My goal is for students to collaborate, develop reading skills such as knowing when to stop in a text and why, when to ask a question, what to ask a question about, and how to make a good discussion question. I also want students to develop conversational skills and learning how to participate and actively engage in conversation with peers. I also wanted students to think about and connect what it means that different people ask questions about different things. Our perceptions and experiences of the world are different, and so we ask questions based on how we perceive situations and what we believe to be worthy of knowing more information about.
Ultimately, after planning and carrying out reading groups, I received student feedback that the groups were a lot of fun and very helpful, based on an increase in active engagement and participation in the classroom.
Active Teacher Observation, Reflection, and Improvement Notes:
The pictures shown above display my active teacher notes and reflections in the moment during a student-led lesson. On this day, students were in reading groups, reading a chapter in Unit 2: The Haunting of Hill House. Before reading groups, students read a few chapters as a whole class, shifting from following along with the audiobook to then reading aloud in a circle as a class. After the audiobook reading and reading aloud as a class, students had the option of how they wanted to read for one chapter; these options included:
1. Reading independently (self-paced with the audiobook, or on their own)
2. Reading aloud with a partner
3. Reading in a small group with the audiobook
After the choice read for this chapter, the whole class shifted into reading groups. For the reading groups, students were placed in groups based on the pace of reading that they needed. These active teacher reflections are from the first time we did reading groups in class. My active notes are a representation of:
1. Changes I’m noticing to make for next time we do reading groups
2. Conversations students are having with each other (assessing their level of understanding)
3. Questions students are thinking about
4. Where students are stopping in the text (observing for confusing points)
5. Listening for student interpretations, connections to other texts, and practicing skills we’ve developed in the previous unit (literary devices)
My Teacher Toolbox: Teaching Resources I Actively Use
