Day 26I'm taking a short break from fiction to read a book that was just delivered. I bought From Striving to Thriving by Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward on the recommendation of a trusted colleague who discovered it when she "went down a Twitter rabbit hole." If you're an educator, likely, you'd agree with this statement: Twitter isn't free! Anyway, it was money well spent. I'm slightly less than 50 pages in and I feel like I'm devouring it. I read those pages mostly in a hammock and on the beach yet I'm compelled to underline, circle, and jot notes in the margins. Don't the very best books inspire you to really THINK as you read? Sometimes I think out loud. Those are the very, very, best books.
So, the thing that has me thinking is not really just a teaching reading or teaching writing thing. It is actually just a teaching everything thing regardless of what grade level you teach. The authors are adamant that educators not label kids. If you read my previous post about "inclusion kids" you already know how I feel about labels. These authors argue that we need to focus more on what students CAN do and help them acquire the skills, strategy, and most importantly, the inspiration to go from there. Our students are more than an SRI score. They are not a DRA level. They are not a Guided Reading level. They are not a leveled reader level. They are sure as heck more than their MCAS scores. We need to move away from dealing with the "struggling reader" and instead regard that same student as the "striving reader", who, given opportunities to read in great volume will progress towards becoming a thriving reader. The authors remind us that we don't teach PROGRAMS, we teach STUDENTS. Therefore, we need to build relationships with our kids, engage them with REAL literature in its full form, and give them opportunities to read, and read, and read. We should never pull kids out of reading class to participate in programs that focus on addressing their deficits. Oftentimes, what separates "strivers" from "thrivers" is that "thrivers" have had more opportunities to read engaging text and more access to quality reading materials. Giving strivers less time to read is detrimental. Always. Ironically, this is the very same conversation math educators are having. We have to stop assessing kids with the intention of addressing their defects. Instead, we should meet regularly with our mathematicians so that we can observe all that our students CAN do. Our task then becomes figuring out how we can capitalize on what students CAN do in order to bring them to the next level of understanding. Kids are pretty stinkin' smart. They don't fall for our clever ways of leveling them. They know. And when a kid figures out that he or she is in the low or slow group it is always detrimental. Leveling kids is just as bad an idea as labeling them. But isn't differentiation so important? These authors say...not so much. Making sure ALL students have the same access to high quality instruction is what is important. Then, meeting with kids to individualize some instruction so that we can use what students CAN do to bring them to the next level makes sense. This over-focus on differentiation sometimes has our thrivers working independently and our strivers filling out skills based worksheets so that teacher can meet with the middle. The thrivers and the strivers need explicit instruction and the eventual release of responsibility just like our students working "at grade level" do. In the end, all kids need time to do math and all kids need time to write and all kids need time to read. Without the gift of time to do this important work, our strivers will never be thrivers. As I rethink reading in my classroom, I'm reminded again that I have to give my students more TIME to read. It is especially important that they have time to read books of their own choosing. Honestly, this is a great book. It is worth the $$. Consider reading it along with me. From Striving to Thriving: How to Grow Confident, Capable Readers by Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward
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Day 25Oh my goodness. It is summer. When I think about flavor, I'm not thinking math (which is kind of weird because I'm often thinking math), I'm thinking ice cream. Boy, do I like ice cream. When I started dating my husband, he used to order VANILLA. How boring. I married him anyway. When it comes to math, there are probably a zillion different flavors out there. There are all the regular flavors. These are the ones that aren't risky. (Think, published curriculum.) You know, these flavors seem pretty tested. They've been around a good long time. People seem to like them or at the very least, have come to expect them. They are chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and maybe coffee. Then there are those who mix it up a little. (Think published curriculum with some interesting supplementation.) These flavors are appealing because they're tried and true with a little something extra. How could coffee oreo not be awesome? And chocolate marshmallow, seriously? Spicing up what we've come to expect still offers up something that is solid but now a little interest has been added. Then the folks at Ben and Jerry's enter the scene. What they've put together is still ice cream but it seems like so much more than the tried and true with a twist. They kind of broke the mold. They're trailblazers who reinvented ice cream. I mean, Chubby Hubby and Cherry Garcia, are you kidding me? These entrepreneurs are like our pioneers in mathematics education who have turned math class upside down and refocused the attention where it belongs: on our students' sense making. Sure, it is still math class but it isn't for the ill trained, those lacking self-esteem, or confidence in their own math ability, or those who really do have to teach a program with fidelity. It is for the thoughtful and creative educators who seek out inspiration and the knowledge necessary to respond to their students and build upon what their students can do until they reach proficiency in both the content and mathematical practice standards. The Virtual Conference of Mathematical Flavors has prompted me to think about what flavor my math class is serving up. The true confession of a twenty-four year veteran math enthusiast is that I'm the biggest flip-flopper you'll ever meet. This is true. It really is. I feel embarrassed (actually kind of mortified) saying it. Let me explain how this came to be. I teach in a smallish regional school district. When I first started in 1995 we had no real math curriculum (actually, we had some old Heath Mathematics books copyright 1981 but I didn't have enough for every child as we were experiencing some real growth. We also didn't have the internet yet either. I was a newbie at this point and my own math classroom experiences as a student had fallen short of inspirational. As a rookie teacher, I leaned heavily on the Heath book for scope and sequence and tried to make their lessons a little bit more fun. I'd type up (or even hand write) some of their word problems but change the names to include my own students' names. I was crazy good. (Do you hear the sarcasm?) It wasn't too long before we adopted Addison Wesley. It was copyright 1991 but it was awesome! (Okay, at the time, it seemed awesome.) Unlike the Heath math that had only one page of "word problems" per chapter, this book was "rich" in word problems. It even had pages of "challenge" word problems we could give the "smart" kids. In a very short while, we started to see the need to supplement. Massachusetts was now giving the MCAS test and there were standards to teach to. I remember getting well acquainted with the work of Marilyn Burns around this time. Her book, About Teaching Mathematics became central to my instruction. For the first time, I was beginning to realize that math should make sense to my students, that their learning had to push beyond memorized facts and procedures, and that it could be fun. This was an exciting time in teaching because my colleagues and I had some really great resources, the world wide web was starting to be a thing in our school, and pioneers like Kathy Schrock had these websites with links you could follow to get good lessons. In 2003 something sort of amazing happened. My superintendent and director of curriculum had decided to hire a math specialist because our schools weren't doing so hot on those pesky MCAS tests. I was out on maternity leave so I was surprised when I was contracted and asked if I wanted to job share the position with a colleague and close friend. Of course I did! One of the tasks we were charged with was finding a new curriculum. We were all over the web researching curriculums and best practices in math education. In the end, we were focused on curriculums funded by the National Science Foundation. Investigations and Everyday Math were our front runners. We piloted both. Our teachers spoke pretty loudly. They loved Investigations. After two years, our district cut the coaching position and I returned to the classroom but not before getting to meet Marilyn Burns. After a short conversation about our job as coaches, Marilyn arranged for my colleague and I to meet her publisher, Toby Gordon, to talk about our work and to think about writing a chapter in a book she was publishing on mathematics coaching. We did and we did! It is still one of my greatest points of pride. We LOVED Investigations. I REALLY loved Investigations. It was student-centered. It offered meaningful problem solving experiences for kids. It put student learning front and center with a real focus on conceptual understanding. It incorporated routines and games. Our kids were having fun and were getting a really rich mathematics education. Through outside training, embedded professional development, and simply teaching the curriculum, our teachers were making strides in their own mathematics learning too. Everything was awesome. Then, the standards changed. We stopped getting teachers new to our district trained. We were no longer sending teachers for any real outside math PD. Teachers complained that the program was not aligned. Kindergarten teachers were complaining that there weren't enough problems on each page for their students to practice with! Everyone was supplementing. Teachers Pay Teachers was invented. Everyone was buying crap to supplement with. If the worksheet said it met a specific standard then it must be terrific, right? Engage New York was available online and some teachers were dabbling with that. We were a hot mess and I was heartbroken. Truth be told, I was still using Investigations. I was hardly supplementing. My test scores were good. My math classes were fun. Students came in (generally) not loving math and left liking it a lot. Then we bought Go Math. To quote one of my fourth graders, "Go Math is the bane of my existence!" We were told (although certain admin still denies it) to teach it with "fidelity". I did. I tried to drink the damn cool-aid. At one point I was like Vanna White (no offense Vanna) standing in front of my Smart board pushing things that lit up and generally having an animated beaver teach my math lessons. Oh, how I wish this was a joke. It was my sad reality. My students were bored. I was bored. They were not struggling to solve problems worthy of their attention. They were back to learning facts and procedures. Some of the math was just mathematically wrong. After a short while, I began feeling like I was committing educational malpractice every day. I reverted back to that phase where I was using Go Math for the scope and sequence but I was supplementing with A LOT of old Investigations materials plus QUALITY routines and lessons that I had found through Twitter. "Notice and Wonder", "Fraction Talks" (from www.fractiontalks.com), "Fraction Splats", "Number Talks", "Which one Doesn't Belong?" "Numberless Word Problems", and "Math in Three Acts" lessons were helping to revive my math instruction. I was reading awesome authors I'd uncovered on Twitter and buying books left and right. Some of the better ones were:
In addition, I was following some great teachers, coaches, and math specialists on Twitter. Their blogs provided some fabulous PD. Marc Chubb, Joe Schwartz, and Graham Fletcher are among my favorites. I found Graham Fletchers progression videos truly helpful. I was also taking workshops (thanks Cheryl Condon) and courses (LOVED my course with Mount Holyoke's Mike Flynn and Virginia Barnstable) and learning from time spent on Twitter. Following the MTBoS hashtag and participating in the elementary math chat (#elemmathchat) enhanced my own mathematics learning and as a result, my teaching. As the year progressed I felt confident that I was making the best possible instructional choices for my students and I supplemented more and more. I felt great about my math teaching and the learning happening in my room. My students were working hard to make sense of math and were having fun doing it. (Check out this short video.) For some reason, beyond what I can even comprehend, I decided to give Go Math another shot at the beginning of the next year. I guess I figured that now that our students had a year under their belts it would somehow go better. It did not. These students who came to me were unlike any I had ever taught. They were bright. There was no doubt. However, they could not DO math with any degree of independence. They looked to me to scaffold every problem. I thought for sure that their procedures would be intact given the over emphasis on procedural fluency in Go Math. They were not. And if they were, they had no underlying conceptual understanding of what they were doing. I had asked a chid I perceived to be very smart why the array that she was effectively using worked. NIGHTMARE. She had no idea, became very flustered, and really started to doubt herself. She had no conceptual understanding and now she had no confidence. I became very frustrated and almost angry at what was happening with my students. I tried to cope. I just tried harder, I blamed admin., I blamed teachers who said they wanted this stupid program and then FINALLY, I took a GIANT step backwards. I started filling in some of the gaps with games and routines that I had typically relied upon when I taught second and third grades and slowly, I started to see a shift in my students. They were enjoying math class more. They were tasting success. They were beginning to tolerate struggle and they were listening to one another as we built a strong community of learners. By the end of the year, I can honestly say, they made major gains and I'm confident that most of my students would say that math is a subject that is enjoyable. I don't feel like I took them as far as pervious classes went. Here I am prepping for another year in the fourth grade. I'm honestly trying to decide what flavor I'll be next year. There is a part of me that is tempted to give Go Math another shot. I feel ridiculous even typing that idea. Insanity, right? In reality, I think Investigations will be my guide. I'll try to pepper in a little Go Math but I'll trust my own expertise to design curriculum that takes full advantage of the best resources out there and relies on the research and what I know to be true about good math instruction. I don't actually eat much Ben and Jerry's. There is an ice cream shop here on Cape Cod that has this flavor called Wicked Mud Flats. It is so flipping good that I can't even really tell you what is in it. I think it has a coffee base. (All goodness begins with coffee!) It might have fudge or brownie batter. I think it has truffles. Honestly, it is just unlike any other flavor. It is unique and made up of all the best ingredients. It is awesome. I want Wicked Mud Flats to be my mathematical flavor. I want it to still be ice cream (think thoughtfully designed, student-centered math instruction) that incorporates sense building routines, fun games, and problems worthy of my students' time and attention. I want them to love math so much that they are willing to struggle, to fail, and to be eager to try again. I want them to talk math and to listen and really think and to make connections and to get excited when they notice interesting things. I want my students to be full of wonder. I want a classroom where the mathematical practice standards are alive and where students strive to prove their thinking and are willing to argue appropriately so that everyone is learning mathematics. In short, I'm hoping for Wicked Mud Flats. I want inspired teaching and learning. Sort of a funny menu of flavors!Day 24I just finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It is a Newbury Award winning book. The Newbury Award. I trust the Newbury Award. That big gold sticker screams, "This is good stuff! Pick this book up and read it and we promise that you won't be disappointed." Guess what. I was a little disappointed. I wanted to love this book. Really, I did. There were parts that had me captivated. I take no issue with his writing or even the characters, setting, and plot. It just felt like every time I was really getting hooked, he dropped the plot line. There were too many unanswered questions for me. I kept wondering if perhaps there was some background knowledge I was lacking that would have allowed me greater insight into the characters and events as they unfolded. I still have unanswered questions. I read a handful of reviews on "Goodreads" before sitting down to reflect on the book. They're all pretty fantastic. One girl even wrote how she loved the cute ending. What cute ending? I think I missed something. On a scale of 1-5 (five being the best) I give this book a 3.5 and I feel generous doing so.
The big take-aways: Some readers like fantasy. Not all do. Just because so many readers loved this book doesn't mean I'm going to or my students are going to. It certainly doesn't mean that I should like it. It doesn't mean that my students should like it either. Some will and some won't. That is all. If I'm being honest, I'm not much of a fantasy lover. I LOVE the Harry Potter series. Like, Every. Single. Book. I liked The Hunger Games. I loved reading Stephanie Meyers' Twilight Saga (Team Edward). A Wrinkle in Time was amazing and I love Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. The Tale of Despereaux might be my favorite book. Might. Quite possibly. Still, fantasy is really not my thing. I love a good historical fiction, realistic fiction, or even non-fiction. The Graveyard book was meh for me. I feel guilty saying this. Did I mention that it won the Newbury Award? I kept waiting for it to reveal itself. I wanted the big "aha" moment that I had when I read Holes. It never came. Not for me anyway. What might come? A kid who loves fantasy. A kid who might just love this book. I didn't love the book but I know I'll love talking to "that kid" about this book. That's enough of a reason to have read the book. On to the next one! If you'd like a second opinion, and you really do deserve one, check out some of the reviews on Goodreads. Day 23Cape Cod is the perfect place to spend the summer after a long school year. Generally it takes about two weeks before I can start to relax. I love it when I am truly present. So, if I'm weeding, I'm thinking about the damn weeds or if I'm paddle boarding I'm thinking about sharks and if I'm painting a piece of furniture, I'm thinking about brush strokes and dry time. Too often, I'm riding my bike or walking the dog or doing any of the above-mentioned activities and I'm thinking about teaching. Don't get me wrong. I love teaching and pride myself on being reflective. I have this notion that time away from teaching, time when we refresh and recharge, makes us better teachers. I wonder, when I can't shut my brain off, if it is really considered time away.
I had the pleasure of spending the day at the beach with a colleague today. We're a lot alike and pretty different too. Last school year was marked by many successes and accomplishments that I'm proud of. The students certainly made great gains. BUT. It just wasn't my best year. I have too many regrets and too many of my instructional approaches need rethinking. Actually, I'm gearing up for a complete makeover. I've been teaching for well over two decades. You'd think I'd have more of this figured out. I know what I don't want to see unfold in my classroom next year. I have some pretty good ideas of what I need to see change. My very real struggle is in deciding what parts of my practice I need to abandon and what I need to hold firm to. Add to the mix three purchased curriculums that I do not adore and the situation gets complicated. These are materials that, if used with fidelity, would not, I'm certain, produce the results my students deserve. (I get it...my opinion.) The messaging from my district around how much fidelity is expected has been fuzzy at best. I always worry about my choices. In the end, despite the sideways looks from some colleagues when I'm honest about my practice and despite the fear of my results not being on par with the results of those who use the purchased materials with more fidelity, I make daily decisions that I feel are in the best interests of my students. They come first. I try to set the worry aside. But here it is, the middle of summer, and I'm trying to construct some approach, that takes full advantage of all that is good in the purchased curriculum materials, while respecting my students, all the while focusing on the goal of producing better results. (I DON"T MEAN TEST SCORES!) And it is summer. I digress. My friend came to the beach today and she patiently answered the hundreds of questions I asked about her instruction. One of the things I hate about teaching is that we are fairly isolated. It is hard to learn about how other teachers teach without interviewing them. I fear that my poor friend felt like she was in some kind of awful inquisition and worse, that she was being judged. She signed up for a beach day for crying out loud! Looking back at our day together, I have a few thoughts:
Day 22It is soupy on the Cape today. After some tidying up, watering, and a dog walk I settled in to attend a webinar with Nancy Boyles where she spoke about Reading, Writing, and Rigor: Helping Students Achieve Greater Depth of Knowledge in Literacy. Nancy is a former classroom teacher and literacy expert who resides in my home state of Massachusetts, at least during the summer months. While Nancy is local to me, today's attendees live as far away as Israel, Australia, and India. She really is respected as an authority around the world.
Over the course of the webinar there were so many ideas that resonated with me. What was most helpful to me were the many concrete examples that Nancy provided to illustrate her points. So, if I'm learning about DOK and concrete examples are helpful to me, then I had better be prepared to offer many concrete examples for my students as I help them to develop as readers and writers. I've taken workshops with Dr. Boyles before and I've read a couple of her books. Much of the information wasn't new to me but I just find hearing it again so beneficial. My big take aways today were:
What I know I need to do differently:
Check out Dr. Nancy Boyles' new book: Reading, Writing, and Rigor: Helping Students Achieve Greater Depth of Knowledge in Literacy Day 21My students and I read some extraordinary books together this year. Midway through the year, after facilitating the conversations around theme, character development, the intentional choices an author makes and their impact, etc. it was time to turn the conversation over to my students.
Before beginning, the children and I set some ground rules. We would gather in our classroom meeting space and form a circle. The students would bring whichever book we were reading. All eyes need to be on the speaker. When a classmate is speaking the other students must focus on truly listening so that they can really understand the point being made or the question being posed. During the course of each meeting, students should be sure to find a place to get their voice in the room. Students can share an observation, comment on something they are wondering about, ask a question, agree with a child and provide a detailed reason why they agree or disagree politely and back up their conflicting opinion with evidence. Unlike typical reading lessons, my role as teacher changes. No longer the facilitator, I am now an observer. I do not call on students. Instead, students wait for an appropriate space in the conversation to inject their thinking. If students speak at the same time, one backs off and listens with the idea that he or she will be next to chime in. The conversation typically lasts between ten and twenty minutes. You might be wondering how I assess students during socratic circle time. Sometimes I take anecdotal notes. Usually, I don't. I just really listen. While I'm listening I try to tune into what my students are talking about. Are they talking about the same concepts that emerge during literature lessons? Are they bringing their knowledge of genre, theme, character development, conflict and resolution into the conversation? I tune into the depth. Are they merely identifying the setting or are they wondering about the author's choice and how the setting impacts the reader's experience? How about language? Are they talking about examples of figurative language that they've noticed and are they citing examples from the text? Are they going deeper to wonder how the use of simile, metaphor, personification, etc. helps to paint a vivid picture for the reader? How does the use of language convey tone and mood? How does the language in the novel make you feel? Which choices are most significant? How about the author's use of suspense? How is language used specifically to create suspense? How is the theme developed over the course of the novel and how are the characters developed? When I notice that there is a struggle or lack of attention to certain concepts, I design short mini-lessons that will refocus the students attention and remind them to look for these things as they read along and to share their observations with their peers. I knew that socratic circles were an excellent use of our instructional time when I glanced over at my co-teacher/special educator and saw her blinking back tears. Too often, at the elementary level, students earn the rank of "high" reader because they are great decoders and can read with fairly good fluency. While this is a goal we set for all students, it is not enough. Similarly, students are tagged with the "low" label when decoding is a challenge or when oral reading lacks fluency. The Socratic Circle levels the playing field for our students who may lack fluency. It emphasizes comprehension and the ability to think deeply, analyze text, and make connections. My co-teacher teared up because one of our students who struggled with decoding and had been labeled a "struggling" reader shared a very insightful thing that he had noticed and then he connected his observation to another character in a previous novel. What we observed was not typical of "low" level learners. Do you think that we could learn as much about our students and their comprehension and ability to analyze text from a comprehension or vocabulary worksheet? Heck no! When you raise the expectations, you are sometimes surprised at just how HIGH all children can go! Over the course of the year a number of colleagues and my principal observed the socratic circle. There were a couple of questions that were frequently asked.
I really am rethinking everything I do though. I have some ambitious goals and I know I have to shake it up if I'm going to achieve them. So, I'm wondering about Socratic Circles. Here is the thing, when I think about our call to prepare students for college and career, I know that thinking deeply, learning to be a thoughtful listener, learning how to break into a conversation, learning how to provide examples or evidence to persuade an audience, learning how to disagree in a professional way, etc are all essential no matter what a child's future has in store for him or her. These 21st Century skills can be taught in the fourth grade classroom. While I will be making room for new practices when it comes to teaching reading, the Socratic Circle has to have some place in my instruction. It may end up looking a bit different but it'll be there, one way or another. Day 20Dr. Lara Boyle's TEDx Talk - Vancouver 2015
First, you must take 15 minutes to watch Dr Lara Boyd's TEDx talk. No. Really. Watch it. You waste 15 minutes on Facebook or Instagram or whatever your guilty pleasure is without blinking an eye. This is worthwhile. Trust me. What were your big take aways? There were a few, right. The biggest idea for me was that all brains are different (I knew this) and that it takes time and practice to commit learning to long term memory. Some learners are able to move learning to long term memory more quickly than others but given time and practice, all learners can move to this high level of learning. That doesn't seem too earth shattering. But here is the thing...how often are we really giving our kids the time? When I think about the litany of complaints I air over the course of any given day, week, or school year, I realize that MANY of them boil down to the fact that I need more time. My students need more time. I am not anti-Common Core. However, this set of rigorous standards has put even more pressure on us to teach at a rate that is not conducive to the learning of all students. This is especially true in mathematics where students don't get extra practice at home, at least not like they do with reading. Most parents encourage recreational reading with trips to bookstores and libraries and by sharing bedtime stories. Family reading time is often a time when families slow down and grow closer. Unfortunately, here in the U.S. families are less inclined to engage in math play with their children. Generally, the time students get to do math in the classroom is all the time they get to spend on math learning. Students need many opportunities to engage with new math concepts before conceptual understanding can be moved into long term memory stores. There are a lot of things that aren't right in our math classrooms today. Some of us are still spending too much time on teaching kids to memorize facts and procedures in the absence of meaning making. Students are not given enough opportunities to observe and wonder, to question and observe, to play and model and prove their thinking. This problem is only compounded by the fact that we do not give students enough time to do math (really do math) in the classroom. When I consider the research and what experts like Dr. Lara Boyle are saying about how we learn, I wonder about our students who are failing to meet the standards. Often they are pulled aside to receive explicit instruction, or worse yet, pulled out, or even worse, they're evaluated to see if there are learning difficulties that make progress even more challenging. Maybe, just maybe, there is absolutely nothing "wrong" with these kids. Maybe, quite possibly, they just need more time, quality time, to do math and build their understanding. I also wonder how our interventions have impacted these kids. I know we have had the best of intentions but all kids are smart and I'm sure that most kids in these situations infer that we think that they are "low" or less smart than their peers. This is an ugly reality for too many of our students. There really is no judgement here. I don't have it figured out. I know my colleagues, even my colleagues whose approaches I don't agree with, are working hard with the the very best interests of our students at heart. I definitely don't know what he solution is but I really do think we have a problem here. Day 19After a meh year, when you're trying to completely reinvent yourself, there is this notion that scrapping everything and starting from scratch will be the only solution. I do know that I want a major overhaul. Things have got to change! I schedule a little over 90 minutes of English Language Arts instruction daily. It sounds like it should be enough. It never is. Maybe you're wondering how I spend the time. There is always a read aloud that happens. At first, this is on my insistence but as the year goes on, the readers in my class wouldn't tolerate a single day without the read aloud. The books I read aloud are precious and I work hard to use each day as an opportunity to address the standards. Everything can be taught using this common text. We point out figurative language and discuss the author's word choice. Lessons on tone, mood, and character development, as well as the development of theme happen in the context of the read aloud. It can't go.
Plus. It is magic. There is something about a read aloud that transports my students from our classroom to some other place and some other time. When the book is a good one (and it always is), there simply are no behavior problems. Instead, the kids sit around me on the floor as if I've cast a spell and there are always groans when the time comes to a close. There are days I don't want it to end either! With so much content to teach, I think we always have to justify how we spend our time in the classroom. So here is my list of reasons to hold onto the read aloud:
Seems like the read aloud should stay. What will I be reading aloud this year you wonder? Well, I'm wondering too. Here is a list of strong possibilities. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone J.K. Rowling The Lemonade War Jacqueline Davies Charlotte's Web E.B. White Ribsy Beverly Cleary Because of Winn Dixie Kate DiCamilo Matilda Roald Dahl The Tale of Despereaux Kate DiCamilo Tuck Everlasting Natalie Babbitt We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball Kadir Nelson Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets J.K. Rowling Maybe there is a book missing from my list that is a MUST read for fourth graders and you're sort of miffed that I've missed such an important book. Consider contacting me. I'd love to put together the perfect list of must reads for fourth graders. To quote one of my favorite math heroes, "All of us are smarter than one of us" - Graham Fletcher Day 18I teach fourth grade. In the past, I've taught fifth grade (9 years), second grade (5 years), third grade (5 years). I worked for one year as a math specialist. This will be my fifth year in fourth grade. In my opinion, every year, no matter what grade you teach or how much experience you have, is the perfect year to try something new. One of the new things I tried this year was student-led conferences. I promise, not everything I take on in the classroom is a success. There are PLENTY of flops. I also promise that I'll write about the flops too. However, student-led conferences were a giant success. However, the success does not belong to me. It is a credit to my students and the families who were willing to take this risk and trust me a little.
This year, conferences were offered in both November and March and student-led conferences were available during both months. I really do believe in the power of choice so for that reason, I gave families the choice of a traditional conference, a student-led conference, or a hybrid model. I emailed the parents to communicate that there would be some choice in conference model this year. I did not truly push the student-led with the parents. I kind of pushed it with the students though. I may have said, "Have you ever asked your parent(s) what was said at your parent-teacher conference only to feel like they weren't telling you the WHOLE story?" Lots of cute little heads nodded in the affirmative. I followed up with, "What would you think if I told you that this year could be different? What if you were allowed to attend this year? Heck, what if you could attend AND you could decide what will be shared with your parents and what won't be shared?" Most kids were totally thrilled with the prospect of attending. I was professional enough to tell them that the choice was a family choice and that they should talk to their parents about it at home and make the best choice for their families. Then, I scheduled a few student-led conferences early on. I asked the students to share their experiences with the class. They were overwhelmingly positive. Even the quietest of students began to consider a student-led conference. There was definitely some prep involved for me but most of the preparation fell on the students' shoulders. I prepared a reflection sheet so that the kids would be prepared to speak to the wide variety of topics that I generally cover in a conference. I also coached the students around evidence collection. We use SeeSaw in the classroom in addition to physical portfolios so evidence was fairly easy for the kids to collect. The conferences were scheduled to last 30 minutes each although some went a bit longer. I was blown away by how successful the students were. They kind of used their reflection sheets although once they got warmed up most just spoke from the heart and simply used the sheet to make sure they were covering all the topics. Parents were 100% engaged with their child and asked questions of him/her throughout the conference. For the most part, I was an observer. I would certainly bale a nervous child out by providing an occasional example or short story to support the point the student was making. This was seldom necessary though. Mostly, I was silent, smiled, and nodded my head a lot. What I liked most about the conference was the student ownership and pride. I also loved that the conferences were honest. They had to be with the student at the table. I couldn't BS the parents about what was going on in the classroom and the parents had to play it straight when it came to what was (or wasn't) going on at home too. So, these conferences probably caused me to spend less time prepping the meeting and the parents got more out of the conference. The student got to call the shots and he or she walked away knowing that there was trust at school and home and that we were a team working to help the student achieve his or her goals. Even more parents (nearly all - 20 out of 22) opted for the student-led conference in March. As you might imagine, they were even better! Any risk we can take or change in practice we can make in the interest of giving our students greater agency is worth it. Day 17There were definitely some bright moments when I think back on my year in fourth grade. One such bright spot was developing the #kidmathchat concept and using it with my fourth grade students. I have to give ALL the credit to the pioneers who started #elemmathchat (Melynee Naegele @MNmMath and Brian Bushart @bstockus) because that was where my idea was born. I began participating a couple of years ago. The math chat is just that, a chat. It is held on Thursday nights on Twitter. There are hosts who pose questions and push the participants to think more deeply. I always feel challenged to do better for my students and I'm eager to put what I learn into practice. The chats last only one hour and the time FLIES. These chats are great PD. They've done a lot to forward my math thinking. At some point, I began to wonder if this couldn't work with fourth grade students.
Our math year had gotten off to a pretty slow start. It took a long time to get my students to a place where they felt comfortable thinking deeply about math and feeling comfortable enough to enter into a math conversation with their peers. After lots of pumping the brake, and slowing down the pace so that we could build community in our math class, my students were ready for different experiences where they'd be taking some risks. This really didn't start to happen till the winter holidays were upon us. The December winter vacation was quickly approaching and it was important to keep my students engaged. I thought that this might be a good time to take a risk myself. I even invited my principal to drop in. I outlined what I thought she would see. I had made some chocolate chip cookies for my own children's teachers as part of their holiday gifts. You know, every time we bake in bulk there is a ton of math going on. I snapped some pictures along the way having only a loose idea of where this chat would go. While I had some questions planned, some emerged as a result of student conversations in the room and on the chat. Wow was it a fast paced and sort of stressful lesson. There were definitely some mathematical ah ha moments. What I liked most was that students were participating in small teams. There was such rich conversation in the room as teams prepared their response tweets to my questions. What was really remarkable was how engaged ALL the kids were. Participating in groups made all the difference. The risk-free conversations that happened in their small groups kept all students in the conversation. The first chat really was a success but I knew there would be things I'd do differently if there was to be another #kidmathchat. The next time I attempted a #kidmathchat it was early February and I asked some colleagues to participate along with us. This made it a little more fun for my students too. I actually opened it up to my #elemmathchat friends and shared it using the #MTBoS hashtag. One teacher from a fourth grade classroom in Boston did check in for a while. That was cool too. I learned that preparation is key! I prepared all my slides in advance. This took a lot of pressure off of me. I was able to read the student tweets and comment back to them right away. They liked that they were getting responses from me. I liked that I could push their thinking during the chat as my thinking had so often been pushed in the #elemmathchat. My big take away this time: I planned way too many questions and the pace ended up being way too fast for my kids. I knew that the next time I attempted this I'd scale back on the questions and put more emphasis on getting my students to go deeper with their thinking and and to offer proof. I wanted to see them interacting with one another too and challenging one another's thinking. Here is the kind of sucky thing. This was my last #kidmathchat of the year. I did what I promise myself I won't do. Every. Damn. Year. I let myself get bogged down with "covering" content because our state testing (MCAS) was coming up. After it was over, I just never got around to putting another chat together. I really do think that this is a worthwhile format to use to get kids talking about math, solving problems, and making their thinking visible. There was something about "publishing" their thinking that added a level of importance to the work we were doing. I'm also considering a slow #kidmathchat. While it is summer and I should be a little more chill, especially in July, my head is swimming with ideas and plans. I'm wondering if a once a month chat wouldn't be a reasonable goal. Perhaps we could try a slow chat too. I'm wondering if we could even get the parents involved in a slow chat. Have ideas on this topic? Think you might be interested in joining us? I'd love to hear from you. |
Marie McManus BrighamA public school teacher who gets to wonder alongside fourth-graders. Archives
December 2018
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