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January 25th, 2021

1/25/2021

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Focus on Progress over Perfection 
By Apryl Thompson

I want to take us back to mid to late August. If you remember there were a lot of unknowns, needs and a great opportunity to rally for our kids and our community. One opportunity came my way in a sudden and unpredictable way. Sure, there were rumors of teachers on special assignments being reassigned due to a lack of teachers available to start the 20-21 school year but never in my wildest dreams did I think that would come to fruition or impact me personally. However, two work days before the start of school I found this was MY reality. I was filled with many emotions but, I knew there was a need and a great opportunity to serve and grow. 

And just like that I was off to teach first grade! 

As we all started to settle into the unknown I found myself also trying to figure out where to start and what was most important. I found a real struggle trying to balance Covid safety protocols, getting to know the students and my new colleagues, and knowing what and how to teach. It all felt so overwhelming to be teaching in these unprecedented times. After taking a moment to breath and realizing this was not going to be perfect, I leaned into the importance of relationships and trust building, having a mindset focused on maximizing learning time and having high expectations that will grow learners to the best of my ability. 

Build relationships with families, students and the school community
After the initial shock that this was really going to happen, I realized how hard it might have been on the other side of things. There was a school, in fact many schools, sitting with a class full of students without a teacher and unsure how to make learning really work in light of the pandemic. There were students who had yet to meet and greet their teacher for this school year. There were families who had a wide spectrum of emotions and perspectives filled with so many unanswered questions including who will be teaching MY child this year. Who am I trusting to keep safe and educate my most precious possession? So I set a personal goal and priority to connect with the families, students and the community, get to know them, build a relationship and trust that we will do our very best to make this a positive experience for all. As a mom myself, I knew you have to trust the person you are sharing your child with, trust they will keep your little person safe and educate them, and that is exactly what I kept at the forefront of every interaction I had with families, students and the greater community I got to join. 

A mindset of maximizing learning time
As I got up to date on what the current reality was of in person learning, I quickly knew that there were going to be so many more interruptions in teaching and learning due to extra hand washing protocols and mask breaks that I needed to ensure I maximize student learning time. I also quickly discovered that all the ways I once knew of engaging students was going to be challenging due to social distancing rules and recommendations. It was easy to have an “I can't”  attitude but I met that with but I CAN DO this. I chose to become crystal clear with what students needed to know and  be able to do. I leaned into proficiency scales and made connections between content and units of study.   I worked with my amazing colleagues at the school and my fellow TOSAs to ensure I had teacher clarity. I shared with students all that they can do and what is next for their learning. We used outside spaces, made the best use of our handwashing times for extra practice and met them right where they were. 

Having High Expectations for Growth
I also recognized that there were unknown learning losses or learning opportunities as I called them.  I needed to set high expectations and have a dose of reality simultaneously. There was nothing wrong with what happened last spring. In fact I believe that many good things are coming from all of this for the education field, but that is for another day in another post. I remember lying awake at night trying to refine and be innovative as I knew I had a great task before me. I struggled to have learning tasks that students could access. I struggled with the data that was coming in at the beginning of the year. I struggled and was overwhelmed. Maybe others can relate.  Then one day while we were engaging in math my current reality hit me and will forever stay with me about what it was like to be teaching in the era of a pandemic. 

We were working on addition in math. The answer was 5, my students were all 6 years old, so I just knew we’d be successful with writing a 5 in the answer space. In all honesty, even though we were adding, I just wanted the student to write the number 5 on their paper. It had been one of those lessons that I knew very little was successful and I was striving for something positive to come from the lesson so we could end and not feel totally defeated! As I walked the room some were getting the 5 on the paper, but not all, and as I circled one sweet young lady said to me, as she was looking up to me from her lonely social distanced desk, “I know the answer is 5 Mrs. Thompson, but it has been a REALLY long time since I held a pencil and I forgot how to write a 5.” And from this moment on I knew we have a different kind of challenge before us. And this gave me the perspective that having high expectations is all about growing kiddos from right where they are at in a very intentional and passionate way. And right there and then I taught her how to write a 5 because that is exactly what this child needed in that exact moment in time. 

Walkways 
As I reflect on my experiences, I could not have asked for a better experience, if I was going to have one. The students were so wonderful and excited to be in school learning. Families were so appreciative of all the work that was being done to support the safety and learning in our schools. There are so many amazing educators and administrators out there working hard every day and finding the best ways to educate children. One thing I shared with my students, their families and kept reminding myself was to focus on progress over perfection. None of us have done this before so we should not expect to be perfect. Learning and growing is messy, but  if we show up each day and  try our best we will make progress. 

And lastly, believe in them- the students, their families and the other amazing educator teams surrounding you!  We are all in this together and we are all growing together!


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January 21st, 2021

1/21/2021

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Finding the Relevance

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By Magali Saez-Cox

​If you’re like me, you’re not sure what it means to be bored. My to-do list is so long that even when I find a few minutes to myself, I have a long list of fun things to do. So, what is boredom? According to merriam-webster.com, boredom is “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.” Well, now that makes sense, a lack of interest. Hattie’s research mentions boredom having a -0.49 effect size in our classrooms; A NEGATIVE EFFECT SIZE!?! So, how might we turn a lack of interest into engagement and connection to the subjects in our virtual classrooms? The Distance Learning Playbook suggests finding the relevance. When students find the content relevant, boredom is turned into engagement. There are three aspects of relevancy: 1. personal association, 2. personal usefulness, and 3. personal identification. Combating boredom in the classroom is not about being entertaining or feeling like we have to move at the pace of video games. When we understand the depths of relevancy and how a stressed brain can feel like boredom, we can help our students connect to the content. 

Relevancy is personal. What I find interesting may not be to someone else (I am keenly aware of my nerdiness). Same goes for each of our students. We can help them find relevance through personal association (Distance Learning Playbook, p.98). Personal association is when students can connect the content through an object, person, memory or something outside of the classroom. When this connection is made, a spark to learn more occurs. Personal usefulness is the second aspect of relevance. What personal goals have students set for themselves that tasks or assignments in our classrooms will help them achieve? A student who desperately wants a dog might engage in non-fiction reading to find reasons to share with his family to convince them to get a dog. A high school student who has goals to become a doctor will be vested in her biology class. The final and most motivating way for students to find relevancy is through personal identification. The Distance Learning Playbook says, “When students get to learn about themselves, their problem-solving, and their ability to impact others, relevance is increased” (p. 99). When the content or task aligns with students’ identities, boredom is not an option. Not all of the responsibility of relevance falls on teachers. Helping students identify feelings of boredom can help them refocus and find their own relevance. 

Studies have shown that boredom is related to stress. When students’ brains are overpowered by stress, distractions from emotional trauma, and ADHD, they can disengage, feel distracted and bored. The answer is not to provide more assignments or to overstimulate which can create even more stress and disengagement. The key is to support students in identifying what is stressful, when they are bored, and what feelings of boredom are so they can self-regulate, ask for help and find ways to re-engage in tasks, texts and content. Helping students find their personal associations, personal usefulness, and personal identification can support their engagement. 

As teachers, we strive to find the magic button to engage our students. Knowing more about relevancy, how to create relevancy for students and what might be causing boredom can be the key to engaging our students.

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January 19th, 2021

1/19/2021

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ARE MY STUDENTS GETTING IT!?!?!?!?1?

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Formative Assessment in a Distanced World
By Grant Euler, Assistant (to the) Executive Director 
​Welcome to the latest installment of The Distance Learning Playbook K-12 blog.  We are sharing tips and tricks around teaching for engagement and impact in any setting.  The ideas shared in this blog series come from the Fisher, Frey and Hattie book, The Distance Learning Playbook and their recent webinar.

How do we know if our students are getting it? That question was hard enough to answer when we saw our students in person every day. Now, seeing them less frequently or perhaps not at all, this question requires some new ideas like so much else in lives right now. 

The idea that struck me most about this section of the book was the idea that good formative feedback needs to be both actionable by the teacher and the student.  With less direct teacher contact, students must take more responsibility for their own learning, and if we think about the student making a change in their learning based on the feedback (in the same way we would change our teaching), then formative feedback could actually scaffold the growth of students’ personal responsibility for their learning! 
Here are some ideas to help implement this idea.

VIRTUAL EXIT SLIPS: Have students just respond with number corresponding to their level of understanding, such as
  1. I’m just learning (I need more help).
  2. I’m almost there (I need more practice).
  3. I own it! (I can work independently).
  4. I’m a pro! (I can teach others)
Then, in the next class, group students based on their answers. For example having #4s with #1s and #2s to help instruct, #3s in a room practicing with each other. As the teacher I could then bounce between rooms to see how well the students rated themselves. At the end of the group time, have the students reflect on how they rated themselves. Over time students will be able to more accurately gauge their own understanding, which increases the effect size for feedback!
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VIRTUAL STORY RETELLING: For younger students, orally retelling a story can remove the writing constraint when trying to measure student’s understanding. If students record themselves retelling you have shared (perhaps recorded as well), it allows you to rewind and hear the student’s retelling more than once as well as providing a record to show growth over time. This strategy could be used in any content or age, where students would retell a story or explain a concept from a reading (such as osmosis from a science text).
There are other ideas in the book as well. If you have any questions, please contact me, I would love to chat with you!!
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January 14th, 2021

1/14/2021

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The Elementary Element
 ​Your one stop Grab-n-Go resource shop!

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We have heard loud and clear that teachers are looking for clearer communication.  AND timely resources to help support their daily instruction.

So we bring you The Elementary Element!  

Tired of multiple Schoology posts from various contents?  We hear you!  Our goal is to streamline the postings you see from content areas into one per week in this newsletter form.  Ed Tech will still provide just in time information through Schoology.

Check out The Elementary Element to find newly created or discovered resources from your C&I content teams, AMP, Ed Tech partners, READ team specialists, and Early Learning colleagues.  We’re looking to provide timely materials that will support your instruction and planning today - sample lesson and unit plans, proficiency scale resources, links to great resources from the field, and MORE!

Bookmark the link to the document, and then look for updates made weekly.  As always you can reach C&I and Ed Tech during office hours (M-F, 7:00 - 4:00).  Please stop by with any questions you might have about the use of the resources, or anything else!
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