Revisiting Big Ben for a Closer Look, Part 3

Here is a brief look at the pieces of the cog "Curriculum & Instruction as the Vehicle". Ponder these until the next blogs where I'll dive into each part more thoroughly.

Important

What we study:

1. is essential to the structure of the discipline
2. provides a roadmap toward expertise
3. is essential to building understanding
4. balances knowledge, understanding, and skill

Focused

1. What we do is aligned with the learning goals
2. What we do is designed to get us where we need to be
3. Teacher and students know why they're doing what they do
4. Mutual understanding that parts of their work contribute to a bigger picture

Engaging

Students:

1. usually find meaning in their work, think it's intriguing, find themselves absorbed in the work, and the work provokes their curiosity
2. see themselves and their world in their work
3. see value to others in the work

Demanding

1. The work is just beyond the students' reach
2. Growth is nonnegotiable
3. Standards are high
4. Students are guided to think and work like professionals
5. no "loose" time

Scaffolded

1. Teacher teaches for success
2. Criteria for success, classroom operation, and student behavior are clear to students
3. Varied materials, modes of teaching, and avenues to learning support a variety of learners
4. Varied peer support mechanisms are consistently available

Reference

Tomlinson, C. (2003). Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom: Strategies and tools for responsive teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Becoming a Star Teacher: Teacher Response in Action

Sometimes one goes on vacation with the hopes of encountering celebrities.

This is the way students can feel about teachers: we can be their "star".

Remember how we looked at the teacher responds to what the student seeks?

Below you'll find strategies/guidelines/tips on different facets of teacher response in action.

Implementing these, when done with sincerity, will have your students looking up to you as their star!

Strategies for Building a Positive Classroom Environment:

• study students’ cultures
• convey status
• commend creativity
• make room for all kinds of learners
• help students know about one another
• celebrate success
• hold goal-setting conferences
• use dialogue journals
• incorporate teacher talk groups in lesson plans

Guidelines & Strategies for Enhancing Classroom Operation:

1. show respect for people, their ideas and their property
2. work hard to ensure our own growth and to assist the growth of others
3. will persist, even when things are difficult and uncertain
4. will accept responsibility for the quality of our work and for our behaviors and actions

• time is valuable
• fair is ensuring all learners get what they need to succeed
• teach up, work up

Classroom Routines:

Ensure students understand how the class begins and ends, how to get and put away materials, how to keep records of their work, how to move around the classroom in acceptable ways, how to use time wisely, how to figure out where they should be and what they should be doing at a given time, where to put finished work, and how to get help when teacher is working directly with other students.

• make them clear and predictable
• GOAL: for students to develop autonomy as learners
• How to reach that GOAL: teach them to do things themselves

• use visual cues, pre-established groups
• use goal cards regularly
• teach for smooth transitions

Kinds of Support for Learners' Success:
One scenario I loved from the reading is called “keeper of the book”. One student each week is responsible for logging homework assignments, key information covered in class, and questions and answers important to student success

• entries are dated and signed by individual in charge. This book is great to help absent students to get caught up.

Other ideas to support students:

• vary materials
• use graphic organizers to help structure and extend thinking
• provide survival packets
• use participation prompts
• build language bridges

What Shared Responsibility Looks Like:

• Daily classroom chore assignments (care for plants and animals, distribution and collection of materials, washing desktops and straighten furniture at end of day, record weather info, sweep floor & straighten materials, post announcements/hand out messages/takes office info)
• Evaluation Checklists
• Involve students in scheduling decisions
• engage students in assessing their own progress
• help students learn to set their own academic goals

Reference

Tomlinson, C. (2003). Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom: Strategies and tools for responsive teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Morning Meetings: an aside

After experiencing some great morning meetings in my college cohort, I wanted to briefly visit this and share what I think and feel about morning meetings.

Question: What are morning meetings?

My personal opinion: Morning meetings are essential to community building in a classroom.  These are 30 minute meetings in the morning with the whole class in which students greet each other, share some news/opinions, participate in an activity/game, and discuss any pertinent information related to the day ahead.  This is an opportunity for students to learn about each other and themselves and bond with one another.  It sets the mood for the day: today will be a great day!

Another view: I was given a great opportunity to listen to a presentation by an area school's principal, Sylvia Allan, who does morning meeting with her entire school once a month.  Here is her outline for morning meetings that she set up when she was a teacher:

A view from CHILDHOOD EDUCATION article "Like Being at the Breakfast Table" The Power of Classroom Morning Meeting:

The outline

1. Create a bright, cheerful message that welcomes/greets students and includes some information related to the day ahead; can include some form of practice/review related to core content
2. Greeting: use a variety of activities that gives students the opportunity to practice verbal and nonverbal communication skills while saying hello to everyone
3. Sharing: not "show-and-tell", but gives students the practice of face-to-face communication; the person sharing tells a brief statement that introduces their news and the other students are to ask 3 questions about that news; these are "opportunities to develop and practice skills of listening, presenting to a group, taking turns, formulating relevant questions, and taking different perspectives" (p 145)
4. Group activity: a game or activity that allows students to practice some skill(s) like conflict-resolution, collaboration, communication, etc.
5. News & Announcements: brings students back to the message of the day

The Rationale

1. Walberg and Greenberg (1997): classroom social environment has a significant effect on student attitudes, productivity, engagement in learning, and academic achievement (Bondy, p 145)
2. Morning Meeting helps students develop cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control (Kriete, 1999) (Bondy, p 145)
3. For learning to take place, learners need to feel safe; emotion is tied to cognition because emotions drive attention and create meaning; Morning Meeting creates that safe environment that promotes learning
4. "Morning Meeting helps prepare children for responsible citizenship" (Bondy, p 146)

Students' Views

1. Favorite part of the day!
2. Fun!
3. Get to know classmates and be known by classmates!
4. Helps us learn!

A Message from Roxann Kriete

The time one commits to Morning Meeting is an investment [that] is repaid many times over. The sense of belonging and the skills of attention, listening, expression, and cooperative interaction developed in Morning Meeting are a foundation for every lesson, every transition time, every lining up, every upset and conflict, all day and all year long. Morning Meeting is a microcosm of the way we wish our schools to be-communities full of learning, safe and respectful and challenging for all. (p. 4)

In my cohort, we have a morning meeting each Monday at the start of our class.  We write a brief response to a prompt, sign up to share in relation to the day's topic, share and ask questions of each other, participate in an activity, and then discuss ways that activity could be applied in our own classrooms some day.  I think everyone feels lighter and brighter after our morning meeting.  I know I do!  And if adults need that, then think about how much more our students will need it! That is why I believe morning meetings must be included as part of the daily routine of any elementary classroom.

If you want to learn more about morning meeting, check out this book! The Morning Meeting Book by Roxann Kriete (via Amazon.com)

Resource
Bondy, E., & Ketts, S. (2001). Like being at the breakfast table: The power of classroom morning meeting. Childhood Education, 77, 144-149.

Revisiting Big Ben for a Closer Look, Part 2

“Classrooms are places designed to forge democracy, dignity, and diversity. . . [and] to prepare young people to contribute to their world as informed thinkers, thoughtful citizens, and decent human beings” (Tomlinson, p. 26).

How can we hope to accomplish the quote above?  By the way we respond to our students' needs.  Let's look at the inner workings of The Teacher Responds cog.

Invitation

1. I respect who you are and who you can become.
2. You are unique and valuable.
3. I learn when I listen to you.
4. I want to know you and I have time for you.
5. I believe in you.
6. This is your place, too. We need you here.

Treating students with dignity boosts their self-esteem! This contributes to classroom community, too!

For teachers: Greet every single student that walks into your classroom each day.  Help them leave heavy burdens at the door by having a physical "Troubles Basket" to "drop" their worries into. Your classroom can be their safe haven!

Opportunity

1. I have important things for you to do here today!
2. The things I ask you to do are worthy, often daunting, and open new possibilities for you!
3. These things help you become all you can be.
4. Your roles make the class more efficient and effective!

Opportunity opens doors!

For teachers: Opportunity requires hard work and for students to stretch, but allows them to pursue their dreams!  Give students work that's rich with meaning.  Instill the desire to overachieve!

Investment (in people and content of the classroom)

1. I work hard to make this place reflect you and work for you.
2. I love to find new paths to success.
3. I enjoy thinking about what we do here.
4. It is my job to help you succeed.
5. I will do what it takes to ensure your growth because I am your partner in growth.

An invested teachers' classroom has students in it before and after school and during lunch because they know your class is a sanctuary for them. 

For teachers: Let students know when you have thought about them. Make links with your students' lives outside of the classroom (parent communication, extracurricular activities, volunteering in the community). Be invested in what, where, and whom you teach and also in your ideals.

Persistence

1. You're growing, but you're not finished yet!
2. If one route doesn't work, we can find another.
3. Together we'll figure out what works best.
4. There are no excuses here, but there is support.
5. There is no finish line in learning.

Search for pathways to success and once you reach it, keep on going!

For teachers: "Different is not a synonym for deficient" (Tomlinson, p. 32). Model the steady and relentless quest for excellence. You will never be "good enough" to be exempt from the need for change! The journey never ends.

Relfection

1. I watch and listen to you carefully and systematically.
2. I make sure to use what I learn to help you learn better.
3. I try to see things through your eyes.
4. I continually ask, "How is the partnership working?" and "How can I make this better?"

Uncertainty, ambiguity, and uniqueness are the constants of a teacher's world.

For teachers: Click to View: Questions to guide reflection

Reflection supports "the power to care" (p. 34). Reflecting will allow us to attend to the needs of our students! Reflecting will help us become more effective, efficient, and intuitive in addressing those needs.

Reference

Tomlinson, C. (2003). Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom: Strategies and tools for responsive teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Revisiting Big Ben for a Closer Look, Part 1b

Last time we looked in depth at what students seek in the classroom.  After that experience, I felt pretty good about myself and what I thought I could do to foster all of those things in my classroom. Then I came upon the scenarios at the end of the chapter  (see sample at the bottom of this post) and realized I didn't have a clue! But let's start at the very beginning (a very fine place to start). 10 extra credit points if you get the reference!

All students have the same basic needs (affirmation, contribution, power, purpose, and challenge). However, depending on our students' "gender, culture, life experiences, talents, interests, learning preferences, affective development, cognitive development, and support systems" (Tomlinson, p. 19), those needs manifest themselves in different ways.

WHOA! That's a lot to consider! Just wait - there is hope! "The truth is, we will never really do all each child needs us to do.  A simultaneous truth is that the first truth is no reason to stop trying" (Tomlinson, p. 22).

Teachers get accustomed to taking "snap shots" of their class as a whole. When you have 30 students, that's all you can do, right? There's no time to focus on each student?

WRONG!

For seasoned veterans: Please take the time to connect with each of your students! You've done a lot of the hard stuff already, now let's focus more on each student individually.
For newbie teachers (which I will be): Continue to develop your expertise! I can imagine some days you're barely keeping your head above water, but as you become a more practiced swimmer, start looking and finding connections to each of your students.  Don't let guilt ruin all your hard work. Keep trying! Do the best you can! Try to be better today than yesterday!

All of us, seasoned teachers and newbies, must remember that even if it may seem we are reaching the majority of our students, some students are good at faking it because they want to please us or not feel dumb in front of their peers. Don't make assumptions about your students. Learn to see each and every one of them! That is at the heart of differentiation!

The scenarios mentioned above: take a look - your eyes will be opened!

Reference
Tomlinson, C. (2003). Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated classroom: Strategies and tools for responsive teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Revisiting Big Ben for a Closer Look, Part 1a

I have accommodated my schema about the cogs of differentiation! I want to begin by looking closer at what the student seeks.

Chapter 2 of Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom goes in depth about what the student seeks.

Affirmation (from the students' perspective)

1. I am accepted here.
2. I am safe here.
3. People listen to me.
4. It matters to others that I do well.
5. My interests, strengths, and perspectives are acknowledged.
6. Others believe in me.

This is students' self-esteem!

Contribution (moving from self-esteem to self-efficacy)

1. I make a difference!
2. I bring unique abilities and strengths to this place!
3. I help others succeed!
4. I'm connected to others because of common goals!

Students need to know they make a difference!

Power (increasing degree of control over their world)

1. What I learn is useful right now.
2. My choices contribute to my success.
3. I know how this place runs and what is expected of me.
4. I know what quality looks like and how to achieve it.
5. I have dependable support.

Content and learning environment need to make learners feel powerful so they will come back for more.

Purpose ("How come we have to do this?")

1. I understand what we do here.
2. What we do reflects me and my world.
3. It helps me make meaning of the subject, my world, and the "wider world".
4. What we do makes a difference in the world.
5. The work absorbs me.

From: Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom, p. 15

Challenge ("taking a risk to attain a goal that seems out of reach")

1. Work compliments abilities.
2. The work stretches students.
3. Students are required to work hard.
4. Students are accountable for their own growth and also for contributing to the growth of others.
5. Students should be able to accomplish things that they didn't believe were possible.

"Challenge in the classroom gives roots and wings to young dreams" (Tomlinson, p 19).