I am so grateful that it's the weekend. It's nice to have a minute to breathe and reflect on the first week of school. When I wasn't teaching, I was planning lessons, making copies, manning my post at carpool, reading books for my new media class, meeting with my team and plt (the other 6th grade language arts teachers), tutoring a high-schooler on Sophocles, sleeping and eating. Starting the school year is a juggling act. There was so much that I wanted to write throughout the week, but blogging was just one of the things I had to drop in order to keep the important things in the air.
I'm sure my students feel the same sense of relief after meeting six teachers, getting used to several sets of class procedures, skimming syllabi, figuring out (or not quite figuring out) their lockers, navigating new hallways, and making friends. "It will get easier," was my go-to phrase when teary-eyed ten-year-olds approached me with locker woes, requests for directions, and confusion over school supplies. It's what I'm telling myself too as I work on balancing my time as a teacher and my time as a student. Things I learned this week: 1. Don't hand out any paperwork on the first day. Just don't. I'm very impressed that most of my students did hand in their syllabi and electronic permission slips, but it just wasn't necessary to have those things the first week of school. It would probably be better to wait until the students are organized and in the routine of completing and turning in their homework to hand these out. 2. I loved meeting my new students and really look forward to learning more about them. 3. My students are excited to read! A raucous (okay, well, not raucous, but audible) cheer erupted when I announced that we would be visiting the media center and students would be able to check out books on Thursday. It seems like many of my students already know a love for reading, and those who don't will soon be infected by the literature lovers on the team. I heard students giving book recommendations to one another, some chose the same book to read so they could discuss it at lunch, and others explored new genres, choosing books they had never heard of before. 4. Building community in the classroom should be a teacher's top goal the first week of school. In the foundations of middle school class that I attend on Tuesday nights at NC State, my professor spent a good hour having her 13 students introduce ourselves to the class. We were told ahead of time to bring an object to class that we could use to introduce ourselves. Professor Beal used this activity to help us make connections to one another and cultivated a learning community rooted in empathy and support. It might seem hard to justify spending so much time on introductions in my own classroom, especially since my average class size is thirty students, but it's not. Creating a learning environment where the students feel known, cared-about, and supported by their teacher and their peers is crucial. It means that school is a place they want to go, where they feel accepted, where they can take risks and won't be afraid to fail. To start building community, we wrote bio poems and shared them during a gallery walk. Students wrote down comments for their classmates on sticky-notes and worked to find common threads that weave through our community of learners. We answered icebreaker questions and I showed students this soul pancake video about getting to know new people. Next Friday, the students will go through team building activities led by Mrs. McKee. Looking forward starting week two tomorrow!
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Yesterday at the staff meeting, an AP assigned a "learning experience" to all of the teachers. "Okay, it's homework, but we're calling it a learning experience so it doesn't sound like homework," she admitted. The assignment? Write about what you'll do, bell to bell, on a typical day in your classroom.
It's hard to give just one answer to this question, because what I'll do in my classroom can differ drastically depending on our unit of study, the students' needs, and the format of my lessons. This year we'll engage in book clubs, meet with writing partners to craft and revise essays, use the laptops to write reflection blogs, read and write poetry, have a class "campfire," and keep online portfolios of writing samples and projects. But I suppose even though the meat of each lesson and the way it's served will change, a few procedures will provide the framework for each day's lesson. Consistent Framework for Class 1. Warm Up: The warm-up might be a grammar exercise, a creative writing prompt, or a question about what we’re currently learning. It's aim is to access prior knowledge about the day's material. Students will label the title of the warm-up and the date in their daybooks and start the warm-up at the beginning of class. 2. Objective-based: The objective for each day's lesson will be on the whiteboard and students will know what they're focused on learning that day. 3. HEART of the lesson 4. Exit Ticket: "We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." -John Dewey Students will reflect on their learning daily. This might take the form of a "great American one sentence summary" of the lesson written in a student's daybook, answering a question on the way out the door, or submitting a question about the lesson to me via a google form. Moving past the daily routine, I’m really eager to apply what I’m learning in my grad classes in my classroom this year. A few changes that I will institute include giving my students more autonomy, writing a blog, and having my students reflect more on their learning through student blogs and online portfolios. I want to help my students become intrinsically motivated to learn this year. I hope to cultivate the type of classroom environment in which that is possible by making my students decision makers. They will have more personal freedom when it comes to literature selection and how they respond to what they read and how they respond to literature. Today's staff meeting involved a presentation about our new school grading policy, an unveiling of Symbaloo in conjunction with the MPMS website, motivational speeches, a PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Support) Presentation, new-staff introductions, and a wonderful lunch provided by the PTSA. Something that made an impact on me was our discussion of Mind-Sets. Our admin team passed around Mind-Sets and Equitable Education, an article by Carol S. Dweck. The article discussed fixed vs. growth mind-sets and the difference a mind-set can make in learning. A person with a fixed mind-set is praised for the end result. "Well done! You got an A!" or "You won! You're a winner!" Rather, growth mind-set focuses on praising the process, the effort. "You worked so hard!" and "Look at how far you've come!" The problem with fixed mind-set praise is that when students win, you tell them that they are winners, so when they lose, they feel like failures. Fixed mind-set learners worry about how they'll be judged, the final results. Growth mind-set people worry about what they'll learn and how they'll grow. Research has shown that students' minds-sets have a direct influence of their grades and that teaching students to have a growth mind-set raises their grades and achievement test scores significantly (Blackwell, Trzesniewsi, & Dweck, 2007). It shows that all students have the ability to learn and to succeed. It's my job as a teacher to praise strategies and effort, tell the students that they can do better, try harder, and provide them with specific ways to do so. Check out Eduardo Briceno's TED Talk that explains the difference between fixed and growth mind-sets. Today is the first work day for MPMS. It was great to catch up with all of my fellow teachers and start getting my room ready for my students. It seems to take less and less time to set things up as the years go by and I had my room ready to go by lunchtime. My website is up and running and no longer password protected. There's a lot to do next week, but I couldn't do too much more today that doesn't require meeting with my professional learning team and the other Jaguar teachers. So what did I do? I created a video! Here's your first step to surviving middle school language arts. Come prepared! Watch the first installation of Surviving Middle School to find out what to bring to LA class on your first day. Reflection on how I’ve grown personally, professionally and virtually because of ECI 512: Teaching Literature for Young Adults Personal GrowthWhen class began in mid-May, I hoped to gain a wider appreciation for different genres of young adult literature, specifically graphic novels. I hadn't read many graphic novels at that time and wanted to read a few and figure out how I could use them with my students. I love how much I read over the past five weeks because of this class! Over the past few weeks, I read eight books; four of them were graphic novels. I can say without a doubt that I gave grown in this regard. I know that I will use graphic novels in my classroom next year and feel confident that I can use them as a teaching tool. I loved Boxers and Saints and the brilliant way Yang depicted the same conflict through different perspectives. As a reader, you sympathize with both protagonists and finish the books torn between the characters and their points of view. All books about conflict should be written in such a way. We would understand so much more about one another. I read books that were out of my comfort zone, not only graphic novels, but others too. Reading Maggot Moon was difficult for me. There was such violence and despair in this book and the scattered, dyslexic narration (even though it was a brilliant stylistic choice) made it hard for me to connect with the main character. I probably wouldn’t have continued reading it if it was just a book I picked up on my own. Even though I didn’t like the book, I appreciated it. I loved the discussion that we had about this book in class because we had different opinions about it. It was a good reminder that I shouldn’t just stay in my comfort zone with books that I read or books I use in the classroom. Thinking back on our CCIs, something that will really stick with me is the importance of cultivating an inclusive classroom. It is so important that all students feel welcome, safe, and willing to take risks in my classroom. Reading Bad Boy by Walter Dean Myers was an important reminder to teach multi-cultural literature. Myers expressed that all that he read in school was written by white men and as a young reader and writer, this made him feel inferior and isolated. Myers had a few awful teachers in his younger years, but he had some great ones too. Teachers who acknowledged his background and his struggles at home, but still held him to high standards, who told him he was special, and who told him never to stop writing. It’s important to introduce my students to multiple perspectives on issues and help them work through questions they have. Something that I’m taking away from this course isn’t something that I anticipated on my pre-assessment: the validity of Pink’s theory of motivation being driven by autonomy, mastery and purpose. I’ll confess that at times, I found it hard to get used to the structure of this course. There was so much free choice that I sometimes was frustrated at the lack of guidelines. It took me a while, but in the end I relished the personal freedom that this method of learning allowed me. After I read Navigating Early, I responded to the book in a way that was completely new to me. As I reflected in my week three post, personal choice, or autonomy, allowed me to read books and respond to them in ways that helped me grow as an individual. It also allowed me to create things that I have a purpose for. Choosing our own topics, methods of delivery and collaboration for the CCIs allowed my classmates and me to participate in relevant discussions and create things that we can use in our classrooms. I am eager to continue develop my belonging unit so I can use it with my students next year. I'm also eager to see how I can apply Pink's theory in my own classroom to intrinsically motivate my own students. Professional GrowthIn my self-evaluation at the beginning of the course, I expressed a desire to become more involved in my school to teach professional development sessions. Because of our CCI on technology, I now can share some great new tools with my department and my PLT. Specifically, I plan on sharing the Intra-Act scaffolding technique and Wall Wisher. I loved the reader response method that we used in class. As I shared in an earlier post, I showed my students my blog post, poem, and video that I created for Navigating Early. We had a great discussion about the book and the process of creating! Allowing my students personal choice in what they read and how they respond will help them to form connections between what they read and why it's important to them. I was excited to share my work with my students and my excitement rubbed off on them. I am committed to offering more personal freedom to my students next year. I know that at times this will be challenging, but I think in the long run they will be more engaged, motivated, and will learn more. This class has provided many practical resources that I can use next year. I created an interdisciplinary unit centered around the concept of belonging that I plan to use the second half of first quarter and I can definitely see myself using Navigating Early with my 6th graders. Navigating Early would even work as an interdisciplinary unit for all subjects.
Virtual GrowthWhen I completed my funds of knowledge inventory at the beginning of the course, I was under the impression that I knew about many educational apps that are out there and was comfortable using them with my students. While I would still say that I'm comfortable with most new apps, (or at least comfortable figuring them out) my eyes have been opened to many new types of technology that I can use with my students and ways that I can provide those opportunities when a computer lab isn't available.
Here are my top ten technology moments from this class. Top Ten Tech Tips (gotta love alliteration) I learned from this class: 1. Twitter is a great way to network with other educators and stay current with trends in educational technology. 2. Wall Wisher (Padlet) is an awesome tool for collaboration. It allows contributors to embed documents, pictures, videos, etc. and is really visually appealing. 3. How to teach a class and screen-share using Google Hangouts. If we have 9 snow days next year, watch out kids! We're having class snow or shine! 4. Storify is a cool app that I need to keep exploring. 5. Scoop-it is a great tool for curating, which is an important component of digital literacy. I've been using Pinterest in a similar way, which I probably prefer because posts per day are unlimited and I can embed my boards onto my class website, which I'm not certain I can do with Scoop-it. 6. Cell Phones can be used as word processors. So... I really need to stop dragging my feet and figure out how a BYOD policy will work in my classroom. Students are using phones at home. We should teach the students to use the tools that they're using outside of school. They come to school with technology that will enhance their learning and are forced to keep it in their lockers. I will be an advocate for change in this regard. 7. Weebly makes visually-appealing blogs, if I do say so myself. I will use Weebly student accounts with my 6th graders in the fall so they can blog. 8. There are way more apps out there than I could ever learn to use. The key is being able and willing to learn new things, to use what works for you. 9. Ning... How did I not know about Ning? 10. Google Voice can be used for Podcasts and students can SMS to it as an alternative to Twitter. I would love to do something like this to provide an authentic audience for my students. In Conclusion... It's pretty cool that I'm taking away so many practical applications from this course. I wanted to explore the idea of a BYOD classroom and integrating technology and literature, and my classmate, Bethany, led a great collaborative critical inquiry that provided resources and information to start me on that journey. Sadie led a CCI for nonfiction around the idea of belonging and I was able to create a belonging unit that I will use next year. Dr. Crissman provided countless tips, resources, and connections via her Twitter feed, which I will continue to stalk for ideas in the years to come. I became more comfortable with graphic novels. I discovered new apps. I read great books that made me think. I learned new literacy strategies. I worked hard. If the rest of my experience in State's grad program is anything like this class, I know that I'll end up a much better teacher on the other end. Yesterday was the day that teachers dream of all year long: the last day of school before summer vacation. Okay, scratch that. Today is the day teachers dream of all year long: the first day of summer vacation, hooray! This week consisted of wrapping things up at school, dealing with a flood in my apartment, and a collaborative critical inquiry unit centered around technology and digital literacy. I also read The Plain Janes, a graphic novel by Cecil Castellucci. It has been a whirlwind, so it's good to sit down, to dump out the puzzle pieces of this week in my mind and see how they all fit together. My reading assignment this week was to choose a sequential art book. I loved The Plain Janes. I enjoyed reading a story told through both pictures and text. The idea of creating neighborhood art (People Loving Art in Neighborhoods gives the book it's title) and rebelling against "the man" was really cool and will appeal to teens. The Plain Janes is probably only my fifth or sixth graphic novel, and I'm excited to read more of them. (I bought Boxers and Saints today!) Many of my students read graphic novels and I see a lot of value in using them in the classroom to teach visual literacy, increase interest in reading, and to integrate other subject areas with nonfiction sequential art. I'm excited to read Sadie's Middle School Confidential book and see if I can use it somehow the first few weeks of school. I enjoyed our discussion on technology and heard about some great apps that I can't wait to try, specifically Storify, Story Kit, and Remind 101. Here's a Storyify that Dr. Crissman created to show our pre-class inquiry this unit. It was neat to think back on the technology that I used with my students this year. I used Google Drive for writing partners, Animoto for book trailers and vocabulary videos, Pinterest to compile resources and word walls. The students created online posters with Glogster, plotted the setting location of their folk stories on a Google map, and students blogged from the perspective of a character using Weebly. Thursday's discussion was a good reminder that technology should be used to enhance the literacies being taught in my classroom. It should be used to increase efficiency, creativity, and the research process. Something that I'm still processing is a BYOD policy. I see so many positive outcomes of a BYOD policy, but I was a little turned off the idea this week in school, when many teachers were lax on the rules and students were using their cellphones to snapchat selfies, text their friends, and who knows what else. It was challenging to enforce the rules when not everyone was. That's why it's so important that schools develop consistent BYOD policies. The truth is, kids are bring cell phones to school and they're using them. Why not have them use them to enhance their education? Smartphones make the internet and a web of resources available at a student's fingertips, so we should definitely utilize that resource. Personal Growth:My week was very philosophical. To be honest, I tried to avoid it. I didn't really want to think about thinking. Because when you're honest with yourself, and when you really think about the big issues, it's exhausting, and time consuming, and it's probably going to change you, which can be good, it's just not always easy. Really, it's not so much that I didn't want to think deeply. I just didn't want to think deeply and post whatever ideas I dug up on the internet. I read The Paradox of Vertical Flight by Emil Ostrovski. To say it's thought-provoking is an understatement. Paradox makes you think about the big questions in life. Why are we here? Can I be extraordinary? Does time exist? Does the world exist or is it just part of my existence? Are some infinities larger than other infinities? Can you really be friends with someone for your whole life? How did the universe come to be? Does the universe have ceilings? If so, who created them and who created the universe and what ceilings do I create and do ceilings even exist if the universe doesn't really exist except as a construct of my existence... It really made me wish that I hadn't saved my bookcast for this week. The bookcast project made me respond in a personal way to the book, drawing connections from my life, the world, and other literature. To do so, I had to confront these questions and I had to find a way to illustrate my connection to them in an artistic way that I would be comfortable sharing on the world wide web. I sat on my porch for hours this morning just thinking. It was kind of emotional for me and I had a hard time getting started. It was a really good reminder that a personal response to literature can be very difficult to create, not because a student doesn't have connections to a story or character, but because they just might be difficult to process and to share. It reminded me that I should complete projects alongside my students and experience what they're experiencing (or at least my own version of it) so I can anticipate issues and relate to their own reactions to literature and my assignments. Anyway, it ended up being kind of cathartic to create. Ultimately, I'm okay with the fact that there can't be faith without doubt and that there are some questions that can't be answered. I didn't share everything that I thought about. Just what I could comfortably share in four minutes with whichever strangers on the internet decide to read my blog. And you, dear classmates. Professional Growth:This week I led the collaborative critical inquiry unit over an inclusive classroom. I enjoyed using Padlet as a collaborative tool and appreciated the wealth of knowledge shared by my classmates. They provided unique perspectives that I wouldn't have considered otherwise. We also had a great discussion about the banning process and I feel better equipped to defend literary choices to parents and administrators should this issue come up. As I mentioned in last week's reflection, I decided to change my students' last literature circle meeting into a book club. Instead of fulfilling a job of discussion director, cartographer, researcher, etc., I gave the students complete freedom in responding to the end of Treasure Island. They were instructed to respond in an artistic manner that made obvious a personal connection or response to the book. Because my grades were due that day, I also told the students that it was not for a grade. (A risky move, but I thought I'd give it a try.) As a class, we brainstormed a list of possible products they could create which included a movie, poetry, letter in a bottle, board-game, painting, post-cards, a cardboard cutout of a character, and a life-size cannon ball made of paper mache quotes from the book. (How I could tell that the paper contained quotes after having been saturated in water and flour I do not know, but it was nonetheless accepted as a viable option.) Friday morning came around and I'll admit, I had a back-up activity planned. I thought that without a grade attached to the project, and on the Friday of testing week, surely only a small percentage of my students actually would have completed this project. I was very pleasing proved wrong. My students were brilliant. They delighted one another with a play of the first six chapters of the book (during which one young man had us nearly in tears with his portrayal of Pew) a "how to outsmart your crew" pirate video, a 3D "web-site" (see below), a Silver cardboard cutout (who sat in the back of class the rest of the day) a Treasure Island T-shirt, board games, a poem in a bottle, and even fan fiction! I sat back and let them entertain one another and felt very lucky to be their teacher. Sure, there were a few students who drew treasure maps the morning of on the bus. And there was even one young man who stood in front of the class and simply said that he did not like the book, did not understand the vocabulary, and thought it was stupid. I thanked him for sharing and told him that he should have gone all out and done a "bookshaming." I respected his opinion, but not his effort towards the project. I loved this idea and I will definitely change my teaching next year to allow for more personal freedom in how students respond to literature. Here are some pictures of my students' Treasure Island projects. Virtual Growth:This week I used Padlet's Wall Wisher for the collaborative critical inquiry, figured out how to file share on Google Hangout, and used Animoto to create my bookcast. I'm really grateful to be mastering these tools and am looking forward to using them in my own classroom. I can definitely see using Padlet for the writing process and to promote dialogic inquiry. (Thank you Wells for the fancy words!)
Video Revised 6/9/14 at 6:30pm. Map of Washington. Digital image. Infoplease. Infoplease, n.d. Web. 08 June 2014. Sivas, Elisiveda. Sheep. Digital image. Elisavetasivas Creation and Artistic Design. N.p., 5 May 2011. Web. 8 June 2014. Pic of Lakewood Elementary School from Kristinge A Knox Berkshire Hathaway Realtors JPEG IandRInstutue of Southern Illinois JPEG Michigan. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 June 2014. Ordinary and Extraordinary Infinity “It’s scary. Knowing you can do anything is the same as not knowing what you’re going to do,”(197).
When I graduated college, I felt a lot like Tommy. I knew that I could go anywhere and do anything. In a conversation with my sister, I described it as being a ship with no anchor. I had nothing tying me down, or holding me back. I graduated a semester early and worked as a part-time kindergarten teacher at the school where I student taught. I also volunteered as a youth leader at my church. After the school year ended, I went to my camp to work for the summer. I wasn’t yet sure what I was going to do in the fall. I could return to Michigan. I could perhaps get an internship at the outdoor education center at my camp in Wisconsin. I could sub in Illinois. Maybe I could teach in Colorado, or Washington, or North Carolina. I could even teach abroad. Seriously. I could go halfway across the globe. But that was also scary, and a little bit lonely, not having anyone or anything to tie me down. I momentarily wished that I was from a small town where no one ever left. That I could go home and live with my parents and be safe and sheltered. But I did leave Illinois. I didn’t want the ordinary. I wanted the extraordinary. The idea of searching for a golden fleece resonates with me. “I believed in magic. In quests. In fairies. And Harry Frickin’ Potter… in running after golden fleeces,” (200). My golden fleece is being the best teacher I can be. Traveling. Meeting new people and experiencing new things. It’s falling in love and starting a family. It’s maintaining a strong bond with my parents and siblings. It’s writing a book someday. Jack is afraid of being ordinary. He’s afraid that when he finds his fleece, that his quest will be over. That he’ll never have been extraordinary. That he’ll run out of time to make a big, lasting impact on the world. It’s the fear every young adult confronts at one point or another. What if I’m not extraordinary? What if I’m just ordinary? What if I don’t find my golden fleece? What if I do and then there’s nothing more? Is there a paradox between the ordinary and extraordinary? Or can the ordinary be extraordinary? Padlet has this really cool tool called Wall Wisher that's great for collaboration! The board above is set as a public board, so my group members can directly post questions, comments, pictures, videos, and hyperlinks to it. How cool is that? This week we're talking about inclusive classrooms and multicultural literature.
Here's a short tutorial on wall wisher. It's definitely worth the watch. |
Jill Zappiateacher, grad student, bibliophile Archives
October 2015
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