Backwards Design

My first backwards design unit of the year is my Earth Materials unit.  The beginning of the year has been a tough adjustment.  I have been trying really hard to get my class organized with curriculum, behavior, and into the routine of a typical schedule.  This process has been more difficult than it has been in other years.

Some of my curriculum has been hard to get to because of the time spent working on the classroom routine.  The best work that I have done with my students so far has been my Earth Materials unit.  I knew before I started where I needed to be at the end of this unit.  I also knew exactly how I was going to get there.  I am very focused and it makes my teaching of the BDU very easy, even with the hustle and bustle of the beginning of the year.      I would love to take the time to put many more of my teaching into this format.

Growth Mindset

I try to always have a growth mindset, both at work and in my personal life.  Currently I am beginning my 7th year of teaching fourth grade.  Each year I take in a new group of about 26 - 28 kids.  A teacher with a growth mindset helps to figure out what each particular group needs.  I know that I cannot expect each group, or even each student to function or behave in the same way.

As I am trying new ideas for teaching and behavior management, I always include myself as a part of the problem or solution.  I wonder what I am doing to contribute to the successes or failures of the group.  I find that when I look at my own role, I can identify things that I may be doing to make a situation difficult.  For example, if I make it a requirement that my students sit still, I may be creating unnecessary problems.  Instead I look at a problem and think about what I need the students to do, and what are ways to get there.

A New Year

I am always very excited to start a new year.  I love that in this job there is closure on each year.  It gives us an opportunity to reflect on the previous year and also the opportunity to make changes.  As I start each new year I add ideas or change things that need changing.

One thing that I am really excited to work on is the community.  I am having a slow start to my classroom routine, but this past Friday I was able to have a great conversation with the class about acceptance.  It felt for the first time this year that a classroom community is on its way.  This is by far my favorite thing about beginning a new year.

First Week

My first week was very challenging.  I felt really prepared and had fabulous plans written.  There were many more behaviors to work with than I anticipated.  The hard part was not being able to get to what I had planned.  I missed both my community building activities and academic plans.  I had planned a different energizer or brain break each day.  As I went along I could feel that the class was not able to tolerate so many different ideas.  Instead I worked on one activity for a brain break the entire week.

The activity I did was the greeting where you toss the tennis ball around the circle.  It took all week to get most of them tossing the ball and not pitching it, not laughing at each other, cooperating, etc.  I am glad that I gave them more time with the activity until we felt that it was successful.  Otherwise it feels like rushing through things just to get them done without any gain.

I am hoping each week will gradually get better.  I do love my group!

Action Research Project

My action research has to do with eliminating all of the weight on summative assessments.  Instead I am concentrating on daily formative assessments, learning targets, and really working on giving great feedback.  I have researched a lot on feedback.  I am finding that learning and progress is greatest when students know where they are going and are supported every step of the way.  If the teacher knows and communicates to the student about mistakes and how to eliminate them, then the student will benefit immediately.

One interesting thing that I found was from an article called, "Know Thy Feedback," written by John Hattie in 2012.  He said that when giving feedback, it should be very specific and not given with praise.  He said that if you praise the student while giving feedback, they may concentrate instead on the praise.  So be kind when giving feedback, but save the praise for a separate conversation.  It makes sense to me, but it also feels natural to give a "Great job!" along with my feedback.  This is something for me to work on.

This year...

This year I am so excited for a new beginning.  The things that I am most excited for are all of my new ideas.  Last year as I learned the new ideas, they seemed more difficult to implement because I was already in the midst of plans and other learning.  I think starting a fresh year with fresh students and families will make implementation much smoother.  Specifically I am looking forward to my technology ideas.  I did start the kidblog in my class last year and it went very well.  Now I felt that it was a practice run and I cannot wait to develop it from the beginning of the year.

I also blogged on my school website for the families.  It didn't go very well because I started about 2/3 into the year.  Not many parents read it.  I ended up quitting the blog and no one even noticed.  This year I am going to start it at the beginning and preview it with families at open house.  I will add class notes, homework assignments, a google calendar of events, a daily blog, links to websites for fun academic games, and some photos of our group.  I am hoping that it is a useful tool this year!

Community Building

Another important thing that I do for community building is very simple and it requires no planning or materials.  This is something that I do all year long.  It is simply talking to my class.  I always have my class community in mind and take every opportunity to work on the environment.

In the beginning of the year I get to know the students as quickly as I can.  I ask them their parents' names, siblings, pets, hobbies, etc.  I make a point to remember this information and then I ask the students often about their family.  We do a lot of connecting to each other through these conversations.  The students also know that I care about them as people as well as students.

As the year moves along, I keep a very close ear to what is important to them.  If something is happening that I think would be beneficial to talk about, then I take time out of the academic day to do so.  Some example topics may be a death of a family member or pet, home event, illness, news event, etc.  Other examples may be positive things like birthdays, sports accomplishments, or hobbies that students might be involved in.

I find that this community building really makes the students know that I care about them.  When they know that I care, they work hard, and also trust me when they need help with something.  These connections are one of my favorite parts of being a teacher.