The Truth About Teaching

As teachers I think it is so important to remember that we can learn from our students just as well as they can learn from us. We do not always have to be in charge! In fact, some of the most amazing lessons I have been able to observe in actual classroom are ones where the teacher has given the students a task or problem and then set them loose to figure it out on their own. The teacher's sole job during this was to observe and facilitate the students' learning, rather than to stand up front and recite information to them. The students were able to engage themselves in the subject matter and figure things out on their own and they learned the content so well by doing it this way. The students were able to learn in ways that were easiest and made the most sense to them. When the teachers brought them back together they talked about the different ways the students figured their task/problem out. To me, this is a fantastic learning experience for the students and for the teachers. The teachers were able to walk around and see what their students were doing and incorporated what they saw during this, into other aspects of their instruction. They were able to see what their students did, how they figured things out, and take note of it to use for future teaching. The teachers learned things about their students that they wouldn't have in another circumstance. By doing this the teachers were showing me that they are willing to step away from the norm and give their students the opportunity to help shape them. It opened up the door to self-reflection. This is something that I feel is absolutely essential in teaching. You ALWAYS need to look back on your lessons and think about what went well, what didn't, and how you can fix things for the next time. If you can do these three things then teaching has become more than a job for you, it has become a career--something you are proud of and passionate about. To be a great teacher you need to be passionate about what you are doing, you need to want to make a difference in those children's lives. Being in the classroom more and more has awoken this person in me. I LOVE every second that I spend in the classroom and enjoy when students make connections to what they are learning. I have learned so much this semester from reflecting back on my lessons an thinking about what I could have done differently. I love to see the smiles on their faces when something clicks into place. Teaching is an amazing profession and I am so happy that I get to spend every school day next year in a classroom.

Using Music To Build Community

I absolutely loved the activity we did in class today. I now understand differentiating a whole lot better. The way the groups were mixed up based on readiness after a pre-assessment was done really made something click in my head. Well duh, getting to know your students makes differentiating so much easier. I love, love, love the idea of using music in the classroom to build community, is something I have thought about a lot. I had a teacher in 4th grade that played the guitar and we sang songs together, solo, anything, EVERYDAY. That was my favorite year the entire time I was in school. Everybody in class was friends and I was never afraid to speak up because I felt safe in his classroom. I feel that is my number one goal as a teacher, build an environment where all of my students feel safe, where they are excited to come and learn and engage with their peers and me. I know there is a lot of curriculum to delve into in the classroom and it will take lots of work, but I honestly feel that school should be fun, kids should want to come to school to learn. Obviously it is hard to make EVERYTHING fun, but I want to make it my goal to make school as interesting and engaging as possible for my students. Knowing how to play a musical instrument would make the goal of using music in the classroom easier for me. Even though I can't play one, I plan on using music as much as possible, whether it be through songs like we learned in class today and in Management or making songs up with my students to help them remember certain things they are learning. I think chants and song making to help students remember things is an amazing thing, I to this day still remember The Preamble because of a song. I WILL use music in the classroom to make the environment more fun, more engaging, and to build a strong classroom community. What Mr. B is doing at PS22 in New York is amazing and I want to be just like him. He reminded me a lot of my 4th grade teacher, and every single one of those clips made me cry. The sense of community I saw in that school was overwhelming, he knows what he is doing and he is good at it. He loves his students and even though I am sure what he is doing is so much work, he enjoys it and loves doing it. I want to be just like that.

Student Success

When you are teaching in an actual classroom it is extremely important that you know what you are teaching, you need to look at the standards and decide what essential understandings you want to communicate to your students. Once you have done this you need to decide what the students really need to know and how you are going to assess their knowledge of the topic. If you can prepare before hand what objectives you want to meet, then you will be more prepared with how to help your students grasp the concepts. Think ahead, evaluate the students in your classroom and use what you know about them to plan your instruction. You need to incorporate ways to teach that will be significant and doable for all the different learning profiles of your students, and whenever you can, so, most of the time, make your instruction engaging and meaningful! When you teach a lesson you need to plan out what they are going to learn and be able to plan your instruction in a way that you are reaching ALL of your students, not just a select few. You must always take in to account that each student is different and have a variety of ways set in place for them to reach the goals you are setting out for them, TIER your instruction!!! Every student in your class must learn the established curriculum, so it is up to you to deliver it to them in a way that is attainable and understandable for them all. You should always be looking for new and fresh ways for your students to explore ideas. I know it is easy to get comfortable with material you teach year after year, but be open to new strategies and ways of teaching your children. We live in a digital age, so, even though it will be more work for you, go to trainings to learn how to use technology in the classroom. I can promise you that it will benefit you in the end. Technology allows the students to interact and manipulative concepts and it may help you reach learners in a way you have never been able to before. Look for new ways of doing things and always get to know your students and structure your lessons around their strengths. It is our job as teachers to help our students obtain success. I don't know about you, but I want all of my students to be successful and I want to help them discover what they are good at. One last point I want to touch on is how important it is to integrate real life into what you are teaching students, validate for them why they are learning something. I don't know about you, but there were many times while I was growing up and learning that I thought "why am I even learning this, I will never use it." WE ABSOLUTELY NEED to communicate to students that what they are learning in the classroom is something that is beneficial and will be useful in the world around them.

Suzy Cox-Brown Bag

This presentation was fantastic! I love the idea of Project Based Learning. I think this idea of building a project to learn something is so much better, in a lot of cases, than having students come up with a project after learning. It encourages student participation and collaboration, not to mention creativity! To me, in a way, this type of learning is Backwards design. The teacher looks at what essential understandings they want their students to take from the "research" and then lets students choose what they want to do. I think using a Project Based Learning concept that you can differentiate for readiness, process, and product. As the teacher you can decide on the essential understandings, then give the students choices on what they want to do for the project, all the while tailoring to student readiness. Meaning, having different types of projects for your lower, middle, and higher level students. With your lower students you could start with having them do simple digital stories and then students that are higher you could introduce them to more complex things like Google Maps Migrations, Blogs & Wikis. Just because a student is a little lower does not mean they can't handle technology, who knows, maybe using the technology will help them. The process can be different for all of your students depending on their "choice" but because you have established the essential understandings, the product will be the same because they are all learning the same thing, but coming about that learning in all sorts of different ways. I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Cox present on this because she has given me so many resources to use in a classroom to get the students more engaged in their learning. I am so excited to get into a classroom and start using some of this stuff!

Rick Wormeli

I loved being able to watch the short video we were able to in class. Rick Wormeli is truly one of the greats when it comes to differentiation. He makes it look so easy, which is sort of stressful for me, but I know with practice I can become just as great! I loved hearing him talk about how he approaches differentiating for his students and I think the way he split the groups up was so great. Even though the students knew they were in different groups, there didn't seem to be any competition in the classroom, one group didn't feel less than the other. This is something that I feel is extremely important and essential in a differentiated classroom. To get that, I think that you definitely need to build a classroom community where all students feel safe and accepted for who they are. If you can do that in a classroom, whether it be elementary, middle, or high school than you already have a battle won. Once you have done that you can move on to actually differentiating your students and it is so important for you as the teacher to be extremely clear on what you want your students to learn. Just like Mr. Wormeli, you need to sit down, look at the curriculum, and decide what essential understandings you want your students to get out of your lessons. This is a list of things that YOU need to become familiar with, memorize. It needs to be second nature, because if you don't know them, than how are you going to teach them and expect your students to get anything out of your lessons. One other thing that I really liked from the video clip is that Rick continuously assessed his students to see where they were and actually USED those assessments to tailor his instruction. His 3, 2, 1 exit slip at the end of his class was so fabulous and something I would LOVE to use in my classroom. It gives you an idea of where each student is standing, in a way they aren't embarrassed, and gives you useful information to structure future lessons. LOVED it!

Informal/Formal Assessments
Pre-Assessments

Curriculum & Instruction Part Two

Don’t we all feel better when we have successfully completed something that was hard and took a lot of work? I know I do, and even though children are young, they feel the same way when they have completed something challenging. We need to give our students opportunities to complete demanding tasks and we should never water down content for our students. Students need to be challenged in order to grow and become great learners. Differentiation can help us do this! We can measure our student’s abilities and then once we know where they are, we can instruct them based on their level of learning. We should also aim to help that student raise themselves up to the next level, always getting better and better. You can do this by giving students challenging work, based on their level. It is important to scaffold your students and assign them things to do based off of where they are, but raise them up just a little bit each time.  This doesn’t mean to take your lowest students and have them work on the exact same things you have your advanced level students doing, it means that you take what they know and a little bit at a time you help them to increase in their knowledge and skill. It is our job to help students grow and progress, not to stagnate and get stuck where they are already at. It is the same for your advanced level students, you need to assign them work that is challenging for them, which is not going to be the same as what is challenging for a lower level learner. Even though they are already advanced and it seems like your job is already done, it is not. You need to give those students opportunities to be challenged so they can grow as well. You will have students who do not think they can do anything; this is where you need to help them to be successful and point out their successes. Give them assignments in their realm of thinking that you know they will be successful at. Doing this may help them to have more confidence in themselves and may make them more likely to persist when they reach a problem that is challenging to them.  Students need to feel successful and it is your job to help them feel that way, no matter the level or kind of learner they are. You need to adapt your instruction to help each and every one of your students meet the learning goals that you set out for them.

Ways To Scaffold Your Students

Curriculum & Instruction

It is our number one job as teachers to help our students grow and to help them to become responsible and contributing members of society. Because of this, when delivering curriculum and instruction to our students, we need to make sure that what they are learning is something that will be useful to them in the future. We need to make sure we are explaining to the students why they are learning things and what they are learning can be used for. You should never teach something to your students “just because”, you need to have a better reason than that! Even though there is TONS to teach to students in a given school year, we should ALWAYS find meaning in the content we are teaching the students and convey that meaning to the students. As teachers, we need to make sure students can see how important the material they are learning is going to be for them in their lives. This is why we must look at what we need to teach and delve deeper into that standard to find what the most significant thing is in that topic. Having a “focused curriculum” is extremely important and what is more important is pointing out your objectives specifically to students. Once you have decided what you want to teach the students, you should write out the objectives for what you want your students to take from that lesson and inform them of these objectives before you begin a unit of study. When students are aware of what they are supposed to take from a lesson, it helps them to be more focused on the end goal as well. To start out though, you need to know what knowledge the students already have, so that when you do teach the lesson you know how the best way to deliver the content will be.  After you asses what they know, you can craft your lesson, and come up with a way for those students to show what they actually learned after the lesson is done. Your summative assessment needs to measure what you actually taught them and give students a chance to use their knowledge to communicate what they know in a meaningful way. You would never ask students to name all the letters of the alphabet as an assessment after teaching a unit on addition. That just doesn’t make sense. That is why I think backwards design is so important. You start your instruction with an end goal in mind, and your entire lesson is crafted out of what you want your students to do after you have taught the material. You also need to make the lesson engaging for all of your students, which means getting to know your students and their differing learning profiles. A great teacher should be able to merge the importance of a topic they are teaching and be able to create an environment of learning. A place where every student has access to materials and activities that invites the student to use their individual strengths and abilities to create and build upon ideas. We need to make our lessons interesting and teach them in a way that allows all of the students to gain something from it, whether they are visual, auditory, or hands-on learners. We need to remember that every single child in our class is different and make sure our classrooms are a place where they can grow, hone in on their individual talents and use those talents to become successful.
Tips For More Engaging Instruction

Tiered Learning

 "If you are following the hallmarks and making lesson equally engaging and respectful for all of your learners you are tiering."

                                                 --Nancy Peterson

A great teacher learns to differentiate their lessons by tiering the activities within the lessons, always with the students in your class in mind. It is not enough just to have a good lesson that covers great content; you need to design your lesson in a way that every student in your class will get meaning from it. Not every student is going to be the same; they are all going to be on different reading levels, they will all have different interests and different ways that they learn the best. When tailoring a lesson you MUST take these factors into account so that the objectives you are trying to reach with the lesson are met by ALL students, not just a select few. I know it sounds overwhelming, but I promise, it can be done. When developing your lessons, first look at what you want the students to know, understand and be able to do; from this starting point you can draft up the activities within the lesson.  Once you have done that, stop and look back at the activities, decide which students in your class will understand the context you have put them in and then clone the activity with the other students in mind. What do I mean when I say, “clone”?  Basically, just look at the activity, think about your students and make some adjustments so that your other learners can understand it in a context they know. This is what we call “tiering.” Sometimes you may only have two tiers, other times you may need to clone your activity 3 times to encompass the broad spectrum of your students, it just depends on your class. This is definitely something you shouldn’t take lightly though, especially as a first year teacher. Differentiating can be hard and it takes practice, but as the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” I am going to adjust that a little, “Practice makes ALMOST perfect.” I include almost because as a teacher you are always going to be learning and finding better ways to do things, you will never be perfect, but you can strive for perfection. Differentiating is something that will get easier with time.

Classroom Environment

The feel of a classrooms environment will either open up or close down lines of communication with you and your students. The way you set up your classroom, the physical attributes, like: bulletin boards, signs, etc will effect how your students learn. When a child walks into a classroom, their first impression of you is going to be of how the classroom is set up. You truly need to plan out and play with the setup of your classroom, it's a balancing act, too much or too little is going to take away from learning.  A teacher is also responsible for the daily "climate" of the classroom, whether it be positive or negative. Each and every day when you enter your room to start teaching young minds, you NEED to put on a bright smile, whether you feel like it or not. Those students can tell when you aren't excited about a lesson and that will rub off on them. You need to be excited about teaching them, no matter what the subject is. If you are excited it will make the classroom environment so much for fun and the students will want to and be able to learn so much! How do you begin to build a positive environment for your students to learn in? Well, first and foremost, GET TO KNOW YOUR STUDENTS, find out what backgrounds they come from, become familiar with their different cultures. Second, when you see a student doing something worthwhile or when they say something awesome, tell EVERYONE about it. Help the students to see one another as significant contributors to the classroom and to society. Third, when someone in the class does something fun and creative, DISPLAY it. Fourth, allow room for all types of learners, some students need interaction to learn, some need it to be quiet. There should be times in every school day to allow each student to learn the way they do best. Fifth, encourage students to get to know one another, this is where MORNING MEETING comes in handy. Lastly, celebrate success, if not every day, every week! Have students volunteer to share positive things they have seen in the classroom or on the playground. This is just a small snippet of what you can do in a classroom to encourage a positive climate where maximum learning can take place. You want your students to be excited to come to school, so making the environment they walk into friendly and welcoming should be on your top ten list of things to do!! I honestly feel that every single one of these things is essential for a classroom to run effectively, in order to produce successful students. I also think it is well worth mentioning, that although you are the adult in the classroom and trained in education, the classroom is not just yours, it belongs to all of your students as well. I think it is extremely important to make sure that each student knows that you are all part of a team and that it is EVERYONES responsibility to make the classroom better. This shared responsibility makes everyone accountable.  I think allowing students to have this type of power and challenge in a classroom is very effective to contributing to how well they learn and makes their learning experience that much more memorable.

Get Parents On Your Side

It truly is the little things that count when it comes to starting off a school year right. It has always been important to get parents on your side, but I think in the day and age we live in now, it is absolutely ESSENTIAL!! As a classroom teacher you need to make parents aware of what is going on in the classroom and most importantly WHY their children need to learn those specific things. You cannot differentiate if you have parents that don't understand why you are doing things a certain way, you need parents on your side to be able to do what is in the best interest of their kids. If you start your year off right, by sending home a letter to parents, it shows that you have taken that extra step to involve them in their child's education. Your letter needs to be just that, a letter, not a "well this is what is going on: A, B, C, D, E." Your letter should be informative of course, but the tone it conveys is CRUCIAL. Write the letter as if you are talking to the parents and please, please, please DO NOT lump all the students together as one, they are individuals, and make sure the parents know that. Show the parents that you will treat their children as individuals in the classroom and that you are willing to differentiate your instruction based on their needs. These are their children you are going to be taking care of each and every day and they want to be sure that you care about them and want them to succeed. Although a letter home to parents just seems like a small thing, the way you approach sending that letter home is going to make a huge impact on the way the parents look at you. I absolutely LOVE the idea of sending parents a letter home with a list of options they can choose from to help out in the classroom. A lot of parents are extremely busy and cannot come in and be parent helpers, I think it is a fantastic idea to give them other ways to help out, like: sending supplies for celebrations in the classroom, or even giving them an approximate date for field trips so they can sign up in advance. I also think that you should find a way of introducing yourself to your students BEFORE the school year starts, if at all possible. I love the idea of writing letters to each and every student and mailing them out at the beginning of August, include in the letter something for them to bring to class on the first day to introduce themselves to you and their peers. This is a great way to introduce yourself, to introduce some of the things you will be learning in the upcoming year, and also a way for you to get a little snippet of what the child is like.

Parent Letter 1
Parent Letter 2

Responsive Classroom

What is a Responsive Classroom?

• Morning Meeting: A daily routine that builds community, creates a positive climate for learning, and reinforces academic and social skills.

• Rules and Logical Consequences: A clear and consistent approach to discipline that fosters responsibility and self-control.

• Guided Discovery: A format for introducing materials that encourages inquiry, heightens interest, and teaches care of the school environment.

• Academic Choice: An approach to giving children choices in their learning that helps them become invested, self-motivated learners.

• Classroom Organization: Strategies for arranging materials, furniture, and displays to encourage independence, promote caring and maximize learning.What is a Responsive Classroom?

Incorporating all of these things into your classroom help to make it a more stimulating, challenging, safer, and happier environment for all of the students. I think that most of these things help to directly affect how well your classroom is going to run and you can start to build a classroom community with them. Fostering a classroom where students feel like they belong and they are safe opens the window to the students becoming more involved in their education. The responsive classroom helps you to create a positive place for the students to share their insights and you can even increase their motivation and get them excited about their learning by giving them "choices" in what they learn. For example, if the students need to study about marine life instead of assigning them what they need to learn about, you can give them the opportunity to choose which marine animal they want to learn about. This way you are still fitting in the curriculum but are also actively involving the students and giving them motivation to learn about their animal because they chose it out of their own personal interest. I definitely plan on approaching my classroom with this type of teaching in mind. Although I am sure it is hard to incorporate of these things all of the time, it definitely seems to be beneficial to try :)

Students' Needs

It’s the first day of school and every student that walks through that door has different needs that need to be met. They all have some needs in common though, they want to feel: safe, important and that they are capable of accomplishing things, like they are fully functioning members of class, like they understand and are good at things, they need to be given a purpose for what they are learning, and like they are able to overcome challenges. Making your students feel positive in all of these aspects will keep them coming back to learn more. They are not concerned with what they are going to be learning in your classroom, they are concerned about feeling like they belong. That first impression you make on a student is CRITICAL. Make sure you are warm and welcoming, make them feel like your classroom is a safe place for them to learn and grow. Most importantly make sure that they know you care for them and are there for them no matter what. It is so important in the classroom that you are telling your students the purpose for what they are learning and please, please, please make connections to the real world! Students need to understand that they are not just learning things to know for a test, they are learning things to help them grow and succeed in life. Once you become aware of your students needs you can begin to effectively differentiate. This basic understanding helps you as a teacher to realize how different experiences in the classroom affect and meet the needs of your students. You need to be aware that students come from all walks of life and bring many things into the classroom that will directly influence their learning and how you teach. Sometimes you cannot meet the individual needs of every student. Unfortunately, you will at times need to take a “snapshot” of the class and determine who is understand a concept and who is not. If most of your students are getting it, great! You may have a few stragglers that you will have to plan to address at a different time. This part stresses me out a little because, being an overachiever, I want to help ALL of my students 100% of the time. That isn’t always possible though. There just isn’t enough time in the day to stop in each lesson and adjust for those who aren’t getting it, but that doesn’t mean you give up! You will just need to find some time to get the students together and discuss with them the missing chink in their understanding of a concept, then find a way to move them past it. You should never stop trying because you may be the only advocate and resource for learning that those children have. When you don’t reach them all, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again.