Interactive Course Timeline - click here This interactive timeline provides examples of how I used the Quest websites across the semester through links to documents and videos. Each of these items is linked to the particular class when I used the websites. The content of the class, as reflected on my syllabus, is highlighted above the timeline. The description of how I used the Quest website in that class is below the timeline. Above the timeline is a link to my unedited notes for each class. Below the timeline are links to videos and websites I used for that class, student work, assignments, and notes about what I planned to say during class about the materials.

Reading websites/reading classrooms My central purpose for using the Quest websites was to introduce student teachers to the ways that experienced teachers develop and use classroom rituals and routines to organize their teaching. At the beginning of the semester, I introduced student teachers to the central websites for the course: Gillian Maimon, Mattie Davis, Jennifer Myers and Amelia Coleman. In subsequent classes, I used the websites in several different ways. Sometimes I would ask the students to select a website to study at home in order to look for a particular ritual or routine that would tie to a discussion, activity or assignment for the next class. At other times I might show a video clip from the website in order to prompt a discusssion. Click here to read more

Selecting and enacting practices Student teachers selected examples of rituals and routines from the websites to guide how they enacted the reading/writing lessons they taught and analyzed. Initially they selected examples of classroom rituals and routines from Yvonne Hutchinson's website of a secondary English classroom to adapt to literature circles in an elementary classroom. Subsequently they each chose a ritual and routine from one of the elementary literacy sites to adapt and use in a literacy lesson they analyzed for a class assignment. Click here to read more

Student teacher learning I have begun to document what student teachers learned from using the websites in several ways. During the next few years I plan to add examples of how student teachers translate these ideas into their own classrooms as they become teachers. During the final class of the semester, student teachers reflected on the language they had learned and developed together for naming the classroom rituals and routines they see and use in their practice. In addition, they spoke about the ways they plan to continue to use these rituals and routines in their teaching. Videos of one student teacher, Andrea Bien, illustrates a range of classroom rituals and routines she enacted in her student teaching. Additional evidence of their learning is apparent in the end of the semester evaluations. Click here to read more