my version of transparent, collaborative leadership...with a Teamann twist

Bucket Bonanza

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I had a GREAT first day back, 🙂 and from the texts, messages, and emails…I’d say you LL’s agree! This year is going to be a bucket full of fun and success!

I have notes to put in your boxes on Monday, your own lil’drops to distribute. Make a goal for yourself…how many drops a week do you want to hand out? How many smiles do you want to give…each week? One thing we didn’t mention is that James, Amanda, and I will be drawing names each week and calling parents to share the “drop” with them. We want EVERYONE to know what acts of positiveness and kindness are happening at Luna Elementary…

if you treat others well, they will feel better and spread the wealth. Not only that, but it makes you feel better to be altruistic – nothing too mysterious about that, I know…but still, 🙂 Let’s all do it anyway!

A fun quote from your bucket book: “We experience approximately 20,000 individual moments every day.” That’s 20, 000 opportunities to either FILL or DIP from someone’s bucket.

May your 20, 000 moments today be bucket filled….

bucket boostN,
Amber

Bouncy Behavior…

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Perspective: Which of these define your mindset this Monday morning?
18 more days left until summer vacation.
Only 18 days left of instruction.
I won’t put you on the spot and make you answer that, 🙂 but I will write this blog suggesting some ways to make BOTH of those thoughts more tolerable for ya!
Teachers are les likely to have classroom managemnt problems when their students are on task and engaged. Students are more likely to remain on task and engaged if they are interested and challenged. Common sense, right? Why then, do ofice referrals spike in the month of May? A combination of factors….your patience is worn thin. You’re less likely to “want” to deal with disruptive students post TAKS. Students get a sense of “finality” from the tone that is set once we are post TAKS. (That darn test really affects our day to day, doesn’t it?)
A few tips to make these 18 days productive and easier to handle:
  • Use technology. Dancemats, flip cams, digital cameras, Macbook, extra websites, your 5 Speedgeeking sites/tools…you’re surrounded! Jump in!
  • Change activities frequently. Our students are used to getting information instantly. They are text messageRs, web consumeRs, instant gratification-ally designed. (Kinda like me! heh!) We cannot expect to maintain their interest or control when we drone on and on about exciting things, such as subject-verb agreement. Yawn. I got bored just typing it! Vary your lessons, and break them into 20-30 minute segments.
  • Provide extra help for those who need it. A frustrated student may the ignition switch to losing control in your classroom. Save yourself the trouble down the road and step in before they have the opportunity to act on on their frustration.
  • Keep your assignments challenging. This is not the time of year to go back and finish all those worksheets that you ran but didn’t have time to get to! If your assignments are too simple, you’ll lose attention as well.
  • Use group instruction. Divide your students, maximize your space, and material coverage. Take a page from your primary counterparts and use small group instruction, based on the needs of your class.

wrapN up,

Amber

Those people…

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The field of education can be a trying one. The news attacks us, the students don’t seem to listen, we don’t get paid enough. yada yada. Not that we’re those people. (Remember that. I’ll come back to it in a minute, so put it in your pocket and save it for later.) Many times “jobs’ can be just that, a job. The daily grind. The do I have to get out of bed in the rain grind. The how come he can’t listen grind. The if only these parents cared grind. Each day there is a version that can be added to that “grind” list.
One of the things I love most about my LL’s is the absolute commitment to our profession that we share. The innovation, the passion, and the energy that permeates these halls, is different than other campuses. (trust me.) The smiles, the late nights, the dancing through hoops to get a test finished is different than other campuses. (trust me.) The I can’t sleep b/c I don’t know what is happening to one of my kiddos is different. It makes me proud to be here. It makes me proud of what I choose to do each day, and allows, for me, to be the reason that I don’t think of this a daily grind, but as what I GET to do. You make my day. See above paragraph where the LL’s aren’t those negative people. Pull it out. Have a treat.
Want an example? I happen to have one. Ms. Griffin was bitten by the grant writing bug. She wrote MULTIPLE donor’s choose grants and went way above and beyond to get them funded. She involved us, her friends, her class’s family, etc. She got them funded, doubling her class library and introducing a tag reader system for her students. Was that enough for her? Nope. Mrs. Ryenolds, another rockstar, got ahold of some Leapfrog program that sent her FREE books, so of course, Samanth needed hers too!

Fabulousness personified. That’s what my LL’s are to me!

Since you’d read this far, you get a treat! A heads up on your teacher appreciation gift for next week. We racked our brains trying to think of something themed, something cutesy, something that wouldn’t elicit eye rolls. For your BIG gift, on next Tuesday or Wednesday, we’re going to have….drum roll please….your car detailed! Washed, vacuumed, sparklefied. Whatcha think about that? 🙂
Luna Lion LuvR ,
Amber

Speedgeeking SD

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Tomorrow will be the first speedgeeking event here at Luna. The concept, similar to “speed dating” is going to introduce you to five different technology integration pieces. This is meant to give you a lil’taste of FIVE different easy and fun ways that you can add these tools into your lesson plans. We will be asking to see ONE of these used by your class for the final grading period. I repeat, one of these tools will need to be seen in your lesson plans this final grading period.
Technology presented this late in the year can be confusing. It’s past TAKS when I’ve seen teachers feel as if they have time to add in a technology piece. Anything that you see tomorrow will actually have a HUGE impact on your students, even before TAKS. We talk so much about student engagement and keeping students on task and motivated. Guys, these kinda activities are PERFECT for that. You have an extra computer in your room now!! There is NO reason why one of your kids couldn’t complete all of these activities during the course of a lesson. We know you have students who are busting out 100’s on your daily class assignments. Do they really need to do the multiple practices and same activities that your lowest students are struggling with? Me thinks not. I’ve offered before, and this time I mean it, I can have a 5th grader who is FABULOUS come into your room and teach one of your students what to do…
Watch it spread like wildfire.
Trust me. I know this will work. Go into this training with an open ALL YEAR MIND, not just an after TAKS mindset. Pleaseandthankyou.
supportingly,
Amber

Homework Headaches

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Homework, homework, homework! We all give it, we all grade it, we all have our purposes behind it. As we move into the spring, and the time of many an educator head ache, I want us to REALLY think about what we’re sending home and why. Thanks to my PLN, (8amber8), I came across a great articlethat looked at homework from a parent’s perspective. There were a couple of different sentences that jumped out at me…

So often, what comes home seems either mind-numbingly excessive (25 long division problems, anyone?) or beyond the scope of what is reasonable (three-page book reports, typed please, and make a diorama to go with it). My experience as a mother of four and as a teacher with 18 years’ experience has led me to the realization that practicing something, or being asked to produce something for which one lacks the skill, does not breed perfection, or even learning. It breeds frustration.

I can tell you from experience how homework is done in my world. If MT is at home it is completed, checked, discussed, rechecked, rediscussed and then put away. Nice and neat. If I’m home, I think I usually remember to say “Hey, did you finish your homework?’ She says yes, I say great, and we’re done. Nice and neat. 🙂 And I’m the former teacher, remember!

I want you to think about the homework you’re assigning. Just repeating something does not automatically strengthen learning. If you’re unsure of a skill or concept, actually doing it wrong repetitiously may do more harm than good! There is no research that supports homework as a tool for increasing academic achievement in the primary grades. Are you assigning it because you want them to practice? How many times do they genuinely NEED to do something in order for you to feel better? Do you have a goal? Is there a way to assess what they were “practicing” and see a correlation to what you are doing in class? Because if there isn’t, you’re creating headaches…we discussed at the beginning of the year students sitting out from recess because they ” didn’t do their homework”. We don’t like to see that happen, especially when in some students you’re depending on the self starting initiative of an 8 year old to get it completed.

 

ASCD had a great article in it’s September Educational Leadership magazine (hush, I’m behind in my reading!) that provided an awesome chart that gave some homework alternatives.

 

 

In This Learning Situation. . . Instead of This Try This
You introduced new material in class. Assigning a question set so we will remember the material. Ask us to think up a homework task that follows up on this material and to explain our choices.
You want us to read an article before a class discussion. Making us answer questions that prove we read it. Ask us to write down two or three questionswe have after reading the article.
You want to see whether we understand a key concept (such as literary irony). Making us complete a worksheet. Ask us to demonstrate the concept for the class in small groups, using any medium.
You want us to see how a math procedure applies in various situations. Assigning 10 word problems that involve this procedure. Ask small groups to choose one word problem that applies this procedure in a real-world situation, solve it, and present it to the class.
You want us to memorize facts (such as dates in history). Handing out a list that we will be tested on. Ask each student to share with the class a memorization trick (such as a visual cue) that works with one item on this list.
You want us to remember what you taught last month. Assigning a review sheet. Give frequent short pop quizzes about earlier material. Go over each quiz, but don’t count the grade.

 

 

I would love to see you experiment with some of these options. In the same way that the dynamics of the way we’re teaching has changes, let’s think about homework in a different way as well…

 

Homework HelpN,

Amber