CR Mngmnt: Motivators

I am getting into this late but wanted to resurrect the blog. There is so much good stuff in here. I love Julia's lis as a reminder. I dug out my Vern paper before I started last week and used that intense interview sheet I had emailed to all of you from Zalika's class. Love it. . . Love that it is really all relavent where I am at.

The thing I am adding this week and quickly realized the importance of was the class and team motivators. It is something I picked up from GLAD. I am teaching one PE class a week and believe it should be two. So, I am putting the kids into pods this week and assigning Roman City names for each (since that is my unit) and will keep this posted on the board. Then under that will be Whole Class Points. Then if the kids are on task they will earn points per group or whole class. . that will add up and get them a second PE. The hard part will be making sure the gym is available.

Now to remember all those PE games from that great class. I did pick up a really cool one called Star Wars at Boeckman Creek. Anyhoo, let's see if anyone reads this or I have time to keep this up!

Commentary on the most recent posts

I feel similar to Michael on focusing on classroom management and community building by using Vern's paper. The first year I probably follow the curriculum closely but slowly branch of from it being more experienced and confident in curriculum planning that meets all the standards. Julia, I really liked the workshop type feel in your future classroom. The different stations for differentiation is fabulous, I need to take some notes. Has anyone (other than Lauren who has observed in this classroom) seen the Daily Five happening in upper grades. In a 5th grade classroom I observed in she had this going on and it was awesome. One part of it is there are Lit groups that present. They have the option of a bunch of presentation styles like: storyboard skit (that is approved from the get go) Late Night with... (interviewing) game show (the kids have been on a trend with this one I guess. The jeopardy board is already made up by the teacher so the group just puts the index card with questions in it) advertisement (I saw I group doing an ad for James and the Giant Peach where the peach was being sold). Seeing this was pretty cool.

after a long hiatus...

Sorry for the delay, friends. It's finally time to get the blog up and running again, with the purpose of having a place to air out our anxieties, challenge our methods and discuss our thoughts. Here's what I've been wondering about as of late:

With all the readings, advice and papers we've been accumulating, I feel many great ideas are getting lost in the shuffle. I'm desperate to get organized! I fear I'll leave all my school work in a pile and won't know what's what as we start our teaching. Plus we'll be given articles, staff readings and policies and all of the new curriculum thrown at us, so I think it would be wiser to organize now and get a game plan. So here's what I could really use: a list of best ideas from each subject that we can add to and edit as continue our studies and look back on previous classes. This would be a team effort and could be done little by little, but I know it would help me to have a go to list of activities and essentials for when we're setting up our classroom and class structure. What do you guys think?

Always, for everything, keep in mind the Big IDEA
Identify what needs to be done
Decide
how it will be done
who will do it
when it needs to be done
Execute your plan
Assess what went well and what didn't go well

BEGINNING OF THE YEAR:

home visits and parent packets (for more information see classroom mgmt text p. 164)

bingo

guess who (p. 133 c. mgmt. book)
multiple intelligences quiz

Overall classroom structure:

• computers
• bean bag chairs
• mailboxes
• word wall
  
• carpet space big enough for two classes
• carpet space for small group to meet
• space for individualized instruction
• don't NEED a teacher desk, could place things around the room
  
• large work table with exploration opportunities (could be a station that changes with the changing units) with topical texts and realia for kids to touch and talk about on their own
• ELMO
• lamps and an overall environment that encourages focus and relaxation which will encourage stamina.
• turn in bin: include "in progress" and "completed"
• bins for parent work, and place designated for completed work
  
• tray marked with "notes for (your name)" for parents, kids with notes, and places for other teachers or admin to put things if you're busy; keep them all together so you don't lose them and sort through them am and pm and prioritize.
• keep things out that you use everyday! make them accessible, it saves time.
• think about how much you want to use desks. it might be easier to use magazine holders for every kid for their materials, and color coded bins that match the subject folder (eg. math journals are yellow, bin is yellow).
  
• put student number on folders, then have captains put their table's in numerical order so you can pick them up in order and pass them out easily next time
  

JOBS:

• if it doesn't require a master's degree, delegate to kids or parents--think montessori.
• KID JOBS make a chart you can use each year with pockets labeled with jobs not kids' names.
• have one job be "substitute" so you have someone to fill in for absentees.
• also, train the students to be responsible for their own space, and have daily inspection (day 1: clean under table for inspection, day 2: under table and on top of table for inspection, by end should have overlapping circles of 3 foot radius) have 5 points/table. if they lose a point, take it from class table so its collaborative, and if they reach a total, can get popcorn on a friday or something.
• PARENT JOBS have a pile ready that can always be worked on without instruction
• Have sign up list where parents who can't commit to a regular time or want to help on field trips/special days can sign up -- get contact info!
• Have calendar with slots for someone to fill in name, #, email (can send instructions before hand)
• To get work done regularly and get parents involved, host a half hour after school party. Just bring cookies and juice, invite siblings and have older kid do read aloud, have task work all laid out and parents can just dive in.
• Have parents make posters of vocab lists etc.
  

Planning and Assessment:

• Lesson plans are mapped out on the following, and visible to the whole class:

-Whole year on one poster month by month with duties, assessments field trips, days off, training, and when certain units should be started. Helps map out timing for field trips that have to be secured in September! View the school year as one whole unit, then break it down to smaller parts.
-Have a smaller replica to carry to meetings/take home and keep them exactly the same.
-Dry erase calendar that students can see which you bump up every few weeks so kids can see ahead.
-Daily schedule with time slots; kids can erase this every day, or you can laminate velcro-able or magnetized strips that are color coded and can be moved around.
-Daily lesson plans (Make sure you have lessons planned out for 2 weeks time!) Have a written schedule with time slots that is replicable and can be easily formatted for subs. Also have several emergency sub lessons. Overall--need 30 weeks of planned lessons, vocab lists and assessments.

• Observational Formative Assessment: Come up with your own observation chart, mark goals and completion. Slash could mean completed, box not yet done, and box with slash means late. Have one on a clipboard for each subject with room for individual student observations, can hang clipboards on wall and fold over names for discretion.
• Homework: Keep it relevant and make sure you differentiate. You should have 5 versions of homework if you can: easy, easy with medium on the back if they're ready, medium, medium with hard on back if they feel ready, hard
  

Data:

• Send home a weekly newsletter detailing what you did in class this week, and upcoming school and class events. Include a section of great questions for the answers to ask their kids such as, "What happened to Wilber when Templton's rotten egg broke?" or "How did you smile on picture day?"
  

Reading:

• 90 minute reading block, with mini lesson to discuss strategies, time to work on strategies in stations, and a block of independent reading time.
  
• stations so that I have a time segment to confer with individuals or groups that need extra support for differentiation. Other station ideas: listening station with books on tape, drawing/painting station to work on mental imagery, computer station with text that's on screen so kids get used to the medium, text scavenger hunt where kids have to look through different mediums (books, articles, newspapers for certain content)
  
• book club
• author study or subject study display
  
• big books/read alouds with multiple copies for students to read independently after class reading
  
• large library organized by genre, not level
• book boxes/bags for "next to read"

Writing:

• notebooks for daily writing and strategy development
• 6o minute writing block
• peer assessment with read alouds
• book publishing project
• I am from poems
  
• writing stations with specific focuses such as:

leads (with example texts that use good leads)
sentence fluency
word choice
conventions (and punctuation)
voice
organization
ideas & content

Possible Projects:
garden
outdoor paint project

Games:

Zap

Two Truths, One Lie

Animal Signs

Arriba, Abajo

Heads Up, Seven Up

Magic Scrap

Community Circle

Machine

Freeze

Rainstorm

Conductor

Symphony

When writing sub plans remember to mention suggestions for approaching specific students. Be sure to include information on routines, game ideas.

END OF THE YEAR:

class photo album

This is a start.

11/2 Katherine's class

Here are my notes from the Brain Research presentation we had in class on Tuesday.

Brain Research – From Filler to Fulfiller

Rick and Sally Doughty

How to read brain scans

Cerebellum has to do with balance and coordinates the thinking in your mind

· Normal cerebellum activity is in the back of the brain

Hole generally means that there isn’t much activity – dead brain areas

Head trauma – brain damage to front of her brain – prefrontal cortex… normal childhood but had trouble making good decisions

Prefrontal cortex is the last part to develop - works, but is very slow for awhile, is the part that helps you make good decisions

· Gives you focus

· Forethought

· Judgment

· Impulse control

· Organization

· Planning

· Empathy

· Learning from mistakes

PFC Problems

· Short attention span

· Impulsive

· Procrastination

· Disorganization

· Poor judgment

· Lack of empathy

· Bad at learning mistakes

PFC exercise

· Goal setting/problem solving PFC function

· One page miracle

o Relationships

o School/work

o Money

o Body

o Mind/spirit

o http://www.amenclinics.com/my-brain-health/brain-health-club/fifteen-days-to-a-better-brain/the-one-page-miracle/

Emotions come on-line before good decision makings come

Many times murderers have problems in the limbic system – make bad decisions…. Pre frontal cortex has less neurons – pre frontal cortexes aid with empathy

The more you exercise your brain areas, the more it grows.

Filler to Fulfiller

Kids are generally on track developing if they’re 18 months ahead or behind

Filler – 0 to 3 yrs approx.

· brain develops back to front

· mirror neurons

o mirror what you do

· atmosphere of home key

o safe, secure, loving vs stressful, chaotic, rude

o ladies usually gifted in this

· attunement and implicit learning

· TV bad…

Follower – 3 yrs to 12 yrs approx.

· want to emulate or follow something or someone

· add in explicit learning

· being actively involved, directing, teaching

· school readiness

· control exposures – who influences

· give choices to the children

· goal setting/problem solving

· how to help:

o evaluate and encourage ability to

§ function apart from mom and dad

§ direct attention

§ follow directions

§ interact socially

§ take turns

§ make choices

§ be self-aware

o when you talk to kids, show – don’t tell. Ex. In line when kids are all crazy say “you look like this” and show them.

o When kid is being fussy… “you are doing this… show… what you mean is ‘down please.’”

o Be a role model they can follow

o Goal setting/problem solving

o Provide physical activity

§ Book like Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers are good to read

Finder – 12 to 20 years approx,

· Explosion of neural connections and pruning

· Key new areas of the brain come on-line

o Novelty seeking, risk taking, oppositional, emotional

Fulfiller – 20+ years approx.

· Brain not fully developed until about 25

· As with all the years good nutrition is important

· Be a part of the support system without rescuing

10/20/09 Social Studies Notes

Here are some of my notes from Social Studies on Tuesday!

Though the class was three hours long, this is pretty much what I got out of it...

Group Work

We started out by talking about how to build a cooperative community in the classroom and that group work can help this. We were split up into groups and given a bag of paper cups that we had to use with our group to build the tallest tower of cups possible, and we couldn't talk.

After we did this activity, we debriefed it and discussed if there were leaders in each group or if everyone shared the responsibility, if there were ever frustrations, etc. We talked about the difference between being a leader (delegates responsibilities, is kind, etc) and bossy (usually ends up doing everything his or herself, usually isn't kind).

Discussed how you could do activities like this and then talk with class about what being bossy looks like and what being a leader sounds like. You could ask the class what someone in their group said that really helped them get to their goal.

Then we moved onto the readings and got into small groups to answer the questions "What is the role of history?" "How do you get history into the curriculum?" and find a short interesting passage from the reading.

My group discussed how you can use debates, guided discussions and primary sources to look at history. That there is a great importance in authenticity and looking at different perspectives. We discussed in our large group how history can be incorporated into the classroom through acting, dramatizations and really trying to get the students to experience the history so that it connects to their lives.

We looked at one another's posters and that was neat. We didn't really do much with that besides look at them...

Then we watched a video on a classroom at Santa Domingo Elementary with a male teacher teaching a history lesson to his class (I think they were first graders...)

The students had read a book on modern farming titled Heartland the previous week and drawn a picture with something that would only be used in modern times. Then they read the Ox-Cart Man and looked on the timeline, which had other dates and events on it, such as the birth of their parents, grandparents, great-great-grandparents, etc., and placed the time that the Ox-Cart Man takes place, on it. Students listened to the story and drew another picture of something that would only be around in past farms and then a final picture of something on a past and a modern farm.

The goal was to try and show how things change, or stay the same, in a certain area throughout history. Because the children had a connection to farming in their community and homes, the teacher chose to look at farming, but it could really be about anything.

Hmmm that's all I got, hope it helps!

ESOL Notes 10/20

Lao vs. the Board of Education

This is a landmark where Chinese speaking community members in San Francisco challenged the school board for equal access to education and won. Now, every school district in the country must have a "Lao plan," a strategy to provide equal educational access to ELLS

Schools receive Title III funding to assist in this. As a result, ELL students are audited to test for proficiency and progress. The general expectation is that students will advance one proficiency level per academic year (for example Early Intermediate----Intermediate). If stundents don't pass the audit, schools will lose funding.

Express Placement----If the student tests high in English, s/he might get monitored.

Susana Dutos's Systematic English Language Development curriculum is the ELD curriculum that is most commonly accepted nationwide. The scope and sequence of this curriculum tends to dominate these audits and therefore, schools that utilize other curriculums sometimes fail to measure up.

Another commonly used ELD program is Rigby's "Into English" program. However, it is less popular than Dutros's.

Students are assessed on:

Oral Language Development

Purposes of language use (functions)

Grammatical structures

Structured oral and written language proficiency

This is aligned with language proficiency standards.

Mortar words= connecting words (of, for but, and, etc.) These are often the most difficult words and structures for ELLs to master.

Different forms of assessment: Woodcock, SOLOM, ELPA

*Assignment: find out which assessment your site uses.

Susanna Dutro's home page has some info on scope and sequence. However, she carefully guards a lot of her information!

The ELPA test is available online through a website. Students use a computer and headphones to complete the test.

For the case study next week: bring in SOLOM and all artifacts (writing samples, etc.9

Math notes for 10/19

Multiplication:

You need to start out concretely, not through abstraction or memorization. It helps to start by teaching with arrays (more on that later, it's hard to post the diagrams on the blog!)

Younger students can use tiles and manips. for starters, but should be weaned off later.

Cindi diagrammed various methods of multiplication strategies. I can show you them later.

To multiply effectively, especially in algebra, you must remember the:

Order of Operations

Please (parentheses)

Excuse exponents

My x multiplication

Dear division

Aunt addition

Sally subtraction

Different strategies kids use to multiply:

Repeated Addition

43 x 6 = 43 +43+43+43+43+43

Count bys: 43,86,129,172, 215, 258

Make an easier problem: (43x5) + 43x1= 215+ 43= 258

Base Ten

(40x6) + (3x6) = 240+18= 258

Expanded notation

27X34= (20+7) (30+ 4) FOIL this (FOIL= multiply first, outside, inside, last)

600+80+210+28=

Partial Products 27

x34

28

80

210

600

Total= 918

My division notes are not as sweet and neat, so if someone wants to add those...