Reflection on full day school workshop

    The kids were off for Martin Luther King. Jr.’s birthday, but the teachers had an all-day inservice.  I was kind of look forward to it because our speakers were supposed to tell us about how Ruby Paine’s Framework for Understanding Children in Poverty  would help our kids.  Nearly half the kids in my class are on Free/Reduced lunch, so I was very interested in how I could help them to achieve better.

The people who showed up were 3 administrators from Hutchinson, KS USD 308 school district.  The proceeded to tell us about the impressive gains their district had made on No Child Left Behind’s Adequate Yearly Progress.   Over half their students live in poverty, but they pulled their students’ achievement above the ever-rising AYP proficiency bar.  It’s impressive, and I wondered how they did it.  They credited it to 5 things:

1. Ruby Paine’s program  $$$
2. Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures program $$$
   
3. Koality Kids / Quality Keys program  $$$
4. Data driven curriculum alignment and assessment analysis
5. Technology integration

They spent some bucks on the first three training programs.

They spent the rest of the day telling us about what the Ruby Paine program, Koality Kids program, and data were, but very little about how we could use it in our classroom.   I was excited to hear that they had successfully implemented Cooperative Learning and Technology integration into their district.  That’s what I wanted to hear.  Nada.

Instead we got cramped points full of lists and words too small to see.  We got a birds-eye, administrator overview. Each presentation, Koality Kids, Ruby Payne, and data, was abstract.  Each presentation had 5 minutes of sunshine that gave me an activity or graphic organizer I could use.  I could have gone without the other 55 minutes from each.  I guess it’s par for the course for full-day inservices.  I guess I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

I still would like to know more about Cooperative Learning structures, address the needs of students in poverty, and technology integration.  I guess I will still have to search for it on my own.  Do you have some good ideas for resources?  I’ll include here ones I find useful in my classroom.

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