Leading Through Learning. Learning Through Leading.

October 23, 2014

In this blog post Mills Teacher Scholar Executive Director Carrie Wilson describes how teacher leaders build their instructional leadership capacity at the Teacher Scholar Leader Network sessions, a cross-district network of  teacher scholar leaders from partner sites. Each of these teacher leaders is facilitating, or co-facilitating with Mills Teacher Scholar staff, a cross-grade inquiry group at their site. On a sunny Saturday afternoon in October, twenty Bay Area teacher scholar leaders are seated in a large circle with their heads cocked, leaning into the center of the room. They are on their second listening of an audio recording of third graders in a bilingual classroom discussing what they know about the sun and the moon. These are veteran teacher scholars who, after just a single listening, can skillfully pull out nuances of what each child contributes in the partner conversation. They note the student’s knowledge of the symbolism of color, the informal register that allows for the expression of unformed ideas, the way the conversation begins as a narrative and shifts to expository talk, and the students’ ability to connect personal experiences with scientific concepts. As the teacher leaders share what they notice after the first listening, Mills Teacher Scholars staff documents what the teachers gleaned from the data. The documentation quickly reaches two pages, but is only the first step of the process. As they sit in the circle and listen to the audio data for a second time, the teacher leaders are not simply listening to learn about students, but they are listening with the intention of learning how to lead their colleagues to listen to data in a similar way. The questions that guide their work in the Mills Teacher Scholars Leader Network are: How, as teacher leaders, can we use data to help our colleagues to more deeply understand the learning goals they have for their students and also understand how individual students think in relation to each goal? What is involved in leading adults’ learning about their students’ learning?

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School Sites Focus Topics on Common Core State Standards Related Competencies

October 27, 2013

 Academic discussions. Grappling with complex text. Supporting ideas with claims and evidence. These are key concepts  in the age of the CCSS and each of our school site partners have chosen one of these areas as a focal point for their classroom-based inquiries. MTS school site participants will have complementary inquiries that support the larger umbrella topic and deepen the staff's understanding of student learning within a particular area.

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Powerful Impact: Restorative Justice + Teacher-led Inquiry

April 4, 2013

Mills Teacher Scholar, Dana Sudduth, has been teaching in Oakland for over 20 years, and many Oakland students have learned strong reading skills thanks to her excellent teaching. This year, she was asked to apply her understanding of reading to a group of students at Montera Middle School. These were students who, as Dana wrote in one of her Mills Teacher Scholars reflections, “were chosen for this class because of low test scores. They consist of mostly African American and Latino students.”

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Gratitude

December 20, 2012

We are grateful to the private foundations and public school districts that fund our work to make schools vibrant learning places for teachers so that they, in turn, may provide improved learning opportunities for...

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Teachers’ Quest for Powerful Real-Time Data

December 20, 2012

  by Carrie Wilson “What does a successful science journal look like in second grade?” “What do I hope this partner reading conversation sounds like?” “What data would indicate that my students have really internalized the science concept we are studying?” These are the kinds of questions that our teacher scholars grapple with in their collaborative Mills Teacher Scholars work sessions. On the surface, these questions may seem straightforward. But in practice, seeking thoughtful answers to questions about student understanding of content involves delving in to messy issues. Perhaps the most common struggle our teachers scholars face is teasing apart evidence of student understanding from evidence of a student’s ability to follow directions. Upon looking closely and reflecting with colleagues teachers discover that a well scaffolded assignment  may yield more data about students’ ability to follow directions than about their understanding of the key concepts. So how can we figure out what students really understand?

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Teacher Scholars Spotlight: Student-Generated Rubrics

October 10, 2012

Nessa Mahmoudi is beginning her second year as a Mills Teacher Scholar. This year she is a part of the MTS school site group at Melrose Leadership Academy, a dual immersion school in East Oakland. Last year she, along with five colleagues from Melrose Leadership Academy (MLA), participated in the Scholars Group, composed of teams of teachers from different schools. In writing about her inquiry, Nessa writes, “Last year, in my second grade classroom, I had the opportunity to investigate an inquiry question with the support of the Mills Teacher Scholars group. My inquiry focused on the development of student-generated rubrics, self-assessment and reflection on learning. I looked at four students to see how this work in the classroom affected their view of themselves as learners and their motivation and persistence in the classroom.”

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School-Site Spotlight: Roosevelt Elementary

October 10, 2012

Our first Mills Teacher Scholars School-site partner, Roosevelt Elementary School, has just begun its fourth year of work with our program. Roosevelt teachers recently gathered for their initial meeting, facilitated by their amazing teacher scholar leaders (Cynthia Epps, Wendy Papciak, and Kenny Moy) who are adapting meeting agendas to respond to the specific feedback from their colleagues around how the inquiry work could best suit their professional development goals. Twelve Roosevelt teachers—70% of the staff—self-selected to join the Roosevelt Mills Teacher Scholars group this year.

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