I think is important to remain a life-long learner so I am taking you along on this journey with me as I explore a problem I saw in my teaching and try to do something to change it for the better
When I first started teaching, I taught first grade. I LOVE first graders. I love their excitement each day, I love their stories and I love how they are open books. I knew EVERYTHING about them. The community we had in the classroom was powerful. I taught first grade for ten years before taking a new position as a math interventionist / coach. I also love teaching math. It is my favorite subject to teach. I tell my students that teaching them helped me better understand math. I would use my struggles with math to help them see why it is so important to truly understand mathematics at a foundational level, so that new knowledge has a place to build upon. So, I was leaving something I loved to do something else I loved.
I learned very quickly that my new position could not be more different than the one I just left. I didn’t have one large group of kids. Instead I had 8 small groups of kids from different grades and classrooms. We did not spend all day everyday together. And I did not know ANYTHING about them. When people would ask me how the new job was, I would smile and say “great, I LOVE teaching math”. Inside, I was screaming… I MISS MY CLASSROOM!
As the first few weeks went by, I learned a little about the kids I worked with. As the first month went by I found a majority of the students to be “less than thrilled” to be doing math. I attributed it to math being a subject they struggled with. So I worked harder to ensure I was doing everything I could to fill in the gaps and misunderstandings they had around the grade level content. They made some progress, which is good, but it did not feel great.
I really dove in and created games, researched online tools, followed blogs, and joined twitter. I was going to light a fire under these kiddos and inspire them to LOVE math and help them to see the importance of their hard work. I bought Growth Mindset books like Your Fantastic Elastic Brain and planned Mindset Monday activities as a way to start each week, we redefined failure and the whole school started to refer to FAIL as First Attempt In Learning. I won’t say it did nothing…. But it did not have the effect I was looking for.
This was not a problem with my first graders. Maybe I am not cut out to do this job. A lot of self doubt entered the equation. And I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it. I was the only math interventionist in my school. Who could understand what I was going through? And then the real panic set in. How am I supposed to fix this by myself? There was no one there who understood what I was going through. I started thinking… I know that there were things I struggled with as a first grade teacher. Of course there were! And when I was stuck, I would turn to my wonderful colleagues. They would help me brainstorm ideas and offer their expertise and experiences and I would go to them because I trusted their opinions but also because I knew they wanted to see me succeed, they cared about me and my success just as much as their own.
Then it hit me…. As Michael Wesch tells us, the environment you create is more important than the content you teach. The struggles I was having here were because I had not worked to establish the core values and beliefs I had as a teacher in my new position. And I believe that is why I was not getting as much from my students as well. They didn’t know my WHY. They didn’t know enough about me, nor I about them, to inspire them and make them believe they could be risk takers in my classroom. As Simon Sinek says, “people don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it”. I had started with the what… there are the concepts you need to learn and here is how we are going to do it. I had worked from the outside in, rather than the inside out, and the kids weren’t buying it.
I believe students learn best when meaning is constructed by students taking risks with their learning. This only happens when students feel they are part of a community that supports them, includes them and values them as an integral part of the group. This was a missing piece - it was a difference between my first grade classroom and my current classroom; and so I looked for ways to connect with my IB students the way I connected with my first graders. I needed to build the classroom community.
At first I did not know how to do this because they were all separated each day. Each grade had a different IB block. Within each grade the individual children’s schedules were different. But then I realized we all eat. So I started a lunch bunch- how very technocrat of me, right?! Although I could not get all students K-4 at the same time, I could get K-2 students and 3-4 students together, and I figured that was a good place to start. So we had lunch together. We got to know each other and spent the time talking about life inside and outside of school. Students began to open up. They smiled more. We all began to feel like a part of something, and it improved moral and attitudes in the group.
For this upcoming year, I will be back in the classroom. Not first grade, but third. And I started thinking about building that classroom community that is so important for student success. I realized that a couple of things have changed since first grade. The most impactful change is that our district has gone google, giving us access to a lot of online tools I did not have when I taught first grade. Scott Noon would say this is my chance to become more techno-constructivist.
So I asked myself, what can I do to build a strong supportive classroom community that really gets to my WHY? I realized. I can create a classroom community that exists even when we are not sitting in room 23! Google classroom will be a tool I can use to build classroom community and provide students and families with connections to me, classmates and resources, even when they are at home. This will also help me to stay organized and consistent, something I feel is important for students to see in their teachers.
Who?
Myself and students will have direct access to our classroom on google. Parents will have access to class information through Google Guardian, which sends reminders, summaries and reports via e mail. This can provide parents conversation starters for home. Sherry Turkle challenges us to demonstrate the value of conversation with our children and create device free zones. The parent e mails could provide parents with a starting point for conversations with their child.
What?
I will post assignments, homework and resources such as links to videos I have that can help with the concept being practiced. For example, we use Eureka math and there are videos and parent resources that could be linked to the page as well as EMBARCC which has activities, games and tools for Eureka as well. A school and classroom calendar will be available on the site as well so students and parents can see what is coming up for our classroom as well as our school I will also use the site to connect with my students’ interests. I can use google classroom to start conversations with my students regarding their interest, questions and curiosities. Incorporating more choice will spark more curiosity and engagement, as Wesch and Sugata Mitra feel is imperative to creating classrooms that work for children; it will be social and collaborative.
When?
At the beginning of the school year the site will be up and running and parents and students will be added to google guardian after receiving a welcome letter and providing the e mail they would like to add. Digital citizenship will be discussed in class and a parent letter will be sent home. The letter will need to be signed by the student and the parent in order to be added to the classroom.
I am what Prensky calls a Digital Immigrant, so this project, although exciting, will take a lot of…
When I first started teaching, I taught first grade. I LOVE first graders. I love their excitement each day, I love their stories and I love how they are open books. I knew EVERYTHING about them. The community we had in the classroom was powerful. I taught first grade for ten years before taking a new position as a math interventionist / coach. I also love teaching math. It is my favorite subject to teach. I tell my students that teaching them helped me better understand math. I would use my struggles with math to help them see why it is so important to truly understand mathematics at a foundational level, so that new knowledge has a place to build upon. So, I was leaving something I loved to do something else I loved.
I learned very quickly that my new position could not be more different than the one I just left. I didn’t have one large group of kids. Instead I had 8 small groups of kids from different grades and classrooms. We did not spend all day everyday together. And I did not know ANYTHING about them. When people would ask me how the new job was, I would smile and say “great, I LOVE teaching math”. Inside, I was screaming… I MISS MY CLASSROOM!
As the first few weeks went by, I learned a little about the kids I worked with. As the first month went by I found a majority of the students to be “less than thrilled” to be doing math. I attributed it to math being a subject they struggled with. So I worked harder to ensure I was doing everything I could to fill in the gaps and misunderstandings they had around the grade level content. They made some progress, which is good, but it did not feel great.
I really dove in and created games, researched online tools, followed blogs, and joined twitter. I was going to light a fire under these kiddos and inspire them to LOVE math and help them to see the importance of their hard work. I bought Growth Mindset books like Your Fantastic Elastic Brain and planned Mindset Monday activities as a way to start each week, we redefined failure and the whole school started to refer to FAIL as First Attempt In Learning. I won’t say it did nothing…. But it did not have the effect I was looking for.
This was not a problem with my first graders. Maybe I am not cut out to do this job. A lot of self doubt entered the equation. And I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it. I was the only math interventionist in my school. Who could understand what I was going through? And then the real panic set in. How am I supposed to fix this by myself? There was no one there who understood what I was going through. I started thinking… I know that there were things I struggled with as a first grade teacher. Of course there were! And when I was stuck, I would turn to my wonderful colleagues. They would help me brainstorm ideas and offer their expertise and experiences and I would go to them because I trusted their opinions but also because I knew they wanted to see me succeed, they cared about me and my success just as much as their own.
Then it hit me…. As Michael Wesch tells us, the environment you create is more important than the content you teach. The struggles I was having here were because I had not worked to establish the core values and beliefs I had as a teacher in my new position. And I believe that is why I was not getting as much from my students as well. They didn’t know my WHY. They didn’t know enough about me, nor I about them, to inspire them and make them believe they could be risk takers in my classroom. As Simon Sinek says, “people don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it”. I had started with the what… there are the concepts you need to learn and here is how we are going to do it. I had worked from the outside in, rather than the inside out, and the kids weren’t buying it.
I believe students learn best when meaning is constructed by students taking risks with their learning. This only happens when students feel they are part of a community that supports them, includes them and values them as an integral part of the group. This was a missing piece - it was a difference between my first grade classroom and my current classroom; and so I looked for ways to connect with my IB students the way I connected with my first graders. I needed to build the classroom community.
At first I did not know how to do this because they were all separated each day. Each grade had a different IB block. Within each grade the individual children’s schedules were different. But then I realized we all eat. So I started a lunch bunch- how very technocrat of me, right?! Although I could not get all students K-4 at the same time, I could get K-2 students and 3-4 students together, and I figured that was a good place to start. So we had lunch together. We got to know each other and spent the time talking about life inside and outside of school. Students began to open up. They smiled more. We all began to feel like a part of something, and it improved moral and attitudes in the group.
For this upcoming year, I will be back in the classroom. Not first grade, but third. And I started thinking about building that classroom community that is so important for student success. I realized that a couple of things have changed since first grade. The most impactful change is that our district has gone google, giving us access to a lot of online tools I did not have when I taught first grade. Scott Noon would say this is my chance to become more techno-constructivist.
So I asked myself, what can I do to build a strong supportive classroom community that really gets to my WHY? I realized. I can create a classroom community that exists even when we are not sitting in room 23! Google classroom will be a tool I can use to build classroom community and provide students and families with connections to me, classmates and resources, even when they are at home. This will also help me to stay organized and consistent, something I feel is important for students to see in their teachers.
Who?
Myself and students will have direct access to our classroom on google. Parents will have access to class information through Google Guardian, which sends reminders, summaries and reports via e mail. This can provide parents conversation starters for home. Sherry Turkle challenges us to demonstrate the value of conversation with our children and create device free zones. The parent e mails could provide parents with a starting point for conversations with their child.
What?
I will post assignments, homework and resources such as links to videos I have that can help with the concept being practiced. For example, we use Eureka math and there are videos and parent resources that could be linked to the page as well as EMBARCC which has activities, games and tools for Eureka as well. A school and classroom calendar will be available on the site as well so students and parents can see what is coming up for our classroom as well as our school I will also use the site to connect with my students’ interests. I can use google classroom to start conversations with my students regarding their interest, questions and curiosities. Incorporating more choice will spark more curiosity and engagement, as Wesch and Sugata Mitra feel is imperative to creating classrooms that work for children; it will be social and collaborative.
When?
At the beginning of the school year the site will be up and running and parents and students will be added to google guardian after receiving a welcome letter and providing the e mail they would like to add. Digital citizenship will be discussed in class and a parent letter will be sent home. The letter will need to be signed by the student and the parent in order to be added to the classroom.
I am what Prensky calls a Digital Immigrant, so this project, although exciting, will take a lot of…
Collaboration
Thinking, Working, Creating
And … Risk taking,
But, I will do it because of…my why. Kids need a powerful classroom community behind them to take the risks needed to push their learning to the next level. 
