It's all about the Teamwork

We just saw the end of year scores from last year. They look great. We are now in reflection mode. What did we do that was with and how did it affect our scores so we can do it again. We will also look at what we think did not work last year and change those so we can make it better. We have some work to do.

Changing our language program will be an interesting part of this reflection. Our greatest jump on the testing was in language, so what we were doing worked well for us and the students. The program is similar toss what we did last year, so we should do as well or better an we did.

The Kagen strategies we used this last year were a big part of our success. When we moved students around in our flexible groupings, we used the Kagen strategy of pairing students with another student with a different level to help both of them improve in their lessons. Having three classes, we split the students into six groups and put two groups in each classroom. With group six being the highest, we paired group six with group three, five with two, and four with one. This gave each class a group of students that first off did not know why they were in that class(highest, lowest) and that made for less chance of teasing or segregation of students. This also helped with the lower students having a partner to help them, if needed. The higher student gets the opportunity to help, learn from the other student, and gets to teach a little. This helps the higher student cement what they have learned by explaining the concept to another student. Both students get to work with another student that is not two levels higher than themselves, but close to the same level as they are. This helps the confidence of both students when they feel successful and one student is not always doing all the work.

Another piece that we felt helped our classes was the partnering up of the students to help each other. In math, we have the students paired up by mixed ability. While doing our opening review problems, the students have "one book, one pencil". One of the students works on the problem while talking through the process they are using. The partner listens and uses the "tip, tip, tell" method of helping. If partner A does not know how to work the problem, partner B gives a tip to help. They can give two tips before they tell partner A how to do the problem. They cannot do it fro partner A but they tell them the process to get it done. Then they switch and partner B becomes partner A and so on until all the problems are completed. This process has been a wonderful way for students to explain what they are doing and help them help each other understand the algorithms and processes of math.

When looking back at what we did the best throughout the whole year to get the best scores from our students, I would have to say that it s all about the teamwork. Our fifth-grade team worked together on every problem, we worked with each child, and we let them know we were united in our teacher, lessons, disciple, expectations, and a friends. While showing the students this, we let them know we expected the same form them. All for one, and one for all.

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Anyone have a Groove I can borrow?

We have been working on the language for a few weeks and we like it. We have had some hard times adjusting to the amoUnt of planning we need to do. With a new program the planning always increases until it becomes more of the plan. Right now we are getting the plans down with all the different parts of the program. They are similar plans to what we have used in the past so it has not been difficult, but it has been time consuming. We have not found our groove yet, and we definitely need a groove.

We have planned our spelling just like we did last year with the words and word sorts. We feel that was a big success. In fact, our scores for last years End of level tests were great. The students were amazing and worked their best and showed us what they knew. We are getting this group ready to do the same. But I digress. So spelling is not too hard. Vocabulary is a little different. We have née lessons and ways to work with vocabulary. We work on Word Squares each week. I love this part of vocabulary. The kids love the Word Squares. The one thing I miss is the cloze stories we used with the previous vocabulary program. The stories were great and they used context clues to put the words into the stories.there are some great hinge about thetas. Program, but I miss that piece from the last program.

Reading is good. We use a basal that has a lot of lessons in it and with the allotted time we have for it, it is hard to fit it together. But the stories are good and the lessons work with the writing to create great opportunities for students to learn. We are working on writing a story and we are talking abut problem and solution in writing while we are discussing problem and solution in the reading we are working on. Writing and reading go hand in hand and fit in with the lessons that are taught in the Readabout program we use on the computers. Readabout discusses problem and solution also and the whole lesson fits together.

We just need to get into a groove so we can feel better about what we are doing. It took a us a few years to figure out the math program we are using, but we are using it well now and the student scores are on the rise. It may take this year, but we will get it. There are many parts to this program that we will fit in throughout the year to see how they fit in and how they will work. We are just out of the comfort zone and it has taken a little longer than we had hoped to get comfortable.

The newest part we will be working on is the computer testing part. This will help us because the Unit tests are very long and involved. We will have to do them in parts during the assessment week. It will be interesting to see what the tests tell us compared to what we teach. That is always the most interesting part of a new program is the testing to see what it tells us. Life goes on and so will the teaching.

Just Teachin' with the iPad

I got an iPad this week and after a week of using it for class, I have to say... It is a good tool for me as a teacher. I love how light it is and how versatile it is. My class uses the internet each day to work on and complete assignments on our class wiki. Using the iPad I can check how the students are doing on their assignments and comment on their discussions. It has made it easier to move around the classroom and not have to head back to the desk everything I want to do something on the Internet. I take roll from the back of the room, use the air mouse to move around information on the smart board, and even control the music on iTunes as the students are working. I use Pages to type up information and letters to parents. I use keynote to finish or start presentations for the students. I use numbers to input student information and keep tack of their progress. All of these activities I did on my Macbook Pro, but with the iPad, it is less cumbersome and more portable.

The bad is that it does not print (yet), and there are a few hints I want on pages (columns, tables), but I also understand that it is an iPad, not a laptop or net book. I still feel I am in the honeymoon phase with this device, but what I am using it for right now, is what I will be using for each day. I am sure I will find things that I will not like, but for now I am loving it.

I have been watching iPad Weekly on Twit to get a few ideas on how to use it. Leo Laporte is enjoyable and informative about apps, tips, and tricks. I suggest it for all that have an iPad and want to learn a Little more about it

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A Trip to Korea... Without Leaving My Classroom

Our school has had the opportunity to have a few Korean interns spend a couple weeks at our school observing, learning, and teaching. It has been a great opportunity for the school. My class had two wonderful interns teach them culture lessons about Korea. They learned how similar and how diferent our countries are. Birthdays are very different in Korea compared to the US. The games the students play there and what we play are different. The school schedules are very different, and yet they are similar.

The one thought I had from this whole opportunity is how important parents are for their children to learn. School is longer in Korea, but as I spoke with the korean interns, I found that we were similar in curriculum and style of teaching. THe biggest difference is the after school time for the Korean children. Parents have their students study and work until late at night each night to be prepared for the next day in school. There are tutors and classes they go to. We tend to have a different idea about what happens after school. Children should have a little time to play and relax with minimal homework in elementary school. And yet I wonder how our students would improve if we had tutors or classes until late each night for the students? We do pretty well in America, but the legislature is looking for higher test scores and the schools are the ones facing the blame. I see it as not one situation is to blame, but how will society change so the change can come to society?

The other thing that was interesting is the technlogy comparison. The elementary schools do not have any more computers in them than a normal school does. My school has a 1:1 in the upper grades and the schools our interns were from had only a couple computers.

So should we compare ourselves with other countries that have more of an educational focus at home? What are we willing to do at home to help our students? Do we even want to put forth the idea that we as parents need to do more and give up more personal time to help our students? What do we want with educaional change?

Growing Pains

There is some serious growing pains when learning a new program. We had our first week of using the program. It has a "Smart Start" to prep the kids for the rest of the year. It includes much of the information we go over throughout the year, but the students get some notes on paper so they can refer back to them. We have them put an index in their language books so they can find the notes easier.

The hardest part of the program so far is that I am ready to get to the schedule, and I think the kids are also. I figure next year we will schedule ourselves a little better to get the schedule into play the first week. We can do the "Start Smart", but the schedule will start earlier.

Planning the first week of the daily schedule has been fun. Figuring out what exactly we are supposed to do has been very time consuming. The best thing about the hard work we have had to put in planning is that w are doing it together. One of us would figure out one part and the ideas would come on what were to do. We planned put each day, the time we will spend on each piece and we will see how it will be used. A team is the best way to plan. We each trust each other, we rely on each other, and we know that one of us will have the idea that will work the best. The group works because we believe that we will each bring our best to the table. We look out for each other. We also have fun. We all love our job and we have become "workafrolics" (a word coined by Robert St. John).

We are working through a program that has similarities with the programs we have used In the past, but putting it into play each day, everyday is not always the easiest for a new program. Marking the pages and the activities we will be doing would be miserable if I was to do it on my own. Working as a team has made my teaching better.

The Gate has Opened and We Can't Go Back

School has started and we are all tired. The kids are tired, I am tired. The first few weeks are rough. Rules, procedures, activities to get to know the kids, team building, not to mention a full day of teaching after a month of no school. Whew. In a couple weeks it will be all over, done in a whirlwind, not literally, but it will feel like a few weeks.

Before school started, i sat down to upgrade all the computers in my room for the start of the year. I laid them all out on the desks and went one by one updating windows, running the disk clean, defragging the drive, and in the middle of it all, I thought, what am I doing this for? I have a class full of computer users coming to me. I can show them how to update, clean, defrag, and manage their computers. This way, they can head home and manage their computer that has never been updated, cleaned, or defragged. It will be a monthly oil change for the computers. How nice it will be.

We dived right into the new reading program with gusto and, like any new program, we had a few glitches, but we will work them out and get after it. It will be another great year with new group of students that are full of ideas and wanting new experiences to help them learn. Let's Go!

Uh, Oh, He's Reading Again

I have been reading a couple different books about teams, collaboration, and community in the classroom. The Art of Collaboration by Jono Bacon is a good book about online collaboration and building teams. Reach by Jeff Utecht talks about building networks and the use of wiki's, blogs, and online communities to build a network. These books have taught me quite a bit about how to put teams together so they work well together.  This will be come a major part in my classroom. I have put together teams and they worked, but I am looking for more. I will go over what I intend to do in the next couple days as I get it all put down on paper. I will be taking all the books and synthesizing them into a manageable plan to use for fifth graders.

One book I read was Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. This book is about success and what helped successful people become successful. The one thing I came out learning, as a teacher, is that I need to provide opportunity for my students.  Do this already for my kids. We take vacations and go to places most of the kids in my classes have never been. We do not go to lavish places, but we do things and see things to give our kids experience in many different areas. This is what I want to do with my class. This is one reason I want a one:one computers in my classroom. Each child will use and become fluent with using and managing the computer. They will be able to research a topic and cross reference to see f it is true or not. I want to give them a chance the creative with their writing and ideas so they can make our world better. They are the future. They will be using technologies that have not been thought. Up. I want my students to be the pens that will think up these technologies and ideas for the world. I want them to make our world q better palace this is my mission. This is my teams mission. This is my schools mission. To build a better opportunity for our children.

Who Has Need of a New Program?

We have a new program for Language Arts. It is an all encompassing program with Spelling, Reading, Writing, Vocabulary, and Grammar. There is always much to learn with a new program. It seems as though we have had a new program each year since I have been teaching. There are a few things about this program that I am liking and that are closer to what I am personally looking for.

I like the fact that it is using the same basic principles and lessons we have used in the programs we have used over the past few years. We have found success with some of these programs and to see them in the McMillan-Hill Treasures Program we will be using will make it easier and more familiar to the teachers and students. We will be using the same spelling ideas and the same grammar ideas. We will be using the writing traits program that we have trained the students on. They will still hear the same vocabulary with the programs we are using as we have given them with the other programs. The biggest difference is that this is a program with more scope and sequence, more schedule, and more spiraling.

The technology part of it is the most exciting to me. It has some parts that are still developing, but the beginnings are exciting to me. There is an online student book for students to use, to mark, to make notes, to have read to them. They will learn to identify Main Ideas in a story and mark them, in the online book. They can access the book and information from home so they can reread the information and complete assignments at home. Assessments can be done online for easier assessing for the teacher. We use our Utips program for testing in Math and Science. We have practice tests for Language, Math, and Science. We take our end of year tests on the computer, so it is wonderful that we can take most of our tests online.

My team has been working on getting computers in the hands of our students for years. Our ideas were hard to grasp and harder to finance, but we worked and gathered ideas for what we are doing now. We still have many ideas we want to put into practice. We are getting there, one computer program at a time. This program helps us get another step closer to our goal.

The Learning Starts....for Me!

I have taken my summer to learn a little more about education and what is out there in education in the world. I want to get better at teaching. I want to see what else I can do to help me teach the students. What ideas are out there that I have not heard of or that can refine what I have been doing? So spent time with Ted. Ted.com is a website about ideas. Great ideas. The cutting edge ideas... about everything. Ted is a collection of presentations from Ted Conferences over the years. This has become my personal professional development.

I spent time with Sugata Mitra teaching me about how kids can teach themselves. I found that I need to stop pushing the information to the students and I need to present and let them learn or give them time to teach themselves. As we use technology in our school I have heard teachers say that we need to know how to use the computer completely before we teach the students. We can't let them go on their own because we don't k now what they are doing. We are not going to know everything so we need to let the students go (with some guidance) and have them show us what they are doing. We can have them teach the class if they find something new. We want the students to stretch themselves and yet we prevent them from stretching by holding them back from teaching themselves. I need to let go.


Another I learned from was Ken Robinson. I had heard about him on a few other blogs so I listened to his ideas about creativity. I will be looking at my class to see where I can increase creativity in my class. I learned that I need to let kids come up with ideas. I want them to feel comfortable to come up with crazy ideas. In another presentation about Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age, Randy Nelson talks about improvisation and how improve is going with any idea. Go with every idea. When an idea is stopped, it goes dead. I want kids to have the opportunity to present their ideas without having to have these ideas getting squashed. Building creativity will mean I need to hold back on toning the kids down. I will try providing a place on our wiki that the students can type in their ideas so we can all remember what it was. Using a back channel will also give the students a place to ask questions and write ideas.

Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech at Stanford University in June 2005. It is one of the greatest speeches about how to "connect the dots" in our lives. It is not just because I am an Apple guy, but it is a great speech. Steve shares a few stories from his life that might have gone a couple ways, but he made the best of what he had and moved forward. The dots were put n the page and now he can connect them to see where he was and what helped him get to where he is.

A few other presentations I enjoyed were...
David Logan on Tribal Leadership
Tim Brown on Creativity and Play
Elif Shafak on the Politics of Fiction

How Much Longer Do I Have?

It is time to get ready for school. The kids will be back in a few weeks and I am now starting to put my ducks in a row. What programs are we going to use? How am I going to use the new Language program? What online programs will it offer and will I want to use them?

I am also watching a few more podcasts to get a few more ideas to incorporate into the team before school starts. I find it easier to start an idea in the beginning of the year. It helps me get it going and if it works it will keep going strong.

I am always excited to start a new year with new students and new ideas. I try to push myself to go farther and get better as a teacher. Years ago I had a student ask me if the previous year's students' did the same activity? I took that as a challenge that we need to change it up a little each year. We need to have some consistency and the best lessons can be tweaked, but do not need to be revamped.

This week will be teachers teaching teachers the ideas they were taught at different conferences or some of the ideas they have found successful. We will also learn about our new Language program. We get to learn a new program this year. We seem to get a new program each year. We will get it learned and see how it does.