Amber — Page 64

How busy are you? #SAVMP

October 27, 2013 by Amber Leave a Comment

I wrote about managing time over on the School Admin Virtual Mentoring Program blog this week and it really resonated with something a couple of assistant principals’ and I recently discussed.

We’re all working late and we’re all working hard. I think that’s just educators as a whole in this trying time of national pressure and low morale. How much of this pressure do we put on our self? & is it even effective?

I’ll never forget a teacher I worked with a number of years ago. He stayed late every day. He came in early every day. He held his own extra sessions of Saturday school. I remember watching his students take their lunch trays down to his room each day and working through recess and thinking wow, this guy is SERIOUS.

When his test scores came back that year, imagine all of our surprise when only 1/4 of his class had met standard. How was that even possible??

Easy. Activity does not equal achievement.

If you’re constantly working and never seem to get caught up, or stay afloat, or feel like you’re drowning…maybe you should take a step back and re-evaluate what you’re doing. Spinning your wheels isn’t going to get you ahead. It’s actually only going to frustrate you even further.

If you don’t get your priorities in order, someone else will do it for you. If you fall behind in your lessons because of let’s say, an assembly, or some random computer based testing…don’t stress yourself out cramming everything in. Figure out what the TEKS of the lessons are and focus on those! Get the big picture across and don’t stress over whether you were to take grades on every suggested activity. At the end of the day, or er, grading period, that’s what matters. what the students were able to learn.

Think about all that you say you “have” to do…and before you stress out to the point of regretting your chosen path of impacting children each and every day…change those words to what you “choose” to do. You are the owner of your time.

Choose to have achievement, not just activity.

Choosingly,
Amber

“Reddit”, Set, GO!

October 21, 2013 by Amber Leave a Comment

The site “Reddit” both fascinates and terrifies me. It’s not somewhere I find resources because of my un-awareness of it, but I did discover something pretty cool! One of our teachers received a free box of goodies for his SPED classroom this year, from an anonymous donor, from the Reddit site.

Here’s the explanation blurb off the Reddit site:

Reddit gifts for the teachers is our annual program where teachers sign up who are in need of supplies for their classrooms, and nice people sign up to send them some supplies! There is no minimum or suggested value of these gifts, they can be as simple as some pencils or glue sticks – anything makes a difference and we need your help! Last year, participants from around the world sent almost $150,000 worth of supplies for teachers as the new school year started.
PLEASE sign up and share this page with anyone and everyone!

Did you know this was out there? How great! Make a note for next year OR donate today!!

disclaimer: Reddit is a site best viewed at home. It offers an open platform to its contributors and may not be appropriate for school.

Here’s our teacher’s thank you page…just a lil’effort on his part had a great payoff!

Reddit and weep,

Amber

How using Dropbox changed my life!

October 14, 2013 by Amber 2 Comments

I know that sounds a lil’extreme, but seriously, it did.

Dropbox is a storing/sharing place in the cloud that allows you to keep up with all of your files,where ever you are, even across platforms. I love this blurb I came across:

“This program acts as a “magic pocket” which is always with you and contains whatever you place in it. Put a file into your Dropbox and it’s on all of your computers and mobile devices.”

Who doesn’t want a magic pocket? The genius of this for me is that I use a number of different devices for a number of different things. I take pictures on my phone, I take notes on my iPad, I do appraisals on my Mac, and then will write a blog post on my home PC that needs ALL of those things. Having a place that I can easily access ALL of my “stuff” is crucial for the efficacy of what I do throughout the day.

How to get started/going?

Step one: Go to Dropbox and set up an account. I just use the free one because with as many times as I downloaded it, I got a couple free GB just for multiple downloads. Next, download and install the Dropbox app. Put files and folders that you need to access from various locations and devices into your new Dropbox folder. Then repeat these steps on your other Mac, PCs, and iOS devices. (Again for me, that was two ipads, a phone, two PC’s, and my macbook.
The account that you create automatically includes a Dropbox folder and it shares files with any other devices that have Dropbox and are connected to your account. (PS: you don’t HAVE to download it, but it does make life easier. Anytime I’m working with a file I know I’m going to need later, I just toggle and save in my “Dropbox” folder so I can get to it later.
Now, anytime, you go to SAVE something, you have the ability to add it to your Dropbox. Easy peasy, I tell ya!
Many of us store the files and folders for active projects on the desktop. Put them in Dropbox instead. On your phone and take a pic? Click the + sign on your app and choose what pics you want to add to your Dropbox. It will then be available from any of your devices. Working online? Fabulous! The “files” tab on the website will bring you to your Dropbox folder. This folder is exactly the same as the folder on your devices; any files that you’ve placed into your folder on your computers are accessible through this part of the web site.
Want to share files? BIG Files that you couldn’t send via email without crashing the world wide web? Presentations for parents? Set up separate folders in Dropbox’s Public folder for different people, and then send the separate URLs to each. Or set up a different shared folder for each project, and then distribute that URL to all project participants.
Want to share amazing classroom pictures, but not make them “public public”? Copy photos to Dropbox, and share the URL with family and friends. (I’m going to use this for our family involvement activity next month!)
Feeling adventuresome? 62 things you can do with Dropbox suggests this: Go to the Send to Dropbox Website (sendtodropbox.com), click on Connect To Dropbox, and provide your Dropbox credentials. You can now email files to Dropbox. That makes all sorts of scenarios possible. For example, create a document in Google Docs and then opt to share it. In the Share drop-down menu, select Email As Attachment and provide your Send to Dropbox email address; the Google Doc will appear in Dropbox’s Attachments folder.” (WHOA BABY!)

It’s a very intuitive tool to use and following through some of the getting started tasks easily explains it as well as earns you more “free” space, 🙂 Nothing to lose there!

How many questions do you ask a day?

October 12, 2013 by Amber 3 Comments

question_mark_blue Do you know the average wait time a teacher pauses for after asking a question in the classroom? On average, it is one second. Just one.

The ideal wait time is 8 seconds. That amount of time allows a student to think about their answer (aka metacognition). Not only is that going to allow your students to delve deeper into what their response is going to be, but it also allows YOU to craft a higher level of questioning.

If you’re asking 50 questions an hour, who is more exhausted? I dare say you because you’ve thought up all those questions! It’s definitely not your students who were able to answer them so quickly, you had to then ask another!

One of the ASCD books I’ve read recently was Never Work Harder Than Your Students and Other Principles of Great Teaching by Robyn Jackson. I was able to meet Robyn this year and think she is a powerful advocate for whatshe believes in, focusing on your students growth, not your great “strategies. .

One of the most interesting and challenging ideas Jackson presents is that teachers should be able to explain why they are doing each activity and assessment they chose. She urges teachers to ask themselves, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?” If students ask you why they’re doing an activity, and you can’t give them an answer that makes sense, you might want to rethink the activity. Does it tie back in your LO’s?

Another interesting idea Jackson develops is Principle 3: ”Expect Your Students to Get There.” She discusses the point of view that I have heard all my life among colleagues: that some students can’t or won’t do the work because they’re lazy or don’t care or whatever, and there’s really nothing we can do to change that. Jackson, however, believes that expectations are really all about what we expect of ourselves—not of our students. I don’t know about you but that sounds like a challenge to me! 🙂

Be intentional with your questioning. Make them worth answering, worth thinking about, and worthy of your students exhaustion.

Questioningly,

Amber

Feeling defeated or tired already?

October 10, 2013 by Amber Leave a Comment

I was listening to a webinar last week discussing the benefit of effective teachers in the classroom and was blown away by what was being shared. The average effect of one teacher on a single student is modest. All else the same, a student with one excellent teacher for one year between fourth and eighth grade would gain about $4,600 in lifetime income. The student with the excellent teacher would also be 0.5 percent more likely to attend college.

That’s not too shocking, right?

What about this? Replacing a poor teacher with an average one would raise a single classroom’s lifetime earnings by about $266,000. Multiply that by a career’s worth of classrooms.

Students with top teachers are less likely to become pregnant as teenagers, more likely to enroll in college, and more likely to earn more money as adults, the study found.

How can you ever doubt the importance of what you do, every single day?

The webinar really solidified for me that teachers are the most important part of a child’s education. Not a program, a strategy, or a test. Great teachers make a great difference; poor teachers hurt a child’s life chances. LIFE chances.

You. Matter.

Remindingly,
Amber