Good Teaching is Hard, But...

Good teaching is hard, but our students deserve it.

Good teaching is hard, but the results fill my teacher bucket.

Good teaching is hard, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

There are days that my efforts to support student learning deplete my energy, give me headaches, and physically melt me. These are the days that yield the best results for my students. These are the days that I need to remind my self it is all worth it. Over the years, I have learned that time spent supporting student learning DURING THE PROCESS frees up my time and makes it easier at the assessment end. I have also learned that just as I need a break from deep, heavy learning, so too do my students. This has helped me plan units a bit better and mix units with a harder cognitive load with those that are a bit lighter. For instance I start my 7th graders with a cross-curricular podcasting project that has them learning a new teacher, new classroom procedures, new software, and a new story telling process. It takes the first six weeks of school, but sets them up to be successful the rest of the year. Then we move onto a lighter three week unit where they discover how to better create presentations and present through non-example. We laugh, have fun, and enjoy the cognitive break from the first unit.

The good teaching that happens in that first unit has students learning how to track their own learning, troubleshoot technology, analyze a mentor set, plan a podcast with purpose, and learn how to give and use feedback. On my end, I'm checking and conversing with every student at least twice a week, giving quick, specific feedback so students can act before the end project is due. For six weeks, I teach mini-lessons and spend most of my time monitoring and coaching students. By the end of each day I am exhausted physically and mentally. 

During this time I am also in the middle of a five week cross-curricular infographic unit with my 8th graders. Though they already know the procedures and protocols we use to learn in my classroom, since I had them last year, creating infographics on immigration is a heavy cognitive load for them in terms of understanding the topic of immigration, but also how to visually represent the message they wanted readers to know about immigration through the infographic. Every day I teach mini-lessons and spend most of my time monitoring and coaching students through the creation process.

Yes, I was exhausted. Yes, I may have complained a few times about how students weren't working to their potential. Yes, I spent my commute time thinking of how I could better support those students and practiced conversations I would have with them. This is what good teaching looks like.

And it pays off! At the end of those units my students had created the best work they could. They had taken advantages of the learning opportunities presented to them. Do I still have students that need more support and coaching in how to take advantage of these learning opportunities, yes. And, I will keep trying with them.

I write this as a way to let you know that we are in this together. It's hard some times, but stick to it. Do what's right for your students. Support learning during the process. Take breaks, have fun with them. 

Good teaching is hard, but our kids deserve it.

Empowering Students to Take the Lead

Every year my 8th graders complete a legacy project. This project is meant to help our community in some way. My goal with this project is always to put the students in charge, and I take on the role of facilitator. It is also a great way for me to get more practice with designing PBL, project based learning, units.

Students worked on creating a documentary of our academy, with the purpose of informing the public of what we do and using the documentary as an advertising tool on the academy website. It took roughly two thirds of the school year to complete and again, as in the Digital Badge Legacy Project, I facilitated the learning and work of 3 8th grade classes. The 3 classes, about 80 students, worked together to create this single product.

The best thing I love about these projects is the increased confidence students feel when empowered to take the reins and run the project themselves. 

So with a lot of patience and a clear vision of the big, overall picture, here's how we made a documentary.

October

I chose 3 "executive producers" from each of the 8th grade classes, who, with my guidance, would be in charge of producing the documentary, essentially running the whole show. These students would be responsible for figuring out what other jobs were needed, how to give those jobs to their peers, creating a timeline, monitoring the work, giving feedback, and approving the final product. After our initial meeting, we decided to use the group feature in our Schoology LMS as our primary communication tool, since students had to work across classes.

You can see the jobs they decided on by the group names.

       

They also decided that their peers should apply for the jobs and they would make the final decision on who got which job. The execs also wanted to have a "lead" in each group to be the primary communicator and those interested in that position would be interviewed by the execs. To be honest, I was quite taken aback by how "real life" my 8th grade execs were starting out. It was awesome! Check out our final job chart with responsibilities here. 

Executive producers interviewing peers to be potential leads.

November - December

All 8th graders received jobs and we began to learn about documentaries. First we analyzed some mentors and talked about what we thought our academy story was and how we might want to see it told through story. The execs came together to get a list of story board ideas so they could set their peers to work. I worked with them on developing a protocol to assign work.

Students used "orders" specific to their jobs to keep track of the work.

January - March

Students worked to film, create graphics, make music, etc. This was where my talents as a teacher shined through. I had to still teach content for my class, so I create a series of small, independent units that students could work through when they were not working on the documentary. This allowed me to facilitate documentary work and learning of our content.

Executive producer, camera operator, interviewer, and sound manager
filming an interview with the founders of our charter school.

April - May

All the video footage, music, and graphic pieces were handed over to the editors. It would be their job, with guidance from the execs, to piece together our academy's story based on the storyboard and all the pieces. During this process, editors often requested revisions from their peers. Since we had multiple editors, in multiple classes, we used 1 computer that I logged in and out of. The editors communicated on a google doc that was editable by the execs and myself. Once the editors had a working documentary, the execs and I watched it and gave feedback. This prompted a list of work for editors to complete by the end of May.

June

Though it was sometimes hard to manage all 80 students working towards creating 1 product and having the patience to help my students to think of their own solutions to the problems that arose, in the end all 80 8th graders learned to be better communicators and have pride in a job, no matter how small, that contributed to one large project. In the end the 5 minute documentary is perfect and is a great addition to our academy's website.

When students are empowered to take the lead they experience the kind of learning they need to be successful adult learners in a safe environment, with multiple opportunities to practice when at first they don't succeed. This was truly the first time I had been an equal partner with my students in designing an experience to create a single product. I was blown away by the maturity and willingness to grow outside their comfort zones. This documentary will live on for a few years, giving my now former 8th graders the opportunity to see their work serve a purpose.

Our Finished Documentary