Whose Voice is Heard?

At this time of year, we see many people sharing their beginning of the year activities and strategies. You see tweets, blogs, Pinterest pins, Facebook posts, articles, and Back to School Conferences. Many people asked me how we started our year, so I shared some of our activities in the post Our First Day(s) of School. In that post I also explained that I felt like it's not so much about what you do as it is about how you do the activities. Are you nurturing a learning community that communicates, collaborates, thinks deeply, and puts the learning into the hands of your students?

As I mentioned in that previous post, one of the activities that we begin the first week of school is blogging. My students set the criteria for themselves. They know what is expected of them when they blog because they set those standards.  Blogging is one of the most powerful ways for me to get to know my students, academically and personally. Through their writing, I get to know about their thoughts and expectations, their strengths and weaknesses, their hopes and dreams. They reflect on their own learning, discuss the things they wonder about, and generate meaningful conversations on a wide variety of topics. 

I have written several posts about the drastic decline in my students' interest to read. When conducting a survey in math about favorite school subjects, reading has fallen at the bottom of the list every year for the last three years. So when a student posted the following comment in a blog last week, I saw an opportunity to facilitate a blog conversation with the class. He wrote,

I asked him to clarify what he meant and share his thoughts on those statements. He obviously understood the relevance that reading has in everyone's life when he replied with...

This was like throwing a match on extremely dry tinder. It ignited a heated discussion among my students who expressed their frustration in our prescriptive reading program and all of the different aspects of it. No one had ever asked them how they felt about it. They shared how much they wanted to be able to just read books, articles, blogs, comic books, and graphic novels for fun. I found it interesting that they began to formulate ideas of how to work around all of the required practices to include what they found meaningful. They weren't complaining, they were problem-solving. All of this dialogue was generated by one student who stuggles in reading because English is his second language and not spoken in the home.

This just reaffirmed what I already knew. Students need a voice....every student. This is their education. Let them discuss it, try new things, and find their own solutions. The learn to communicate effectively and critically analyze. It empowers them and sets them on a path of being a highly-motivated lifelong learner in spite of obstacles they may face.

When people ask me which tech tool I find most valuable, I find it difficult to come up with one tool because we use so many to support the diverse needs of my diverse students. However, with blogging, my students have an avenue to share, discuss, reflect, dream, plan, and debate. It has greatly enhanced the way I teach my students and the way that they learn. If I could only use one tool, blogging would be my choice. Because with blogging, my students each have a voice.

When the Shift Happens

As school is beginning, we hear many educators talking about their preparations.

"In my classroom..."

"My discipline plans is...."

"The classroom procedures I designed..."

"The lesson plans I created..."

I had the opportunity to speak to a conference of new teachers and those who were new to our system. One point that I made that elicited many confused looks was when I said that our classroom is not about us at all. 

Yes, we make preparations for our students; we learn stronger strategies for reaching all of our students; we design a learning environment that is conducive to learning and meets the needs of all the different learning modalities. We plan, read, reflect, and change our plans as necessary, but that classroom is not about us and what is best (or easiest) for us as educators.

We must be flexible enough to adapt our plans, find new resources, and allow our students to explore areas that interest them. We all have pacing guides and standards that the students need to explore and master, however our job is to facilitate that learning, putting the responsibility of learning and succeeding into our students hands.

One of the easiest shifts that we can make is to change I, me, my, and mine to we, us, and our. It lets our students know that although you are there and you are the professional in the classroom, we are all on this journey together. We are all learners and all teachers. That shift drastically changes our learners' perception of their role in the learning environment. Their motivation and drive to learn sky-rockets. They begin to crave learning and when it's time to leave our classrooms to go home, they beg to stay. (They may even be like mine and ask "Can we skip lunch and keep writing?")

So as we enter our classrooms, let's keep these simple ideas in mind. Let's become partners with our students in the learning because when this shift happens, amazing things happen in our classrooms.

Photo: Krissy.Venosdale's photostream

What Motivates Students Today?

Do you ever have the feeling that although you are speaking up, somehow your voice isn't heard? Those of you who follow my blog know that one of the issues close to my heart is the power of student-driven learning (see In Defense of Student-Directed Learning). I've attended several conferences and workshops lately where when I made a comment about putting the power of learning into our students' hands; people looked at me like I had three heads (could you imagine the hair styling time for three heads?). That's not going to change what I know to be true. Students want to learn, but what motivates them is not extrinsic rewards. It is our job to guide them in pursuing how they learn, what they learn, and how they share their learning with the world while not just mastering standards, but far exceeding them.

Enter Alan November, the keynote speaker for the Alabama Educational Technology Conference. This man has been providing students with the opportunity to apply what they are learning to solve real-world problems since the mid-1980's. His students find a need and they design a solution. His TED talk is very close to what his keynote was. He shared student ' stories that illustrated that what students really want is purpose, authenticity, a global voice, and time for mastery.

Throughout his keynote, I found myself wanting to stand and cheer. Here is a man who had his students living this over twenty years ago....it's nothing new. The stories he shared inspired me to try new things, really let my 5th graders have more freedom. I hope that you enjoy his talk as much as I did and I'd love to hear your thoughts on student-directed learning. And if you are in San Diego next week attending ISTE12, be sure to come by and hear my students tell you all about the power of student-directed learning.


 photo credit: . Entrer dans le rêve via photo pin cc

Making Math "Yummy"

This year I have continued my quest to find challenging mathematical problems that related to real life. This has been a real challenge. Most of what I've discovered has been too difficult or too easy for my fifth graders.I know that learners need to discover the relevance of what they are learning to their lives; it gives those standards a personal meaning to them. They realize that these aren't just a bunch of random procedures/processes/problems they are being forced to learn. They are relevant and useful. It totally changes their perception of learning.

This year, I was fortunate to stumble across a site called Yummy Math. I must admit that the title is what caught my eye from the beginning. At first glance the two words may seem at odds...unless you're talking about using some food items as manipulatives. Their tagline is "We provide teachers and students with mathematics relevant to our world today …"   As I investigated further, I realized these were a collection of "math stories" that set up a real-world scenario; then they pose questions for the students to ponder and problem-solve. They are timely with current events. Currently, there are math stories on March Madness, Pi Day, Green green Chicago River, and Shamrock Shakes. You can search by month or by math standard. Each math story involves multiple math standards and new stories are regularly added.

To be honest, these standards are a bit over my students' heads, but I loved the whole concept of real world scenarios that focus on multiple math skills while adding some interesting trivia or information; I decided to try it with my young mathematicians anyway. My students were immediately engrossed in these problems. We begin each of the stories by discussing the  beginning "set-up" together. Then they set to work in small groups as I travel from group to group to listen to their conversations and ask questions to discover their thought process. We periodically have a whole group conversations to share their discoveries. They get so excited about "figuring" something out, they don't stop to question whether or not this is a 5th grade standard. I never hear my students say, "This is too hard."  They see how the different math standards overlap and relate to one another.

They are not just solving problems with numbers either, they are having to write explanations for how they got to their conclusion. We all know that it is one thing for a students to just go through a  process...that doesn't denote a true understanding of a concept. It is a totally different thing if a student can explain not just what they've done to find a solution,but also why they've done it.

It's highly engaging and interesting for them to see how math supports life. It's relevant. Whenever we do a Yummy Math story, our math class goes on for over an hour and a half. When it's time to move to another subject, a chorus of "Awwwww, can't we have 5 more minutes?" ensues. One student told me that he loves yummy math because it's math for life. He is so right. Kids begging to keep solving problems? Absolutely!

~To the Yummy Math teachers, I hope I did justice describing your site. Please feel free to make comments adding any important information that I might have omitted. Thanks for such a great site!

In Defense of Student-Directed Learning

Recently, I was in a training session where we observed a lesson. Once it was over, we were led into a group discussion about what we had observed. Immediately negative comments were made placing the blame solely on the students. As the negativity escalated, I knew I needed to speak up. I also knew how they would react, but I jumped into those shark infested waters anyway.

Even though many of our children have no support system at home, we can give them the skills to learn at school. If they become invested in what they are learning and they see the relevance, they will WANT to learn and practice what we do in the classroom...even when they aren't in the classroom.Students need to be given the opportunity to explore how each standard we teach relates to their lives. They need to have the guidance from us to find how learning this content will make their lives better. Then, we need to give them the opportunity to explore, design and create something new with what they have learned. If we give them this, they will be self-motivated to learn...not because of some grade or a test, but because they LOVE it.

I know there is plenty of research out there that supports student-directed learning. However, I don't need research to know that this is a valid way of facilitating learning.  I see it every day in my class. I have had students that are exceptional education students, who are so low or such behavior problems, I was told they wouldn't even be able to function within the classroom. My administrator admits to putting the more challenging students in my classroom because "they always make such great gains and reach a level of success that they've never had before." (See Let's Celebrate or When Things Click or  Becoming Techknowledgeable) I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, but to give examples of how successful this is with students...academically high or low; wealthy or homeless; Asian, Latino, African American, or Caucasian. When you have 10 year olds who don't want to go home at the end of the day or they want to spend their Friday afternoon doing research to prepare for a lesson they are going to teach older students via Skype, you know that it works. (See Students as Teachers). It works because we are giving students the power and responsibility to drive their own learning.

The reason I spoke up was because the students of those teachers were being sold short. Their potential wasn't being explored. That love of learning hadn't been ignited. I hurt for those kids.

Isn't it our responsibility to do whatever we can to meet the needs of our students? We can't afford to waste any time giving them the tools to success. Because when you ultimately think about it, we are only hurting our future selves. These are the kids who will be running the world in a few years. We can't afford to sit on the sidelines and point fingers at the students. Students know how they learn best if they are given the opportunity. They are the SOLUTION.

Time to Innovate...Our Innovation Day

What is Innovation Day? Innovation Day was born in the business world and originally called a FedEx Day (because it’s delivered in 24 hours or less). Anyone who has read Daniel Pink’s book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, is familiar with this concept which increases productivity and motivation among their employees while fostering creative thinking and problem solving. The employees are given employees the time to explore new and creative ideas during the regular work day. These ideas made their way into the innovative classrooms of Josh Stumpenhorst and Pernille Ripp (and into my Google Reader).

An activity that gives students the ability to drive their own learning and fosters creative thinking and problem solving is an opportunity that I really want to provide to my students. They would be given one day to learn about any subject that interested them...one that we didn't study in school. I knew this concept was new to everyone involved…administrators, parents, and students. Because we are a nontraditional classroom, I knew my students would be the easiest to prepare for this activity, but as we know, often other adults are the last ones to try a new idea. I went to our new administrator and explained the Innovation Day concept with the proposed learning outcomes. I asked if we could have one day out of strict schedule to try this out. Thankfully, she agreed. Thanks to Pernille, I adapted her pre-planning sheet to send home to the parents. I also sent an email explaining the concepts and my learning objective to the parents. Every parent supported our day and returned the pre-planning sheets signed.

Now it was time to prepare the students. As with so many activities in the classroom, I knew that the success of this day really depended on how well the students had prepared before the actual day. About two weeks before our Innovation Day, we began reading Mistakes that Worked by Charlotte Foltz Jones. This fascinating book includes a host of daily items that we enjoy daily that were created by accident. They are organized into short stories which worked well with our schedule. This book fostered some amazing, deep discussion about creativity, pursuing your passion, and thinking outside of the box. 

That discussion spurred my learners into looking into other innovators that impacted their lives every day. They began drawing comparisons between these different people and the qualities that they had in common. My students wanted to publish their findings, so we turned to ClassTools.net's Fakebook maker. They had a blast create these Fakebook pages of the innovators they had been researching.

Then it was time for them to select a topic that they wanted to spend one day becoming the expert on and creating the project to share with their peers. We spent some time conferring. There were a lot of probing, guiding questions here as many of them we stumped when it came time for them to choose any subject that interested them. They seemed overwhelmed with all of the possibilities. After some conversation, everyone narrowed down their topic, filled in their planning sheet, and had their parents sign it.

One thing that I hadn't anticipated was that they were so excited, that many of them started their projects at home. Some of them spent hours researching and working because they wanted to learn more. When the day arrived, the excitement was palpable. Our classroom was a flurry of diligent students focused on their tasks and all of their supplies spread into every nook and cranny of our room.

http://ramsaysclassinnovationday.wikispaces.com/

Here are some of the projects:

1. Testing combinations of all natural fruit juices to create a healthy way to season food
2. The invention of a 31-day medication dispenser (no medication was used)
3. The history of handbags with an Animoto movie
4. An original play complete with props, costumes, and sets
5. Eight pieces of art with different medium inspired by Claude Monet
6. A model of a hydroelectric plant
7. A diorama of a spider's habitat
8. A battle scene from a World War 1
9. Prezi of Jackie Robinson
10. Flipchart of the life of Elvis Presley
11. Three scarves made out of recycled materials with a digital how to slideshow 
12. A balanced meal plan
13. Handmade fleece pillow and blanket
14. Voki and ProProfs Quiz on Jesse Owens
15. A mural of a clownfish with an accompanying lesson on a clownfish
16. A map of all of the battles of World War 2
17. An original fable published on StoryJumper
18. A book of brain teasers published on StoryJumper
19. A model house built to scale
20. A 3D model (with removable sides) of an Egyptian pyramid
21. A bird house build to fit the specific size of a red cardinal

As you can see, creativity and critical thinking flourished this day. There simply aren't enough superlatives to describe the excitement and level of engagement that my students had. As one student said, "This is a day where the teachers and students switch roles. The students become the teachers and the teachers learn about what interests the students and how they learn best."

You can find all of our Innovation Day projects, photos, testimonials (text and video), reviews of Mistakes that Worked, and their fakebook pages on our Innovation Day wiki. We hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed creating them. The question on all of my students' lips was "Can we do this again?" Without a doubt!

Reflecting on MITCHELL20

This weekend the Alabama NBCT Network had their annual conference. A perk to the conference was that MITCHELL20 was screened. If you are not familiar with this film here is the trailer:



The Mitchell 20 Trailer from Mitchell 20 on Vimeo.

When I first saw the trailer at the National Boards Conference last summer, it really struck a chord with me. Although I am in a different geographic location in the country, I felt like I could identify with many of the challenges that they were facing. (I've heard that from many other educators who have seen the trailer and the film.) As Kathy Wiebke, executive producer for MITCHELL20 and one of our keynote speakers said, this is a true story, not the story they set out to make, but one that needed to be told. If you go into it thinking this is another movie like Mr. Holland's Opus, you will be disappointed... because after all, for those of us in the classroom today, many days are a struggle to do what we feel is best for our students.

When the film ended I had no words, but so many emotions. I think one reason it is so emotional is because to some degree, we can identify with their challenges. We've been there. We've felt their tears and their frustrations. Now I'm going to attempt to put some of these thoughts into words.

One of the major things that I took away from the film is the impact that one teacher can make. One teacher led the charge to make a difference in her school. She started encouraging fellow teachers to change the quality of their teaching. Twenty teachers agreed and they began their two year journey that was documented in the film. These teachers met together to discuss the changes they had made in their instruction and the impact it was having on their students, and ultimately on their community.  Several times throughout the film the different teachers talked about how it changed their relationships with one another. Before they were colleagues who only knew one another by speaking in between their teaching; now they had become a family as they all worked towards the same goal.

I've heard several times that teaching is a solitary profession. To an outsider, that may seem strange as we are in a school filled with people. I know at times we feel like we are alone in the fight to not only improve our teaching practice, but also continue to provide the best quality teaching for our students.Like the teachers at the Mitchell School, we may struggle against policy and practice mandated by those outside the classroom, but it's a struggle we are all facing. By banding together, we can work together to find solutions. When you see the results that the students reaped from their journey (one many of us have seen in our teaching as well) you know that all of the hard work was worth it.

Their journey wasn't an easy one. Once they started speaking out and not accepting the status quo, things became even more difficult for them. What was different? They had one another. We know that when you start speaking out, sometimes there is push back. Truth is it isn't fair. Who ultimately suffers? Our students. It is our responsibility to speak up for them to give them the best opportunities that we can. One quote from the movie that stuck with me was that "We need to let our students know they can be anything that they want to be. Nothing can stop them if they have that conviction." And what better way can we teach them that than through our example? We can speak up; we can make their world a better place through our teaching; we can be the change that our students need.

To read more about MITCHELL20, here is a blog post written by Kathy Wiebke on Talk Priority Schools. To schedule a screening see mitchell20.org.MITCHELL20 will be released on DVD in March. I highly recommend you schedule a viewing for the teachers and  educational leaders in your area .  

One Year and Counting...

Today marks the one year anniversary of my blog, Eduflections. When I started this a year ago, I had just turned in the final manuscript for Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing? I missed having that avenue of writing and reflecting about my journey with my students. Dr. Frank Buck suggested that writing a blog would be a good way to continue reflecting on my teaching practice and sharing my journey with others. My initial goal was to write or reflect at least once a week. I came a few blogs shy of that by only blogging 47 times, but by going back and reading what I've written, I realize how much I've grown as an educator, and ultimately a person, over the last year.

Here are some of the things that I've learned this year:

1. Be bold. Do not be afraid to speak up for your students. If we don't speak up for what is best for our students, no one else will.
2. Share your students' successes. The community at large has a misconception of what accomplished teaching looks like in the 21st Century. Build a contact list of community leaders, legislators, board members, and parents and send them photos, stories, and projects so that they can see what is possible in today's classroom.
3. Let your students design the learning environment. I had already given control over so many different aspects of our classroom to my students; I don't know why I didn't think of this. They have arranged the room, the classroom library, and requested that we add a large area rug. They are the ones who need to feel comfortable in the learning environment, so let them take the lead in this area as well.
4. Blogging is a powerful tool...for students as well as teachers. I tried blogging immediately after I began blogging, but the students didn't enjoy it. This year I tried a new approach starting on the first day of school. I let them design the expectations. As a result, I've gotten to know my students much better and much faster which enabled me to better customize lessons. Their writing improvement has also grown exponentially. They are voracious writers who take ownership for what they are learning each day
5. Join in the conversation. Although I had been somewhat active on Twitter, I had not started building relationships with other educators. That was the key to really connecting with other educators and not just consuming from the community, but giving back to the community.Those relationships were further solidified as I got to meet them at various conferences, EdCamps, and Tweet Ups. Now my PLN is even stronger and the ones that truly benefit are my students.
6. Counteract the affects of high-stakes testing on students. I've had students who HATE reading because they associate it standardized-testing and our prescriptive reading program. I've also had learners tell me that the one thing they look forward to is standardized testing. When they begin the year, they struggle with being creative and thinking outside the box. They have very little knowledge of history, science, or art because all of the focus has been on reading and math. These have been a bit of surprise to me, but kids are so adaptable, we've been able to meet those challenges and focus on a well-rounded, student-directed learning environment.
7. Focus more on math. As I look back over my past blogs, they all seem to focus around the language arts and technology-supported learning. Yes, those areas are where my comfort level is and it stretches across Social Studies and Science. However, there aren't very many blogs about what we're doing in our math class. Perhaps, I need to stretch my wings a bit out of my comfort level and see what I can find to further improve my teaching practice in the field of mathematics.
8. Get involved in the community.On April 27, 2011, tornado ripped through the community where I teach. I did something I had never envisioned; I took a list of my students' names and addresses and entered theses communities searching for them and delivering supplies. One thing that I learned was how valuable it is to be a part of the community in good times or in bad. It helps solidify a strong relationship between you and families with whom you work in a much deeper manner. The final outcome is a much better education for each of your learners.

Is this all that I've learned? Absolutely not! These are just the highlights. I'm sure once I press the publish button several more will come to mind. However, I would be remiss in not thanking all of you that have helped me along this journey this last year. All of your comments, emails, retweets, and mentions have given me the encouragement to continue writing and growing even when things become extremely challenging, as they often do in a public school classroom.

So if you are considering beginning a blog, or you have a blog that needs to have the digital dust brushed off of it, I highly recommend it. This has been one of the most power tools for my professional growth and I look forward to where my path will take me in the next year. Let's continue to learn together.

An Afternoon in "Pleasantville"

Today, we had the most pleasant afternoon. My students spent this afternoon blogging, answering questions and making comments to their collaborative partners on Moodle, and working on a Global Read Aloud Project. They were all sitting in different small groups all over the room, occasionally chatting about what they were thinking about, writing, or creating. There was just a nice, low hum of happy kids discussing what they were learning with one another. I loved it!

Moments like this just make me want to do a little dance. They are so highly engaged and independent from depending on me to tell them what to do. Of course, this afternoon didn't just happen. It's taken weeks of modeling, discussing and practicing how and why we use these tools and what behaviors they deem appropriate. They've set their own expectations and they are holding one another to those expectations.

The great thing about this afternoon (besides listening to their happy, thought-provoking and somewhat humorous comments) was that this gave me the opportunity to work with some students one-on-one. While they were all actively engaged in meaningful work, I was reading through their pending blog posts. By looking at their writing, I was able to determine if they had a misunderstanding with their grasp of not only content area but also with grammar and mechanics.

It was a great opportunity to visit with my students and have them explain what they saw in their writing that could improve it for the reader. Almost all of them would take a minute to look at what they had written and determine what should be corrected. Others needed a bit more prompting, but by leading them to making those discoveries meant much more to them. They found the error; they determined what needed to be corrected; they determined why it needed to be corrected. (By the way, those of you itching to write a comment about how blogging shouldn't be evaluated, need to read these previous posts: Did I Make the Grade? The Reading Log Conundrum and What is Homework? It's not a luxury that I have where I teach right now.)

This method of conferring, letting the students make the edits and corrections with your guidance, is much more powerful for the students. We use this in my classroom for all of our writing assignments regardless of genre, content area, or method of publishing. It allows them to make these discoveries for themselves. It's no longer a teacher telling them what to do and how to do it. It's them making these choices because it strengthens their voice in whatever they are writing.

So, I look forward to many more days like this where my writers are all engaged in meaningful, (and let's face it) fun and yet rigorous work. Now back to reading those blogs....they have passed 400 blogs since school has started. What do you think? Do my kids like to write, or what?

An Update to the Reading Log Conundrum

A while back, I wrote about our school's nonnegotiable practice of requiring every student to complete a reading log and how I felt like it was counterproductive to a student developing a real love of reading. Here's the original post. Since then, I've had quite a few people question me about that blog and request an update.

As I wrote earlier, my students started off the year blogging. One of the expectations that my students designed was that their individual blogging would replace the dreaded reading log, among other things. In fact, most of them have taken to it like a fish to water. A few others have needed to have a bit of encouragement that their voices were important enough to be heard.

Now, I realize that I have a totally different set of students with totally different needs than my previous class. However, this is one of he most diverse classes that I've been fortunate enough to work with. With that in mind, I want to share with you what I've observed.

When my students complete an activity, project, or assignment, they are much more likely to pick up a book and read. Shortly after they've read a few minutes, they ask to use the computers so that they can blog. (As an aside, the students don't have to ask me to use the computers. It's a hang over from previous years.) When I finally asked one of my students about their willingness to read as often as he was, he said, "Well, in my last blog post, I told about what was happening in my book and made a prediction. Three people commented on my post and asked me questions. I had to find the answers so that I could answer their comments."

My students have discovered what has escaped so many, well-meaning educators: Having an interactive conversation about a book, even through writing, provides students a reason to read and write. It's so simple really. How many of want to share something great we've read with others? Isn't that what we see so much of on Twitter? How about all of the book clubs that people have? All of those speak to the fact that we like to talk about what we've read. We want to share our discoveries with others. It's real, it's relevant, and it's fun!

...and as a side note, I'm finding a ton of new books to read, all reviewed by my 5th graders!

So is it working? Absolutely! However, if at any time it doesn't work, my learners know that we will stop, have a discussion, find a solution, update our blogging expectations, and move forward. I love that my students have taken such ownership of their reading, writing, and blogging. It's exciting to see every day.

Are you Sad?

We've just finished our second full week of school with our students. The teachers returned three days before the students and something that a teacher said to me is still floating around in my head. After asking me how I spent my summer and I told her the highlights, she frowned and said, "Aren't you sad that summer's over and you wasted your summer?"

I was a bit stunned. How could someone look at all of the things that I did over the summer and think that I would be sad? My summer was full of things from participating in a flash mob, having my book released, presenting at four different conferences, speaking with Alabama legislators, and meeting the most amazing educators from around the world...and those are just a few of the highlights.

Was I busy? Yes, but I was energized as an educator (and a person) by all of the connections and life experiences I had over the summer. As I thought of all of those things it brings to mind an assumption that many have about a student's perception about returning to school. They assume that they student is unhappy about returning to school. We know that if a student hears something numerous times, they will start to believe it. Should they be sad about returning to school?

As I mentioned last week, my students started blogging. As I've read some of their first blogs, I realized there are under currents of this mentality. However, they have told me, through their writing, that they don't dread school, they look forward to it. Here is an example:

While I was out of school for the summer people always asked me,”Are you ready to go back to school?” I always said , “No, not at all.”   I said this because I thought that fifth grade would be horrible. I hadn’t seen my teacher once before the first day of school and I didn’t know how she would act. I was a little surprised because I hadn’t met any teacher who did as much as she did in the class. We have so many opportunities this year. I was also a little freaked out because throughout my whole life (well at least kindergarten to fifth )I always had the nicest most creative teachers. It’s hard to say that is a coincidence. Now I can barely sleep because I wish that school could start again as soon as dinner is over.

I could share several other quotes, but I think this one makes my point. Learners should look forward to school. It should be a place with "many opportunities" to learn and engage with one another and explore new concepts and how they fit into their lives.  It should not be a place where students are sad. I'm definitely not sad about my summer or the fact that I get to go to school each day and do what I love...and I hope that rubs off on my students every day.

A Shocking Answer from a Future Student

Yesterday, we had our registration for the upcoming school year. It is the first opportunity where I get to meet some of my students for the next year. I look forward to this opportunity to get to know some of my future students and get a feel for their expectations for the upcoming year. One of the questions that I ask is, "What are you looking forward to the most about 5th grade?" I usually get a wide variety of answers, but yesterday I got an answer that shocked me. One of my future students told me  (without hesitation) that she is most looking forward to standardized testing in the Spring.

WHAT?!? Really?!? What does this say about the state of education that a student would look forward to testing as the most exciting thing in the upcoming year? I know that we are constantly bombarded (sometimes assaulted) with the constant pressure to have students perform on these tests. For some of us, we hear about it at every faculty meeting, grade level meeting, data meeting,  and via email correspondence. We have mandatory PD about the new strategies we are required to employ with our students in the name of meeting AYP. As a teacher it can really wear you down, stress you out, and kill all of your creativity.

However, as teachers, should we be passing this pressure of standardized testing off onto our students? Are we giving them a false sense of the priorities in their educational journey? Just because we are assaulted with the pressures, that doesn't mean that our learners need to be. We still need to protect the integrity of our learners' education. It is our job to stand in the gap. I know first hand that it isn't easy. I'm envious of the teachers who get to teach and promote literacy and not be hampered by a scripted reading program. I long for time to actually have a writers workshop. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

But, that doesn't mean that our students can't still thrive in our classrooms. They can be creative; they can connect; they can make choices in what and how they learn. It just takes a little bit of effort on our part to find a way to give them that freedom. I tell my students at the beginning of the year that we are not in fifth grade to prepare for a test. We are here to prepare for life. The looks of relief that I see are remarkable. It's a small shift that makes a big difference. Are we still mastering the standards? Yes. Actually, my students usually far exceed the standards. They become thinkers. They love what we do in class so much that they beg to come to school early, stay late, or even skip lunch.

Does that mean that they don't hear about testing? No, that's being unrealistic. We hear about it everywhere. In spite of this, we can make a difference so that none of our students leave us at the end of the year and only having testing to look forward to for the next year. I'm looking forward to this year and changing this student's expectation for the year. Once we get started, testing will be the furthest thing from her mind.

A Moment of Truth Part 1

Today, after two years of hard work, I received a moment of truth. I was deep in some work preparing for an upcoming presentation when someone lightly knocked on front door sending our beagle into a fit of barking.  Once the noise and furniture surfing subsided, I opened the front door to find a smallish UPS envelope. My heart skipped a couple of beats at I looked at the address…Portland, Maine. Could it truly be a package I had imagined opening a million times in the last two years? I carefully opened the envelope and peeked inside. Out slid one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen….my book.

In my hands I held my moment of truth. The time that over the last 23 months I had yearned for and dreamed of, sometimes wondering if it would ever happen. Would all of these words on my laptop actually end up becoming a book?  After the dancing around and noise subsided (this time me, not our little beagle), I immediately thought about this journey and what I learned from it. There are so many things that are running through my head, and I’m sure once my feet touch the ground again, I’ll come up with many more. I wanted to share a few of them now as I feel like they directly impact our students.

Try new things.

I had never thought about writing a book, but at a presentation in Atlanta, Holly Holland, from Stenhouse Publishers, approached me and asked me if I would be interested in sharing my teaching experience and journey with others. The thought of authoring a book while teaching and fulfilling my other professional and personal obligations was a bit daunting even at the front end of this experience.  But with the encouragement of my husband, I decided to try this new experience. What I discovered was that I loved to write and reflect on what I was doing in the classroom, even if I was the only one reading it. One might say that this experience has born a true passion for writing, and in spite of family encouraging me to take some time off, I started this blog and have even outlined a couple of new chapters for a potential new book which may only be written for my own introspection.

Isn’t this what we want for our students? Don’t we want for them to try new things, overcome the fear that sometimes comes with the unknown? As teachers, it is our responsibility to provide as many experiences as possible for them in the short time that they are with us. We need to be there to encourage them to try something new.  Guide them and reassure them as they discover new passions. How exciting is it to witness those discoveries that students make?

So as you are doing all of your professional learning this summer, keep that in mind. Make some connections, learn some new strategies, discover new avenues of learning so that your students can reap the benefit of trying something new.

(My initial post ended up being so long, I've decided to post the rest in a couple of days...stay tuned!)

I smell...a Math Scavenger Hunt

Standardized Testing is over! We are all celebrating. However, a challenge we face now, at the beginning of April, is that all of the standards have been taught. Many of our district’s pacing guides have us reviewing and re-teaching the exact same standards that we did before testing.

For math, we’ve already spent the year in small groups, doing a variation on Math Workshop, and project-based learning. What do we do now? I wanted it to be relevant, engaging, and enjoyable for my students. As I was pondering it, the television show The Amazing Race was on. They were doing a scavenger hunt type of challenge on the streets of India. All of a sudden, a brainstorm hit and I decided to adapt that challenge into one we could use for math.

First, I created 5 stations within my classroom. Each station had two challenge problems that the teams of two had to solve together. Once they solved the problem and checked it, they could bring their solution to me and explain how they got their answers. If their answers and explanation were correct, I gave them a card with two letters on it. Then they travelled to the next station. The goal was for each team to successfully complete all of the problems correctly and then take all of their letters and arrange them into a phrase.

I let the learners chose their partners, but they had to choose a partner with whom they had not worked on any projects this school year. Since we do so many activities and projects, it was a bit of challenge for them to locate a suitable partner. I wanted to encourage my students to get to know another student. Also, it broke up my high, medium, and low math students forming heterogeneous pairs.  Without me assigning partners, each pair had at least one very strong math student to guide their partner through challenge problems. However, both students had to explain their solutions to me.

On the day that we did this, I had all of the stations set up and I staggered the pairs at the different stations to avoid everyone working in the same area of the classroom. We had a discussion where the students set the behavior/procedural practices for this activity. Then off we went.

I figured that they students would enjoy this Math Scavenger Hunt. What I didn’t expect was that they would be so focused and engaged in solving these math challenges that after and hour and a half, they didn’t want to stop. They followed their behavior guidelines and didn’t even realize that guests had come into the classroom. Also, I was able to assess their abilities without having to give and grade a practice page, workbook page, worksheet or test (not that we do much of that anyway...but that’s what their peers in other classes are doing). The energy and enthusiasm was palpable.

Although they were trying to unscramble the letters to find out what their prize was, that wasn’t their focus. It was the challenge of completing the task successfully. Their prize was a “lunch bunch pass” which means they get to choose two friends to sit with at lunch and go through the lunch line first. They always love that pass, but they really enjoyed completing the Scavenger Hunt more.

They are begging to do this again and it can easily be adapted to any content area and any grade level. So next time the television is on, you might want to pay attention. You never know what inspiration might hit. My kids had every bit as much fun as the pairs working together in India on The Amazing Race and from what the pairs on TV said, I think our Scavenger Hunt smelled better.

The Reading Log Conundrum

There's been much written about the use of reading logs in classrooms today.  Personally, I can say that I'm not a fan of requiring students to read and fill out the required form. Where I teach, using a reading log is a nonnegotiable, meaning every student regardless of age has to complete one daily. For the upper elementary students, a summary must be incorporated with their log. Our district has a semi-standards based report card. One of the 5 broad standards that students must meet in reading for each grading period is "independent reading." The reading log is linked as the way to measure whether or not a student has mastered that standard. If a child has completed his/her reading log at least 75% of the time during a grading period he/she has been considered as mastered that standard.

I know there are all kinds of problems with that method. I've been wrestling with this for this entire school year. I've been trying to discover a new way to have my students reach that standard that the administrators will approve and that will provide the documentation that students are reading independently.  It has been a challenge.  I'm also trying to reinforce the love of reading as that has also been a challenge...no thanks, I'm sure, to this whole reading log issue (Many other teachers are reporting the same behaviors in their classrooms). I have students who (now) love to read, especially graphica. I'm having to remind them to put it up when we are engaged in another activity. However, these students will not turn in a reading log. To them there is no correlation to what they're reading, which is fun, and the reading log, which is not. They'd rather receive a zero and keep reading their self-selected reading.

So, here is the plan that I intend to pilot at the end of the school year to show my administrators. I'm hoping for their approval for next year in lieu of the dreaded reading log. My students spend a lot of time writing and  reflecting on their learning across content areas. We are going to move our reflections over to blogs. As with all our writing endeavors, I'm going to have my students form a  rubric and guidelines for blogging.

One aspect that I hope to guide them into including is whatever they are currently reading. With the comment options, I'm hoping to encourage students to share what they are reading and encourage commenting upon one another's reading choices...making connections and having real discussions. It takes the static, one-sided reading log, and gives it relevance. There's an audience. There's a purpose for their writing and reflecting. The blog turns their literature reflections into a book discussion where they can share the exciting things they are reading, whether it's a trade book, a novel , or a comic book. It will give me the documentation I need to meet the standard while the actual requirements will be set by the students, not by the school, giving them back the power in how they publish and express themselves with the literature.

If anyone has any other ideas, I'd love to hear them. I've felt like we were between a rock and a hard place with this reading log all year. Keeping our fingers crossed! Wish us luck!

Speaking of Motivating Students...

Looking for a new way to motivate students? This year my students and I have discovered a nifty tool that we have used for different types of publishing. As mentioned in a previous post, my students were unmotivated readers, which often impacted their desire to write, create, and publish. Then, thanks to some reading on Twitter and the blog-o-verse, I discovered Voki.

Voki allows the user to create a personalized talking avatar that can be easily embedded into wikis, blogs, profiles, and email. And even better, it wasn't blocked at school. This was perfect for my students to use for their writing and publishing for The Coast to Coast Chronicles. Voki has the option for the creator to type the text they want spoken or record their voices with their avatar. This was great for those special needs/ELL students who needed extra practice recording their voices fluently, affording me a tool to assist in my differentiated lessons.

Initially, my students wanted to create them as a "book teaser" to give their audience from The Coast to Coast Chronicles (over 300 students across the country in grades 3-7)  the opportunity to learn about a book that they enjoyed and get them hooked so that they would want to read the book as well. Having a new tool seemed to encourage my students to want to read so that they could contribute through this medium. Other students who saw these first Vokis, asked my students for directions on how to create them, letting my students (once again) become the teachers... a big boost in self-esteem for these hesitant readers, writers, and speakers. And let's face it, who of us doesn't love playing with the mouse and watching the avatar's eyes follow it?

After these first Vokis were created, my students began to apply this tool towards publishing their writing for other projects and in other content areas. While working with the astronomy students, many of my students were inspired by the astronomers that they learned about from their older counterparts. Since we were publishing on the theme of Exploration for our 7th edition, several of my students, who had not previously chosen to use Voki, created Astronomer Vokis.

This week, yet another idea arose from my students. We needed to compose a thank you note to a couple of different people/groups. We were discussing several different ideas, and one of my learners suggested that we create a Voki to express our gratitude. He even added that not only would it be a creative way to write a thank you note, but it would also teach the other classes/individuals a cool new tool that they could start using too. Cool, huh? My fifth graders were finding new ways to apply a familiar tool to publish their writing and use it to also influence and educate others. Nice thinking. Wish I had thought of that.

So next time you have a student who needs a differentiated lesson in writing, reading,or speaking, or perhaps they may not be highly self-motivated, maybe Voki could be used to help meet those needs the way that it has helped me meet the needs of some of my students.