So, I went to hear Samantha Bennett talk about "Next Generation Workshop: Time for Students to Understand" on Saturday. The session was amazing. She helped me really think through the big understandings we want for our students. She talked about knowledge, skills/strategies and understandings. I worry that we have gotten away from planning for big understandings. I am thinking hard about what this means for the library and my own teaching. Planning for understanding is far different from planning for passing a test.
She said, "Understanding is the ability to think and act flexibly with what one know."
I have heard this quote before but she set it in a context of workshop and teaching that gave me some new thinking.
Katie at Creative Literacy was also in the session. She blogged about it earlier this week, sharing another of my favorite quotes.
"There's no such thing as the perfect lesson, the perfect day in school or the perfect teacher. For teachers and students alike, the goal is not perfection but persistence in the pursuit of understanding important things." (Tomlinson and McTighe)
Here's the best part--Seems that Laura at Pictures, Words and Wisdom read Katie's post and did her own reflecting from Bennett's talk. I SOOOO love that the 21st century tools allow this kind of connectedness and collaborative thinking.
If you have not read THAT WORKSHOP BOOK by Samantha Bennett, it is AMAZING! I plan to reread it now that I have some different ways to think about it after hearing her talk.
I've thought a lot about what all of you who heard Samantha Bennett had to say. I didn't own The Workshop Book, but it came in the mail today. Talk about great reflection!! And I'm onl in chapter one!
ReplyDeleteFranki, I think it is so neat that ya'll had her at your conference. I have really benefited from her book. I will follow your thinking with a great deal of interest.
ReplyDeleteI keep revisiting it time after time....
Barbara Coleman, Wingate, NC
I have quietly followed your blog for a long time, and am so excited to see my blog mentioned today!
ReplyDeleteThank you for all of your book reviews and thoughts. I can't wait to look at That Workshop Book.