Leigh:
Last year I was in and out of all classrooms at Upper Tygart and saw first hand
our teachers providing instruction in a variety of ways to meet the needs of a
variety of learners. Simply put, that's differentiation in a nutshell. The conference
on differentiation I attended in Chicago provided me with further insight into
differentiation as well as integrating it with common core standards. I also
received much needed clarification concerning Singapore math best practices.
Best practices in a differentiated classroom would include a proactive classroom
in which the lesson is planned so that individual needs are addressed before the
lesson occurs. Differentiated instruction is more qualitative than quantitative. It's
not the amount of work given to students but rather putting students in a
learning environment in which all students can achieve learning. A differentiated
classroom is student centered. Students are allowed to think for themselves. A
differentiated classroom is a blend of whole class, group, and individual
instruction. As you know, we are already applying many of these best practices in
our classrooms.
I had the opportunity at the conference to spend two of my days with Char
Forsten, whom I consider an expert in differentiation and Singapore Math. I
attended her sessions on mastering math facts, word problems, 8 step word
problem drawing, and an overall session on the basics of Singapore Math. Char
has been to Singapore 5 times to study the process firsthand. I had the
opportunity to speak with her personally and shared our adoption year
experiences with the program. I am anxious to share new insight into the
program I learned from Char with you at an upcoming faculty meeting. It will
change your instruction! Char really emphasized a CPA approach to instruction.
C meaning concrete (use of manipulatives), P meaning pictorial (visual models or
drawings), and last A for abstract (symbols). The final stage, abstract comes only
after (1) there has been plenty of practice with manipulatives, (2) there has been
subsequent practice with pictorial representations, and (3) THIS WAS A HUGE
Aha! Moment for Me . . . Students are able to explain what they are doing and
why! People! All this occurs before that textbook is cracked open! As a math
teacher, I admit I am frequently tempted to jump quickly to the abstract
(textbook, worksheet) computation, but in the end (remember we work with the
end in mind), this will rarely build student understanding. That was my HUGE
moment at the conference! CPA - remember and apply it to your math
instruction.
I attended a session titled "Common Core Standards in a Nutshell". Common
core creates a more narrow focus in teaching and deeper learning to make kids
more efficient learners. Basically, fewer things taught better based on a spiral
theory, it is repeatedly taught at more complex levels. Common Core suggests
to teachers very strongly that no matter what you teach, every teacher is a
teacher of reading and writing. That concept, every teacher is a teacher of
reading and writing was really driven home!
I also attended a session on differentiating math instruction. The practice of a
mix of whole, small, and individual group instruction was emphasized. I received
many websites as well as other resources to share with you.
I attended a much needed session on memory tricks. This was beneficial to me
personally as well as professionally. I have a list of memory enhancing foods to
share with you!
A common message for instruction in all the sessions I attended was the "I do,
we do, you do" approach. We've heard this before and worked to apply this daily
in our classrooms this past year and will continue to do so in the upcoming year.
I feel very fortunate for the opportunity to attend the conference. I am
energized and fee motivated to move Upper Tygart to new levels of achievement
this upcoming year!
SDE 2012 Midwest Conference
Sessions attended by Jacqueline Hargett
75 Reading Strategies in 75 Minutes Danny Brassell
The main thing that the presenter wanted to get across was to make reading enjoyable for children. Children do not have to stick to readers. Keep your class stocked with high interest books, comic books, menus, cook books, Mad Libs, etc. He also went over different ways to teach reading. Danny suggested giving cheers and Literacy Shouts. I will send handouts with these listed to you as an attachment in an email. He gave examples of how he made reading books accessible to his students. He kept book baskets, a rain gutter, (this way children can see the cover of the book instead of just the spine.) He kept feelies and Knickknacks for the kids to hold on to if they wanted to while they read. (stress balls, etc.)One of the neatest things he suggested was to let children write their own books, take a picture of the student and include it on the inside cover, titled “Meet the Author” The student then will write a little autobiography about themselves . Several websites were given during his presentation.
· www.lazyreader.com This site has free vocabulary games.
· Hans Withelm: this author allows free downloads of books he has written
· Storyline Online
A book suggestion he gave was called Word Tunes. This book takes sight words and tells children step by step what to do to turn that word into a picture. We did several samples. It was cute. Children of all ages would love it.
The presenter stated that ”Read Alouds “, were one of the most important things you need to do in your classroom. He stated that children needed to do “Book Talks”. Book Talks are when each child gets to discuss the book they are reading, not everyone talking about the same book. He went over many of the reading practices that we all use in our classrooms, compare and contrast, buddy read, read to a stuffed animal, reading volunteers, listening to books, Readers Theatre (great for fluency), change your voice read like you were from another country. He said he often holds People’s Court. As a way to cut down on interruptions while he was working with a group, unless a child was hurt or liquid of sort was coming out of their body, then they were to write down their problem and place it in a box. On Friday they would hold a court session to decide what needed to be done. I am not so sure I would want to wait that long to take care of situations.
The Total Tech Classroom Kurt Schwengel
This was a very interesting session. The presenter was a classroom teacher from California. He got to go to the “Google Teacher Academy”. He said teachers could apply for scholarships to attend and see exactly the going-ons behind the Google Company. I would love to do this! He explained how he used technology in his Kindergarten classroom. The children even studied a computer unit. Kurt was also a grant reviewer. He gave several tips for writing grants along with an Ipad Guide that includes some great apps for K-1. (I will forward those to you as well.) One app he suggested was Smash Box. Smash Box allows you to control your Smart Board from you IPhone. He also said he liked to use Garage Band to record books for your listening center.
An interesting thing that I learned from him was that he like the rest of us uses email to communicate with his parents. He only list one person in the TO: of the email. Everyone else he puts in the Bcc. The reasons for this is that when you hit reply it doesn’t go back to everyone, it allows email addresses to be hid from others and the main reason was so that if someone has a virus, it is not spread to others. He warned that using Twitter can be easy but, it is the easiest to get hacked. Another suggestion Kurt gave was to never use the manual to understand the technology. You should use third party software like Ipad for Dummies. The third party software is not bias and will tell you what works good as well as what works bad in your technology.
Shutterfly is a website he uses for his school newsletter. You get free photos developed for signing up. He gets his parents to sign up for Shutterfly and he receives free photos for his class. Kurt said he rarely has to pay to have pictures for his classroom.
Enhancing Critical Thinking / Strategies for Building Strong Vocabularies Keep It Real Jump Starting Literacy with Nonfiction Danny Brassell
These three sessions were presented by the same presenter as in the first session. He was a great speaker. Unfortunately, he repeated most of the same information. He repeated how much children enjoyed doing, Word Tunes by Wayne Lowe. As stated earlier, this is where they write basic sight words and turn them into drawings. We did several examples. It was fun. I can see where the children would love doing this activity. He quickly went over some games, which I will also send to you in an email. One suggestion for books in your classroom was to get was Paul Harvey’s, Rest of the Story. There are eight of these books. They are currently not printing these, but you can find them at places like Amazon and EBay. He commented that these are great mini stories to use for read alouds and contain high interest and useful information. During the Keep it Real session, he went over several nonfiction books that would be good to use in the classroom. These books are listed on the handout. In his classroom he likes to give personality quizzes. He suggested the book, It is All About Me. We did several examples with drawing pictures. For the most part, my drawings did reflect my personality.
Literacy Centers Made Easy: Sandy Reyes
This session was very interesting for me. She went into detail of how she set up and managed her centers. She gave illustrated examples that were easy to follow and various centers you may wish to try in your classroom. I will email you the power point which contains this information along with center icons. One of the main points she made was that it takes time to go into centers at first. Students should know how to use the materials, know what to do if a problem arises and how to clean up centers. She stated that a little time spent up front is worth it in the long run. She tries to put no more than three at a center. This would be extremely hard for larger classes. In her opinion, the work should not be graded. She said you should have open ended centers as much as possible, centers where there is no one right answer. Never put a new skill into a center, or be too specific. Someone asked her about an exit slip, she said that you should do that on the children who are not seriously working, spot checking or if it is required by the administration. She was a big advocate for the Daily 5. Center rules were posted. She listed those in the handout. Everyone laughed when she told the three times it is ok to break the rules. 1. If you are going to throw-up. 2. If you are bleeding and a Band-Aid will not fix it. 3. If you peed your pants. Other than that, students are not allowed to leave a center. She had hand signals that just required a quick glance if the student needed to use the restroom, etc. Sandi said that children should never be finished and have nothing to do. She has a book basket for each child, separate from the library. There should be 2-3 books on the child’s reading level, 2-3 books above reading level and 2-3 below reading level books in their basket. You can order these for about $1-$2 or cut off tops of cereal boxes. When students finish their work, they know to go to their book box.
Using Technology to Encourage Early Readers & Writers I have a Smart Board, Now What? There is an App for That. Lori Elliot
This woman was amazing in all three sessions. She was in the same boat that many of us were in a couple of years ago. The principal said there is a Smart Board in the library; see if you can do something with it. It was a big pet peeve for her that districts sink money into technology and they do not allow for adequate training. Most of her presentations were from power point. Her link is www.lorislatestlinks.com I strongly suggest you look at the site. She gives several websites and app suggestions. One of her suggestions was, Sock Puppets. Sock Puppets is a free app. Children can record their voices with these characters. She said students could use this to do many things. A couple of ideas were to have students explain a procedure to check for understanding and they could use the puppets to retell a story. I thought this was a great idea. Many of children did not do so well on this with the Dibels test.
One thing Lori pointed out to the administrators was that when you purchase IPads for the classroom; please think about budgeting for apps and cases for the IPads. Many apps are free but some will cost money. She stated that a teacher needs to be walking around the room and not stuck at the IPod that has a short cord that is connected to the computer so that the image can be projected. Some apps that she suggested were: Splashtop, Docer, and Reflection. You can also purchase an Apple TV or VGA adapter. Lori said when you have your children work on an Ipad and you want to check their work, you need to teach the children how to take a snapshot of their work. This is done by holding down top button and the bottom button at the same time. This will save their work in the photos. From there you can have them email their work to you
Many educational apps require flash. If you install the app Rover, you can run many of these through this app. I tried it and it works. She suggested Three Ring as an app to collect student work and save it. There were many other apps. listed on her website.
Twenty Steps to Using Your IWB Lauren Reynolds
Lauren said first and foremost that whatever is going on at the Interactive White Board, the children need to be doing in their seats. If a child is doing a math problem, then the children need to be doing that problem on white boards or using manipulatives at their seats. Everyone needs to be engaged! Lessons should be student centered. (What will my students learn from this activity?) Lessons should be taught by scaffolding the lesson and chunking and checking parts for comprehension of the lesson. Lauren said to check your Smart Board software to make sure that the “Gallery Essentials” have been loaded. Sometimes the people installing the software do not always do a complete install. This along with the Lesson Activity Tool kit will provide templates for making a game. She demonstrated how she made a game for her classroom. I believe with a little practice we could all do this. One of the things she really likes to do in her class is use virtual field trips. I can’t wait to try this. The web address she gave was, www.simplek-12.com/virtualtours She also suggested using Fridge Magnet and Smart Exchange for resources.
One thing that I learned was that you can use those rubber finger pointers to manipulate the Smart Board. She said it was good for the students who couldn’t reach the board and the children also liked using the pointer. For small children who had a hard time dropping and dragging an item, she tells them to use their knuckle instead of their finger. I actually heard two speakers suggest this.
Using Differentiated Strategies to Engage Struggling Readers Leila Kayed
This presenter went over the six different kinds of learners. She said that a teacher should know which type of learners she had in the class and to provide learning opportunities for each.
1. Academic
2. Perfectionist
3. Creative
4. Struggling
5. Invisible
6. High Energy
Leila stated that for differentiated instruction to occur you need to do the following:
Provide opportunities for goal setting, this will be very helpful for the academic learner.
Teach time management for the perfectionist
Encourage and develop creative thinking activities
Provide interest centers
Provide specific instructional strategies with well-defined rubrics, spell out clear objectives.
For the rest of the session, she mainly read to us out of a book called, Building Academic Vocabulary by Marzano. She said she would send us her PowerPoint that describes how to build a strong vocabulary by using cubing, tier questioning and grouping. I will pass this information along to you.
Shawn:
I had the prvilege of spending my sessions with Jim Grant, author and Founder of SDE; Rick Wormelli, public school administrator and expert on standards based grading and differentiated instruction, and Dr. Judy Willis, nuerologist (and former elementary teacher). My first two sessions with Jim Grant were about the necessity for differentiation in today's schools. He stressed that due to the urgency needed in American education, good schools with good teachers and good intentions are not good enough; that we must be great at what we do and strive for continuous improvement and excellence and never be complacent with where we are. Most of all he wanted educators to know where is a time and place for a "Walter Conkrite Moment", meaning be truthful! If we're not going to win the war, say so; and regroup. Do not try to sugar coat it. Learn from it, fix it and move on! Now, who among us hasn't had a lesson that desrved a Conkrite moment? I sure know I have! Being reflective practitioners, where we process our practice and use data to improve, is the most valuable thing we can do for our students and community!!!!
The first session I attended on Sunday morning, as I was feeling a little guilty for not being in church, touched me beyond words. After that 3 hours, I knew it was okay that I was there instead of church. The session was on Children in Poverty, again with Jim Grant. It brought me back to why I became an educator. I am here to serve others. This session was full of data and numbers about the effect poverty has on our children today. We know that many of our students are among them. We cannot use this as an excuse for lack luster student performance. We must have the highest expectations, no matter what it takes, for our students. Below are just a few bits of data that really made me think. As he shared them with the group, I could put a face to every statistic. I bet you can too.
1. The number 1 indicator of long term student success is the mother's education level.
2. The brain is hard wired to seek patterns and pleasure. Think about how those in poverty attain both.
3. Children of poverty are overwhelmingly raised by mothers or grandmothers.
4. 21% of U.S. children live in poverty.
5. Students living in poverty are more likely to: be in a dysfuntional family which experiences a high level of stress (stress changes the brain), lack basic health care, live in substandard housing, be malnourished, obese, develop type 2 diabetes, witness domestic violence, have a family member behind bars, suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression, exhibit behavior problems such as agression, and many other disturbing realities.
So knowing these realities, how do we make a difference? How do we make sure our students learn? This work is definitely not for the faint of heart! Think about a time you have interacted with a student who was agressive, defiant, or insubordinate. Would you have handled it a different way if you had known that their caregiver was arrested in their presence at 3:00 a.m. the night before? No excuses! What can we do? The good news is there are proven strategies of engagement that are rooted in nuerology. We can make a difference and give these students a chance at a better tomorrow. We are tomorrow makers!
Since this blog has been long, I will save my other information for next week. I am more confident now than ever that we have what it takes at UTE, to make sure students achieve at high levels. Our challenge is before us! Let's create champions!
There have been many times that a student has been difficult to teach, reach, or showed extensive behavior problems in my classroom. I have always believed that it is never ok to just be consistent to deliver the consequences or punishment for the offense or issue at hand. I truly believe that you must dig deep to the reason behind the situation and once you find that root you will better understand the plan to solve the problem and prevent any further growth problems with that student. The cry for help must be heard and nurtured to prevent behavior and academic problems of our students. We need to strive to understand the child so that we may be the teacher that they need.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I know for sure when thinking about that hard to reach student is you must choose your battles. Often, that child who arrives at school with "the look" that signals "bad day" to you is the child who has already put in a full day (or night) of emotional turmoil at home and is on the defense looking for attention good or bad. I know I set the tone for the day in my classroom and my initial interaction with this child will determine the rest of the day. So, I've learned to be positive and no sweat the small stuff with these students. It's amazing how easily you can reroute that child set for confrontation on a path of cooperation. A kind word, a special task to do, or a hug will make a huge difference. We have to remember we are all fighting a battle of some sort - more and more students especially with the problems at home on the rise - unemployment, poverty, drug addictions. Sometimes, school is the only place students feel self-worth - we must give them that no matter what. That child will remember every unkind word spoken to him/her - I would rather be remembered as the teacher who when hearing my name a smile comes to the child's mind along with a memory of me making that child feel important.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about all the knowledged gained during your visit to Chicago. I know that these new insights will benefit our school as a whole. I look forward to another year at UTE!
ReplyDeleteI am glad you enjoyed the conference in Chicago. I am interested in using the word tunes activity,check out the new sites, and information you have to share. I am definitely going to remember the knuckle on the smartboard and buy a new hand pointer.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that I could pass along some new information. As I was reading, I noticed in Mrs. Justice's blog that 21% of U.S. children live in poverty. That got me thinking about what the percentage was of children in poverty that lived in Carter County. I Googled this and found out that 34.4% of children live in poverty. ( 2010 Census) YIKES!!!!. This is one of the best reasons I know to help our children learn to help themselves. We need to teach them to be the best they can be to overcome the many obstacles that come along with poverty.
ReplyDeleteI am also glad everyone enjoyed the conference. I will definitely remember the knuckle on the smartboard and use the pointer more often.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I have used my post-it program to put a post-it note on my laptop screen so every time I get on my computer I am reminded about our blog!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading Jackie's information on literacy. I have spent this weekend adding word labels to all my pictures that label my shelves in my learning centers. I like the idea of the students creating their own books. I hope to create some books for my library this year that we make as a class. One idea another preschool teacher gave me was to have each child create a page at home with their family and then bind them together.
The information on poverty is almost overwhelming to me. I have said many times before, that my home visits each year make me a better teacher. Just knowing where my students are coming from everyday make a huge difference and allows me to be more understanding of what happens during the day.
Great information girls!!