The National Writing Project annual meeting was overwhelming and inspiring. I went to workshops regarding advocacy and technology during the two days in San Antonio. It made me see that what we’re doing at the West Tennessee Writing Project is right on track but that we can do so much more to enhance and promote our project. On my new to do list: give some serious depth to our currently shallow website, have a PR101 session for new Teacher Consultants at Summer Institute, provide some tech programs for my school to prepare for some Tech Tuesday presenations at SI, consider getting a tech grant for digital storytelling, apply for Tech Retreat in Denver or create my own retreat, prepare a presentation on digital storytelling, check out all of the fantastic websites created by other Writing Project Sites. That should keep me busy at least through Christmas break.
National Writing Project Annual Meeting- San Antonio, TX
Power Upgrade – Quick Assessments
Just saw these new ideas for PT and need a place to keep them handy so I can try them out. I’ll let you know how they go. I need some new ideas and recharging. My gentlemen are making me a wee bit CRAZY!
Power Teaching Super Fast Assessments
We are trying two new assessment methods here in Southern California and would like other Power Teachers to give them a whirl.
Yes/No Way: When your lesson is completed, ask a series of simple assessment questions that the class answers either Yes (pumping their fist energetically) or No Way (putting their hands to their foreheads, and then shooting their hands in the air, as if saying, “that’s ridiculous!”). For example, you’ve finished an intro lesson on fractions, your Yes/No Way questions might be:
– Is the top number the numerator?
– Is the bottom number the denominator?
– Is 3/4 of a pizza less than 1/2 a pizza?
By asking these simple questions, you can rapidly see, without a pencil and paper test, if your class understood your main points.
Quick Test: Quick Test is abbreviated QT and pronounced Cutie. You say Cutie and your students say Cutie and put one hand over their eyes. Then, you say some sentences about your lesson. If the sentence is true, then students silently raise their hands; if the sentence is false, then students keep their hands down. Sample questions:
– The top number of a fraction is the denominator.
– 1/2 a pizza added to 1/2 a pizza is a whole pizza.
The beauty of Cutie is that students, because their eyes are covered, are giving answers in private. You can quickly see how many of your students understood your lesson.
The beauty of both these games is that they can take less than a minute, give you quick feedback, and don’t have to be graded.
Power Progress!
I’ve been doing more and more Teach/Okay lately and the effects are miraculous (as expected). The technique proves to be highly effective for retention of vocabulary. By pairing the word and definition with gestures, my students recall words weeks after the test has come and gone. This is NOT the norm. When we run into a former vocabulary word in another context, if students don’t instantly remember the word, I can prompt them with a simple gesture and they often prompt each other. I’m anticipating that the unit vocabulary test will prove to be mastered successfully by the entire class! We shall see.
Power Teaching Classroom Inquiry
The First Nine Weeks of School
While I have made no posts in eight weeks, I have been Power Teaching. I can’t say that I have been perfectly consistent and on track, but I can say this is the best behaved class I have ever had. I don’t think that has to do with the mix of kids completely. It has to do with Power Teaching. Replacing “pulling strips” or checkmarks with rehearsals has been liberating. I never liked constantly pointing out student failures in following the rules. Now I emphasize what the rules are and the students can take it from there. They enjoy reciting the rules with gestures and often point out opportunities to follow them: “Ms. Brandon, picking up paper towels in the bathroom is showing respect to our school.” “Ms. Brandon, picking up someone else’s pencils or papers shows respect to others.” Rule Four, “Respect others. Respect yourself. Respect your school.” is the hardest one for them to recite, but it’s their favorite one to exemplify.
I have been neglectful of micro lessons, but I’ll be focusing more on them in the coming weeks. Their value, especially the gestures, become evident every time I try one. I taught the terms Realistic Fiction and Fantasy with gestures of a rock (fist) pounding into their hand and wiggley finger fairy wings up by their heads. They still have some trouble coming up with the words “realistic fiction”, but they can label a story with the rock gesture without fail. “Fantasy” is no problem at all. This is a big change from classes in the past. I’ve often had difficulty getting them to understand which is which. With the gestures, the distinction is crystal clear.
I have also used micro lessons to emphasize reading strategies. This has been extremely useful during silent reading times and testing. I can silently give the gesture for “good readers re-read when they don’t understand” and the students are better able to answer their own questions.
My biggest problem right now is coming up with the gestures! I’m tempted to see if I can get the students to come up with some of them, once we are better accustomed to the whole idea. They can often come up with something that they can relate to better than I can. Then again, there is always a lot of silliness to weed through first. In a perfect world (which I intend to create in the next few years) I’d like to find ways that relate particular gestures to each other. For example, all book genre gestures would have something in common. I’m trying to make sure that all of the “good reader” strategies begin with “A good reader. . .” so that they can run through them automatically and incorporate them into their habitual reading behavior.
I’ll be interested in seeing how “teach-okay” develops. Right now, my second graders need to have a very specific micro-lesson to teach and they essentially recite it in chorus when they “teach”. I usually need to get them going by talking over them at first. Some students are VERY slow to do their part. We’ll have recited 3 times before they join in. I believe that is a GOOD thing. They need the extra time to listen a few times before they feel confident enough to chime in.
So, there’s plenty to do, but we’ve accomplished a lot too. I’m very pleased with our progress and look forward to seeing improvements in the future.
The First Week of School
Day Four: Our efforts continue to pay off. Rule 2 has been fabulous. Instead of nagging students to hurry up, my reminders to “Follow directions quickly” have been well received and followed. I’ve observed students doing silent versions of rules to each other when someone is misbehaving. They use the gestures and communicate non-verbally, causing less interruption.
Just to record them, here are our rules:
Rule 1: Wait for permission to speak.
Rule 2: Follow directions quickly.
Rule 3: Listen when the teacher is talking.
Rule 4: Respect others, respect yourself, respect your school.
Rule 5: Be safe. Be honest.
Some of the students are getting more comfortable with their surroundings, not in a good a way. I can begin to see some acting out and the rules are going to get a lot of rehearsals. I may bring the scoreboard into play tomorrow, a day earlier than I had planned.
The First Week of School
Day Three: I did a lot of think overnight and refined the rules and gestures that I wanted in place. After completing our Math lesson, I decided to go ahead and teach the rest of the rules. Once again, the videos really paved the way. They were eager and ready and learn and respond. We practiced together and then students were allowed to show what they know by demonstrating one rule or more. As each one stood up and demonstrated, other hands shot up to do the same. The whole process seemed to snowball and they all had the rules down in no time. The icing on the cake was when Mr. Jones, the principal, came in as we were doing some of our final practice. He seemed very impressed and I was delighted that we were so much further along than I expected. We had discussed the significance of each rule and throughout the day, students would point out examples of showing respect to others and respect to our school as well as being safe and honest. I have foregone the scoreboard for the time being in order to focus on understanding the rules. They are aware of the scoreboard concept but we’ll emphasize it more next week.
The First Week of School
Day Two: We did a lot of rehearsing today. Rule 1 was our main focus first thing. I showed the Power Teaching video from kindergarten and the students were interested. When I had them view the college video, I really got their attention. I stopped it at intervals to discuss each concept. As we went through it, I could sense that we were getting excited, so we just went ahead and took the plunge. I introduced the scoreboard, the mighty oh yeah and the mighty groan and they were extremely enthusiastic. I went ahead and taught them rule two – Follow directions quickly. They loved the speed at which I required their response. Rules 1 and 2 were now well in hand. Since they had seen the video, they understood the class/yes and had no difficulty in responding correctly. We made a lot of progress.
The First Week of School
Day One: The first day of school is always a mixture of frazzled nerves, paperwork flurries, and sleepy, weepy children. While second graders do have an advantage over the kindergartners as far as familiarity with the building and routine, they are still children in new surroundings. They start out a little shy, a little quiet and a lot tired after their glorious summer. I began power teaching halfway through the day with only one rule: Wait for permission to speak. They were a little timid at first with making the gestures, but caught on quickly. The rule was repeated frequently throughout the day and I had decided to do one rule each day through the week. At the very end of the day, we tried a little bit of “class/yes” which was less than inspiring. Take it slowly. It’s a busy week.
Parent Orientation: We had an hour of parent orientation the day after registration. The turnout was low but I showed the Power Teaching videos to familiarize the parents with the program. They seemed receptive and I enjoyed sharing how well it had gone last year. I especially enjoyed sharing the micro lesson concept. I hope that I’ll have video of their students to show at parent teach conferences
Close Encounters of the Teacher Kind
As I was driving to school after a bookshelf purchase from Wal-Mart, I received an out of the ordinary phone call. Pat, from Enid, Oklahoma called. She wanted to know where I bought colorful plastic shark teeth. Pat, from Enid, OK is a total stranger and it took me a while to figure out why she wanted to know about colorful plastic shark teeth.
It finally dawned on me that she had seen something I submitted to Mailbox Magazine years ago. It was a shark classroom decoration that I called Loose Tooth Louie. Louie had a pocket on the back where I put cardboard “shark teeth” that I made myself. When a student loses a tooth, they get to pull a tooth out of Louie’s mouth, string it on a piece of yarn and wear it home. Somehow Mailbox had upgraded my cardboard shark teeth to colorful plastic ones and here was this woman who had googled me and gotten my phone number instead of my e-mail.
I explained the error that Mailbox had made and recalled how the whole happened those many years ago. She seemed disappointed that I had no genuine colorful plastic shark teeth but thanked me for the information. Perhaps I could retire and sell things like genuine colorful plastic shark teeth and such. With the internet the way it is, with a little bit of effort, I might be able to sell out in a matter minutes with only the slightest effort to promote my wares. Amazing! I think our degrees of separation seem to be reducing more and more everyday.
Miss T.Q.
I’ve just returned from the post office after a delightful chance encounter. As I came in, I noticed a couple of girls waiting in line with a woman who could be their mother. One of them appeared to be near the 7-8-9 year old range. While she hadn’t been one of my students, it was probable that she would recognize me from school and greet me with one of three hellos:
Hello, Ms. Brandon
Hello, Ms. Wrongname
or the always popular – Hey, you go to my school! (I get this more often from boys. Does that mean the boys see ownership as a part of attendance more than girls? Hmmm.)
Imagine my surprise when the fabulously brilliant child smiled at me and said:
Hello MIss Technology Queen!
I had to ask her to repeat it. I really had no idea what she said at first. Then I had to ask her if I had taught her that (not that I remember doing it, just sounds like something I might do). She responded that indeed I had.
I truthfully told her that she’s the smartest child I’ve ever met and that with a memory like that, as well as amazing incite, she would go far.
I’m so glad I teach. I’m also glad that I blog about teaching so that I have this episode to make me smile on the days when I’m not so glad I teach.
Power Teaching as Classroom Inquiry
As part of the West Tennessee Writing Project, my Classroom Inquiry will involve Power Teaching, the classroom management and learning program promoted by Dr. Chris Biffle at Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa, California. His homepage is homepage.mac.com/chrisbiffle/Personal17.html
Power Teaching provides techniques for focusing student attention, building classroom community, focused skill and task instructions and differentiated instruction through gestures, student sharing, listening, laughter and fun.
I discovered power teaching at the end of the ‘07-’08 school year and just had to try it out. We only had three weeks of school left, but those three weeks are typically difficult each year for a two reasons: The school year is finishing and testing requires changes in routines and the school year is finishing and the kids are ready for summer. Generally speaking, these two things work against each other. Discipline begins to be more of a problem, just when students need to focus for the finish.
Power Teaching proved to be the perfect tool to keep my class together to avoid the end of the year disintegration. Students enjoyed the techniques, caught on quickly and benefited academically from the thirty second micro lessons. I was surprised and delighted at how well they retained the information from the micro lessons. The only challenge for me was coming up with the gestures to go with those lessons.
I took the opportunity as a Focal Team member at the WTWP Summer Institute, to introduce the teachers participating to Power Teaching. Their classrooms ranged from kindergarten through college and they were all quite intrigued. As the month went on, we all adopted the class/yes technique to bring the class back to attention during different activities. Everyone was quite inspired when they viewed the Teacher Tube video with Chris Biffle teaching pre-service teachers about Power Teaching.
I hope that as I progress in my classroom inquiry, I will be able to convey how the process has unfolded during the new school year. My end of the year experience was somewhat different since there was plenty of groundwork that had already been established between my students and I. I anticipate that my new students will be somewhat shy about participating at first, just as the adults at WTWP were initially. I look forward to seeing how this all turns out.
Power Teaching – Sharing the Joy
Yesterday was the immersion day for the Summer Institute for the West Tennessee Writing Project. I made a presentation about Graphic Live Maps. Of course, I had to add Power Teaching to the mix. Everyone seemed very receptive to both ideas and I expect to be able to continue talking about Power Teaching when the Institute begins in June. It was interesting to see how the adults in this group responded compared to the adults in Chris Biffle’s college crowd. These folks were all meeting for the first time and there was a great deal of shyness. I’m going to keep that in mind for the beginning of the year with my new 2nd graders. They may show the same reticence to act crazy and their responses may be quiet at first.
Our new group for Summer Institute is quite varied and I can’t wait to get started. I only hope that I can make the experiences as wonderful for them as it was for me. I’ll do my best.
Power Teaching – This and That
This has been quite a wild week. One of those “tell me again why the children are here” kind of weeks. We have a play day at the park and a play day at school scheduled. We’ve finished our Reading book. The final test in Reading was given Monday. I’m juggling the usual end of the year flurry of paperwork while trying to teach.
Power Teaching has really been a lifesaver. Getting the students together to hit the road with a classity class is fun. Practicing for the unit test with a few teach/okays was extremely beneficial. Our play day for tomorrow was cancelled at the last minute of the day due to expected weather. I know my class will go home and give accurate information because they turned to their neighbor and said, “It’s too bad our play day was cancelled but we’ll have one next week.”
At least half the wing is already very interested in starting to Power Teach next year. The weird thing though is that they seem to enjoy using MY class to practice! The other kids are catching on. I think I’ll start classalicious classing THEM tomorrow.
Power Teaching – Day 5: Power Learning
Well, it’s Friday, and we’ve flown through a week of Power Teaching. After a false start, I managed to get with the program and the students have followed right along. Today was NOT a normal day of teaching. We got some tests out of the way first thing because I knew a student had to leave at 9:00. In addition to his absence, there were 4 others absent. That made only 13 left of my 18. My morning also included 90 minutes of IEP meetings where my assistant was in charge of the class. Then, I left for lunch early because we had be given the once a year privilege to leave campus for an hour. I enjoyed a terrific time with my colleagues. Oh yes, and then we had Music too.
Out of our normal 4 hour morning with 18 students, I only spent an hour and a half with 13 students and half of that time was spent testing. Sounds like there might not be any revelations about Power Teaching. HAH! There’s a part of Power Teaching that I really hadn’t thought about – Power Learning. My students, every one of them, did better on their Reading selection test than ever before. As I graded the tests, I noticed how well my higher achieving students did. While they usually do well, this time they all scored 100%. Then I realized that mixed in with those 100’s were tests from my on grade level AND some below level students. Once I had them all graded, I had to stop and take a breath. Was this a story that the students were highly involved with? No. Did they have a great deal of prior knowledge? No, on the contrary, the story Jingle Dancer was about a Native American girl preparing for her first dance at a Pow Wow. I was surprised that none of my students even knew what a Pow Wow was since we have a large Choctaw community in our county.
I know that it was my teaching and their response that made the difference. In these days of ‘teaching to the test’, Power Teaching is an incredibly useful tool. Much of the testing we do these days seems to cover skills in isolation. Using focused micro lessons, I can reinforce those chunks of learning that the tests assess.
Next week is just plain stupid – we are at the park Tuesday and have a whole day, play day on Thursday. In between though, I’ll be preparing for and giving the final unit test. I’m actually looking forward to it. I haven’t decided how best to do it yet, but I think I’ll review and test one section at a time. Each section is quite different from the next so it will be a challenge to determine just what my micro lessons will consist of. It will be a great review for my students and great practice for me.
