Learning, Sun, New Friends, and Fun!

In July, I attended the DEN Summer Institute (DENSI) 2017.  DENSI is a unique weeklong residential-style event, focused on professional learning, leadership, and networking hosted this year on the campus of the University of San Diego, California.  I would like to take a few minutes to share my experiences.

I was honored when I was notified that I had been selected as an attendee, after submitting my written and video application.  Then, I was happily surprised to be chosen as a session presenter on “Student Lead Classrooms and Learning”, and asked to facilitate a session on “Genius Hour” as a first year participant.

I spent six very full days with over 100 educators from across the United States, Canada, China, United Kingdom, Egypt, Haiti, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.  I left connected to these passionate educators, inspired by experts, and equipped with new ideas to transform teaching and learning.  Every day we shared with each other ideas for using technology to energize our own teaching.  We spent time with science experts in the field studying ocean biology, learned from keynote speakers, discussed STEM, and worked collaboratively with the Discovery Education team.

I left San Diego inspired and motivated with a new professional learning network and life-long friendships, as well as fond memories of genuine laugher, truly immersive experiences, and good fun with amazing people.  

I have invested much to my professional growth and learning over my career, and am happy to say that travel expenses incurred for DENSI were an extremely valuable investment in my growth and learning.  I am confident that what I learned will assist me in in my role as a curriculum technology partner as I support student and staff learning.

My story of making connections, building relationships and learning from others does not end with my DENSI experience.  It continues by participating in Twitter chats (#gfedchat on Mondays), book studies, and working with student and teachers every day in Grand Forks.  I am excited about the opportunities for growth, learning and teaching partnerships this year.

Together, we can do amazing things!

The Summer Sun and a Good Book

It’s here, the summer sun at the end of another very full school year of teaching and learning!  Now, as you push through the last stack of paperwork, take care of end of the year tasks and check items off your to do list, grab the list of books you been meaning to read when you have more time and sprint with your full book bag to the end of the 2016 – 2017 tunnel!

My reading diet has been pretty light the past two weeks.  The demands of family, work, concerts, graduations, and other priorities (training for races, binge watching Netflix) will take me away from my stack of reading materials for periods of time.  The past two summers, I have taken advantage of the slower pace and the break from full time work to catch up on my reading, participate in book studies, read great books recommended by Pernille Ripp and Donalyn Miller, and set my own book a day reading goals.

Donalyn Miller @donalynbooks started the #bookadaychallenge in 2009 because she realized that she and her family read less during the last six weeks of the school year than any other time. Announcing the first annual Book-a-Day Challenge was a public declaration of Donalyn’s commitment to read one a book a day for every day of summer break. She wanted to kick start her reading life and push myself to read more than I ever had.

The Book-a-Day challeng has grown and changed over the years.   Particpants began using the hashtag #bookaday to connect and share books on Twitter. The Nerdy Book Club community grew from the conversations #bookaday participants were having online every day. The #bookaday has grown into a community that shares books and celebrates reading all year.

The #bookaday guidelines are simple:

You set your own start date and end date.

Read one book per day for each day of summer vacation. This is an average, so if you read three books in one day and none the next two, it still counts.

Any book qualifies including picture books, nonfiction, professional books, audio books, graphic novels, poetry anthologies, or fiction—children’s, youth, or adult titles.

Keep a list of the books you read and share them often via a social networking site like goodreads or Twitter (#bookaday), a blog, or Facebook page.

You do not have to post reviews, but you can if you wish. Titles will do.

If you want to join a book club, consider joining Penny Kittle’s @pennykittle: The Book Love Foundation SummerBook Club '17: Enjoy a summer of Book Love. Also, keep an eye out for possible book studies with your colleagues!

Maybe, take time to volunteer and read to children or bring your own child to the GFPS Little Red Reading Bus @GFRedReadingBus this summer!  Check out their twitter page for more information and schedule. 

Need book ideas?

Check out the Nerdy Book Club 

Pernille Ripp @pernilleripp has great book suggestions.  You can follow her blog, click here for her lastest post. I really enjoyed Pernille’s post on free verse texts, and have enjoyed many of the titles she recommends. 

Consider picking up a book everyday this summer. Read to your children, read for you students, join a book club or a book study, and read for yourself !  Finally, enjoy a wonderful summer!

Parent Communication

I have been disappointed at the volume of negative press teachers and schools have been getting this year.  And, most recently, our district has been reflected negatively in the media as well.  There seems to be a lot demanded of our teachers and schools from our community and parents to “be all we can” for kids.

Now, more than ever, it is vital we tell our story and share our successes.  Our parents need to know us as teachers and humans that care about their children.  We need to communicate that the whole child is important, not just the child’s ability to complete school work.  Finally, they need to know what we do on a daily basis for their children’s learning and emotional wellness.  We all know how students respond when they are asked what they did at school; and we all know that you did far more than “nothing”. 

How do we do that?

Provide a letter of introduction to your students and families.  This is simplest first step, but it is often overlooked. Before school starts, send a letter to your students families introducing yourself and welcoming them to your class.  Or, simply share a quick video introduction.  Share your teaching experience, your expectations of students and parents, and a little about your personal life too, (your family, hobbies, etc).

Attend Open Houses, Parent-Teacher Conferences, and events in building that support parent-teacher relationships.  Don’t underestimate the power of a telephone call or telephone conference, if a face-to-face meeting isn’t possible. Notes or a call home, make sure you sandwich the not so good news with something positive both before and after. And even better yet, is to get into the habit of sending positive notes home. If you are in the practice of communicating with parents through “just because” positive notes, then if you have to share the negative news the parents might be more receptive to hearing it.

Start a classroom newsletter.  Newsletters have always been a great form of communication and nothing has changed there. What may have changed is the avenue through which you share your newsletter. These are a great way to remind parents of upcoming events and include pictures of children at school.  They can be emailed, posted to the website, or shared to a social media site.

Class or School Websites are often the first places we head for information. Having basic information available online is a great way to communicate with parents while also marketing yourself and your school to prospective parents.

Try sending Thank You Notes to parents for the opportunity to learn and grow with their children. Even for those challenging students (and sometimes especially for those challenging students), a note of thanks goes a long way in establishing good rapport with parents and showing them how much you value their child.

Apps that push out messages to parents, such as Remind, are awesome tools as well.  These go directly to a mobile device, and keep your personal telephone number safely private.  I have had colleagues give out their personal telephone number to parents and students, and then later regret this decision as they were getting texted at all hours of the night for sometimes very inappropriate reasons.  Here is a great article listing some good app choices:  12 Apps for Smarter Teacher-Parent Communication.

Finally, my favorite mode of communication with parents is Social Media. While you may occasionally find a family without a computer or email address, this is definitely the exception rather than the norm. In this information age, you have to meet parents where they are. Take advantage of the technology and communicate with parents via Twitter, Facebook and blogs.  Students can help you manage classroom accounts and with guidance post items that tell your classroom story.

I’ll leave you with a thought:  Sharing our good news with the community is vital.  Doing all this may seem daunting!  Pick and choose what works for you and your classroom.  Opening lines of positive communication and sharing the great things happening in your classroom is the heart of effective parent communication.

It will ultimately make your job easier and parents will appreciate it too!

Time to Breakout (EDU)!

Breakout EDU has developed a way to use play, excitement, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity in the classroom environment with breakout box kits or digital breakout games.  Students solve clues and Breakout (or unlock clues or boxes) for the “win”. I have used kits can be used to create puzzles and mysteries for students to discover curriculum or review content.

Breakout EDU can be used to introduce a new lesson or concept, to reinforce and strengthen learning, or at the end of a unit to bring closure to a lesson and reinforce skills and concepts learned, all in a fun way.

Breakout EDU’s kits provide the basic materials necessary to present puzzles for students to decipher, each clue leading to another, and ultimately to the locked the puzzle or mystery. There are many reasons to try Breakout EDU:

Last year, I used a sandbox game with my students to discover the Lost Colony of Roanoke found on the website: http://www.breakoutedu.com/.  I set the timer and turned them loose.

The students were immediately curious and their problem-solving skills soon kicked in. They worked independently and together to solve clues. They made mistakes, backtracked, and tried again, moving from one clue to the next. As the game evolved, the excitement grew and even initially reluctant students gained confidence and began taking active roles in the quest for solutions. The kids were questioning, thinking and focusing, solving the puzzle and “breaking out”—all the time trying to beat the clock!  Excitedly they all asked, “When can we do it again?”

Well, I was just as hooked as they are!  I set off to write my first game: Escape from Mars as a review of science and math content.  From that moment on, I have been looking for lessons and puzzles on the Breakout EDU site and writing my own.

I have written a 7th graded math game incorporating variables and the awesome new lock I found on Amazon.  It allows for a letter variable and two-digit answer. I have become a frequent browser for new locks on Amazon Prime!

I have written a school wide Polar Express game, with 6 versions geared to each grade level from kindergarten to 5th grade. And, most recently, I created a game for 5th grade teachers introducing a Social Studies and literacy unit for Colonial Williamsburg and Fever 1793.

I have also spent some time exploring Digital Breakout games found at http://www.breakoutedu.com/digital/. No boxes or locks needed. Students login to the game using their Chromebooks, and you are off to solve a puzzle or mystery!

Frankly I am hooked on this awesome learning tool and the opportunities to provide for students and teachers.

 Consider “Breaking Out” of the routine and trying a Breakout Edu game in your classroom today

You are so much more!

You are not your test score!  You are so much more!

There are many things that standardized tests can’t measure. Tests can’t predict who will “succeed” in life, regardless of your definition of success. Tests can’t tell a child what he needs to improve, or how to improve it.

These tests don’t recognize our most creative thinkers. We need to celebrate these thinkers because our world needs all the creative problem solvers it can get. Tests don’t measure kindness, perseverance, generosity, creativity, resilience, and collaborative skills. Skills that will likely get them farther than a test score will.

As we enter our final two days of the state assessment and soon head into our final round of STAR testing, let’s keep in mind that we are entrusted with these children to help them grow, learn and develop skills for life. Yes, test taking is a skill. But, this skill alone does not prepare a child for life and career.

As, I helped students and teachers navigate our state assessment last week, I kept thinking:  “ You are NOT your test score!”  This test does not measure the essence of the child or the teachers teaching them. It is one little blip on the road of life.

Last year, I found a letter on a blog post and was inspired to write my own letter to my students, letting them know they have many gifts beyond taking a test.  I thought I would share the letter I found written by head teacher at Barrowford Primary School with you:

Letter:

Please find enclosed your end of KS2 test results. We are very proud of you as you demonstrated huge amounts of commitment and tried your very best during this tricky week.

However, we are concerned that these tests do not always assess all of what it is that make each of you special and unique. The people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you- the way your teachers do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way your families do.

They do not know that many of you speak two languages. They do not know that you can play a musical instrument or that you can dance or paint a picture. They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them or that your laughter can brighten the dreariest day.

They do not know that you write poetry or songs, play or participate in sports, wonder about the future, or that sometimes you take care of your little brother or sister after school.

They do not know that you have travelled to a really neat place or that you know how to tell a great story or that you really love spending time with special family members and friends.

They do not know that you can be trustworthy, kind or thoughtful, and that you try, every day, to be your very best… the scores you get will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything.

So enjoy your results and be very proud of these but remember there are many ways of being smart.

Let’s help child recognize the importance of the virtues that tests can’t measure. Children everywhere deserve to know they are so much more than a test score.

Becoming a Connected Educator

In the fall George Couros shared the following quote with us when he spent the day with us on September 30, 2016:

We know that our students are “online” and “plugged in” more often than not.  We see intentional shifts in the way we teach, moving to Google Apps For Education and moving away from paper and pencil.  All teachers have a district provided device, and students in grades 4 – 8 do as well.

But are we teachers taking advantage of technology in the classroom to get “connected” too?

It is essential that we begin to consider ourselves as “connected educators.”  That we jump into the water with our students to become global citizens and collaborators as well.  Just imagine the impact we would make on teaching and learning in if each educator in Grand Forks shared something with others just once a week?

So, what is a Connected Teacher?

A connected teacher is an educator who has actively established associations with other professionals and resources from across the world.  These connections exist both inside and outside of the digital arena.  Connected teachers take time to connect to:

·      Others in your building. Smiling, asking questions and being reliable goes a long way in establishing professional relationships that help make you a better teacher. You don’t have to look far to find other teachers with similar challenges, fresh ideas, and equal passions.

·      Teachers in your region. You can connect with familiar faces at district level professional learning meetings, conferences, seminars, cross-district interactions, and even at competitions. It’s helpful to gain insight into what’s occurring at other buildings and what’s trending across your region.

·      Professionals and resources online. This is what we typically think “connected” means, because this is when you connect with like-minded individuals across the world who can link you to experiences, ideas, resources, or literally anything else you may need to get to that next level of instructional performance.

Getting connected plugs you into an active, passionate, customizable network of professionals ready to share with you and help you succeed as an educator.  But how do you actually go about doing this?

In addition to simply forging relationships with the people you work with or know regionally, here are the most powerful ways teachers have already discovered for connecting with each other:

Social Media: Twitter, Google+, Facebook, etc. I love Twitter because connections are fast and easy to make.  If you like what another educator has to say or the links they share, follow them. In a matter of moments you can create a personalized professional network of teachers you like to learn from, and at any given moment you can scroll through recent “tweets” and learn from them. You can even get engaged in educational conversations yourself by asking questions, using hashtags, and participating in twitter chats.  One of the local chats I follow weekly is #gfedchat.   Google+ and Facebook are similar by providing the fundamentals for allowing you to find and follow other professionals as well as a platform for sharing your own micro-blog commentaries, updates, resources and data.

Blogs. Do you have a blog of your own? Consider starting one at blogger, which is part of our GAFE applications (it’s in the waffle). Or, explore blogspot.com, weebly.com, tumblr.com, or the teacher-specific edublogs.com. Or if you’re not ready for sharing your own blog, then subscribe to others and participate with them!

Create a vlog on YouTube. Did you know that behind Google, Youtube is the second-largest search engine in the world? Post videos of your ideas and lessons for students and teachers to observe. Find videos of others and subscribe to your favorite contributors and share comments and connections.

When it comes to being a connected educator, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. Do what suits you … but do something.  If you can’t get to it today, make a point to do so in the next five days. The resources we have today allow for unprecedented opportunities for expanding your knowledge and mastery. There are millions of teachers waiting to get connected to you!  Please, consider telling your story!

Why MakerSpace?

I've always enjoyed drawing, painting, crafting, decorating and creating.  I find this time relaxing, allowing me freedom to explore, problem solve and sometimes fail.  I tried to make a rose out of duck tape last week, and failed.  No worries, failing in a creative process is painless and provides motivation for second attempts!

As a classroom teacher, I wanted to give my students as many chances as possible to be creative. Over the years, I've seen amazing projects from students who dared to take creative chances. I also found that the use of a MakerSpace in my classroom allowed students to be creative, collaborate with peers, critically think through obstacles and be innovators.

I have loved having a MakerSpace in my classroom, but what about the rest of the building?  I am blessed to be working with Lane, my friend and amazing media specialist.  Together we are on a mission to establish a MakerSpace in the library.

Last week, we attended a Maker Fair together.  We had so much fun creating, tinkering, taking apart and learning together.  We left energized and ready to put together a space that will be beneficial to our students and staff.

We are working on a space that is easily accessible to students.  Our goal is for the space to be a place where students can drop in before school, during lunch, after school, or even during the day if the teacher allows them to visit. We have a corner and room that could be use for our entire MakerSpace.

We have been collecting materials for our space.  Some grant funds were secured for the space last year, and Lane and I have brought our own materials, as well as recycled materials we are collecting.  We are also hoping to write grants for future additions.  It is exciting to have a mission, vision and dream for a space that will grow and evolve over time.

The space will be theme driven to begin with.  Our plan is to set materials out by theme and let the students take lead.  Of course we have some expectations for how the space will be managed.  This means that we will have some rules for behavior and materials.  The first theme for our space, is based on art: Wire Art.  We can’t wait to see what students create!

Why is MakerSpace important? It can be tough to explain the value of creativity to some people who see data as the most important function of school.  I can tell you that research show that students are in need of relationships, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills and resilience.  Tony Wagner shares seven survival skills students need in his book The Global Achievement Gap, and a MakerSpace addresses most of these.  MakerSpaces can encourage a whole new generation of creative minds to explore and solve the big problems.  Giving students a chance to see what they can do when they aren't limited by multiple-choice answers. Creativity is a valuable resource, a MakerSpace is a key to enhance and harness it.

Making is crucial for happiness, health, and mind expansion. We are hoping that we create a space that helps Spartans dig in and get immersed.  Our library will be providing a space for projects as well as books, and fosters relationships as well as minds.