Looking for suggestions! I am responsible for teacher PD in January. I was thinking of making 3 or 4 small workshop type classes of 30 to 45 minutes. Teachers can pick and choose which workshop they want to attend, but will be required to do at least one. My ideas consist of strategy grouping, focus lessons, barometer kids… for starters. I am looking for other ideas AND I would love to have the workshop be more interactive rather than me up in front talking the whole time. I am looking for suggestions on how to make it interactive. Thanks for any advice! 
My school just did a PD and one of the centres/stations was going through a lesson and they at one time had a discussion on many aspects of the reading program being highlighted in this PD. Maybe have a discussion on best preactices in the Daily five -with some guiding research about choice and short lessons. Then have teachers share what is working well and some challenges they are experiencing - often one teachers challenges are solved when hearing what others are doing.
another workstation could be going over some of the prompts Daily 5 uses and the paper about If this reading problem, then a teacher can…
Hope it goes well and the staff learn what is I,portent for student success.
Perhaps you could have a scavenger hunt kind of activity, where you give them a list of topics to find on the website, and allow them to work individually or with a partner to find and view videos or read articles.
Another activity I’ve done with teachers it to type all the strategies from the Menu and cut apart and mix them up ahead of time. Then, small groups of teachers sort the strategies under the 4 headings and finally compare it to a copy of the menu. This gives them lots of time to discuss the strategies.
I had the staff make their own CAFE menu with comparison of our district’s pacing guide the last PD session. It went really well. The goal was to have the teachers “see” that the menu wasn’t something more to teach, but lessons they already teach. Many went one step farther and highlighted what standards are being taught in what unit on our pacing guide. It was fantastic!
Scavenger hunt is a good idea!
I was pondering it more. An idea that I have is have the teachers partake in a Daily 5 round. I will have a mini lesson on say the importance of having a short focus lesson. Then the staff will check out to rounds. Read to self will be an article in regards to focus lessons. Listen to reading will be a video about focus lessons. Work on Writing will be working on lesson plans with focus on focus lessons. Read to Someone will be choosing any of those options with a partner. Word work - stuck - maybe just forget that one. What do you all think? Good, bad, indifferent? Any added suggestions?
If anyone has articles or videos - even outside of Daily 5 that follows research in regards to focus lessons, strategy groups/guided reading, one to one conferring, and brain breaks. I will take them! I’m starting the research now on best choices to add.
I really like your idea taking them through a Daily 5 round! Learn by doing, right? Perhaps for looking brief focus lessons, you could use one of the examples on the website that shows this for a variety of grade levels. Here’s a link to one set:
https://www.thedailycafe.com/articles/Check-for-Understanding-Grade-Level-Specific-Lessons
You could print out the lessons, or have them view them online. Having a copy of the books there to peruse would also be a good touch.
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