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

Digital Badge Design Unit: My First PBL Experience

I'm the kind of teacher that takes the time to think through a lesson or unit and plan, but at some point you can't anticipate everything and just need to jump in!

This is precisely what I did with my first real PBL (project based learning) unit. Before the planning stages I read Setting the Standards for Project Based Learning and Implementing Project-Based Learning, then as I planned my unit I worked through the Project Based Learning Starter Kit, which was so helpful. Another great resource was the Buck Institute for Education's (BIE) website of resources.

So my first official PBL unit was a doozy, but hey go big or go home, right? I needed a way to assess my students' basic technology knowledge and skills and had been looking at using digital badges. As I contemplated designing a badging system that would entice students to earn them and be easily manageable, I thought who would know better then my students. I immediately started working with the resources above to create a PBL unit for my 8th graders that would have them designing the entire badge system. Here is my unit plan and my teaching and learning guide, both templates I tweaked from BIE's resources. 

The unit began with a solid start; I had planned well. I knew my students didn't know about digital badges and couldn't design a system without having a base knowledge of the kind of system we wanted to create. Using Schoology, I created a differentiated reading group activity where groups of students read and discussed a video or article about badging. 

Video and Articles My Students Read

I grouped students according to their reading level, provided them questions to answer, and required them to comment on their peers answers, to facilitate a conversation.

Instructions for Completing the Reading

Once the groups were done, all the students completed a whole class discussion in Schoology about what we needed to consider when designing our badge system.

Directions for the Whole Class Discussion

This was a great start, but my students were still unsure about what exactly we were creating, so we looked at models of badge systems. We looked at the Aurora Public School Badge System and a Schoology based teacher professional development badge system, designed by Brandi Miller. We then had a ton of discussion and captured our thoughts using Padlet, Google Docs, and more Schoology discussions. After a week of establishing our base knowledge and brainstorming which tech skills to create badges for, we got into groups and started our work.

Here was the tricky part. I have 3 classes of 8th graders and we wanted to all work together to create 1 badge system. To manage 90 students working on the same project I created a team of 3 project managers in each class whose job it was to manage groups and help me design the overall system pieces, like where would we house the system and what the process would be for submitting evidence and issuing badges. Each class also had 8-9 groups of 3-4 students, with a group leader. The group leader was the main contact to the project managers and the project managers were the main contact to me. I only worked with 9 students total, the project managers, and only jumped into working with a group if all other attempts by the students to work out conflict failed. This system worked well, allowed me time to get into group's work and give feedback and train project managers on how to manage groups and run meetings to check in with work progress and group dynamics.

Project Manager Running Group Check-up Meeting

Guidelines for Groups, List Generated by Students

During this 5 week unit, 8th graders were engaged all the way through the last week of school. We had amazing conversations about how to write instructions and create tutorials for the specific audiences of 6th, 7th, or 8th graders. Students deepened their understanding of using information and images ethically and steered clear of copyright or trademark infringement. They also demonstrated their complete understanding of basic tech content. But the best part of all....they took pride in their work and completely exceeded my expectations! 

Students Engaged in Designing Badges

I have a little bit of work to do to string together all the different pieces of our system, but they created outstanding resources for our 6-8th graders to independently learn and earn badges that will demonstrate their basic tech knowledge. This system will also help me pinpoint who knows what and allow me to better plan learning experiences and access tech skills, encourage students to become the teacher, and eventually turn over running the system to a team of students. My 8th graders successfully created 23 badges, each with 4-5 microbadges, and a variety of learning resources to help the earner learn. Here is just a small sample of what was created.

I know some of my colleagues thought I was nuts to tackle such a large scale project with 90 8th graders at the end of the school year, but this amazing work came about through the power of PBL. I'm inspired by the work my students did and look forward to implementing our new digital badge system in August.

Not Your Mama's Computer Class

Technology class is not about the technology.

Shocking that a technology teacher is saying this? Maybe, but stop for a moment and think how technology is used in the world around us. How many people stop to learn the tech before they use it? Instead they use the tech in a specific context, thus learning how to use the tech as they use it in a meaningful, purposeful way.

This week I joined the #connectedTL, connected teacher leaders, Voxer chat as they discussed "To Lab or Not to Lab" in terms of the relevancy of the traditional computer lab classroom in schools. I currently teach in a traditional computer lab classroom, the one with rows and rows of computers on tables, but what happens in my classroom is no where near what happens in a traditional computer lab.

I view my roll as the technology teacher like an octopus, reaching my arms into every content, finding ways to incorporate all subject areas into my classroom, so we have meaningful and purposeful ways to use our technology. I very rarely teach the tech tool, but I do have my students play and explore with it when we get started with a project, so they have a sense of how to use the tech. Then, it becomes all about the content and how we can use the tech to create something about or with our content. This leads to cross-curricular projects and stand alone technology class projects.

Students working on creating a better backpack during a design thinking unit.

             

Students filming a dark voyeur shot for one of their filming projects.

   

Working with my colleagues this year has helped me sure up my vision that my technology classroom is a place for making, designing, and problem solving as we become tech savvy. As my colleagues use more and more tech in their content area classrooms, the more my class can become the space where we take creating with tech to new levels and perhaps get into truly innovating. This will also lead to more complex and exciting cross-curricular projects as long as I continue to view myself as the octopus, reaching my arms into every content. That is the way the "computer lab" should be, certainly not your mama's computer class.

Why PBL?

Over spring break I decided to relax like most teachers and read a few professional books. One of those books was Implementing Project-Based Learning by Suzie Boss. I followed the Buck Institute on Twitter, as well as perused their website. And, I will also be reading Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning by John Larmer, John Mergendoller and Suzie Boss. I like to think that I design thought provoking projects that give my students opportunity to critically think and problem solve, but if that was the case my students would begin to show signs of growth in these areas by this point in the year. As I have reflected though, this is not the case. This is precisely the reason I needed to research and understand project/problem based learning (PBL) more. Maybe I need more structure, maybe I need to craft better driving questions, or maybe I'm not allowing my students to be creative. What I do know is that I need to get this right because my students' futures depend on it!

This never was so apparent to me as today...

Have you ever heard someone say that it is ok for a small percentage of students to receive Ds and/or Fs because society needs low level workers, and those students will be just fine, or, don't worry if that student can't think critically, they just have to know how to flip a burger? I have, and some of these people have been my colleagues. Let me make this clear. This is not acceptable! 

All students can be powerful thinkers and problem solvers.

Even in those so called "low level" jobs, employees need to be thinkers, and solve problems. 

I'm an observer; I like to watch how things work. I've always been this way since I was little. So naturally as I watched my car being washed today at one of those "done by hand, take longer, better wash" places, I watched how the system worked. See my husband always takes my car to be washed, so I had never been to a carwash like this before today. 

Image Source

Imagine cars lined up at every part of the process. Some were at the start getting vacuumed, some were waiting to go through the wash, and others were getting detailed. This while several, including mine, were in a holding pattern as those cars done with the wash were stacking up waiting for the detail. At the start (vacuum) and the end (detail) there seemed to be a manager/owner working along side of the other employees. Noble, I thought. It's always nice to see the leaders jump in and help when needed. But, remember, my car and several others were in a holding pattern because the detail work was backing up. I watched how all the employees diligently did their job, but that was it. None of them noticed the back up. Then one of them did and pointed it out to another and then another. It was more of a "look how busy we are", not a "oh man let's figure out how to remedy this". Here in lies the problem. None of them would or maybe even could solve the problem. I watched as 5 cars pulled in, saw cars everywhere and turned around and left. It took a customer complaining about his car being in the holding pattern too long to get the manager/owner at the vacuum station to go see what was happening. He walked over, spoke to the other manger/owner and quickly the employees were reorganized to get the detail on cars done faster. And, before you knew it, there were no cars in the holding pattern after about 15 minutes. Not only had none of the employees solved the problem, but the carwash lost some business. How much business would have been lost if the customer had not complained or the employees stepped up to solve the back up issue?

As I watched this unfold I asked myself: do these guys want to solve this problem or, can they solve this problem? Maybe they weren't allowed to make those kinds of reorganizing decisions, or maybe they were just lazy and wanted to do the bare minimum? After moving closer to listen to what the employees were saying to one another, remember I'm an observer, I believe it was neither of those. I think they couldn't solve the problem, because once they were redistributed to cars, as a way to double up, I noticed that they continued to double up until the back up was gone, then they went back to the original organization, without being told to. 

So what does this have with project/problem based learning? If all classrooms took this approach to learning, doing true PBL, every student would be a creative thinker, problem solver, and collaborator. Many might even be great initiators. No matter what job you have as an adult, you need to be a creative problem solver. My time at the car wash today could have been cut in half if one of the employees saw the problem and initiated a solution, even it was just telling the manager/owner that there was a problem.

Image Source

PBL is not about students completing projects at the end of the unit to show what they've learned. It's about students showing the learning through the entire process. It's about not giving all the pieces, but letting students figure out those pieces as they complete the unit.

I'm excited about honing this process in my own classroom and urge every teacher to consider moving to a more PBL classroom. No matter where students end up as adults, they all deserve learning how to think creatively. Our future depends on it.

1,2,3,4,5 Challenge

I have been seeing this challenge floating around twitter and my school and thought, "You know this would be a good time to reflect!" and "I really do need to blog." 

So voila...

1. What has been your one biggest struggle during this school year?

Some people may see the word "struggle" and think of a negative experience. My biggest struggle this year, though, is putting me in such a positive space that I feel so blessed. I chose to start fresh with a new position, a new school, and of course some struggle. I've struggled to wrap my head around teaching technology for the first time, struggled to find my place in a new staff, and struggled to create all my own curriculum.

Struggle has never felt so good! 

2. Share two accomplishments that you are proud of from this school year.

• My collaboration with a colleague to design a project where all my students learned how to podcast. I blogged about it here. This happened early in the year and my students blew me away. It showed me that I could plan a unit with such depth for my students.
• Getting back to my roots as an educator by building relationships with my students. Being in a school that values this is refreshing. When a student was having a hard time coping with some previous bullying and resorting to bullying himself, and the principal, helping him with some strategies to talk out his feelings, asked if there was an adult on campus he trusted talking to, he said me. It solidified the need to always work on those relationships. Needless to say, the student didn't bully anyone again.

3. What are three things you wish to accomplish before the end of the school year?

• Survive - I'm very tired given all the newness I've experienced this year and by surviving, I mean working at the same level I started the year with.

• Empower my 7th graders to take the lead on a digital photography and drawing unit. I will ask my students to use what knowledge they already know to teach lessons to their peers, or learn on their own and then teach. This will be my first attempt at turning my classroom into truly a collaborative learning space. I want to learn with them and share the leadership.
• Guide my 8th graders in creating a badge system for acquiring the basic skills of technology. This will be a legacy project, one where the product stays with the school when they leave. They will create a badge system for 6-8th grade with badge designs, tasks, and a system for submitting evidence and receiving the badge. This is a bit ambitious, but I think my 8th graders have a good sense of what tech skills are needed at each grade level. I'm excited to see what they think of.

4. Give four reasons why you remain in education in today's rough culture.

• The kids - Not only is it amazing to help students realize their potential, but it is also pretty amazing how much they help me realize my potential. 

• My colleagues - I'm inspired by my peers everyday. They give me reasons to improve through watching what they do and support me when I need a shoulder to lean on.
• Constant learning - I am continuously learning: about tech, teaching, building trust, how to have fun, etc. What other profession can you learn not only content, but also life skills?
• The challenge - No two classes are the same, no two students learn quite the same way. I'm always striving to improve, use different strategies, design better learning experiences, reach that one difficult student. All the challenge will keep me young, right? I think so!

5. Which five people do you hope will take the challenge of answering these questions.

• Kristins Allison @kshevy
• Lisa Guardino @LisaGuardino
• Jenell Novello @expNovello
• Corey Coble @CVRscience7
• Jenna Rogers @mrsJennaRogers

My #oneword 2016

As I drove home from school today, it dawned on me. I needed to write my #oneword post for 2016. Not because I've done this post for the past two years and I want to keep with the tradition, but because I realized the power of the #oneword.

In 2014 I wrote about finding my JOY, and though it took until the middle of 2015, I found the joy in my profession again when I decided to take a leap and change schools, districts, and content. It required some sacrifice, but I am so much happier teaching in a space where my colleagues share my philosophy and want to create amazing learning experiences for students too. The new joy in my work environment led to more joy in my personal life, hmm, go figure.

In 2015 I wrote about BALANCING my work and personal life. It took quite a bit of will power and then I totally threw my balance out of whack when I took a new job, mentioned above that brought me joy, and took part in the Area 3 Writing Project Summer Invitational Institute and became one of the Project's Teacher Consultants. But, by the end of the year the joy of my new job allowed me to balance work and home by leaving school work at work (for the most part). 

Now, as the new year begins, and I reach the middle of the school year, I realize that my #oneword for 2016 is BREATHE. 

image credit

I am midway through the first year of being a new technology teacher, something I've not done before. The learning curve for my "content" has had no curve at all and is more like a straight line. And, I still have five and a half months left of this not so curved learning curve. Today was another day of me feeling overwhelmed and that I wasn't good at my job, which I know is not the case. If I can remember to breathe and remember I am learning my "content", not how to teach, then I'll be fine. I know how to teach and design learning experiences. So I need to learn with my students a little more this year, no biggie. After all, showing my students that we are in this learning together is a good thing. 

I just need to breathe so I can find my joy, which helps me balance it all. 

Talk, Don't Block

"How do you make sure that all of your students are using your class set of computers appropriately? I don't know that I could trust my students to do that!" 

The short answer?  We constantly have conversations about appropriate use.

This was not always the case. In my former position, I was in a district that made it difficult to have these important conversations in a real context. I taught digital citizenship lessons, discussing appropriate use of technology, but it didn't have as much meaning as it could have. 

Technologies like the chat feature in Google Apps, Thinglink, YouTube, they were all blocked. I get it. It's easy. If students are blocked from using technology that they can potentially use inappropriately, then there will be no instances of students using the technology inappropriately. AT SCHOOL.

The reality is that students are using these same technologies at home, outside of the school environment. When will students learn how to appropriately use these tools? From parents, is the hope. But when we, educators, are charged with teaching children the skills needed to live in our ever changing society, we can't hope someone else is doing the teaching.

When technologies are opened for students, within the parameters of laws, students and teachers can learn appropriate use through the actual use of the technologies. In my first 10 weeks of school in my new position, where the very same technologies are open, my students and I have had such rich conversation about appropriate use.

When students downloaded current Top 40 music from YouTube for a class project, it gave me the perfect opportunity to discuss copyright and ethical use of media. We discussed how we could purchase the same music in iTunes, but if we wanted to use it in published projects we would have to get permission. We also talked about why a song you would have to purchase, is on YouTube for free. And, just because there is a website that helps you convert YouTube URLs into downloadable files, doesn't necessarily mean it is legal.  Do you realize the learning that happened for my students because it was within a real context?

Currently, I have students who are using the chat feature in Google Apps to chat with students in other classes. This can be considered off task behavior of both students. Some may say to turn that feature off, but I love using that feature when working with students in their Google Apps. The answer? Talk about how when they are chatting with students from other classes, it is an inappropriate use of the tool. Explain why they should use it appropriately. This sets the expectation and solidifies the learning, which is how I have handled this situation.

We need to talk, not block. Give students real contexts for learning appropriate use of technology.

Give Students a Voice...Literally

I am so thrilled to be in a new teaching position, at a new school, in a new district, with a new philosophy. It has afforded me the autonomy to design learning experiences for my students that empower them to tell their stories. I have also had the pleasure of designing these experiences with my new colleagues.

Imagine 3 teachers (me - the tech teacher, the language arts teacher and the art teacher) sitting around a table waiting for a staff meeting to start in early August.
     "So in October I usually do an immigration writing project that coincides with the Dias de los Muertos art unit in the art class," says Cary, the language arts teacher, "but I want to change my project up this year to teach my kids how to write a biographical narrative using an interview as the planning piece. Would you be willing---"
      "Could we podcast the narratives!" I almost scream out excitedly.
      "That would be totally cool," Cary agrees.

Four weeks ago my 7th graders began their podcast project that coincided with creating Dias de los Muertos skull art, alters, etc. and writing biographical narratives and poems about family members in language arts. Students chose which family member they wanted to podcast about and created a list of interview questions in language arts. At the same time we started a genre study on podcasting in my technology class. We listened to podcasts from Storycorp and Radiolab and analyzed them for audience, purpose, content, context, and structure using this form. We especially paid close attention to structure because we needed ideas for how to structure our own podcasts. We also used these KWHLAQ charts (idea from Silvia Tolisano) to keep track of our learning. Next we explored Garageband for a few days to learn how to import audio tracks, create original music, and edit tracks. We then launched into putting together our podcasts about our family members, following these instructions.

I am so excited to share some of my students' work. Through the course of designing a learning experience that encompassed multiple disciplines and the learning of new tech tools, students were given a voice to share their stories. It is through their storytelling that you learn about who they are and where they come from. These podcasts will now be shared via QR codes within the Dias de los Muertos Art Exhibit in our multipurpose room in a few weeks. 

This project made me laugh, cry, and allowed me to get some perspective on my students and their families. Not only did my students learn some valuable academic lessons, I learned about my students. I call that a win-win!

Literally giving my students a voice in this project allowed them to learn on so many levels, gave their families a role in the learning, and gave the opportunity to create a keep sake to cherish for a very long time. 

Increase Reading. Plain. Simple.

Sound familiar?

This year I vowed to never hear this again. Wanna know what I did? I first reminded myself that, as a teacher of English, my bottom line for learning was that, by the end of the year, my students would actually like to read, write, communicate their ideas, and be inspired to do all of it.

The major change I made was this:

Use engaging mentor texts as the starting point for everything I taught.

Plain.

Simple.

I didn't use fancy curriculum; I didn't spend hours designing elaborate learning activities (ok, sometimes I did). If we worked on reading skills, then I used mentors (from novels to blog posts) that I knew my students would be interested in. If we worked on writing skills, then I used excerpts from interesting texts that would model strategies for our writing. When choosing what I would use to kick off a lesson, I made sure to use a variety of text types, choose texts that would appeal to both genders, and that they were accessible to all reading levels. I also focused on allowing students to read whatever they wanted, de-emphasizing Accelerated Reader (that's for another post), and only doing one whole class novel. One mentor that really generated interest was one used before we started writing our own book reviews. I used a book review published on the Nerdy Book Club website for A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd. We were looking at how to write a book review, but the review was so good my students wanted to read the book.

          "Bbrrinnggg," my classroom phone rings. "Hey Sue (the librarian), what can I do for ya?" I ask.
          "What are you doing in your room?" Sue remarks with a giggle.
          "Um, learning. Why? Is there a problem?"I say sarcastically.
          "Whatever you're doing is costing the library a ton of money?" Sue responds with a great laugh.
          "Oh......AWESOME!" I shout out, disrupting my class.

Can you imagine getting a call like that from your librarian? This is when I first realized that my use of mentor texts was affecting my students desire to read.

What I quickly saw was JOY, CURIOSITY, RISK-TAKING, and COLLABORATION happening all the time. Even though we were not reading the whole selection often, I peeked the curiosity of so many students that they wanted to read the whole selection. Students who had never wanted to read started reading. My students started requesting, well actually demanding, that books (where the excerpts came from) be purchased for our school library. We started having great conversations about reading, and students began to see the connection to their own writing. The best evidence showcasing the power of my one change was when several students, on several different occasions, told me that they had never liked to read or write before my class. Before their confessions I really didn't think I had done that much for my students, but their honesty got me reflecting on what was different for them. 

I made their learning authentic. I showed them what real writers do. I gave them choices of great literature to read. I made class interesting, with one change. 

I love when my thinking and the ideas from several different professional reads come together to inform my decisions in my classroom. Reading Book Whisperer and Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller last summer coupled with reading 1o Things Writers Need to Know by Jeff Anderson the summer before helped me make this one change.

Think about one change you can make for your students this coming year that could make learning meaningful. It can be plain and simple.

5 Ways You Know You've Experienced #CUEROCKSTAR

Learning Defined in 100 Words

Learning is essential. Learning is a right. Learning makes you who you are.

We all learn whether we know it or not, whether right or wrong, whether it's liked or not.

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines learning as the acquisition of knowledge through experience, study, or being taught.

Experience is listed first. Perhaps school should provide more learning through experience.

If learning is essential and a right. If it makes you who you are. And, we want everyone to learn in the right ways and like it, perhaps learning should be collaborative, set in real-world contexts, and available to all.

This is part of the #youredustory blog challenge. It's not too late to join.

It's About More Than the Academics

A student comes in and wants to share the book they just finished, or a great joke they've recently heard.

Or

In the middle of class, the lesson spurs a student to connect the learning to something they did over the weekend.

Or

Students ask to come in at lunch because they want a quiet place to eat, hang out, and complete homework.

What do you do? 

I want students to connect with me, tell me their stories, and see my room as a safe place to be. Some of my favorite parts of my day are these interactions. This is probably one of the best things I do in my classroom, in my students' opinion and mine. 

Learning and the school day is so much more than academics. A sense of belonging and self worth is needed for students to even be ready to learn. I encourage both of these by allowing students to be kids, humans if you will, rather than always being the student. My favorite time is lunch because there are always 5-10 students in my room, working, socializing, or just hanging out. Our conversations cover so many topics and we learn so much about each other. This in turn helps students make a connection to school that will ultimately help them be a successful learner. And, even though I have 45 minute class periods and we are always pressed for time, there will always be time for a student to share a connection. Yes, I have to be careful that we stay on topic and not take too much time away from our learning tasks, but the pay off for letting students share is worth it.

It's about letting kids be kids. Show them that your care goes far beyond how they perform in your class. 

This is part of the #youredustory blog challenge. It's not too late to join.

Is A the New Average? or How will I change the world?

"You're not going to believe what my dentist asked me yesterday when I went for my checkup!"

I wasn't expecting too much out of the ordinary, after all, my colleague and I talk often and about everything. 

"He asked if the kids were getting smarter because most of his young clients tell him they are getting all As." My colleague then told me she sarcastically replied to her dentist, "Don't you know that A is the new average?"

We happened to be walking to our classrooms while having this conversation, and I promptly halted at the words, "A is the new average". It is very apparent that we have this issue on our campus, several factors involved: inflated grades, parent expectations, etc. But what shocked me was that for the first time the greater community was beginning to see the problem, meaning it is a huge problem.

I'm not going to get into why we have this problem or what should be done to combat it because I have learned that I can only affect what I can control, with the hope that by sharing what I do will slowly help to bring about change. So as part of my #youredustory blog challenge, I want to talk about how I will make the world a better place by staying true to my practice in my classroom.

Staying true to my practice means taking the emphasis, as much as I can, away from letter grades. It is so ingrained, with every activity or assignment garnering questions like, "How many points is this worth?" or "Is this worth a large part of my grade?". My response is always, "Do you plan on doing less than your best?". My students look at me like I've busted them somehow. Well, I have.

I've busted them for playing the game of school. My students have been conditioned to complete to do, not, complete to learn. Staying true to my practice means providing engaging learning opportunities that give my students purpose and authenticity. By no means have I mastered this, but I'm getting better. Our latest writing activity was writing book reviews that were published in our library. Only 1 student out of 166 asked the aforementioned questions. I'm making strides.

Staying true to my practice also means focusing on process, not product. Experience tells me that if I help my students focus on process, then naturally the final products will be their best work. I like to also help students realize that when you work, you use all the resources that are available. Halfway through the year and I am beginning to see students pull out resources, ask to use them, and begging for more time because they haven't gotten to use them yet.

Making the world a better place means helping my students realize their potential in spite of a grade system that has their focus in other places. The more I can empower a student to become a learner through the practices I use as a teacher, then little by little I have the potential to change the world through these empowered learners. 

To change the world, it is not likely that I will do anything on a grand scale. To change the world, I will make decisions on a small scale that will increases the chances of my students changing the world on a larger scale.

This is part of the #youredustory blog challenge. It's not too late to join.

My #oneword 2015

Last December I started blogging after a bit of #edupressure and did pretty well posting up until August. I guess the start of a new school year got the best of me and now it's time to get back in the swing.

As I think about my #oneword for this year, I must first reflect on last year's, JOY. My plan was to have a Joy Jar to keep track of my joyful moments, but alas the jar stayed empty. "Oh No!" you must be thinking, but rest assured it didn't stay empty due to the lack of joyful moments. It stayed empty because I had to focus so hard on paying attention to my joyful moments that I never could remember to take the time to actually document them and put them in the jar. I struggled, had high highs and low lows, but was determined to find my joy. You know how they say that sometimes you have to hit bottom before you can get back to the top? Well that's what happened around April.

I had interviewed for a teaching position at another school in another district and didn't get it. Being the reflective person I am, I solicited feedback about my interview. Fortunately, the administrator who had interviewed me was honest. I had come off as rather negative in the interview and the committee didn't feel I would be a good fit. As it was hard to hear this, it was exactly what I needed to hear and the feedback made me hit my bottom. Who wants to seen a Negative Nelly? Certainly not me! From that point on I worked hard to find my joy. At the start of this current school year I made sure that I steered clear of negativity at my school and have worked hard to let what I can't control roll off my back. During Thanksgiving and Winter Break I was sure to focus on family and friends, rather than work, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Several friends and even my own mother commented that I seemed more content than they have seen me in a while.

Though I didn't completely follow my plan, I absolutely found more joy in 2014. As I continue to find more joy, this year's #oneword will be BALANCE.

Image Credit

Now that I have a handle on finding joy, I need to find the balance between my work and my personal life. I will have to be purposeful with decisions and be sure that I am providing myself with enough time to enjoy my family and friends, while also providing enough time to enjoy teaching. After all, if I am feeling balanced, my classroom will be balanced. This will allow me to have the right frame of mind to foster good relationships with my students and provide quality instruction. A balanced mind = a balanced life.

This is part of the #youredustory blog challenge. It's not too late to join.