"To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction"Stephen Covey
American Educator and Author
"7 Habits of Highly Effective People"
Bonneville Elementary School
This September will be my 6th year of returning since I was off for 5 years on disability. At that time, no medical professional (and I had many), family member, friend... thought that I would ever return to life let alone teaching. Then, by some miracle (of medical science and purely spiritual proportions), I started to get better! I returned to teaching; nervous like a first year teacher and afraid that I had forgotten how to do it. So, I started planning in the summer. I reviewed curriculum and set academic goals and started the first day of school teaching standards. I was ready to make these kids academic superstars. It was a good year and the kiddos did well, despite that. Thanks to an incredible teaching partner who was hired to shadow me as I returned and teach the portions of the day I was too tired to handle, I learned that I had made some colossal mistakes in the planning that I did. I hadn't considered the community, the routines, the procedures... that all come as part of the day. So, I was constantly back tracking to teach all of those things. Recently, I have had the distinct pleasure to get to know someone else who is returning from a similar leave. That teacher started the way I did. Planning academic programs and reading curriculum. That's what made me think that we are probably not alone. Then, I read many threads on some superb teaching and learning Facebook groups where teachers were planning for the upcoming year. They were talking about colours and themes and classroom set-ups. These are all important but as years have progressed from the first year since my return, I have thought more and more about what actually needs my preparatory attention. I have returned to some old workshops that I had about Design Down theory (called a whole bunch of different things now but probably most common - Universal Design). With all that in mind, I spent the last few weeks looking at my current students. I have been looking at what I like about the way the class is working and things that I might like to see differently. Every student and every class is different but there are some commonalities based on what I think is important in a learning community. This year, 6 years later, I am going to do it right. I am looking at what I want the end of the year to look like and considering what needs to be taught and experienced and learned (by the kiddos and I) in order to get there!
Terrain (Level of Difficulty): 💖💖💖💖💖
Kit List:
- notebook
- coloured pens
- beginning list (Thank you Mrs. B at TpT for this free resource)
- your current classroom
- a classroom of a colleague (that you agree with or not)
- poster paper, chart paper, computer
- elastics
The Map:
I want to repeat this to ensure that my message is clear about this. No kiddo and no class is ever the same and what works one year has failure written all over it the next year if the new kiddos are not considered! Remember that you teach kids first and then curriculum - not the other way around! Having said that, there are some tried and true routines that have worked for me over the years with simple tweeks for the needs of the kiddos.
I worked on contract for IBM in the days of SchoolVista (an awesome interface and set of apps that the kiddos loved) for a couple of years. They would pay me and the supply teacher and fly me all over Canada and the United States to teach teachers how to use the interface and program computers into their days. It was an awesome experience and right at the birth of technology in classrooms. The reason that I bring this up is because of a transformational memory I had of a visit to Regina, Saskatchewan that I had. In those schools, principals required that teachers not only post but submit their "procedures" before the beginning of the year. Seems like a lot of work? Those teachers confirmed that it was but they also talked about how much less behaviour and back tracking they did during the year as a result. They also talked about how working with colleagues helped and that it didn't matter what grade (from kindergarten to 8) they were teaching, the procedures were still quite helpful. The first month of school each year was spent in lessons about how to follow those procedures and often, the children helped to co-create better ones that were then re-submitted by the teacher. I thought that was amazing and I have done that to lesser amounts since but I think that going the whole way makes much more sense.
So, let's begin. Get out your notebook and title it for the year. I tend to refer back to my notebook all throughout the year for ideas. It is strictly ideas, thoughts and quotations that I want to remember and develop throughout the summer and through the year that help me to continually reflect and improve my practice. My notebooks have loose papers folded in them and elastics to hold the paper in. They are not my neatest work at all (Sorry, to my grade 4 teacher who insisted that everything should be neatly recorded!).
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| My 2020-2021 Notebook |
It's a lot like mind-mapping, the work that I do. In my first stages, I like to just throw it all on the paper. Later, I will frequently return, rewrite and use colours to help me keep similar ideas connected. I am as old as the dinosaurs (just ask my kiddos) so I find the act of writing with pens on paper helps me to think and remember and create. You might prefer the computer or a mind mapping piece of software. Do whatever feels right for you.
1. Start at the end of the year by looking at your class or a colleague's class. When you watch the kiddos learn and work together/independently, what do you like about what you are seeing? What would you pay more attention to or develop better. You might do both. One of my favourite colleagues is someone who has a polarly opposite approach to teaching than I. We both agree that if we had to team teach together we might kill each other. We also both agree that our different approaches help some kids in ways that one or the other of us can't do as well. So it doesn't matter who you look at. In fact, I think working together at the brainstorming with your division or a group of colleagues might be even more fun. I am picturing a living room and chart papers all over the floor with markers, wine, a little music, and my favourite people. I can't imagine a more fun way to do this!
2. I usually like to start with the 3 headings that are most important to me - community, independence, and learning. You can add headings or change them to whatever suits your style. Then it is all about your mind mapping skills. I like my Flair Pens to do colours. Don't forget to add what you liked that you saw with any notes that you think go with why something worked or didn't and what you didn't like. I have started the process (see below) but will need to do more thought and review as time goes on. You'll notice that I put boxes around things that I think need further scrutiny because it wasn't as successful as I hoped. For example, I talked ad nauseam about making mistakes and the furthest we got with that type of risk taking was the children making silly mistakes on purpose. That is a first step and I'm happy about that but I need to think further about the kind of risks that I want them to take and my responses to them. Another thing, I need to consider are my responses when the kiddos offer and idea or an answer. At this point, even when I am not trying to, I give too much away and value the correct answer aloud so the children are picking up on that.
The above image is far from complete and as I work more at it (adding pages and ideas) I will add the images later but I think many people might be getting started already so I wanted to show where I am at.
3. The next step is then the research. Through excellent Facebook groups of teachers and my own checking, I have been able to amass a number of reference books for my reading "pleasure" over the summer. I picked books related to the things that I identified as issues for further consideration. I'd suggest that you pick one or two goals to concentrate on. There are also many professional development opportunities that are free around the internet and courses you can pay to take for accreditation. In Ontario, we call these courses AQ (Additional Qualification) courses. They are usually term courses and offered online so they are expensive but easy to access and can be done on your schedule. Don't forget to keep your notebook handy so that you can take notes and makes references that you would like to consider and return to.
4. Finally, and most importantly, is the planning and I would like to caution you to be very careful! It is in our nature as teachers to over plan and that can be a good thing but it can also be a waste of time. I try to focus on the principles (I'll talk more about how I structure those first few weeks and my principles in a later blog.) that are necessary for me to teach and learn in the well oiled machine I call my classroom and the first couple of weeks. I don't do too much curriculum planning over the summer other than to make a spreadsheet of curriculum goals that I can use as a checklist for each child as I am assessing. I will talk more and share more about my student portfolios in a later blog. You might like to use the chart that I have included below for that planning and prioritizing.
Tip #4: Imagery
If you are at all like me, photos and videos and pictures help. Sometimes the photos and videos look a little bit too utopian. I don't worry about that! I use what I see and hear that applies to me as ideas. In addition, and you'll notice this in the spreadsheet, I think about what it looks, sounds, and feels like for me and the children in the classroom. This helps me to think about how to communicate with students about what my end goals are but it also helps them to communicate with me about whether or not it looks, sounds, or feels that way to them.
Adventure Recipe: Resources
In this blog entry, I have talked a lot about the resources that I have and use. In truth, this list can be exhaustive and I think that I will put together a file that lists all of the pertinent resources but for the purposes of this entry, here is what I might consider.
- mind mapping online apps
- "The First Six Weeks of School" by Paula Denton and Roxann Kriete
- Facebook Groups
- Bitmoji Craze For Educators
- Not So Wimpy ______Grade Teachers (I have first and second)
- Lucky Second Grade Teachers
- Pixel Art Mysteries In Education
- Build Math Minds
- Rooted In Reading Teachers
- Teacher Talk With Lyndsey Kuster
- Google Classroom For Kindergarten and Primary Teachers
- Free Teacher Powerpoints and Slides
- Teaching With Neons
- Simply skilled Teaching Group
- Cierra Harris Teaching
If you have other resources or ideas, please feel free to add a comment below. If you have a mind map or chart that you'd be willing to share a photo of, please share that below as well.
#Bitmoji Craze For Educators, #Build Math Minds, #Rooted In Reading, #Cierra Harris, #Not So Wimpy Second Grade Teachers, #First Six Weeks of School
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