MACUL Reflection (Day 2)

While I had some nerves on Thursday because of the student showcase, they didn't even register in comparison to my nerves on Friday when I had to present myself.  Normally it doesn't bother me to present to people.  My apprehension came from the topic of my presentation, not the presentation itself.  I didn't present about my flipped classroom, like normal.  Instead I presented on a grant I received...a grant that totally flopped!

During Adam Bellow's keynote, he talked about "owning your failure", and I decided to take that idea and roll with it :-)  So here's the skinny from my presentation...I received 6 ipod touches from MACUL to be used in my school to make virtual book reviews.  Those book reviews would be loaded to Youtube, turned into a QR Code & put in the reviewed library book.  Then they would be viewable to anyone who was interested in checking the book out.  Sounds great, right?  Whelp, it didn't turn out so fabulous because very few teachers participated.

I shared all this information in my presentation, as well as what I think went wrong and how I would change things if I were to do it again.  Then I went on to the bulk of my presentation, which is what I'm using the ipods for now, because leaving them in the library not being used was blasphemy (at least in my mind)!  I brought the ipods back into my room & started using them for some Augmented Reality, to assist in my students genius hour projects, and to make some virtual flash cards.

I was very transparent about my lack of experience with Augmented Reality, but I shared what I was doing, and I shared resources I used.  From there the audience shared ideas, which was awesome!

I ended my session sharing a project we did as a class to boost building morale.  My class has been inspired by Pharell's song "Happy" and wanted to create one for our school.  They set up a schedule, and used the ipods to record each class AND staff member dancing.  Then I spliced it all together using Camtasia.

You know how sometimes in your head something sounds awesome, but the end result doesn't work out (sort of like my grant), well this was NOT one of those times.  I am beyond proud of this video and the work my kids put into it!

To watch our Happy video, click here :)

After my presentation was over (deep breath), I sat back and enjoyed the Lightning Talks.  For those of you unfamiliar with lightning talks, the speaker talks for 5 minutes.  They get 20 slides for 15 seconds each and they just GO.  I had thought about applying for a lightning talk, but I don't know that I have anything as inspirational or motivational as what was presented on Friday.  Topics ranged from being connected, to building relationships, to developing empathy, to expanding the walls of your classroom.  I know MACUL 2016 is a LONG way away, but I'm toying with turning my post, A Teacher Coping With a Disability into a lightning talk...I'm still not sure I will, it would be exceptionally hard to do, emotionally, but I definitely have it in the back of my mind.

All-in-all I think MACUL 2014 was a huge success.  I learned quite a few things, and was inspired by many!

MACUL 2014 reflection (day 1)

Once again, I had the pleasure of attending the MACUL conference in Grand Rapids last week, and it didn't disappoint.  There was a record number of attendees from all over Michigan (and even some from out of state).  The conference was two days long, each jam packed with interesting sessions, and I am now going to attempt to make sense of them all!

On Thursday I started at Adam Bellows keynote, and it was AMAZING!  So inspiring with humor thrown in.  One of the points that really hit home to me was about owning your failure.  He admitted when he'd made a huge mistake & realized that it was accepted when he was honest and transparent.  That message resonated with me because I was going to be presenting on Friday about a grant I'd received that was an epic fail :(  His message gave me the confidence to own my failure to my group.

Then I tried to get into Todd Nesloney's session on flipped classroom PBL, unfortunately it was CRAZY full & I couldn't get in...boo.  I was really looking forward to meeting Todd and hearing about his classroom straight from him.  Instead of that session, I jumped into the middle of a session on finding joy in teaching.  It was reaffirming that sometimes it's ok to just take a break from all the curriculum and just do something fun with your students.  I certainly need that reminder from time to time.  

I had to bail on that session a little early because I was meeting 4 of my students who were a part of the student showcase.  They were showing off their Weebly Websites & did an amazing job.  For the most part, the students were a little shy at the beginning, but it didn't take long for them to relax and start talking to teachers.  They even got to talk to Adam Bellow (not that they had a clue who he is). 

After the student showcase I was able to make it to one more session.  I chose a session on #20time with Nick Provezano.  Again, inspiring, funny and motivational!  I have genius hour with my students, so it was really interesting to see how it works at the secondary level as well.  After that I was going to stay for a session on Google Apps, but it was crazy full and I had to leave to go to a district PD.

As this post is getting pretty long, I'll talk about my Friday learnings in another post.  Stay tuned :)

Math Centers

Around this time of year, I always start to evaluate what I'm doing in my class, and how I could improve upon it.  If I'm being honest, I do that all year long, but it seems like it all comes to a head sometime around Spring Break.

I've been toying with the idea of trying to do my flipped classroom via centers, but I haven't been able to wrap my head around how to make it actually work in my room.  Luckily, I attended an awesome technology conference last week called MACUL.  One of the sessions I went to was on running a math workshop.  For the life of me I can't remember who the presenters were, but I do know they were from Spring Lake, MI.  There was a lot of good information shared, but my lightbulb moment came when they shared their acronym for their math workshop...

Math fact fluency
At your seat work
Teacher
Hands on manipulatives

I really liked the acronym, but I wanted to change it a little to fit my style more.  I kept the math acronym, but changed some of the descriptions.

Meet with the teacher
At your seat work
Technology based math
Hands on manipulatives

I'm planning each rotation to be about 20 minutes long, and I'm really excited about the potential for me to connect with students even more than normal :)  I'll update after I've done this with my kiddos and let everyone know how it went!

Highlights from MiFlip14

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend MiFlip 2014, and it. was. awesome.  Steve Kelley and Zach Creswell kicked off the keynote with the top 10 tips on flipping.  The keynote was filled with great advice, and lots of humor.  Some of my favorite lines were:

"Teachers teaching in isolation is a travesty."
"Can your students best work be found online? How about yours?"
"Everyone is trying to create the same stuff.  That's dumb. Collaborate."
"If your comfortable with what you're doing in the classroom, then you're moving too slow."
"Create, borrow and share"
And my favorite...
"Tell your story, and if we don't have a story, then shame on us."

I think I could write a post about each and every one of these quotes.

I was also lucky enough to present with Erin Klein. To say it was an honor to share the podium with her is an understatement.  She talked about her "internal" flipping that she does as centers in her classroom.  My challenge now is trying to figure out how I can tweak that and make it applicable in my class of 5th graders.

So the keynote was awesome, presenting with Erin was awesome, but neither of those were my highlights of the day.  My highlight came directly after lunch.  As a member of the planning committee, we decided to have a student panel.  One of the biggest worries many teachers have when beginning flipping is how will students/parents take it.  So, I invited all the kids in my class, and 4 committed and showed up, parents in tow.  I was so nervous...super nervous.  You want to do something brave, put a bunch of your students on a panel to answer questions & tell them to be completely honest.  Terrifying!  I knew what I hoped they would say, but I had no idea what would actually come out of their mouths.

I was beyond proud of them and their answers.  They handled themselves very professionally (at least as professionally as you can expect a 5th grader to handle themselves).  They even wove some humor into their presentation.  We finished our presentation a little early, so we joined in a session called "good teaching".  When we went in, the group was discussing what you look for when hiring a teacher.  They turned and asked my students and the students came up with some really insightful responses.  They said that they wanted someone who was fun and would joke with them, and who was willing to try out new stuff because not everyone learns the same way.  They even got a chance to talk about their Genius Hour projects, and their enthusiasm was contagious.

Just writing about the experience makes me smile...I am so proud of those kids.

20 Day Blogging Challenge...Day 2

Today's blog assignment on the 20 Day Blogging challenge is to "share an organizational tip from your classroom."

Over Christmas Break I reworked my reading notebook that I use to keep track of my student's reading data, and I'm super excited about it.  To start off, I found some super fun fluorescent paper at Walgreens.  I save it for special occasions and my reading notebook seemed like a good one.  Then I thought about what I wanted to have tracked for the year.  For me, it was students' scores on their MAP tests, their AR points, and the genre's that they've read.  After writing most of their information out by hand, I decided that next year I would use a typed version (which I have shown below).  Also on my chart is an area for the students to set goals for themselves for their MAP tests and AR points.  One of the things I do during my reading conferences with the students is go over their goals.

At the beginning of my binder I have a calendar that I use to keep myself on track with my reading conferences.  I have a tab for each student, where I keep their tracking form & my conferencing forms.  I've found this binder to be incredibly helpful keeping me on track, and keeping my information organized.

20 Day Blogging Challenge...Day 1

During my snow day yesterday I was checking out Twitter & I saw a link going around about a 20 day blogging challenge.  As someone who has sort of fallen off the blogging wagon, I was looking for something to kick my butt into gear, and I think I might have found it.  While I doubt I'll be able to blog everyday, if I could get all 20 in by the end of February, I think I'll be doing pretty good.

The first day of the challenge is: Tell about a favorite book to share or teach. Provide one example of an extension or cross curricular lesson.

This is a fun 1st topic for me because I LOVE reading.  When I taught 3rd grade, my absolute favorite read aloud was Because of Winn Dixie. I found it so easy to get into character.

I've now taught 5th grade for 4 years, and probably my favorite read aloud, up until this year, is Bud, Not Buddy.  Again, it's super easy for me to get into character, and the fact that my school is in Grand Rapids makes it really interesting to students.  

This year I have 2 new favorite read alouds...my first I haven't actually read to my kids yet (it's coming at the end of the year when we study mysteries).  That book is Capture the Flag.  I enjoyed it so much that I am sure my students will too.  The book I'm actually going to share a lesson from is the book I started my year with, Wonder.  Wonder is an amazingly enjoyable book that the students can all relate to.  In the book their teacher has monthly "precepts", which we talked about while we were reading, and the students really got into them.  They are now starting to pick up on morals/lessons of different books that we read.  I always start my year with a classroom vision, and this year was no different.  What I thought was really interesting was that after we read Wonder, my students wanted to revisit the vision & at the end they decided that we need to add "to be kinder than necessary" and That. Was. Awesome.

Perspective

It's been awhile since I blogged...I've been meaning to, but I just haven't.  I'd sit down at my computer & try to figure out what to type & my mind came up empty.

Actually, that's not entirely true.  I have a lot of things that have been on my mind, but they aren't positive.  To say that it's been a frustrating year is an understatement.  I've had things happen in my classroom that make me question whether I'm in the right profession.

I know it's totally cliche to say "I care too much", but at times I think I do, and that's just sad.  How is it possible to care too much about my students.

One thing I know is true about myself is that I am an eternal optimist, but my optimism has been dying a slow and painful death this year.  So I've decided to change my perspective.

When I get an angry email from a parent, instead of letting it keep me up at night, I'm going remember the numerous emails from parents thanking me for what I do for their child.

When a student refuses to do their work, instead of getting frustrated, I'm going to think about that student who worked so hard on his genius hour project that he spent 2 months learning how to play a song on the guitar, which he then performed in front of the class.

When I have a student (or 15) that don't do their homework, instead of letting it drive me bonkers, I'm going to remember the 40 students that did do their homework.

When I have a student talk back, instead of letting it get to me I'm going to remember the student who helped out their friend just because it was the right thing to do.

When I have a student that I just can't reach, I'm not going to give up, I'm going to smile, keep trying, and think about that student who I know I have touched, and who is comfortable enough to tell me when they're having issues at home.

It's all about perspective.