9/21/23

Wow. It’s been awhile. I know. It’s really, really, really, hard for me to juggle multiple classes. I love the idea of a blog/summary to contain notes with links and pictures, so I am going to try and bring it back, especially if students run it.

I’m not sure if I am going to get this going this 9 weeks or not, but I’m just poking my head back to shake the dust off!

Innovator’s Mindset: Chapter 3

I love change. I consider myself a progressive: I want to get better and am trying to be proactive rather than  reactive. For me, time constraints force me to prioritize. Sometimes, I have to go with a less effective or risky lesson because of time.

Since people don’t think they NEED to change, that to change would be admitting that what they’ve been doing is wrong. But it’s not about right or wrong.

Regarding empathy, instead of just asking if I’d want to be a student in my classroom, I also ask if I’d want MY children to do the activity.

I will say that some days I need a teacher-centric day. If every single day is student focused, I get overwhelmed. Again, time management is at play here.

I try to teach my students inductive – that is, I trick them into learning. They often ask what the activity has to do with English class. My goal is that by the end of the lesson, they can tell me.

If best practices dont serve all students, then that’s not really best practices. BP just became a buzz word for vocabulary exercises and glorified worksheets, but there are still Activia that reach most learners. Think Hattie’s scale!

Having an audience is important. That audience needs to be not just me or room 174. I need to help them reach a broader audience.

Q1: I don’t even see it as risk taking. I just do it. What’s the worst that could happen? I lose a day of instruction?

Q2: I don’t let the grade stifle my students. They can redo and fix. I try to have my grades really reflect learning.

Q3: I think I exhibit all of the qualities. My flaws aren’t addressed in those pages, but I have them!  😉

Innovator’s Mindset: Chapter 2

Some things that kept me up last night: the UumiZoomies theme song and my AP Lit class. I’m struggling with how to meet their needs while maintaining AP level standards. I think I need to ask Mr. K. to talk to them about growth mindset, because I’m disturbed they are so focused on a grade/curve. I’m glad that we are an open enrollment campus, but I feel that some students have signed up solely for a GPA boost. I need to think on this some more, but this book made me examine this issue. I don’t have answers, but at least I’m asking the questions, right?

Back to the book: I saw Educating Yorkshire and I bawled. Actually, I think I watched a reaction video target than the original.

I can see how this builds upon growth mindset. I find it interesting that I mentioned it before I started even this chapter. Education shouldn’t be something that happens to us – it shouldn’t be a passive experience. Rather, it should inspire students to take initiative to answer their questions about the world.

While I am a growth mindset girl, I think that we can all fall into a fixed mindset when we are frustrated. Whether it’s about students, faculty members, or just situations. Sometimes it sneaks up on us, especially when we give our all and it falls short of expectations. Rather than someone who feeds into co-rumination or reminds just to “BE POSITIVE”, I need to be around someone who reminds me that I am making a difference even if I sometimes can’t see the forest for the trees.

How many times have I tried to convince students that there’s more to life than their grades? It’s the APPLICATION! Who cares about Beowulf? It’s the values that I stress. It’s confidence and social codes and nobility. If I want my students to be able to think outside of the box, I have to as well to create opportunities for them to practice that skill.

All students can learn, right? But they (we) might not all learn the same way or at the same time. I think if you recognize that, you are capable of being an educational innovator.

Page 35 the budget is addressed, but only cursory. :/ Innovating inside of the box sounds a bit like a cop out to me: your time and money go where your priorities are.

Failure. I had a friend in medical school who had a hypothesis. She had a huge experiment with fruit flies and mutations. I don’t know the details. At the end, she was upset because her experiment failed. Her professor Todd her no, it didn’t fail: she proceed that her theory didn’t work. I think of it as she just crossed off a wrong answer on a test.

Maybe I’m considered an “innovator” because I had such bad teachers growing up. I know that sounds like a horrible thing to say, and I did have some amazing teachers in my life, but I have always known that if wouldn’t want to grade the assignment, then a student wouldn’t want to DO the assignment.

“As leaders,  we need to develop a culture that focuses on doing whatever it takes to ensure that we are successful in serving all of our students.” I have heard too many horror stories of administration guilt tripping teachers into working for free with this statements like this. Maybe I react to it because this is how I end up struggling with my work/home life balance.

But that means we have to not take it personally when we fail. Too often, I know I get defensive when I’m presented with suggestions for improvement. I feel like people sometimes offer suggestions critically, not because they want my idea to succeed but because it’s MY idea. I don’t understand the competition in education. Different approaches are needed in education.

“Would I want to be a learner in this classroom?” Or, “Would I want my child to be in this classroom?”

“What is best for this student?”

“What is this student’s passion?” Proud to say that because my students did the planning document, I was able to catch ho-hum topics and help a student use his/her passion to research and about something they really care about. Diesel engines vs gasoline engines? Jordan is the best basketball player of all time? These aren’t MY topics, but they work for my writers. I do have some that just picked a topic for an assignment, and that’s what this is turning out to be for them, but for this who bought into the planning process, this is more like a genius hour product.

“How do we create a true learning community?” For me, it’s by becoming an active participant. I don’t give assignments, I do the assignments. I model. I ask their linings on MY writing. I ask for feedback to help clarify things.

Regarding anonymous feedback, we just did this for Othello in AP Lit. There was legitimate construction criticism, but other comments made me realize 1. Students are used to being given EVERYTHING and struggle with taking initiative and 2. They don’t understand the point of feedback and data. That’s where I got the idea that they need to reintroduced to growth mindset and grit again.

Question 1: I struggle with this. Innovative usually starts out strong, but when stakeholders leave or shift priorities, the vision becomes muddled and watered down. The mission statement at Vistas was shivering the original staff legitimately used. A few years in, there were new teachers who didn’t know it and weren’t talking about it with their students. We assumed they’d be in the same page as the veterans. They weren’t. The result was that we had students who weren’t buying in to the program.

Being innovative within the box requires us to identify all resources and to slay sine of the golden calves. We have to have the same focus. Is it RTI or extracurricular or test remediation? Random idea:  What if I had a student information Center set up in airports? Using my desktop computers?

Q2: I think the PLC questions are essential. Honestly, I’ve only started using then recently. I mean, we had used them before, but we had cop out answers.

Q3: It would start with my staff. I think that’s the most important thing. We’d have technology, but not at the risk of learning. I’d want Genius Hour implemented effectively with a show and tell and the end. I’d want connections and pathways beyond high school. They would graduate with realistic  and a step-by-step plan for how to achieve those goals. I feel add mind as my staff had the same philosophy of education and values, we would be able to get past disagreements in how we reach our goals. I think there would also be grade level plc meetings to solve problems issues with each individual class. But I think the struggle is finding people who aren’t afraid to ask questions, challenge the status quo, and do so to benefit the school climate. I’m tired of an emperor without clothes.

Q4: Reorganization and reprioritizing resources in upper admin. I know Hattie’s list doesn’t put a high value on small classroom sizes, but I lived it. It was amazing.

9/27/2017 (Level)

We read The Battle With Grendel today. Hooray! Thank you guys for truly putting your technology away for the brief amount of time it takes to read the section. We will have a short plot quiz tomorrow just to make sure you understand what is going on in the story.

We answered section questions as a group, and you have the majority of the time to work on your Beo-Boast.

9/27/2017 (AP)

I spent the first part of the day doing a reteach: I read a few of the TP-CASTT paragraphs and realize that some of you needed more specific instruction, so that’s what I did.

The biggest issue that I saw was that students were mainly superficially analyzing. It read more like people were answering questions in complete sentences than discussing a poem. So, I showed you two resources:

  1. I found an example of someone’s notes right next to the written analysis so that you see the difference betweem the two.
  2. The biggest resource that I found, however, was the How to Connect Literary Devices to Meaning handout. This gave text structures to use when analyzing. I was able to conference with students and direct them o try rewriting using sentence outlines. Most people left feeling more confident about the assignment.

Remember: I want all three paragraphs turned in by Friday, but circle your BEST one.

9/26/2017 (Level)

Today we talked about Tupac, Biggie, epic rap battles, and flyting. Then, we read about Unferth.

I also explained the Beo-boast today. It’s our second major grade for this grading period. The instructions are in Schology in the Beo-Boast folder, along with one of Beowulf’s boasts, a boast that someone wrote about Donald Trump, and a boast that I wrote about myself. I also put in boasts from history, pop culture, and from former students.

I also showed you guys how I organized MY poem, and then I gave you a simple outline of what you could do if you were struggling with your boast.

Here is what I drew on the board for you –

Another idea that you can use instead of a threat is a promise – a promise to your future or your enemies.

The one in black is MY structure and the one in brown is a suggested one (follow this form to boast about what you overcame as a student, all the changes that you’ve made during your time at Klein Oak, and then what goals you have (graduation and/or career goals).

9/26/2017 (AP)

To give you another tool for poetry analysis, we used TP-CASTT today to analyze Sonnet 18 and the poem Shakespeare, by Longfellow.

On the back of the paper, I instructed you to write paragraph in which you summarized your findings on the TP-CASTT. Do NOT merely summarize the poem! This is the individual practice – I will be available for conferencing if you have any questions.

I showed you an example of what I would considered to be a mere summary (albeit a well-written one), a good example, and a great example.

9/25/2017 (Level)

We get to meet Beowulf today! Same thing as before: it takes me less than 20 minutes for me to teach this section. Answer the questions as a group, and then work on the Boast Prewriting: you can find this in Beowulf > Beo-Boast. This really helps me when you are struggling with writing your boast.

9/25/2017 (AP)

Today is our day to answer the discussion board questions. Some things that I noticed from last week’s posts that you need to watch out for:

  • Answer all parts of the questions – if it’s a two parter, you can embed the two answers, butt make sure they are both answered.
  • Many of the answers lack specificity – PROVE it with examples!
  • Don’t assume the audience has any background with your novel/example. Some of my best responses have come from students who wrote using YA novels – because they KNEW that I probably have not read the stories. You don’t have to give me an entire plot summary, but I need to have enough background knowledge so that your answer makes sense. Use the author as a model!

9/22/2017 (Level)

Today, we started to read Beowulf. The plan is to read this section by section, which is about 20 minutes a day. While we are reading, we will be on NO TECHNOLOGY. Your brain can’t multi-task, so you can read/listen if you are texting/playing a game/listening to music. It’s only for 20 minutes: you can handle it. I promise!

Remember: part of the reason my students have success on this is because they watch me. I do crazy things to help you remember and understand the story. Please stay with me. 😉

Afterwards, we answered basic review questions at your tables. I will not grade these. Instead, I will save this for you so that you can review before quizzes and tests.