Building Capacity: "Learning in the Loo"

I’m so fortunate to hang out with wicked smart administrators, coaches, and teachers across states and learning environments. I am so much smarter and better positioned to support others because of their knowledge and experiences.

In this guest blog post, I’d like you to meet Kristy — a teacher, coach, colleague and friend extraordinaire! Every time I’m at her school, I learn so much from her. Check out this simple and sweet capacity building move she harnesses called “Learning in the Loo”.

What is “Learning in the Loo?”

Authored by Dr. Kristy Rykard

“Learning in the Loo” is not my own original concept.  It’s been around for a while, and a quick Google search will show you plenty of examples.  It has a variety of creative names, such as “Potty PD” and “Tissue Issues.” Basically, it’s a 1-2 page newsletter with some quick tips and ideas to share with your “captive audience” by posting it in a conspicuous place in the restroom.  Everyone visits the potty daily, so “Learning in the Loo” is a poofect way to do some light coaching asynchronously.  I use Canva to create my Loos, and I leave sheet protectors on the walls of the restrooms so I can easily swap in the new issues (or tissues, if you please).  I publish a new Loo on the first school day of each month, and I also include a link in my email signature so that faculty and staff can pull it up on their computer if they want to explore more about a specific tip.  

Here are some examples of my past Loos.

Why I Publish “Learning in the Loo”

The year before I became the Digital Learning Coach (DLC) at my school, my predecessor had started “Learning in the Loo” in all the faculty and staff restrooms around the school.  As a teacher, I always loved it so much.  First of all, who doesn’t love some handy, interesting reading material in the potty?  The “Toots and Giggles” section was the first thing I always checked out when a new one was published.  Soon, however, I realized that I was really getting something out of the Loo each month.  I remember drying my hands and seeing tips or new tools and immediately thinking, “Oh, that’s so neat.  I could totally try that when I get back to my room” or “Omigosh!  That might work for the lesson I’m doing next week!”  My colleagues and I collaborated on trying out ideas we had seen in the Loo with our students.  We had no idea we were being “ninja coached,” but it was working.  So when I moved into the DLC role, I knew I had to continue that work.

What to Include in the Loo?

I’m smart and just FULL of ideas, but it’s a pretty big lift for a busy coach to get a four-section newsletter published every month without some help.  I subscribe to a plethora of digital learning newsletters, blogs, Twitter accounts, etc.  I’m surrounded by tons of amazing ideas, tips, and tools, and the Loo is a natural outlet to share them with my teachers.  Each month, I curate the tips, ideas, and digital tools I think will most benefit my teachers and their students, add them to the Loo, and credit the original sources.  Everyone takes their phones to the potty with them these days, so I always include QR codes for more information, videos, and/or the original source.

A Few of My Favorite Resources for Digital Tips, Ideas, and Tools

• Shake Up Learning by Kasey Bell

• G Suite Tips by the team at Overdrive

• Richard Byrne @rmbyrne on Twitter 

• Shelly Sanchez @ShellTerrell on Twitter

I also use the Loo as a place to share effective learning activities facilitated by teachers in our school, so I often include pictures and anecdotes from my classroom visits. With teacher permission, I link to their lesson plan or materials.  It’s a great way to lift the assets of the brilliant educators in our own building and encourage collaboration among our faculty. 

The Results

My teachers absolutely love “Learning in the Loo.” They come looking for me if I am even one day late putting the monthly Loo out, and when they see me coming down the hall with my stack of Loos to deliver, their eyes light up with excitement to see what’s in the new edition. I know it sounds crazy that anyone would look forward to something so simple, but it’s true. I’ve had teachers book coaching time with me, email me to ask for more information, or share how they incorporated an idea from the Loo in their classes. Some people take the tip and run with it, and others want to expand and collaborate on it. It’s been a fantastic way for me to open doors as a coach and get conversations started. And it’s the best feeling when I’m in a classroom, and I see something from the Loo coming to life with students. That’s why we’re all here in the first place, right?

Dr. Kristy Rykard has been in education for over 22 years. She began as a high school English teacher, and she now serves as a Digital Learning Coach in Lexington School District One in Lexington, SC. In her personal life, Kristy is an avid world traveler, reader, wife, cat mom, Netflix binger, and online shopper.

@DrRykardDLC
krykard@lexington1.net

Small Group Reading & Writing Lesson Plans to Adopt, Adapt or Improve [During Remote/Distance Learning]

Reading & Writing Lesson Links [Updated]

Connect with me through this CONTACT LINK for more information on these lessons!

I am currently co-planning with some teachers across grades 2-8.

Some of our plans have worked really well. Others have been a flop.

We are, like you, working really hard to figure all of this out. Steps forward often means steps back. Reflecting along the way helps us push forward again. It isn’t even close to perfect. It’s messy. But, we are living in the messy together.

USING MENTOR LESSONS TO JUMPSTART PLANNING

There isn’t one right way to plan. Some teachers use scripted lessons. Some teachers use scripted lessons with flexibility — adjusting them to meet the needs, interests and wants of the learning community they serve. Some teachers create authentic lessons from the ground up. While the latter is my preference, there are times where mentor lessons or units help jumpstart ideas for planning. Mentor lessons can help teachers get a running start. It’s a safe and trustworthy way to plan because teachers know they are still in the driver’s seat — adjusting lessons to meet the individual and unique needs of the learning community they serve.

PLANNING FOR REMOTE/DIGITAL LEARNING

Most schools are working to support students from a distance. Learning opportunities are being offered by teachers through digital and print materials — and some are using both. Schools are working hard to navigate these times using the tools and resources available to them, coupled with individual and collective know-how to best meet:

• curricular demands

• intervention and support demands

• students’ social, emotional, academic and physical needs

ADOPT, ADAPT & IMPROVE

Included in the links below are resources to use if you are interested in launching and sustaining SMALL GROUP READING and WRITING learning opportunities through remote or distance learning. You can:

ADOPT — Use these materials as they are written.

ADAPT — Make adjustments to these lessons in order to meet your students’ needs, interests, and wants.

IMPROVE — Try some of the ideas out, change them and make them better.

That said, as you make decisions about how you will use these ideas, first consider some of these questions:

• Are students learning via soft copy or hard copy? Is our district going paper/pencil or digital during these times? Or, a combination of both? How do these modes of learning impact these plans?

• What technology systems and structures are available to teachers and students? Does the learning community know how to access and use them? If not, can we learn them in efficient and effective ways?

• Do teachers have the ability to connect with students — via video, phone or shared folders/documents?

• Do students have the ability to connect with teachers — via video, phone or shared folders/documents?

• Do students have the ability to connect with one another — via video, phone or shared folders/documents?

LINKS TO READING & WRITING LESSONS [UPDATED TO INCLUDE 15 LESSONS]

If you are looking for READING LESSONS, connect with me through this CONTACT LINK for more information!

If you are looking for WRITING LESSONS, connect with me through this CONTACT LINK for more information!

SHARE YOUR IDEAS

If you ADOPT, ADAPT or IMPROVE any of these plans, please consider reaching out and sharing your perspectives so that we can learn with and from one another. Email me at julietwright4444@gmail.com or reach out via my CONTACT PAGE and share ideas!

Writing to Make Sense of Our Work in Schools

Over a decade ago, a group of amazing women educators came together to study, define, collaborate, and write about what really matters in education. We spent a year — looking at research, creating sustainable professional learning structures, and naming and practicing our beliefs about learning. The positive implications from that time are deep and wide.

Across our year of study, we each kept a notebook filled with ideas, inquiries, and wonderings. Individually, we made a list of book titles that outlined what mattered most to us. These were books-to-be-written in the years to come. They captured what lived in our heads, hearts and guts and came directly from our years of teaching experiences and our love of education.

While miles separate us today, our work from that year continues to resonate with me. That year shaped me. It nudged me to think differently and it created space for me act bravely. I kept that notebook and continued to add to it. Eventually, the one notebook turned into seven—what fun—and out of those notebooks came writing that has helped me make sense of our work in schools.

I’m excited about some new books that I’ve written and co-written that are coming into the world—each with ties to that first writing crew all those years ago.

Side by Side instructional Coaching: 10 Asset-Based Habits That Spark Collaboration, Risk-Taking, and Growth [Benchmark, 2022]

Audience:  Instructional Coaches, Principals, Curriculum Directors, Department Chairs, Team Leaders [anyone who facilitates learning with and for others]

Gist: Every child deserves a teacher who has a thinking partner.  That’s because our work in schools is too complicated and important to go it alone.  The 10 Habits in this book are designed to create support structures for everyone and led by everyone—administrators, instructional coaches, department chairs, team leaders, grade level colleagues.  The key ingredient is working together in asset-based ways to build capacity across the learning community.  Whether you already have a well-established coaching program or you are trying to build support from the ground up, this book will give you lots of practical ideas, tips, tools, how-to lists, and protocols to support your efforts.  Although this book has a literacy focus, the 10 Habits are transferable to all content areas.

This book unpacks these 10 Habits:

1. Develop Relationships

2. Communicate Plans

3. Define Beliefs

4. Design Goals

5. Co-plan

6. Co-teach

7. Create Tracks

8. Reflect

9. Build Capacity

10. Prioritize Across the Year

BUY THE BOOK HERE!

What’s Our Response? Creating Systems & Structures to Support ALL Learners [FIRST Educational Resources, 2021]

Audience: Classroom Teachers, Intervention Specialists, Instructional Coaches, Administrators

Gist: In education time is never on our side.  Too much time is being spent in meetings to discuss students’ deficits and not enough time harnessing their assets. Students come to school each day with individual and collective wants and needs, and it’s our job to harness who and where they are. The RtI process doesn’t have to be a machine model approach with an over-reliance on short sided skill and drill; it can be a dynamic, flexible, in-the-moment response focused on good instruction.   This book explores how to keep students at the center of decision-making so that the focus is fidelity to our students instead of fidelity to content, curriculum or program by addressing 5 Problems of Practice with RtI which include:

• We need to break out of the RtI box.

• We need to honor and increase teacher autonomy and agency.

• We need child study teams focused on students’ assets.

• We need to increase students' thinking and doing time.

• We need good instruction because that makes the best interventions.

This book will provide dozens of ready-to-use, solution-oriented tools to create asset-based systems and structures so that you are better positioned to create an instructional response that will support all students’ growth.

I’ve been blessed with incredible mentors, thinking partners, and editors. I’m inspired by a current writing group called The Radish Writers. Being a part of a writing tribe is one of the greatest gifts—if you don’t have one….go start one! Gather people who want to write and think and do together. It will inspire you. It will unleash you. It will change you.

BUY THE BOOK HERE!

Short Texts: Mighty Mentors for Readers and Writers

Audience: Classroom Teachers [K-5], Intervention Specialists [K-8], Instructional Coaches, Principals, Curriculum Directors

Gist: Short texts are everywhere, and so are the readers who love them.  In this anthology, learn how to select, plan with, and use short texts to increase reading volume and inspire opportunities for writing.  From novel excerpts to the writing on the back of a cereal box, short texts have so much to teach our students about the form and function of reading and writing in the world. And this amazing resource has so much to teach us about the power of “short” to help readers and writers go the long distance.

What you will find in this book:

• CONSUME, PRODUCE, SHARE, EXTEND—a process for considering what texts we choose to consume, how we mine texts for what matters, whether we want to produce something to share with others, and opportunities to extend our reading and writing

• 30 + short texts spanning non-fiction, fiction, poetry, environmental print and more!

• One-page Planning Templates that help you think through the trickiest parts of each text type and the stickiest ideas 

• Completed Planning Templates to give you a running start of ready-to-go lessons

• Ways to use short texts with all your readers (whole class, small groups, and one-to-one) and across the content areas

• Extensions for using each short text to inspire and inform writing

• Resources and templates for you to start finding and using your own short texts

COMING SOON!