Collaborative Book Clubs Grant

I'm so excited to annouce that I received a Donor's Choose grant this year for my book clubs. I was able to obtain five books each of 13 different novels. I can't wait for my books to arrive! My students are going to be so excited.

Collaborative Book Clubs

Last year I ran across a blog entry about hosting a book tasting in your classroom. Check out the blog entry here. I was so excited to do this in my classroom. I was able grab some books from our book room. I bought table cloths, put together a "menu" of books, set up after dinner mints, and their recording journal. My students really enjoyed this activity. They were able to choose their top 3 choices of books they wanted to read. One of the downfalls was that the books were outdated, they were in rough shape, and that posed an issue for my students.

Over the last year I've been working very hard to try and update my classroom novels. I've been blessed by so many different people this school year. My home flooded in Hurricane Harvey and much of my classroom library flooded with it. I can't begin to tell you how many people poured out on me. They sent me books from their bookshelves, gift cards, money, etc... I've been able to update my classroom library. I still wanted to obtain some novels for the book clubs.

In February, I decided to submit a Donor's Choose grant in hopes of obtaining books. My grant was funded towards the end of February. With this grant, I was able to get 13 different novels for my book clubs. Once the novels come in, I'll sketch out the days for our book clubs. This is one of my favorite activities. I absolutely LOVE the group discussions that come from the book clubs. I hope my students will have the chance to partner up and work with students they may not normally work with.

After last year, I learned a few things that should make this round run well. I divided the groups into an A group and a B group. That way I was conferencing with half of the groups each day. It was difficult to get to the groups and have meaningful discussions. I think I'll do it differently this year. Honestly it would be good to have 1-2 groups to conference with on an given day. That may make the rotation for reading the books and conferencing much better. The students will have lesson meeting days, but there can be more quality conversations. Each student will have a role to participate in during the book club discussion day. That's just one of the things I'll do differently. I also plan to help the students map out when they will read the books and how to divide up the pages. It was tough on Pre-AP last year trying to get it all in. I know the pitfalls to avoid with that. Here were a few of the resources I found helpful last year.

Depth and Complexity Literature Circles
Literature Circles for Middle School
Book Tasting
Because Sometimes You Just Need a Worksheet

I look forward to incorporating a more Workshop style for my upcoming book clubs. I'll post more after I formulate my 2018 Collaborative Book Clubs - Book Tasting.

OneNote Collaboration

The past week I've been able to collaborate with one of my 7th grade team members in OneNote. We were able to work together to share OneNote with our faculty. It was such a neat experience. We were able to talk about the different ways we use it in our classrooms. I felt like many of our faculty members were very excited about having the opportunity to use this program. That made me even more excited about using OneNote.

I'll be honest, it sure does help to have someone else who's using it too. It gives a sounding board, someone to share ideas with, and to be excited about using it. I know that this year I've been using it on a small scale compared to what the program can do. We've had a few hiccups along the way, but now I have someone to collaborate and troubleshoot with. Here's a sample of our PowerPoint.

Presenting this to our faculty was awesome! After our presentation, we decided to create a OneNote notebook that we could share and collaborate on. We can add pages, test out the collaboration space, and so much more. I feel like this is just the first step in being able to use OneNote to collaborate as teachers. I can see so much potential in this. I can't wait to explore it more in depth.

Twitter

Up until this school year, I've been a twitter dropout. I signed up for an account several years ago. I tried using it. Part of my problem was I liked to write more than 140 characters. I was encouraged by my administration and my humanities coach to really give it a go this year. I dabbled with it a little bit at the beginning of the school year and now it's one of my favorite social media platforms. 

As an educator, there have been so many benefits to using Twitter. First and foremost, I've been able to learn from other educators outside of my circle. I've been able to see the exciting things they are doing in their classrooms. I've learned about OneNote, Workshop model, and just met some inspiring people. 

Another thing,  I've really enjoyed is following authors. The first time an author liked my tweet, I felt like a million bucks. I like being able to give some quick feedback to them, even if they don't have time to answer. Twitter has brought me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to have the opportunity to reach out to others.

Honestly, I'm so glad that I started to use Twitter this year. I've been able to connect with people that I would have never had the chance to connect with before. I feel like this social media platform has made my search for educational resources much more effective. I can zone in on things I want to learn specifically and network with others about those topics.

Revealing their thoughts in OneNote

Once a week for the last several weeks, I've been giving my students one writing prompt in OneNote. It is something I found on TPT. It's called 300 Common Core Creative Writing Prompts. I've been able to pick one a week to have the students respond to the picture prompt. I'm really enjoying these. I feel like they are even useful in my writing practice.

I can honestly say I'm so excited about their progress. I'm able to get a better quality answer from many of my students. I find that the quality is better instead of just "how much" they write.  Some of the prompts are challenging for my students, but most seem to be easy for them to understand.

How does OneNote make this process more meaningful in the classroom? Honestly, I feel that OneNote has given me better insight into what my students are thinking. I have a group of students who thrive in being able to use their laptops in class. I see the benefit of having students typing their answers into OneNote. It gives them a place to write without feeling judged. As a teacher, I can see what they are working on in real time. I can see their thought process as it unfolds. I feel that it's less pressure for them feeling as tough I'm hovering over their shoulder.

I have students who don't typically write anything. Some of my students struggle to write legibly. Using OneNote has given me opportunities as a teacher that I feel I didn't have before. I really like having the opportunity to have access to their binder at all times. I can go back and reread something, leave feedback for students, and help them with organization.

Here are some student samples. 

Shadow Day

In February of this year, I had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Meyer’s classroom. Mrs. Meyer’s teaches 7th grade ELA. I observed two inclusion classes and a partial PreAP class.

Mrs. Meyer’s welcomed me into her classroom with open arms. She was very transparent with me regarding her classroom setting. She was flexible and willing to allow me to see any element of workshop that I needed. The fact that she was willing to change her lesson to meet my needs demonstrated the type of teacher she is.

Her classroom is amazing! She has flexible seating, an incredible library, and student centered environment. I looked at her bookshelves for quite some time searching for new book ideas.

There is a strong sense of classroom community in her room. It is obvious that her students respect her. She has established a positive relationship with her students. She knew exactly what they needed and worked to meet those needs.

As for workshop, I was able to see the process from start to finish. I was so excited that we were working on the same skill in writer’s workshop. I was able to gain a few new ideas to bring back and utilize in my own personal classroom. Another thing that made the shadow day so meaningful.

There were several take-aways I had from Mrs. Meyer’s classroom. 

• Classroom management and routines are imperative! Workshop doesn’t work without clear routines/procedures. The first twenty days of workshop procedures resonated with me at this time. 
• Students needed to be sent back to their work spaces with a clear purpose. This purpose should be an extension of the mini-lesson taught in class. Students were given a clear purpose, a time frame to work within, and expectations of the evidence of the work.
• Small groups are possible! I’ve been struggling to determine how to set up small groups to work with me. I saw first hand how students are often able to sort themselves into that particular group. She worked with the group that needed her most. If she saw students off task, she invited them to the group to work with her. This was my biggest take away! I was able to create a “help desk” in my own personal classroom. The first week of implementation, students were crowded around it begging to work with me. I felt like I was working on a level that was able to meet my student’s needs.
• Workshop looks different in everyone’s classroom. The structure of workshop is the same: mini-lessons, purposeful independent practice, and conferencing. This shadow day gave me the confidence to implement workshop into my classroom. 

The Power of Collaboration

As educators it's easy to close our doors and just do our thing. It's tempting to just fly under the radar and keep to ourselves. I think we miss out on ideas when we avoid collaborating with our colleagues. I find that it's easy to talk about what's going on with students, complain about things, or make small talk about what's going on outside of school. It's difficult to be vulnerable and share what's going on in your classroom. We potentially face being judged when we share what's really going on in our classrooms. I know that I often think about that, when asked what are my students working on.

I'm an overachiever by nature. I want to be the best that I can be. I want to be willing to try to grow myself as an educator. I'm internally motivated like that. I will say that I've been like that ever since I can remember. I have found that one of the best ways that I can grow is by collaborating with my colleagues. It's in having those vulnerable conversations that I can come up with some of my best ideas for my classroom. It is vital to have those conversations with each other. To share our failures and our successes. Those encouraging moments help us to continue to do what we do.

Each week, I look forward to our "Thursday Talk". Our humanities coach meets with us each Thursday and we collaborate and share what's going on in our classes. We share where we are in our transition into the workshop model of teaching. We share projects, books, activities, success, and failures. We lay it all out on the table and help each other pick the pieces back up.

At first it's tough to be vulnerable. To expose your "failures" to each other. It's raw. It's real. It's pertinent. It helps us grow. We are able to gain the encouragement we need to keep going. We get a fresh perspective detached from the "problems". This, my fellow educators, is such a significant part of our jobs. We need to sharpen each other as educators.

This past week I had the opportunity to facilitate our "Thursday Talk." I was so excited to see that we had a full house that day. There wasn't an empty seat at the table. Teachers were all chattering about what they were working on in their classrooms. I was able to share the one pager projects my students completed. We had some great discussion about them. I was so proud to showcase what my students had done. They exceeded my expectations, and I was proud to show them off to my colleagues. The other teachers were excited about this project. They couldn't wait to modify it for their own classrooms. That's a collaboration win!

When we take those moments to be raw and vulnerable, we have the chance to inspire each other with something new and different. Sometimes we share a new spin on a task we've always done. We can put our brains together and tweak a project until we can make it better than before. We can troubleshoot problems and come up with solutions for it. That's the power of collaboration. We can exponentially multiply our skills and knowledge.

It's important that everyone have the chance to share in the collaboration meetings. All voices need the opportunity to be able to share what's going on in their classrooms. It helps the collaboration to be stronger when more than one voice is heard. That's part of developing the strength of the team during collaboration meetings.

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

I consider myself to be an experienced teacher. I have taught different grade levels, subjects, and at three different schools (if you count student teaching). I find that it's super easy to become set in our ways. We work for several years to find our style of teaching. Can we really learn a new way of teaching?

Learning how to use the Workshop model has been a journey for me. I moved to Texas and this was the way they taught. I'm so thankful that my previous principal gave me a chance and hired me without knowing this method of teaching. I've spent this year really trying to dig in and try to do workshop. I've tried many different things this school year: flexible seating, reader's and writer's notebooks, and mini-lessons to name a few.

Flexible seating has been different for me. I have played around with the style this school year. My poor students have had to become flexible with me as I've reorganized my classroom. I hope by the end of the school year I'll be able to have the room just the way I want it.

I've utilized a writer's notebook this year in a composition book. My reader's notebook was in their binders. Since I've been using OneNote, I may not use the composition books next year. I hope that the technology will be something that will work well with my students. So far, it seems to be. I read a book that showed me how effectively use a reader's notebook. I felt like that was my weakest area. I have some great ideas to implement in the reader's notebook next school year.

Mini-lessons have been my achilles heel. I just can't seem to wrap my mind around them. It's hard to figure out how to stop talking and let the kids take some owndership. I'm so excited to be able to go and observe another teacher's classroom. I will be able to see a lesson from start to finish. Maybe this will help me wrap my mind around the mini-lessons. I'm sure I'm just making it too difficult.

At this point I feel like it's safe to say an old dog can learn new tricks. The old dog might be slow and struggle some, but learning nonetheless. I look forward to reflecting on the visit and gleaning some new knowledge to implement into my classroom.