Brain explosion!

This has been one of those brain busting weeks in this world of research, reflection, and try sometime new world.  Sooooo many "ah-ha"s!   One while talking with my principal, that I hope to return to later.  We have an action plan and some research to do, so I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch.....kinda like I did with my last post.  Because THAT post let to the biggest piece of humble pie I've had in a while. AND more changes.  Thank goodness I work with such wonderful people.

**Disclaimer** I'm using the faces of my second child in this post to help hide my red embarrassed face.**

This was how I felt last week as I was posting.....

I was all "oh, yea, I figured something out...Look at these awesome changes!"

In less than 24 hours, I had a conversation with my principal, a conversation with my team teacher, and then...watched this webinar (and the three links she refers to within the webinar):

To say, my mind was blown was an understatement.  I even read her books this summer! This was the moment, I began to feel like this..

Dang it.  I thought I was going the right way, but maybe, just maybe, I went the more complicated route. 

So, big girl britches on... I talked with my principal, talked with my co-teacher, took a minute (or 2) to myself and have reconfigured the reading block in effort to support our students on this journey to two year's growth.  

We didn't completely change everything, but it is clear that conferencing with readers has a huge impact on growth.  Growth mindset has a huge impact on growth.  Focusing students (and teachers) on one goal at a time has a huge impact on growth.  

So here's a look at our new schedule:

We have a plan for conferences, some strategies for each individual reader, and a shared outlook that we are going to take this project one week at a time.  Feeling like we could do some good...here we go!

Project update:   I'm at least feeling a pull towards one of the areas of questions I had in my questions post.  I battle with where to focus because I want to spend my effort in an area where a school's actions or a teacher's actions has the most influence.  At this point, I'm feeling like it's in the classroom.  Should I continue to focus here?  Should I go back to looking at what happens before school? Or after school? What are other similar school's doing that need to make this much growth..does it matter if our demographics are the same or different?

Crossing my fingers that we are moving in a good direction. These kids, and their success, mean the world to me.  And even though I feel like never opening a book or listening to another webinar because I don't know how much my brain (or my sleepless mind...did I mention that I'm also pregnant so sleep is rare anyway?!) can take, here's to another week of finding the best and doing what's best for kids.