Reflection on my time with Samantha Bennett

Well, it's been almost a week since Samantha Bennett visited Dublin, and my classroom. I feel like I've had enough time to decompress, and now it's time to write about my big take-aways from the time I spent with Samantha.

First of all, if you've never seen Samantha in person, she is truly a delight. She is this small bundle of energy who wears the most fun clothes and best accessories I've ever seen. From the moment we met at a dinner last Thursday night until our final day on Saturday, I couldn't wait to see what she was wearing each day. Samantha never disappointed!

But my time with Samantha actually started several months before when one of the board members of the Literacy Connection here in Central Ohio asked if it would be ok to use my classroom as one of the demonstration classrooms when the visiting author they sponsored came to town. I said sure, no problem, relying on years of past experience when authors like Ralph Fletcher, Georgia Heard, and Lester Laminack came to town and did demonstration lessons in writing workshops. Our writing workshop has been humming along, full of activity this year, so having a guest come in to teach should not be a problem.

Turns out I had gotten the story backward. Yes, Samantha would be in my classroom, but she would be there to observe our workshop, how it works, and what transpires during that time with a focus on the structures, rituals, routines, and systems of our workshop. Gasp! If Samantha is there as an observer, I guess that meant I would be the teacher.

Another piece of the story is that the workshop would be on a live video feed broadcast for participants to see (I think there were somewhere around 70 people there on the actual day). Because all these educators didn't know me, my students, or the structures of our classroom, Samantha asked me to write a letter to them that would include my core beliefs, what guides my instruction, what had happened in our reading workshop prior to this observation, what would be happening in workshop that day, where we were heading after that, and what were some pressing questions I had "that kept me up at night."

I thought about this assignment, typed up a rough draft of my thinking, and sent it Samantha's way. The moment I received my reply from her, I realized Samantha was a coach who would not let me "settle" for anything but my best effort, and she would be pushing my thinking in many areas. I had to re-reflect about the questions listed above, and totally revise my first draft. What happened is something I am very proud of -- a 7 page letter that really got to the heart and soul of my belief system. It was tough work, but it really clarified what is important to me as an educator and to the students who are learners in our classroom. Through coaching, Samantha helped me get to this final product.

Last Friday was the actual day that Samantha came into our classroom and labeled what she saw, and why those things were important. Before she came upstairs, however, she very clearly identified observation skills that the other educators were to use as they watched our classroom. She told them they weren't allowed to "gush" -- it was not to be about how great the lesson was, or how on-task the students were, or how terrific the read aloud was. Instead, they had to label what they saw -- Karen read 14 Cows for America during a mini-lesson on meta-cognition. Then, they had to identify why that had meaning. See what I mean about her being a great coach?! That's a fabulous protocol for all observations we participate in; it protects the teacher and more importantly, forces the observer to dig in deeper to the reasons we make the educational decisions we do.

I'm not going to bore you with all the details of Samantha's time in my classroom, but I will say that my classroom was full of people -- in addition to my students, me, and Samantha, there were also 10 - 15 observers from the group that got to come in for a "close up" view of our classroom, along with the camera person. After the coaching Samantha had done about being respectful, not talking during the lesson, and really working on labeling and thinking about the "why", all those visitors were almost invisible to both my students and me. It was a good workshop, full of the things we do on a normal basis: mini-lesson, independent work time when students are reading books of choice while I confer with individuals or meet with strategy groups to work on specific skills, and debrief. Our 55 minutes flew by!!

When we went downstairs, Samantha then guided the group through a debrief of the workshop they had just seen. During this time, each table was identifying what they saw during the reading workshop, and talking about its importance and its reason. My assignment from Samantha was to go from table to table listening to all these people talk about our reading workshop. It was a very humbling experience. No one gushed, but as they focused on the things they noticed, and why they were important, I was surprised by the depth of things they noticed going on in our classroom. After about ten minutes of eavesdropping on these conversations, I then had to stand in front of the group and share whether their comments accurately reflected what I had actually experienced.

I feel incredibly grateful to have met Samantha, to have her "nudge" me as a coach to share my thinking in a more clear and precise way, to have so many respectful educators label what they saw in my classroom, to have agreed to put make my learning public in a way that definitely helped my learning and hopefully helped someone else as well. More importantly, I realize that we can't do this big thinking alone; to use a quote from one of Samantha's core beliefs, "We are smarter together." We also need to build the all important TIME into our schedules to have these big conversations about why we do what we do in workshop, and to also plan in thoughtful, meaningful ways.

For more on Samantha's visit, check out:

Franki's Top 10 favorite Samantha Bennett quotes (wish I had thought of this!)

Mandy's reflection about the workshop

Katie's reflections about Samantha and sharing her workshop with others (wish I coud get to the point as quickly as Katie does!)

A Reflection as a Parent and a Teacher

A Problem

My youngest daughter, a senior in high school, recently brought home an “F” on a semester exam. She carries a cum well above 3.8, and her quizzes and tests in this class had all been A’s or B’s. That all changed when she took the semester exam, which was supposed to be a common assessment for the three high schools in our district based on state standards.

My first reaction when talking with her was a very normal, “What happened??!!” After a lengthy conversation, I discovered that half of her class failed this exam, also. That certainly doesn’t justify her bad grade, but it made me wonder how well this teacher really knew his students, including my daughter.

Being a teacher, I continued to ponder this situation for days and weeks – how can a teacher be at the end of a semester and just find out that the students’ learning was not where it needed to be? In my reflections, I realized that this is not an issue that my daughter’s teacher has alone. I can think of several colleagues, as well as myself, through the years, that were surprised at the end of a quarter by how low a student performed on an assessment

There has to be a better way to gauge a student’s growth.



A Solution

When I thought of a possible solution, it came to me in phrases. One word – workshop. Another word – conferring. Two more words – strategy groups. Two more words – ongoing assessment.

In my school district, we have a literacy workshop model. This is the structure through which literacy instruction happens on a daily basis. In broad terms, I think of it in 3 parts: 1) the focus lesson, 2) the “work”shop, and 3) sharing. The second part of the model is where I’d like to focus for the purposes of my problem.

During the workshop time, while the students are engaged in a book or writing piece of their choice, or a book club discussion, or doing partner reading/writing, I am quite busy as well. This is the time I check my students’ progress, and see where they are as readers or writers.

One of the ways I stay current with my students is individually conferring with each of them. Sometimes the conference is just a way of “checking in” to see how they are doing. Other times, my conference has a specific purpose based on what I’ve observed before, This conference is a great one-on-one opportunity to check on students’ learning, and to help guide them to the next level.

A key to all my progress monitoring of students is ongoing assessment. Rather it’s administering and interpreting DRAs (Developmental Reading Assessments), OR observing reading and writing behaviors, OR taking a reading/writing status of the class to see where each child is in his/her book or own writing, OR grading a quick check assessment of a strategy to see who understood the comprehension strategy we worked on and who still needs some more support, OR observing students in our read alouds and whole group lessons, I continually gather information about each individual student. This information is what then guides my instruction.

If, through my ongoing assessment, I discover that multiple students are having the same misunderstandings in reading or writing, I utilize my time as wisely as possible, and form strategy groups for additional focused instruction. A small group of students can usually grasp a concept easier than they did when it was presented whole group. This is a time for them to have my attention, and it allows them to really focus on the learning at hand.



I don’t know if my solution would have changed my daughter’s exam grade or not, but I strongly believe in this workshop model. I believe that it is what is in the best interest of our students. It helps both the student and the teacher gauge growth, and if the growth isn’t happening, we, as teachers, can step in and intervene immediately. Not at the end of the semester.