Does Your Teaching/Learning Team Have a Theme?

Does each team at your school have a mission?

For example, is each grade-level or subject area matched with a theme?

If so, how is that theme expressed? Is it a statement, word, or question?

How is that theme illustrated? Is there a mural, picture, or other signage?

Does each part of the team have a title related to the theme? For example, classrooms could be named rather than numbered. The names could represent natural objects, famous people, or inventions.

How is the theme woven into the curriculum, service learning, read alouds, field studies, and other activities for the team?

What impact does the theme have on students' learning?

Throughout a students' tenure at the school, do the themes contribute to a holistic, bright, open attitude to the child's world of today and the world of the future?

Our Middle School has themes for each grade level. The themes are the glue that tie the grade-level together. I'm wondering if it's time to bring that idea to the elementary schools as well?

Where Are the Supplies?

You'd think that after 29 years of teaching, I'd have the supply system ready to go, but instead, as the way we teach changes so do the supplies and the supply organization.

A theme in this year's transition from 4th grade whole-class teaching to fifth grade math and science has been the room set up. I'm changing the room daily to better accommodate these eager, social, energetic, and good-sized fifth graders.

Yesterday's deep teaching efforts and observation made me realize that the teamwork spaces are paramount for teaching fifth graders today. I need great stations with supply caddies and plenty of space for group work. Fortunately, I have the tables and supplies--I just need to reorganize to make better work spaces while maintaining an introduction/listening space, a cozy, comfy reading area, and STEAM Center.

Therefore this morning, before the teaching day begins, I'll go in and remake the team areas. I'll create 8-10 work spaces which will accommodate groups of 2-3 and put supplies in each space. I'll also number the areas so when I assign a group to an area, they'll know what I'm talking about.

Developing lots of teamwork in fifth grade is a great match for students' developmental level--they want to be social and its in their best interest to learn to work with and understand the many wonderful children in the class.

This is a positive focus for learning well, and I'm looking forward to develop the effort for optimal learning. Onward.

Letting the Learning Happen: Don't Rush

Yesterday, cognizant that I wasn't keeping pace with the system-wide scope and sequence, I began to rush the students along. Yet, the investigation they were engaged in was bringing up excellent questions, understanding, and depth. Also, past reviews of students' scores demonstrated to me that it's important to slow it down so that students have the time they need to make meaning at both a grade-level and enrichment level.

The urge to race ahead means that you're denying students needed talk time, team time, and repetition--all good attributes of a solid learning program. Also, if you don't establish a strong foundation of skill, concept, knowledge, and vocabulary, you'll be making up for lost time later as the tasks deepen and broaden.

Hence, I'll continue to use the scope and sequence as a map, but I won't rush the students. I'll give them the time they need to solidify place value concepts, move on to operation fluency, and then learn fractions.

To begin the place value unit, as you may have noticed on my blog, we examined a place value model with depth and discussed the behavior of place value. At home students are studying this by completing a number of place value tasks online using Khan Academy. During RTI we are also reviewing these concepts using TenMarks, Khan and other activities.

Now as we move ahead, we'll complete the following activities.

• Creating a number line of objects that range in length from about 3,000 (3km) meters to .001 (1 mm) meters. Using proportional reasoning and metric conversions while making the number line.
• Looking at place value and metric models, then making some of our own to solidify the proportional reasoning related to these models. 
• Studying place value and writing numbers with standard notation, partition notation, word form, base-ten numeral form (standard form), and expanded form. We will use numbers related to the number of days it takes each planet to complete a revolution of the sun (a year). Those are numbers that fit nicely with the math and science standards.
• We'll use those same solar system numbers to create number lines again.
• We'll practice our number skills with That Quiz.
• Then we'll use the solar system numbers again to look at how numbers change when we multiply by multiples of ten and the fractions 1/10 (.1), 1/100 (.01), and 1/1000 (.001). We'll use calculators to study this "behavior" of the base-10 system.

These activities will take about 10 days including the final assessment. After that we'll revisit the numbers as we solidify concept, skill, and knowledge related to the four operations. We'll also revisit order of operations at this time.

The new year will bring us to the start of the fraction unit, a unit they've already been introduced to and worked with as we learned measurement, studied factors and multiples, and learned about decimals.

As I focus on deep teaching, I know that rushing doesn't work--it takes time to teach and learn well. It also takes time to develop good teamwork, precision, and quality results.

I've read on the Internet that some are calling this "slow learning," and as I write today I know what they mean. Similar to the "slow food" movement, it's a movement toward deep, rich, "nutritious" learning rather than fast learning which often gives students a shaky start to learning math, a start that doesn't result in a love of or confidence with the disciplines. Don't you agree? 

Teaching Deeper: Day One

I watched with care as students spread out around the room to solve a challenging problem.

I noticed lots of room for improvement including:

• better access to materials
• need for cleaning and organizing desks
• more coaching with regard to teamwork (I started the lesson with some coaching that moved the effort forward a bit)
• making a few more team work areas.
• lots of positive, encouraging talk

Tomorrow we'll continue the task, I'll analyze the effort more and really listen to students' words and effort.

This task is a struggle for the students, a good struggle, one that lends itself to lots of learning and teaching. Onward. 

Take a Back Seat

Give up your front row seat.

Take a back seat for a while.

Spend that time in the bumpy rear of the bus noticing what's around you.

Jot a few notes, listen in on a conversation or two, notice the people, places, and events around you.

Take a back seat for a while and see where it leads you.