Facilitator Notes

 
The Clemson Virtual Professional Development Library (VPDL) for South Carolina Classroom Teachers was designed to support Professional Learning Communities (PLC). As we know, powerful learning can occur when we view teaching and analyze it together with colleagues. For this reason, suggestions for how to lead a professional development based on each module are provided. The suggestions are broken up into preparing for the session, activities to do before watching the videos with a PLC, activities to do during the viewing of the videos, and activities to do following watching the video links. These ideas are simply suggestions. We know the best ideas will come from you, the teachers in the field.

Note: Because this module is filled with so many video clips, we recommend breaking it into three to six sessions based on the genre of writing.

Preparing for the session:

• Read through the Writing Lessons and Paper Page in this module.
• Decide what you will focus on in the session.
  • We suggest focusing on one genre across all grade levels. We make this suggestion because K-2nd grade students generally need to learn similar writing strategies and techniques as they study a specific genre.
• View all the video clips that support your PLC focus.
• Print copies of various types of paper to provide to teachers after the session.

Before viewing the video clips:

• Ask participants to take notes and consider the following questions regarding the content of the lessons as they view the videos.
  • What units of study are these teachers working on with their students?
  • What new teaching points can we learn from these teachers?

During the session:

• Watch the video clips and allow participants to take notes.
• Pause after each video and allow participants to talk about what they noticed with their partner.
• After participants have had a chance to talk to their partner, share a few “aha” moments and/or questions with the whole group.

After the session:

• Ask teachers to share several things they learned from the session with their partner.
  • What three things did you learn today that will you take back to your classroom and try?
• Ask participants to jot down what they learned from the session as a ticket out the door. Use these “tickets” to assess how the session went and adjust your instruction for the next session.
• Provide teachers with copies of various types of paper to use in their units.