Sunday Panel: Student-taught Lessons

Is there a lesson that a student taught you this year? What did you learn?

Lauralee,The Language Arts Classroom:
My students continuously teach me lessons.
I teach throughout the summer (at a camp) and a few weeks ago, a student was misbehaving. He wanted to interrupt, ignore the assignments, overall difficult. I tried giving him more attention, asking him what would make the situation better, everything.
After class, I decided to look up his medical form. Since this is a camp, we don’t have IEPs, etc. Sure enough – a diagnosis on his medical form made me conclude he probably had an IEP. I called him mom and asked her what I could do to make his day easier and she gave me a few ideas – mostly he had trouble with his lunch card.
Always research if you can, always do extra, always ask!
Tara, Science in the City:  I teach in a very urban district.  We are in one of the most economically segregated areas.  Over several years of working in that environment, and reading and informing myself on poverty and urban education, I have come to the conclusion that our schools need to be truly integrated. This was reinforced this year by a conversation with a student.
My student after being in and out of foster care for many years, declared herself independent, works, gets SS, but lives on her own.  She has for a few years. She’s now 17 and about to graduate.  One day, she and I were talking about the difference that gives her such a drive to succeed, in the face of so many things against her. She said it was many things (her own internal desire, her church, etc). One thing that she attributed it to was her foster care. She has some bad experiences in foster care, but she says that she got a chance to see how other people live, and what a family can mean, or be.   For me, it was a very thought provoking and eye opening conversation, as well as strong support for at least exposing students to other lifestyles and backgrounds.
Dawn, Algebra Simplified: This year I witnessed a student flounder in an IEP meeting when asked to sign his name to paperwork. He asked, “Does it have to be in cursive?” This was a high school freshman in my class. I hid my mortification and decided at that moment I have been too narrow-minded about what I am responsible for teaching my students. Another student voluntarily shared his passion for hockey with me on a regular basis (although I know little about hockey). He also shared his woes from other classes where he felt demotivated about learning. It was as if you could see the flame snuffed out in this kid. His transparency challenged me to think about how I foster the joy of learning in my students. Perspective, that’s what they gave me. I needed some. (P.S. The one kid can now sign his name in cursive.)

Is there a lesson that a student taught you this year? What did you learn?

Easy Add-ins improving Student Engagement

Do you have your preferred teaching style down? So do I.  Are your students reaching academic success? So are mine. Like any good teacher though, I am actively seeking to improve. So are you. Rather than completely overhaul what works, let me take the good base that I have and build upon it.

What experience tells me: 
Passive students tend to
fall behind in my class.  
What do you add into your lessons to improve student engagement?  Here are two, tried-and-true routines:

Hand Raising (non-traditional sense)
Are students really thinking about what is being said in class?  
Force students to commit to an opinion: Raise your hand if you agree. Raise your hand if you disagree. Raise your hand if you don’t know but are participating. It’s good to participate.

Check their pulse:  Raise your hand if you love your momma. Raise your hand if you’re breathing. Raise your hand if you want to go home.   Can you visualize the hands that go up on that last line? What academic purpose does it serve to have students admit to wanting to go home?  Little, unless you value that the majority of students just responded to a verbal prompt and voluntarily chose to be actively involved in the lesson. Perhaps the student zoning out suddenly sees the entire class putting their hand up, raises his as well, and mentally ponders/chides, “Why are we raising our hands? I better start paying attention.”  Perhaps the platform for student voice (albeit canned and highly structured) earns the exercise a point.  Running these type of statements in trios hopefully provides everyone with an entry point. Personally, knowing that students are still listening and processing what is being pushed out is reassuring.

Do you ever sense that your secondary students get tired of raising their hands?   Surely an active response can take other forms.  Our elementary counterparts mix it up with clapping.   Poetry units at the secondary level often welcome snapping.  In my high school Algebra class, a resounding slap of the desk does the trick. Clapping, Snapping, Slapping — it really is all on the same train.

Desk Slapping
In my opinion, slapping requires the least investment of the student (only one hand, no fancy finger configurations), has sound appeal, and is less socially taboo for teenagers (perhaps because of its affiliation with violence).
One rule: No repetitive slaps.
Some of the more refined 9th grade classes give their desk a little love pat.  However, a few classes will truly SLAP their desk with oomph.  This almost in unison thunder clap invigorates both teacher and students.  As I like to say (and my students groan), it supports the learning momentum.  Weak slappers sometimes improve at this request:  Slap your desk if you were right.  A prideful nature should be exploited.  Are you considering trying out the technique for the first time? Use in conjunction with a question that has a high probability of correct response in the middle of a difficult lesson. (Don’t explain, just call it out. Repetitive slaps can be channeled later on. Sales pitches can be given later as well.)

Like any novelty, either of the above techniques overused will lose its charm.

What easy student involvement techniques do you use in your classroom?  

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Dawn is a secondary Algebra teacher in Maryland with a B.S. in Secondary Mathematics Education and a Masters in Information Science and Learning Technologies.
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Making Vocabulary Fun with Quizlet!

Finding ways to make my English Language Arts class interactive can be a challenge. I like having students up and moving but need to make sure that the movement strongly correlates with the learning objectives for a lesson. One option I came up with dealt with learning the common vocabulary that appears on our state achievement tests.

My students had been working with a long list (50 words) of literary terms that show up over and over on our state test. Many of my students were performing at a non-proficient level so my hope was that if they at least reviewed all the words they’d have a better chance of understanding the questions.

After they had defined the words and found examples I put each word and it’s definition into a set on the website Quizlet.com. I shared the link with all the students so they could study at home. (You can set up a class and invite each student- there are even apps for the site!) But, more to the point, I was able to project the games onto my interactive white board and have students come up in pairs to race! The game that worked best was called “Scatter.”

Students had to match the word with the term by dragging them across the screen. Each group got really into it and tried to beat the time of the other teams. I think students like a sense of competition. Everyone is successful because you get as much time as you need and if a match doesn’t work you get to try again. I think this helped students who were struggling to still have a sense of success.

We also used the flashcard feature to review as a whole class.

Overall, this technique of studying seemed to work well and was a good way to mix it up. We played other games and did other activities with the vocabulary, but the students got the biggest kick out of this one.

How do you get students up and moving in your classroom?

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Sara Fuller is a 5 year veteran English teacher with an MA in literature who has experience teaching students ranging from the middle school to college level. She blogs about her teaching adventures at Ms. F’s Teaching Adventures and young adult books at YA Lit, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly!
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Sunday Panel: School Humor

Share a humorous story from your year.

Tara, Science in the City: Guaranteed to make you laugh! As we were doing our fetal pig dissection, one of my students kept insisting that the pig was her “sister from another mister” and took this picture:  
 
Kimberly, OC Beach Teacher:This school year my students and I were having a discussion about a challenging poem. It was during our 5th period class, when the students are often tired, so sometimes they aren’t very involved. Fortunately, on this particular day, students were providing insightful comments. In response, I praised a student because he had “ratcheted up the discussion.” For about a minute, we continued our discussion, and then a girl raised her hand and asked, “Mrs. Patrick, did you just say “ratchet”? I said yes, and she giggled. Puzzled, I asked what was funny, and after a few more questions, I finally realized that they didn’t understand my meaning, to increase the level of discussion. They explained to me that the word meant a woman who was not attractive. In fact, a quick look at Urban Dictionary.com defines the slang ratchet as “A diva, mostly from urban cities and ghettos that has reason to believe she is every man’s eye candy. Unfortunately, she’s wrong.” Of course, I had no idea of this new meaning. Needless to say, I learned a new word (they did too) and we all had a good laugh!

Exercise & Stress Relief (and a Freebie)

(This post originally appeared at Science in the City: Student-Centered Science.  Reprinted with permission.)

This is not a traditional freebie, because it is not directly classroom related, however, as the school year is coming to an end (for some of you it has already ended), many of us are focused on goals for the summer, or plans that may or may not involve our classrooms.  One of my goals is to focus more on physical fitness and stress relief.  For me, that means that I want to do more yoga.

I found an amazing site, called doyogawithme.com that has MANY yoga videos at many levels, focusing on different body areas, for free.

I made myself a calendar (a 30 day plan), that I would like to share with you, in case any of your summer goals are the same.  There are two versions in the file, a calendar (July) and a plan that just covers 30 days. Each week it includes 2 rest days, a 40-60 minute routine, two 20-30 minute routines, and 2 shorter routines.  There is a mixture of stretching and strength.

Anyone want to join me and see if we can stick with it?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9KhhEA266jneWVaUWpzTFJndFk/edit

 

Tara is a science teacher from upstate NY. She has taught General Science, Biology, Environmental Science, and Earth Science.
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Active Learning with Stay & Stray

Why do so many teachers expect students to sit and listen to lectures when the research shows the strong connection between physical activity and learning? In fact, Eric Jensen, author of the book Teaching with the Brain in Mind, says, “When we keep students active, we keep their energy levels up and provide their brains with the oxygen-rich blood needed for highest performance. Teachers who insist that students remain seated during the entire class period are not promoting optimal conditions for learning.”

Maybe teachers are reluctant because they think it will require more time to prepare lessons that involve movement, or perhaps they are worried student behavior will get out-of-control.  However, in my experience students are often more engaged and well-behaved when they are allowed to get out of their seats in my English classroom.  Here is any easy activity to get students moving and also working together.

Stay and Stray:  Lots of teachers activate background knowledge before starting a new concept, and this is just twist on the traditional KWL chart.  First, students work individually to write a list for what they already know about the topic.  After they write their lists, they then turn to a partner sitting next to them and share their ideas.  Next, they square with another pair of students and create one long list that complies all of their information.  At this point, they choose one student to stray and circulate to all of the other groups in the room, collecting new information from all of the groups.  In the meantime, the remaining group members stay so they can share their lists with the visitors from the other groups.  When the student who has strayed returns to her original group, she adds the new information to the group’s paper, and all read a text on the concept together.  After reading, they do the following with the information on their lists:  put a check next to any information they found to be true, circle any information that contradicts information they thought to be true, add two – three new facts that were not already on the lists.  Finally, the each group chooses at least one thing to share from its list and reading to share in whole-class discussion.

I often use this at the beginning of a unit in American Literature to provide context for the time period.  For instance, my students would do this activity at the beginning of their readings from the Civil War era, and our textbook has several sections with nonfiction reading at the beginning of each unit.  Since our students also take United States History around the same time as they take my class, they often come with facts they have learned in social studies.  It reinforces their learning from the history class and helps them construct knowledge as they prepare for literature in my class!

 

Kim, the OCBeach Teacher,  is a National Board Certified English teacher who is currently teaching American Literature and AP English Literature and Composition.  She shares classroom ideas and tips on her OCBeachTeacher Facebook Page.
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Sunday Panel: Summer Plans

What are your summer plans?

Tara, Science in the City: Plans for the summer….personally, lots of time with my own family, we are planning a trip to Washington, DC.  Some time scrapbooking, yoga twice a week…..

Professionally…I am planning to get my school webpage set up, get prepared because we are going to be getting chromebooks.  I am going to some PD on using inquiry methods with ELL’s.

So looking forward to the summer starting!

Dawn, Algebra Simplified: One week of summer school is on my horizon. Other than that, I am looking forward to intense play sessions with my toddler children.  We are already creating our “bucket” list: Catch fireflies, go on a nature walk, have a picnic, fly a kite, play in the sprinkler, and much more.  Outdoors here we come!
 

Clair, High School English on a Shoestring Budget: One the one hand, I try not to plan too much for my summer, lest it end up being too busy or planned.  On the other hand, I have a to-do list of many things I’d liked to accomplish.  There are some flower beds (can I call them that?  They’re being taken over by weeds and hostas) that I want to weed and maintain.  There are some resources for my online classes I want to finish up and prepare to post come fall to help students.  There is a list of items for TPT that I want to create or update (my favorite of the tasks!).  And sleep… I want to catch up on sleep.  I’m hoping for a summer that is productive enough to fulfill that need, but also relaxed enough to be a restful time.

Sara, Ms. Fuller’s Teaching Adventures: I am so excited for this summer!  Thanks largely in part to my growing success on TPT and a lot of saving I am traveling a lot this summer!  First I am going to Monterey Bay, California with a group called Family Nature Summits to hike, whale watch, kayak and more!  Then I am going to Kelley’s Island in Lake Erie for a weekend.  My big trip of the summer is 10 days in Scotland with a fellow teacher!  And then, immediately following my girlfriends and I are celebrating the fact we all turn/turned 30 this year and are spending a weekend at a beach!  Other than that this summer is being filled with decorating my new home and teaching an online class!  I’m busy- but I like it that way!

What about you, dear readers?  What are your plans for the summer months?

Movies in the Classroom

Showing movies in the classroom can be a controversial issue.  There are some teachers who believe it takes away from better learning opportunities.  Others who just don’t feel they have the time to spend (or waste) on movies.

But, movies in the high school classroom can have great benefits for our students.  Please hear me out (and not just because I created two semesters worth of the hugely popular Movies vs. Books course for my reluctant alternative high school students who “hate” English class.  I made these kids slog through Frankenstein… and they did so happily! )

Movies in the classroom must have purpose to be beneficial to the students. With purpose, movies can add active learning and higher level thinking.  Plus, it helps to get students interested and engaged.  Movies do not have to be treated as a treat or a waste, but rather as an alternate medium for learning.  Reactions to a video can be a part of active learning, as students enjoy the process and can apply what they have learned.  (Some times a snippet will suffice.  Sometimes a longer section or whole movies is better– the ending of a story can change everything).

And the movie doesn’t have to be accurate.  Some of the most engaging discussions in my aforementioned Movies vs. Books was when the movie version was so far from the book, that the students are appalled (the 1931 Boris Karloff version of Frankenstein, for example).  And without any prompting from me they would being to discuss the differences, the characterization, mood, and more.

These discussions– active learning and student directed– are only one of the ways a movie can foster higher-level thinking.  In my classes, I honed my Movie vs. Book comparison activity for students to evaluate which version is better– any why?   Some of my students really struggled with supporting their preference at first (resulting in many revisions to this activity to guide and push them to do so anyway).  But they rarely complained about the work that went into making the comparison or taking a position– which is in contrast to the complaints about all the other work in the class.  (And yet, they would regularly sign up for a second term!)

It’s not just the ELA classroom where movies can be useful to begin discussions, get students interested, and provide a medium to apply what they have learned.  One of my science colleagues would show The Day After Tomorrow and have students explain all that was wrong with the weather, for example.  There are plenty of horrible inaccurate history movies to chose from as well.

Plus, shhh… movies are great for those highly distractable times, like before Winter or Spring break.

 

Clair Dickson, high school English teacher, likes free eTexts and Project Based Learning to stretch her meager budget.  Visit her store High School English on a Shoestring Budget to stretch your budget.

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Sunday Panel: Keep or Change for Next Year

What have you done this year that you want to keep for next year/change for next year?

Tara, Science in the City:
I have worked harder this year to give students an overall picture of where we are going — where we are in the unit and what our goals are to the activities that we are doing. In my class we also do interactive notebooks, and I will probably do them again, as I have for several years. I’d love to hear from other people 🙂

Kimberly, OC Beach Teacher:
There is an old adage that says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” After 16 years in the classroom, I have refined many of my lesson and strategies, so I don’t plan to change much next school year. For instance, it took me years to feel comfortable with literature circles, but now I feel like my students really take ownership of their learning. I have also benefited from several years with excellent teacher interns, who have brought new ideas (backed by the latest research) to my classroom. Nevertheless, next year I do plan to keep adding real-world nonfiction texts to my curriculum. Several years ago I started finding articles from newspapers and magazines that students find relevant. I connect these topics to classic literature in an attempt to help engage them in our mandated curriculum. And that’s what makes classics great; all the texts from the canon have themes that still matter in 2014!

Jackie,Room 213:
This year I started to use more formative assessment and plan to do a whole lot more next year, especially in the beginning of the term. I was always worried that high school students wouldn’t complete assignments that didn’t “count”. It was pretty easy to convince them, however, that in the end the assignments do count, especially if they use the feedback to improve for the work that does.
One problem with giving students more feedback is that it takes more time. I’ve been developing checklists to make the process faster for me, and I’m loving them. I constantly perfect and add to them so I can give lots of feedback by just checking a box. So, next year, I’m hoping my students get even more time to practice important skills through formative assessment.

Mrs. E:
I do daily warm-ups that I call “Bellwork”. I have always given my students one sheet that they were to do their bellwork on all week and they turn it in on Fridays. However, students lose their papers, are absent on turn-in day, etc. It was always a big pain for me. At the beginning of the second semester, I had all of my students bring a spiral notebook that they were to keep in the classroom. This became their bellwork notebook. Doing this not only cured my paperwork headache, but it also seemed to keep my students on task at the beginning of class. Many times I only had to say, “Where’s your spiral?” and an off-task student would be headed off in the right direction. I will absolutely be doing this again in the upcoming school year!

Sara, Ms. Fuller’s Teaching Adventures:
My students did really well in my English 1010 class with writing literacy narratives. I’m going to continue using this as their first writing assignment because it allows me to assess their writing as well as learn more about their relationship with reading and or writing. I also got a lot of great feedback from the majority of my students saying that they liked doing my daily journal entries. Several commented that it made them think and it inspired creativity. I was somewhat surprised that they didn’t view it as busy work! If you’re interested check out my journal prompts in my store.

Lauralee,The Language Arts Classroom:
I am happy that I provided class outlines before teaching. I gave a general overall – just a bulleted list. It kept me from answering questions and I know that it helps with organization. I need to incorporate more power points/ white board work. Making them takes time, and I am a bit picky when I buy them. I want to make a few this summer.

Dawn, Algebra Simplified:
With the recent switch to Common Core standards, I challenged my students to think deeper. This year my students hypothesized about math topics more than ever. What a thrill to facilitate the following process: students reflect, a student hypothesis is submitted to the class, the class disproves it with a counterexample, a new hypothesis is submitted, and the process repeats until the students actually unearth a key concept for the skill. (No, I do not teach honor students.) While time-consuming, this is definitely a keeper. On a trivial note, my repertoire of pithy responses to diverse class situations is expanding. I think it adds humor, but frankly it might just be student groans. A random kid’s loud hall behavior disrupts class. I turn matter-of-factly to my class and calmly announce, “Don’t do drugs.” Two more for my permanent list: “It won’t kill you; I promise. But if it does, I’ll have a cool story to tell next year” (normally used in reference to touching a calculator) and “It will buff” (stolen from one of my teenage students).

What have you done this year that you want to keep for next year/change for next year?

Friday Feature – Trashketball

I hate to admit it, but the truth is that there have been times during my 16 years as an English teacher when someone could hear a pin drop in the classroom. Although this might seem like a good situation, the silence wasn’t because my students were enthralled with their learning. In fact, an observer might have seen a few heads down on desks, and maybe even heard a little snoring.
But as most English teachers know, making grammar an exciting topic to learn can seem like a Herculean task. While grammar may be fascinating to fellow English teachers (we can talk about comma splices for an entire lunch period), most secondary students (and many adults) could care less about parts of speech, kinds of sentences, types of phrases, or innumerable other grammar concepts. And in the past, it didn’t help that I had resorted to boring lectures and worksheet practice.
However, happily this all changed a few years ago with the help of a student intern. He told me about a game that he played in his science class called “Trashketball.”

Image Copyright © 2014 Craig Costantino

It is brilliant! Students review concepts and shoot baskets into a trash can! My students love it because the game gets them out of their seats and motivates them with their love of sports. In our school, we have 90 minute class periods, and anyone who has had to sit for an hour and a half, can most likely commiserate with my students.
Additionally, the game encourages friendly competition because the teacher arranges the class into teams. This team approach is an excellent way to meet the needs of all students when they are arranged in heterogeneous groups. The rules also encourage students to work together on their teams to solve the answers; they can keep trying to find a correct answer even after they have made a mistake.
The game doesn’t require many materials, and my Trashketball products make it easy to play! I provide power point Trashketball games that include detailed rules and explanations for both the students and the teacher. Furthermore, each game provides a brief review of its topic and includes several rounds of practice exercises. My top-selling game reviews verbal phrases, but there are a variety of games to play addressing multiple concepts. Here are a few:

Pronoun and Antecedent Agreement       SAT PracticeAntecedent hhAkgr  nneeme

Or even get a bundle that can last 8 weeks!

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Kim, the OCBeach Teacher,  is a National Board Certified English teacher who is currently teaching American Literature and AP English Literature and Composition.  She shares classroom ideas and tips on her OCBeachTeacher Facebook Page.
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