Trust is to People as Water is to Plants

After reading and reflecting on "The Principle of Trust" from Houston and Sokolow's The Spiritual Dimension of Leadership one thing that really jumped out at me is the idea that "trust is to people as water is to plants;" we all need to trust and to feel trusted in order to thrive.

However, another idea that resonated with me, and one that I agree with, is trust is not an easy thing to maneuver. Some people have been burned so badly that they enter into a new relationship, whether it be personal or work related, with a lack of trust...before ever exploring the option that this person might actually be trustworthy. Houston and Sokolow explain the importance of trusting that people are innately good and remind us that "the very act of trusting people unleashes a powerful force that empowers them and brings out the best in them...when people feel trusted, they tend to behave in a trustworthy manner and give more of themselves," (pg. 131-132).

I've seen this play out many times over the past five years in my classroom. I start every school year trusting each one of my students and try to present them with opportunities that show how much I trust them. I know many teachers don't allow students to go near their desk or *gasp* IN it...but I am constantly asking my kids to get something from behind or in my desk...knowing very well that there are things in there that may tempt them. However, only twice have I experienced a break in this trust when something (a piece of candy and a calculator) went missing. I caught one of the students in action and, instead of yelling or even writing her up, I simply told her how disappointed I was because we had spent almost the entire year in a trusting relationship and that was now broken. I've never had a student cry like she did! I have her in my class again this year (having looped up) and she still brings up "that time when she broke my trust." She's worked very hard ever since then to earn it back and I think we have a very strong relationship because of it.

Some of my very best relationships, including my marriage, are based on a strong foundation of trust. I don't believe this would be the case were I not a trustworthy person myself. This is something I strive very hard to maintain and hope to continue instilling this in my students, and my own children, for many years!

Action Research...Action!

Since the beginning of last school year (2012/2013) I've been conducting an Action Research study on Reader's Theater and repeated reading and the effects these strategies have on reading fluency.
When I began this research last year I had a group of 26 second graders, 16 who were below grade level. With this alarming number came a group of kids who had yet to develop their love of reading..mostly because they had no idea WHAT they were reading. I knew I had to start somewhere but simply teaching them how to break apart words didn't seem to be enough. Yes, some of them needed this strategy, but most were ready to move on to that "next step" of reading..but what was that next step?

After reading many articles about reading fluency one thing became very clear: to become more fluent with a passage it must be read over, and over and OVER. The more the student read the passage, the more cognitive attention would be needed to decode and could therefore be given to comprehension. Great...so I'll just have my kids read the same book 20 times. No problem...not boring...at all..

I knew this wouldn't go over too well and that I had to incorporate a more motivating strategy to get them to WANT to practice a passage multiple times. This is where Reader's Theater came in to place! While I won't go too far into detail, this website does a wonderful job explaining what Reader's Theater is and how it may look in a classroom. Also, ReadingA-Z offers many multi-leveled scripts (with a subscription...but well worth it) that my students loved practicing and performing.

Needless to say, I saw such a great increase in their reading fluency that their comprehension levels went up as a result! When I decide to loop up with my class to third grade I knew I had to continue the success in reading growth by continuing the use of these scripts in conjunction with other fluency strategies.

I've continued to see a HUGE growth in my students' reading abilities and their confidence! Where I once had 16 of 26 students below grade level I'm now proud to say that, of my current class of 25, 19 are reading at or well above grade level expectations :)

technology as a classroom staple

Technology is one of those things that you love to hate. While there is an endless amount of ways to enrich learning within the classroom when technology is involved, it doesn't always go as planned.

However, this is the direction in which our students are headed. We live in a day where toddlers can swipe an iPad screen, select an app and be entertained for hours.

I've certainly seen this engagement transfer into the classroom as my students are more "entertained" when the Smart Board or iPad is a central part of the lesson. In fact, I could write something on chart paper and lose them within minutes...put a piece of paper under the ELMO (projector) and show it on the Smart Board and they're locked in.

I've always been one to try and integrate technology into my lessons and, more recently through my master's program, have been more intentional about using it to enhance the learning and not simply act as a substitution for paper and pencil. While I've been trying many new apps and websites I've learned that what's best for my students and me is to find and implement one new idea and give it due diligence for a week or two. This allows for me to fully understand how to best use it in our classroom and gives my students the opportunity to become "fluent" and independent with it as well. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in all the possibilities that technology can bring us but, to better increase engagement and deepen understanding, it's worth it to me to "weed out" the substitutions and focus on finding things that truly enhance their learning.

More technology in the classroom

"She's baaaaack!!" (Enter my students' brains last Tuesday morning :)

I'm kidding..at least I hope I am. For the most part, all 25 of my little sweeties seemed very excited to see me :) There were a few, of course, who had been getting away with a little (or a lot) more than I would've allowed and those few...well...they looked slightly less enthused. They'll come around!

With my return came some new tech tools that I had been waiting anxiously to try out with my kiddos! I wrote about one of these tools, Haiku Deck, here. Another tool I chose to use is called Coggle. This user-friendly site allows you to create a mind map with a simple click and type format. It's free and, as I said, it's VERY easy to use but you do need to create an account. I'd love for my students to create their own, but feel as though, on the SAMR technology model, it's really only a substitution for paper. I do feel my students were more engaged with the technology portion versus if I would've simply written it on the chart...and it DOES save on paper (which I think we're all trying to do this time of year)!

The other tool I used (which I've used in the past and LOVE) is Infuse Learning. This website allows you to create and save quizzes that can include images and be formatted as open-answer, multiple choice, true or false or one-question exit ticket. Once the quiz is created you can then "invite" your students to join the quiz using your room code. Students enter the code, their name, and then move through the quiz at their own pace. The best part is the instant data! As the students proceed through the quiz their responses show up on the teacher device in a sort of bar-graph format. I was able to use this multiplication quiz to check for understanding within various strategies and then make on-the-spot groups based on their results! Quick, easy and no paper required...what more could a teacher ask for? :)

Haiku Deck...Do you?

This past week I continued to expand upon my technology bag of tricks as I played around with a new tool: Haiku Deck (http://www.haikudeck.com/app/edit/r6WgFWkIwt). This website allows you to easily create and present a slideshow, much like a powerpoint. It is very user friendly as it walks you through adding text and pictures and even provides you with a large selection of pictures based on key text you've used. 

I'll be returning to my classroom in just a week and will be wrapping up a multiplication unit that my LTS has been working on with my 3rd graders. Since multiplication is a fairly new concept to many, it's essential that they understand the basics of mulitplication as well as the many strategies for solving! 

With this in mind I chose to create a haiku deck reviewing the various strategies (repeated addition, equal groups, arrays, skip counting, etc.). While adding a new slide and formating the text within that slide was very easy, I did struggle to import a picture from a source outside of the website itself. I found that pictures couldn't be centered, or fit to the screen, and would cut off important aspects of the picture. Another slight concern I had was the fact that you have to sign in with an email. I'd love to have my students create their own haiku decks but am not sure how they'd go about doing that without an email address. 

For now, I'll continue playing around with this tool as I find it to be an appealing way to present visual information. I'm hoping the more I play with it, the sooner I'll see a way in which to put this tool in the hands of my third graders! 

UPDATE!

I was able to put this bad boy to the test! (Why I used that expression there I don't know...)

Anyways, my students really enjoyed the simple, clean-cut illustrations because they could easily tell which multiplication strategy I was talking about. I chose to pull it up on my iPad and use AirServer to present it on my SMART Board as I walked around the group. It went like this:

I asked each student to pick a multiplication fact that they knew the product to (they couldn't use 1 or 0 as a factor). They wrote that fact on their white board. I then projected one of the slides on the board showing a way to represent that fact (repeated addition, arrays, etc.) and they had to represent their fact in that way. 

This served as a great way for me to quickly check-in on their progress and see which strategies needed more time (ARRAYS!!). 

Overall, great tool, easy to use and implement in the classroom and one I'd like to try and teach my students to create and use on their own!

Struggle and a strength..UPDATE!

Shortly after posting about my struggle to return to work after maternity leave I found myself awake around my little man's favorite time to eat (and be awake!)...3 am. I was having my own little pitty party as I'm still pretty sleep deprived and totally overwhelmed with the looming "return date." While he eats I typically find myself skimming the internet, reading blogs or "creeping" on Facebook. However, this time Facebook presented me with something more than just a bunch of random pictures and status updates about how cold it is here in Minnesota.

The first thing to pop up on my news feed was this article: "What Students Remember Most About Teachers."

As I got to the end of the article I was encompassed by emotions and, for the first time since my son was born in December, found myself rejuvenated by the idea of returning to work. I have 25 students there waiting for me to remind them just how special they are and, starting Tuesday, that's exactly what I intend to do.

Where there is a struggle...there is a strength (conference bloggers)

As I head into my final week of maternity leave I'm seriously struggling with wrapping my head around being Mrs. Geier and not just "mommy." I've had nightmares (for lack of any better word) for the past three nights that I'll return to my group, which I've worked over a year with to develop respectful, hard-working kids, and they'll have "turned on me." (Like I said...they were nightmares)

I know this sounds extreme, but that's where I'm struggling. I work with some pretty extreme kids! Not to mention I've gotten three new students in the past two weeks...one who has already been written up three times for fighting.

My fear is, when I left my classroom I was "only" a wife. With my husband working three nights a week I was able to stay late, when needed, helping students after school, making parent phone calls, and differentiating multiple lessons to ensure the next day would go smoothly.

Now, my #1 priority is no longer my job, but my family; especially my 2 month old son. My struggle is knowing whether or not I'll be able to continue being the teacher I expect myself to be; the teacher my students need me to be. How can I possibly find the time to plan, grade, read and research (grad school!), feed, burp and, most importantly, snuggle?!

However, as the title of this post states: "Where this is a struggle...there is a strength."

I've always been a believer that "If He leads you to it, He will lead you through it." I find strength in knowing that I can be a really great teacher, grad student, wife and mom. While I know it'll be one of the more stressful times in my short 27 years, I will get through it. My students will succeed, I will get my Master's degree and my husband and little boy will feel very loved through it all.

If at first you don't succeed...the power of PERSISTENCE!

On December 4th I began the hardest job I ever have, and probably ever will, face...the job of being a first-time mom!! As I began this journey I was optimistic...after all, I had read all the books, talked to all my first-time-mom friends...I was ready!

NOT.

Ever since my son was born he's been one giant mystery to me! I've tried everything I could to "figure him out" as we struggled through feeding, acid reflux (we think?), sleeping (and NOT sleeping...), and desperately trying to get into some kind of routine.

Being the slightly type A person I am and the fact that my job thrives off of routines, the fact that I'm in week 8 and still feel so helpless often causes me to feel like...I'll just say it...I'm bad at being a mom.

However, when my grad school facilitators presented me with this image:

something sort of sparked in me. 

As I read through the above suggestions on "how to be persistent," I realized how many of them I'd been tapping into the past 8 weeks. 

To start, I've certainly learned from my mistakes! To better try and learn from my son, I've created a "plan" of sorts and recorded his feeding and sleeping patterns. I've then been able to refer back to that "plan" when things didn't go so well, or did (!!), and adapt or stick to something. I've found that having this persistence within the plan has helped us to understand his cues and signs a little better.

Also, I've checked in with so many experts (thank you Google, Partners in Pediatrics, and my fellow new mommies) that I'm finally starting to feel (ever so slightly) like an expert myself! 

The one area that struck me as a necessary reminder was that which is accompanied by a smily face: "Keep positive. Start again if you have to. Just don't give up. You will succeed."

I know that someday, maybe even just a few weeks from now, I'll look back and realize how many things we've done right with our first-born and how happy he is because of the love and persistence we've shown him. 

While my family is truly my whole life right now, in just a few weeks I'll be returning to the classroom where I'll be faced with 24 students who need me to follow the above suggestions on a daily basis. My "high-flyers" will most likely need me more than ever as their routine and structure hasn't been what they're used to with me being gone and the multiple snow days we've had. My sweet, shy and quiet kids will need me to show this persistence as I get our class back in order and help us to return to the swing of things. And I, I'll need to keep these suggestions in mind as I begin my journey as a full-time working mom who has to juggle lesson plans, grad school and all my mommy duties. It will be hard. But I'll persist..and I will succeed :)

"I Don't Care"

Let me start by saying..I DO care! In fact, I care so much that I tend to take things to heart that I shouldn't. Like, for example, when a student...who I've spent almost all year working on, looks me dead in the eyes and says "I don't care!" I think it's a natural thing to go into that fight or flight mode when you hear that. You tend to think one of two things.."SERIOUSLY?? Well fine then...you don't care? Well I don't care either...so there!" (yes, we've all digressed to a 7 year old at some point or another) OR "Oh really..I'll make you care. You can go sit in the office for 7 hours until you CARE!" (At your breaking point...)

Unfortunately, this is a saying that I've heard as a teacher who teaches in a very high-poverty school where many of my students have developed this default phrase as their number one defense mechanism. Thankfully, I've learned the power of building relationships and trust with them so I don't hear it all too often.

However, when I do hear it, I tend to immediately run the gamete of "What did I do wrong?" "How could they not care when I spent over 3 hours this weekend putting this really cool lesson together?" and "But I care SO much about you! Don't you see that?"

I very frequently found myself taking their negative behavior and hurtful words very personally. (Hi my name is Natalie and I have very thin skin. "Hi, Natalie.") However, when I recently read a chapter on classroom management written by Robert Marzano he spoke about the importance of having an appropriate mental set in order to effectively manage. One aspect of your mental set is that of emotional objectivity: "the ability to address disciplinary issues in an 'unemotional, matter-of-fact manner'...carrying out the various aspects of classroom management without becoming emotionally involved or personalizing students' actions."

I suck at this. Pardon my French. But I do.

I love my job, and my students, so much that I emotionally invest to the point that I take things personally when I really shouldn't. After reading that article I set myself a new year's resolution not to worry so much! To learn to let things slide of my back and not think too deeply about it. Then, as if it were a sign from above, one of my grad school cohort members presented our group with an article about working with students when they "don't care." This article  provides three positive strategies that help work with students who seem disengaged: get to know your students, take time to talk to students and don't take student antagonism and inaction personally. Since this is my resolution, I chose to focus and reflect mostly on strategy #3. The author highlights a teacher reflecting on one of her disengaged students: "The less I take their immature behavior personally the more engaged I am. I'm realizing that their behavior is much more about their own lives, trials and tribulations that it is about me."

With this in mind, my goal upon returning to my classroom after maternity leave is to step back and take a breath before making an emotionally charged judgement or rationalization. I'll do this because I do care, about them and about myself, and by keeping my emotions in check I'll be doing us all a favor!

Using iPad Apps to Engage and Enhance Creativity and Inquiry

While I'm currently out of the classroom on maternity leave I find myself frequenting some of my favorite blogs during the late night feedings (trust me...there's not much on TV at 3am!). One of my favorite blogs, Minds In Bloom recently hosted a guest blogger who wrote about iPad apps that can be used in multiple ways throughout the year to enhance creativity and inquiry among students. My classroom was lucky enough to continue with our 1:1 iPad initiative this year so, having looped with my 2nd grade students into 3rd, we're able to deepen our experience with this technology!

This post brought about some great points about the difference between what the guest blogger, Katherine Fountain refers to as "content/skill apps" and "creator apps." A content/skill app is one that is used to practice a certain set of skills, such as fractions or geometry, and usually, once the skill is learned, the app is set aside as the students become bored and find no need to continue practicing. No creativity or critical thinking is needed.

Then there are creator apps: these apps or websites are resources that can be used across multiple curricular areas throughout the year and give the students a "platform within the app to create a product to share." A few of these apps are Screen Chomp, Educreations, Show Me, Story Me, Doceri, Drawing Free and Drawing Desk.

In a prior post I blogged about how I've been using Educreations to allow my students to send me their learning while I'm gone on leave. I've had a few students do this consistently and I LOVE getting a lesson from them showing me what they're up to. However, Fountain suggested another great way to use this app that I'm hoping to implement when I return in February. When she plans to be out of the classroom, instead of typing up pages of sub plans, she's chosen to use an interactive whiteboard (Educreations, Screen Chomp or Show Me) to create her lessons ahead of time and simply posts them to a class website. The sub then plays these lessons for the students. While I've used Educreations to create differentiated lessons for my different groups, I've yet to use this app in this way but am anxious to give it a try!

Another app I'd like to try is "Story Me." This app allows students to use real pictures, captions and word bubbles to create a sketch, actual photo or comic strip. I'd love to use this as an incentive of sorts for when a student reaches the publishing stage in the writing process. They could create an accompanying picture or one that shows a "how-to" writing. I think this would highly motivate my students and allows them to show their creative side!

Literature Circles During Daily 5 (for my conference bloggers)

One new literature strategy that I've begun using more intentionally this year is Literature Circles (aka "Book Clubs). I should begin by saying that I had this group of 3rd graders last year as 2nd graders so was able to spend the entire year setting up the expectations for Daily 5 and practicing each element (especially Read to Self and Read to Someone) until we had them down pat!

With that in place last year, we were able to spend a few of the first weeks of school practicing and reteaching, and we were off and running! I saw this as an opportunity to go deeper with my guided reading groups...

While I've done guided reading for the past 4 years, it's taken many shapes and forms and (other than implementing my fluency research last year) I've never really felt like the students enjoyed this time or really grew as readers because of our group work. I wanted to change that.

I decided to try using literature circles with my highest readers as I felt that they'd be a good "test group" and one that could handle the increased responsibility during reading. Here's a quick run down:

-My group consisted of 6 readers (rigby levels between Q and U)
-This group so happened to have 3 boys and 3 girls so I split it into two mini-groups who still met at the same time
-With the help of our media specialist, the girls selected 3 copies of the same book that they all wanted to read and the boys did the same.
-Once they had the book, I introduced one role at a time. These roles were:

• Book Club Leader-this person had a checklist of meeting "duties" to be addressed each time they met to discuss
• Question Asker- as they're reading this person was to come up with at least 3 questions ("thick questions" that caused them to think outside the text)
• Word Wizard-find at least 3 interesting words, denote the page number and state why they chose the word
• Connection Maker-as they're reading, make at least 3 text connections to themselves, the world around them or another text they've read
• Artful Artist-after reading their selected pages, they are to draw a picture that was created in their mind at some point during the reading

Each student was given a role to complete while they read a selected amount of pages. The next time we got together the students would use their role to guide the discussion and then decide on the next set of pages to read. 

Because this was new to my students, I acted as the book club leader for the first few weeks so they could see what a book group should look like and know how to take the discussion deeper than simply reading what they'd found. 

I was VERY impressed with how well they took on their responsibilities and by the 3rd week they were exchanging phone numbers so they could call each other at home while they were reading (SERIOUSLY!!?!...it was definitely a teacher moment :)

While I'm no expert on Literature Circles, please click here for more resources to implement this wonderful strategy into your daily reading block! 

Reflecting on another round of action research

My how things have changed since my last reflection! Since then...I've become a "stay-at-home-mommy" to a beautiful little boy!! While it certainly isn't the easy, glamorous life that most people think of when they hear you stay at home (usually in your pj's) all day, I absolutely adore every minute with him and, quite honestly, have struggled to think about work. I miss my students dearly but my focus has solely been here with my family.

On that note...as I began my AR reflection/write-up I had to step out of my current state of mind and place myself back in the classroom to reflect on how my data collection went this time around. While I feel it was pretty successful, and I saw some wonderful growth in my students as writers, I feel that this round went a little less smoothly than the last AR cycle. I think this came about because of all the unexpected that happens in our day-to-day teaching. I had big plans to lead my students through at least 2 complete "units" of writing (mini-lessons and stories taken through the complete writing process) with the hopes that I'd have beautifully written pieces of writing to publish at the end. Not quite.

I didn't anticipate the amount of time it would take just to get my writer's workshop time up and running! Each day, for about the first 2 1/2 weeks, began with a need to review expectations and reflect on our previous day. I found that when I began to try and move to fast, things quickly fell apart. Any other time I would've felt completely comfortable taking that time to build up the expectations and practice them until we could do it in our sleep, but because I knew I was going on maternity leave at the beginning of December, I had a sense of urgency to get things moving for my sub. My hope is that I've left her with enough structure and that my lesson plans were detailed enough for her to continue this model when I'm gone. In a perfect world, I'll be able to pick right back up where we left off when I return in February...in a perfect world ;)