3. Instruct a Teacher

I worked with a high school biology teacher who I co-taught with several years ago.  We used the concept mastery guidebook for the basis of our discussion and spent time talking about the importance of the cue, do, review sequence and implementing the device with fidelity. 

I guided a middle school Math teacher through the Concept Mastery Routine so that she could use the graphic organizer to help her students understand/review material.

Attached is a file of the figurative language Concept Diagram that Mrs. Walker and I guided Ms. Hansen to complete by following the instructional steps in the manual.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3aIpuTxAGjxUi1aQ3VTaFFHdGc

Mr. Hall and I worked with our ESL teacher, Mrs. Abbie Ferrell, to instruct her on the steps of the concept mastery routine. During this session, we utilized the concept mastery guidebook in addition to a PowerPoint provided to us by our SIM Professional Developer, Jocelyn Washburn. The concept for this routine was nonfiction reading with the overall concept being reading comprehension in various genres. Nonfiction reading is an area of weakness for all students; however, we felt Mrs. Ferrell and her students could truly benefit from having a clearer understanding of nonfiction reading.

Mrs. Blevins observed me during my sessions using the Concept Mastery Routine. I guided her through the process of completing each section of the diagram, using the manual as a reference. She practiced with several different concepts before actually using the routine with her students. She then used it with each of the five text structures and I observed two of those.

See link below for draft of concept diagram created during training.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3aIpuTxAGjxUi1aQ3VTaFFHdGc

During the 1st quarter Susan McGilvray and I conducted a staff development presentation on the Concept Diagram Routine.  Through this presentation, I found several teachers who wanted to implement this strategy into their classroom.  The most recent teacher that I worked with was an 8th grade English teacher.  She had been teaching the concept of dystopian genre through a PowerPoint presentation.  I suggested that perhaps using the concept diagram would be an alternative way to teach this concept.  She was excited to give it a try, so we set a time for me to coach her through the steps

We wanted to initiate use of the Concept Mastery Routine in AP level English classes, so we introduced the Routine to the department chair. We chose the concept of Imagery and its importance in Effective Descriptive Writing. We began by showing her examples of concept diagrams  we have developed for use in our co-taught classes, particularly the concept of Gothic Literature as part of Romanticism.  We made a checklist for her, and went through all the steps in the manual, using our pre-made diagram as a model.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2B8GvAFCXAbZjBTQ3FxWTliZVk

We demonstrated the Concept Mastery Routine using "Strong Imagery" in "Effective Descriptive Writing" to an upper level English class (English 12 AP Dual Enrollment). We figured those students would welcome the opportunity to assist us in creating the diagram about imagery so we could present it to our English 10 General class with their suggestions and input. The English Dept. Chair, Amy Ebel, was willing to lend us her time and students. She mentioned that this routine could be applied to several instructional units, like the novella, Heart of Darkness and its study of Imperialism and Colonialism.  We constructed a diagram ahead of our meeting with Mrs. Ebel as a teaching tool. Also, I picked out a couple of poems we could present to the class as examples to practice with them. 

These are links to screenshots of the Concept Mastery Device Checklist:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2B8GvAFCXAbX1RVVjF1YlJuLU0/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2B8GvAFCXAbaXVaZG9nMEl2TUE/view?usp=sharing

We chose to work with one of our 7th grade science teachers, Brittany Oliver. She was already familiar with Vocabulary LINCing as well as the SIM process. She decided to create a Concept Mastery Routine diagram on prokaryotic cells.