Going Wild

The last few weeks I've been reading The Wild Card by Hope & Wade King. The book is about creating a high level of engagement in your classroom. Their message is simple, yet has a lot of depth to it. When students are engaged, learning comes a lot easier.

I've been reflecting a lot on my first week of school and how I can "Set the Stage to Engage".  What can I do that takes my student's learning beyond the worksheet? My first task was creating a more engaging introduction to my classroom procedures. Teaching procedures can be boring, but it's such an incredibly important aspect of teaching!

Here's my plan:

1. Put students into groups of three and assign their procedure and give them a card that outlines the procedure and my expectation.
2. In their group, students must create a skit that reflects the right and the wrong way to do the procedure. 
3. Have groups perform their skits for the class. 

It's not a crazy change, but instead of me doing all of the talking and they just sit and listen, they're interacting with each other and learning the procedures. 

I'm also looking at creating a game to "test" them on how well they learned the procedures. I went to the Dollar Tree and picked up Mini-Jengas (at a dollar each, it's easy to grab a bunch!). They're super cute 4 1/2" tall Jenga games. I'm thinking I will create task cards with questions or scenarios about the procedures. In pairs, they will take turns answering the questions. If they answer the question correctly, they can remove a piece.

My goal this year is to look for fun and engaging ways to help students learn. High engagement + rigor = success!

What can you do this year that will engage your students?

Parent Communication

It's said that communication is the key to any relationship. When it comes to the parent/teacher relationship, I have to agree. There are a few ways I keep my parents up-to-date on what's happening in our class.

Weekly Newsletter: 

I send out a weekly newsletter on Monday mornings. In it I outline what we'll be doing this week in each subject. I do this to help stimulate the conversation between parents and children. Instead of "How was school?" "Fine." They can instead ask "What did you learn about the moon today?" Typically teachers send home newsletters at the end of the week and by then, students have filed away what they learned. I like encouraging that conversation about what's happening each day. In the newsletter I also include important announcements and upcoming events.

The newsletter gets send out as a Google Doc. The great thing about this is that it's easy to update, it's colorful and fun (saves ink!), and the link never changes so parents can bookmark it and find it at anytime. I do send out a link each Monday letting them know it's been updated.

Remind:

I use Remind.com to send quick reminders or announcements. For example, the night before a field trip, I send out a reminder of anything special they need to bring. Sometimes, I send out reminders about a test or homework assignment due. 

Parents can install the app on their phone and get the messages through that, or they can get them through a text message. The great thing is that my phone number is not included, so parents don't get access to it. They can message me through the app, which I heard a lot of positive feedback about.



Keeping parents informed about what's happening in our classroom has been essential for me. Here are a few reasons:

1. CYA:  There have been a few cases where parents have been upset about not knowing about something. Thankfully, I can refer back to my weekly emails to show that they were informed. 
2. Digital = More Eyes on the Newsletter: Let's face it, kids backpacks are like black holes and when you put important stuff in it, it doesn't always make it into the parents hands. Digital newsletters and Remind allow the information to go straight to a parent's smartphone where they can read it anywhere. 
3. More engagement: I noticed a big increase in parent engagement with digital vs. paper newsletters. 

Keeping parents informed about their student is so important! Education is a team effort and without amazing parent support, my students would not be as successful. I work to find the best ways to send out information to them because as a parent I know how crazy life can be and how easy it is to forget permission slips or field trips. 

Lesson Planning

With school right around the corner for me, my brain has been kicking into high-gear about lesson plans for the first few weeks of school. I was chatting with my teacher friends over lunch today about what format we like for lesson plans: paper or digital.  They are very much die-hard paper planners and did not like their foray into the digital planner world last year. So I'm curious... what type of planner do you use?

What type of planner do you use?

paper

digital

Online Quiz Maker

I'm a digital planner through and through. Don't get me wrong, I drool over the cute printed planners out there and am guilty of buying them.... and then not using them. I guess for me, I find it easier to quickly type in the info instead of writing it out. I also really love being able to access my plans anywhere. I have the app on my phone as well as my school iPad, so checking on lessons or making changes is a breeze. I don't lug home a heavy teacher bag full of my planner and gradebook. Both are housed online. It's also been great with my class being 1:1, I'm grading more and more digital work from my students. 

My favorite digital planner is Planbook.com. I love that I can customize it to fit my needs. I can color code subjects to make the appearance of my book fit my personality.  I also use templates for different subjects so that when I go to enter my lesson, all I do is fill in the blanks. Super fast! 

This summer, Planbook won my heart over by allowing users to upload their own fonts to use. I am a total font junkie so this really made me happy! And finally, when it comes to sending my principal my weekly lesson plans, it's done because she already has access to it.

 

Math Needs a Makeover

Two days this week I attended a math cohort training. This will be my second year in the cohort and I have truly enjoyed it. Our district puts the training on and a group of about 150 teachers K-12 get together to learn how we can improve our math teaching skills. We attend this 2-day kickoff training before school starts to get our wheels turning about teaching math. As the year progresses we are then tasked with taking the message back to our schools. It has definitely opened my mind to how I plan a math lesson to best meet the needs of my students.

This year we're reading Mathematical Mindset by Jo Boaler. It is such a great read and I highly recommend it if you teach math. I have heard it over and over from students that they don't like math and they're not good at it. This book really addresses that and provides you with ways to change their mindset. There are some fun activities and discussion starters in the book that I plan on using in a few weeks!

At the end of day 2, when we were tired and ready to go, (you know that feeling!) they played the following video. It truly opened up my mind to a new way to look at presenting problems to students. Have you ever introduced a new topic and only a few students really talk about math when you ask them to do group discussions? He's got the perfect solution for you.

What do you think?

Classroom Environment

How do you learn the best? Do you need silence? Music? Don't care either way?

Do you like bright lights while you work? Darkness? 

I reflect a lot on how I learn best and how to help my students learn their best. At the beginning of the year, we have a great classroom discussion where I pose these very questions to my students. We work to identify the ideal classroom setting. Year after year though, they pretty much choose the same environment.

Music

Almost unanimously my students prefer some type of music playing. Because so many songs have some questionable lyrics, I prefer wordless music. My student's favorite is The Piano Guys. This group recreates popular songs using the piano and string instruments. I use Amazon Music because it comes with my Prime membership and there are no disruptive commercials.

Lights

One of my most favorite features of my classroom are my twinkle lights. I hang them around my bulletin boards and whiteboards. They are on all day and we frequently turn out the harsh fluorescent lights. I've actually done some research on the affects of fluorescent lights and student behavior. I have personally seen a big different when we turn off the lights and work with just twinkle lights on. I'm always very respectful if a students requests to have the lights on, though it is rare. Our favorite time to flip off the lights is during the read aloud. I find that it helps the students to focus on what I'm reading.

Favorite Instagramers

I must confess that this summer Instagram has taken the place of Pinterest as my go-to teacher inspiration place. I think I enjoy it more because I get to know the people and I feel like I can trust their ideas more than Pinterest. It's also real-time, so for example, everyone is posting their back-to-school ideas right now which is really helpful to me. I also think it exposes me to new and creative things I wouldn't necessarily search for on Pinterest.

Today, I'm going to share my top 5 Instagramers I follow.

1. Easy Teaching Tools: I love this one because she has some really great teaching ideas on her posts, but it's her videos that I love watching. They crack me up! She has a great sense of humor and is always willing to do silly things.

2. Teaching in Room 6: This is my go-to for curriculum inspiration, especially for social studies. She provides so many engaging activities that go beyond paper and pencil. She is very student-centered and finds innovative ways to teach.

3. Hello Fifth: I follow Hello Fifth for her awesome flexible seating options and classroom decor. She has a very clean sense of style that makes her classroom organized and cute. She also has some great resources that I love to use.

4. Elementary Shenanigans: When I'm looking for ways to engage my students and make my classroom a place the students beg to come to, I look to this one. Hope King also wrote a book with her husband called Wild Card*, which I'm currently reading. She really pushes you beyond your comfort zone and encourages wild, crazy things that will truly engage your students in the learning process.

5. Teach Create Motivate: I love getting ideas from this Instagramer because she creates some fun and colorful resources that I love using in my classroom. She also has so many great decor and organizational ideas. As I scroll through my feed on Instagram, I always stop and look at her stuff.

*Affiliate Link

I'm More Than a Title

I have to say that this week's readings were quite though provoking for me. I began by reading Prensky's article and it got me thinking about how I teach. Prensky was a bit offensive to us "older folk" whom he classifies as Digital Immigrants and basically said we need to create only games to teach our Digital Native students. But underneath his cryptic thoughts on teachers today, there was an underlying message to hear: Education is changing. While, in fact, it has always been changing, I think today we're seeing a much bigger shift than in previous years. But as I read Steve Wheeler's "A Convenient Untruth" I realize how easy it is to be sucked into thinking we have to dump everything we've ever done and switch to a singular form of teaching through video games. In doing so, we're creating a huge disservice to our students. We're allowing them to narrow their views and boxing them into a single learning opportunity.

The reality is that we must find balance in our teaching. Yes, students are learning through technology in my classroom, but that isn't all of it. Wheeler points out that by putting our Digital Natives into a category, we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that ends up hurting our students. I work to find a ways to incorporate meaningful technology into all areas of my curriculum, but I also look for ways that gets my students talking and interacting.

Another thing that Wheeler had me thinking about was how much we label our students. I've seen our school counselor have the students take the "learning styles" survey (I even remember taking that same survey as a kid). She has the students stand up for each different style. I always wondered what purpose it served. How many students give up a task before even really trying because the activity doesn't match their learning style. It becomes an excuse to not do anything.

So while Prensky has labeled me a Digital Immigrant, I will continue to be true to myself as a learner and teacher. I'm always changing and learning new things and while my "accent" may be there, it's ok. Diversity is a beautiful thing. When everyone brings something different to the table, we expand our learning and become better people.



A convenient untruth by Steve Wheeler

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants – Part II: Do they really think differently? On the Horizon, 9(6). Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

McKenzie, J. (2007). Digital nativism: Digital delusions and digital deprivation. From Now On, 17(2). Retrieved from http://fno.org/nov07/nativism.html

Reeves, T.C. (2008). Do generational differences matter in instructional design? Online discussion presentation to Instructional Technology Forum from January 22-25, 2008 at http://paeaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/10c-Gen-Diff-Matter.pdf