Start Up

The first days of a school year always challenge me. Often, I feel like I'm not, you know, getting anywhere. Last week (northeastern Massachusetts schools often begin before Labor Day unlike many districts inside of Route 123), was no different. As my students came into the classroom I came to the panicked realization that they weren't even aware of the expectations for arrival routines!What to teach that first day when there are so many critical and essential things to be taught when there are so many essentials? As an enthusiastic Daily Five fan, applying the 10 Steps to Independence to basics seems natural -- we've applied it to walking in the hallway, to getting started on the day and closing off  a good day's work, even to fire drill practice.We've got a long way to go before the day moves seamlessly. But we are well on the way to student independence, to building an environment in which I can trust students to make good choices about their learning - an in which my  students can trust me to guide them when needed.

Daily Explore plus Four

The start of school is looming and I am spending some time thinking about how I'd like to change-up some of our learning activities. With all the attention on the Common Core in our District, and with the commitment to Launch-Explore-Summary lesson structures, I am once again tweaking Daily Five for math.The basics of the philosophy and research behind the Daily Five, whether it is in math or literacy, always are there.  Clearly stated and modeled expectations (10 Steps to Independence), choice, brain research-based lesson structures (thank you Michael Grinder!).  Now, however, we are fitting this into our Launch-Explore-Summary lesson structure.My newest iteration of the Daily Five for math is the Daily Explore Plus Four.  Using Launch-Explore-Summary, the target lesson follows our District curriculum modules in mathematics.  A focus lesson, approximately 10 minutes long, introduces the day's math exploration.  Students can then begin to work on that exploration while I monitor who is able to persevere through the problem or activity and which students needs some additional support.After about 20 minutes of independent work, we will re-gather as a group.  For this focus lesson, there may be an opportunity to share solutions (or partial solutions), talk about what was uncovered in the Explore, or continue with another 10 minute whole group learning activity.Before dismissing students to work on other math activities, just as we do in the Daily Five for literacy, students will indicate what activities they plan to participate in during remaining independent times. Here is where most students will participate in the 'plus four' activities (Strategy Games, Drills and Fact Practice, Technology, Problem Solving).During the second independent time (another 30-40 minutes), while students work on their chosen independent activity, I will be able to meet with a small group or meet individually with students who struggle with a mathematical concept.  For teachers who are already deep in to the Daily Five in Literacy, think individual conferences with a mathematics focus.At the end of the math period, we will once again, re-gather as a whole group to summarize what our math goal was - and process whether or not we feel like it was accomplished - and 3 or 4 days of the week I plan to implement a 5-10 minute "Math Talk" based on Sherri Parrish's Number Talks book.  On the fifth day, I'll use the time to check on math fact fluency (a requirement for 3rd graders in the Common Core standards).This is a flipped version of what we've traditionally done in math class.  In the past, the planned lesson based on the pacing criteria took about 60 minutes and the intervention/small group instructional block was 30 minutes.  With the knowledge that some students will choose to keep "exploring" during the second independent session, the model has flipped so that launch and explore are accomplished within the first 30 minutes of math.Why do I think this is a good move? Well, for starters, I know I will get a better use of time by meeting with smaller, focused groups - the same way I see improved focus during individualized reading conferences.  Secondly, by strategically choosing strategy games that align with the standards currently being taught, students will have additional opportunity to practice those skills in a fun way. Analyzing test data will allow me to target and  support additional skill and strategy practice where students need it in the 'plus four' as well. The flexibility is endless.The start of a new school can be exhilarating and frightening all at the same time. I am definitely looking forward to a change-up of our math time; one that I think will be more beneficial to my students.

Planbook Technology

We are a geek family. There I said it.  My husband is a former software engineer now a working photographer.  My son is a software engineer. I was an Instructional Technology Specialist (computer teacher) for 5 years.So embracing new technology is kind of fun for me. I like to see if I can break software by asking it to do something on the edge of functionality. And yes, I know how geeky that sounds.This year, after using Word and Excel to create planbooks for myself, I am embracing the cloud. Evernote, dropbox, google docs.... whatever can make something created in one place visible and functional in another.I stumbled across two planbook packages that looked promising, but have decided to work with planbookedu.  Here's what I like:  I can pull out both Common Core and Massachusetts state (2004) standards and attach them to records, I can create a template, I can work on any of the platforms that I have access to (iPad, Mac, PC). I can easily share my planbook, something that I have had to do in the past when I worked as a Special Ed. inclusion partner classroom.What is still unknown - because our school is being rewired - is whether or not the planbookedu website will be blocked by our school filter.  Dont' laugh,  I assume nothing in all things involving the web and education.What I hope to accomplish through using planbookedu is a greener approach to lesson planning.  Last year, each week's plans required 10 pages of paper (and laserjet toner). This year I should need zero paper.  Even if the web address gets blocked by the school system's filter, I can download my plans to reside locally on my iPad.  And when a substitute is needed, I can attach those same plans to the request made through the program our district uses for teacher attendance.This all seems like a workable solution to the huge notebook full of paper that I've had to keep in my classroom to prove I actually do make plans. Free versions of the software are available (no sharing functionality) and a full-function 14-day trial also available. 

And so it goes.....

In the first few paragraphs of her commentary, Joanna Weiss made me laugh right out loud.  In the "old days", 32 years ago for example, we used to take snapshots of our kids and then make multiple prints to send out to all of our interested or not so interested family and friends.  I know we personally spent THOUSANDS of dollars on prints of a particular only child who will be unnamed in this post.With our news-in-an-instant technologies (that's you Facebook), sharing any kind of news is done at the click of the mouse. That makes technologies like unbaby.me, well..... funny. I'd like to propose it might be time for a whole product line development: uncat.me, undog.me, unfood.me, unpolitics.me. What ever triggers one curmudgeonly persona to appear could be re-mediated and life as we know it would continue stress free.Seriously though, reading beyond the unbaby.me reference, Joanna Weiss makes the logical connection to what is at the root of the attacks on social services, especially attacks that come from those who "have". Having sat at umpteen Town Meetings packed to the rafters whenever new school spending is on the budget, I know there is much truth to the sentiment "what's in it for me"?For me, those "haves" making every effort to prevent "have-nots" from the same benefits (SSI benefits, Paul Ryan?) just speaks to what is a lost empathy.

The New Math

It's been a long, strange journey from where I started as a teacher to the present. I say this because I've just finished a month of work with some wonderfully talented third grade teachers on our District's Common Core Math curriculum maps. When I think back on the way I used to teach, I'm reminded that the "old days" were not always the "good old days".When I started teaching elementary school in 1987, math was a matter of following the workbook pages from page 1 to page n.  One day, kids are doing the addition facts for 12, the next day (having mastered addition and subtraction skills, of course), on to subtraction with renaming in 3 places.  No particular mathematical understanding on the part of the teacher - or the students - was necessary. Just do it.If there is one thing I'd like to ask a former student, it is "how did you survive?"  There is possibly a support group for my former students who either learned to be mathematicians in spite of me or despite my pedagogical "skill".One thing I've learned about mathematics over time is that there's a huge difference between the ability to remember and perform the process and the comprehension of the skill. As frustratingly painful as it can be to build understanding over process, as many times as that fragile understanding is undermined by well-intentioned helpers, it is through understanding that students become mathematics thinkers.Measuring up to the challenge of teaching mathematics, even in elementary school has gone way beyond the ability to eek a 40-minute lesson out of a teachers' manual.  Teachers need to understand the math themselves and become empathetic to those who cannot do so. It is a heady challenge for one who was considered a math underachiever.As we educators unpack new Common Core Mathematics standards and uncover what it is that students really need to know in order to understand the mathematics standards, we are challenged to go beyond our old ways of teaching. It it far more important to reach levels of understanding than it is to use up all the pages in a math text.And that's a good thing.

August

Some people watch for the Back-to-School advertisements to gauge how near we are to the end of summer break. I use crickets.When I can hear the crickets, I know it's time to give some extra attention to planning for the Fall.  It's a bittersweet sound for me; the mornings where I can linger over morning coffee are coming to a close.If you are like me, it is a time when that to-do list becomes ever so much more desperate. The things I put off because I was "on vacation" have piled up. If not careful, I will get sucked into the swirling vortex of wasting every minute of my last unscheduled weeks on errands and chores.For those of us who begin school before Labor Day, it feels like summer has ended - August is not really time off, it's the time before.

Of Power Companies and Education

We recently returned from a quick trip to DC. The DC-Maryland-Virginia area has been hit hard by a weather system which resulted in many downed tress and, even during our visit, many in the DC area were without power days after the storm itself had passed.  Pepco, Old Dominion, BGE - the area utility companies had many reasons for the delays in getting power restored to customers, many of whom were sweltering in temperatures topping out at 106.

With many downed trees and utility poles, the work to restore power was slow and painstaking. For those of us who live in he Northeast, the memory of the snowstorm last October was similar. Electricity is a basic necessity in modern times and going without causes lots of hardships.

Now how does this vignette connect to education?

In Juliette Kayem's op-ed piece in the Boston Globe, Pulling Plug on Nation's Security,she states that the ultimate fix to vulnerable power lines is to bury them. There is resistance to this idea as it is "expensive"; I believe the number quoted in Ms. Kayem's piece was $6 billion in the DC area for fully burying all lines. It is the ultimate fix, but it is an investment that requires quite a large outlay of capital.

Isn't that a lot like what public education is today? Lots of piecemeal programs enacted to make the big "problem" disappear... for a while. Investing in education is expensive. Educating a generation so that they become productive members of society 15-20 years later is expensive.

The ultimate "fix" for education is not going to be found in band-aid programs that provide a small amount of help for a small amount of time. Like burying utility lines, it will need a sustained investment which, to date, our government does not seem to want to make.

Thank You SCOTUS

Thank goodness I reside in a state where it has been illegal to deny health care coverage for pre-existing conditions for some time (should I say "thanks" to Governor Romney?).  As of a few hours ago, the Supreme Court ruled that insurers cannot discriminate for pre-exisitng conditions nation-wide. For someone like me, that is truly good news.It means that I don't need to limit my retirement living options to Massachusetts - as much as I love the place.  As a cancer survivor, I have had coverage denied by a traditional insurer, who will remain nameless for this post. I had to carry my own coverage through COBRA and pay for coverage for anything else that might crop up "new" on the new insurance my husband's company had switched to.  Trust me when I tell you that it was a financial hardship as well as a stressful situation.As I understood the rule at that time - pre-Massachusetts healthcare reform - if I was treated in any way, shape or form for my pre-existing cancer diagnosis, I would have the start the clock all over again.  I don't remember the time requirement any more, but whatever it was, the denial of coverage was wrong.So I am celebrating today because no one should ever have to live in fear of wondering how to pay for treatment of an ongoing illness or condition. Treatment and medical factors should provide all the stress anyone ever needs in that regard.Thank you Supreme Court. By not declaring these Health Care Reform unconstitutional, you've taken a step toward justice in health care. 

Is This The New "Common"wealth?

The talking head on our local news broadcast announced it as if it were just an everyday thing - no big deal. I however, nearly fell out of my chair.Apparently the City of Boston is considering - seriously - opening a portion of the Copley Branch for retail.  Don't believe it? Neither could I, so here's a link to the Herald report and the Boston Business Journal report. The overall reaction seems positive "as long as it's tastefully done."Is there no end to the commercialization of our public and shared resources?

Reading About Reading

Although widely thought of as a math geek, at least as far as elementary math pedagogy is concerned, I am spending some time this summer researching literacy.The first book on my "must read" list happens to be Richard Allington's What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. It will come as no surprise that many of my readers struggle, and so far I've found Allington's work very informative and affirming.  Maybe that has a lot to do with the Daily Five and its structures; many of these are based on Allington's work.When I think about fluency, I know rereading an appropriate level text is important.  Allington advocates for a couple of strategies that have enormous potential with my readers: Tape, Check, Chart and Tape, Time, Chart (Allington, R. What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. (2012). Boston: Pearson Education. p 110-111).When I take a running record of a child's reading, I always share what the checkmarks and codes mean. In Tape, Check, Chart, students read a short text into a tape recorder, mark it up using child-friendly markings, and over the course of multiple readings (Allington suggests 4 with a different color pen for each mark-up) increase fluency and accuracy.  Tape, Time, Chart provides similar practice with fluency.As I think about Daily Five activities for the coming school year, I know that the addition of these two choices will be powerful, not only for the students but for me.

How Do You Model Expectations?

Responsive Classroom provided some review PD for our school this past week. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like about the RC approach, and surely I picked up some great clarifications and refreshers. In fact much of the presentation affirmed what I know in my heart to be true about education and students and learning.

However, there are some practices in Responsive Classroom that my experienced-teacher-self question.  One thing is the process taken in modeling a routine for students.  I understand the gradual release models which I first learned from Regie Routman. Teacher models, teacher models with students, gradually releasing the process totally to students.

This year, as a result of my reading and training with the Daily Five's 10 Steps to Independence, I've made sure to add on an "unmodel", a chance for students to show what a routine,exercising students' brain muscle memory as borne out by Michael Grinder's work. An "unmodel" with an immediate opportunity to provide a correct example, is an essential step and even my more shy and reticent students love to provide the ultimate unmodeled behavior examples. I've discovered that this is a very powerful way to get kids to internalize  expectations for any procedure I've taught, Allowing my more behaviorally challenged kids an opportunity to be the "unmodel" and then reinforcing appropriate behaviors with the same student become a "model" has given us comic relief along with a dose of visual modeling.

I  also don't buy in to the RC suggestion that the teacher wear a hat or some other article when he/she is unavailable to students. Doing so seems artificial to me. With the amount of conferencing and small strategy group instruction taking place during our Literacy time, I want to have taught the expectations and routines so well that students don't feel the need to break their stamina, or mine, because they know what to do. I trust them to make good choices. That was a HUGE leap for me last Fall; but with very few exceptions, my students were self-managing their learning from about 6 weeks in until the end of the year.  No special costume needed.

As with any program or package, there are always parts that are agreeable and parts that are just not good fits. We all want the best for our students; and as long as we, the professionals, can be trusted to use our good judgement with the children in front of us, there is much that can be accomplished.

The Beginnings, Again

This past Thursday - our last day of school with students - was bump up day.  And once again, for about the 28th time in my life, I started building a community with a group of 8-year olds.They look like an interesting group. Definitely some wigglers, some barometer kids, as the Sisters call them.  I've seen some of their second grade assessment data already and heard from a couple of their now-former teachers about social and learning issues to be aware of.Yet for the half-hour that we were together, I can see the possibilities of the community of learners that will become 3-207 starting August 28th.One of the best aspects of teaching is this cycle, this changeover and chance to do things again - with luck, even better this time around. I know I never get tired of the excitement of a fresh beginning, of the serendipitous opportunities that will lie ahead.This week we started a new building cycle again. Our future together is a gigantic unknown - exciting to think about and a bit scary at the same time.We begin. Again.

The End of a Year

"My" babies are ready to fly to coop. In just 2 days my third graders will bump up to fourth grade.  We're both nervous I think: they of the unknown, me of  fear that the preparations we've made for this day haven't been enough.It has been a privilege to work with these kids.  At times challenging and other times a cakewalk, we started the year as strangers and little-by-little have grown into familiarity.For some, all I can provide is a temporary haven. School should be a safe place, far removed from domestic issues like hunger or poverty or violence.  That has not always been true for all of my children this year, and when the ugliness of  socioeconomic traumas become apparent, words fail. A hug, a quiet word. The ache and worry that this child has been left behind to float through whatever safety net our society provides is overpowering.There have been good times. Last week we looked at a text and the depth of the students' discussion was simply amazing. After a year of hammering students to do something more than retell the facts or plots of a story, it was an exquisite, if momentary high.  They can do it, they can cross over to a real literate life.This week, our last together, has been spent remembering some of the fun and some of the hard work that has been part of our time together. I am not looking forward to the last day with the kids this year; I know it will be a bittersweet day. A day when we all celebrate making it to that 180th day, but also a day when our paths diverge.

Advice from the Peanut Gallery

Here's some advice from my experienced third graders to my incoming students:

• Rase (sic) your hand because you are being rude if you are talking and it's someone else's turn.
• Raise your hand because there is no blurting 207.
• Pay attention because you might know what to do.
• Follow directions so you get smarter.
• Be persistent (which means keep trying), stay focused in third grade and take your time to do things because these are important things to be a third grader and to be ready for the MCAS.
• Listen to Mrs. Bisson because then you would know what to do when you go back to your seat.

There you have it; how to get through third grade without a hitch.

A Different Take on Math Daily Five

I started working on this a couple of years ago when I first was exposed to the Daily Five and Literacy CAFE.  Gail and Joan - the Sisters - have since published a different Math Daily Five. I've continued with this version because it seems to work for my students - many are not strong mathematicians so revisiting Power Standards and anticipating the gaps we normally see in number sense and operations makes the most sense.The structure for teaching the Math Daily Five - using the 10 steps to independence, carving out conferencing times, expectations for student and teacher during work times - all of these are the same. For my students it is important to think in terms of practice with strategy games, math facts (as well as analog clock reading), solving a multi-step problem, and using the available technology for mathematical exploration.So this year, I've begun to compile a list of activities that complement the Massachusetts Common Core framework and continue to allow my students to practice meaningfully while I am working with and conferring with students needing intervention help.So here is my take on applying the Daily Five.Daily Five Math Board

Connections

Today would have been my paternal grandmother's 129th birthday; she was born in High Falls, New York on May 31, 1883.  I do not know much about my grandmother; she died in 1927 when my father was just 9 years old. Yet I sometimes feel a connection.In addition to carrying my grandmother's name, Elizabeth, as my middle name, I share a vocation with her. Elizabeth Antonia Duym graduated from New Paltz Normal School in 1905 and was, by all accounts, a teacher in or near High Falls until she married my grandfather in 1913. What levels or subjects she taught are a mystery that I have not yet uncovered.Records are hard to come by as a fire at the Normal School in the early 1900s destroyed most of the documents that could possibly reveal what she prepared for.What impresses me, however, is that my grandmother and her younger sister both went to normal school (college) in the early 1900s - I would imagine that to be unusual for two women, daughters of immigrants from a small New York village.I often wish I could ask my grandmother about her growing up years -- and how she became a teacher. What was it like to teach in the first decade of the 20th century? Questions without answers except when a genealogical find lifts the curtain of history to reveal some small detail of everyday life.We share other connections, my unknown grandmother and I. Elizabeth's middle name, Antonia, is derived from both her father's name, Anthony, and honors a brother also named Anthony who died in infancy. My middle name honors hers. Cancer had an impact on both of our lives; hers cut short by it and mine has been spared through advances made my medicine.I wonder what my grandmother would have thought of all of that has changed since 1883. Of course, even given a long life on this earth, she would no longer have been with us. But the connections endure and the questions as well. 

Dear Mitt...

As a citizen of the fair Commonwealth of Massachusetts for quite a number of years - nearly 35 at this point - I feel uniquely qualified to respond to Mitt Romney's latest education campaign speech.You see, as a public school teacher in a small urban Massachusetts school district, I wonder how Mitt can call the US public education, particularly this state's system "third world" when his fiscal policies directly affected the state's ability to adequately fund education. Draconian cuts to the state's education aid and education budgets were implemented by the Romney administration so that Candidate Romney can now point to his budgets as being so lean and mean that he was able to cut taxes. And if our education system resembles anything "third world" - and I disagree about that pithy little soundbite - Mitt should look in the mirror for the one to blame.Over the past few years, I've seen the district in which I work decimated financially.  Teachers, paraprofessionals, librarians,  cafeteria, custodial staff, social workers.... all cut heavily and some cut in entirety. Buildings closed. Class sizes are bigger, which means that there's far more crowd control in an elementary classroom today than there used to be.  Sorry Mitt, but despite your crack "research" from McKinsey & Company, size does matter.Yes, Mitt, successful education is dependent on a partnership - parent, teacher, and student - who support each child.  There may be lots of reasons for that partnership to fail, but it is insulting and simplistic to think that a child's school success is dependent upon a two-parent family unit. Forcing your own social prejudices into education policy is just plain ignorant.Hopefully your flawed and obvious pandering to win votes will be seen for what it is. Garbage.

Raising Rigor in Readers' Notebooks

I used to look with envy at those spiffy Readers' Notebooks available through a nationally known publisher.  In fact I envied them so much, I figured out how to customize a similar notebook for my students to use.And while they seemed to work pretty well, I've come to realize that maybe the beautifully GBC-bound notebooks and forms I'd created were not all that.Asking my students to write a weekly response in the form of a letter to which I would write back produced writing about reading. But what I mostly got was a retelling (plot) or even worse, an "I like this book...." without a "because".I'm reading Aimee Buckner's Notebook Connections and discovering something about what has passed for a reader's response in my classroom. Because my students were so wrapped up in writing a letter to the teacher - and maybe even in getting it done over revealing something they were thinking - the thoughts about reading and literacy were pretty much on the surface.I want my students to learn to do more than that! Upping the rigor of a response means that I will need to teach students to first notice their thinking and then record it.  And then dive deeper into what the author chooses to do when writing; it's all interconnected.So I'm no longer envying teachers who can purchase those fancy Readers' Notebooks for kids. I want to raise the rigor on what students write in reading responses. I want them to think in depth about a text and wonder. I want them to notice an author's craft and how it impacts a reader.What I am thinking about for next year is a much more simple tool for holding ideas than the fill-in the form I've grown comfortable with over the last 2 years.  Students need a space to record a year's growth in becoming literate, a place to keep track of genres and kinds of books (given the opportunity, some of my kids would only read Arthur books!), and a place to record and notice not only their own thoughts as they read but how an author crafts writing.It's a tall order with many opportunities for missteps on my part. By breaking down the Readers' Notebook to what is essential, I hope for depth in thinking. A spiral notebook and some self-sticking tabs should do the trick. 

Revisiting Notebooks

Having read Notebook Know-How (Aimee Buckner) this spring; I've moved on the another of her books, Notebook Connections. Know-How is to writing as the Connections book is to Reading. What I am discovering though is that they both are interconnected - as they should be.At this time of year, many of us start thinking about what we need in place on Day 1 of the next school year.  Last year, by this time, I had a very elaborate, custom-designed Readers' Notebook all mapped out and in the copier. That Notebook had many of the elements of the fancy Fountas Pinnell Readers' Notebooks and some of the elements that Beth Newingham uses with her Third Grade Class.What I've come to through reading Notebook Connections and seeing what was tedious, is that much of what I have in the current notebook needs to be revised or maybe even removed.  My students are fairly consistent in completing the daily book log that is part of their current notebook. We both refer to the Color Conference (book level) page and the Goals page. Each week we write back and forth to each other about reading.  But there seems to be lots that is not in use and some places where the Readers' Notebook is not effective.I think I still need something more structured than Ms. Buckner's notebooks so I will keep the basic structure of a separate dedicated notebook for reading. But as I read more of Aimee's book, I want to create something that is going to be more authentic and clearly connects what my students read to what they will write. I want to move my students past retellings to deeper thinkings about texts, so I will make the shift from a Dear Mrs. Bisson response to students actually recording their reaction to parts of texts or strategic reading.While I am savoring each day with my current students, I am looking forward to a new year with new faces and new challenges. And getting excited about trying new strategies for learners.

Two Great Math Resource Sites

I haven't been able to write much lately. We're in the middle of state testing - again - and now getting ready for that paperwork marathon known as end-of-the-school-year. Not a big fan of paperwork. Does anyone ever really read all that stuff?So I procrastinate. Which sometimes is not as much of a time waste as it sounds.This time, my procrastination(s) proved fruitful.  I've discovered two really useful - in my opinion - websites that I've already started using in math classes with students.Learnzillion is a video treasure of lessons started by a charter school in Washington, DC and recently opened to teachers willing to shared taped lesson snippets.  In addition to being tied directly to Common Core Mathematics Standards, a teacher can sign up for a (FREE!) account and create a playlist of videos. Teachers with more technology available to them that I currently have in my school, or than my students' families have, may find using a playlist with "homework" that confirms whether or not the students has viewed and understood the concept presented powerful. But even without this piece, I thought the video lessons were quite strong. Anyone who uses Lucy Calkins Units of Study will appreciate that the videos begin by addressing students as "mathematicians".Currently the videos support Common Core standards in Grades 3 through 9. And while not all standards are in the video library, there are plenty of visual lessons to help students understand math concepts.Another new to me site is K-5 Math Teaching Resources.  These are not video lessons but they are wonderfully constructed explorations of mathematical concepts. The activities are categorized by grade level, linked to the Common Core Mathematics Standards and, for the most part, are free.  The only for-fee sections appear to be the downloads of math projects, math vocabulary wordwalls, and math journal problems. Each of these downloads are $7 for a single-user PDF file.