Jill Gough

Summer Reading 2013 – Flyer and Choices

How do we model learner choice? We know student-learners need and deserve differentiated learning opportunities.  Don’t all learners?

Last year, the teaching faculty read Cathy Davidson’s Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, and the administrative faculty and staff read Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?. I read both.  Well…I listened to both as I ran using audiobooks and my phone.  After each run, I would annotate my notes into a physical book or my Kindle. To be clear, I read them by listening to the author read while I ran.

In 2013, we believe in learner choice, differentiation, leveraging technology, and so much more to help every learner grow. In a learning community, do we all need to read (or do) the same thing to learn?

From: Jill Gough
Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 4:21 AM
To: All Trinity
Cc: Leadership Team
Subject: Summer Reading 2013 – Flyer and Choices
.

Hi,

Please see the attached flyer about our summer reading choices.  The theme for this summer’s reading is the art of questioning.  Please select one of the books shown on the flyer for your summer reading and let us know your choice on or before May 10 by entering your selection on the Summer Reading Choice Google Form: http://bit.ly/SummerRead2013. (This is a copy of the form; feel free to play with it.)

Last fall, faculty members suggested that it would be beneficial to have the 4 As protocol available while reading to take notes. I’ve attached a copy of this protocol if you would like to use it as an organizer for your notes. I plan to blog my notes as I read using the 4 As protocol as prompts to share with others.  You are invited and encouraged to blog on Flourish about your reading too.  And, if you microblog your comments and notes using Twitter to share what you are learning, would you please include the #TrinityLearns hash tag to help crowd source our notes?

Let me know if you have questions.

Thank you,

jill

Here’s the attached flyer:

And, our version of the 4 As protocol worksheet:

Our community commits to reading in the summer.  Readers may choose from five books about the art of questioning.  Readers may also choose to have their book delivered on paper, via Kindle, or iTunes audio.

While I’ve had several comments, I have two in writing that I want to share:

“I love the fact that we get to choose not only the book, but the way in which we choose to read it! Thank you!”

Awesome! And…

Thanks, Jill! I am really going out on a limb this summer and will do the reading on my iPad.

How important is it in our community or any community to have choice in learning? How do we support risk-taking in a supportive environment?

11 comments

  1. Great choices, Jill! I do love that teachers have the opportunity to choose the title and the modality for reading. We should do this for our students more often!

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    • Thank you, Angél. We are very happy with our selections and the choices we have. I agree with you; we should continue to strive to design more choice in learning opportunities for our students.

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  3. Hi Jill,
    Impressed by your choices from last year and excited, of course, to see we are on your list this year. I know Cathy Davidson, and I enjoyed reading her book. Harvard Education Press was just asking Luz and me this week about teacher-initiated book clubs that feature our book. The discussions groups have gone on to great experiences in the classroom for both teachers and students. Harvard Education Press also offers a discount for bulk sales, or we can share a code for individual buyers. We’ll be offering intensive two-day summer seminars in Boston and L.A. and now we may be adding one in Chicago. If you’re interested. we’d be glad to set up a twitter chat with your group certainly would encourage them to join our online Educator Network at rightquestion.org.
    Look forward to hearing from you.
    Dan Rothstein (dan at rightquestion dot org)

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