Rooting

I was at basketball camp tonight for K-5th graders at one of the elementary schools in our district. It was the end of the day and we ended with a game of knockout.

One of the high school players, "had his money" on a certain player to win the game. The kid standing next to the kid who was "spoken for" had a frowny look on his face. One that said, "I'm not good enough." "Why didn't you pick me?" and "I'm not wanted."

I quickly told that kid that if I had a lot of money, I'd put it on him. The kid's eyes lit up. He had a sense of purpose and a sense of urgency. He now mattered. He now was a kid determined to do something great, not just simply, a kid.

I have this notion that students had the same fantastical upbringing that I had. The one where your parents are always there to help you with everything. The one where your mom stays home. The one where your dad is your coach at whatever sport you play. The one where your mom cuts up your waffles because they taste better when she does. Yes, that type of upbringing. It sometimes gets the best me.

His face. His attitude. His level of intensity. All of them increased because I told him that I was in his corner rooting him on.  His attitude went from boring and uninterested into the camp/day being something that he couldn't miss. It was all because I took them time to cheer him on individually. It made his day.

Deep down, each person just wants someone to root for them. Someone to have their back. Someone to say, "I believe in you." Someone to be there for you when you think that you can't accomplish something.

I've had a lot of these types of people in my life. I truly am blessed.

Who are you rooting for?
What ways can you show you're rooting for others?
How does cultivating relationships improve your students' overall school experience?

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End of Year Student Reflections

At the middle of the year and at the end of the year, I send out a Google Form Survey to my students with the intention of gaining feedback on my teaching. It's part of my self-evaluation that I go through every semester. I value the opinions of my students a lot. They are with me EVERY DAY. They probably know me better than I know myself. It also gives them a chance to be honest and upfront about issues and concerns that need to be addressed as I grow as an educator. I think teachers are more "fixers" and tend to want to fix the problems and improve in those areas in which the students say that I need to improve on. I also think it's very healthy to look at all the positive things that students say. I kind of set it up that way so you positive feedback and negative feedback. It's always good to be balanced, right? :)

I wrote about this last year - here

This year, I have done the same and am excited to hear back from them. I added one question to this year's survey: "What was your favorite memory from this year?" I have already had a couple fill it out on their own time at home. So far, I am liking what I received. On Tuesday, since we'll be in a lab during reading, the ones that don't check their Gmail will fill it out then. I can't wait to read them. I also need to come up with something else to do in the lab since it will probably be our last lab day (ours fill up pretty quickly. 850 students with only 3 labs + a media center lab) I just discovered Pear Deck (I'm beta testing it) that works with Google Drive that I might try. :)

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A Letter to Yourself on the First Day of Teaching

From SoulPancake and Edutopia -
Some great reminders.
I need to write myself a letter sometime.

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End of (Hypothetical) Quarter One Reflection, Passion Projects, Parent-Teacher Conferences, Some new Techy stuff.

We have semesters at our school, but if we had quarters, this would be the end of quarter one. It's been a while since I have blogged about school, so I thought I would sit down on fall break and hash out some reflections.

Let's start out with how my year is going so far. I am enjoying this year more than last year. My homeroom students have this "just-chillin"

mantra about them which I love. They work hard. They get their things done. They typically do it quietly without bothering others. Most importantly, I love how they embrace my weird humor. I find myself thanking them for their attitude, workmanship, cooperation, and like-ability in general.

My other class is the exact same, but with one glaring difference: They are noisy talkers. I love to have my students communicate with each other. Shoot, must things they do are with a partner or group. I have a two-heads-are-better-than-one mantra. But they are really struggling with an appropriate noise level when there are 31 of them in there. So I've been working on my management.

One of the biggest differences is that I have a new female partner-teacher. My former partner and I had been together for two years and were both guys. I wasn't too excited about the principal breaking us up after I heard about it at the end of the last year, since he is one of my best friends. It was out of my control so I guess I just got over it quickly. My new partner thinks I'm the weirdest person ever, but at the same time we really like working together. Every time our kids switch classes we have a great laugh-a-thon in the hallway.

All in all, I am loving this year. My personal attitude is high. I love coming to school each day. It's fun.

Going from this year to last year ...

Reality Slam -

My kids from last year did not test well on the ISTEP+ test. Why?  I'm not sure. I felt comfortable going into the test. I felt comfortable with what had been predicted. We had a LOT of internet/testing glitches from the testing company. Just google search ISTEP and Indiana DOE and you'll find a plethora of wonderful (sarcasm) stories. So anyway, I guess it is what it is and I can't change anything so I guess I must press on.

Which leads me into....

Parent-Teacher Conferences -

Every year, I have this hate, then love relationship with P/T conferences. The two weeks before hand I always get this sort of imaginary cloud over myself because of all the scheduling and rescheduling and the taking of my own personal family time. Then, I have the conferences. I don't do anything really special. I show them all their data (this will come into play later) and then we basically go over their own student self-evaluation and then just chat about things the student does well, things they need to work on and some strategies for attaining their goal. Nothing fancy, but I usually walk away feeling really well about them. I get to meet their parents/guardians, they tell me more in-depth about who they really are and it's truly enlightening to me. Anyway, I truly enjoyed talking to all my parents. Some of them, I get challenged by to do better. Some, I get patted on the back. Some, give me great information. Some, show me how tough life is for their sons/daughters and how school might not be the biggest concern for them at the moment because there are health concerns in their family at home. I think it's a matter of perspective.

Anyway, from the last paragraph, I mentioned that data was going to come into play. Well, here goes. During one of the conferences I had this exchange with a parent. (this isn't word for word, but it's somewhat of what I remember.)

Me: Here's Johnny's ISTEP scores from last year. (I go over them. He didn't do so well)
Mom: So what does this mean?
Me: Basically, in a simple manner, it means that he is not at what the state determines as 5th grade level in reading, math, or SS. Our goal is for Johnny to pass those tests at the end of this year although he'll be taking Science instead of SS.
Mom: So, even though he didn't pass the year before, he'll need to pass this year?
Me: That's the plan.
Mom: Why is it such a big deal?
Me: Our goal is for every student to be at grade level when they leave 6th grade.
Mom: Doesn't his score affect some of your things as well?
Me: Well, in all honestly, and the reality of it is, that it's a big deal to me because your son's performance on it affects my future evaluations and pay.
Mom: So my son has power over your pay.
Me: Yes. I have a class goal that I must attain and another goal that must be met as well. His score also plays into every other teacher's goal in the building because we get a building score as well.
Mom: And based off of this test is what a lot of funding and money from the state comes?
Me: Correct.
Mom: So, basically, everything is hanging on this ONE test for the principals, teachers, and everyone here?
Me: You got it.
Mom: So, there isn't much else that really matters in the long run and my kids are basically learning to take a test?
Me: (I shake my head in a way to acknowledge that her statement is correct.)
Mom: So, most of your teaching is geared toward passing ISTEP?
Me: I do my best to teach students in a way that is beneficial to them and so they get a more well-rounded, holistic education that doesn't center on the test, but the reality of it is that...
Mom: (cuts in) You would be dumb not to specifically teach to the test because so much is riding on it.
Me: (I shake my head in a way to acknowledge that her statement is correct.) Like I said earlier, my aim is to not teach to the test, but for my students to learn to love learning, not to necessarily learn to take a test.
Mom: Maybe I should look into homeschooling them.

We got off the subject of the testing after that and we talked about how she can now receive my class text messages through Remind101.

Parents aren't as dumb as the DoE thinks they are.

Moving on before I get a temper -

Passion Projects aka Genius Hour. 

It was developed based off of the Google Company's 20% time. It's a time they give their employees to work on new projects, whatever they want, as long as they are benefiting the company.

Layman's terms = a chance to investigate/research anything you deem worthy. You then must share your learning in one way or another.

http://www.geniushour.com/ is one of the best informational sites. Especially the video on the homepage and the hourlong taped one from a conference.
http://geniushour.wikispaces.com/ is the catch-all wiki for all things geniushour. Very informational.

#geniushour on twitter will lead to a bunch of links.

I'm doing the high-ability RTI group this year and wanted to try it out with them. Where I think they are going to learn more is on the reflection piece that I'm going to tie into it eventually.

This is what I made to introduce it to them using Powtoon. Pretty nifty little app/program. http://youtu.be/OheBphZ0QOk

This is an animoto video I made of them working the other day. 100% engaged and they are in charge of everything on their own. They decided their topic and the way they are going to research it and then present it. http://youtu.be/wVFnVg4pjoA

I did a quick feedback survey yesterday (on paper, and I wish I did a Google Form). There is nothing that the students don't like. What they like most is the ability to investigate whatever interests them and isn't teacher picked. They are honest with their feedback with me. Some of the depth of their research and thinking is truly unbelievable and so thoughtful. Their discussions about things are "real" learning not some cookie cutter "ISTEPy" type regurgitation.  It made me feel like I was in the board room of some high rise building in NY while the students were hashing out what would make a good topic to investigate. I can't believe how well this has gone over. I love having the students take control of their learning. What I noticed was the hardest for them was the fact that they got to investigate anything they wanted. It was like they had this freedom, but didn't know what to do with it because they had never had anything like it before. Some of them were at a loss because it wasn't teacher-driven where teachers tell them things are either right or wrong. They have really made it their own and I can't wait to see their final products that they just share with the class. They will finish up by reflecting on their learning and how they can make it better the second time and applying their learning to the state standards (you know because cool learning has to have standards and all or it's not real learning. hehe)

New Techy Stuff I've Used This Year

Animoto - slideshows that rock. Example I made http://youtu.be/wVFnVg4pjoA
Powtoon - Mini-animated videos. Example I made http://youtu.be/OheBphZ0QOk
Remind101 - Safe Texting service I use to send out news and homework recaps nightly.
Phoster - Phoster - you can make nice modern posters. See my last couple of posts for examples.
Instagram - My class one. I have begun using Instagram to communicate with students after school. I'll put up a song that I play with my guitar. A quick video. Something funny. I think it helps to bridge that gap between those students who don't see teachers as people, but only as teachers who don't leave the building. (I have a futon in my room and some have asked if I stay the night sometimes. Yeesh! Right?) Young middle school kids haven't gotten to facebook/twitter yet and this is their social media.
Twitter - My class one. I post homework to this daily through remind101. I also link up my instagram to it as well. Because most of my students don't have a twitter yet, it doesn't get much action.

Things I need to improve - 

Reading conferences with my kids. I said this was going to be one of my main goals and I'm not doing well with it yet. Time to step it up.
Differentiating some of my things for my high ability kiddos. They need more challenging things that makes them think over just more work.

That's it. Would love some thoughts, please.

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End of Year Student Survey

After my students took their last SRI test (a test that gives their current reading/lexile level) of the year, I used a Google form that I had made. I shared it with them all and asked them to fill it out for personal feedback for me. I told them to be honest as this would help me become a better teacher. I stole the idea from an article on Edutopia. I can't find the exact one. If I do sometime, I'll link it up. It consisted of three questions. Short and sweet. Not too long for the 6th grade attention span.

These are the three questions the form asked.

1. If you were the teacher in this class this year, what would you do the same or differently than I did? Please be specific.
2. Write 5 things that helped you learn this past year. Please be specific.
3. Write 5 things that made it hard for you to learn this past year. Please be specific.

These were their responses  - Here.  I changed some of the names if they used them to protect the innocent :)

I learned an enormous amount from the survey. I feel that I did a lot of things well this year. I also felt that it was too loud this year. The students agreed. I did have an extremely loud class. I'm not going to do a whole refection on it right now. Mainly because Game 3 of the NBA Finals is about to come on. I'm rooting for the Spurs by the way.

I'll take the feedback from my students who are in the room daily a little higher than administrators who occasionally come into my room. Not that I don't value my admin's feedback. I just think that my students' are more authentic because they see me "do-ma-thang" everyday.

I need to do this student survey at least every semester, if not more often. It gives me really good info.

I'm leaving you with a quote from Dick DeVenzio. A basketball coach. I have loved all of his books. I want to attend PGC one day.

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First Year Reflection

               My one blog stalker, Amy, constantly reminds me about putting up a new post. I usually reply with the standard, “I’m busy.” deal. Which tis’ true, but I have learned that everyone is busy and if you want something done, you must make time for it. So right now, I am making time. I am listening to Spotify at the moment and am settled in to write a little. Even though this is the end-of-year reflection, I’m going to start with beginning of the year and how it went.

                At the beginning of the year, I felt overwhelmed a lot. Mainly with just getting everything done that I needed to in a day. I was struggling with time management. I was taking a lot of things home to grade. I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I wasn’t exercising. I just existed day to day. I enjoyed getting to know all my students and demonstrating how the class was going to be “controlled” this year. I say “controlled” but it’s more of just a calm atmosphere filled with minds that are yearning to learn new things.  It took me a while to create the atmosphere, but in the end it was totally worth it. It was built on trust and not fear. Not demeaning, but uplifting. Not self-centered, but selfless. If there is one thing that I want my students to know, understand, and be able to do when leaving my classroom is how a community can help each other along each other’s path to success, to not put others down, to lift yourself up, and that anything worth achieving takes lots of hard work. That’s what I like to emphasize early on in the year. If all that happens, then the rest of the year will flow smoothly as students accept others for who they are and begin to show love towards one another.

                Around Christmas break, I felt things were going pretty smoothly in the classroom. I was still struggling with some time management, but it was getting better. I continued coaching for the 9^th year and picked up the 8^th grade assistant basketball position. The “A” team finished 18-1, losing their final game in the semi-finals of the county tourney. I think having their 7^th game in 6 days finally took a toll on them as they succumbed to the eventual county champ. The “B” team finished .500 at 4-4. I loved coaching this group of kids. They worked hard and had great attitudes. Basketball proved a little more demanding than in previous years because I was teaching as well. I worked a lot of Saturdays to stay caught up and ahead.

                Towards the end of the year, I really noticed a behavior slip in most of my students. I wasn’t sure if it was summer jitters or what, but it seemed a lot of the kids’ behavior took a nose dive. I was having conversations that I hadn’t had to have all year. I was getting upset more often at the negative choices the students were making. We only had 12 days of school in April and I think those small breaks gave them a taste of summer and it was tough to reel them back in during instructional periods. With all that being said, I loved having this group of kids. I have watched them grow physically, (Man, some of them got tall in 9 months!) intellectually (Oh, the things we covered this year!), emotionally, (they are teenagers now and mood swings can be quite frequent), and in some cases, morally (to see perspectives from other points of view helps to really see the unseen in situations). At the end of the year, I had tons of gift cards, money, notes, emails, and gifts from the parents telling me what a good year their son/daughter had in my classroom. For me, this is what I live for. Just a simple thanks. I don’t need money or gifts or anything like that. I get me fill and my battery recharged with simple thank you notes. I save all of them and they carry me through tough times. Thank you to the students and the parents for a great year.

                My passion this year has intensified as the year has gone by. I really enjoy the standards for 6^th grade and I think having something that I enjoy translates into a great experience for the students. I have been doing a lot of thinking over the summer about next year already and how I want to change things. This little story happened about 3-4 years ago. One of the players dove for a loose ball and ended up busting his chin on the floor. He wanted to keep playing, but everyone knows that if you’re bleeding you have to come out and get it all cleaned up before you can reenter the game. This player never took a play off. He played extremely hard and did the “dirty work” for our team at the time. As he came off the court to get a band-aid, I told him that it wasn’t blood that was dripping. I told him it was “Passion Juice” that was squirting out. I have some of that Passion Juice inside of me right now.

                I love my team. Let me repeat this. I LOVE MY TEAM. I couldn’t be any more happier with the people I get to teach with every day. They support me like no other. They help me. I try to help them when I can. That ratio is somewhere around 85% to 15%. The 85% is the help that I get for my measly 15% of giving back. I always feel that all of us are on the same page. Yes, of course, we might not agree whole-heartedly on everything, but we listen to others’ opinion and choose what is the best route for the students. And if it wasn’t the best route, we go back reassess the situation and start again. These coworkers are not just coworkers, but my friends. There are seven of us that teach 6^th grade, one special education teacher, and one special education aide. I love them all. They make coming to school (I don’t call it work, because it’s not “work”) so much fun and enjoyable.

Sidenote – When I was filling a maternity leave in 5^th grade, I was one of two 5^th grade teachers. We taught some of the same subjects and we taught some different subjects as well. For the ones where I was the only one to teach that subject, I was my only resource. There wasn’t anyone who was working on the same standards as I was. I was responsible for everything. Like I said earlier, I have 6 teachers who I can collaborate with on the same thing. At least 4 of them teach the exact same subjects that I do. I think this has really helped a first year teacher. So, if you can be choosy, really you can’t in this economy/marketplace, BUT if you could choose, I would choose some sort of setup like I have currently.

                Two years ago, if someone would have asked me who I was I wouldn’t have really been able to tell them. I would have given them an IDK. I had my education degree. I substitute taught. I was an aide. I filled a maternity leave. I filled 3 small leaves. I coach basketball. On the side, I work as a screen print graphic designer (that sounds more professional than “I design t-shirts”) and a senior portrait and wedding photographer. I earn money at these things. Not a lot, but some. Within the last 6 months, without me really thinking about it I became an educator. If someone asks me who I am or what I do I immediately say, “I teach 6^th grade.” I don’t know when this transition happened for me. I think it was more of an internal thing and it outwardly came out. I’m now living as an educator. I love it. I love the feeling of helping others be successful and helping them along the way. Educating is what I want to do, to be, and to still become.  

                Right now, my summer plans are to lay low. Lindsay, my wife, (she is a K-2 literacy aide and all-star cheerleading coach) is still working this summer coaching and running summer care. I’m sitting at home right now writing this. I’m trying to lay low and lose some weight. My goal is to weigh 220 by time school starts back up. That’s a pretty hefty goal for me. (Did you laugh at the use of hefty there? I did.) I’ve always been kind of big. I got some blood work back and I had some bad news. I’ve been running a lot. It’s working. I need to eat better and exercise more. Other than that, laying low is the key this summer. I’m not even photographing any weddings this summer. Lay low. Be slow. That’s how I roll.

                The Common Core Standards go into effect this coming school year. I’m ok with it. I think it’s good. I think it helps to let everyone in the country be on the same standards for each year in school. My school district is going away from the A-F grading scale and will start to implement more of a mastery scale based on the standards. I think it is ok. Change is always tough, but sometimes necessary. We will use professional development to come up with sample tasks for each standard that the students will be mastering. You can check out www.masscustomizedlearning.com on what our district is striving for.

                In Indiana, the state is mandating that every school district go to a teacher evaluation model that they developed called the RISE Evaluation and Development System. It will be interesting to see how I do. Our administration has had training all year on what it will be like. The main thing I got from what our admin have told us is that they will be in our classroom a lot more than this past year. They will be doing the evaluating along with some other teachers who have went to the training as well. I now know what I will be “graded” on. I’m not a fan of merit pay when dealing with people. Merit pay with products, say like in a factory I totally get. You can definitely count that. I don’t think that my pay should be tied to students’ performance on one test. This year during the ISTEP+ test, the air conditioning was not working. It was up to 88 degrees in the computer lab. The servers kept timing out after each question for each student. That downtime between questions was up to more than 5 minutes as times. What do 6^th graders do when working on a test and it times out? Spinning in their chair comes to mind.  Being a distraction comes to mind as well. How accurate are their tests going to be with all those unfavorable test conditions? Straight from the site - “Measures of student learning make up between 20 to 50 percent of a teacher’s final evaluation rating.” I’m not scared of the evaluation. I am confident in my abilities and my students’ abilities. I just don’t think it’s the right way to do it.

    What I want to accomplish next year -

1.       All my students, which will be around 64, to be reading at grade level or above.

2.       All my students pass the ISTEP in ELA. I would have liked to have more of students pass the test this year.

3.       Assess my student’s knowledge more often. I don’t mean more testing, but more ways of authentic assessment to show growth of the material.

          When you get to the end of the year, you look back and see of all the improvement that students have done. Where they came from. What they did. Where they are going. That is what matters. It’s in these moments where a thought becomes an idea, and idea becomes a goal, and a goal gets accomplished.

It’s in the journey.

Have a good summer. I’m layin’ low. 

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