The instructional coaches in Wood Dale District 7 continue to support teachers in developing their UbD (Understanding by Design) units. Recently, the coaches supported the 7th grade Language Arts team as they completed Stages 2 and 3 of their units. The teachers worked to incorporate both summative and formative assessments, informational text and literature, and strategies to address word analysis and grammar instruction into their units. Throughout the day, the team continually reflected on how the new Common Core Standards were addressed in each unit. The day concluded with discussion and research for their final unit entitled "Survival".
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The website www.instagrok.com is one of our new favorites for helping kids research. Your students can search a topic and instead of giving them a list of websites, the site creates a semantic map with the search word in the middle. Other words to describe the topic are then linked to the center circle. On the right-hand side of the website, your students can browse facts, websites, images and videos all related to the topic in the center of your semantic map. If students want to find out more about one of the related terms in the semantic map, they can simply click on the new topic and it reconfigures the map placing the new topic in the middle. The facts, websites, images and videos change to represent the new search topic.
And it gets even better…At the top of the page, students can use a scroll bar to adjust the readability of the resources that come up when searching a topic. On the bottom left-hand side of the page, a glossary is provided for students to find definitions of unknown words related to the search topic. If desired, students can create a free log-in, take notes from the sources provided and save them in a personal account. You have to check out this website! You will be amazed at all that this resource has to offer. As always, the coaches would love to come into your classroom and share this resource with you and your students. The Instructional Coaches of Wood Dale attended the annual IRC (Illinois Reading Council) Conference. The IRC Conference brought in literacy advocates, educators, and researchers for the 45th annual year. The coaches attended various sessions that were crucial to continuing ahead with implementing Wood Dale District #7’s curriculum. Some of the relevant topics the coaches participated in included discipline literacy and ways to incorporate text dependent questions, implementation of a systematic approach to assessing reading levels of students, incorporation of inquiry into literacy units, background on the development of the upcoming NGSS, and integration of WIDA into a lesson study plan. The Wood Dale coaches are looking forward to sharing what they have learned with all Wood Dale staff members. Instructional coaches supported WD 7 1st grade during their PD day. The team splits up their time between the LA team and the math team. In the morning, the LA team worked on integrating the titles of newly arrived books into their UbD units. The LA team also discussed questions about the upcoming New Generation Science Standards and how they integrate into their current LA UbD units. As the day progressed, the afternoon Math team decided to focus on coding their UbD units with Transfer, Meaning, and Acquisition, Social and Emotional Learning Standards, and 21st Century Learning Skills. They also decided to create assessments for their upcoming units and integrating their math units with manipulatives to focus on teaching WD 7 students’ conceptual understanding of math content. Finally, our SEM staff supported the team by integrating their enrichment plans to each of the units and suggesting resources for their assessments.
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AuthorWe are instructional coaches working in District 7, Wood Dale, Illinois. We work with teachers in grades PreK-8 to help teachers build their own capacity for curriculum development and instruction. Archives
March 2015
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