Debrief & Reflection

Ruby’s Lesson Study Debrief

​

Group: Ruby, Garrison and Sandy

 

Ruby’s Reflection

• The group has been helping with keeping me on task -- the flow in general went really well. The kids found each other and then entered the room on time. 

• They had no questions. Hoped they would have used the time to check in and get ready. They did go over the thumb signal. 

• Nice surprise to see how confident they were

• Willingness to work together and willingness to field questions was encouraging

  • Yesterday, Anjel took over the conversations but not so much today -- he paused and let them into the conversations. Especially with Helen. Wanted the group to have a space for them to talk about reading and navidate reading. 

• The kids have been really honest with how they have struggled with reading -- they didn’t go into self-deprecating thoughts

• The video -- was worries it seemed redundant but it was nice to see David remember that he struggled with certain words. 

• Helen was really nervous about the camera but this time she sat through it without looking bothered.

Sandy: FS 1:

• Helen has not been speaking English for very long / 2nd grade reading level and came in the middle of the year. She hasn’t been here for long. She is very shy. So the group talked a lot about what kind of platform would be comfortable for them. 

• Saw a lot of change from the first video to this. Seemed quietly confidence. Her pace was natural, her volume was audible, her expression was at point easy to identify. 

• She’s the only girl in the group with the boys. Seemed comfortable with them. 

• The idea of reading the last page together showed a lot of community and teambuilding. 

• She used the strategy with chunking (the word “Samaritan”) -- was impressed with her here because in the earlier conversation she would hold up the card rather than speaking verbally. She could share an opinion in a full sentence.

• She spoke to Ruby in Spanish after the lesson but not during -- she has a rapport with Ruby to be able to do that.

• We noticed her fluency and volume slipping a little bit -- raised questions about what was going on for her there 

• She used to lose her place often the first time

 

Garrison: FS 2   

• David -- wanted to practice not reading like a roboty

• Noticed intentional pauses during reading -- seemingly noticed that he wasn’t using enough inflection, suggests growing consciousness

• Also reflected out loud that he had improved with volume and pacing and didn’t need cue cards anymore 

• He requested a chapter book -- for an increase in difficulty -- show increased confidence!

• He enjoys the magic treehouse books

• Ruby was hesitant to invite him to the group because he reads fairly confidently -- but he still had a moment of growth

• Last year, he very rarely would take punctuation into account and this time he acknowledged the commas and paused.  

 

Sarah: FS3

• Noticed he facial expressions match meaning of the book 

• Smiled because it was funny, ownership or pride- emotional investment

• Angel: strong level of ownership, said that he had seen himself grow

• The group had practiced the line- because yesterday we didn’t do too good

  • Independent of the teacher

• When asked what he improved, “ I was reading like low, not high” meant his volume or intonation- volume concern 

• Yesterday he was hunched into the book and was hard to hear but tod

• Only a few were where he stumbled, successful

• I think I met my goal because I did not laugh today 

• Scale to 0, of being confident- transfer into their classes to read aloud when asked too

 

Discussion: 

• They all displayed a sense that this work is transferrable into their humanities class

• Celebrations: The tightknit dynamic of the group -- moment between David and Helen when Helen was struggling and David helped in Spanish

  • Them making each other feel more comfortable helps with the affective part of reading

  • The safety was evident, as was the enjoyment of what they were during the process. They appeared to be having fun and expressing pride. 

• The section where they watched the video -- they all were able to reflect on their growth

• The visual cue card ideas was a great language strategy -- it became a fading support for them. The sense of ownership is unusual for an X-block intervention.

• From an inclusion perspective, there’s often a goal that is hard to target within PBL setting -- targeting their IEP goals in a structure that doesn’t take away classroom time

• Wondering: Would this group be willing to do some previewing of text before reading it? 

  • Celebration: repeating the encounter with one familiar, student-chosen book. 

  • Connected wondering: How to now build bridges toward grade-level content?

• Consistency is clearly useful for them -- how to keep it up? Doing it again with increased level?

• Loved the conversation about the word charade, compared to the word chicken, doing word breakdown together

• Phonetics is often absent in middle school 

• With Helen -- what opportunities are there for her to supplement her learning? Hard to keep her feeling comfortable in class, teachers are worrying about her performance. 

• David and Helen are in the same class / all are learning the same content 

•  

Take-aways relevant to our own practice: 

• Sandy: Developing the joy in reading and developing fluency -- instilling a love of reading that is generated out of student engagement

• Ruby: Not being afraid to keep lessons small -- often she’s thinking about how much she can pack in. Here she felt that the level and focus might have been incredibly small. Telling herself that it’s okay to spend four lesson on something that a neurotypical student might spend one day on. It was really hard to let myself do that! 

• Garrison: Small group instruction -- how to incorporate it in a more consistent way -- the idea of building community and trust is a huge assistance. We know consistency is useful, small groups can be a support for each other, how do we build this in for all students during the day on a regular basis?

• Sarah:      Hold in mind an ambitious set of things we are to do.  How much we have to cover. Struck by the joy and how important that they could do truly well on their own.  How do we not let go of ambition, not apologize with the success of small group text. Struggling readers, who have readable text in their hand, and then being shocked at how much independence it created.  Same “We can” feeling for kinds who chronically have to figure out ways to get themselves past competence.

• We’re constantly thinking about ways to collaborate better with classroom colleagues in order to quell their anxiety of differentiation for students with dramatically different skills. We are always thinking about what we can do better -- so how can we leverage independent reading time as a moment to do leveled work. Are there ways to provide structures for everyone that serve our neurodiverse students. I was thinking a lot about socratic seminars and MUN and times where students (esp on IEPs) are expected to read a ton and synthesize grade-level texts. Are there ways to strategically make the MUN groups and then build in readings that are appropriate? I really appreciated seeing the growth of those students.    

 

 

Reflection

​

Sandy

This second lesson study experience was different from the first in so many ways.  We are more familiar with the pattern, expectations and how to obtain the desired results.  We grew more in depth with our research and it became more meaningful as support for our lesson.  We collaborated well, sharing ideas with respectful contributions. This whole process began to become meaningful.  I have learned so much from the entire process and why each step is necessary. I look forward to our next and final semester when we can develop an even deeper understanding of lesson study and the benefits of the practice.