Positive Classroom Management

I love this topic. It is heavily related to the previous post about student engagement. If students are engaged, discipline problems are much less likely to pop up. Students often misbehave because they are bored or because they don't understand the lesson. In first grade, it is all classroom management all the time. Positive management is definitely my style. It is amazing how quickly students shape up when the good students start getting attention. Why not give attention to the good students and ignore the bad behavior? Of course I can't ignore all the bad behavior, but positivity helps. This week I tried something new called "mystery student". I told them that I would be picking mystery students throughout the day. If they did what they were supposed to do, the whole class would get a point. Points earn fun time for the students. It worked like a charm. As soon as I would mention that I picked a mystery student, they would all get super studious. It was a great week. Thanks for the idea, Dana!

Student Engagement

Student engagement is the meat and potatoes of teaching. If students are not engaged, they are not going to learn. The days of passive listening are over. We are a multitasking society. Students must learn while doing. An added benefit of an engaged class is that everyone is having a good time. A positive atmosphere goes a long way. Of course, there are many ways to engage students. Some strategies will not be everyone's favorite. Writing, for example, is hard for many first graders, especially the struggling readers. They still need to practice the skill, but we make sure to do many other engagement activities as well. One of my favorites is whole body movement. Spelling time is a great time for whole body movement. I like to break up our reading block with spelling in the middle. Not only do the movements help students learn to spell better, but they also get the students out of their seats and get their blood flowing. We like to clap our spelling words based on the type of letter we are spelling. This also doubles as handwriting practice. Letters which go to the top line are clapped over the head. Letters hitting the middle only are clapped in front. Letters going under the line are clapped down. For example, the word, "bag" would be clapped up, middle, and down as we say the letters and spell the word. All teachers struggle with classroom management. It was definitely something I struggled with when starting out. One veteran teacher warned me, "If you don't have classroom management, you have nothing." Then she proceeded to run her classroom like a bootcamp full of robots. I tried this approach, but we were all miserable. There had to be a better way. What I've found is that a positive, structured classroom full of engagement opportunities will eliminate most behavior problems. Engagement is the key. For my most recent peer observation, I had a math lesson all planned out. We were using work mats to relate addition to subtraction. We chanted, "part-part-whole," and used our arms to show adding to the whole and subtracting from the whole. The students really got the lesson, which was a big improvement from my attempts to teach the concept last year. I felt good about the lesson going in because I was prepared. I was still worried about that unknown factor: how would the kids behave? Would I get 85% engagement? It turns out, I didn't need to worry. Both my peer observer and observing administrators had nothing but positive feedback. They said my greatest strength was classroom management. That felt really good!

STEM

I was excited when the topic of STEM came up in my student teaching group. All I knew was that it stood for science, technology, engineering, and math. I didn't know how to implement it. Since we do science first semester at my school, it was good to see how the process works. I will be brainstorming a first grade project for us to try after fall break. In the meantime, I decided to use the evaluation process of plus and delta to a writing project we were working on. We are learning how to write personal narratives. After a few days of writing rough drafts, the students traded papers. They were asked to write a plus and a delta on their neighbor's paper. It was fun to incorporate this into a writing assignment.

Children in Danger

Abuse is a very sad subject to bring up in education. Unfortunately, this issue is all too common. Teachers must look for warning signs and take whatever action is needed in order to protect children. From an educational standpoint, children will not be able to learn if their basic needs are not met. More importantly, their lives and the well being of their classmates might be at risk. This year, I have a student who is living with relatives and recovering from abuse. His parents have lost custody. He has noticeable emotional disturbance. I have referred him to the STAT team at our school and hope he will receive a referral and evaluation from our psychologist as quickly as possible so that he can receive the therapy he needs. I am also in close communication with his caretakers. We are meeting tomorrow to discuss his most recent and disturbing behavioral problem. Thankfully, we all want what is best for him. He requires a lot of my attention, but for his sake and the protection of the other children, I will do everything I can to help.

Common Core Standards

Prior to teaching in a public school, I had heard of Common Core Standards. Nothing I had heard was good. Nevertheless, I came in with an open mind. It seemed like they had been created in order to keep tabs on a few bad teachers while tying the hands of all the other good teachers. I was concerned that they would rob me of the ability to be creative with my students. When I saw the standards for first grade, I was concerned that they were not developmentally appropriate. After implementing them, I have found they are not so bad after all. One aha moment I had was about the so called "new math". Just yesterday in our staff meeting, we watched a video of a group of 5th graders do a math talk. The teacher asked them to compute 30 x 16 in their heads, and they did it. I suddenly felt that I had been robbed as a child. Why didn't I learn the number sense and strategies required to do this? I have become a big fan of "new math". I still think the standards are too hard for a lot of first graders, but I am finding new ways to help them get there. I am seeing the value of working with manipulatives. Today I worked with a group of kids who were having trouble subtracting. We used ten frames and counters. I was able to watch them make the connection, and it was a beautiful thing. I like having an over-arching goal for what to teach during the year. I wish we had a nice curriculum to get us there rather than having to piece together a lot of different things. But I'm getting the hang of it. Now if I could only get the parents to stop stressing out about grades...

Poverty

Poverty is, unfortunately, all too common in America. My mom grew up in it because her parents were alcoholics. My dad grew up in a large working class family. His parents were educated but had to abandon their goals of higher education to take care of the family's immediate needs. Both of my parents defied the odds and saw education as a way out. They went to college on full scholarships. My dad became an engineer. My mom was a teacher, then a stay at home mom. I was raised in a very financially stable home. It was hard for me as a young adult to adjust to a lower standard of living than I was raised with. I have never been hungry, but I have had a lot of financial insecurity as we raised kids and figured out jobs in our early years of marriage. I am just now feeling financially secure again (and that includes climbing out of debt). I am thankful for the experiences I have had because it helps me know more about what my students are dealing with. I know how it feels to ask for help. It feels terrible. My school is Title 1, so all the kids get free breakfast and lunch. At the beginning of the year, there was so much going on that I did not look for ways to connect students with more help. I realized that sometimes kids are chronically late. Those kids may not have had breakfast. Others need clothes or school supplies. It has been great to find out all the services available for needy students. There are local organizations, such as School Bell, which provide students with clothes and school supplies. I have referred students for this service. The poorest students often have the greatest struggles academically. Often, they do not have help at home with homework or reading. I have referred those students for STAT to make sure they get as much help as possible. I am proud of how our school and district address poverty. We are making a difference.

Assessment

Assessment is a big buzzword in education. I recently had an assignment (I'm a student AND a first year teacher!) to write about the pros and cons of high stakes testing. I hope my professor was sitting down when she read what I wrote. I made sure to give one pro (accountability), but then I pretty much ranted about the cons. My district uses test scores in order to evaluate teachers and determine bonus pay. Thankfully my students hit the district average this quarter on that big test. Focusing in on the students, not teachers, assessment is certainly important. I have learned that assessments can take on many different forms. Even the scantron tests can give valuable data to show how the students are doing with learning the standards. I was happy to find out that observation is a valid form of assessment. This is certainly something I have always done. Since my students are little, unless I am working with a small group, I am always monitoring them while they are doing their work. I know which ones are going to need more help, so I focus there. But I need to take this form of assessment a step further. I need to keep records of who knows what. This quarter I have begun keeping a running chart of many skills I want my students to master and how they are doing on these skills. We have a chart for checking off decodables and a chart for checking off sight word lists. I also need to add notes from my daily observations so I know who needs more practice with each skill. It would be better to get this information before the formative tests are taken because reteaching is easier than retesting. I am also learning about making and using rubrics. It is all good- one wild, messy, but worth it ride.

Professionalism

Today's topic is professionalism. In theory, this is not a problem. Appropriate attire and behavior on the job are not difficult concepts to grasp. The hardest aspect of professionalism is confidentiality among fellow teachers. Teachers constantly talk about their students. Some knowingly share stories about students during recess. Others nosily ask pointed questions during lunch like, "How does so and so behave in class. I'm friends with his mom, so I know about the ADHD, etc..." The second one is clearly crossing the line. I always speak positively about my students and change the subject quickly when asked questions like that. The first scenario is a little more challenging. Although I have slipped, I am committed to show my students the same level of respect I hope their families show me.

Today's topic: bullying. This is so important. Teachers must be vigilant to keep students safe. As a first grade teacher it is challenging to sort through the incessant tattling and make sure to recognize any real bullying threats. I am lucky that I did not have to witness any serious bullying as a child. I have a very low tolerance for cruelty. If I feel like anyone is crossing the line with me or someone else, I will speak up. In addition to the tattling, I unfortunately have dishonest students. Someone will accuse someone, and they will deny it. What to do? Teaching involves so many judgement calls. It is difficult to navigate these situations. I haven't had to do it yet, but if serious accusations went flying, I would request a meeting with the principal. In the meantime, I am diffusing minor personality conflicts and attempting to help students take ownership of their actions.

I'm Baaaack! Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I'm back at it as the new and improved first grade teacher in training. Our adapted year round schedule is very nice. I had a three week Winter Break. I spent the first week refusing to think about work. The second week I thought about it a little bit and only did stuff because I wanted to. The third week was busy busy busy getting a jump start on the semester with lots of exciting new plans and activities. Three things I focused on improving this semester were lesson planning for large group, stronger focus on small group instruction, and differentiation. So far I'm seeing some big improvements. I spend a lot of time getting into my curricula and mapping things out to get a handle on the big picture of where we need to go academically for the rest of the year. I got some activities put together for eBackpack. I got vocabulary together for the word wall and grammar mats. I mapped out our social studies curriculum. So far we are enjoying the fruits of my labor. Good lesson planning makes a difference in keeping the kids engaged and under control. Our small group time has increased. I started with a heavy focus on the daily 5 activities and expectations. We did some practicing with a stamina chart for reading to ourselves and reading with partners. I am still working with the PTA to get headphones for all the kids and with our tech team to get Epic going on all the iPads for an awesome "listening to reading" library. I'm offering 3 activity stations and a small group to round out each component of the rotation. Throughout the week I meet with each group for reading time now at least once. I also meet with students individually for Dibels progress monitoring every third week. Math rotations are still a work in progress. I'm pulling small groups at least a few times a week, but we still need to get a good rotation going. I am open to suggestions! Differentiation drove me to the daily 5 reading schedule. It is a great way to give kids the individual focus they need. I have three teams. Each group has a color according to their level. The books are sorted into their color bin. In our word sort activities, I have color coded notecards for the words, which vary in difficulty according to group level. I am definitely making progress.