A Side Note

I will preface this post by saying I had written this entry over a year ago, and I never published it.  When looking back on my drafts, I had the unsettling realization that there will most likely come another time that would make this post relevant, and unfortunately, that time has come yet again.  It is my sincere hope that we will see change one day.

After some current news stories, I felt the need to take a side note from writing about educational policy and instructional practices, and to focus on one of the major life lessons that schools have the opportunities of teaching.

One of the great parts about life in America is the freedom we are given to do with it what we choose.  The freedom of choice is an incredible right, as well as privilege, we have bestowed upon us.  The "future" is created by our choices.  Schools often have programs to teach about good decisions, and we even see mass produced posters with inspirational quotes encouraging kids to make good choices.  However, with recent events taking place, I think the message is bigger than a poster can deliver.

Choices define who we become.  We make choices every day, some more important than others.  The choices we make then become our legacy.  Our individual, unique choices create our character.  The magnitude of our freedom of choice is sometimes lost on adolescents.  I think the method in helping these students understand the impact of their choices can be found in the instruction in our classrooms.  Showing students that there is a world for them to conquer with their unique skill set is a vital aspect in classrooms.  By providing opportunities for students to shine, as well as giving praise, will build confidence in children to make good decisions.

Not only teachers and schools, but as adults, and humans in general, it is our responsibility to do what we can to ensure that children understand the value of choices in life.  Again, this is food for thought, a side note from my normal blogs, but I felt after recent events it is important to remember the impact of our choices.

From Theory to Practice

Educators constantly find themselves in a perpetual state of trying to get better at their craft.  As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I live and die by my PLC.  This year, we have decided to attempt to bring together all of our endeavors and professional development into a nice, neat package we like to call "self paced units with a side of guided reading".  As we begin to receive more training in literacy and guided reading groups, we hope to see this model develop even further next year (again with that perpetual state of growing).  However, after two full years of attempting the beginning stages of blended learning, we feel we have a strong grasp on how to structure our self paced units, and now we are ready to move one step further.

Management of Unit
Our learning management system, Schoology, has some great features that assisted us in this process.  One of the biggest obstacles we struggled with during our blended learning pilot was the management of student work.  We tried many different avenues on how to deliver directions to students whether it be through QR codes, Schoology pages, or hard copy paper. We also found it difficult to keep track of student progress.  These issues have been alleviated with the use of Schoology's student completion option.

The student completion option allows you to digitally manage the requirements for student work.  You are given options based on the type of assignment.  For example, assignments are given the option to "make a submission" or "score at least..."  This tackles the problem of delivering directions to students who are working at their own pace.  

The final problem to tackle is monitoring student progress while students are all at different places in the assignments.  The student completion option comes to the rescue once again!

Notice the requirements are also written under each assignment now

The student completion option will generate a class roster with a percentage bar that will inform the teacher of each students' progress throughout the self-paced activities.

Instructional Design
With the management piece under our belt, we were able to get creative with the instructional portion.  Since Schoology allowed for a seamless management of self-paced activities, we felt we could now tier the self paced work to each student's individual level.  We created three separate groups based on lexile level, and we created tiered activities using Bloom's taxonomy for each group.  Every group was working on the same four skills; however, their individual activities looked different.  Students were instructed to use their "Task Sheet" to guide their self-paced work.

While groups were engaged in self-paced work, we were free to pull small groups for traditional guided reading lessons.  We started with a mini lesson on our weekly skill focus every Tuesday.  This skill focus would be the goal of the guided reading groups.  Students would engage in before, during, and after reading activities with readings at their lexile level. Every Thursday, students would reflect on the skill focus using a 4-3-2-1 scale as well as answer an application question to determine if they truly understood the weekly skill focus.  This data would drive our one on one meetings every Friday while the remaining students worked independently on an Achieve 3000 article to help boost their lexile.

With our ever increasing knowledge base accompanied by the variety of tools in our educator "toolbox", we are able to design a classroom environment that catapults many of the educational theories into a working practice.  It is important to remember that every classroom looks different, and to turn every classroom into the same would result in the feared "robotic teaching".  Infusing these practices with our personalities and our desired classroom structure will result in a seamless transition.  While we keep in mind researched, best practices, we must also keep in mind what works for our classroom, and more importantly, our students.

Restart and Refresh

After a hiatus from blogging, I am returning with a refreshed and renewed mindset.  I began blogging two years ago with my post "New Beginnings", and coincidentally, I could title this post the same thing.  I became a mother to my baby boy, Henry, this past May.  Being a mother has instilled a new sense of purpose in my life, as well as in the classroom.  Each night when I watch the evening news, I am reminded as to how chaotic and crazy our world can be, but I am also reminded of the responsibility I have not only as a mother now, but as a classroom teacher, to encourage our youth to curate their passions and skills into a future where they contribute to a positive and successful society.

Henry Thomas
(Humble Mom Brag)

One of the best parts about teaching is the fact that we get a new beginning every year.  Not many other professions can say that about their livelihood.  We have all read more than enough articles and blog posts about the exhausting and draining nature of the teaching profession that one can only truly understand if they have stepped foot into a classroom as a teacher. I would be lying to say I have never found myself in a state of utter defeat.  However, it's reassuring to know that these attitudinal phases are common among the profession.  According to the New Teacher Center, first year teachers experience this sense of survival and disillusionment, but I would argue even experienced teachers can travel through these same phases on any given year of their career.

http://www.newteachercenter.org/blog/phases-first-year-teaching

As I travel through the anticipation stage, I am reminded again of my purpose as an educator in our world today.  Since the survival phase is looming, I have reflected on some important aspects to hopefully prolong the survival phase, and maybe completely eliminate the dreaded disillusionment phase this year.

Student Learning: Ultimately we enter into this profession for one reason: helping students learn.  We understand the complex nature of this seemingly simple task.  However, if we plan with the idea of student learning always in the forefront of our minds, then we are moving in the right direction.  Students are the reason we are in the classroom, and when we lose sight of that, we lose sight of our purpose.

Compassion: Another unique nature of our profession is our clientele - adolescents.  We are all aware of the psychological and physical changes happening during adolescence. We need to be there to guide our students down the avenues that will help them choose success.  We cannot make their decisions, but we can provide support.  This is where compassion becomes the single most important trait we must keep in mind when working with our clientele.  If we always remember to be compassionate, we will be providing our students with arguably the most important thing they need at this moment in their life: a safe place with someone who cares.

Remembering YOU: Often times, educators (or any working member of society) get caught up in the demands of their work and forget about themselves.  I strongly believe one of the secrets to being successful at your job is to take time away from the work and do something for yourself.  Becoming a mother has made this theory more clear than ever.  Thus why I am also picking up the blogging pen again too.  The reason we become overworked and drained is because we forget to take care of ourselves.  To live our purpose, we must also be a bit selfish.

As we move forward with this school year, it is important to remember this year is another new beginning.  We need to celebrate our small successes and always remember our purpose.  It is my hope for Henry that one day, when he turns on the evening news, he will see a world where we work together instead of against each other, and where we use our unique skills to contribute to the good our society has to offer, as opposed to simply ignoring our own special set of skills and passions.

In the meantime, I will continue to take small steps in the environment I have been given to help contribute to my vision...