teaching Archives - Page 2 of 3

6 Big Reasons to Love a Writer’s Notebook

Using a writer’s notebook is a simple way to recognize yourself first as a writer, then as an author. Teaching kids to recognize themselves as writers and authors is one of the best things you can do for them. Here are my six biggest reasons to love a writer’s notebook.

P.S. The following ideas have evolved from some of my favorite resources, but mostly from this book, which was a critical guide for helping me get my students started, and this article which is sooo worth your read.

1. A Writer’s Notebook as a Classroom Structure

A writer’s notebook can be whatever you want it to be. If you are like me, you have a spiral-bound, lined notebook you can get pretty much anywhere for around a dollar. I also keep a digital writer’s notebook in my drive. This is to encourage the use of my daily writing for publishing. The format doesn’t matter, the purpose does. Whatever you choose, it should be something so accessible you practically trip over it daily, reminding you to write something.

The writer’s notebook is not only something you should have and be writing in on a very regular basis, but your students need it as well. For students, I suggest a non-digital format for their notebooks.

Notebooks will become a personal item for students to collect their own thoughts and ideas, and a place to notice the world around them. A writer’s notebook can be a classroom structure that is used as a consistent tool to organize student and classroom thinking all in one place, over an entire year!

2. Making Thinking Visible: Reading Their Minds!

What I love most about writer’s notebooks is that I can look into them and it’s a peek into my student’s brains. I tell my students that their thinking matters so much, that they need to write it down. The writer’s notebook is where we keep and hold onto thinking. It’s also how I know how I can do my best work as their teacher, for them.

By reading their thoughts, I can better understand their thinking. Maybe I will find places to push their thinking, fill in some gaps, or discover something to share with others. What teacher doesn’t want to be able to read their students’ minds? We are literally becoming mind readers here! This website has some great tips and visuals for getting kids started.

3. A Place for Building Relationships

In the back of their notebooks, students have a section called Lit Logs. This is where we practice the skill of writing letters back and forth to each other and connect on a more individual level.

Essentially, it is a conferring tool! Students know they can write to me anytime in the Lit Log and submit it to me, like sending a text message. I will also use this section to ask them to respond to a prompt, or a problem we may be having in our community. Check out my previous post for ideas about how I’ve used the writer’s notebook to give students some mindfulness time.

I collect these and respond with a short, personal message. This really helps them feel heard and seen and is so important for building relationships throughout the year. When you have a strong relationship with your students, they are more likely to engage in the content you are delivering.

4. A Place for Building Learning Communities

The writer’s notebook is also where we store our class thinking, such as copies of anchor charts, mini-lesson notes, and discussion protocols and norms. Students know that they will be held accountable for their engagement in our collaborative learning community. They will also be asked to share some of their thinking with other class members, and it is easier for them to do that if they already have it written down and are prepared in advance.

5. A Place to Experiment

A notebook is by nature a processing tool. Its a place to capture thinking, jot down notes, sketch ideas, experiment and play with language. Students understand that it is their notebook, but that I will be using it to formatively assess where they are in the processing of content.

When they have a place to try things out, they will discover their own thoughts and even be able to see the learning taking place over time. The process is critical to their ability to create a product that can be used for summative assessments later.

6. A Place to Live the Writing Life

Finally, the reason I love writer’s notebooks is because I use them in my own life. People are thinkers, if you can think, you can write. If students can get into the habit of writing down their thoughts, they will pay attention to them more, they can become more metacognitive.

Writer’s notice the world around them, and pay attention to their place within it. Authors know they must practice writing on a regular basis, and that what they have to say is important. They intend to publish their writing for other people to read. By keeping a writer’s notebook over the last several years, I have been able to have articles published in magazines and online.

How to Build a Self Directed Learner

Teaching students to be more self-aware through Metacognition, Mindset and Mindfulness will build them into more self-directed learners. Self-directed learners are more likely to engage and find motivation because they recognize themselves as learners, rather than participants.

Motivation

Motivation, or reasons for taking action, is a little hard to come by these days. Heck, motivation was a little expensive before the pandemic. Nowadays, you better have a whole lot of intrinsic drive saved up and a heaping tablespoon of purpose to push through to the other side. And what about your students? Purpose? Intrinsic motivation?

In my classroom, motivation was a sometimes thing. As in, sometimes my students were intrinsically motivated, and sometimes they were extrinsically motivated. As a professional, I knew it was a big part of my job to move them from extrinsic to intrinsic. Teaching is an art form in this way because this is where your creativity and enthusiasm can be powerful, and contagious.

Compliance

At the end of each day, my students were given 30 minutes of “Your Time.” Everyone understood that most of the day was considered “My Time.” Really, it was communicated this way: “If you will do the things I and other teachers are asking you to do for most of the day, you will be given a fraction of time at the end of the day to do whatever you wish!” The lines between motivation and compliance get a little fuzzy here.

Is that a bargain or what? It worked so well because I could use this last bit of our day to catch the kids who needed some reteaching, or who were just not able to complete something for whatever reasons they had that day. It also saved me from having to threaten to take away their recess time, which ends up working against you in the long run.

Incentives

Aside from the daily time compromise, there were other mostly successful tactics for getting kids to be compliant. Celebrations are an important part of life, and I wholeheartedly believe we should be celebrating our achievements big or small as often as possible. Incentives are pretty effective in the workplace, at home, and yes, at school. If I’m going to be at school every day, you can bet I’m looking for ways to make it more fun, and not everything is inherently fun. The possibility of earning an ice cream and movie party after learning all my math facts is just good stuff.

Of course, we are all finding ways to recreate what we were doing in the classroom before. We are digitizing as much content as possible, and striving for as much collaboration as we can get synchronously and asynchronously. However, engagement continues to be the missing piece. Even for those students who want to please, who will do everything they can to complete the tasks they are asked to complete, and even for the families who value everything their student’s teachers are sending out, the engagement gap threatens to grow at an alarming rate.

The Engagement Gap

As educators, we talk a whole heap about achievement gaps. Have you ever heard of an engagement gap? In the spring of 2016, pre-pandemic, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development published a report with the following profound statement about the purpose of said report.

Because achievement is unlikely to improve if students are not engaged in their education, finding ways to close the engagement gap is
an essential goal to ensure that high school seniors graduate well prepared for the rigors of college and careers—and become well rounded, successful, contributing members of society.
Introduction, The Engagement Gap -Spring 2016

This report followed a previous report published in 2014 titled The State of America’s Schools: The Path to Winning Again in Education, where we come to the meat of my argument and the motivation 😉 behind this blog post.

The current focus on standardized testing assumes that all students should have a similar educational experience. We leave little time for students to figure out what they love to do and where their greatest talents lie. We waste time and talent.
Connie Rath, Gallup Education

The Self-Directed Learner

Students need to figure out what they LOVE to do, and WHERE their greatest talents lie. Let’s not waste any more time. Students can become more engaged, more motivated, and more successful, but they need to start with self-awareness.

It’s like the old parable of teaching a man to fish. Shall we continue to hope our students will be motivated to do the things we are asking them, or can we give them the skills to discover who they are, to value their uniqueness, and then to recognize their contribution?

This awesome student friendly rubric from Awordonthird.com identifies ways students can evaluate themselves as they move toward becoming more self-aware and more self-directed.

The 3 Ms: Metacognition, Mindset, and Mindfulness are just three of the many tools that are available for creating more self-awareness. These Ms were the foundation upon which I built my curriculum for each and every school year, and are also what I find to be most valuable as I continue to develop my own sense of self and purpose.

Metacognition

Metacognition is the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes. I first learned about this concept in a PEBC conference a few years ago. This awesome article from Edutopia explains it as a way to “drive your brain.” When I first teach it to my students, I tell them it is just thinking about your thinking.

Teaching students about their brains, and how to have some control over its processes, is one of the most magical things we can do as educators. When we name and notice what we are doing or thinking, we are gaining self-awareness. I love the PEBC framework for teaching metacognition using thinking strategies. Visualizing, Inferring, and Determining Importance are a reimagining of the same reading and comprehension strategies teachers have been using for years. The captivating part comes when you notice yourself or someone else doing it and name it.

The naming and noticing that comes with teaching these strategies is where we start to uncover the real value in these strategies. When students understand that their brains are already doing these things, they start to see themselves as learners. They might even start to believe that they are capable of learning anything. Well, a teacher can dream, can’t she?

Mindset

Ever since Carol Dweck gave the world her research on Growth vs. Fixed Mindsets, our brains have never been the same. Again, it reminds us that we have the ability to control our thoughts, and maybe even to some extent, the course of our lives.

If this were the case, we would all be living the high life. (Is that still a saying? I live in Colorado, so I’m thinking the meaning of this phrase has changed.) The concept of control is so closely related to the concept of self-directed. When we understand ourselves, we can better organize ourselves. I’m not saying you must be organized to be successful, but I do believe it to be a skill we should all strive to develop in order to better care for ourselves and others.

Big Life Journal has a wonderful resource for teaching your students about growth mindset. Probably one of my favorite parts of teaching growth mindset is the fact that mistakes are critical to learning.

This unit from Angela Watson has several weeks of step by step instructions for teachers and a student journal. I love the videos that were selected for this unit because they include some very well known people who have made tons of mistakes before creating success in their own lives.

Mindfulness

Every day after lunch, my students would come in from recess with loads of complaints and problems. It could take up to 20 minutes of instructional time to resolve these issues. We decided to try something new.

As they entered the classroom, the lights would be low, and soft music would be playing. They could lay on the floor or sit anywhere in the room, but they had to be away from other students. They could doodle or write in their writer’s notebook, but they absolutely could not talk for ten whole minutes.

Here is one of my favorite videos to play on the Smartboard during this time.

We created an anchor chart showing the only reasons anyone could break the silence of that time. Some examples included aliens landing outside our classroom, someone was either bleeding a lot or throwing up, or if bigfoot walked into the room.

My students grew to love and look forward to this tiny bit of silence in the day. This became such a sacred time that they began to ask for it from their other teachers. What an awesome example of a student advocating for themselves and recognizing a need. All for the price of just ten minutes a day.

What are your students looking forward to each day? How are they motivated, and how do they engage in your lessons? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments.

Why Teaching Digital Literacy is Critical Right Now

Teachers, the best and most effective tool for teaching and learning is still you. Please don’t forget that your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, your passions and interests, and your ability to reach your students are what we need most right now, and always, in education.

As I recenlty planned and participated in professional development for teachers, I learned a few ~~handfuls~~ bucketloads of ~~important~~ critical things about the importance of digital literacy. The PD was focused on using technology to create equitable access to instruction for various populations of students: in person, students in blended models, and distance learning.

While we introduced some great tools for learning, and taught teachers how to use them, we overlooked the fact that several of them did not really understand some basic elements of digital literacy. Meaning they did not know what it meant to open a new tab, what a refresh button is, or that files can be stored in a cloud. With all of this pivoting to online and digital instruction, now is a good reflect on what we think we know about digital literacy.

What Digital Literacy is Not

Having the capability to toggle between screens on your cell phone, play a video game, and conduct a google search, does not award you the title of being digitally literate. In fact, I would argue that a lot of us aren’t as literate as we think we are when it comes to the digital world. Most of us were just becoming literate in the basics of reading and writing when the world wide web started to be a thing.

People, this was only a little over twenty years ago. My junior year in high school I was taking a typing course on a typewriter. You guys, I am still super young!

In my experience as a teacher, some kids have had the luxury of having had some digital literacy education, but this is mostly in the form of typing and coding classes. Our little school has an amazing technology and media teacher who introduced Virtual Reality sets as a crazy fun tool for learning and instruction.

My point is, everyone is having to use technology almost everyday now to teach and to learn. Are we doing due diligence in providing the basic, foundational understandings of digital literacy that every teacher and student must have in order to fully access the awesome capabilities and potential that technology gives us?

An Honest Assessment

As with any content, we should have a good idea of what our students already know or don’t know. The following is just a handful of discoveries I’ve made over the past few weeks as I’ve integrated more technology in my work, and at home.

Fewer people understand technology as a tool for solving problems.
Not many people understand what is meant by digital literacy.
Many people need basic digital literacy instruction, including myself.
Students and teachers need instruction on the purposes and tools of email.
Families and teachers need instruction on video conferencing tools, and their purpose
Everyone needs instruction on the purpose of technology in our lives and in education.

What Digital Literacy Is

When we understand that technology is more than our computers, we can begin to grasp the fact that we are in control of it, not the other way around. We use technology. We create tools to help us solve problems. Yay humans!

New literacies, like digital, are changing what it means to be literate, and at a pretty quick pace. Reading and writing skills are just not enough to participate in today’s conversations.

Edweek.org has a great article on what digital literacy is, and it’s not simple:

“Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.”
American Library Association’s digital-literacy task force

As a good reader, I know to look for keywords in that definition. In order to be digitally literate, we must be able to FIND information, EVALUATE information, CREATE information, and COMMUNICATE information. Let’s just say digital literacy is complicated. Which is why we need to be teaching it.

Digital Literacy instruction is the foundation for equitable access.

Equitable access means more than simply providing devices and connectivity. It also means giving every student the opportunity to learn from teachers who understand how to use technology to both enhance learning and create quality learning experiences for students with special needs.
International Society for Technology in Education

The key here is that students, all students, need the opportunity to learn from teachers who understand how to effectively use technology as a problem-solving tool. Not only that, but the tool should enhance your instruction. Meaning your instruction could still be taught without it, but the technology is making it better. It should not be the reason to teach the lesson. I love Kahoot and Flipgrid, but I know better than to plan a lesson around the tool.

Becoming a Digitally Literate Teacher

So where do we start? How about where we always do. Introduce the vocabulary. We all use the academic language associated with the digital world on the daily, but do we know it? Could you explain what an app is? Can you put into layman’s terms what a window is, or how email works?

Digital Literacy Vocab Cards — Free Digital Literacy Vocab Printable

If you are not a computer science nerd, or whatever that title is now, you might struggle a bit to explain all these terms. So, because I can’t really do it either, I have created this free digital literacy vocab printable for you to use to get things started. Use it to create your own word wall for reference, so we can all begin to create a more equitably accessible world full of digitally literate people!

Teaching the vocabulary is just the beginning. Below you will find three of my essential resources and systems for learning digital literacy as a teacher. This knowledge helps me be better equipped to teach families and students to be digitally literate.

Excellent article on why we must teach Digital Literacy and 21st Century Skills

The Center for Human Technology is working to realign technology with humanity’s best interest.

A Digital Citizenship Scope and Sequence, with lots of free resources

Teaching Your Students Digital Literacy Through Citizenship

What better way to teach something so complicated than to recruit help. Let your students help you help them. Teach them what it means to be a digital citizen! Thankfully, do a quick search for digital citizenship lessons and you will be off and running. Commonsense.org is my favorite resource right now for teaching digital citizenship because it offers complete lesson plans for every grade level!

Students need to know that they have a voice, their thinking matters, and they are welcome to participate in a global world. As a citizen, we have certain responsibilities, the most important being literacy. We have a responsibility to understand one another and to communicate with empathy, clarity, and purpose.

Through citizenship, students will begin to understand their roles as members of our new and changing world. A very big part of that world is digital.

One Example of a Natural Learning Cycle.

It is difficult to separate the teacher in me from the learner in me. Just when I’m not looking, my teacher self recognizes my learner self, and points out something kind of amazing. The teacher in me recognizes that I am naturally engaged in a learning cycle on a regular basis. I am consistently consuming-producing, and reflecting. Gold stars all around. I’m like my favorite student. (Its OK to have a favorite if there is only one.)

The elements of instruction can include several complex details, that I will not (probably cannot) explain here. The purpose of this post is to highlight the natural cycles of learning we may go through in some undefined amount of time, and how much it resembles how teachers intentionally design learning experiences in the classroom. Very scientific, I know.

**Challenge to the reader**: I have included pictures of my chickens, their eggs, and breakfast, see if you can figure out why and leave me a comment!

Start With Bite Sized Bits

One of my favorite books ever! That Workshop Book by Samantha Bennett

Breakfast aside, reading is my consumption choice first thing in the morning. My husband thinks I have a book addiction problem, and I agree. Nonfiction is my drug of choice, but I’m really trying to move into fiction. Most importantly, print is preferable to digital. I need to underline, highlight and make comments in the white space.

Effective lesson design actually begins with the end in mind, but I’m not talking about the planning in this post. ( If you want to see how I plan lessons, check out this post.) After a goal or objective is identified, the teacher presents something he or she hopes the students will consume. Hopefully, the teacher knows learners best consume things in bite size chunks. Even for me, the exemplar learner, I can only consume for about 30 minutes before I start to lose interest.

Thank goodness I’ve learned its more productive to produce something after consuming something, rather than wander aimlessly until I feel the urge to consume again. Doesn’t that sound a little cave woman-like? Anyway, back to me the exemplar learner, not the cave woman.

Build, Create, Write, Draw, Make Something!

The Worktime is the time where the learners make something. The process of making is where the magic is.

Anyone who has been in a second grade social studies lesson knows a good strong economy needs producers and consumers. Even if you don’t remember second grade, you at least recognize those vocabulary words from 4th grade science, right?

Now that I’ve got you thinking about decomposing carcasses and that ultra cool ecosystem you built, we’ll talk about products. While the goal may seem to be consumption in learning, what we really want, eventually, is a product. Now, I didn’t say it has to be a useful product. It is in the process of making something that we find the learning happening.

As I mentioned earlier, there is no shortage of things to learn. We could try to consume our way to knowing as much as possible, but if we never do anything with it, well, we could end up the opposite of full. Isn’t it ironic? A little too ironic? Like rain, on your wedding day? OK, I’ll stop.

After reading, watching, or listening to a bit of content, I usually try to produce something new, or modify something I’ve already started. In order to make something meaningful, its got to come from me. Because I am a good learner, whatever I produce will most likely be heavily influenced by whatever I just consumed. It may be a journal entry, a blog post, or a list. This is how I think, process, and apply.

This is the work of learning, and it is where teachers hope their students are spending the most time. It is the work time, and the biggest chunk of the lesson plan pie. Here is a full post on how I use a workshop wheel to plan lessons.

Reflection is Where The Meaning Is

Here we are now, my favorite part.

Reflection has the very best two definitions ever:

1.the throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it.
2.serious thought or consideration.

While I could spend some time on the first definition, which would be lots of fun, that’s not really why we’re still here. Thank you for still reading.

#2 Serious thought or consideration. I’m questioning the serious part, but yes, this is the gold. I’ve spent enough time in classrooms to know that it is in the reflection, the debrief, or the closing, where we find out what the lesson was made of.

I spent the better part of an entire year of instruction focusing on how to nurture an environment where student feedback was not only safe, but also expected. Goosebumps happen in a good closing discussion about the day’s learning.

There is always, and must be, time for reflection in any learning environment. How else do you know the time spent was valuable? I guess you could just tell yourself that, or you might even look at student work and make assumptions that it was. But how do you know? In my classroom, discussions were my first choice, but there are lots of other, quicker ways to do it.

While I sometimes do have discussions with myself, I have found lots of ways to be reflective in my individual learning cycles. One of the best ways to get myself seriously thinking and considering is to ask myself questions, and then I listen. Yes, I listen to myself. Its ok, I trust my opinion and think critically before I take any of my own advice.

Here is why this works for me, even if I never consult another human being anywhere in this cycle: I know myself. I know I will continue to learn, consume, ask more questions, produce, succeed, fail, reflect. It’s just who I am, and will always be. I trust the learning process.

Reflection, Feedback, and Coaching

And the cycle is complete, or I should say begins again!

Reflection is one form of feedback, in that it can inform your practice as you thoughtfully consider the value of whatever you have consumed and produced. However, if the feedback is the result of some thoughtful reflections of others, look out.

In my experience with coaching, I was always looking for advice. I practically begged people to tell me what to do to be better. However, the best coaches withheld their great ideas the majority of the time, and instead asked a lot of questions. They highlighted things that went well in the lesson or the learning and asked me why I thought that was.

To really explain this concept, I highly recommend reading The Feedback Fallacy from the Harvard Business Review. Here are two of my favorite sentences from the article:

Learning is less a function of adding something that isn’t there than it is of recognizing, reinforcing, and refining what already is.
We learn most when someone else pays attention to what’s working within us and asks us to cultivate it intelligently.

As a learner, teacher, coach, and a person with feelings, these two quotes make my heart want to jump right out of my chest. I want to make giant billboards and bumper stickers of this.

So, I guess the teacher in me is doing a pretty good job recognizing, reinforcing, and refining the learner in me. I hope I will continue highlighting the things I am doing well as a learner, because I love learning! If you are still here, you must be too! Gold stars all around.

Envision the BEST Education for Our Kids

Since we don’t have any way of knowing what the future will look like, let’s pretend. What is the best possible version of the future we can imagine for our kids? What skills do our kids need in order to be successful not only now, but in the best future we can envision for them?

More Than the 4 Cs

As a teacher, we were constantly talking about 21st Century Skills, and preparing kids for the real world. Our lessons were focused on state standards, and what kids need to be able to know and do in order to be successful.

Education places a heavy emphasis on the four C’s, the skills needed for learning: Critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication. BUT did you know there are EIGHT other 21st Century Skills?

These eight other skills fall under two different categories: Literacy Skills and Life Skills.

While most of my blog topics surround literacy skills, most of my thinking lately has been around life skills.

Life Skills MUST Be Taught

Imagining the BEST possible future for our kids, and ourselves, makes me think about what I know as an adult to be most helpful. The Applied Educational System’s site does a wonderful job of breaking down the following list of Life Skills in greater detail, but here is a summary:

Flexibility: Deviating from plans as needed
Leadership: Motivating a team to accomplish a goal
Initiative: Starting projects, strategies, and plans on one’s own
Productivity: Maintaining efficiency in an age of distractions
Social skills: Meeting and networking with others for mutual benefit

You probably already know how critical these skills are, being an adult yourself. How did you learn to have initiative or be productive? What about those social skills? While I know many teachers are incorporating these skills into their lesson planning, I wonder if they are explicitly naming them for students.

Not only naming them as life and learning skills, but also describing why they are important, and how they use them in their own lives.

Envisioning the BEST Future

The cool thing about envisioning is that you get to use your imagination. When I imagine my future, I wish for a feelings of whole health, relationships that are fulfilling, a sense of participation in, and contribution to, society, and opportunities to explore and be curious. And lots of other things.

Notice those are pretty realistic. I must be all grown up.

If I were to make a list of skills I would need in order to ensure that my vision become a reality, what would they be?

In order to have whole health, I need to establish and maintain good self care habits.
In order to have fulfilling relationships, I need to have compassion, self awareness, and empathy. I also need to be vulnerable, maintain healthy boundaries, and practice being in relationships.
In order to develop a sense of participation in, and contribution to, society, I need to become self aware, reflect on my ideas and abilities, and seek out opportunities where I can make a difference.
In order to explore and be curious, I need to develop a sense of adventure. I need to pay attention to what makes me laugh, what brings me joy, and how to use my imagination.

What can you imagine?

We have a unique opportunity to use our imaginations pretty much whenever we want. This is why I love the words What if…

What if I could do something more to better prepare my own kids for their future? Maybe I don’t need to rely on the public school system so much, and complain that there is so much to be fixed.
What if I read aloud to my teenager, even if she hates it at first? Could it bring us closer together, and give us more to talk about? Could it give her the gift of learning to love to read?
What if online school really is better than public school for my child? Will he learn how to be more self reliant, trust himself to take initiative, and begin to build his own sense of self?
What if this is an opportunity to develop self care habits more deliberately into our own lives, thus communicating this absolute critical message to our families and students?

What can you imagine? What is the BEST possible future for our kids, and how can we start making it a reality today?

Thanks for reading!

How to Plan When You Don’t Know What to Plan For

As I think about how to plan, when you don’t know what to plan for, I consider the things that are important, no matter the circumstances. These are the things I know must happen in order for any kind of learning to take place. What are the things you know to be absolutely necessary, and how will those things be accomplished?

We are getting used to this idea that we don’t know anything. Everything has been turned upside down, and we just don’t know what to expect. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, let alone next week, next month, or next year.

Why We Plan

Planning feels good. It gives you a sense of control. There is so much great advice out there about failing to plan or planning to fail. But what about planning when we don’t have any idea of what to expect?

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
Yogi Berra

Planning is a significant part of the school year. Teachers must have some sort plan in place before the year even begins. Lesson plans not only provide a structure for learning, but also ensure that teachers and students are working toward purposeful, meaningful outcomes.

What is most important?

Relationships are the absolute bedrock in any setting where people are asked to take risks, discuss meaningful topics, make connections, open their minds, etc. Without a doubt, there must be a foundation of trust, and a sense of healthy community in any learning environment before we can expect any meaning to be made. Wholesome relationships make space for each participant to be seen, heard, and valued. They are not perfect, nor do they require only positive interactions.

Defining what is most important is the easy part.

The big question teachers ask themselves all year is: “How will I create an environment in my classrooms that ensures students know they are valued for who they are, and that they are expected to grow and learn?”

How will it be done?

The how of ‘getting things done’ must be embedded in the ‘what needs to be done’. We have determined that relationships and community are the most important whats. These two things are the foundation in which we build our structures for lessons, and living, in our classrooms. By thinking in this way, we also emphasize the importance of process over product.

Despite what your “classroom” will look like in the coming year, your lesson structures should be predictable. What we want is for students to focus on the content, not the structure. We must be so consistent in our structures in such a way that they become almost invisible.

Predictable Structures

From the very first day, students must be introduced to your lesson structures. We all know that our first couple of weeks of school are reserved for building relationships and communities. Why wouldn’t you do this with the very same structure you would to teach any content?

If every lesson is to be built upon strong relationships and community, then your lesson structure should begin this way. The philosophy behind your lesson structure sends a message to your students about what you expect from them, and what you believe about them.

If you never give your students time to work independently, you are telling them you don’t trust them with the material. If the majority of your students cannot work independently without getting distracted, there is something to be considered about how you have set them up to be able to do so.

The Workshop Model

“If a teacher truly believes that student thinking matters most, then student voices dominate the bulk of time in any class period.” That Workshop Book

The workshop model has been my favorite structure for lesson planning for all of the reasons I’ve already mentioned above and more. The very nature of this structure centers around students doing the work of learning, as active participants, not passive listeners only. The model itself is in the shape of a circle, reminding the facilitator to come back around to the objective, to reflect on how the time was spent. A large amount of instructional time is allotted to the students, while teachers engage, support, and listen to the student thinking, then building off of that.

I have created a free printable that includes a sample workshop lesson planning tool as a guide, and a blank template that you can download here.

Practical Ideas for Introducing the Workshop Model to your students

No matter what the school year brings, the size of your classroom, or if you are teaching online, the following ideas can be great ways to introduce a predictable structure to your students. Whatever structure you choose, remeber to keep it consistent. We want our students focused on building relationships, participating in healthy communities, and engaged in the content. We don’t want them confused about what they are supposed to be doing, or how to access the content.

Games– Have your students bring their favorite family games to share. Use the lesson planning structure to allow students to teach how to play, give them some “work” time to play. Listen to how students interact with the game and eachother. Take notes to be shared during a closing/reflection meeting. Don’t forget to kick off the unit by modeling your own favorite game. Show your students how to use the lesson structure by modeling.
Read Aloud– Have your students bring their favorite text from home or the library. Don’t limit them to books. Some people love magazines, comic books, cookbooks, etc. Everyone will learn a lot about each other based on what is brought to class. Model for your students again by showing them how to use the lesson structure. Bring your own favorites and explain why you love them. Allow different students to share each day and follow up with a reflection/ closing discussion about communities. When everyone shares what they love and why they love it, it begins to build community.
STEAM Challenges– Use the lesson planning structure to play. There are hundreds of STEAM/STEM challenges online. This is one of the best ways to get students to understand and get used to your lesson structure. Start with the objective, the goal. Engage them with ideas/possibilities and give them a set amount of time to innovate and work together. Listen for how students work together, and how they don’t. Use this as a discussion generator for the debrief.

Debrief

Although the future is uncertain, especially when it comes to knowing what to expect for ourselves and our classrooms, we can still plan.

Students will still need a predictable structure, access to resources, and a healthy community of learners around them. Some of the things we were doing in our classrooms in the past are worth keeping. We just have to figure out how to do them in a different way. Lets remember what is most important, and keep our structures for delivering those things predictable and consistent.

Random What If Story Lines From the 19s.

Sometimes we just need ideas that are so far out of the box, so unexpected, that our eyes widen enough to see a bigger picture. One of my favorite things about teaching was the random and wonderful thoughts kids share at any given time.

Back in the 19s

I recently overheard a ten year old talking about something that happened back in the 19s. The 19s? After a moment I realized he was talking about a time that was very long ago. Almost the 1900s. When I say the 70s, 80s, etc, he thinks, “oh, back in the 19s.” Its so mind boggling to me, but this is what I mean. We need more of this kind of thinking.

Pixar storytellers use “what if” as the seed for growing awesome stories. A previous post explains how teaching creative writing in this way made writing stories less stressful, and way more fun for the kids. Most fictional stories can be simplified into a single what if sentence. Think of your favorite movie and try to explain it in one sentence beginning with What if.

The following is a list of wacky ‘what if’ story lines that were made into movies.Not only are the story lines attention grabbing, the characters and special effects in these movies are truly “special,” and they are all from the 19s.

The Dirt Bike Kid 1985

What if there was a motorcycle who wanted to help a boy save a hot dog stand from a mean old tycoon who is going to tear it down? The Dirt Bike Kid is a little known action adventure flick that is nothing short of fantastic. This motorcycle has an attitude problem, but a big heart. Just as you would expect, the motorcycle gets into trouble and gets arrested. As in, the officer actually places handcuffs on the handlebars. You’ll just have to see it to believe it.

Lots of great movies, great music, and well, great everything came out of the 80’s. I thank my lucky stars to have grown up with no internet, no cell phone, and endless hours to watch MacGyver and The Goonies. Angus MacGyver and Mikey Walsh have inspired me to be resourceful, optimistic, and above all, to believe anything is possible.

While The Dirt Bike Kid has nothing on an epic, life changing, timeless story like The Goonies, it resembles it in some ways. The kids are the underdogs, and the heroes.

The Cat From Outer Space 1978

Amazon.com: The Cat From Outer Space: Ken Berry, Sandy Duncan ... — The Cat From Outer Space

Imagine a movie about a talking magical alien cat. What if there was a planet filled with cats that were so highly intelligent that they moved things with their minds? No need for opposable thumbs!

Disney’s The Cat From Outer Space is “Supurr-natural.” Yes, I am quoting that line from the trailer. The humans in this movie are your typical scientists, not skeptical at all that a cat can talk and move things with its mind. That’s what I love about scientists: they’ll believe anything!

Best of all are the special effects. Sometimes you can’t even see the wires carrying that physicist through the air! And when Jake (the alien cat) uses his powers to freeze bad guys, the pixels get a bit fuzzy, but it takes a ton of talent to stand that still.

Blackbeard’s Ghost 1968

Amazon.com: Blackbeard's Ghost: Dean Jones, Peter Ustinov, Suzanne ... — Blackbeard’s Ghost

What if the ghost of a pirate could free himself of a curse by helping others? The mostly drunk, but lovable, Blackbeard the Pirate is my favorite ghost of all time. He fights in his sleep, sings all day and night, and behaves a bit like a toddler who doesn’t get what he wants.

Just try not to laugh when you see how confused the mobsters are when the track coach is able to take them out using his hands in the form of a gun while saying “pow pow.” I would have loved to be in the room when the writers and actors were thinking up this scene.

I need a break from realistic. These quirky and of off-the-wall ideas remind me to be more playful, laugh at silliness, and take myself, and others, a lot less seriously. Some would say life is so confusing as it is, and I agree. Lets stop trying to figure everything out and think of some fun stories to tell instead.

What are some of your favorite story lines? Leave a comment and we could try to guess the movie!

3 Reasons Table Top Games are a Powerful Instructional Tool

As the reality of staying home every single day is starting to set in, It’s important for us to look at what we are already doing as possible learning moments. Many of us are playing board games, cards, and other favorite games. Table top games are a powerful tool for learning, and here are my top three reasons why.

Reason 1: learning should include Student choice

Kids love to play games and they usually have a favorite. The first few weeks of school in my classroom consisted of getting to know one another, learning routines, and lots of games.

Students were asked to bring in their favorite physical game (no video games) from home, and teach us how to play it. The purpose of this assignment was to give them an opportunity to take the lead in a less intimidating way. The message I was hoping to send was “We value what you have to share, who you are, and what you already know.”

John Spencer at Medium.com says “[Choice] is about empowering students through the entire learning process.” There is not a lot of ways to get kids to take some ownership in something if they had no choice in the matter. Kids need to take the lead more often, and we need to let them.

reason 2: learning is social

The Japanese game GO has been played for thousands of years!

My 18 year old son loves Japanese culture, and found an Oriental board game called GO at a garage sale. The game has been played for thousands of years, and is part of Japanese culture. It’s a challenge to learn the game, but together we are figuring it out. Learning something new along side someone, especially someone you love, is unifying.

In our desire to learn how to play, we have had some great conversation! He has done some research, and I have asked lots of questions. As we play, we develop strategies, and ask more questions. This is the essence of great lesson design. As teachers, we want students to interact with the material (in this case, the game) and ask questions. They they try it out, get feedback, and start again.

Games like Guess Who are perfect for creating great conversational moments. My son and I used this elementary level game to practice asking and answering questions in Japanese. Although learning Japanese is not at the top of my list of interests, it is on the top of his. As a parent of a child getting ready to leave the house, I’ll take all the time I can get with him.

Reason 3: Technology is not the only tool

As schools have quickly transitioned to online learning, there have been some very positive outcomes, and there have been the inevitable downsides as well. I think we assume that all kids understand what it means to be a digital citizen, which is probably not the truth. We see proof all the time that adults don’t even know what this means. Technology can be a great tool for getting kids engaged in learning, and it is just one tool.

Worksheets are another default tool that is overused. It’s a little like using a screwdriver to beat in a nail. It will probably get the job done, but there is a better way. What we see is the product of some learning that has already taken place somewhere along the line. Table top games allow us to get involved in the process: the two steps forward and one step back approach to discovering something new. When a worksheet is done, its done. A game can be played and played again. Players can get creative to can change the rules, change strategies, lose and win.

What I am not saying is that we shouldn’t use technology or worksheets for at home learning. Learning is happening all around us all the time. With table top games we can be more intentional about learning with our kids, and recognize that it is actually already happening.

want more?

Check out these awesome learning games from Empower.com. These are easy to understand and content based.

Look for my upcoming blog posts about Pixar shorts, story starters, and digital citizenship for ideas for learning at home. Also, check out this great podcast about the power of table top games.

What other things are you already doing at home with your family, that could be a great tool for learning?Thanks for reading!

Leaving Teaching

How quitting my job is helping me break negative cycles.

I put in my notice to leave teaching right after spring break, and have been a mess ever since. Actually, my mental mess went from a ‘little untidy’ to something that could resemble a hoarder’s episode, with piles of trash and old food, and rare items I might want to collect.

The process of leaving teaching has been an emotional ~~roller coaster~~ wreck. There is a reason a two week notice should be only two weeks. Going through months of explanations of why I was leaving was like tearing off a very large band-aid very very very slowly. Perhaps you could understand this if you have ever had a break up with someone, but then continued to live with them for months until one of you could find a new place. Yeah, more like that.

Needless to say, I have had more than enough time to reflect on the decision, justify it to myself and others, and rationalize the many reasons for it. One of the biggest discoveries I have made, is that life is lived in cycles. (Yes, I know that is a huge epiphany I just had, but there are so many levels to learning, and I am having a hard time getting past level one.) Some cycles are necessary to sustain life, and some are like a super annoying song you can never get out of your head.

The following is an illustration of the emotional cycle I am currently in, but also hoping to break.

When excitement becomes anxiety

The feelings of panic and anxiety were quieter when I first started my student teaching 5 years ago. I knew it was normal to feel uneasy when starting out as a new teacher. If you search the internet for new teacher memes, there are plenty of references to drowning, drinking, and trying to build things while flying and being on fire. Generally, its a hilarious, hopeless, and still somehow exciting challenge to take on a classroom full of unpredictable, emotional, and eager to please humans.

But, when the feelings of panic and anxiety grow with every parent teacher conference, state testing window, and every single Sunday evening, things are out of alignment. When you are out of alignment, no amount of meditation or medication will magically move you into believing this is the right path for your life. The decision to leave was not actually the difficult part. I knew before I began that it wasn’t the right fit for me. The difficult part has and will always be the disappointment I would face from myself, my family, and my colleagues.

When anxiety becomes disappointment

Disappointment is defined as “sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations,” according to Google. Interestingly, success is listed as the antonym for disappointment. (I’m disappointed in that.) Quitting my job can be summed up so far as a general feeling of disappointment. Did I say disappointment? Yes, I am so disappointed that my hopes and expectations were not fulfilled.

To be clear, this is no fault of the people I worked with, or the students and families I served. Each year, I loved my students (even the harder ones), loved the content, and brought everything I had to each day. My walls were decorated with Bigfoot references, paper airplanes, and heartfelt notes of appreciation from students and parents. The priorities in my classroom were to be kind and have fun.

My family and colleagues have all been wonderful and supportive of me over the years as well. When I say I disappointed them, I mean they have felt the discomfort of my inability to cope and make changes quickly.

Still, the disappointment is there. It’s there because I realized my hopes and expectations for teaching were unrealistic. I made up some things in my mind that education could be what I wanted it to be. That I could rise to the top, change lives, change the world. It was naive of me to think I could do all this, while raising a family, contributing to my marriage, running a business, and still feeling a sense of creative freedom and purpose each day. I know there are people out there who are crushing it in these areas. My job is not to be them, it is to be me.

When disappointment becomes compassion

The best piece of advice I have heard since leaving the classroom has been to be compassionate with myself. To give myself space and time to think and relax. To be open to whatever is next. Disappointment can be a natural part of any loss, or break up, or transition. It can also make you believe you should say no to more things. To protect yourself from further disappointment, and to be more cautious about your decisions and investments. What I have found, is that this can be a slippery slope toward depression and hopelessness.

I am so grateful to have been part of a profession of service. I will apply the lessons I learned about myself, effective teaching, and how people learn for the rest of my life. Schools are strange and unique little worlds where you can believe in impossible things, practice being empathetic humans, and discover opportunities. I don’t know how I can replace the priceless moments when a student shares something he is thinking that embodies all the hope of the future.

When compassion becomes excitement

So, now, here I am. Sitting in the library, trying to write my feelings about this huge thing I have just done but not realized. I still have student loans to pay, I am 41 years old, but I don’t really feel like it’s starting over. I am trying to combat the disappointment part by re framing teaching as an important step I need to achieve whatever is next. I don’t know exactly where this path is leading. What I do know is that it will not be in circles. I will not play the same songs over and over again in my mind, and allow my bad habits to control my life.

Excitement is the opposite of depression and a synonym for happiness, or something like that, so says lots of self help books. What am I excited about? I don’t know yet, but mostly it is that I can choose. I am in a wonderful position to choose what is next. I will say no to a lot of things because I am now more cautious and wise as a result of this life change. However, I hope I will say yes to all the things I never wanted to say no to before it.

What are you excited about? Have you made any big changes in your life? Let me know in the comments below, and thanks for reading

Your Strength is Your Gift

What if I have no gifts to bring? I am a terrible gift giver. The worst. I hate shopping for others because I don’t know what they need. I also hate giving stuff that will just sit around their house and clutter their lives. Does anyone really need more stuff?

I am currently reading Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism and seeing myself in it’s pages. Throughout my life, I have been more of an observer than a doer. Just admitting that gives me a twinge of disappointment. I know I cannot be successful or fulfilled in life by being passive. Still, there is tremendous value in watching and learning from others through their actions, choices, and beliefs. Often, I am accused of being emotionally unavailable because I choose not to engage in conversations, or don’t feel the need to participate in discussions. I usually feel I have nothing of value to bring to the table, or there isn’t anything valuable on the table already.

I love to listen to podcasts and read books. I truly feel I am engaging in conversations every time I find a great book or listen to a wonderful interview. McKeown’s book validates my philosophy that not everything matters. In fact, very little matters. McKeown writes about “learning to discern what is absolutely essential, and eliminating everything else, in order to make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter.” It is so comforting to know that what I can sometimes view as a weakness in myself, can be a great strength. Having a strength means having something to give.

Over the last couple of years, I have learned what anxiety is and what it feels like to have panic attacks. I was first in denial about these episodes, and thought I was somehow being dramatic, or overly emotional about my circumstances. I was overthinking my life, and therefore panicking about it. Now I realize that anxiety, depression, and panic are physical responses to emotional problems. In a way, yes I was overthinking my life, but in a good way. It forced me to recognize how important it is to listen and respond to your physical responses to stress, overwhelm, and fear. These have been “wake up” signals from my body. The signal was saying “Your actions are not aligned with your beliefs.”

Essentialism asks the question, “What does this mean, and why does this matter?” One thing that attracted me to the teaching profession was the potential to matter. I need my work, my time, and my effort to matter. Education may be one of the only things that truly matters to me, aside from love, connection, and freedom. I know what I do each day with my students matters to them. I am, however, a little disoriented in the meaning my position has for me and my family at this critical time in our lives. My son will be finishing his junior year of high school, and my daughter will be beginning high school. How have I served them? Am I a resource for them? Do they know their worth and potential? What have they learned from me? What will I continue to teach them in the years to come, while they are beginning their independent lives?

I want to make a meaningful contribution with the time I have, especially to those that matter most in my life. Anyone who knows me knows I am busy. With two businesses to run, a full time teaching position, two teenagers, a home, and several other aspects of the American dream to maintain, I have officially placed myself exactly where most of us believe is “The way to fulfillment.” Filling my life with busy is not meaningful, nor is it making a contribution in the way that I would like. I will continue to be a powerful observer, see what is not being seen, and listen to what isn’t being heard. I will be disciplined in my pursuit of participation in ways that are authentic and healthy in order to give what is only mine to give.

person s holds brown gift box — Photo by Kim Stiver on Pexels.com