Winning at Schooling

I had a great week as a teacher last week. I rocked it. I made myself proud. I worked hard. Here are a few things that went my way:

1. Got all my progress reports done well before the deadline: Also, worked hard to make them meaningful. One of my co-workers, another 4th grade international teacher, had finished a progress report on google docs so I copied it to fill it in with my own students information, and start that way. Now this coworker, he’s not very collaborative, meaning no one really knows what goes on his class. While the rest of us are constantly discussing concerns, activities, homework, he remains silent in our meetings. He’s not exactly a teacher that I could use as a mentor. I was on my fifth progress report, and I turn to another international teacher, one that I look up to a great deal and has helped me more than I can say, and remarked, “hmm. This isn’t taking too long. I’ll be done with this in no time!” She asked me what I was writing and I just said, “just general things we did in class which is similar to each student so I don’t have to change that much when I make a new one.” Then I asked her the kind of things she puts on hers, and she said, “I put as much as I can about each student. I know most parents won’t even read my comments but the parents that do really appreciate it.” I saw the kind of stuff she was writing (how the student did on each subject on each test, how they behave in class, their research methods, their writing, their teamwork skills…) And I commented, “You know, I got this progress report from [teacher mentioned above] and I guess it is the bare minimum, but it’s so much faster and I’m almost done…. I guess I have to think more about the teacher I want to be.” I ended up going back and re-doing everything. I got all my data (tests, notebooks, projects, homework assignments) and made personalized comments for all that I had on each and every kid. It took a lot longer, but in the end I feel like I made the right move. I don’t want to be the teacher who does the bare minimum. I care about my students and I want to do my best for them. I still finished 2 days early because once I got in the zone it was easy as pie.

2. I received many compliments and nice words about how I conducted myself in the classroom over the bombings in Ankara: I posted this on my facebook about what I did in my classroom:

“After the first bombing in Ankara, I talked with my students about how when bad things happen and it seems like we have no control, we have to do our best to spread kindness. I gave them a random acts of kindness bingo board that said things like, "write a positive note to a classmate" and "clean up after someone else" and they took up the challenge. Today we talked about the bombing that occurred yesterday and my students asked, "can we do another kindness challenge?" These little guys melt my cold, cold heart. They are some of the best people I know. I love my students so much it tears me up inside that they have to face evil in the world, and it makes me so proud how they deal with it.”

After I posted this, the school counselor sought me out and in lunch room said to me with this wide-eyed sweet expression, “what you wrote… you’re amazing! I love your thoughts about kindness! May I share it with the others on the fourth grade team?” Of course! Here’s an email she sent to the fourth grade team and CCd my principals:

“Dear 4th grade teachers,

Regarding terrorist attack that happened yesterday, Kimberly (4-B) has started a challenge on spreading kindness in her class by saying to students: “how when bad things happen and it seems like we have no control, we have to do our best to spread kindness”.  She gave them a random acts of kindness bingo board (in attachment) that said things like, "write a positive note to a classmate" and "clean up after someone else" and they have begun taking up the challenge.

What is truly heartwarming is students asked, "can we do another kindness challenge?"

I just thought we can support this idea and reinforce kindness even in the midst of ambiguity.”

While I was in the teacher room working, one of the other fourth grade teachers came by to pick up something she had printed and said, “I’m doing it! I’m stealing your idea and printing the bingo board!” She said the way she spoke about it with her students was like a news story, trying to explain how countries have “imaginary lines” that they fight over. I thought I could have discussed the news side of it more. This is what’s great about most of the people on my team. We’re always talking about different ways to approach things and we’re all great teachers with very good, very different ideas.

Even the art teacher stopped me in the hallway and said, "I have to tell you, what you're doing for these kids is so wonderful." I am so shocked and flattered that something I said had this kind of impact. I never expected it in a million years. I guess it goes to show that kindness is a great thing to spread around, and it always comes back.

3. Next victory, thy name is differentiation: In education, differentiated instruction is tailoring instruction to individual needs. Each student is different and should be taught using different materials, activities, and assessments. Part of my English class consists of a checklist kept in a packet for each student. Here is what this week’s looks like:

Each week is a little different, this week the “glows and grows” paragraph was a new concept. The last couple weeks I have conferenced with each individual student about their reading (based on individual assessments depending on how they tested previously) and gave them things they do really well (glows) and things they could improve (grows). I wanted them to take responsibility for one aspect of their reading and see if they had their own strategies to improve.

The “word work” is to improve their spelling. I gave a spelling assessment at the beginning of the year, charted their levels, and according to a book we use called, “Words Their Way” I assign word sorts to them. Some may be working on long a sounds, some are sorting words according to pre-fixes. All individualized. Bam.

Achieve3000 is an online program our school pays for and every 4th grade teacher uses. It automatically adjusts news articles for each student according to their reading level, which is based on how they answer comprehension questions after each article they read. It’s great- we all love it. Finally something differentiated that isn’t so much work for me!

Book clubs are groups of students (by reading level, with each group having 4 or 5 people) that meet with me once a week. I assign a book for them to read for a week, we read some together and talk about it, then the next week I give them an assignment on the book (it might be writing a letter to a friend about why they did or did not like a book, making a venn diagram comparing and contrasting characters, etc).

Their assignments go in the packet, I go through each packet writing comments (sometimes making them do things again because it’s not their best work), and then we start a new book club book and checklist with completely different assignments and activities. It takes A LOT of work. I’ve been doing my best to keep up but sometimes it does get a little daunting. When that happens we might take a week off for checklists and do more direct instruction, whole class activities. Those are fun too. It’s all good.

4. Integrating the curriculum: The title of our unit is, “How the World Works: Light, Sound, Advancement.” It’s all about studying different forms of energy and the advancement of technology. Our next English objective for this unit is to have the students write a 5 paragraph persuasive essay. We have an English test next week testing identifying cause and effect and inferencing. I found a kid friendly article called, “Technology: We Love It, We Hate It, Sometimes We Fear It” and created my own cause and effect and inferencing questions. It went really well, I gave the resources to my coworkers and they all loved it. It was a good English lesson that had our objectives, it had to do with technology and how it’s advancement is not always beneficial, and the kids were very interested in the subject. It rocked.

5. A good evaluation: A week and a half ago, I had the literacy coach observe one of my English classes. Her daughter is also in my class, so I was very nervous about the the whole thing. Long story short, she told me she was happy her daughter was in my class. It was one of the best compliments I could receive.

6. 21st century teaching: Our summative assessment for the unit requires the kids, in groups, to research a device and write about how it’s changed over the years. I have a group researching the computer, another one doing the car, etc. The fourth grade team decided to introduce this on Friday so the teams could research over the weekend. We were given a sheet with guiding questions on it (“who first invented the device?”) that groups were supposed to fill out. I looked at this sheet and said, “it doesn’t make sense that we give each person a worksheet, and they’re supposed to research as a group. You know what? I’m going to make this into a google doc, one for each group, so they can all work on it at the same time as a group.” The other teachers agreed it was a great idea and less of a waste of paper and more collaborative for the kids. It’s also easier for me, because I can see all their docs and see who in the group has been contributing, and I can write comments. I told our computer teacher about it and she was really appreciative that someone is trying to step up the technology in our grade. All the fourth graders have a Google account (we are a Google school) and are required to bring their computers to class every day. We use it a lot for research, I make online quizzes that are really fun (the computer teacher taught me that and it’s great), and there’s lots of online games for what we teach. Anyway, now each group has a google doc where each student can contribute and chat with each other. 

I see it all, and some of it is gold. I will close my blog with this gem, my students chatting on their google doc: