How much do I know about dyslexia? As a regular classroom teacher, how much of a foundational understanding do I have of learning differences? What if I understood more about dyslexia? Would I support learning better, differently, and in more ways?

I added the following message to the Monday Must Knows memo for each division.

This Wednesday’s professional development will be to watch The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia.  The movie is 55 minutes in length.  The Big Picture – March 27 Google doc has been created so that we can share our thoughts and questions as we view the movie.

• VELD will meet in Conference Room A at 12:30.
• ELD and ULD will meet in the Media Center at 3:30.  Please bring your favorite chair, beanbag, etc. if you want to sit in something other than the chairs currently in the Media Center.

The complete plan for today’s PD was:

(2 min)
Introduce The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia encouraging note-taking and questioning on the provided The Big Picture – March 27 Google doc

(53 min)
Watch The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia. Add questions and thoughts to The Big Picture – March 27 Google doc

(5 min)
Learning Team closes – No time for Q&A, that is the reason for the Google doc. Please see any Learning Team member for burning questions and ideas.

We planned to have popcorn, Jr. Mints, Starbursts, and Skittles for the movie.  Often for our Wednesday afternoon professional development sessions, we reconfigure the furniture to have rows and columns of chairs.  We chose to leave the furniture as it normally is and asked everyone to bring the chair, beanbag, or cushion of their choosing.

Here’s what it looked like:

12:30 – Conference Room A – Lunch time so we left the tables

3:30 – Media Center – late afternoon so we chose our seating

Every educator and every parent should watch The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia. How do you know what to ask if you don’t know? Some of our faculty recorded thoughts, quotes, and questions publicly. Here is a copy of our Google doc back channel.  (It is a copy. I’ve removed names from the original document to share it.)

Awesome!

I’ve already had 2 requests to borrow the DVD. Teacher-learners want to watch it again.  Yay!

Tangent to this learning experience is another learning experience.  After the 3:30 meeting, several faculty spoke with me about the structure of the space and the meeting.

Could we have more meetings where we sit this way?

It felt like a family room. I loved sitting on the floor with my friends to learn.

Thinking about our Media Center and using [spaces] for faculty learning.  Teachers were everywhere in our current space.  Wonder how much more learning/understanding/collaboration might take place in a space designed for them and others…

You should send out the feedback form for this, Jill.  The feedback will be off the charts!

How deliberate are we about planning the use of our space? Do we accept what we’ve got and just go on? Do we take advantage of alternate spaces and furniture to impact learning and engagement? What actions should we take to “change it up?”