Specialty Groups
It is crucial that schools develop leadership capacity. As Michael Fullan has written, "It takes capacity to develop capacity." TCRWP's Teacher-Researcher Specialty Groups bring together potential teacher-leaders from across approximately a dozen schools. These teacher-leaders study with the Project's top expert on a specific topic. Members of a specialty course generally convene in a school that has developed exemplary practices so that the group can research students, implement classroom practices, and reflect together on teaching. These groups tackle focused topics that are generally new frontiers for New York City teachers.
The Project's 2009-10 Specialty Groups are listed below. Groups meet for five full days across the year.
Applications for study groups during the 2010-2011 school year will become available in June 2010.
Primary Grades:
Building Vocabulary and Language for ELLs and Children at the Early and Intermediate Stages of Language Development (Grades K-5), led by Emily DeLiddo and Enid Martinez.
Differentiating Reading and Writing Instruction for Students with IEPs (Grades K-3), led by Sarah Picard Taylor.
Predicting and Facing Trouble: Learn to Identify Common Reading Problems and Develop a Repertoire of Responses (Grades 1-2), led by Shanna Schwartz.
Using TC Assessments to Differentiate Instruction in Strategy and Guided Reading Groups (Grades K-1), led by Mary Ann Colbert.
Upper Grades:
Redesign Book Clubs to Serve as Guided Reading Sessions for Strugglers and to Provide New Horizons for Strong Readers (Grades 3-8), led by Kathleen Tolan.
Differentiating Writing Instruction to Support a Range of Writers, Including Strugglers (Grades 3-8), led by Colleen Cruz.
Methods and Tools to Draw on When Teaching Social Studies: Setting Goals for Our Teaching and Our Students (Grades 3-8), led by Brooke Geller.
Raise the Level of Grammar and Vocabulary Work Within a Fiction Unit of Study (Grades 4-8), led by Mary Ehrenworth.
A Course for Data Specialists on AssessmentPro: Understanding the Data (Grades K-8), led by Janet Steinberg.