Our fifth grade team scheduled a block of time (45 minutes) in their day this year that they called Differentiation Time. During this block of time, students went to most of their pull-out programs: Learning Lab (this is working with an intervention teacher, either math or reading, in a very small group on specific skills), GT, or Special Education. Other students went to the computer lab to work on Successmaker, or to take AR tests. We are departmentalized, so others went to their teacher in the class in which they needed some differentiated help or remediation. Some were able to spend this time "reading to self" as a part of our Daily 5 program.
It was hard to give up this time from individual classes, but the teachers felt that the benefits were worth it. For the most part, students who were in pull-out programs didn't miss any of their classroom instruction. It was also pretty difficult to schedule all of the students, but they managed to do that in their collaborative time.
This has been very successful for us. Next year, we are going to bring this down to 3rd and 4th grade. I like the idea that students, who sometimes won't come to tutoring before or after school, are able to get that extra help that so many of them need.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Daily 5 Reflections
At the beginning of this school year, seven of our classroom teachers (1st-5th) and one intervention teacher volunteered to participate in the Daily 5 program. They were first trained in the summer, and then met as a professional learning community throughout the year to support each other and work out the kinks. This past week, I read their reflections. I was very happy to find out that, although they had to work through some problems, they felt the program was a success. Their reflections were the encouragment the district needed to support another training for teachers this summer. Here are some of their thoughts:
The program increased stamina for reading (this was reported at almost every grade level)
It increased students' ability to choose good-fit books
It increased confidence in reading
It cut down on misbehaviors when teachers were meeting with small groups
It supported our campus buddy-reading program
It made made vocabulary work more fun for students
It gave students more responsibility for their own learning
Teachers were able to balance our new adoption with the program
It brought teachers together
There were also a few problems:
Not enough time in upper grades
Not enough books or supplies
We have a few more teachers that will be trained this summer. They will have an excellent support system through the team that met this year.
The program increased stamina for reading (this was reported at almost every grade level)
It increased students' ability to choose good-fit books
It increased confidence in reading
It cut down on misbehaviors when teachers were meeting with small groups
It supported our campus buddy-reading program
It made made vocabulary work more fun for students
It gave students more responsibility for their own learning
Teachers were able to balance our new adoption with the program
It brought teachers together
There were also a few problems:
Not enough time in upper grades
Not enough books or supplies
We have a few more teachers that will be trained this summer. They will have an excellent support system through the team that met this year.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Writing Camp
This week in Texas, we will begin our TAKS testing for elementary students. Our fourth graders will be taking a writing test that consists of an editing portion and a composition. Fourth grade teachers in Texas are exhausted. I tutored a couple of students for this test, and I am exhausted. One of my schools did a writing camp this week, and it was quite a production.
Parents helped to decorate the three fourth grade rooms like cabins and camps. There was blue paper on the floor to resemble a river with tubes on the river. There were teepees and tents in every room. One room even had a large canoe in it! There were fake trees, tree stumps, campfires, and names signs given to the "cabin" rooms. There was mail call, in which students received encouraging letters from former teachers and parents. It was a two-day camping trip--but let me tell you...those students (and teachers) worked! They actually completed two separate released tests.
Our data shows that hard work pays off. I'm expecting great results!
Parents helped to decorate the three fourth grade rooms like cabins and camps. There was blue paper on the floor to resemble a river with tubes on the river. There were teepees and tents in every room. One room even had a large canoe in it! There were fake trees, tree stumps, campfires, and names signs given to the "cabin" rooms. There was mail call, in which students received encouraging letters from former teachers and parents. It was a two-day camping trip--but let me tell you...those students (and teachers) worked! They actually completed two separate released tests.
Our data shows that hard work pays off. I'm expecting great results!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Having Fun at School????
One of the things I love about my work is that sometimes, it's just fun to be there. The day before a holiday is usually lots of fun for everyone. Don't get me wrong, people are still working...we have students to teach and care for; responsibilities that don't go away because of a holiday. But, we're light-hearted, anticipating a few days off, families coming, or just a change in our routines.
We like to do fun activities for teachers on those days. Since Thanksgiving is coming this week, we will be playing Thanksgiving Bingo throughout the day. The way that we do this is to give teachers a bingo card with Thanksgiving themed pictures on it in their boxes in the morning, and call the bingo pictures throughout the day on the PA system. We give very simple and inexpensive prizes...candy bars, sodas, jean passes, etc. But, it's lots of fun for the teachers, and our students really buy into the game and try to help their teacher win!
If you'd like to try this morale-builder, check out Tools for Educators on the web.
Have fun and Happy Thanksgiving!
We like to do fun activities for teachers on those days. Since Thanksgiving is coming this week, we will be playing Thanksgiving Bingo throughout the day. The way that we do this is to give teachers a bingo card with Thanksgiving themed pictures on it in their boxes in the morning, and call the bingo pictures throughout the day on the PA system. We give very simple and inexpensive prizes...candy bars, sodas, jean passes, etc. But, it's lots of fun for the teachers, and our students really buy into the game and try to help their teacher win!
If you'd like to try this morale-builder, check out Tools for Educators on the web.
Have fun and Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
TAKS Helps
For all of you Texas administrators, if you haven't seen it I'd like to share a very good tool to help your students understand the TAKS tests.
We have a very talented langauge arts coordinator in our school district. She brought this information to our schools, click here, and it has been very beneficial for teaching students skills that will help them master the test.
After we give a benchmark test (a released TAKS test) and we've run a report that shows scores and most missed items, we have teachers highlight all students below 70. From there we can see where they are weak in understanding certain items. The learning objective on the test corresponds to the table of contents in the Dallas County Schools information. We ask teachers to post the distractors and the question stems and teach those to the students along the way. There are also great teaching helps in the information for those objectives as well.
As students begin to "prove" their answers, they have a new perspective on why an answer isn't right! This is an excellent tool for Texas educators. Thank you, John Crain, and all of the talented people at Dallas County Schools!
We have a very talented langauge arts coordinator in our school district. She brought this information to our schools, click here, and it has been very beneficial for teaching students skills that will help them master the test.
After we give a benchmark test (a released TAKS test) and we've run a report that shows scores and most missed items, we have teachers highlight all students below 70. From there we can see where they are weak in understanding certain items. The learning objective on the test corresponds to the table of contents in the Dallas County Schools information. We ask teachers to post the distractors and the question stems and teach those to the students along the way. There are also great teaching helps in the information for those objectives as well.
As students begin to "prove" their answers, they have a new perspective on why an answer isn't right! This is an excellent tool for Texas educators. Thank you, John Crain, and all of the talented people at Dallas County Schools!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Yet Another Opportunity!
I've been moved 1/2 time. I have been the AP at school "A" for two years, (and three weeks!). The magic number in our district is 450 for an AP position to make. School "A" didn't make it. However, school "B" did. So, school "B" gets an AP...me...1/2 time. As I told my personnel director, it's easy to talk about being a team player when everything is chugging along as expected. Now it's time to really be one.
Both of my schools are really good schools. The teachers are positive and happy and the principals are hard-working and reasonable. I would say that principal "A" is the best leader I've ever worked under. Who knows if principal "B" won't be as good when I get the hang of that campus?
This is hard. I do want to be a help and actually make a difference. But, I feel really scattered at the moment. I have two offices. I'm a nester, so two offices is hard. But, I'll get it together. I'm concerned that I'm going to forget to do something at one campus, or miss a deadline. I'm trying to keep careful notes and focus...but again, it's hard. I've only done this for two days so I guess I should give myself some time. I don't know how all of this will play out, but I know that I'm going to give it my best and keep a positive attitude. I'm blessed that I have two great schools to go to. Wish me luck.
Both of my schools are really good schools. The teachers are positive and happy and the principals are hard-working and reasonable. I would say that principal "A" is the best leader I've ever worked under. Who knows if principal "B" won't be as good when I get the hang of that campus?
This is hard. I do want to be a help and actually make a difference. But, I feel really scattered at the moment. I have two offices. I'm a nester, so two offices is hard. But, I'll get it together. I'm concerned that I'm going to forget to do something at one campus, or miss a deadline. I'm trying to keep careful notes and focus...but again, it's hard. I've only done this for two days so I guess I should give myself some time. I don't know how all of this will play out, but I know that I'm going to give it my best and keep a positive attitude. I'm blessed that I have two great schools to go to. Wish me luck.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Inservice...over!
We just finished our week of inservice before the children come back. It was exhausting!
Our theme this year is, Team County Line, In the Game for Kids. Last Sunday before the first meetings this week, my principal and I decorated our tables with black and white tablecloths, pom poms and blow-up sports balls. We had signs on the stage and pennants hanging from whatever! We bought our staff shirts and divided them into teams that will be together for the remainder of the year. We continually do games and activities for points that will buy the winning team a week of jean days or something similar.
We both have embroidery machines, and so we embroidered each staff members' name on a tote bag which we hung on their chair as a "place card". We had "ball park" food...Cracker Jack, cotton candy, popcorn and peanuts. We played some silly inservice games...like who could put on the frozen T-shirt first, stuffing a shirt with the most blow-up balloons and group hugging to pop them, etc. We laughed a lot and got a lot of information out in a few quick days.
One of our teachers sent the most wonderful email thanking us for our fun inservice. I can tell you that it alone made up for all of the exhausting work. Today was our last day and we talked about legacy, and what we wanted to leave this year as our legacy. Our teachers took this very seriously, the room was silent as they worked. I've never known a more compassionate group of educators.
We are planning on a year of continual professional development and distributed staff development journals to everyone. Our teachers have achieved excellent results in our state testing, but we all know that we have lots of room to grow so we will continue to push on. It's going to be a great year!
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