A Little Empathy

A few years ago I was at a restaurant with my family. I have two boys and a girl and the boys at the time were 6 and 8. Keeping them down was a chore, especially when we went to a restaurant. I just got back from getting my salad and my wife was heading to get hers so it was the changing of the guard. My boys hopped off the seat and started after her, so i had them come back. They were noisy, and that is why I took them to pizza places and not 4 star restaurants, yet. One of my boys hopped off the seat when he saw mom coming back and was yelling to her when a lady turned to him and told him that he was being too noisy and to just be quiet. She went on to tell him that she was here to eat and not listen to kids yell and play. She turned and looked at me and we locked eyes for a moment. She was a teacher I had done a practicum under a few years back. She sort of smiled and turned back around, never to turn around again. 

I have to say I was a bit disappointed. Yes it is nice to have a nice mellow time at a pizza place, but there should be a little understanding. My kids were not running around the place dodging in and out of tables or chairs, they were not yelling throughout the meal or throwing things. Even if they had, isn’t that the reason we take kids to restaurants, so they can learn how to act? I wonder if that the way some teachers feel about students? We expect them to be end-of-year kids we had last year and not beginning-of-the-year kids not knowing our rules, procedures, or the curriculum we need to teach. I was told once that as a teacher I was probably one of the highest in my classes at school, obeyed most or all of the rules, and most things just make sense to me. So how am I supposed to teach students that are not the top of the class, do not always understand how to act anywhere, and do not obey rules, and probably do not have rules at their house. And to top it off, nothing makes sense to these students right away. How can I expect that all or any of my lessons will go as I plan. I can’t.

But what I can do is build empathy for them. I can love them and give the chances. Even when all their chances are up, I give them another chance. I care about what they are going through. I can help them as they go through things at home or with friends, or with assignments they do not understand. I care about them.  Most teachers get this. Most understand this. Most live by this. So when we get ready to punish a student for not bringing their homework back when they have no one at home to help or they have to babysit all night because their parents work, or even if they do not bring their work back at all, help them so they can succeed. I know it is hard, but we need them to feel success. We don’t need to give them more of what they don’t need. We need to give them what they do need. Love and guidance.  Do you have a story that is similar to mine?

PLC Perspective

What can I say about PLC’s that has not already been said? Well the name says it all We are professionals and should treated and act as such. We should always be learning and growing as teachers to benefit ourselves and especially our students. We are a community of teachers trying to do our best to teach our students. So we move into our Team meetings to build our Professional Learning Community.  

 I have to say that PLC used to be pretty foggy to me. I couldn’t see through the PLC fog. What did it all mean? How does it work? Can we truly be collaborative when one or two teachers seems to do the work and the others don’t add anything to the discussion or help with the work? What does a PLC look like? Then as the team started working together, we all started to put our efforts into the students. We did our own Professional Development. We learned together, we researched new ideas, and talked. We talked about students. The fog started to lift. When we started shifting our team meetings away from teaching students to student learning our meetings changed. Our perspective changed. Our teaching changed. The PLC model is powerful. It has helped me be a better teacher. As I move into administration, I find myself wanting the same perspective for the teachers I work with. I  want to help them move forward. How I can do that will remain to be seen.

Right Now

Right now, it's your tomorrow.
Right now, c'mon, it's everything.
Right now, catch a magic moment, do it right here and now.
It means everything
-Sammy Hagar

School is starting again. New students. New ideas. Blank slate. When do we implement all these new ideas? Do we wait until the students are ready? Do we wait until everyone is on board with the plan? There is not better time to get going on new ideas than at the present moment. Do we want these students to miss anything new that will help them learn and progress? When we find something that might be revolutionary and will help students, we need to get going on it as soon as we can. Get your head around the concept and dig in.

Have students help put together. Use them as the learners they are and find out what they think. Will it help them learn better? Are they willing to try it out? I have found that one reason we don't try it out is because we, the teacher, are unsure how it will work out.

As we learn new ideas from out Personal Learning Network on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, at school, or wherever you hear and see new ideas, get your head around it and get it going.

I remember the first year I used flipped learning. I had been toying with the idea for about a year trying to figure out how I would put it into practice. It took me a year to get it into place and then it was magnificent. Students loved it. I wasted 2 years putting it together and 3 years of students that could have used this idea to learn. The reason was that I wasn't ready. It wasn't the students. We don't give students enough credit when it comes to new activities and procedures. If it is he middle of the year, we start over and teach the new procedures as we did at the beginning of the year.

There are so many activities and lessons and strategies that we can use. Don't wait. Do it right now.

What Did You Learn Today?

My son and I were having a great time watching OK GO videos on YouTube. They are amazing. As we were talking about the different ways they use their videos, he made a comment that struck me funny. He said he has had manny of his teacher show the video "The Writing's on the Wall" in class. I totally agree that it has some great lessons in that video. So I asked him what he learned from the video or what the teachers taught him as they showed it? He said, nothing. He learned nothing. It was a great video. I asked what he was learning at the time and he said he did not remember.

I don't think the teachers did not teach him anything when showing him that video. We just need to make sure the students are engaged enough in out lessons to know why we are doing what we are doing. There are many times when I have sent students home and they have said they have learned nothing. So what do we do?

We have students tell us what they learned. Taking a little time at the end of each lesson and having a couple students tell us what they learned will give them time to think about what they did and what they learned. It will also remind those around them of the lesson. Sometimes our lessons are so packed in that we are finishing the lesson as they rush out the door, but we cannot do that. Teachers need to take the time to ask one simple question at the end of the lesson and at the end of the day, "What did you learn today?"

Starting Out With An LMS

It has been a great year using Schoology in my classroom. When I first started using Schoology it was a place for students to do worksheets or a laundry list of assignments to complete. I have come to the conclusion that there will be lists. There will be procedure I need the students to do. There will be specific activities and assessments I need them to do within the curriculum. I will be given district assigned activities and assessments I will need them to complete. Within that framework I can work on differentiating assignments. I can also provide them opportunities to complete the assignments as they need to and not on a specific day or at a specific time. This is what I am excited about.

I started with Spelling. I differentiated the lists for students. As I grade tests I set up individual sets of words for each student. The first set of lists I set up I have 18 different lists for 26 students. management was fun the first few times, but as students found their spelling videos, they watched and completed the assignments. Each student had their individual set of word patterns to learn. It is fantastic.

I have moved to building choices into units for students to complete on their own. The first unit was in science. I created 5 activities that would each student would complete at different times. My class still talks about it. We are starting our next big activity doing something similar to the last one. There will be activities for students to complete, but they will complete them at different times depending on where they are on a map. I love simulations. As I move through the year I see more and more opportunity for students to learn using the LMS.

Student Behavior

It's time to change my mindset, again. This time it has changed because Angie (co-teacher) and I decided at the beginning of the year to not have a discipline plan. We had just started putting our classroom together and started discussing procedures. We talked about different plans for discipline; colored cards, discipline slips, Class Dojo, rewards, parties, and other ideas. We decided to not have anything. We just decided to talk with students and share with them our expectations and explain the reasoning behind the rules and procedures.

It has turned out to be quite a year for us. We have not needed to send anyone to the office for any problems. We do have talking and students not wanting to complete assignments. We just don't discipline the students by pulling cards. What I have found is that with or without the reward, students will do what is asked of them because they want to. So I do what I can to give them motivation to complete their work. Not all students buy in in the beginning, but building a relationship with each student helps them see that what we are doing is helping them succeed. Most of the time it works.

The biggest lesson I have learned is that students will do what is needed without a discipline plan. These are a few things we have  done to help motivate our class;

• Build a relationship with each student
• Show respect for students ideas, thoughts, and actions
• Teach acceptable behaviors
• Set high expectations and review them often
• Give reasons for assignments and activities
• Explain with real-world examples
• Share all data with students and set goals from that data
• Less lecture, more student engagement
  • student to student
  • teacher to student
  • Use Big-8 strategies

This has been a change in mindset for me. I hope it can be a change for many others.

Thank You PLN

I was perusing my Twitter feed a few days ago and found a great idea to use in my class. It is a writing activity about building a nonfiction book for a younger grade class to read. I emailed the link to myself. Today I pulled it up and started reading it. I am in the midst of a great lesson plan because of a wonderful teacher (@pernilleripp) posted a great idea for me to use. This is all because of a great PLN I have been a part of for quite a few years. Most of the time I sit back and steal discover ideas for my class. I have done more contributing

At this time of year when we are being thankful and giving I wanted to thank all of my Professional Learning Community/Network for all all the lessons and ideas you have given me. My students have benefited from all the great learning I have done over the years from twitter, blogs, and pinterest ideas. I have benefited as a teacher and learner. Thank you. Have a great holiday season.