Unveiling Your SuperHero Skills: Concious Competence

About a month ago in a protocol training an "aha" moment occurred for me. I had been thinking a lot about observations and conversations I had with several people. In every conversation and observation it is clear that the teacher knows where the students are, what they need to know to get there and what the plan is to get them there. Where the progress was happening most was when the student was made as equally aware of their own understanding, what strategies they need to use effectively to grow as learners, and had a goal or plan to move their own learning forward.

In the protocol training, the facilitator, Thomas VanSoelen, used a very simple protocol "Say, Say, Do" to help us build community. What was noted that after every round (each round becoming more difficult) we had to reflect and then identify the strategy(ies) we used to keep up with the facilitator's commands. The stop, reflect, identify, and share was similar to what I had observed where students were making the most progress. I couldn't really wrap my head around what it was, so I brought my wonderings to Thomas. It was there he explained the concept of Concious Competence.

Outside of the world of education it is desired that your learning or competence moves to the point of unconsious competence. What I was seeing and Thomas helped me to put into words was that in the world of education we are most powerful when we are purposefully taking what we do unconsciously with our competence and outwardly share... making where students are, what they need to know to get there and the plan/goal concisouly competent. Make what you know inwardly and make it known outwardly. It makes every move we make to push our student growth verbal/written at a point for student consumption and application.

In the next few weeks before the holiday and when we return and begin MOY assessments there are approximately eight weeks. That is about the same amount of time students have for summer break. One of the ways we can continue to be powerful in those weeks is when we are working with students both in small group and whole group instruction using techniques to share our knowledge in a way that students take that and apply to their own learning. These consciously competent conversations with a student or students can also be considered closely aligned wtih the cycle of intentional feedback (cycle indicating ongoing and provides for two-way communication).

During concsciously competent conversations are opportunities for specific and intentional goals to be set with our students. We know that when moving students from one reading level to the next, how that is done is as unique as the learner themselves. Those goals are also not just Reading specific, but can be cross curricular. When a student is aware of how a reading goal can be focused on in Science or Math or Writing, they support their own goal. When a team can see how a reading goal can be impacted in another content area, we are helping that student fortify their skills through out a day's instruction and capitalize on opportunity for exponential growth.

Recently at another campus there were charts shared focused on goals specific to certain DRA levels. It was a great tool to create more specificity with our readers and their goals that moved beyond them progressing to the next level. (Pictured below)

 As we close in on these next few weeks, and look toward our MOY goals for these kiddos how could the above goal starters help us to better identify individual goals, shared with our students, that can move our kiddos forward? How can we lean in and be concisously competent with our students in a powerful way that moves us forward in the next 8 weeks instead of mirroring the summer slide with a winter windfall?

What do we mean when we say...

Often in education a word or phrase becomes more something we say than what we do with fidelity. When that happens, especially with practices that are research proven methods that yield success, it is worth a revisit. This could be true of our conversations of student discourse before our professional development afternoon in January and the support for deeper planning for discourse with our ICLE coach.

Another word or phrase that often is used loosely, but needs to be tight in implementation is "small groups."

Small groups, as defined in the research article "Small Group Reading Instruction: Lessons from the Field," states that small group literacy lessons are "learning experiences for small groups of children that are designed to focus on reading, writing, listening, or speaking skills."

While that definition is very broad in nature, how and what we do is a very specific and successful instructional approach when done with fidelity. Jennifer Serravallo, with Heinemann Publishing (also the publisher of our Lucy Calkin's books) has a great YouTube Series on this topic. Here is the introductory video that will take you through several video series anywhere from approximately 2 to 6 minutes that address everything from strategies to teach in small group to how to schedule and meet with all your small groups with frequency.

This is a great way to review and reflect on your own practice, determine what you are strong in your implementation/practice and what may be areas you would want more support. Another resource that offers great ideas on how to schedule your small groups is through the RTI Action Network website. On that website is an excellent article/guide on "Scheduling Challenges: Tiered Reading Intervention." While this article is addressing RTI with small groups as an intervention, the scheduling suggestions it offers are some great examples that may be beneficial to the struggle many of you find with getting to your small groups.

As we move forward in our practice, going from adding meaning and depth, to the practices we are doing both in word and deed, I challenge each of you. As our students needs and range of supports become more vast we will need to explore "out of the box" approaches. Considerations will be given to options such as flexible grouping in each grade. This will require us to be transparent with one another, know our own strengths, know our own areas of need, and, of course, trust one another with each other's students. As individuals and as teams, determine the following:

*What are each of our strengths?

*What are each or our areas of need?

*What do each of us need in the way of training/support as we look ahead, both immediate and this summer at Engage?

*Where could support from our instructional literacy or math coach help us to tighten our practice with small groups and/or targeting skills in literacy and math?

Make a list for yourself and with your team. Make a plan. Be bold in owning what you know and what you need to know. Make a commitment to know when you say "small groups" or "student discourse" or any other educational practice you do it with action and understanding.

Together we can do this!!!