could see Richard teach.<\/p>\n

To say my day with Richard was valuable would be an enormous understatement. He was so passionate, thoughtful, and generous that I spent the whole day furiously taking pages of notes. He made sure that each lesson he taught that day was unique, so I could see as many different activities as possible. He also shared many of his resources with me (yeah for the ease of Google Drive!)<\/p>\n

Richard reminded me that I am the model for my students. They will mimic the energy for and use of French that they see.<\/p>\n

He also said to me that his goal is for 80-90% of each class to be in the target language. This was actually a relief to hear because I\u2019d seen Richard speak so many times that I\u2019d built up in my head that he was conducting all of his Grade 7 and 8 core French classes in the target language 120% of the time, and that seemed like such a mountain to climb from where I feel some days. Knowing that, even with the best teachers, there is wiggle room is comforting.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so grateful to Richard for sharing his classroom with me, and I strongly encourage you to find another teacher in your field and check out what they\u2019re doing. It\u2019s so energizing! As\u00a0Seth Godin<\/a>\u00a0 says, \u201cMost of the time, we adopt the scarcity model of pizza. \u2018I don\u2019t have that much, and if I share it with you, I won\u2019t have any left\u2026\u2019 <\/em>But in fact, the useful parts of our life are better characterized as, \u2018If I share it with you, we\u2019ll both have it.\u2019 <\/em>An idea shared is more powerful than one that\u2019s hidden.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jenn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every fall, I meet with my assistant head to discuss my own professional learning goals for the year. This year, I\u2019d like to shift my classroom routines and lessons to focus more on oral communication. During our discussion, I told her about a teacher I know of, Richard Smith, who took the potentially drastic step […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":261,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-plan","category-classroom-reflections","category-teaching-french-as-a-second-language","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/261"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jenniferbairos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}