EduGirl 2.0

How do they do it?!?

The past two summers were full of preparation for this year. I was taking classes to renew my license, learning all about technology in the classroom and reinventing myself as a classroom teacher after 12 years at home with my daughter. I was participating in twitter chats, taking webinars, and making the occasional blog post. Last spring, recertification in hand, I was hired by the large, local school system to teach first grade!

Then school started. Holy cow, I had no idea how utterly exhausted I would be every night! If there were any doubts before that I am no spring chicken, they are utterly quashed now! Since September I have had trouble finding a moment to *read* a blog post, never mind write one!

About three months ago I relented and signed onto Pinterest. What a feast for the eyes! I found fabulous ideas for my classroom and discovered the cottage industry that is www.teacherspayteachers.com. As a first year teacher, being able to order an adorable, planned out set of unit materials from time to time is a godsend. These two sites led me to find all sorts of blogs by primary teachers, including Made for 1st Grade, First Grader...at Last!, and The First Grade Parade. These bloggers not only teach first grade, but they create and share materials, and blog about what they are doing in their classroom!

I am in awe. I would love to do more with this blog (and should, per my monthly credit card bill for the fee!), but could what I share compare? Whether it does or not, is it worth it to blog more anyways? I love opening Google Reader when I am at a loss for a creative idea and looking over what these teachers are doing. I appreciate those who share, and even if I only have a gem to share once every blue moon, I suppose it's only right that I try to return the favor.

Sub Tubs and Missing Persons

Back in February I participated in a #kinderchat on Twitter about preparing for absences and planning for subs. In discussing how some of these teachers prepare for a substitute teacher, I heard a new term: Sub Tub. This was an intriguing idea to me, so I did a little online research. Sub Tubs are designed to be put together at the beginning of the year and stored in the room so that they are ready to go if a teacher has an unexpected absence and is unable to create detailed plans for a day or two.

Here are some ideas for what you might include in a Sub Tub for K-3 classroom. These items are likely already required by your school system, and most schools have a template for a folder containing most or all of this information.

• Seating Chart
• Daily Schedule
• Emergency Instructions (fire drill, shelter-in-place, etc)
• A list of kids who are pulled out along with when they leave and return
• An enclosed document marked CONFIDENTIAL that outlines any allergies, medical conditions, or special needs of your students
• School procedures (attendance, hall passes, lunch count, etc)
• Names and room numbers of teachers than can assist them

Then you will want to include academic materials for the day, such as:

• A set of cross-curricular activities that correspond with a picture book.  (For example, check out this 1-2 day plan for grade one revolving around Make Way for Ducklings by RobertMcCloskey.
• Skills Review activities: Games or activities to practice the spelling and vocabulary words for the week, a creative writing assignment, a ziploc of decks of playing cards to play games to practice math facts (see link list below), a simple map activity and a fun, easy science experiment.
• Want someone else to do the work? Check out the Emergency Sub Activities available for sale at Teacher's Clubhouse.

Some other great ideas for a Sub Tub that I found around the web:

• Laminated sheet of wallet sized photos of the kids with names underneath
• A couple of whistles, sealed in plastic, from the dollar store for a sub to use at recess, then keep
• A candy bar or other sweet treat attached to a thank you
• Change for the soda machine
• A form for the sub to tell you how the day went
• A list of the phrases and signals you use to redirect behavior (e.g. "Are you working to keep your star today?" "Give me five.")
• A small baggie with bandaids to save trips to the nurse
• A set (or 2 or 3!) of address labels with students names written on them to use as nametags

If you are a resource teacher, having a Sub Tub might make it easier for you to find a sub. Many subs are not confident that they can teach art or music, but with a well-equipped Sub Tub they are more likely to have a successful day. Check out this article about creating a Music Sub Tub at MENC, the National Association for Music Education.

As a sub this year, I carry my bag of tricks with me every day I am asked to work, but with a good Sub Tub, I don't have to pull as many rabbits out of a hat!

Other links worth checking out:

Math Games using Cards or Dice:

• http://www.kidscount1234.com/ (look for Math Centers and Games in the left column)
• ProTeacher.net - You will need to complete a free registration, but it's worth it for the lists NeeCee posts on this page.
• "The Game that is Worth 1,000 Worksheets" at Let's Play Math.
• New South Wales Dept. of Education and Training - Card Games

Other Links:

• Creating A Substitute Teacher Packet
• Substitute Teacher's Info from Karen's Classroom
• The Sub Tub, Part Trois from The Teacher Geek <---I *love* this idea!

Things Got a Little INTENSE yesterday...

I took a look at the topic for Friday's early #gtchat and the topic was "INTENSITY: A Closer Look at the 5 Overexcitabilities". I drew a complete blank on the topic, but chat was getting started, so I made a quick intro and settled in to listen. To be honest, I didn't feel any connection between the topic and my needs as a classroom teacher. I am so glad I turned on the jazz and let the Tweetdeck roll.

Kazimierz Dąbrowski was a Polish psychiatrist, psychologist, and physician. He developed a theory related to personality development that included five areas where the gifted are often extremely sensitive. Theses OEs (over-excitibilities) can lead gifted children to react stronger and longer to some stimuli. The stimuli can be very small. For gifted students in the classroom, this can lead to a feeling from the teacher that these students are just "too much" and result in isolation or rejection of these students from an insensitive teacher, not to mention other students.

Stephanie Tolan has written an excellent summary of these OEs for the layman, and included them on her website. Moderator of #gtchat, Deborah Mersino, and others shared how these OEs often presented in gifted children.

The first area we discussed is Psychomotor. I listened to parents and educators describe children who needed motion, and children who's bodies worked overtime especially when their brains weren't challenged. Their descriptions sounded much like what some would describe as ADD or ADHD. As a classroom teacher, I can try challenging a seemingly "hyper" child's brain before deeming them a disruption and in need of behavior correction.

The second OE we discussed was a Sensual OE. Gifted children with this OE often hate scratchy clothes, despise tags in their clothes, and can't bear a crooked seam in their sock. They have very extreme feelings about sensory input, being moved to tears by a beautiful piece of music, and irritated to tears by the propect of touching something gooey. This brought to mind sensory integration disorder. In the classroom, this might explain why a gifted child is out of sorts every day in Social Studies, because it immediately follows lunch in the noisy, odor-filled cafeteria.

I would love to learn more about how these first two OEs differ from ADD and SI.

The other three OEs were more commonly associated with gifted people. The Imaginational OE would present as a student who writes vivid stories, but may also live in the fantasy world they create. I remember a darling young boy in my pre-K class years ago who LOVED the Tintin book series by Hergé. He wanted us to call him Tintin, and every day in class was another adventure for Tintin and his dog, Snowy. Theo didn't just reenact the Tintin stories he'd read, but created his own in our classroom. He was tri-lingual, had a very advanced vocabulary, and was extremely bright. He'd be entering college now, and I wonder what wonderful stories he's created lately.

The Intellectual OE may be the OE most stereotypically applied to gifted students and adults. Gifted students demonstrate this OE through a love for learning, things academic, logic problems, and figuring things out. I suspect that, at the elementary level, students that strongly feel this OE are the mostly quickly identified as gifted and are given at least some of the guidance and challenge that they need.

The last OE may be one of the most difficult for a classroom teacher to deal with. As I understand it, a gifted child with the Emotional OE demonstrates and experiences INTENSE emotions. Not just happy, but ECSTATIC. Not just sad, but DEVASTATED. These children crave deep connections with people, and might not understand that their proclaimed "best friend" can play with others and be friends with them also. They may struggle with relationships with their peers. Their new friend may become their "best friend", but feel smothered when the gifted child wants to dominate their social time. A teacher may struggle to help temper the reactions of a young gifted child who crumples a paper and cries out because he made a mistake and had to make an erasure on the paper.

Learning about these OEs has helped me to understand more of the nuances of a gifted child. As I listened to the member of #gtchat describe their gifted kids and how these OEs affect them, it brought to mind several of the children I have taught over the years. I hope I served them well then, and armed with this knowledge I hope I can serve other children in my classroom better.

#ntchat gets Vokle

Differentiation: Look Both Ways

Reflecting on the #gtchat I participated in this past weekend:

I am not a GT teacher, nor do I anticipate ever being a GT teacher. I am the sister in law of a GT man who has had a hand in producing a GT child that nearly lost all love of school in kindergarten due to a lack of differentiation. He is now in a better situation in first grade, and developing an enjoyment for school.

When I think of differentiation, I tend to think of making learning accessible to students of lower levels along with the rest of the class. Somehow I had gotten the idea of differentiation mixed up with some sort of remediation, perhaps? When I saw that the topic for this week's #gtchat was differentiation, I was intrigued.

Deborah Mersino, the chat facilitator, started us with a question about what our current understanding of a differentiated classroom was. My reply was "...meeting children where they are and teaching each child from where they are to where they can be." As I hit send, I hit my forehead. At times I might need to provide extra support to students who need it, and there will certainly be a "middle of the pack" that will travel along just fine with my standard curriculum, but what do I plan to do for those who aren't reaching where they can be? What will I do for the gifted children who want to be engaged and excited about learning too? Already, from the first question, I am so glad I tuned into this chat.

The next question was related to whether or not teachers successfully differentiate regularly. That led me to think about my experiences in the school where I substitute and volunteer. I see different ways that each grade level differentiates. Lower grades tend to differentiate through grouping within the classroom. Grades 4 and 5 group amongst the grade for math, and change classrooms. I made a mental note to observe more specifically how these teachers differentiate, and ask some of the teachers how they endeavor to do so.

Deborah shared some "Tomlinson basics" through the talk. I hadn't heard the name in many years (likely since college), so that led me to this article and an Amazon search for her books on Kindle. There were many more resources that were shared by the chat participants that were perfect for me to extend that one hour chat and continue to explore more:

Using Contracts to Extend Learning - from Diane over at "For the Love of Teaching"

The Differentiator - from Byrdseed Gifted

Multiple Menu Model

To sum up what I got from this chat session: when planning differentiation for the learners in your class, remember not only to look back to those who need help to keep up, but also to leave room for those who are ready to run on ahead.

PD in my PJs

After a decade-long hiatus as a SAHM, I am preparing to reenter the workforce as a full time elementary teacher. When I was teaching, I specialized in Pre-K, and unwisely let my credentials expire in a year I am embarrassed to mention. I am subbing and taking online courses through PBS TeacherLine. A wise advisor suggested I take at least one class related to technology in the classroom, as that is likely the area of education that has changed the most since I was trained and in a classroom. That would be the understatement of the year. Enough with the exposition, however.

I started with a course entitled "Cooperation and Collaboration in the 21st Century". This was a marvelous class that, among other things, led me to a myriad of Web 2.0 tools and opened up a new world to me. I've had a personal blog for more than 5 years. I had a couple years of social networking under my belt, and I was an active Twitter user. I thought I was pretty tech savvy. What I learned about in this class made me feel like I was Fred Flintstone powering my car with my feet.

The most valuable thing I learned from this class is the value of a PLN. To be honest, I had not heard this term before. What I suppose could have been called my PLN at the time consisted mostly of my best friend, my sisters-in-law, and a couple of the teachers I subbed for regularly. I quickly set up a second blog (EduGirl 2.0) and Twitter account (@EduGirlSDB) with handles to reflect the new phase in my life. The Twitter account has been an incredible boon to my professional development. I started following people I had met through class, people I found through Ning Rings, and through EDU blogs I read. Soon I found #ntchat, #edchat, and #edtech, and the people I chatted with through those tags expanded the list of people I followed again.

Now, I have instant professional development from my desktop in my home. The people I follow link me to blog entries about professional issues and articles about integrating technology in the classroom, ethics issues, education in a political context, and many other topics. Any night of the week, I can open up TweetDeck and participate in a chat with other educators on topics such as differentiation, tech integration, and literacy. Last night I took it a step further and attended a Webinar given by Shelley Terrell on Elluminate, which I found out about when she tweeted it to her followers and #edchat. It was on the topic of Graphic Organizers, and it was an hour very well-spent. Shelley was positive and engaging, which was particularly impressive, as it was approaching midnight where she was in Germany! I came away with a wikipage FULL of resources, and opened about 8 tabs on my browser for later review as participants suggested sites and tools. None of this requires me to register, get up early, drive somewhere, wear a name tag or sit in an uncomfortable chair. Professional development in my pajamas. It works for me.

My Life As A Reader

I have not read as much in the past year as I usually do. I am not entirely certain what accounts for this, but there's a good chance it's related to the fact that I started subbing in February. Caring for three kids this past summer probably cut into my reading time as well. I hope to remedy that in 2011.

I am not a slow and steady reader. I can't start a book and read a chapter a night until it's finished. I need more instant gratification. If I start a book I like, I will often stay up into the wee hours a couple of nights in a row until it's finished.

I don't know if I could describe the kinds of books I like in a succinct way. My tastes are eclectic, and sometimes I will enjoy one particular book by an author, but none of their others. For instance, I like Firestarter, but nothing else by Stephen King. I don't like the horror/thriller genre in general. I have a particular interest in India, and I enjoy stories set in India, or about Indian families in the US. I like Christian fiction set in Amish communities, or period stories about feisty women in the late 1800's - early 1900's. I enjoy entertaining non-fiction, like Who Are You People?: A Personal Journey into the Heart of Fanatical Passion in America. I read all of the Harry Potter books numerous times, but I have no interest in anything related to vampires or zombies. I love movie adaptations of Jane Austen books, but I can't plod through her actual books to save my life.

I have a stack of about 20 books on the shelf next to my bed that are waiting to be read. Some are new or best sellers, some were on a "buy three get one free" table. Since I got my iPad, I use the kindle app a lot now. I love to find free ebooks, and I'll try about anything. I have a profile on goodreads.com and I like to see what my friends are reading. I have also recently begun to enjoy their book swapping system.

When I sub in third grade and up, I love to walk around the classroom and see what books the kids have on their desk that they are currently reading. I like to make connections with kids through their reading. I'm not  a stranger for long once I strike up a conversation with a student about the book they're reading. "I loved that book! Which character do you like the best?" or "I've heard that book is really funny, do you think so?" I made a friend for life when I read the back of one girl's book and said, "This sounds great! Would you mind writing down the title and author for me, so I can look for it at the library?" She was so pleased that she helped me discover a book I wanted to read! When I see her in the halls now, she always says hello and tells me what she's reading.

One day I got a very last minute call to sub for the elementary librarian. Due to sudden illness, there were no specific plans. The only class I was uncertain about was the fifth graders. The younger classes were thrilled with a story and discussion, and then time to find a book. I could not envision gathering the 10 year olds on the carpet for a picture book, however. So I took about 20 minutes during a planning time to gather some classic novels, some popular ones, and some often overlooked books. I marked passages at or near the beginning of the story (no giving away key plot points!) in each book I had selected. When the fifth graders arrived, I read them the passages from each book. I had planned to finish each reading with a reveal of the book title and author, but they quickly made it a game to see who could tell first what book I was reading from. I was secretly pleased when I stumped them. After about 20 minutes of rapt attention, I was finished. They begged for more. They offered to bring me their favorites to read to the class. We spent 10 more minutes "previewing" novels. Then I dispatched them to find their books to borrow for the week. About half the class came straight to me to ask for one of the books I had read from. That may be one of my favorite subbing moments ever.

Coming Late to the Party

I have been very neglectful of this blog. I think I really never developed any momentum with it, so it was that much easier to let it slide. I find myself forever stumped with what I will write about, so I was thrilled to find this Fall Blog Challenge over at "Once Upon a Teacher." I am a little late to the party, so I will be teaming up an October topic with a November topic each week until I am caught up.

Confucius says...

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

                                                                                -Confucius

 

It's a bit ironic that thousands of years later, we're still defending a simple  truth proclaimed by an ancient Chinese philosopher. Students learn and retain more from the experience of project based learning than they do from lectures and rote memorization of facts or formulas for a test.

You can support it with anecdotal evidence:

Have you had the experience of riding along with a friend someplace a half dozen times or more, but when you want to go there yourself, you can't remember how to get there? Until you did the driving, had the experience, you didn't retain it. You saw the route as you drove with your friend, your friend may have even pointed out landmarks to help you remember the route, but perhaps you were chatting or listening to the radio and you were distracted. Until you were immersed in the task, you didn't truly learn how to get there.

Many parents will identify with me as I describe how I can instruct my daughter to clear her dishes, go up and brush her teeth, and bring her backpack back down with her to go to school. I can go so far as to have her repeat it back to me, and inevitably I will find her, teeth unbrushed, backpack unfound, petting the cat. Children may be able to retain what they hear for a short time, long enough to be tested, but that doesn't guarantee that they will continue to retain it, or apply it.

Let your children stay up late one summer night and catch fireflies in their pajamas, and you have a memory FOREVER. When they are adults, they will fondly recall to their own children the time "Grandma let me stay up late and catch fireflies in my pajamas." No book about fireflies or museum exhibit on fireflies will be as memorable as the experience of catching fireflies and seeing them up close.

You can support it with research:

The goals of teachers are retention and transfer of skills and information. In other words, we not only want students to remember what they've learned, but we want them to transfer the knowledge and use it in different contexts and situations. In "Teaching for Long-Term Retention and Transfer," authors Diane F. Halpern and Milton D. Hakel outline "a few basic laboratory-tested principles drawn from what we know about human learning." Several of those principles directly support project based learning.

• Varying the conditions under which learning takes place makes learning harder for learners but results in better learning.
• Learning is generally enhanced when learners are required to take information that is presented in one format and “re-represent” it in an alternative format.
• Lectures work well for learning assessed with recognition tests, but work badly for understanding.
• What learners do determines what and how much is learned, how well it will be remembered, and the conditions under which it will be recalled.

Though the article is aimed at college professors, the principles the authors share about human learning are universal. If we want students to really "get it" we need to vary the way we teach things, assess early and often, task students to gather knowledge and turn around and present it in a new format, and remember that "understanding is an interpretive process in which students must be active participants." All of these things can be achieved through the implementation of project learning.[i]

---

[i] Halpern, D. F. and Hakel, M. D. (July/August 2003). Teaching for Long-Term Retention and Transfer. Change, 36-41

Giving Math a Makeover

I posted this in May on my personal blog, before I created this blog. I wanted to move it over and share it here.

It was just a few months ago that a friend posted a link on Facebook to a talk on TED by Sir Ken Robinson about how schools kill creativity. At the time it was contributing to the decision I was struggling to make about whether my daughter was ready for middle school, or whether I should home school her. She applied for - and was admitted to - the arts magnet program for her school. That quelled some of my concerns, and we decided that the middle school would work for our family at this time.

Since then, I have started the process of renewing my teaching license. My goal is to be licensed to teach and actively job searching for the 2011-12 school year. I have registered for my first online course through PBS TeacherLine, and it begins in June. Now I view that video and the one I link to below as a teaching professional, rather than as a parent. I want to understand the way that people think the school system is failing children and strive to overcome that in my own classroom. Yesterday, my friend Erica posted a link to this video on TED about how "Math Class Needs a Makeover." 

I will admit my first reactions to this talk were as a parent of a 10 year old who struggles with math. When Mr. Meyer describes students that look for the formula or think they don't have the math comprehension to participate in a discussion of a math problem, I immediately think of my daughter. She is not what Meyer calls a "patient problem solver." That's why I love his idea of taking the details out of a textbook problem and make it into a life problem. He examines a word problem for a high school math class where they are to calculate how long it will take to fill an octagonal beverage dispenser with water. The textbook provides a 2 dimensional diagram with measurements and numbers and symbols. Even I look at it and think, "Jeez, I have no idea." Then Meyer removes elements of the word problem. He removes the question and multiple choice answers. He removes the dimensions noted on the diagram. He changes the line drawing to a photograph of a beverage dispenser like the one described. He makes it a video of said beverage dispenser being filled by a hose.

He took a problem that high schoolers, and even I as an adult, think that they have no expertise to answer and he turned it into a real life situation that everyone has experience with. Even my 10 year old would look at this new version of the problem and have an idea about it. Everyone has experience with filling a container with liquid. Whether or not they can then get the correct answer, Meyer is recommending that we at least get students to join the discussion and feel like they have a contribution to make by first, making it relevant to their experiences, and second, not feeding them the details to plug into a formula, but to enlist their help in developing the problem.

A couple of weeks ago I was subbing in an elementary school. I was a subbing for a paraprofessional who assists in the classroom. The teacher was also absent that day, and the other substitute was introducing a lesson on capacity to third graders. The textbook included clip art of items to represent a cup, pint, quart, and gallon. That was very abstract though, and I saw some students struggle on the classwork comparing these capacities.

The next day I was in for the same paraprofessional, and the regular classroom teacher was back in the classroom. They moved on to metric capacity and were talking about milliliters, liters, and the like. The classroom teacher walked around the room with a dropper and water and placed a milliliter of water in her hand at each group of student desks to allow them to see what a milliliter looked like. I noticed a difference in student comprehension that day as they completed the classwork. Just that small amount of concrete experience with the capacity increased their understanding and ability to compare capacities.

Math in classrooms of early learners (PK-1) is most often full of manipulatives and hands on math experiences for concrete understanding of math concepts. As children progress, math becomes more and more abstract in the classroom. It becomes more worksheets and line art, and strays further and further from real experiences. Mr. Meyer reminds us to keep math within the realm of real life experiences, to engage the students in developing the problem, and get everyone involved in the conversation to build confident math students who can perform patient problem solving.