Refocusing in the New Year - Why I Rearranged My Desks

So, it’s no big deal. Teachers change desk arrangements all the time. We change seating arrangements, sometimes daily, depending on the group of students or the lesson we are working on. This really isn’t a big deal, right? Well, changing my desks this time was a big deal. I felt like I had to break this lull I had fallen into. Susie here, from Anchored in Reading, to tell you why I needed to change my seats to change myself. To save myself. To save education. 

Ok, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but seriously, something needed done. Previously, my desks were all facing what traditionally deemed itself the front of the room. All students could see the ENO board as well as my desk. And, this is where the trouble began. All eyes on the front of the room, including my desk. And my chair. My really comfy teacher chair. And did I mention my desk? Where my computer sits containing emails beeping and blaring at me, taunting me, say ‘read me, read me now.’ I am weak. I have no willpower. Slowly, as the year progressed, I found myself sitting at my desk more and more. (Do you believe there are teachers out there with no desk?! I give them props!) It started with a quick minute as I was changing slides on a PowerPoint or PDF, that then led to a quick rest in my chair which was followed by a quick check of my email and then ended with me totally off task and not giving my students my undivided attention. I was transforming into that teacher. You know the one. The sitter. The email-checking-lazy-bones teacher. What was happening to me? I felt there was no excuse for a 30-something, pretty healthy, teacher to teach from her desk. 

Like a moth drawn to a flame, I was drawn to my desk. Fortunately, I finally realized I needed an environment change. I needed to distance myself away from my comfy chair and my emails that had to be read the second they arrived. I needed to refocus. New year, new me as they say. We always look at our kiddos to see what new year goals they need to focus on, but it was I, their fearless leader, who needed to refocus.

I really did like the last configuration. It worked well with my smaller intervention groups. 

My desk. Don't judge. It was in the middle of 'the move.'

Luckily, we had an in-service day after the start of the new year and I was able to rearrange my desks. My classroom is slightly larger than a shoe box, so I didn’t have many options. 

I am proud to say, though, that I now teach FAR away from my desk!

AFTER
No desk, no chair, just me and my learners. 

Look at that runway! I have so much room to walk and talk and become more engaged with my students. 

There's my desk over yonder, far away from my temptations. 

My students' desks facing away from the front of the room.

My lonely desk. And chair that isn't as comfy as I remember it!

Sometimes it's difficult to reflect and truly look at what we are doing and how we can do it better, even when it's something as simple as a new room arrangement. Glad I took the time to refocus.  I feel like I’m back to my old self! I’m more in tune with what my students are doing and, as crazy as this sounds, the school has not fallen to the ground due to me ignoring my email. 

Adding ENGAGEMENT to your classroom!

Engagement--this is a big word in education today--huh? This is a word that I have seen throughout the blog world and has been a key word in my school year this year.

Merriam Webster defines engagement as:

I believe engagement can be defined in many ways, just like it is above.

Here is my educational definition of engagement:
Students being INVOLVED in the lesson. (basically them not giving you the "bored" look :) )

I know this might have been the type of learning that we grew up with, but this is the type of learning that our students NEED today.

Many bloggers have inspired many of my ideas and I want to make sure to give them credit. I do believe that we are all in this together and all learn from each other!

• Elementary Shenanigans (Hope King)
• Miss 5th (Brittney Briggs)
• Kim Bearden 

I know there are more of you out there--please know that the blogger world and the instagram world has inspired me and made me become a better teacher! Thank you to everyone!

My word for 2016 is gamification! If you do not know what this word means, it is adding games to your classroom. I have found that any time, I can make it into a game even if it is a worksheet that my students LOVE working. It is truly incredible.

Here are some examples of some of my engagement strategies this year:

I have made many board games GIANT! So far, I have made a GIANT Candy Land, Clue, Connect Four, and Hungry Hungry Hippos.

These were VERY simple to set up. For Connect Four, I just displayed the board I googled with my projector and cut out red and yellow circles with magnets on the board. The Clue board game spaces are here. I just made spaces in between and questions for the team to answer. The Candy Land was just colored pieces of paper that were all lined up with colored question cards applicable to whatever topic I was discussing at the time. Hungry Hungry Hippos came from Elementary Shenanigans and my kiddos were in love! Go out and buy plastic colored balls as well as laundry baskets and borrow some scooters!

The goal of my room everyone is to not just have worksheets, but to have that up and moving and engaged.

More to come on engagement in future blog posts! Stay tuned!

Having students track their own data

It’s Mandy from Caffeine and Lesson Plans here, sharing some thoughts on tracking student data!

I don’t know about you, but I have a seriously hard time keeping track of data for my kiddos. Even though I teach a middle school grade, I am a generalist and teach all subjects. That means less kiddos to keep track of (yay) but way more subjects to keep track of (boo). I used to try to do everything on paper, and put it binders. It was a serious problem- I even had a binder to keep track of my binders. I just couldn’t keep up with tracking everything I had the kiddos doing. It was exhausting. In the middle of another long afternoon of tracking scores, it dawned on me that was I was doing was just silly. If I want the kiddos to be accountable for their scores, they should be responsible for tracking their own scores. If they are capable of writing it down, they are capable of tracking it! With that, I bid adieu to the data binders and said hello to individual data folders.

Once I had the idea in my head, I just ran with it. I started having my kiddos track anything that I would normally track. We took a pre-test on a unit, and they tracked their score. Once we finished the unit and took the post-test, they tracked that too- and calculated how much they grew! I found a simple bar graph chart that went up to 100%, and had the students color in the amount they received on the topic pretest.  Once the unit was over, the students used the exact same test as their posttest. They then tracked that data in their binder, and were able to see their own growth.  If you are looking to get started with minimal time investment, a quick google search will bring up a ton of graphs you can fill in, but here is the one I started with, free from Education.com. Tons and tons of other data tracking forms are available online. Check out a pretty great list of free resources here! 

Since I began having my students track their own data I have seen such a huge shift in their attitude about learning. It's noticeable in all my kiddos, but it is incredibly obvious with some of my students who lack motivation. Suddenly, they care about making progress. Going from a 10% to 30% within a topic is no longer just "still failing"- it's measurable, viewable progress. Their bar graph visibly grew, making their growth concrete. They can see the change, proving to them that the effort is worth it. It's been an incredible shift, and I would definitely never go back! 

College Pennant Activity - Student Goal Setting

Hi Everyone! Caitlin from EB Academic Camps here to share a fantastic (and FREE) project with you! 

Last year when I was still in the classroom, I taught my students the documentary Waiting for Superman. After studying the film, I really wanted to create a much more collegiate environment in my classroom that would inspire my students to continuously put their best foot forward. Thus, I devised a little college pennant activity. 

The project is quite simple and allows for considerable creativity for the kiddos. 

Students were to design a pennant for their dream college. Then on the back of the pennant, they had to include their dream job and three steps they could take right now to make that dream a closer reality. It was a really fun project and the kids came up with fantastic pennants for me to hang up!

Kudos to my hubby for coming to school with me on Sunday to hang up the string across my classroom! 

Apparently I have a lot of doctors and directors in my 7th and 8th grades! 

(Some of their goals are pretty broad ... but I figure it's okay since at least they know they need to work hard.)

I think this one is so neat! He couldn't decide between Harvard and Caltech :) 

A view of all the pennants hanging up (sorry the lighting is so poor). I loved walking into my classroom and seeing all of these pennants of inspiration! 

You can download this project for FREE from our EB Academic Camps Teachers Pay Teacher Store. I would love for you to share this project with your students and send me pictures of their creations!

Using Data In the Classroom

Hi all! Stephanie from The Marvelous Middle here to talk with you about using data in the classroom, which is a topic that I feel passionate about (yes, this ELA teacher loves numbers!). I use data in my classroom from formal assessments and informal assessments. Using data takes time and it takes practice.

The easiest place to start is with FORMAL ASSESSMENTS (receive a grade). These may include district-wide assessments (we use NWEA Map Testing) and end of unit assessments. With each end of unit assessment that I give, I list all of the content standards that are being assessed. I also label each question with a corresponding standard, so as I grade I can see quickly what standards my students are mastering and which they are struggling with.

Here is an example from my 8th grade science fiction unit formal assessment:

• There are six questions that assess 8.RL.2. If the student answers at least five of the six questions correctly, the student shows mastery. If the student answers at least four of the six questions correctly, the student shows partial mastery. 
• There are three questions that assess 8.RL.5. If the student answers all three answers correctly, mastery is shown. If two questions are correct, then partial mastery is documented.

Using this data, I can easily determine which students I need to re-teach the content. Students would then have differentiated instruction based on their mastery level. This data should be shared with students so they are aware of their own mastery level and what they need to do in order to increase their mastery level. Formal assessments do not have to be only tests. They can include projects and portfolios if these are linked to specific standards.

INFORMAL ASSESSMENTS (not receiving a grade) are less time consuming and easier to implement in the classroom. They are the perfect way to progress monitor your students in a flash. One way I do this is by using exit tickets. Below are the types of exit slips I use most often:

1. Triangle, Square, Circle

2. Open Ended

3. 14 Words

I will leave you with a favorite quote of mine regarding assessment (I know...I'm a data nerd!)

"An education usb;t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't." ~~Anatole France

     

My Love Affair with Checklists!

Today's blog post is all about my love affair with checklists! 

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a space cadet. Always have been – probably always will be. I’m one of those people who forgets seven different things every time I try to leave the house while my husband waits at the door, staring in disbelief because he’s been ready for the past ten minutes and doesn’t understand how I can’t remember where I put my keys for the 5th day in a row. When I got my own classroom, of course my scatterbrain soon followed. I realized very quickly that I needed a better strategy to keep myself organized and accountable for the millions of big and little things I was responsible for each day. Enter: Checklists!

Checklists have been a lifesaver for me because I’m able to visually see what I need to do and what I’ve already completed. I used to feel like I would get to school early and stay late every day but still somehow not accomplish anything. Honestly, I do still feel like that a lot, but using checklists in my daily life has made a world of difference. 

I created a “Daily Checklist” for myself in PowerPoint, printed and laminated it, then hung it on the bulletin board by my desk. I’m able to check off the things I’ve done throughout the day with a whiteboard marker, and at the end of the day I have a much better picture of where I’m at and what I need. The next day I just erase and start over. Admittedly it does sound a little tedious when you put it in writing, but I promise it has been amazing!

I also love using checklists in the classroom, particularly for larger writing assignments, because it allows students to interact with and think more deeply about the information in front of them.  I used to pass out the rubric for an assignment ahead of time and even though we would go over the expectations together, I felt like the rubrics still weren’t being utilized by a lot of students. When I started converting my rubrics to checklists, I noticed a huge improvement. Students were more easily able to navigate the checklists and they seemed more engaged with the revision process overall. I still grade using the actual rubric, but the checklist form really helps students home in on their strong areas as well as the areas in which they need to improve. 

If you're not a checklist person yet, I encourage you to try it out! Checking off those boxes is oddly therapeutic! :)  

Revamping Your Classroom Management System

Happy Thursday, everyone! It's Caitlin here from the blog The Styled Teacher, where I blog about all things teacher fashion!

Today, let's talk about the DREADED Classroom Management Systems!

via GIPHY

If you're a new teacher or a veteran, there's always room for improvement with your classroom management system. What works for one class one year, might fail miserably for another class the next. You've always got to be flexible. Willing to change to make your classroom a better learning environment.

So, is it too late in the year to change my current system? Absolutely NOT! I know. Mind BLOWN. 

via GIPHY

But the key to doing so is being open and honest with your kiddos. Let them know what is and isn't working and what you're going to try next, AS A CLASS, to help make improvements to your classroom. What a great way to teach self-improvement, too!!

Don't be AFRAID to let them know that something you're doing isn't working. They'll respect you more for it. And who knows, they might even have a darn good idea to help improve your system!

I aggregated some of my best classroom management posts for you right here! Why not try implementing them next week?

Let me know how it goes in the comments below! 

And if you're aren't following our page on FB already, you're seriously missing out. Get your tush over there!

#1. HOW TO USE THE RESTROOM OR GET WATER WITHOUT INTERRUPTING YOUR TEACHER.

#2. THE EASIEST CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT STRATEGY.

#3. WHY PERSONAL STUDENT TRASH BINS ARE THE BEST IDEA EVER.