What the kids actually need

In my class of 17 kiddos I have 13 boys and 4 girls. (Yikes) That alone presents several challenges. I am thankful for growing up with 3 very competitive brothers and having a competitive boyfriend because I am constantly making things into competitions, impressing the boys with my sports knowledge and twisting everything I can to be something that they would be interested in.  (lots of bugs, transformers, cars, sports etc…)

We have been in school for several weeks and I have all ready located the couple students (all three boys…) that are going to give me a bit of a challenge this year. I wanted to bring these parents in for conferences to try to understand a bit more of the “whole picture” for these students. I also wanted to see if they see the same behaviors at home.

In an effort to connect with Edward’s* parents for this exact reason I called his parent. Unfortunately the number was disconnected. I walked Edward out to get picked up that same day hoping to get an updated phone number. When talking to the mother, she volunteered to come in for the conference! (Without me asking) I jumped on that opportunity and was expecting her the following day.

The next day the mother came to have the conference about her son. I met her in the office. When laying my eyes on her, I knew something was wrong. As I got closer I saw, her face had been badly battered. Both eyes back and blue, nose broken, scratches on arms, jaw bruised and red. I was at a lost of words. I had never seen anything like it, except for on the news! And there she was right in front of me ready to conference with me about her son.

Here I was going to tell her that her son was not following direction and is having a difficult time listening; and this family had been going through a situation like this.  I would have never know any of this if I did not call her in for a conference on this particular day.

When reflecting on this situation, it makes me think what is really important. It is not the most important thing for these students to master putting words in ABC order or understand how to use greater than and less than symbols, it is important that they feel safe and loved at school. It is important that they see school as a safe place to have fun, and put any problems they have aside.

This was an eye-opening day for me, which I will remember. I think sometimes teachers get carried away about standards and external pressures but really it is all about the kids and what they need.

*Note all students’ names have been changed

The Whole Picture

My first, first days of school have come and gone! I work in an elementary school in Tyler Independent School District. My school is pretty small as there are only 3 classrooms per grade level. It makes for a very close knit staff that have been awesome to work with so far! My school is a Title 1 school that is approximately 93% economically disadvantaged.

Setting up my classroom was a very very busy week that would not have happened with out the help of my mom and brother who came all the way to Texas to help me. It was several long days but let me tell you it looks great!!!  My classroom is forever changing with the magical things my students are coming up with, I wanted to attach a few pictures of my classroom on the first day of school!

View of classroom from back corner.

This is my bulletin board outside of the classroom. The text at the top says, "Diving into First." Student work will be displayed on each of the patterned squares.

Word Wall- This picture was taken the first day of school, the word wall now probably was 30 - 40 words on it! :)

 Our school theme this year is "From Crayons to College." This board is melted crayons and then at the bottom says, "From Crayons to College." It was a very fun project.

A couple more views of the classroom. 

Ready, Set, Go

It all started as a silly assignment. One of my last semesters at the University of Iowa I had a professor who was adamant about blogging. She had a teacher blog. Her friends had teacher blogs. She believed everyone needed to have a teaching blog. An assignment in this course was for every student to… you guessed it … create a blog. Weekly we were to make a blog post about an assigned topic. This was to be an “interactive journaling experience” because we can view our classmates’ blogs where we were expected to comment and build upon their responses.

While it was in theory an awesome idea, at that time I did not have the classroom experiences to stimulate the content to write about, to me, it was just another assignment. You will notice that the first several posts of this blog were the “assignments” that were required.

Fifteen months later, here I am teaching in my very own 1^st grade classroom. Every week, maybe even everyday, I still have that moment of “Wow, here I am teaching in my very own classroom and also wow I live in Texas which is very far from my home in Appleton, Wisconsin.” Although it was a lot of change, I learned a lot very quickly and have been so fortunate to have an amazing support system both at home and at school.

As these first 4 weeks of school have flown by I have had many noteworthy experiences that I really want to write down and remember. This is where that little professor from Iowa was instilled my mind to “blog about it, blog about it, blog about it.” So that is exactly what I am going to do. I am not sure how often I will get to blogging, but I want to have a place where I can come to release all my thought, ideas, rants etc… As time goes by I will learn more of the trick to blogging and making it look cutesy but for now I am all about the basics. J Enjoy.

Reflect and Redirect

This semester has made me look at writing and reading differently. Although, throughout the education program the reading and writing have been a huge focus, as they should be, this class has helped me look at things in a different perspective. I think of the biggest things I have learned is how to be an innovative teacher. Don’t be afraid to take risks in a classroom because one of two things could happen. One, it could be incredibly successful and the students will learn a lot from a lesson. Or, two, it could completely fail and you as a teacher will be able to reflect on your teaching and develop a way to make it even better. Often times, I think it is a combination of these two things.

One thing that I did not value enough until this course was assessment. This is something that teachers, administrators, parents, and many people value in a classroom setting. While it is of course important to me, it has kind of has taken a back seat in my mind. As a pre-teacher, I love to focus on the great ideas I have to teach and the new and innovative ways to teach students. But what many administrators really emphasize is “How are we going to know that the students are learning?” or “What evidence do you have that the students are making progress?” I have quickly learned that everything I teach must have a way to assess the students. Many of the authors that we focused on such as Peter Johnson and Carl Anderson really provide good ideas to focus on when assessing students. For example, Anderson explains a lot about how to specifically link what we learn in an assessment to our instruction. How do we use what we learn and help carry this out while teaching our students?

These books really highlighted of ideas for me and they will become resources to me in the future. Johnson discussed how social imagination is used everyday in our society. I agree with him in saying that often times we take this for granted and do not consider this part of schooling. Social imagination is what helps make our society work. It is the foundation of what makes relationships work or not work. What many people do not understand is that there is a considerable difference in people’s ability to make sense of social cues, and to think through their implications, and these discrepancies have consequences for children’s lives for now and for their futures. Developing this social imagination is something that needs to be valued in a classroom. Although this not something that is tested directly on state tests, it is still something that students need to learn at a young age to be part of society.

I suppose one of the major things that I have learned is the need for a teacher to reflect on what is going on in his or her classroom. What needs to be changed? How do I personalize my instruction to this group of students? What do I need to do differently? These are all questions that the teacher must take time to address in order to teach in the best way possible. 

Technology Everyday...Allday...

Technology…..Where to begin?? The biggest word that I need to continually remind myself is FLEXIBILITY! We need to be aware that what is going on the tech world is continually changing. We as teachers need to be open to change! Do not shut out what is going on the tech world. It is worth paying attention to trust me. If you stop and think about it, what is one thing that kids latch on to? My answer would be technology and social media. How can we as teacher change our teaching to incorporate technology and social media to further their learning? Blogging, tweeting, using pintrest are just a few examples of ways to spark learning in a tech savvy way.

Using technology as a way for students to collaborate is a way that will help allow them to see different components of something come together? It also allows for a time for students to build off each other. 

Something I am interested in learning more about is how to use technology as a classroom management tool. There was something that I was recently introduced to called Class Dojo. This is a tool that helps classroom behavior. Class Dojo can reinforce behavior instantly from just a click from a smartphone, tablet, or computer. It also allows for teachers to engage students in minutes. I am interested in learning more about other tools that will help me mange my classroom because that is certainly one of my biggest fears when I enter the teaching world for real.

One thing that also scares me about diving into the education tech world is the fear that student are off task. There is certainly less monitoring for students. I think there is also a risk that students are taking from illegitimate  sources. I think this is something that we need to instill in out student’s brains as early as possible. When researching, students need to learn to filter there searches to make sure they are not getting false information. A good tool to use for this problem is to encourage students to start searching with Smart Search. This is a search engine that is designed to students. It is ad free, and offers credible resources for students to pull from.

One of the most remarkable ways I have seen technology used to help with differentiation. Differentiation. Differentiation. Differentiation. Talk about a teaching buzz word… But how to we accomplish differentiation? Technology is one of the answers. Technology can be used to push student learning and provide enrichment, as well as serve as assistive technology to students who may need help.

Technology in the classroom is something that is growing so much! I am beyond on board with trying to use technology. To me it is just about how do I use it in a way that will benefit the students the most! I want to provide them with the technology that will help them see the world in a different way. If used right, technology can make the difference between a good teacher and great teacher. The challenge is that it is up to the teacher to find a way to help the student use the technology in the best way possible to support their learning needs.

Instructional Conversations

Instruction conversations are great ways to teach students how to use dialogue in their learning. I believe teaching through the sharing of ideas through such dialogues can be empowering for students as a learning experience. Goldenberg states that an instructional conversation is a time students are encouraged to analyze reflect and critically think about a specific topic. This sounds so nice and fluffy on paper….BUT how do we do this? I want the students to think beyond the general descriptions of a book…. forget the summaries…. think critically.

Goldenberg recommends we start with having a thematic purpose. These talking points are essential to have planned out prior to the discussion happening. I can foresee myself intervening too much in an instructional conversation, especially if the conversation diverges from the topic that I want it to focus on. I think this is an important skill to have as an instructor; knowing when to intervene and refocus the students. I think is comes down to when the students take a topic and make it no longer related to the overall points that you are attempting to cover, at that point it is acceptable to refocus the students. Secondly, Goldenberg discusses the importance of activation. This activation component is essential in tapping into the students’ background knowledge. When the students make that connection between the new knowledge and something they previously knew they become more willing to share and give forth their opinions about topics.

Another part of an instructional conversation is when a teacher needs to directly teach the students. These are points when the teacher intervenes. Pull the students together and redirect them. Goldenberg also has a component he titles “promotion of more complex language and expression.” This is the cheerleader inside of us that comes out in an instructional conversation. The “great point, does any one have anything they would like to add on?” or the “Wow I never though of it that way, did anyone else think of it a little differently?” This is where the teacher helps the students get through the conversation. It is challenging to give the students wait time, but once there is an opportunity to promote an idea it is acceptable for the teacher dive right in! Finally elicitation is the last component Goldenberg discusses. This is where the teacher asks prompting questions such as, “How do you know?” or “Can you tell me more about that?” Overtime, hopefully these comments will come naturally for me.

Overall, this is a great technique that I am so excited to use with my students. I think it will be a skill that once mastered can be utilized in any subject matter! This is something that will first be useful in school but will be transferred to be a life long skill. Knowing how to build off each other and listen to other people in a discussion is something that will go a long way in life. We have to use tools like this in our classrooms! How exciting is it to teach our curriculum in a way that allows our children to build skills that will be useful for a lifetime.