Having taught middle school science for 10+ years I have heard, seen, and tried a lot of things. I look forward to sharing my experiences and ideas on all things middle school and science teaching.
I have to admit, I have somewhat of a book buying obsession. Unfortunately I don't always get to read the books I buy right away, and I often end up with a stack of books that get overlooked. Such was the case with #Culturize, by Jimmy Casas. I kept looking at, saying next week I will read this, and then life would get in the way. Which is why I was so excited when #122edchat announced it as the Summer Book Study, because a book study pushes you to read the book on a schedule. I also have the added pressure of agreeing to host the chat on July 25th, and I picked it as my choice to present for my district inservice Professional Book Club. (I love a double dip!) I was excited to start reading it, and boy was I not disappointed. As a teacher with almost 15 years of experience in the classroom, I am still learning new things all the time. That is what I love most about teaching. There is always an opportunity to evolve and grow. No two years are ever the same. The only limitation is what I put on myself. Since moving to my current district 5 years ago, I have evolved greatly as an educator, really working on refining my craft. I have discovered the power of growth mindset, inquiry-based learning, #edtech tools and quality formative assessment. As I was reading #Culturize, I often found myself saying, "THAT'S ME! I DO THAT!" and then I got to Chapter 3..... and read "Leaders Don't Need a Title" and it clicked.
You don't need an invitation to be a leader...Just be one!
I have always been reticent to consider myself a "leader". The voice in my head would say "You are "only" a teacher, you are not a leader." I try the best I can to make a difference in my school community, joining committees and volunteering to help with special projects or events. But I never considered myself a leader.......UNTIL NOW! I feel like Jimmy Casas gave me the best gift anyone could give someone, permission to lead. I AM a leader, both in my own classroom and as part of the school I work in. I don't need a special title or special permission to do things that will enhance the culture and climate of the building I work in. I have already made a few strides towards this new mindset. I will be joining a few, special like-minded educators in my school next year to bring the Positivity Project to our building. We have the support and backing of our Assistant Principal, and she has made it clear that this will be a team effort. I am excited for this year, because I know that we have a huge opportunity to effect change within our students. I also plan to to develop some inservice workshops next year to share with other teachers the power of Twitter, Growth Mindset and #tlap. I became an Educator because of the immense power I believe teaching has it in shaping future generations. I have never wanted to be anything else other than a teacher, and feel it is my calling. It is why I loved #Culturize so much, Jimmy gets it! When I got to pg. 10, I knew I was all in on this book.
"To be an excellent educator is a gift--
a gift to our students, our families, and our communities.
Being an excellent educator is, in fact, a gift to our humanity."
We have so much to deal with on a daily basis, it can be overwhelming at times, but when you think about what we do as a gift, it makes it all worth it!
Some of you might have noticed that I haven't posted on my blog in awhile. In all honesty, I had every intention of making blogging a regular thing this year, and then IT happened.
As teachers, we all have years with THOSE classes. The ones that have reputations that seemingly follows them from Kindergarten. You hear the stories and warnings, but say to yourself "It will be different when they are in my class," and "They will surely mature before they reach 7th Grade." Most years we get through the honeymoon period and the inevitable middle school slump as the pressure increases, and then we come out the other side. Usually by the time they reach the end of the second Marking Period, they have matured and settled into their school routine. We have procedures established, and we can go about the business of exploring, working hard and having fun. But NOT THIS YEAR! This year was a bit different. I can't exactly explain what happened, but things that had previously worked just didn't anymore. Activities and assignments that were previously captivating and engaging just fell flat. Starting after the holiday break, things just became more difficult. Students were harder to motivate in class, and many didn't think they needed to do anything outside of class time. In my team meetings we all found ourselves saying, "What has happened?!?"
So what is a teacher do? We still had half the year to go and a lot more content to cover.
You reassess, reexamine and keep moving forward. I had to dig in, not give up. Nights and weekends were spent scouring for new approaches to reach my students. Materials were tweaked, reworked or thrown out all together. Twitter chats became a source of inspiration and motivation to just keep working for all my students. I needed to focus on teaching the students that were in front of me each day, and they deserved nothing less than my best. Fortunately I have a very understanding husband, and my dog is happy as long as he can sit next to me on the couch and gets the occasional scratch and cuddle.
In the end we all made it through the year. I was not able to reach all students in the way I had hoped, but I know that I did the best I could. Middle school is a rough time, and I hope that students are able to take what they learned about themselves as learners to start off 8th grade on the right foot. In 7th Grade sometimes we are the transition year, and we don't get to finish all the work we need to do with students. On the anonymous end of the year feedback form I give, most of my students said they enjoyed the class and learned new things in Science. Many of them thanked me for making Science fun for the first time for them.
As I reflect on the year, there were a lot of challenges but there were also a lot of successes. I discovered some great new tools that I will continue using in the future, including Plickers, Quizizz, Formative, and Quizlet Live and the amazing power of sketchnoting! I moved away from whole class instruction and gave more opportunities for choice in what and how they approached a task. It has led me to my direction for next year, which is more of a blended learning approach.
My most difficult students have in fact made me a better teacher.
I have no doubt that in my career I will encounter this again before I leave the classroom, but I will see it as an opportunity to rise to the occasion and up my game. As teachers we have students in front of us that we are charged with teaching to the best of our ability each and every day.
We have 180 days to make a difference in the lives of our students.
It is not always easy, but it is ALWAYS WORTH IT.
My journey into the amazing world of #sketchnotes began when I signed up to do #DitchSummit, presented by Matt Miller (@jmattmiller). I watched all the videos and when I started following the hashtag, I saw people making these cool things called #sketchnotes. I thought, wow these are cool but I could never do something like that. I have never been artistically talented and rely on stick figures and doodles to get things done. I share freely with my students that we all have different talents and art is not mine. However, I have been embracing growth mindset in my classroom this year, and thought "wow, that is not very growth mindset." I needed to push myself out of my comfort zone, and try something new for the students that are more artistic and creative.
I read a couple blog post about #sketchnotes from @SteinbrinkLaura on her blog Rockin The Boat (She is fantastic by the way, you really need to go follow her right now.)
I started researching it a little more and searching around on Twitter and the Internet, and something clicked for me.
💡 It is not about the quality of the art, it is about the IDEAS represented on the page. 💡
I hated doing traditional note taking with my students because it was ALWAYS a struggle. They used every avoidance technique in the book, and the end product was often incomplete or unusable. They were doing it to get it done, not to learn the content presented. Sketchnoting is a way to connect text and visuals in an organized and connected way.
I made the decision right then to give it a try in my class. We were starting a new unit next week, so I decided to have them create a sketchnote for the first reading passage, a 3-page overview of Elements, Compounds, and Mixtures ( I know, exciting right 😉)
I prepared myself by watching some of the videos made by @HeckAwesome on YouTube and created my own sketchnote to see what the process felt like. I am not an artistic person, but I am a Doodler from way back. Once I started it was easy to map out the ideas and organize them how I wanted. I decided to use graph paper since I am a crooked writer, and need lines to stay straight. It took me about 30 minutes to complete. Was it perfect, NO, but it was a good start.
Feeling confident that this could work with my students, I prepared myself to present this in class. I decided to show a YouTube video from Sketcho Frenzy that explains the basics of Visual Notetaking, and then just let them get started. I didn't want to give then too many constraints or suggestions and wanted to see what they could really do with it. I did show them my example so they could see me trying something new as well.
I gave students about a class and a half of time to work on it and created a short formative assessment with check-in questions using EdPuzzle to be able to assess their learning and give them feedback. Some students realized after doing the EdPuzzle that their sketchnote was incomplete, so they went back and made additions and revisions before redoing the questions. The next class day we went on to do an activity that took their learning and applied it to some models of matter to identify elements, compounds, and mixtures.
Overall the results showed that all students had at least demonstrated some level of proficiency on the concept, with many approaching mastery level. But most important of all, when I gave a Socrative to ask them to provide feedback, the response showed me a lot of the students LIKED IT!!!
I asked 3 questions for the students to give me some feedback using Socrative.
Question 1: Compared to doing traditional notes, I liked doing Sketchnotes
Question 2: I think creating the sketchnote help(ed) me understand the content.
Question 3: I would like to do sketchnoting more often in this class.
I also asked students "What would you like me to do differently next time we do sketchnoting?"
Some of the feedback from students that I took into consideration included:
"I liked the way sketchnoting went this time. Maybe if we did sketchnoting with a longer article it would make it slightly easier since we would have more information to provide."
"Giving a list of things we need so we can understand how to format it (only basics) to make sure we have the most important parts so we don't run out of space."
"Give us more time in class."
"Have a bigger page"
"I would give people a choice of doing regular notes or scetch notes because regular notes are a lot easier to study from and easier to understand."
and there were many who said
"Keep it the same, it was really fun and I enjoyed it."
Anytime I am implementing something new in class, I always ask for student feedback in some way so that I can improve for next time. My students are always honest and respectful when giving me feedback, because they know I read it and take it seriously.
SO....what are my next steps.
I have already done this again with my students, and I took many of their suggestions into consideration. I showed students how to tape 2 pages together to have more space. I talked about how the sketchnotes can be made however they need them to be to WORK for them. If your sketchnotes did not work for you last time, try a different format or approach. I did insist that they include some form of drawing but stressed it was about the ideas, not detailed pictures.
After the second implementation, I will do another assessment, this time through GoFormative, so that I will be able to see how students are doing on their way to proficiency before the activity.
I am excited to continue to learn about this process and can't wait to learn from others who are on this path as well. There is a lot of great information out there, and I would love to talk sketchnotes with anyone interested. Just reach out on Twitter and I would be happy to talk #sketchnotes!
I will admit it, I love a Twitter Chat. I put my favorite ones in my calendar so I can get reminders, and frequently miss my favorite shows to participate (thank goodness for DVR!) I started thinking the other day about WHY I love Twitter Chats so much, and I realized it is because I use the opportunity to reflect on my own practice through answering the questions and chatting with others. Although I try to take time to reflect each day, sometimes there are meetings and mundane tasks that take that time away. I know the power of reflection, and this year one of my goals was to help students be more reflective of their own learning in my class.
Up until this year, I did reflection sporadically with students, but there was no specific format or routine to it. Although students completed the questions, I don't know if they were really doing much purposeful reflection. I realized that in order to make the reflection worthwhile for students, I needed to devote time to it each week. I also need to give students some instruction in setting goals that they can work towards and reflect on. Each summer I pick one thing to create or totally revamp for the following year. This past summer I created a student Learning Journal for students to work in for more purposeful reflection during the entire school year.
As I was creating the Learning Journal and looking at my year-long planning, I realized that there are 3 perfect times to reflect on the progress that are the most meaningful times: end of the week, end of the unit and end of the marking period. I created 3 different templates to be used, with different but connected purposes. At the beginning of the unit, students are given time to create a marking period long goal and an action plan. It can be related to science or any other classes but needs to be academic in nature. We follow the SMART goal design, which I talk about at the beginning of the year with students.
Periodically students reflect on their progress towards meeting this goal during Friday reflection time. I created a place in the back of the journal to reflect on a question or two each week. I don't grade this, but I walk around and do check-ins and pick random journals to read each week and give feedback.
At the end of the Marking Period, students go back and reflect on whether or not they met their goal, and what they can do differently in the future. I think this is the most important part because if students don't meet their goal, they need to think about WHY they didn't meet it and what they should do next.
At the beginning of each Unit, students are asked to create a specific goal for that unit. They have to identify roadblocks to their success and how to overcome those obstacles. I try not to steer them too much in a specific direction, but if they get stuck I suggest they consider homework completion, test and quiz grades, or quality of work. These 3 issues seem to be the biggest hindrances to success for many students.
Some Fridays I have them go back and reflect on their Unit Goal, assess their progress, and what they still need to do to reach their goal. At the end of a Unit, when they get their tests back, they complete the end of Unit Reflection which is formatted as a "3-2-1" and bring the journal home to have it signed by parents.
As with anything new that you implement, I have already discovered things I will change for next year. Overall I think I accomplished my goal of being more purposeful and organized in the manner in which I have students reflect. Goal setting is a skill that ALL people should be doing, and middle school is a great time to start that process. Students need to know that any goal you set needs to have a plan behind it in order to increase the chance of success.
I tell my students that a goal without a plan is just a wish, and I am not a fairy godmother. I am instead a teacher who wants students to set their own goals and then work hard to reach them. My job is to do what I can to remove roadblocks and give them a boost when needed. The path to reaching goals is not always easy, but in the end it should be worth it.
A few years ago as I was sitting in a Differentiated Instruction workshop, the instructor was talking about the power of giving students choice. I had heard about choice before, but I always thought about it in the context of things like choice boards and project topics. Instead, she talked about the small things that we impose on students each day, for no other reason than it is how we do it. For example, when students are asked to write their responses to a question we give them lined paper. What about the student who would prefer to write on unlined paper? or type it? Does it really make a difference what type of paper the student records the response on? Probably not. As teachers, don't we just want students to be producing content and embedded in the process of learning? Then the bigger question came: Is the lined paper hindering the ability of some to produce the best product?
It is generally true that teachers teach in the way the WE learn best. I am not saying it is a good or bad thing, it just the way we know how to do things. I started thinking about how many times during class I make decisions for students that could be left up to them to decide. So I started making small shifts in how I approached an assignment. I started asking the question, what choice could I offer students in this task. Write or draw the response? Lined or unlined paper? Pen or Pencil? I started implementing this right away with my students, often saying to them, "Choose what works best for your brain." The first few times I did it, they were apprehensive about having a choice. It is a sad commentary that students are trained to just do what they are told, and often have difficulty making decisions on their own. They are afraid there is a "wrong" choice.
After about a week, students started asking if they could do it a different way. When they started asking me, I stopped and really thought about it. Instead of asking the students why I asked myself why not. If the student is asking, they must have a reason for it. What their reasoning is does not necessarily matter to me, but it matters to them. If I couldn't think of a reason why their request wouldn't work, I should let them try it. I decided to use the standard answer "As long as it will help you to be a productive learner." As I reflected on it, I realized that I had empowered my students to set their own stage for success.
In a future post, I want to talk more about the choice I give in the year-long assignment my students do, creating their very own Science Encyclopedias. All students do the same terms each unit, but the deadline is not until the end of the unit. Students have class time and home time to work on them, and I give a suggested timeline for completion. The biggest choice they have is the templates they use. I started out with two choices and I am now up to four.
All templates have the same content, but the layout is different. Students are free to choose whatever ones they want to use and can change at any time. When surveyed students often tell me they appreciate the chance to choose the template and the flexibility of when they do them in the unit.
In my present day classroom, I try to give choice in as many situations as possible. Students are free to sit on yoga mats on the ground or move to a table by themselves during work time. When it makes sense students are able to work alone, in pairs or small groups. Students can write with whatever makes them happy, even if it is a foot long pink sparkly feather pen with pink ink (true story).
With the focus on the work and learning, students are still able to maintain some of the control over the HOW of their learning while I determine the what. Middle schoolers desperately need to have some control of their lives in their ever-changing topsy-turvy world.
So, next time a student asks if they can do something a different way ask your WHY NOT and see what happens.
