In my previous post, I wrote about a valuable practice in reading intruction: reading alongside the students during independent reading. Often an in-the-moment decision, reading alongside students can be used when the mood in the classroom is just perfect and joining in the reading makes more sense than disturbing students’ reading, and other times when the mood is frenetic, and modelling silent reading is more helpful to students than any other measure.
The thing is, many frameworks for observation and evaluation discourage in-the-moment decision making by teachers. The comments from colleagues on the Collaboratory (Thanks Scott & Jill!) made me realize just how important professional autonomy is, not just to me, but to most teachers–and how easily top-down policies can chip away at it. Using a blogging tip from Bill Ferriter, I created this slide.
Now, remembering Daniel Pink’s Drive: How can teachers be expected to develop mastery without autonomy?
