By Dana Bockman, Facilitator of Instruction and Assessment One more day, but who’s counting? Well, let’s be honest, probably all of us. Not because we don’t like what we do. Not because we couldn’t use the next two weeks to complete classroom projects, fit in an assessment, finish up a unit, or just keep rolling with a curriculum we are already behind in. We are counting down because we need to relax. We need to refresh. We need to recharge. We need a break…some downtime. We need to push pause so we can come back in January with our batteries full, minds clear, stress low, and ready to tackle the rest of the year. The majority of this break keep your laptop closed. Leave things in your school bag. Don’t read emails. Take a break and enjoy the time! You deserve it!
How will you relax, refresh, and recharge this winter break?
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by Jackie Panos, 3rd Grade Classroom Teacher “Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t." “You are not a true success unless you are helping others be successful.” “The goal is not to be better than anyone else, but rather to be better than you were yesterday.” These are just a few of my favorite quotes from author and public speaker Jon Gordon. I was first “introduced” to Jon Gordon about eight years ago when I joined Twitter. I wasn’t sure how or where to begin building my professional learning network. A colleague of mine shared several inspirational educators and authors that she had been following, and Jon Gordon was one of them. It didn’t take long for me to see exactly why he was one of her first recommendations. He consistently tweets thought-provoking words and messages of motivation and inspiration. Though he isn’t an educator, I was constantly seeing ways to apply his words to both my professional life and my personal life. I soon discovered that he had written a book called The Energy Bus and made a trip to the local Barnes and Noble to start reading it right away. It is a quick read and I found that it applied to all areas of my life! This book discusses how each of us is the driver of our own bus and we get to determine its destination! The bus must be fueled with positive energy or it will run out of “gas” in a hurry. In addition, we need to be selective about who we allow to get on our bus. There are people Gordon calls “energy vampires” who will try to steer our bus off course; we don’t want these people on our bus! These are the people who always have a negative attitude or tell us we can’t do certain things. Instead the people we want to allow on the bus should be those who will bring more positive “fuel” to keep the bus going, and those who have a similar vision. Gordon’s work also appealed to me due to his love of sports. He has worked closely with many sports teams and coaches, and his written works include many sports examples and analogies. One of my favorites is his “one great golf shot theory” which explains that when out on the golf course, it only takes one good shot to keep you wanting to return to the course again for another round. This is so true for me! I am not a great golfer, but there always seems to be that one good shot that keeps me yearning for my next opportunity to golf again in hopes of replicating it! Gordon’s reasoning for including this analogy was for us to apply this same principle to our daily lives. When we go to bed at night and reflect on the day, what if we chose to focus on one good thing that happened that day, instead of focusing on all the things that went wrong? Imagine how much this would change a person’s attitude from day to day! Imagine the positive energy we’d be fueling our bus with each day if we adopted this mindset! This past summer as I was searching for children’s books on building a positive culture, I discovered that Gordon had written an Energy Bus for Kids! Of course I purchased it to share with my class! In fact, it became the theme of our class flag! I hope to make it even more of an emphasis next year and make it a year-long theme with bus tickets and all! (Thanks Jenn DeLaRosa for the idea)! I could continue to share parts of this book that I love, or reasons that Jon Gordon’s books, talks, and Twitter posts continue to inspire and motivate me every day, but hopefully you get the gist by now! I want YOU to take control of your own bus, set a vision, build a culture of positivity, and don’t allow any energy vampires to steer you off course! Regardless of what level you teach or coach, I promise there is something to be gained for each and every one of you! Imagine what we could do in this district if we all adopted such a positive mindset! The possibilities are endless!
Additional Information If you have a Twitter account, I highly recommend following Jon Gordon @JonGordon11 I’ve also included a link to Gordon’s website. Here, you can peruse his many books, read about Gordon’s background, and sign up to receive his weekly tips via email. http://www.jongordon.com/ How to be that "One Caring Adult": Part 2By Shanna Putnam Dibble, DCSD Elementary Learner Advocate The research on mental health for our youth and adolescence is staggering; In the United States, 22.2 percent of adolescence (age 13-18) have a mental disorder that severely impacts their lives. Between 1999 and 2016, Iowa’s suicide rate increased 36.2%. On average, in a high school classroom, there are four students with a specific suicide plan and two students who have made a suicide attempt in the past year (Youth Mental Health First Aid). This research is disturbing and probably hard to read, but there is always HOPE, and that hope often comes in the form of the dedicated, knowledgeable, caring, and supportive staff in our schools who are there for our students every day. The research behind resilience science shows that kids and adolescence who have close relationships with caring adults and have a sense of purpose and belonging are much more likely to overcome adversity than those who do not. Children who have strong attachments, especially to caring adults, have mastered emotional regulation, and feel competent have a great set of skills to help them overcome adversity. In their new book, Relationship, Responsibility, and Regulation: Trauma-Invested Practices for Fostering Resilient Learners, Pete Hall and Kristin Van Marter Souers propose going beyond the traditional three R’s of reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic to a new trauma-informed set of R’s: Relationships, Responsibility, and Regulation. “These overarching ideas shape the positive learning environments we are establishing,” say the authors. “They enhance the focus on the whole child. Student success — by whatever metric we use to define it — is going to be determined by the degree to which we can infuse these three components into the day-to-day operation of our classrooms, learning spaces, offices, and schools.” When educators foster safe, loving, and close relationships with students, kids are more open to learning. Relationships are the key to motivating them. When students become open to learning, a culture of accountability and self-regulation can occur. Hall and Van Marter Souers refer to the safe and welcoming learning environment as “the nest.” The idea of prioritizing safety and building a safe classroom nest isn’t new. “For those of us in education, this notion of “safety first” shouldn’t be surprising. More than 70 years ago, Abraham Maslow introduced his hierarchy of needs, which explained that beyond the basic physiological needs we have as human beings, safety is the essential external factor influencing our happiness, success, and very survival.” This includes your responses to students — including verbal replies and your body language. A subtle facial expression can signal to a student how you feel about them. Utilize these five tips on how to build trust and connect with students: · Remember to put your heart into your lesson plans. Try to focus just as much on getting to know and guiding your students as you do on teaching academic concepts. · At the beginning of the year or semester, discuss your and your students’ expectations as a class. Take time to teach, practice, and promote school wide expectations and classroom rules throughout the year. You can also hold individual meetings to help struggling students reach their goals. ·Studies suggest that storytelling can help build teacher-student relationships. Try telling personal anecdotes during class or making storytime and/or sharing a regular activity to connect with your students. · Learn how to construct positive comments by giving specific compliments (e.g. “good job” vs “your art project is so colorful”) and avoiding back-handed compliments. · Make sure you keep healthy boundaries with your students. If a student upsets or frustrates you, don’t take it personally or bring it home with you. It is NEVER too late to start building a positive relationship!
by Andrew Ellingsen, DCSD Music Teacher and Instructional Coach One of the biggest issues currently being discussed in the field of music education is about the repertoire that we’re teaching. Choosing what songs and pieces to teach is no small task for a music teacher. The initial repertoire choices we make, both what to include and what to leave out, impact so much of what happens in our classrooms. As music teachers, we strive to choose music that communicates emotion and artistry, music that stretches our students to expand their skill level and understanding of musical concepts, music that inspires our students to be creative, music that reflects our personal values as well as the values of the school and community, and music that provides our students with the ability to understand their own and other cultures more deeply. In an era where more and more information is available to us online, the possibilities available to me feel nearly endless. I can use Google Earth to show students where on our planet a song comes from. I can play them video and/or audio recordings of musicians young and old, from our community and from far away, who look like me or who look different from me. And I can do intentional research to know more about the songs I’m choosing to teach. It is now easier than ever for me to find out the history of the songs that I teach in my classroom. A simple Google search is often all it takes to find out who wrote a song, where they lived, and what the song has been used for as it has been passed down through the generations. Often, the information I find when I do the research enhances my teaching by expanding my list of repertoire. For example, when Google made a Google Doodle for B. B. King’s birthday this year, we watched it in class and talked about who he was and how he impacted American music. Several students came back to class the next week and shared that they had asked Alexa to play music by B. B. King while they were at home! Sometimes, though, the information I find online enhances my teaching by exposing me to knowledge about a song that means I need to remove it from my classroom and curriculum. This has happened several times in the last few years, and I have tried to be up front with students when I’ve taught them music that has a problematic history that I hadn’t known. (For an example of how I’ve addressed this with students, you can read a blog post I wrote for a national blog last year after learning more about the song “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me.”)
While the version of the song I have taught to children doesn’t include racist language, the song’s history carries weight and meaning. The original lyrics mock the stereotypical speech patterns of enslaved and recently freed black Americans in the 1800s, and to teach the song in my classroom gives a tacit endorsement of the song’s origins and historical uses.
And so I want to say here what I have long believed. I believe that all of my students, regardless of skin color, have a place in my community and my classroom. I believe that the songs I teach should honor and celebrate the humans I get to teach. I believe that Maya Angelou was right when she said “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I know more today than I knew last month. And because of that, I will make a change in my classroom. I will stop teaching “The Cat Came Back” and begin looking for other song-tales that I can teach instead. And you know what? I’m kind of excited to learn and teach some new songs! I’m grateful to the music educator who raised the question on Facebook. (I can’t imagine how I would have felt if one of my former students who loved the song “The Cat Came Back” had chosen to research its history and been the one to pass the information on to me. Or the horror I would have felt if a parent had approached me to share the song’s racist past.) And I’m grateful to be teaching in a time when I have easy access to information. I will continue to make mistakes, but I will also continue to push myself to know more about the songs I teach. The children I’m trusted to teach every day matter so much more than any song, and I will do everything in my power to make each one of them feel loved and safe and celebrated in my classroom...even when that means owning the mistakes I’ve made. Using Argumentation as an Instructional StrategyBy Tyler Wedemeier, Student-Centered Instructional Coach A mentor introduced me to the frame of mind, "I used to think but now I think" early in my career. By keeping this frame of mind during instructional planning and assessment shifts, it allowed me the freedom to refine my practice and my philosophy. It encouraged me to try something new, analyze the outcome, and use the results to refine my craft. I used to think argumentation and explanation were means to the same end. What were students to argue when the science facts clearly support x, y, and z? Then I came across the following: The uncertainty would often lead me to stick with explanation over argumentation. The task of teaching students how to "argue" seemed daunting. What if students didn't get the right answer? How was I supposed to monitor learning and report out a grade? While my hesitations hold some merit, by focusing on them, I was holding my students back from exploring the topic and constructing their own understanding based on their experiences. As educators, it is important to remember that we have the ability and freedom to try something new: to continually evaluate our current practices. In the end, maybe you will find something better, or, with this new found knowledge, build confidence in your current strategies. What did you "used to think but now you think"? How has this change impacted your teaching and student learning? |
AuthorsDCSD Teachers, Instructional Coaches, Learner Advocate, and Collaborative Teachers Archives
April 2024
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