Day 3: Evaluation

Today's prompt is about which "observation" area I would like to improve upon this year.  While I don't have the rubric right in front of me, I am having trouble with this one.  Not with the idea of improving.  On the contrary. I believe all educators should be deemed "developing", which in our current evaluation system, this term is used in a negative way to mean a teacher is in some way sub-par.  I know that I am always trying to improve in all areas of my teaching.  The fact that I might earn a 4 (highest rating) on some of the areas of the rubric doesn't mean that I check those things off.  I don't say to myself, "Well, I have mastered that!"  Teaching just doesn't work that way.

I wonder why the creators of this challenge had to ask participants to use the rubric they are evaluated by to think of how they wanted to improve.  While most would end up choosing something that could be found there anyway, it gives a little too much power to that document in my opinion.  Any teacher who would take on a #reflectiveteaching blogging challenge probably wouldn't have trouble identifying areas on their own.

There are many things wrong with our current teacher evaluation system.  One of which is that the way in which we are judged by an administrator and the tool that s/he uses to write about our skills as a teacher is diminished once a score is assigned to those areas.  Teaching is the most humanistic of jobs.  We deal in people.  To think that you are able to quantify what we do each day is absurd.  Not to mention that at the end of the day, what s/he believes to be true about a teacher could be trumped by student test scores.  I could be viewed during my observations as a master teacher, but if my students don't perform on test day, that is what matters most.

I'll get off my soapbox for a moment to try to address the prompt. This year, my department is trying to be more aligned in what we teach.  It will involve tough conversations, open-minds and the ability to take a hard look at our own teaching.  I am up for this challenge.  Collaborating with colleagues is dependent on a school culture that encourages and gives time to allow for this kind of work.  I want to make take advantage of the time we are given to learn from my peers and continue to improve upon my curriculum and my teaching.

Day 2: Technology

Day 2 in the blogging challenge asks: write about one piece of technology that you would like to try this year, and why.  This should be an easy prompt for me since I integrate technology into each of my units and am always looking for new things to try.  With having Chromebooks for an entire year for the first time though, I am really looking at the edtech I use and how I might really reflect on how we might use it in a better way.  Because we now have a key ingredient that you need in order to be truly successful with technology and that is time.  Gone are the days of fighting for a computer lab.  Fitting it in when we were able.  We will now have the luxury of time to delve a little deeper into our blogs, our portfolio websites, and the many other platforms that we will use to create with this year. Before introducing more technology to my students, I think I want to relish in the time that we will have in the coming months to allow these 7th graders to really feel confident in how they express themselves in each of these digital ways.

Now that we have daily access to the Internet, our Google apps, and critical tools, which is a truly a powerful thing, I want to make sure to stay true to the one technology that never fails: pen and paper.  I want to make sure my classroom is a balance of all the above when it comes to reading and writing. My students will still walk through my door prepared with a folder and a notebook.  A folder to collect the many texts we will read, mark up, argue about, study and discuss at length. Their writer's notebook will still be used for the silent writing time that I will continue to start class with.  My students will grow in their stamina to write and think independently over the next ten months because this kind of work will facilitate the work that they will eventually bring into a digital form.

The one piece of technology that I will be trying with students this year is a new Google app called Classroom. This will be a resource for students to look up assignments, post questions and communicate with both me and their classmates.  My teammates and I are transitioning to Classroom and will no longer maintain our team website. While I am excited about the possibilities with Classroom and the interactive nature that I think students will enjoy, the one drawback is that parents won't have direct access to it.  By 7th grade, students are still trying to learn independence and responsibility with their schoolwork. Gone are their elementary days of the 'take-home' folder, where they would sit and go through their papers with their parents each night.  My hope is that Classroom could be an almost virtual 'take-home' folder for students and their parents with the caveat that a parent must sit down with their child in order to view, since the student has to log into their Google account.  Then they can view and discuss assignments if the need arises.  I will be introducing this new app next week and am excited to show it to students.

Day 1: Goals for the year

One goal I have this year is to utilize this blog more.  I came across this 30-day blogging challenge for teachers. I thought it was the jump start I needed since my personal challenge is to blog all 180 days of school. A lofty goal, I know, but I am committed to try.

Fittingly, day 1 of the challenge is to write about my goals for the year. As usual I have many and feel as though I am choosing to reinvent my year once again. Despite my 14 years of teaching 7th grade, I simply can't do things like I did the previous year. I feel that each year, my new students deserve more than for me to serve up the same lessons. First because my last-year students end up teaching me so much.  Learning is definitely reciprocal, and I bring into the next year all the successes and flops from the previous year to steer me in a different direction. Second because the students that I will meet tomorrow are all individuals who I will try to get to know and teach them wherever they are at. Since my new kids are not carbon copies of my formers then how could my teaching be?

I also will be starting September with my class set of Chromebooks. Having these tools have allowed me the freedom to not only dramatically rethink my curriculum but are helping me to realize some of my teaching dreams. This year I have the goal of making my student's learning truly personalized as they embark on a year-long inquiry on something they are passionate about. Something they are curious about. Something they will choose to learn more about this year. In doing so, we will use the 7th grade curriculum to further our inquiries culminating in an end-of-the-year project to present our work.  I am very excited!

I wil end with some goals that for me as a teacher will never change. That my students feel safe in my classroom. That they walk in with relief to be in my classroom rather than dread. That they feel respected to share their thinking and writing with no fear of being laughed at or ridiculed.  That they see me as an advocate who is fair and willing to listen.  I start each year with these and feel I could always do more than the year before. And so I try. 

Comfortably Uncomfortable

A colleague recently told me that they didn't incorporate technology into their teaching because they weren't comfortable with it like I was. I listened and thought that was a fair comment.  But the more I mulled it over, I realized that in her statement was the assumption that I am comfortable with technology. I began to think about what it is like for me when I try something new with my students.  

Am I comfortable?  

Well, no, not with the technology itself at least. I am comfortable though with the fact that my students and I will run into trouble. I am comfortable exploring something that might not turn out the way I envisioned. Quite simply, my comfort is in the fact that I don't need to be 100% in control. When my lesson plan is flexible, we are open to whatever questions and problems arise. Sometimes the plan is to let my students' questions be the plan and see where that leads us.  I've come to realize that my favorite student response now isn't, "Mrs. Fanning, I understand." But rather, "Mrs. Fanning, I figured it out."  

So no, I am not comfortable with technology. And any teacher who utilizes it knows that to use technology, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.  (Well, maybe not for teachers like my special education teammate, who holds a degree in computer science.)  As the song goes, you have to just let it go, trust in your students and yourself as their guide, and know that true teaching is showing kids the power of playing and making mistakes in order to learn.

This isn't meant to be an argument that teachers must use technology. (I'll save that for another post.) At the very least, being uncomfortable shouldn't be used as an excuse for not using it.

Christmas Eve in April

    At home on a much-needed April break,  I am anticipating returning to school next week like a kid on Christmas Eve.  When we get back, we will have a new addition to room 356.  Not a new student, not a new piece of comfy furniture, but a cart of 30 Chromebooks!  Having computers in the classroom every day for the rest of the school year will open lots of new possibilities for me and my 7th graders.

     I imagine being so much more productive during class time and, hopefully, reducing the amount of work students will have to do at home.  This is especially important for my students who have limited computer access outside of school.  Not only will students have the Chromebooks during language arts but Tutorial as well, not to mention Access and Activity Period.

     These last ten weeks are usually the hardest with the weather getting nicer and summer just around the corner.  I am hoping that this infusion of technology will help to keep us engaged as we finish our work together for the year.  Having time to use the Chromebooks with my current students, who already know so much about Google apps, will also enable me to get ready for the fall and how to best prepare my new crop of 7th graders to get them up and running more smoothly.

    Seriously.  This is a game changer.  In a month where we are bogged down with two weeks of NYS testing (and days of scoring for me), our Chromebooks are a bright shining light in an otherwise oppressive month.  I am so thankful for my school district's progressive approach to technology and providing such rich opportunities for me and my students.  Bring on the 4th quarter!

Hiatus

It has been too long since my last post.  As the weeks and months ticked by and I willingly neglected my blog, I began to feel like I had failed somehow.  I am positive that this is something that happens with all bloggers.  And so, here I am.  Dusting myself off.  Hopping back into that saddle.

Much like me, I allowed my students to fall behind with their blogs.  My last assigned post was at the start of the New Year.  I finally assigned another one due next Friday.  I told them we needed to revive their blogs, which had lay dormant for too long.  Many students nodded in agreement. Some I could tell were hoping that I had simply forgotten about them.

It made me wonder though if it is possible to get students to take ownership of their blogs and write without the need for due dates.  I had from the start of this year made it clear that I was not responsible for what they wrote about.  My mantra had always been, You are the boss of your blog.  I never once slipped and asked them to write a post related to something in class.  I only encouraged them, if they were stuck about what to write about, to use their writer's notebook for ideas or even to lift an entry out of there to use for a blog post.  A safety net of sorts. 

As I announced yesterday though that a new post would be due next week, I walked over to one student who proudly announced he had already written one.  Really?  He showed me that he had posted before a due date was announced.  I excitedly looked, and before I noticed the date stamp read January 24, asked how many times he had posted since our last due date.  "Just once," he explained, "I was trying to stay ahead of when one might be due."  I told him that was great and walked away a bit deflated. 

I know that for a blogger to truly be engaged it is important for the writing to serve a particular need for the writer.  When a teacher tells a student they must maintain a blog, well, then it really isn't as authentic of an experience.  I shouldn't be disappointed that none of my students continued blogging without my say so.  It is, after all, probably just another school assignment to them.  And as with my own blog, which I don't think I started out of a particular need but rather to serve as a role model for my students, I, too, didn't maintain. 

All of this doesn't make me want to abandon blogging . . . my own or my students.  I know that it is the act of writing our blogs that are important.  Ours simply serve a different purpose, a different need.  For my kids, it is another space to practice their writing, to develop their voice, to explore what is important to them.  For me as well, I am able to engage in the practice of writing, figure out who I am as a writer and a teacher, and reflect on the work I do as an educator. 

So while our blogging hiatus has left me with a tinge of guilt, it has also taught me again something about why I started with it in the first place.  I feel like we are like someone who stops exercising for a few months and realizes they have to start up again.  And one we do, I know we will be glad we did.

Lucky Woman

Traveling on I-90E with my husband, I feel pretty lucky. Friends offered us a pair of tickets to the Red Sox playoff game against the TB Rays.  My students know about my love of the Sox, so I know they can appreciate what a cool surprise this is for me.  It was totally unexpected in a weekend that I had planned to be fairly mundane. My to- do list included laundry, the grocery store and washing windows. But here I am on my way to Fenway.

This lucky feeling was an extension to the luck I have been feeling with my students this year. They have been working hard and their enthusiasm and participation has assured me that engaging them first to determine what they are interested in was the right path to take.  

We are on our way with our first theme of the year: Future. This theme was developed by the kids among four others and then voted on. Each student is crafting an Essential Question for what they would like to explore in this theme. Meanwhile, using the curriculum that I must follow, I am choosing texts, lessons and activities to support them in their work.  

The success of this approach, known as Curriclum Integration, is dependent upon one very important thing: my students. Without their support and willingness to go on this ride with me, I would have had to abandon this experiment early in our time together.  But they show up each day, sometimes with an air of confusion that I am actually interested in what they are curious about, and think, talk, listen and write in order to move us along on our journey into the Future.

Pretty darn lucky.

As if this wasn't enough, they are also blogging. This too they have taken up with great gusto. Their initial posts are going from sounding like what they think I want to hear, to developing into their own voices as they choose what to write. I have told them, "You are the boss of your blog."  It has taken some time for them to trust that I actually mean it. Just yesterday as I gave them their second blog post deadline, I fielded the question of, "What can I write about?"  I reiterated my usual reply, but it was chorused with other students echoing, "Whatever you want . . . you are the boss."

I also have been asked multiple times if they are allowed to write when they want or should they wait for me to tell them.  I am always troubled by this one because I think it shows the current culture of schools. Don't think for yourself. Only answer what you are being asked.  Choose A, B, C, or D.  

I react to this question with lots if excitement and tell them to do what bloggers do.  Write as soon as an idea strikes you.  Don't wait. 

And now I can share with them about the time I wrote a post via my phone on my way to Boston.  Pretty darn lucky.