Creating YOUR Vision

In every school, in every district, in every part of this county (maybe even world) each school sets forth a mission and vision.  If the process is done properly, every stakeholder for the school has a voice in creating the vision and mission.  In addition, the school's mission and vision should trickle down into each classroom and be a, if not the, driving force for each aspect of the decision a teacher makes in class.  However, these two imperative pieces of school operation should be the framework for the construction of individual learning communities that each have a story that is unique to each teacher and group of students that spend time in that room.

Maybe time for an analogy of sorts to better explain my point.  Visualize this, an architect designs a building with a very specific idea of what that building is to look like.  Looking from the outside, the building should be similar in structure to the surrounding buildings; however, there are those that create buildings that are way outside the box of the surrounding buildings.  That is fine too.  Now once that building is constructed, the groups that occupy this building get to determine how their floors will look.  Once that occurs, the floors then become offices or apartments or other spaces that each get their own flair.  Individuality it important to expression in our current culture but in this instance having a guiding light for how to be an individual in this space does not hurt.  Therefore, once the process is complete the group of individuals has a common idea of what the expectation will be for them as they work as a community.  What I am trying to say is that while each individual has their own "spin" on how their space should look and the overall feeling in each space is driven by a vision and belief.

As teachers, it is important that we keep this idea in mind.  It is important to have the school's vision be the driving force for every decision that will impact students.  But it is just as important to make sure that you create your own story and your own vision for how you want your classroom to work and how you want it to operate.  If you are just starting your career or if you looking to rejuvenate keep this in the background as you are preparing to return to school.

How will you create a structure in your classroom that will make students feel welcome?
How will you work with your students to create a shared vision for what your classroom will be?
How will you collaborate with your peers to work together to work towards the school's vision?

So in order to help jump start the brain, here are some resources to get started:

First a post from Beth Houf's blog about some back to school ideas for engaging EVERYONE on the first day.  Make sure you click the link included on her page for some more resources and ideas.

Next a post from TeachThought about 20 things a teacher can easily do to create a comfortable classroom for students and should pay off in the long run.

Finally, a piece from Angela Stockman for new teachers or those that are going to a new building.  Just a few thoughts on what happens when one is put into a new education setting.

Until next time.

End of Year: Just the Beginning

I wrote this during some free time at the ISTE conference; just finally getting around to posting.

I admit, this blog had great potential that I just allowed to squander this year.  It had such great potential to be something that existed to show others one person's journey through the experience of writing a blog.  It took a detour (rather several) along the way.  I guess I just needed to take some time to find the voice for this outlet.  That was a huge revelation for me.

This is my goal.  I am going to work to create, curate, and provide content that will further my mission of helping every child become a competitive global graduate.  As a teacher first, it is my job to educate not just children, but any student who is willing to learn.  A parent, a teacher, a principal, it does not matter.  If you have the willingness to learn, then I have the willingness to provide the resources.  In a sense, the focus will move from solely a piece about advice to refocus to developing those that want to learn and provide resources that will support all learners.

In addition, I think that I was also overzealous in my goal to blog daily.  It is a question I often pose to teachers, is it better to provide instruction that hit on several different topics but briefly or provide instruction that goes further into one topic.  Daily was too much for me.  Daily was too much for my family, friends, and work.  I have not decided on what format I will take; however, I am think that at least monthly I could provide information around a topic and then do my best to update weekly or twice a month with more resources.  Targeted professional development would perhaps be a way to to advertise or present this idea.

I look forward to working with all of you in the future.  If you have any questions send a message via Twitter.  If you have a topic that you would like to discuss let me know.

Rejuvenate

It has been well over two months since I have found the time and moment to sit down and type up a blog post.  Today we will take just a brief moment to review some of the basic tenets of what I have posted thus far and then try to take a new detour.

I have for most of the year encouraged everyone reading this blog to find time for themselves.  Teaching is and can be a daunting job that, by the very nature of the folks doing the job, can be ALL CONSUMING.  I can remember my time in the classroom and not seeing the sun for weeks just because I knew what I needed to do to make sure I was putting forth my best everyday.  Now as an administrator, I find myself on that same path, weeks and the only time I have seen the sun is on bus duty or the weekend.  Of course, I am stressed.  Of course, I am tired.  And of course, I am frustrated.  I am frustrated with myself.  I need to work out better ways to get the job done.  I need to get home and spend time with my family.  I need to find solutions to situations that rise up over the course of the day and still allow me to find time for what I need to do.  These are thoughts that go through my head.  Then I start to wonder if I am being too selfish.  When I signed on for this job, I knew that it would take a great deal of time.  Being a teacher and involved in education means giving a bit in order to receive so much more.

Yes, loyal readers, I am not going to tell you that it is wrong to be frustrated, tired, or even angry.  Those are all emotions that you are allowed to feel as a person.  However, I am going to recommend that instead of having those feelings dominate your day to day; try to look at a different perspective.  When I drive home at the end of EACH day, I take the 60-90 minutes in the car to reflect on the day that just happened.  I think of all the bad and negative first.  Then I think about what I could have done differently to make it better.  Then I realize that I had the solutions for most of the drama that got to me during the school day and I start to recognize that I have the knowledge in me but I couldn't call it up at the right moment.  Then I start to think about all the positives that happened over the course of the day.  By the time I get within 10 minutes of home, I am only focusing on the positive things that will end my day: spending time with my family, taking a moment to read a book, getting into bed to start the next day new and refreshed.

So I guess to sum up this post and steer things in a new direction: we need to refocus and rejuvenate.  I am sure I don't need to tell you this but...don't do work over the holiday break.  Take time for you and your family and friends.  Get out of town.  Shake away the negative and the bad and wake up the day before you are to return not with a feeling of dread but of hope for a new change.  What will you do to make a difference in 2015?  How will you change?  Keep your eyes posted for some ideas for how I plan to make a difference.

Happy Holidays and have a great New Year.

Back in Action

Howdy loyal reader(s)!  I am back in action after a two weeks of not putting up a single post.  While I might not have been successful at posting for 30 days straight, I choose to look at that as a lesson learned instead of a failure.  Creating new content on a daily basis is difficult and there are not too many guides or curricula for blogging.  This was a challenge to get back in touch with my teaching roots.  Since becoming an administrator daily planning has been replaced with more large scale and long term planning for the building and students.  While I still have a daily agenda, the process of creating lessons to explain concepts to students was starting to fade from my memory.  The 30 day challenge was my method of bringing myself back in touch with that.  This sounds so bourgeoisie.  I guess it should.  I was loosing touch with the concepts and work that makes the school tick.  The daily grind so to speak.  However, the absence from the blog was due to refocusing on that exact issue.

During the absence, I spent time analyzing data and working with the administrative team to identify root cause and revise our School Progress Plan.  That took the place of the day to day planning for awhile.  It also revitalized my visions, goals, and plans for the school.  I am very excited to get back in the saddle when it comes to teaching, learning and blogging.

And while I am not one to be overly superstitious, I do believe in signs and this was one that hit me right over the head yesterday.  Thank you to www.techsavvyed.net for helping me refocus and be revitalized.

See you again, very soon.  Enjoy your weekend.

Day 25- A much needed break

I have not posted for some time now.  There is a great reason.  Work.  Work is the reason that I am able to post; therefore, when work calls posting must stop.  After the first day of neglecting the blog, I felt bad.  Then came day two and the guilt started.  You need to post, you need to get the information out to people.  The world is a better place with you posting.  The reality is everything is fine.  So if you upset from missing a few days of random musings then I will apologize right now.  But I am willing to bet that you didn't miss me much. 

Daily posting is very time consuming.  While I have found a voice and theme for this blog, I am still working on a level of consistency.  I want this to have the greatest impact possible for the folks that read.  It would not be fair to any reader to put up mindless pieces of prose that have no meaning.  Therefore in a commitment to quality, I will do a better job of putting together quality post that will be worthwhile in reading.

In the meantime, enjoy post season baseball, spend some moments with your families in the beautiful autumn, and keep teaching to the best of your abilities.

Day 22 and 23- Rearranging the furniture and Chat questions

I broke my streak again for posting every day.  However, this time I felt a bit guilty about not posting anything.  And I think that is where the 30 day challenge comes into play.  One must make blogging a habit in order to it to be successful and 30 days is a great amount of time to make something a habit. Through my recent reading it seems that 21 days is what is actually needed to form a habit.  I will see through to 30 then take a slight hiatus to reorganize.

The week has been devoted to lesson planning.  The final step in planning lessons is to create a way to make it easier as it goes along.  For me, my favorite part of teaching was creating new ways for my students to learn the same thing each year.  I would be lying if I said that I recreated each lesson each year.  To me that seemed foolish.  Starting from fresh, while valiant, is very time consuming and tiring.  Plus, if we "throw the baby out with the bath water" each time, we can never narrow down what worked in each lesson and what did not work.  That is what this all boils down to.  Sharpening your lesson planning skills with laser like focus.

I would recommend a few tips:

1. For the first few years of your career be as detailed oriented in your lessons.  At the end of each lesson/period taught AND and the end of the day, take time to reflect on what was successful and what you would do differently.
2. Plan ahead.  Make a unit plan.  Then a monthly plan.  Then a weekly plan.  Then a daily plan.  Start big and then break it down.  Even the tallest mountains will one day be a rolling hill.  It takes time, persistence, and patience to get this right.  Keep plugging away.  It is not easy but as you finish up a few years, you will see your work pay off.
3. Keep assessing.  Assess your students and keep a few responses from lessons to see if you need to make adjustments.  I used to keep one to three assessments from each lesson: a correct response, a somewhat right response, and a different planet response.  I wanted to see where I went right and where I went wrong.
4. If you feel yourself getting comfortable and that you don't need to plan: STOP.  Reassess the situation and challenge yourself in a different way.  One example: If you shoot for 75-80% proficiency on assessments, create a lesson that will have 100% of students on the right track.  Create the challenge.
5. You need to be your toughest critic.  Please do not allow another person to come into your room to tell you things you should already know.  Mentors, administration, and peer observations are great; but, you need to make sure that you have a strong understand of what was and was not successful in your class.

#WMMS CHAT

TOPIC: Lesson Planning

Reminder questions may change and please use #wmmschat in your response. 

We follow Q&A format.

Welcome to #wmmschat, please introduce yourself and state how comfortable you are with planning daily lessons.

Q1) How do you start planning your lessons?  Where do you begin? #wmmschat

Q2) What component of a lesson plan is most important to you?  Why? #wmmschat

Q3) How do you include Ss and their responses in your lesson plan? #wmmschat

Q4) IYO (in your opinion), are lesson plan templates necessary for good instruction? Explain. #wmmschat

Q5) How do you remain flexible to your Ss and their needs during instruction? #wmmschat

Day 21- Designing the Details

I am almost done with the 30 day challenge and hopefully I am starting to make some sense to everyone.  For this string of posts, I have followed a model of lesson planning and I am reaching the last two days of promised posts.  I am hoping that this was about a subtle as a brick through a window.  I developed a plan, set about a framework, and I am now filling in the details.  So four days in a row, soon to be a week, I modeled how to plan out a lesson.

Now to preface the rest of this post with something very important, I am not a doctor nor do I pretend to be one on TV.  While I might not be the smartest guy in the room (all the time) I do spend a great deal of time reading and observing.  So what follows are just some ideas and suggestions for how to fill in that template that was discussed yesterday.

Objective: Folks might disagree with me on this one, but in my experiences having an objective is a great way to summarize a lesson.  It is a brief statment that students can refer to or the teacher can ask them to refer to in order to keep kids on track.  It is also a very easy way to wrap up a lesson.  

Drill/Warm-Up/Do Now: An activity to get kids involved immediately in the lesson.  It can be a question, discussion, or any other activity that immediately grabs the kids and gets them thinking about the lesson.  I used them as the jump off point for almost every lesson.  A great idea is to create a discrepant event that challenges the typical way of thinking.  

Engagement Activity: I look at this as a continuation of the drill.  Keep the ball rolling with what you just had the students doing.  Make it as interesting as possible.  It can be as simple as continuing a discussion about the drill or as difficult as you want it to be.

Now where there is discrepancy and arguments.  For the next portion, the meat of the lesson, people make millions...and MILLIONS of dimes off of this discussion.  I don't care how you do this but include some of the following in some type of order:

Teacher Alone, Teacher with Student, Student with Teacher, Student Alone

Exploration activity, Explanation Activity, Extension Activity, Elaboration Activity

Together with You, Together Together, and All by Yourself.

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen

Each of the above is a way to get the the content to the students.  Except for the last one, that one is Vanilla Ice; but, it could be the new way to teach.  The point is to get the students working.  I don't care how you get the involved and working just get them doing something.  Try to provide some time for them to work together, work with you, and work alone.  But really that is up to you, far be it from me to tell you exactly how to do this as that is the BEST part of the job.  This is what makes teaching an ART and SCIENCE.  

After the students have been involved with doing work, it is important to SUMMARIZE.  Personally, I think the best way to do this is to have the students tell you what they did and how they did it.  Ask them if the met the objective and elaborate on how they did or did not.  Again, not a doctor, but I would think that this allow the information to go to a different part of the brain; you know short term versus long term.

Finally, it is important to assess the students.  Now please note that while I put this at the end, it is only because their needs to be an assessment at the end of EVERY lesson.  If one starts with the end in mind, this will be the goal for the lesson.  This will be the proof that the students met the objective.  I caution you that if this is the only time you assess during your lesson, you will be sorely disappointed in the results.  It is imperative that you assess throughout the lesson in order to adjust how you provide instruction and identify students that need more assistance in order to get them to the end point.  That is teaching.  Doing it all...every day...is teaching at your best.  

Keep up the great work that you do every day.  #wwmschat questions will be posted soon, thinking about swtiching something up for next week, but need to run it by the team.  

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment.