The Space Between

I asked my advisory students what their ideal learning environment is. Where do they learn best. Describe it.

I learn best in my room. (It has) a bed and a beanbag to rest and think. Plenty of open space.

I learn best at home in my room. It's quiet. It's me. Alone.

I learn best in a stimulated room where we get to experience what we're learning. (I need) a good teacher and hands-on experience. 

I learn best in a colorful environment. Interacting with things. With friends. Trial and error.

I learn best in a quiet environment. There's a table, pencils, and a stack of paper. A person to teach the concept. It's a quiet room.

I learn best in a quiet room. There's comfy chairs.

I learn best in a dark room, a cozy chair, a quiet area. It's a comfortable spot to learn.

It's quiet, slightly messy, cozy, dark. There's exciting stuff to learn, experiments, fun ideas to learn.

And this is where I'm at.

Where do I go from here?

a good reminder

As a teacher, we often flee to summer break (a much deserved one, might I add) with a hands in the air, I'M FREEEE, attitude. Many of our students radiate this attitude, too. I admit, I was that way this year for sure.

Yesterday, however, I saw a student at the store. He said, "I miss school so much." It hit me like a rock. A reminder: summer break isn't happy for all.

As I saw the student hand over a handful of change without counting it to the dollar store clerk to buy a pack of cheap soda and some crackers, I gathered that this might be his lunch for the day. I knew a tiny bit of this student's history and home life. I asked the clerk if he'd given her enough as she counted it and offered to make up the difference...

Summer break isn't happy for all. School is a place many students receive more love and care than in their homes.

I don't really know where I'm going with this... and given I haven't blogged here in over a year, I'm not sure why I decided to return for this short of a post, but I just felt it needed to be said.

Reflections on my first year as an elective teacher.

I was becoming exhausted as an elementary classroom teacher. I wanted something new. So, I ventured into the elective teacher world. I wrote previously about my new gig here.

One thing I did love in the elementary classroom was the deep connections and relationships I could form with students throughout the year. I even felt myself become a little sad that I probably wouldn't experience that this year. I have 300 kiddos come in and out of my room over the course of two days.

Cue the last day of school. A student, who I truly had connected with, showed up at my door with a plant and a two page hand written letter.

Cue the tears.

I knew I had build a special relationship with her, just relating to common experiences, sharing common interests. I really had no idea I'd made SUCH an impression. Thinking about her, she really is just like me when I was in sixth grade. I'm so glad I connected with her.

Just like that starfish story, I made a difference with that one.

It was a great reminder to me just to keep doing what I'm doing. This year has been wonderful. I have really enjoyed the world of electives. And I still can forge those deep connections.

Thoughts on Wikipedia

Today I introduced my students to their next research project for communications class. Each were assigned a social media site and asked to answer some questions about its history, purpose, and use by individuals and businesses. We have quite a locked down web filter in our school at the present, so most of the sights they wanted to research about are blocked.

I told them flat out, other teachers may tell you to avoid Wikipedia, but I want you to use it. It might be your best source of information.

Yep. That's what I believe.

---------

I told them..

Yes, pages get changed. Yes anyone can edit it. But, most pages that get messed with are the controversial ones.

If you're unsure if the page is correct, check another source like you should be doing anyways.

The footnotes of most Wikipedia pages are treasure troves of other resources you could check out.

 

People adopt and edit Wikipedia pages to make sure they stay clean. 

These pages may be the most up to date information you can find.

Use it.

Be critical of it.

Wikipedia is not bad.

It's good.

Turning it over to them - Success in the making!

image used from flickr

I mentioned in my last post about my struggle with too much social/not enough learning focus happening in our classroom and that I'd share what we're trying out. After 2 weeks down, we've been able to celebrate some success!

Here's what we're trying:

1) We identified as a class the three main behavior areas we struggle in: on task, voice level, and caring/respect toward others.

2) We made a rubric to score these behaviors.

• I divided the class into three groups and they each started with what a secure classroom might look like, then went up from there for exceeding and down for beginning and developing.
• Then we came back together as a class to share out and make sure the language and numbers matched up for the whole rubric. 

3) We identified the 3 key times in the day that students struggle most: math, Words Their Way, and independent reading.

4) I chose two students per day to assess the class during those times. Those two students had a quick discussion after each of those subject areas, came to an agreement on how to score the class, and reported their assessment to the class. We did this for four days and then looked at the data and set a goal.

5) I compiled the data by assigning one point to a beginning score, up to 4 points for an exceeding score. The first four days, students scored 65/144. Many were able to see that it was below 50%, and that an average of 50% would be all developing scores. Then we set a goal for the next four days. The class agreed that we should shoot for 50%, so 72/144. Different students continued to assess and report to the class each day.

6) At the end of the four days (yesterday), I compiled the rubrics again. Good news! They exceeded their goal! They got 78/144 - 54%! We set a new goal for next 5 days. Students decided on this goal and are aiming for a little above 50%. We'll see how it continues.

Here are a few questions I would ask someone if I read about this. If you have more, feel free to comment and I will get back to you!


Where did this idea come from? I shared my struggles with one of my building administrators. She came in to observe and noticed I was working a lot harder than the students. We sat down and brainstormed some ideas, and this is the one that stuck and felt like the responsibility was being passed over to the students.

Are we seeing classroom behavior improvement? I'd say somewhat. There are still areas we struggle with that aren't necessarily during the three times students assess with the rubrics, but we can't do it all, all the time. Plus, we've just been doing this for two weeks!

Are students being honest with their assessments? Yes. I even noticed that when a few of my more off task students had their day to score the rubric, their behavior was better because they were focusing on their work and the rubric.

Why do I have students do the assessing? It turns the responsibility over to them. The idea that the students should be working harder than the teacher wasn't happening before this. I was the nag, the reminder, even the babysitter at times. Now they students get an honest reflection about their behavior from their peers and some of the pressure is off me.

Doesn't this take a lot of time? To begin with, yes. It took us a few hours as a class to come up with the rubric. I have to copy rubrics and plan who is going to assess the class. We have to take a minute to report at the end of each of the three subjects, but things that are worthwhile do take time. If this helps the learners in my classroom focus more, it's totally worth it!

Struggles

image used from flickr

It's nearing Spring Break...which means it's getting closer to the end of the year...which means my fifth graders are preparing to become sixth graders/middle schoolers. Lately we've been struggling as a class to put learning time ahead of socializing time. I know it's something so many teachers struggle with and this time of year seems to be prime time for it.

Teachers have a variety of different strategies they try to get kids to stop talking and focus on learning. From taking away recess minutes to erasing letters of a random word on the board to having them put visual reminders on their desks to who knows what else.

My biggest struggle has been how to get the students to intrinsically monitor themselves instead of me being the external reminder voice that feels like a broken record at the end of the day.

I'm going to be experimenting with something over the next few weeks in an attempt to turn it over to them. It's something I've talked over with some colleagues, and I'm going to give it a whirl. Students at this age are very aware of what appropriate behaviors look like in the classroom, but sometimes just become oblivious to what they're doing in the moment. I hope to come back here to share how it went, and maybe it can be something you can try! So, come back in a few weeks and I'll post about it then.

How do you help your students internalize the importance of the work they need to do? I know socializing is necessary. I know it's important, but how do you balance it with the learning priorities in your classroom? I'd love to hear some things you have tried. What has worked? What has flopped?

 

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The Checklist

I've come upon a new way (for me) of assessing/having students self assess writing this year. It isn't mind blowing by any means, and it isn't working 100%. But, I would say I'm getting a lot better quality products this year. The first writing unit we did was on Personal Narratives. It really just hit me after a conversation with our instructional coach that this is non-fiction writing. I mean, duh, yeah, but I hadn't thought of it that way before for some reason. She found  a great resource that had basically mini-lessons for each day to complete the whole piece with quality including a short mentor text that we referred back to often.

As we went mini-lesson by mini-lesson, we began creating a checklist of what a good personal narrative looks like. I used this instead of a rubric to assess their pieces. I also had them, after the fact, go back and assess themselves using the same checklist. I realizes that many of them weren't using the chart paper checklist as a guide, and missed some parts, but after looking it over with their own checklist in hand, they were able to provide a more honest picture of their writing. Unfortunately, I did this after they had submitted their final copy... I really should have allowed them to go back and fix mistakes then and there, but as life sometimes goes, we were in a hurry and part way into their next assignment. I should have slowed down, but I didn't.

So, the next writing unit came along: book and movie reviews. Again we looked at some mentor texts, had mini-lessons, and created another great checklist. THIS time, I got a little smarter. I printed the checklist twice on a piece of paper and asked them to assess themselves on the top checklist before they submitted their piece to the blog. This allowed them to catch things they'd left out and go back and fix it before my eyes landed there for the "final" assessment. Much better this time! Still, I had some friends who were in a hurry themselves, realized they didn't have everything, and didn't take the time to fix it.  (You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink....) Hopefully next time I can help those friends see the benefits to doing that.

Below you can gaze at the checklist for the reviews.

Maybe this will work with your classroom! Enjoy!


-->

___________________________________’s Book/Movie Review

My Self-Assessment

I included:

o   information about the author/director and the audience

o   a catchy title

o   an introduction that hints at my opinion

o   a quality summary

o   at least two strengths or weaknesses with details and examples to support them

o   a satisfying conclusion

o   my voice – it sounds like I wrote this

I checked for:

o   capital letters

o   correct spelling

o   conjunctions with a comma before them to make compound sentences

I think I did well with:

Mrs. Goerend’s Turn:

You included:

o   information about the author/director and the audience

o   a catchy title

o   an introduction that hints at your opinion

o   a quality summary

o   at least two strengths or weaknesses with details and examples to support them

o   a satisfying conclusion

o   your voice – it sounds like you wrote this

I also noticed:

o   capital letters

o   correct spelling

o   conjunctions with a comma before them to make compound sentences

Comments:

All They Wanted

I write this more in shame than anything, but in a hope you can learn from it. This is probably common sense to most of you, but sharing this failure might click with someone.

I was attending the Solution Tree PLC conference in St. Louis earlier this summer. I attended many sessions on assessment because it's something that has been an interest of mine for a while. I have knowledge of many good formative assessment practices. I'm big on the retake and standards-based assessment and reporting.

This past year, and many years before it, students would ask the same old question, "How long does it need to be?" I would come back with the response, "I interpret that question as meaning, 'How short can it be to get by, Mrs. G?'" Sadly, some students caught on to this and would give that response to students before I could even give it. I realized got a big slap in the face after attending a session at the conference (I can't remember which) that all the students wanted were more examples of good writing. They really aren't asking to see how short it can be, well maybe a couple are, but most really want to know so they can do their best!

Writing is not one of my strong suits. I have allowed students to fix things and resubmit their paper, and I blog with my students so they have a larger audience for me. One thing that really hit home with me at the PLC conference was students' needs for many examples of writing that meets, does not meet, exceeds the standard.  I was giving them a rubric with descriptors and sometimes one good and one poor model to look at, but many weren't able to transfer to what that would look like in their own writing. They need more. They need more models posted. I even have a sweet little box called "Mentor Texts," for their writing, but I need to be more explicit with its use.

So, this is one of many improvements I hope to make this year. After 6 years of teaching, there's never been one year where I say, "I hope next year is an exact repeat of this year." I archived all of my students' blog posts from last year and hope to use them as models for this coming year (names omitted of course).


What are some mistakes you've made in your classroom? How can you take a risk and be transparent about those mistakes to help others learn?

Workin on the Chain Gang

Building community continues to be important in our classroom.  A few years back, I came across the chain gang activity.  I really like it because it leads to conversations about how we are one as a class but all have our unique strengths.  Try it with your class and hang the chain proudly so students can see how their individuality is important to our classroom.

Building Community

 

I love how quickly community can be built in a classroom if one makes the effort.  I'm at a new school this year and the teachers I work with in my grade level have made it a tradition that students bring a grocery bag with a few items about themselves to share.  It's really a simple thing, but it has turned out to be a wonderful community builder.  We just finished our second day of school, but it is amazing to me how quickly community has been built.  Sure, by the 27th bag that had been shared, kids were getting a little weary, but I spread it out over the two days not listening to more than 4 students share in a row.  The 27th sharer did get a huge round of applause when she was finished sharing!

I already know that I have a student who collects elephants, a few aspiring gymnasts, some avid readers, some painters, some crafters, a couple aspiring bakers, some sports enthusiasts, one who has 500 silly bands, and that family is very important to many of my students.

I also shared a bag about me.  If you've seen very many of my photos of the day, you will know that I'm a crafter/sewer/baker.  Today as I left, a couple students asked when I was going to wear one of the dresses I've made soon.  After the second day.

We're building community, and I can't wait to see where it goes!

How do you build community in your classroom?  How do you show your students that you want to know them as a whole person?

Choice

Image used from Flickr

Students appreciate the opportunity to be able to choose.  Currently, my students are sharing their poetry projects.  They had to research a type of poetry of their choice, find examples, write their own, and present it to the class in a creative way.  I've been so excited to see what they have come up with.  I've had a variety of presentation types: glogs, a blog, prezis, poems on our blog, books, slide presentations, and just students coming up and talking. 

What sort of choices are you giving to your students?  How can you make your content more open-ended for them?

Update: If you give kids a meaningful project...

The AVerMedia project was a success, and we don't even know if we are in the competition for the company prize!  The students learned so much about the products!  I tried to get the AVerPens set up to film our commercial and was struggling with it, but many kids stepped up and helped solve the problem.  Everyone participated in filming the commercial even if they weren't given permission by their parents to be IN the film.  Those students were the videographers.  We got all the filming completed for the video in just a few hours and the rest of the students were quiet and attentive while others were filming. 

I'm so proud of them and how they well they did with this project.  They worked amazingly in their small groups because they had a direct purpose - learn about the product and then create a short clip on a problem it solves. 

Below is the final commercial.  You'll see 5 small problem/solution segments.  Each segment was put together by one of the 5 teams.  Our commercial had to be 2 minutes or less, so it's quick, but I was able to get it edited together to be 1:58!  Enjoy!

If you give kids a meaningful project...

they will take off with it and amaze you!

Angela Maiers dropped off a bag of tech stuff from AVerMedia for my class.  She told my students that they are to research it, learn about it, and teach her about it.  There's also a lovely contest with the company that will be an end result.

My students are so excited about this project!  We talked about how to go about it, they have divided themselves into diverse research teams based on their strengths and weaknesses, and plan to use their recesses and study halls to research.

The bag of tech includes a document camera, 4 student AVerPens, and 1 teacher AVerPen.   There's also directions for the document camera, but no directions for the AVerPens.  I haven't really given the kids any help besides showing them the company's website and being a guide in arranging times for the teams to work with the tech.

Today I was totally amazed!  Two teams had worked with the tech so far.  They'd figured out how to hook up the document camera and how to charge the pens.  I challenged the 3 teams working on the project today to really figure out how the AVerPens work.  They were getting caught up with trying to use them on the Promethean board we have in the room, so we had to talk about how the Promethean pens work just with the Promethean board.

We talked about how they needed an instruction manual for the pens.  I simply directed them to the AVerMedia website and pointed out where the manual might be.  They noted right away that on the downloads page there was also a link to software.  We had a quick discussion about what software is and they started to connect the dots! 

All three groups working on it today were digging into the instruction manual.  They got the pens working as a mouse on the computer!  I even had a student run up to the second floor to see how far the wireless signal of the pens can reach. The had some hiccups with downloading the software, but I think they'll be ready to go with it tomorrow.
 

This is kind of a rambling post, but it's just so exciting to see the project evolving in my classroom.  The kids want to stay in at recess to work on it.  They're in diverse teams (not necessarily with their friends) and are getting along.  They know we may not get the "prize" but have a desire to learn/play/explore.

This is a true, real life experience, with reading comprehension!  They are reading instructions and following them.

This is a true, real life experience, with writing.  The students are recording their findings in a variety of formats.  They are summarizing their work and making sure they can tell other groups what they have discovered.

This is true, real life, problems-based learning task.

I can't wait to share more as the project continues and as we record a video/commercial for AVerMedia.

What meaningful projects are you working to engage your students in?  

It's the little things...

I've been in a kind of a slump the past few weeks.  School has been bumming me out.  Frustration has been taking over.

I've done two little things in my room that have gotten me a tiny bit out of this slump.  They both come down to one little word.

Choice.

1. During our study hall time, it can get loud.  I get grouchy.  So, I put together a Grooveshark playlist.  I asked each of the students to tell me a couple of their favorite (school appropriate) songs and made a list. I now play that in study hall and it's lightened the mood. It's also a lesson in tolerance of everyone's music tastes.

2. My students share about their independent reading with me once a week.  For the last three years, the students have turned in a letter written in their notebook in classic Fountas and Pinnell style.   Now I have 3 options for the students.  They can turn in their letter, record their response on our new Flip cameras from Digital Wish, or blog their response on our classroom blog.  I've already had 3+ students blog their responses and two students record their responses on the Flip.  I'm especially excited because the two students who recorded their responses on the Flip are students who usually have late letters.  I think the writing aspect of it was hindering them.

This week, my burdens and feelings of burnout have been lessened.  Choice can be a little thing that can make a big difference.

What are some little things you do in your classroom to encourage choice?

The Red Group

First, some background:

Our 6th grade is departmentalized, meaning I teach my own students' reading, writing, and spelling.  I then teach math to my own class and the two other  classes.  One of the other 6th grade teachers teaches science, and the other teaches social studies.  This is the way it's pretty much been for the three years I've been in the district. 


From about the second day of school I could tell that this group of 6th graders as a whole was pretty divided.  We have a good amount of students who score low on standardized tests in math and a good amount who score high.  There aren't a lot in the middle.  


This week the students took MAP tests.  The scores again showed quite the gap.  There are many above and many below the math norms, but not a lot in the middle.  I knew this was coming, so I decided to split the classes more or less by ability so that I can slow things down for the lower achieving students and really make sure they get solid on the essentials.

Now on to the real point of my post....

Today I was working on relabeling the folders where students hand in their assignments.  To make it easier, I just labeled the classes red, white, and blue, since those are our school colors.  Before I just called them Mrs. Goerend's class, Mrs. _________'s class and Mrs. ________'s class.  The kids are used to this change happening because they've been divided by ability for math for the past two years.

One student saw me doing this and said, "The red group is the kids that are bad at math, isn't it?"

"No," I said. " It's actually not." 

It was so sad to me to hear that.  We all know the teachers who label kids red (low), yellow (medium), and green (high).  Or there's plenty of other ways teachers label groups.  I just have to label them SOMETHING besides by teacher's name because I have to label the hand-in folders.

When we tell the kids tomorrow what colored class they are in, they are going to know which is the low class (and it's not the red group).  Kids aren't oblivious to who is better and who is worse at things.  The other two are mixed among higher and medium achieving.  I can about guarantee that some kid is going to say in the low class, "We're the kids that are bad at math." 

How do you respond to this?  

It's such a touchy subject. They just need it taught at a different pace.  They may need additional practice.  We may work with order of operations with just whole numbers and not decimals, so they don't have to think about two things at once. 

Classroom Bloggers

I gave my sixth graders a username and password for access to my classroom blog. 

I now have two student "jobs" each day.  One student is the blogger of the day and the other the photographer of the day. 

I gave them 2 guidelines:
1-Take no photos of students' faces.  I don't want to have to deal with permission for that yet.
2- Write something acceptable for your parents to read.  This makes sense because all of their parents get an email of blog posts delivered to them daily via FeedBurner. 

So far, it has been good!  The 3 bloggers of the day have come at the end of the day with something to write about.  The 2 photographers of the day have had a picture ready to share and a caption to add.  It's been fun to see the photographers (and their friends) ponder what to take a picture of.  We have even received a couple comments, one of which we have drafted a class response to. 

Why am I doing this?  Doesn't it take up extra time?
Sure it does!  My goal is to teach my students through experience how to appropriately communicate online.  Our class blog is a purposeful place for them to do this.

Check out what they are doing on our classroom blog!


Are you doing this in your classroom?  If not, why?  If yes, what suggestions do you have for how I could make this more purposeful?

The Motivation Struggle

Today I did something I don't like doing... I forced kids to stay in for recess.  I said, "If you didn't understand the math homework from last night, and I can look at your work and tell that, you won't get to help with the lower elementary field day this afternoon."  Slowly, after rewording that a few times and the students figuring out I was serious, they trickled over from the "go out to recess line" to the "stay in line." 

I felt like I was holding them captive, against their will, (except for those few who decided to come in before I made the "threat") as we looked over the assignment again, I did some reteaching, and then students worked or reworked the problems.  See, I give the answers to the math homework so they can get feedback automatically as to if they are doing it correctly instead of waiting until it's checked by me.  They can see right away if they "get it" or not.

One might say that you shouldn't give students work outside of the classroom until you are sure they can do it on their own, and I agree with that.  But I get this response from many of them in class....I actually have this Baby Blues comic posted on my bulletin board.  We work problems on individual white boards in class, and they seem to get it.  Does it just fall out of their heads when they leave?  Retention is not the big question I'm struggling with here.

The big question I'm struggling with and have been for a while is: WHY DON'T STUDENTS CARE?  Why won't they come in to get help?  When is it my job to force them to come in so they get help?  When is it their turn to step up and take responsibility for their own learning?  

I know I'm dwelling on the negative here...I should celebrate the kids who came in on their own.  Today I did not do that, and that is something I regret and will learn from...but with 8 days of school left, I'm kind of at my wits' end. 

It only took until 7th grade...

As I walked into school the other morning, I ran into a student who I had last year.  This student was quite the challenge and we had our ups and downs, but he's a great kid and we really came to understand each other.  I asked how math was going, since I know 7th grade math can be a challenge, and he said it was going ok...that he goes in for help a lot.  Then he said something that really fired me up...he's been reading...a lot!  Last year I BATTLED with this gentleman to read.  I mean BATTLED...nothing interested him, books were dumb, reading was boring...

In 7th grade, the students study the Holocaust and WWII in Social Studies.  This topic really interested this student and now he cannot stop reading about it. 

It's just a shame that it took until his 7th grade year for this student to find a topic that interests him so much that he can't stop reading about it.   

How can we reach these students earlier?

"I didn't get it done..."

Aren't those the words we dread from our students?  I rarely talk to a teacher who doesn't have some problem with late or incomplete work.  Usually, we get excuses.

"I didn't get it done because I forgot my book."

"I didn't get it done because my brother spilled milk on it."

"I didn't get it done because I had volleyball practice."

What if we teach our students to look forward instead of informing us about the past?

Let's teach them to replace the because with so.  I really don't care WHY it wasn't done.  I want to know what THEY are going to do to get it done!

Teach your students to say,

"I didn't get it done so I'm going to come in after school to finish it."

"I didn't get it done so I will get it to you by tomorrow."

"I didn't get it done so I will get another worksheet and get working on it in study hall."

Wouldn't you love to be done with excuses and see students taking responsibility?  I'm returning to work from 8 weeks of maternity leave on Monday and I'm going to try this out!  Give it a try and let me know how it goes!  To me it's just a small change in mindset that can make a big difference.

Book Bistro

Last year I wanted to find a different way of doing the classic "book report."  I do the First 20 Days of Reading from the book Guiding Readers and Writers in my classroom.  This system of Reader's Workshop relies on reader's response letters and book recommendations.  Some students really struggle with finding good books, so I thought a fun venue to share books would be a cafe-like atmosphere.  Last year, we called it Book Cafe, but since some teachers have been implementing the Daily 5 and The Cafe Menu, I didn't want the two cafes to be confused.  Thus, this year we changed the name to Book Bistro. 

Our elementary operates on trimesters, so we have 3 rounds of Book Bistro.  Each student presents one time per trimester.  With my class of 22 students, we hold 4 Book Bistros per trimester so there are 5-6 students presenting at each.  This usually takes up an hour of our morning, but it's definitely worth it.  It helps the students presenting work on oral communication, and the listeners get to hear about some great books!  The students have a list of ideas to choose from, but as you can see, they may also come up with their own idea and get my approval.  We've had some great presentations this year including a newscast shot on multiple locations!

Because it is a cafe or bistro atmosphere, the students presenting bring in treats and beverages for the listeners to enjoy as they present.  I've even had students bring specific food because it relates to their book!  

At the beginning of the year, I held my own Book Bistro for the students.  I brought the treats and modeled three different ways to present with three books that I enjoy.  We also discussed proper "cafe etiquette" including not scarfing down your food, sipping your beverage, sitting quietly, and not getting up to throw things away when someone is presenting.

Students really seem to enjoy this venue for sharing books.  It's fun to hear them tell me ," This book is GREAT!  I think I'm going to share it at the next Book Bistro."  Talk about motivated readers!