Teaching & Learning Alliance-Supporting Academic Leaders and Coaches

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Through a dynamic partnership model, we support the development of exemplary educators, visionary school leaders, and high-achieving students.

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We are the partner to help you lead through instructional change.

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Coaches are the catalyst for change in our classrooms.

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Good teaching has the greatest impact on student learning outcomes.

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@teachlearnorg Instagram Feed

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May 4

💙 From all of us at TLA, we are so grateful for you. Teachers - you are resilient, remarkable and read-aloud enthusiasts. This week especially we are thinking of you and thankful for you. 💙

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Apr 28

📍Orthographic Mapping is a fancy term that describes a process for helping kids store words into their long-term memory.

♻️This three step process:

1. 🤚 Tap it (tap out the invdividual sounds)
2. 🔴Map it (use Elkonin boxes and move counters according to the sound phonemes)
3. ✏️Graph it (Write the corresponding letters (graphemes) for each sound)

is one that you can add into your whole group or small group instruction to support students learning of regular and irregular words. 😊

Are you familiar with orthographic mapping? How do you use it in your classroom? 🏫

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Apr 15

💙Thank you Thursday. Today we’d like to highlight Jennifer Serravallo. Her work has impacted so many classrooms over the past few years, but especially as she worked responsively this year to publish a book for teachers in the midst of a pandemic all about connecting with students online! 💻

📚Thank you @jenniferserravallo , for inviting us into your learning and leading us to be responsive teachers of reading and writing in the process. 📝

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Apr 14

📊This simple chart has been one we’ve used multiple times already to highlight the importance of authentic decodable texts as a part of classroom instruction and students independent reading. 📚

✅Have you checked out this the book “Shifting the Balance” yet? We just wrote a short blog post explaining how it is organized, summarizing a few key take aways, and offering our recommendation! 💙

(Spoiler alert 🚨: Get a copy!)

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Apr 6

💙Today we'd like to highlight this incredible new film: Reflecting on Anti-bias Education in Action: The Early Years.

🎥The film shifts the focus away from the talking heads of experts and on to the voices of teachers committed to equity and diversity on a daily basis.

🎞By taking viewers into diverse early childhood classrooms, the film seeks to demonstrate the importance of teacher reflection on identity, context, and practice in anti-bias education and provides a much-needed resource for teacher education and professional development.

Check it out! Link in Bio. 📝

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Apr 2

We are so thrilled to be reading this book. 📘 The @thesixshifts by @janburkins and @kidcenteredclassrooms.

Already we’ve read the introduction and are both challenged and encouraged. We can’t wait to learn more.

What are you currently reading ?

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Apr 1

💙Thank you Thursday. Today we’d like to honor Donalyn Miller and her work around fostering a love of reading in all students.

📚We have been fans of her work ever since reading Book Whisperer. 📘Her ability to match texts to students so that it sparks in them a joy and curiosity is inspiring.

💪🏿Her latest @scholasticinc book Game Changer reminds us that reading is a culture and teachers and school leaders can and should create a culture around access and choice and representation.

🤚Thank you @donalynm for being a voice for reading instruction that informs the mind and connects to the heart. We are better for it.

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Mar 31

✍️Today is Writing Wednesday! This chart reminds of us of the importance of writing notebooks in kids lives. Writing is VULNERABLE! And often students are a little apprehensive, to try new things on a draft because they want it to be just right. 📝

📘Writer’s Notebooks are a safe space to:

1. 💙Captures thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, ideas that are not related to mini lessons or “academics”
2. 💭Generate ideas that could become longer, later.
3. 🧠Try out new writing techniques before trying it in a draft of a piece.

Do you use writing notebooks in your classroom? What ways have you seen them used?🙋🏽‍♀️

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Mar 30

🙋🏽‍♀️Teacher Tip Tuesday: Today we are sharing tips for making your mini-lessons short, explicit & robust from Jen Yaeger. Here are a few:

🩳Short: Remember teaching points are often “tips of the day” not assignments for all to do. Teach just ONE thing!
🔮Explicit: Ask yourself: What am I teaching and how will the students do this?
💪🏿Robust: What you have to say matters! Every time you do the writing alongside your students you grow and so do they!

💙What would you add to the list?

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Mar 24

✍️Writing Wednesday. Today we bring you simple but powerful reminders on the types of mini lessons. Most of us are familiar with I do, We do, You do. But there are other kinds of mini lessons to add to your toolkit. 🧰

1. BootCamp Lessons ♻️: In Writers Workshop go through the whole writing process in just one lesson.
2. Inquiry Lessons 💭: Take a look at a mentor text. Notice and name what the author is doing and try to apply it to your own writing.
3. Self Assessment🔎: Using a checklist or writing progression, go through your writing with a specific lens and set goals.

Which of these lessons will you be trying this week? 💙

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Mar 8

🙋🏽‍♀️Happy International Women’s Day & Mentor Text Monday. 📖

📘That Book Woman by Heather Henson is a powerful picture book that highlights the remarkable story of the “pack horse librarians” of Appalachia. ⛰

We love using this text to showcase the history of how women have gone to incredible lengths to resources children with the joy and gift of reading. The story is powerful, and the uses for this text are varied.

The stickies on the front show how you could use the text for :

📘Reading Mini Lessons
📝Writing Mini Lesson
🔤Vocabulary & Language
✍️Mentor Sentences

➡️If you swipe right, you’ll see our sticky notes that can be adapted for an Interactive Read Aloud. 📕So as you are celebrating the women in the world and in your world today, we invite you to grab this story and see where it takes you! 💙

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Mar 3

🖼Virtual Gallery Walks are a great way to launch a unit, introduce a big theme or topic, and provide opportunities for students to explore and discuss new ideas together.

👩🏽‍🎓A fourth grade class was beginning a unit on the Underground Railroad. We used a simple Jamboard to set up the stations included some illustrations, maps and original source documents.

Students were but into break out rooms and used a simple protocol to discuss:

1. What do you notice? 👓
2. What does it make you think? 💭
3. What does it make your wonder? 🤔

⭕️Students rotated through a few stations as the class time allowed and then came back to the whole group to share the experience.

✅Have you used Gallery Walks this year?

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Mar 2

👩🏽‍🏫Today is TeachingTip Tuesday! We are discussing a framework of the various ways to lift the rigor of your teaching. As you adjust the rigor of one component, consider the scaffolds you will need in the others. 🧮

First, here are several components of a lesson:

📘The text : Consider the text complexity -not just the level, but the language, the themes and ideas.

💭The thinking: Consider the ways you ask students to grapple with their learning. Are they doing the bulk of the work or are you?

✍️The task: Consider how students are engaging with the content. Are they using tech?

🗣The talk: Consider how students use language to support and extend their thinking.

✅Now, as the text is increasingly more challenging, consider adding more sentence stems to the talk to support students. As the thinking you are asking them to explore is sophisticated, consider keeping the task simple to start.

Let us know how this framework supports you in your teaching and learning. 💙

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Feb 25

🙏🏽Thank you Thursday! Today we’d like to shout out Jacqueline Woodson and her books. Her use of poetry to write long form is captivating and draws in students who might not think of themselves as readers.

📖If you don’t know these titles, we recommend grabbing them at your local bookstore or checking them out at the library:

💙Each Kindness
🏡The Other Side
👧🏽Brown Girl Dreaming
📖And her newest book , Before the Ever After published by @penguinrandomhouse

Thank you Jacqueline for using your words to shape our imaginations, cause us to reflect and inspire our actions.💙

@jacqueline_woodson

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Feb 24

📝It’s Writing Wednesday! This is a simple idea for shared writing experience that could be adapted for littles up to adolescents (and adults!)😎

1. Share a powerful short video. (We used the Pandas in DC Zoo sledding)🐼
2. Students respond with one word. They may write it on a sticky note or shared class Jamboard 📒
3. Play with the words to create a class poem. Read & Enjoy together 📖

This could be adapted for whole group or small group instruction. It’s a great way to introduce a new topic to students, build share understanding and create collaborative culture. 💙

✅ How would you use this idea with your students?

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Feb 23

🖤As we are teaching & learning during Black History Month, our students are combining great literary analysis skills in both reading and writing. 📚

📝This simple template was used with students to help them write a short essay highlighting the character traits using evidence from the texts they were reading.

✅An introduction explains how the person made a difference in the world

💙The thesis is the heart of the essay with two supporting paragraphs unpacking the evidence to support that claim.

🌍The conclusion allows the student to reflect on their study of the person impacted not just the world, but their own worldview.

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Feb 19

It’s Phonics Friday! 🔤While many of us are facing snow ❄️ and indoors even more than usual, we were reminded of a quick activity that you can adapt for any phonemic awareness or phonics skill you are hoping to reinforce with students.

🕵🏾‍♀️Scavenger Hunts are a huge hit with pre-k, k & 1 students. 👏🏿

✅What you’ll need: sticky notes & pen. Kids don’t have sticky notes at home? They could just place the paper near the item.

👓What you can find: Initial sounds, ending sounds, middle sounds, digraphs, blends, the possibilities are endless.

Swipe ➡️ to see if you can figure out what begins with B. 🅱️

Happy Hunting! 💙

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Feb 18

🙏🏽Thank you Thursday! Today we’d like to shout out Cornelius Minors and his work. He has helped us grow in creating a classroom culture that starts with teachers listening and seeing our students for who they are really are. 👓

💥His @heinemannpub book “We got This” is a must read for teachers! You could also check out his interview with @officialascd around equitable human centered grading. It is 🔥

Thank you Cornelius for the way you always honor the work of those who’ve gone before you and in so doing bring us along with you as we grow.💙

@corneliusminor

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Feb 17

🗓Today is #Randomactsofkindness Day. 💙 In the midst of all the heavy and hard we are all facing, we are reminded of the great quote Dr. Dyer in Palacio’s Wonder.🚀

“When given the choice between being right and being kind. Choose kind.” ☺️

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Feb 16