I'm also very fond of my best bud Tom Brady as he guest starts in my 3 classroom expectations of Mutual Respect, Attentive Listening, and No Put Downs.
One of things I'm most proud of this year is my "Grade 9 Math at a Glance" bulletin board. I've got all the General Lerner Outcomes and Specific Lerner outcomes, written in student friendly language. The topic of the day is pulled off the back board and is seen as soon as the students come in. Along with the equation (Date) of the day.
I'm also very fond of my best bud Tom Brady as he guest starts in my 3 classroom expectations of Mutual Respect, Attentive Listening, and No Put Downs.
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A couple ways I am encouraging grit and growth mindset in my students is with this bulletin board. Its been great to hear some of the language change within the classroom, especially when it comes to the hardest subject...Math! THIS WAS A BIG DEAL! I could see from the shading in the background this student was frustrated by this question. I felt it was important to PRAISE that fact that they did attempt to answer the question. Now I am better able to see how I can help this student with this math concept.
Recently, I got hired to finish the school year teaching a grade 5/6 split class. The class had a rocky start to the school year and administration was looking for someone to come in and treat the class like it was September. Build teamwork, establish routines, and try to give these 18 students a sense of community. This is a daunting task for a new grad like myself, but I was up to the challenge!
Change is hard for everyone, so the first thing I did was ask for their opinion. “What does your ideal classroom look/sound/feel like?" Here are two examples of what I heard: "Looks like everyone working, sounds quiet so that people can focus, and feels like home" - Grade 5 Student "My ideal classroom is like a second home, where people don't interrupt, and it's fun" - Grade 6 student The best part of this exercise was I could give their words back to them. When I enforced my expectations I could bring it back to what they told me, for example when they were getting too loud, I would remind them that THEY said they need quiet to do their best work. Wish me luck! "I would like to go to We Day because I think it is just amazing all the things one person can do." - Grade 7 Student This year, I was fortunate enough to get 15 last minute tickets to We Day in Calgary for the grade 7 and 8's at Alexandra Middle School. As a part of Student Leadership, we had a hard decision to make about who we could take to this day of empowerment. I asked students 2 questions:
1. What do you know about Free the Children? 2. You can't buy a ticket to We Day you have to earn it, what will you commit to doing to earn your ticket? If students didn't already know the story of Craig Kielburger and how he started free the children at age 12 by binging an article about child labour that he had found in the local newspaper to school, I wanted students to find it and see that their age is not a limitation to what they can do, in fact their youth is an asset. Reading the students responses to my second question made me so excited for the potential of these future change makers! They were thoughtful, realistic, and heart warming. Many spoke about the commitment they would make to attending student leadership meetings, how they would organize and participate in initiatives like "We Scare Hunger" and almost all of them said they would reach out to the students in their classes by making an effort to my kind and helpful. Below are a couple of my favourite excerpts from students answers: "Not judging people and being polite could change the world one step at a time" "I will help my fellow students around me and be a good example" "Not always think about myself, but care about others as well" I learned a lot about my students from this simple quiz. I also let them ask something they wanted to know about me an responded to each questions with a personal note back the next day The very first thing I did in my PS1 placement was give my kids a quiz... a "get to know you" quiz.
I started out telling students what my answers to the questions would be. I have found that if you tell students about yourself first they feel more comfortable sharing information about themselves with you. It all helps to start to build positive relationships. Here is a sample of what I got back: Before starting my PS1 in Medicine Hat, I made some introductions to both the parents of my future students and my class. To introduce myself to my Teacher Mentor and my students I made this video to share a little about myself and let the students see who it was who is sharing their classroom with them for 5 weeks. Below is the letter that was sent home to parents. I think it is imperative to keep the line of communication open between teachers and parents as they are a large stakeholder in their students learning. I peronally prefer the video introduction to the letter. How do you introduce yourself to parents and students? |
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