Learning as a reading teacher AND Learning as a PhD student

      Josie asked about our summer learning.  Well summer is at an end and it’s the time of year in education for beginnings.  I always like to greet my colleagues by saying,

“Happy New School Year!”  

For me, it’s a new year of reading recovery training, new learning, and new students.  I think the students are the best part!

But it is also an ending for me.  It’s the end of my candidacy exams for my PhD work.  It signals that I am ready for independent supervised research as a doctoral candidate.

            So my summer was filled with research studies.  I didn’t do any, and I really mean any beach time, light-hearted, summer fun reading.  It was deep thinking, topped off with heaping spoons of intellectual interpretation.  While I am really passionate about pushing the education profession forward, I always miss the delight of children’s smiles and laughter embedded in my daily work as a practicing teacher.

Candyland is a useful metaphor for my summer and the new school year.

Summer was Candyland, but without the candy.  The king of my "Summer Candyland" was the developmental theorist, Lev Vygotsky.  Think the zone of proximal development, not the twilight zone.  Stay with me a little longer.  Here’s a bit of my summer reading:

            Dr. Seth Chaiklin from the University of Bath has a unique perspective on collaboration, Vygotsky, and the zone of proximal development.

“ Vygotsky often uses the term collaboration in his discussion about assessing the zone of proximal development.   The term ‘collaboration’ should not be understood as a joint, coordinated effort to move forward, where the more expert partner is always providing support at the moments where maturing functions are inadequate.  Rather it appears that this term is being used to refer to any situation in which a child is being offered some interaction with another person in relation to a problem to be solved” (Chaiklin, 2003, p. 54).

Citation from: Chaiklin, S. (2003). The zone of proximal development in Vygotsky’s analysis of learning and instruction. In Kozulin, A.,Gindis, B., Ageyev, V. S., & Miller, S. M. (Eds.), Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context, (pp. 39-64). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

            

            The biggest take away for me is that collaboration is not just with teammates and colleagues (the adults), but with the students also. We are not always showing them; sometimes scaffolding involves doing it together.   I am excited to learn with and from the children and add some candy to my "School Year Candyland!"  

            If I am successful with my exams, it also signals the beginning of a new type of collaboration with Josie and other willing teammates on what it means to be a reader and a writer.  What will we learn this year?  Join us on our journey by leaving comments on what you want to learn this year.  What do you want to learn, Josie?