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?

Another lesson from the garden

Spring has sprung around here.  New plants are growing, but this also means there is a lot of clean up to do. Cleaning out of the old plants must happen for the new to grow. This is the same in life - sometimes if we want to try new things, we must clear out old ideas that get in the way.  If we allow the old to protect the new little plants, it shelters them from the cold for a while.  After time though, the old must go for the new to grow.

What sort of cleaning out of ideas or practices are you going to let go so that new ones can grow?

Creative Juices

Lately, if you follow me on Twitter, know me on Pinterest, or are connected with me on Facebook, you  see I haven't been sharing much about education.  More of my time outside of school work has been spent crafting, idea gathering, starting a shop, and sharing about what I'm doing.  My husband never knows what I'm up to.  I will go in the other room, run the sewing machine or hot glue gun for a while, and come back with a creation.  I feel alive!  How can we transfer this feeling to our students who may feel trapped in the day-to-day reading, math, and writing?  What sort of things are you doing to allow your students (or staff, my administrator friends!) to feel alive in their creativity?

Putting it in their words

Kelley Tenkely tweeted this out today, and it totally fit what I was thinking about blogging!

I also wonder why the things we expect our students to know aren't always written in words they can understand.  Students should understand what they are expected to learn, just like I am supposed to understand what I am evaluated on as a teacher. 

Yesterday, we started discussion on our first Essential Learning in reading.  This is the wording that is given on the progress report:

Use text structures to determine main idea when reading text consisting of multiple organizational patterns.

There are some big words in there that some fifth graders might struggle with, so we talked it out.  We read through it, picked out words they knew - like text and main idea - and then took words they weren't sure about - like text structure, determine, conisisting - talked about what we thought they might mean, reworded them, and rewrote the Essential Learning in our own words.

Here's what we came up with:

 
It's not a huge change, but it is written in words that all of my students can read and comprehend.

What are your thoughts?  Should our progress report statements and the Common Core be written in student speak?

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?

Lesson from the garden

Tonight I was out weeding the garden. It's been raining cats and dogs here, so I haven't been able to get out there for a while. It was weedy! I was trying to yank handfuls of weeds out at a time and all I was getting was fistfuls of leaves, keeping the nasty roots to the weeds intact. It made me think about how this relates to life and my calling as an educator.

When I was trying to pull out tons of weeds at once, it was messy and unsuccessful. When I focused on one weed at a time, I was able to get the whole thing out, roots and all. There were/are maany weeds, but small steps make progress toward getting the job done.

In life and in my classroom, I have to focus on one thing at a time. Trying to tackle all many things at once can end up messing with many incomplete jobs. Focused, small steps get the job done well. This is huge for me to remember as I enter a new grade level and new school next year!

What lessons from nature have you experienced that relate to your life, school, or classroom?