The Classroom of Choice

 Jonathan C. Erwin's The Classroom of Choice: Giving Students What They Need and Getting What you Want is a treasure chest of ideas for building choices into a classroom in order to develop social relationships and accountability. One link he makes in the chapter on freedom is that with rights come responsibility. Often students think that being an adult is going to be awesome because you get to do whatever you want. The truth is that yes adults get lots of opportunity to make decisions, but each decision comes with consequences that need to be addressed. He urges schools to step up and make this a reality for students so that as they go out into the world, they are ready to be responsible citizens.

He discusses the requirement for learning of meeting basic needs which he defines as survival (food, shelter, physical comfort and safety), love and belonging, power, freedom and fun. When a classroom is built to ensure that these needs are met, behavior and learning both increase. The class becomes a place where students want to be rather than a place where they are forced to be. For students who have been chronically disengaged or abused, achieving this goal is hard. Establishing routines and consistency is important and surprises minimized. That being said, Erwin acknowledges that novelty has a place in intriguing the mind. There does, however, need to be adequate structure with that novelty. 

The chapter on creating the environment had several points that struck me. He argues that students need to have a voice in the classroom. This can be established through class created rules/constitutions, needs circles to address how to meet student needs, student-generated curriculum, student recognition, specific feedback, celebrations, and recognition. A focus here is on responsible behavior. He states that "responsible behavior is that which enables us to meet our needs without making it more difficult for others to meet their needs" (105) . The whole you rights end where mine begin idea. This would mesh nicely with discussions about the bill of rights. Personalized learning fits nicely in this framework where voice and choice are key features.

Power is another key element he talks about. One way students get power is by having help to achieving competent or better quality work. When students have success, it generates other success. Here he talks about the difference between educating and schooling. Education is "using knowledge and gaining skills that can improve the quality of our lives" whereas schooling is "acquiring skills and memorizing knowledge they will rarely use outside of school" (119). So often students ask when are they ever going to use this. If we can provide concrete examples to students, they are more hooked. This means reading for meaning is so important because that is something that must be done regardless of occupation as opposed to trigonometric proofs which do provide practice in logical reasoning, if taught well, but students often fail to appreciate it. Some of the social studies programs have moved to be more around reading like a historian, that repeat these facts/dates.

The true power of the book lies in its strategies. each chapter is loaded with activities, games and structures that you can use today to enhance your classroom. A great read.

Building Thinking classrooms in mathematics

 For the first time since my children were born, I agreed to teach summer school this year. It was not a true summer school program, just a three week program designed to provide extra support for students who struggled during the school year. The vast majority of the students had IEP's and there was no assigned special ed teacher or aide support. I was assigned an ELA class, but the math teacher for 8th grade expressed a desire for more support and I agreed to help her as well. She was participating a book study of Peter Liljedahl's book, Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics Grades K-12 and wanted to try some of his ideas. Consequently, I bought the book, read it and prepared to jump in trying his approach.

The first three things he recommends working with are giving thinking tasks, forming visibly random groups and using vertical, nonpermanent surfaces. Some might say they always use thinking tasks, but all too often that is not true. Just jumping in with thinking tasks in math tends to flop, so he recommends starting with three days of non-curricular tasks. Since we had a total of 12 sessions over three weeks with students not all attending for the entire time, spending one quarter of the time this way, seemed potentially problematic. The plan became: start each day with a noncurricular task and then use thinking tasks later in the same day that were curricular. We also ended with thinking tasks. 

Tasks like how many sevens are there if you write the first 100 numbers, do not require complex math, but do ask students to use critical thinking to explore an idea. Our students were randomly assigned to groups of two or three and a whiteboard or chalkboard space to solve the puzzle. They were required to all be able to explain how they arrived at their answer so that accountability was built in. Students who had spent the school year dodging work and feeling math stupid all had to stand up and work in their groups. Surprisingly, no one dodged work. They all participated and slowly they built some confidence in their ability to do hard math things. No, we did not create a group of master problem solvers, but we did increase their feelings about their personal abilities. One caveat, we had a student from a self contained class and one who spent the year with 1:1 aide support. These students needed extra support to stay on task and participate. They needed prompting to use their calculators to get answers to arithmetic problems. Their peers were not enough to keep them engaged and an aide was secured to help them be successful.

Working at the boards helped students stay engaged, Nearly the entire group had ADHD. Being able to stand and move a bit, met their needs and helped to keep them participating. Being in groups of 2 or 3, meant they could not rely on their group to do all the work for them. Being asked to explain what was done, meant they had to pay attention and verbalize success solutions. With two teachers in the room, we were able to monitor the groups, offer hints as needed and  provide encouragement to continue. I can see where a co-taught class or a large class might make this much more challenging. While some preferred to work with particular people, they good-naturedly  participated in their assigned group. (Using self-selected groups with the same students during ELA showed preferential relationships, but the groups were not consistently productive like they were in math.)

Students liked working on the boards. The vertical surfaces meant that a teacher in the middle of the room could monitor progress, provide help as needed and distribute new tasks as the old ones were accomplished. Curricular task progressions were an important component of the middle of the lesson. We asked students to find slope using a graph where they had to identify points and use rise over run. They practiced with positive slopes, negative ones and a few grappled with slopes of 0. Questioning each group when they arrived at a solution ensured proper notation of work and understanding before a more challenging task was assigned. 

This approach worked for our struggling math students. I would love the opportunity to try it out more with students. I really liked the potential to build math confidence, persistence and problem solving even for our neediest students.

The book is an easy read. He recommends practicing with his steps in a three step sequence. We only practiced the first step. Looking forward to trying this with different groups.

Mindfulness in the classroom

 With the events of the pandemic a more urgent light has been shown on mental health and children. We are thinking about the trauma this experience has brought for students and how we can best help them. If we fail to provide social-emotional security their ability to learn will by significantly impacted. Thomas Armstrong's book, Mindfulness in the Classroom: Strategies for Promoting Concentration, Compassion and Calm, addresses meeting the SEL needs of students. Since the book is a pre-pandemic one, its references are particularly important as doable in ordinary times, not just these extraordinary ones that we find ourselves in now.

Armstrong makes a strong case for addressing the needs of students through secular approaches to mindfulness. References, even unintended ones, are likely to derail the work. Throughout the text he comments on how to approach the activity from a non-religious stance.

Since stress is on the rise in children, it is critical to teach students how to deal with it. As stress increases, people lose their ability to cope with challenges, cortisol interferes with learning. He is careful in advising against using mindfulness as a reactive discipline strategy. Mindfulness chairs that are new names for time out, do not contribute to reduced stress and increased capacity for self-control.

He suggests working to help students become aware of being present, being ok with distractions and being able to redirect their thoughts. His book includes an appendix with many resources for mindfulness ranging from apps, to children's books to training materials and sources. This text is more of a rationale for mindful practice than a how to manual. 

I found it interesting that he talks about mindful breathing. Being still and thinking about breathing. Since we know that physiologically deep breaths relax the body, practicing mindful breathing before stressful situations, like a test or even the beginning of the day, may help students be more successful in school. If we can give students tools to address stress, we are empowering them in future. Life is, after all, stressful at times.

For someone on the fence about mindfulness, this book presents an easy to read explanation of why it might be helpful to kids. It shares how to keep parents aware of what is involved and how to avoid first amendment challenges. A well written book that outlines a program that could greatly impact students.

Strategies to engage the mind of the learner

 I just finished reading a book that I discovered on a shelf at school, Strategies to Engage the Mind of the Learner: Building Strategic Learners: Volume 2, second edition, by Rachel Billymeyer. The majority of the book is an overview of strategies. They are grouped into categories: opening strategies, vocabulary development, literacy strategies for narrative and informational texts, questioning strategies, graphic organizers, information building strategies, discussion strategies, grouping and energizing strategies, reflection strategies and closing strategies. While many of the strategies are oldies but goodies, like the KWL chart and semantic mapping, some were more novel to me.

One strategy I found interesting was Chat and Go Questions. Groups of four work together. They each draw a question and share an answer with their group. Group members can ask questions of the person sharing for more clarity or further details. The author includes a fabulous list of possible questions such as 

• What are the high points of interest within the selection for you?
• How were the characters depicted in the selection? What are your impressions about them?
• In what ways is this selection similar/different to what you usually read? (p. 133-5)

This list could be used for a variety of activities. The open ended nature of the questions leads to good conversation. Other strategies throughout the test also include great sentence starters as well.

What struck me as I read through the strategies was the way so many relied on skills of summarization and paraphrasing. Having worked on paraphrasing with my seventh graders this spring, I was reminded of how difficult this skill is. Students struggle with putting things in their own words. I have walked students through restating a claim, and I think they would benefit from a more structured approach. Jeff Anderson talked about teaching students to combine sentences, a critical skill when it comes to summarizing. We talk about rules of summarizing being:

• include only important information
• combine ideas
• add connective words for clarity and coherence, 
• use category terms instead of a list of words
• do not include your opinion, quotes, or what the author "should" have said. (p.113)

Practice with each step is important. When we combine them into one group to use, we often do not give students enough practice. 

One important thing that Billymeyer includes is a plan for teaching a strategy. She suggests introducing the strategy with the reason for using it. Then use a traditional Hunteresque approach, demonstrate the strategy, participate in a we do with the strategy then have students do independent practice with it. Of critical importance is the idea that students need multiple opportunities to practice the strategy in order to internalize it. 

The Power of our words

I just discovered Responsive Classroom's The Power of Our Words for Middle School: Teacher Language That Helps Students Learn on a shelf in my classroom. I believe it was part of a workshop for some previous resident of my room. the book is an easy read, but one that requires lots of thought to implement the various strategies. I summarized the guidance in the chart below:

	purpose	Clues for effective use	Sentence starters
Envisioning language	Inspires effort and persistence, sets a positive tone for learning, builds a sense of belonging	·         Connect with students’ interest and aspirations ·         Name positive identities for students ·         Se concrete images and terms students relate to ·         Prompt students to fill in the details	·         I hope that __ ·         Imagine that you __ ·         What needs to happen so that everyone can___ ·         You’re going to be (name activity). How will you do that successfully? ·         Think about what you would be doing if you were a professional ___ ·         What will make your ___ successful?
Reinforcing language	Encourages focus on practice effort, forms positive self-images, focuses on strength, and encourages self-motivation	·         Find positive to name in all students ·         Emphasize description, not personal approval ·         Name concrete and specific behaviors ·         Point our student progress toward mastery ·         Use questions to extend student thinking	·         I noticed __ ·         I see that __ ·         You remembered to ___ ·         You all helped to __ ·         You paid attention to ___ ·         You followed our rule by __ ·         Did you notice __ ·         One of the reasons your group was successful today was __ ·         Because you ___, your work ___
Reminding language	Enable students to take responsibility for themselves; pause and think first, and then act; develop autonomy and competence; support students when they are starting to veer off task	·         Establish clear expectations and refer to them when giving reminders ·         Phrase reminders as a question or a statement—and keep them brief ·         Use proactive and reactive reminders and keep words and tone neutral ·         Use reminders when both you and the student are calm	·         Think about __ ·         Show us how __ ·         Remind everyone how __ ·         What if you/we __ ·         What might help you __ ·         How can you __ ·         How do you ___ ·         Who can tell us __
Redirecting language	Stop off task behavior and return to safe, productive behavior quickly; preserve student dignity and sense of belonging; ensure students know exactly what they need to do	·         Be direct and specific ·         Name only the desired behavior ·         Use brief statements, not questions or suggestions ·         Observe and follow through after giving a redirection ·         Get attention first	·         Stop. Put away the __ ·         Pause. Get started on __ ·         Stop and think. Then raise your hand if __ ·         It’s time to __ ·         Help __ do __ ·         Clean up the __ ·         Sit at another desk where you can __ ·         Focus on __ ·         Right now you need to __
Open-ended questions	puts students at the center; supports the learning cycle (generate ideas and goals ↔ actively exploring, experimenting, problem solving↔ reflecting on experiences); developing thinking skills; encouraging self-awareness; building a sense of community	·         Convey your curiosity ·         Clarify what you’re asking for or seeking ·         Use words that encourage cooperation, not competition ·         Use wait time ·         Use at each stage of your lesson	·         What are some ways that __ ·         What are some things you __ ·         What surprised you about __ ·         How might you  __ ·         How did you support your group today? Describe one way. ·         How could you say that using your own words? ·         When would be a good time to __? ·         When might you try using __? ·         Where else do you see __? ·         Why might you choose __ instead of __?

Good advice for ensuring you present positive and respectful language. 

Making Classroom Observations Matter

 I was brought back to my second year teaching today when I read Educational Leadership's article, "Making Classroom Observations Matter" by Lynda Tredway, Mark Militello and Ken Simon. During a classroom observation an administrator recorded who I called on using a seating chart and tallies. Now in college I had been given the three minute make sure you call on everyone speech (boys get ignored in English and girls in math), but hadn't really thought about it. I was delighted that I called on every student a couple of times, but it was not really planned. Over the years I have used Co-teaching time to conduct such observations of my co-teachers. Sometimes they are enlightening. If nothing else, they provide a data point for discussion.

This article provides an insight to Project I ⁴, a project focusing on improving STEM discourse. In the article they provide a coding system for calling on practices that takes my simple tally one farther. They pair the chart with a seating chart to look for patterns in who and where calling on occurs.

abbreviation	Names of practice	total times observed
R	Raised hand
CC	Cold call
CCD	Cold call for discipline (catching a student off guard)
BA	Blurt out that is accepted
BI	Blurt out that is ignored
CR CR/V	Call and response ( ask for a group of response or indicates students should popcorn) Virtual: Use the chat box
ES	Use equity based strategy- popsicle sticks, card, random name generator
TR	Teacher repeats response to call verbatim
TRV	Teacher revoices student response, paraphrasing for emphasis, often in the form of a question.
TPS	Think, pair, share Virtual: Private chat
other

Now the authors note that cold call and raised hand are not equity based strategies. In today's hybrid instructional models, teachers often repeat or revoice a response because student attending virtually might not have heard a response in the classroom or vice versa. I like the idea of coding the types a calls, because we are often doing something unconsciously. Bringing it to our awareness allows us to improve our skills. I know that when I am working with concurrent classrooms, I often do not frequently respond to one group or another. I do not have a mic beyond my machine and toting the machine around as I work with students is cumbersome at best. My question becomes how do I monitor both the physical and virtual spaces. At times I am better than others. In all cases I feel like one group is being denied my attention. Sometimes I can use divide and conquer- I'll do one group, you do the other. This ensures attention to both, but still feels forced. I suppose that is the rub of learning new skills- it is awkward and uncomfortable at first, but with enough practice and feedback, it can become integral to our practice.

How parents can help gifted children gradually return to reality

 Parenting for High Potential hit the ball out of the park with their article from march 2021 entitled "How Parents Can Help Gifted Children Gradually Return to Reality-- Remembering our Goals" by Sylvia Rimm. As we all prepared to send out children back to school in increasing increments, it is not just the gifted children who need help with the adjustment. Much of the advice is similar to those we hear around August and the return to school:

• prepare for changes in daily routine- bedtime adjustments should be gradually implemented, new routines around things like homework and preparing to be ready for the morning (ex. backpacks assembled and outfits selected the night before). 
• monitoring screen and phone time- have a phone charging station not in the bedroom. Instead of the phone alarm to get up, buy an inexpensive alarm clock, use parental settings to control access to phone time and social media.
• Gradual empowerment to positivity- to combat the depression and anxiety that have swollen during this time, encourage children to do things that build confidence like trying new things slowly, engaging  physical exercise and slowly expanding the social circle in safe ways.
• Be coaches not judges- children will look to the models you provide for attitude and behavior. Showcase resiliency- we all stumble, show how to get up gracefully. Sometimes we all need help, don't be embarrassed to ask for what you need. Showcase  flexibility. Help with problem solving instead of judging progress. 

The other element of the article that makes it so strong is it's list of essential elements of organization. These are executive function skills that many students struggle with and need support. They include: putting like things together- practice by sorting clothes, socks, toys, silverware. go outside and come up with a way to sort flowers you see (number of leaves or petals, where they grow, height,...)

predicting time- play a guessing game. How long does it take to.. (brush your teeth, eat breakfast, vacuum the carpet, read a chapter in a book) then time yourself or your child doing it. How close were you?

scheduling- once you know how long it takes to do something, plan a schedule of what needs to be done. This could be anything from bedtime routines to plans on what to do Saturday or on vacation.

remembering- games like memory are awesome at working on this skill. Try a word of the day or week, pick a new interesting word, learn what it means and try to use it as often as you can in conversation.

prioritizing- talk about which is more important buying the groceries or a bigger cell phone plan and why. Starting to clean your room or doing laundry? Saving money for a new video game element or buying candy? Eating dinner or watching TV? Answer your sister's question or helping you with homework? Share how you decide and them have them share how they do it.

Eliminating- it might be time to go through the garage or toybox or closet and get rid of things that you do not use, are broken or do not fit. How do you decide when to throw away leftovers from the refrigerator. How do you decide what papers to remove from a folder and where do they go- trash or binder to store for reviewing for the final. These are all discussions as well as activities. Yes, it is harder and slower to involve the kids, but they need to learn the skills.

reviewing- this goes hand in hand with prioritizing, remembering and eliminating. How often do you need to review your vocabulary words? You made a plan for the weekend, review it Saturday morning to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Establishing good habits- For learning the key habits are health habits not study ones- get enough sleep, eat a balanced diet and exercise. Students who engage in these things do better in school. Then add things in the routines- routines become habits- brush your teeth everyday, wear deodorant, read labels on food, treat others well....

Maintain flexibility- habits and routines are important, but into every plan a wrench can be thrown. Someone needs stitches during someone's concert- it is disappointing to miss, but needs to be done. You heard about a event that means your plans need to change. A homework assignment did not get completed, so plans to go to the park must be adjusted. Just be careful to ensure that the plans and routines are what guide life most of the time. 

Many articles and books have been written about executive function skills. Discover your child's areas of growth opportunity and help them to learn skills. They are likely your areas of weakness, too, so you might need to engage the help of someone who has them- a spouse, grandparent, neighbor, or friend, might be. a great resource and you can show that you are learning, too.  These are the skills that will help them be productive adults in any area.