Chart it up!

Look around your room.  Does the "wallpaper" reflect what's important in your instruction?  Does it
engage students in routines for success?  Do you hold students accountable for using the resources you provide?

The design of your classroom shouldn't be left to chance.  Consider these things as look at your own classroom:

1. Charts should be relevant to current learning.  If they are something coming later in the year or something that has been taught and won't be reviewed daily, take it down.  Only have up those things that are current to your learning targets at the time.  Otherwise, students don't see it.
2. Posters should be student-centered.  The more students see themselves reflected around the classroom, the more connected they are to the content and skills of the class.  Student-designed charts work best.

Students use this chart to help them connect to their reading.  The symbols force them to identify their thinking without taking a lot of time away from the enjoyment of reading.

Group norms in an acrostic help students remember classroom expectations.  This is great for a regular component of the classroom design

Students entering and exiting this class are reminded of the routines of the classroom.  With minor reinforcement at the beginning of the year, students can use these visual reminders independently.

Another chart demonstrating the timeliness of a concept.  

An established routine of student responsibility, building classroom ownership and leadership.

Another reminder about the end of day routines so that students can word independently.

Essential Questions should change based on the topic of study.  Using these a teachable questions enhances the learning of the class.

Students know where to look for their learning objectives.  However, they change based on the current learning.

Another example of classroom routines that are reinforced for consistency and independence.

A student-designed chart...literally!  

How Quickly Can You Eat a Pringle and Other Technology Tools with a Purpose

Technology use should not occur for the sake of technology.  Instead, it should facilitate learning, adding to the richness of the content or deepening a skill set.  See the great examples of how technology has enhanced learning so far this school year!

Google Read and Write highlights sentences and reads back to kids so they can proofread more accurately.  Just add head phones and you have a great tool to help kids revise and edit their work.

BYOD:  Use it to look up latitude and longitude for an experiment.

In the above lesson, students use a compass app in BYOD to learn about seconds, minutes and miles.

Good cart vs. Bad cart:  We all prefer the good!  By taking good care of our equipment, technology-based lessons can be successful.

Using BYOD to time a science experiment-how quickly can you eat a Pringle?

Online tools:  this geography quiz helps students master their geography skills.

Poll Everywhere:  Like Socrative and Google Forms, this tool gives you quick feedback on student knowledge.  It's great for a warm-up or an exit slip.

Using "Find" to find those "dead words" in your writing.

The Importance of Student Voice

Everyone wants to feel valued....everyone wants to feel like their thoughts and opinions matter...everyone wants a sense of control.  Eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen-year-olds are no different.  As you look at the examples below, reflect on how you include student voice in your classroom.

Students recommended this Spanish video where a student sings to their teacher, en espanol, about the need to go to the bathroom.  Hmm...maybe that's how students should request a restroom break in the future.

Students lead the warm down in PE - a little yoga anyone?

In Flight Crew, students design the activity by asking questions of their peers.

Students use their voice to collaborate with partners, explaining how they would do problems differently.

Students choose their partners and work together to develop a product of their choice, discussing both the content and process of learning.

Students provide feedback about their learning and set goals for the future.

"Orange you glad I didn't say banana" and other avenues for creativity

Personally, for me, creativity is when boredom takes over and I don't have a good book to read -- my brain starts to create.  Sometimes, creativity comes from a need to look at a problem through a different light.  And, at other times, creativity stems from curiosity.

When I was doing National Board Certification, two questions continually formed in my mind:  What do you notice?  What do you think?  As I looked at student work samples and watched recordings of my instruction, over and over and over again, I constantly asked myself what I noticed and what I thought of it.  These two questions required me to develop curiosity about my teaching and student learning.  By tapping into this rich skill, I was able to achieve a major goal and develop more creative lessons based on real student need.

Consider how often creativity is embedded into your classroom instruction.  The most influential thinkers of the last century were both smart and creative; they learned to visualize solutions and create and mold structures based on the fundamental skills they gained in the arts and crafts.

As you consider creativity in the classroom, here are some TMS that can help us develop "creatical thinkers."

The task - design an animation....Go!

LEAP students were given a design process to follow and some options of what to design, and then, BOOM, they created!

Consider how we are creative in our teaching.  Here, students are design hashtags related to the characters in their book.

Encourage kids to be creative!  

He Who Holds the Pencil Does the Learning!

We have to be honest with ourselves:  "If schools truly want to engage students, they need to downgrade control and compliance--and upgrade technology."  Amy M. Azzam in her article "Motivated to Learn: a Conversation with Daniel Pink" in Educational Leadership reinforces my belief about student learning:  the more we control, the less students learn.  Our goal must be become great facilitator's of knowledge, providing structured learning opportunities where students say "ah-ha!" as they discover knowledge and skills that apply to the world outside of school.  And, when students feel they control their learning, they are more motivated to learn. BONUS!!!!

It's on a poster, so it must be true!

Here, the teacher is coaching students through their artwork, but they still control the writing instrument. She never take it.

Students control their learning by having conversations in Spanish, practicing their skills in an authentic manner.

In this Jeopardy game, every student is required to engage in math learning.  The students at the board can't earn points for their team unless their team shows that each member has completed the work as well.

The students are modeling the work of figurative language.

Readers are Thinkers - here a student "holds the pen" to write annotations in her reading.  This same student just finished reading aloud to her teacher who assessed her fluency and vocabulary -- the student controlled both learning demonstrations.

Students are having fun practicing their sewing on paper before they move on to more complex projects - teacher modeling just wouldn't be enough to build this skill...it takes student control.

Putting the Pieces Together

Our job, as educators, is to help students make sense of their world.  Whether that is in the traditional curriculum or the hidden curriculum, we play a significant role in developing both critical thinkers and strong community members.

In this learning activity, students are using their senses to discover and predict.  By "putting the pieces" of information together, they make inferences about what's hidden within the bag.

In the above series of pictures, students are "putting the pieces" of history and geography together.  What makes this such a special lesson is that it adds math and social studies skills, plus it has differentiates skill (scripts for struggling learners and challenge activities for enrichment)

This Flyertime visual demonstrates the interwoven relationships we have with each other.  Our similarities, our differences, our beliefs and values all come together to form a perfect puzzle.  Anytime we can reinforce tolerance, we identify that we are all just "putting the pieces together."

When we identify a purpose for learning, we help kids make sense of their learning so that they can "put the pieces together."

When students have completed an inquiry-based activity, it's important to "put the pieces together."

Your wall art provides a great opportunity to "put the pieces together" when you display their work with a rubric that highlights their expectations.