Gradually Learning to Let Go

This year, our whole staff is reading a book titled, Better Learning Through Structured Teaching by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey. According to Euclid's MTSS Team:

🍎First BEST Instruction is key. Meaning, deliberately planning and preparing for the Skill/Strategy being taught for the content areas. Our MTSS team last year chose to select Gradual Release as our Instructional structure for delivering lessons. Our book, Better Learning Through Structured Teaching, highlights the importance of Gradual Release of Responsibility and how to best support students.

Since this happens to also be my evaluation year, I decided that I would focus my chosen form of evaluation, an action research project, on mastering the gradual release approach expounded by authors, Fisher and Frey.  I am cordially inviting you, my blog readers, to join me on what I anticipate will be a roller coaster of a learning journey. In fact, the longer I'm in the classroom, the more I realize that there is so much more for me to learn!

Just as it's essential to plan for an actual excursion, it's equally important to plan for a learning journey. So, here's my "To-Do" List:

1) Read the book. Check 👍. 

2) Set aside an area to display my focus areas (as described in the book). 👍 

3) Begin incorporating new learnings. I have made a deliberate decision to proceed slowly as I institute this new framework into my classroom. 👍 

As I mentioned in my September post, this year my class's G.A.T.E. Universal Theme focus is CHANGE. Item numbers 1, 6, and 7 from this handout that I shared with my students really resonated with me. They highlight where I'm at in this journey.

I am going to hold myself to the high expectations that I hold my students to. High expectations are vital, but so is embracing a growth mindset. I am going to make mistakes. That's natural and expected when learning something new. I am going to try new things and try again when things go awry. But I'll get there eventually and you can keep me company along the way. 

Still learning and growing,

Lola E. Jollie