classroom routines

Best Secondary Resources for Back-to-School

Planning for back-to-school just got easier with this carefully curated list of ideas, tips, suggestions, and resources for your secondary classroom – in any subject!

1) Teacher Planning and Organization: Calendars, planners, notes, Oh My! The list goes on and on for what the teacher needs to get organized and feel ready-to-go for the first days of school. For me, that’s my planner and my high-level curriculum map. In the past it has been hard to find a planner perfectly suitable to the unique schedules of the secondary world, so I made some. And then I made some more! Now I have a fun line of different themes tailored specifically to the various schedules in a middle or high school – in traditional and digital formats.

Choose a planner that works for you, and get comfortable with it. I like a planner that is only for planning because it helps me keep focused. Watch a quick Facebook live video where I explain how I set mine up, and I also wrote a blog post explaining how to get the most out of your planner. Read that post here.

My friend Lauralee over at Language Arts Classroom wrote about her process for classroom organization over on her beautiful blog. You can read her ideas here. And her back-to-school pack of goodies will establish consistency in your secondary classroom from the first day of school with this organizational bundle. Included are an editable presentation covering routines, procedures, and expectations; hallway passes; a parent letter; Google Classroom Backgrounds, and syllabus. The design is clean and simple and made with older students in mind. So pretty!

2) Classroom Decor: Decorating and organizing my classroom is probably one of my favorite things to do to get me in the mood for back-to-school. I don’t always do a lot with decor each year, but I always try to bring in one or two things new. I’ll pause here to address the camp of people that say, “It’s not about the room. The kids just want to meet you, the teacher.” That’s true… to some degree. However, I think the room needs to be as clean and organized as possible to create a welcoming environment, but I think the aforementioned sentiment comes from the place where teachers go regarding overspending and unhealthy comparing. To read more on that topic, swing by this blog post: How my trip to Magnolia Market helped me prepare for back-to-school. With that said, I’d love to share some cute student-centered and student-created classroom decor supplies and ideas. If an activity can double as classroom door (AKA – the kids create it and I don’t have to), then that is perfect to me. For all my secondary math friends out there, take quick trip over to Math in the Middle’s blog and read her post on setting up your middle school math classroom. She has tons of practical ideas and pictures! Scaffolded Math and Science does just that for her middle school math classroom with her back-to-school math pennants. Some pennants ask students to fill in information about themselves (name, birthday, favorite color, favorite class), some have numbers of the Fibonacci Sequence within the Spiral, and others are more open-ended for coloring or adding what you’d like to see on the pennants. Super cute!

O Some Great Stuff for English Teachers has her students create “Share Your World” globes that reveal their true identities. Perfect classroom decor and icebreaker all in one! I typically have my freshmen do a Soundtrack of their Life, but I think I’ll add this activity in as well!

The growth mindset trend continues to grow, and I think that’s because it’s actually something that makes sense and works! Chalk Dust Diva has a no-prep set of posters she made for any subject at the secondary level that you could use a million different ways! Promoting growth mindset is also an excellent way establish a positive classroom climate, and Chalk Dust Diva has a creative presentation and reading lesson that will teach your student what it means to have a “growth mindset” and how the views and beliefs they have about themselves impacts the decisions they make and the lives they lead.

Sometimes just putting a few posters around the room will help spruce things up a little, too, and I love reminding students that how we treat each other is so important. Grab my free anti-bullying awareness posters here. They are super easy to print and go!

3) Housekeeping: We all have to satisfy requirements from admin, ensure communication with parents, track data, make sub plans, keep attendance, and more. Here are a few resources to help make all that easier. Math by the Mountain keeps office hours, and she posts them for students and parents. This idea really helps students respect boundaries and take ownership. Elly Thorsen fixed up a parent and student survey in English and Spanish, which I think is awesome to already have that done! It provides information about how to contact family members, the strengths and areas of need of the student, and other helpful information to know as a teacher.

Unfortunately, a major issue we have to plan for is absenteeism. Free to Discover created a cute set of absentee slips to help students stay organized if they have been out. They are free; grab them here. I also write weekly assignments on the board each week and post the list on the Google Classroom stream. Having a method for tracking data is another item on our back-to-school list, and I like to set up a way for that to be student-centered. Take a quick look at a blog post I wrote about how I track data. It’s super simple, and best of all — it’s authentic and collected by students! Read that post here. Grab my data pack here… or get it in a money-saving bundle of other great back-to-school goodies for any subject at the secondary level here.

Sub plans are another item on my back-to-school to-do list as well. I usually grab the matching Sub Plans label (from the planners I make) and fix up a new 3-ring binder with the daily schedule, class rosters, seating charts, and school emergency plan. Then, I’ll add a few emergency lessons in another section just in case of an unexpected absence. In my high school English classroom, I typically use my Hot Topics Info Text lessons because they are no prep and have the substitute instructions sheet included.

4) Classroom Climate: From the moment students step foot in the classroom, they need to feel welcomed. Even though, we may not as secondary teachers do a hug or high five with each student who enters, we can set a positive and inviting tone. Icebreakers and team building games play a role in creating a welcoming environment for students. Teens love to talk, but they are pretty insecure when it comes to speaking up and out in class. These conversation starters from Pathway 2 Success are a flexible way to get kids chatting. The 170 task cards are the ideal mix of questions regarding self, home, friends, school, family, and beliefs. They would be awesome to help students share information, open up, and begin to form positive relationships.

Escape games are still really hot right now, and I know my kids would love to participate in one as an icebreaker on the first day of school. Presto Plans won’t let her middle school students zone out on the first days of school! Her back-to-school zombie escape game is highly engaging! It can be used in English class as it incorporates some ELA skills, but can also work for any other subject.

Lit with Lynns created one that will work with any class. Her game includes a crossword puzzle, a completely EDITABLE syllabus accompanied by a syllabus scavenger hunt, and a get to know other students activity. I love that it’s a quick 3-puzzle game, so it doesn’t take up too much time, but lets kids have a little fun! Barraug Books and Curriculum goes old school for her back-to-school team building game: Cup Towers. While students are racing against the clock to build the tallest cup tower, you are evaluating their strengths and interpersonal skills. It’s a win-win!

Since I’m not a science teacher, it didn’t even occur to me that part of setting up a classroom climate should include safety measures until I saw this science lab for teaching science lab safety from Strawberry Shake! This resource contains everything you need to get your students started safely in your lab or science classroom, and I think your middle school science kids would love it.

Andrea from Right Down the Middle has a cool idea for incentives, which an excellent tool for positive classroom management. Students are able to earn reward incentives through their kind deeds, actions, and performance in class, then they cash them in at various times during the year.

Bell ringers are probably the #1 activity teachers need in their toolbox to set the stage for class right from the beginning of the year. Part of classroom climate, to me, is structure and order. Bell ringers say to students: We are going to be serious about work and have purpose in this class. Content-specific bell ringers are meaningful for your subject matter, and they teach students to get busy and orderly right from the start of class. Spanish teachers can also set things up for each day of school with Angie Torre’s Spanish Bell Ringers. They are packed full of tasks to challenge your high school students. I love use to grammar bell ringers with my high school English classes. Ten minutes each day covers a lot of ground in grammar, and my students are working from bell to bell.

Last but not least, are the classroom rules… but going over classroom rules doesn’t have to be boring! I created these fun emoji puppets that I use every year with my high school students on the first day of school.

If setting up station rotations is more your idea of fun for addressing classroom rules and procedures, check out of a few of these ideas: With Tween Spirit’s back to school stations, students search the syllabus, take selfies, and more. Room 213 sets up stations, too, and she has students setting goals, meeting classmates, and learning rules.

5) Activities and Lessons: A teacher can never have too many back-to-school activities, in my opinion. It’s like a girl with her shoes – something to match each outfit and/or situation. If you are like me, once you do a few icebreakers and go over classroom rules, you are ready to get to work. A good place to start is with review. Real Lessons for the Teenage Mind has a bundle of review activities for English skills that would be perfect for your middle school students because they combine authenticity, movement, competition, and collaboration to make sure your students stay engaged and build a positive classroom culture in the first week. I like to use my 100 Words Every High School English Student Should Know list as a pre-test to see where students are with their Tier 3 Vocabulary. Science teachers can review key terms and even lab safety with The Lab’s Back to School Science Color by Number Activity Bundle.

If you teach middle or high school Spanish, you are going to love The Stress Free Spanish Teacher’s Spanish Llama Mystery Pictures. We all have that crazy picture day right at the beginning of school, and these are so clever. I laughed out loud when I saw them!

Once the first few days are over, then what? Start looking at long-term units and units that build on each other through the year. OCBeach Teacher has her students working on writing prompts that encourage students to think critically about situations requiring problem solving. Teacher of any high school subject who want to get in more reading and writing this year could take a look at my no prep Article of the Week Resource. Reading pedagogy suggests that students are most successful with a text when they revisit it more than once with a different and meaningful purpose each time. The “article of the week” approach does that. Get ready for standardized reading assessments and improve your students’ reading and comprehension skills a little at a time week over week!

I also love this email etiquette mini unit from Reading and Writing Haven. She said, “You might be surprised to learn that 91% of people check their email daily. It’s a real-life skill. Email is the #1 app used on a smart phone. In short, email matters. We need to teach students how to represent themselves well when communicating in this genre.” Melissa is passionate about helping teachers help kids gain the skills they need to function in the real-world, and this mini unit is the perfect way to set kids up for success during those first days of the year.

Luke Rosa from Students of History says, “As all teachers know, it is [going to be] a long school year. Over the course of [the next] 180 school days, there are bound to be point where both you as a teacher, and the students, are burned out, bored, or just otherwise not excited about the curriculum.” Bookmark his blog post, “6 Awesome Insta-Worthy Classroom Activities.” I plan to visit it throughout the year to give myself a little boost when the activity idea bank starts running low.

Here’s to a great school year. Please feel free to link up in the comments what you use and do successfully for back-to-school!

Love this content? Join a group! There are already tons of ideas, freebies, and fabulous teachers in my new groups, and joining is simple. Just click over to the following links, answer a few questions, and voila! Thanks again for following along my classroom stories and small-business journey, and I really do hope you to see you over in my new “backyards” where we can chat and share all things English and Yearbook.

Written 7/2019

Cover Photo Matt Raglan

Setting Up a Classroom Book Club Meeting

You may have read my “Why I don’t do literature circles and what I do instead” post, and now you want to try my classroom book clubs method. But you have some questions: What does it look like inside a “book club” meeting? What types of activities do you do? What questions do you ask students? What do you discuss and how? How do you keep it all organized? In this blog post, I hope to shed a little more light on the anatomy of my book club meetings. If you haven’t already read my first blog post about the concept or structure in general, click here. If you are ready to dive in and build your own classroom book club, keep reading!

1) Summarizing: Summarizing is a critical part of reading comprehension, so lately, I’ve been starting book clubs out with a short summary exercise. I like to use SWBST, and I have a teaching pack available if you’d like to give that method a try. It comes with materials you can use with any text including Twitter summaries and these new SWBST Sketch Notes for any text. I usually have students doing that as their bell ringer, and it only takes about 2-3 minutes, then we share out for another 2-3 minutes. I usually type some examples on the board as they share.

2) Engaging, dissecting, and enjoying content from the week’s assigned pages: This part, to me, is the “fun” part of reading a novel. There are so many activities and creative projects and paired reading tasks that you can do to “make literature come alive” for the students. I always start the meeting off with one of these little bite-sized nuggets that relates specifically to something covered in the pages we read. I like to start with this “fun” piece because it sets the tone, and I really want students to enjoy reading!

For example, during our book club meeting for Chapter 2 of Lord of the Flies, my students created a 3D map of the island using textual evidence. An activity like this requires students to go back and review those chapters and dig for details, while having fun. I played a little island music while they worked, and they had a good time.

After reading Chapter 2 of The Great Gatsby, I feel it’s always important to discuss domestic violence. We close read that section of the chapter highlighting details like the cause of the conflict and the disparity between the men’s and women’s reactions. We set up a KWL chart, and I found a really great TED talk on the topic that we watched. (BTW: My The Great Gatsby Complete Unit is coming late 2019! You can get my The Great Gatsby video viewing guide here now!)

When I design literature units, I try include something “creative” or a “paired text/close reading task” for each chapter or section. I mostly turn to those for this part of the book club meeting. Every now and then, there won’t be something specific for the chapter we’ve read, or I’ll just be in the mood for something different. In that case, I’ll use a quick activity from my “Response to Literature: Making Literature Come Alive” bundle. These are short, little activities that pack a big punch. Each activity is text-based, so it’s a purposeful use of your time. Some require students to take on real-world role create something: T-Shirt Designer, QVC Sells Person, Sports Broadcaster, Crime Scene Reporter.

Others are derived from social media: Twitter Subtweeting, Cell Phone Conversations, Character Song Lists, Making Memes. Plus, every time I think of something new, I add it to the bundle, so you get those updates for free!

3) Small-group discussion: There are several ways you can go about this portion, and you also need to decide if it’s something you think your students need or not. I started small-group discussions as a precursor to large-group when I had a group of lower-level/reluctant readers because they would come to large group discussion with nothing to say, their thoughts weren’t organized, or they were too embarrassed to speak up. Once I started doing it, it just stuck for every group I had. Now, even with my most advanced groups, we almost always have a small-group discussion. They even ask for it, so they can get their thoughts together in a smaller, safer setting.

One method I use is the 3,2,1 approach. This method allows for more open-ended discussion. Students just take a blank sheet of paper out and jot 3 questions about the section/chapter, 2 comments, and 1 connection or key quote. Sometimes they can answer their own questions in the small group, and I love that. They are always going back and digging through the pages to look for info and answers. Depending on time, I give anywhere from 5-10 minutes in small group for 3-2-1. Since they are reading out-of-class, several of them bring questions and comments with them to class, and I love to see them bubbling and wanting to talk about books! Then, they bring that list to large group.

Another approach for small group is a guided focus. After reading Chapters 1-3 of The Great Gatsby, I wanted students to discuss findings from the color tracker sheet they had done in their “packets” for that section. The idea of color symbolism hadn’t gelled with them quite yet, so I felt it necessary to break them up into groups and have them discuss. I had them discuss all the colors on the chart, and then I just gave each group one color to be the “experts” on, and they led the discussion for that color. In that case I set up a specific framework and topic for their small-group discussion.

Another way to guide small group discussion is with literary analysis task cards. You could even use task cards for large group, too. It’s totally flexible. Task cards are perfect to differentiate different levels of readers or just to mix up what students look for and discuss. My Response to Literature Literary Analysis Task Cards come in my “Response to Literature: Making Literature Come Alive” bundle. The task cards come in both printable and digital format. Read more about using task cards in this blog post.

My literature worksheets that come digital and printable in the pack are also a good way to focus small-group discussion if there’s something specific you want to students to note or focus on for a certain set of pages or chapter. These would also work really well for the out-of-class packets you could assign students, especially if you are building your own book clubs or your unit needs more meat. (More on the packets below.)

4) Large-group discussion: In large group, I have us sit in a circle when we can. I usually just let anyone start with a question from 3-2-1, and we go from there. I encourage them to answer each other’s questions and go back to the text where necessary. I model that often. I only interject if I think they are off-base, if they ask a question I know will be answered in a later chapter, or when a little prompting could lead them to a much deeper discussion. Large-group discussion can last anywhere from 15-30 minutes, depending on what else you have done that day and how much time you have. I have had groups that skip small group entirely, and we go outside on a nice day and discuss for the majority of the class period.

In the case that students are reluctant to speak up or if you have students who dominate (especially if you are hosting longer discussions) I require every student to say something. I also made cute emoji puppets for discussion. Those work really well for younger students. Here’s a quick video where I explain a bit more about the accountable talk emoji puppets.

Here’s a quick video tutorial where I explain large-group discussions a bit more.

5) Assessment: Since my students are reading out-of-class, they do take a quick quiz at the end of the book club meeting because I do want to hold them accountable. They are also working through packets as they read alone as well. Those are for a grade, too, and include comprehension questions, figurative language, grammar work, journal topics – just whatever I’ve created for the unit plan that would work to guide students through the reading and enrich learning. Every student completes every page in the “workbook” on his or her own. These packets replace the old-fashioned literature circle sheets students do that can be arbitrary or vacuous if not done correctly or managed correctly. I even think when done as well as possible, they don’t always teach students to really dig in and analyze a text. Here’s a link to a short IG story that shows a glimpse of a Lord of the Flies packet I put together.

I have 75-minute periods, so we have to keep it moving. We do all the above steps in that time period and always on Fridays, but if you have shorter periods, you might want to consider doing a two-part book club meeting each week. Every now and then I’ll do that, especially when I have a bigger project in mind. We might start on Thursday or end on Monday. Everyone’s schedule is different, so it’s hard for me to predict what might work best for your timeline. One thing that I’ve starting doing this year is making a slide show (PPT) for the meeting, so that students can see where we are going, and we can keep up with progress more easily. It also gives them a visual because I add pictures, but it’s also helpful for differentiation purposes to meet various learning styles. I’ve also had admin drop in for pop evaluations during book club meetings, and it helps them see at-a-glance what we are working on. I just make one slide per “segment” of the class (see 1-5 above), plus a “Daily Objective” slide at the beginning.

Feb 2019

How My Trip to Disney Helped Me Prepare for Back-to-School

My family and I traveled to Disney World back in June, and I hadn’t been there even half a day before I started feeling inspired. For me, school is pretty much always on my brain, so it’s not surprising that it came to mind even when I was on vacation! But, truthfully, there is so much going on at Disney that I couldn’t help but learn from the best while enjoying my time at the happiest place on earth. Many of these things that I noticed at Disney reaffirmed what I’ve done in my classroom for years, but it’s nice to review, revisit, and recap. Here are five ways my trip to Disney helped me get prepared for back-to-school this August.

1) You can have a happy place and still have rules. Disney is known for being “the happiest place on earth.” So how is it possible that the happiest place has rules? Oh, but they do. They want you to move left, stay inside the tape, stand in straight lines, keep your hands and feet inside, etc. Why do they do this? So people are safe and get to do what they came to do. In turn – happiness. They aren’t unreasonable rules and requests at all. However, don’t most of our students – and maybe even the public – think that rules are just for fuddy-duddies who want to put a damper on all the fun? I, for one, believe in establishing rules up front so that it’s clear what the expectations are. I don’t like to make rules that are arbitrary and just have a bunch of rules just for the sake of having rules, but there must be a set of guidelines. In my classroom I typically select 3-5 overarching rules that serve as my classroom expectations – and that are good rules to live by as well. Too many rules, and all you’ll be doing is enforcing rules, but if you don’t have some rules to control the chaos, the chaos will control you.

I’ve had the following three rules hanging in my classroom for 10 years now:

Mrs. Faulkner Rule #1: Own it and stay in your lane.

Mrs. Faulkner Rule #2: Be aware of your surroundings.

Mrs. Faulkner Rule #3: Make a way, not an excuse.

You might notice I don’t have rules about gum, food, phones, etc. Now I do talk about these specific items on the first day. Check out my fun Classroom Rules Emoji Puppets for doing just that! I’ve learned if students are following those governing guidelines above and if I’m doing my job of actively teaching and facilitating each period, we can have a successful and happy place.

2) Schedules, plans, routines, and structure are necessary for things to run smoothly, for things to get done, and for everyone to feel good about it. Disney has everything planned down to the minute, and there is very, very little interruption to the plan. If you think about how much they have going on to make the parks the happiest places on earth, it’s critical to establish and maintain routines. They have a plan for shows, parades, buses, rides, fast passes, rain delays, and more. They even publish specifically when and where the characters will appear. Now think about how much we have going on in the classroom: attendance, lunch count, signing field trip forms, turning in lesson plans, differentiating, signing devices on the wi-fi, providing make-up work, collecting homework, passing out tasks, assigning groups, scheduling conferences, RTI, passing out a Band-aid, and on and on. Imagine if there were no plan for how to take attendance or how to pass out papers, etc. It would be chaos, kids would know you had no plan, and you wouldn’t get anything done. I am probably an over-planner or over-scheduler, but I do have a plan for every minute of my class period, every day of the week, and even an extended plan for the month. I have routines for turning in papers, passing out papers, getting in groups, and so forth and so on. Now, no plan, routine, or schedule is any good if no one knows what it is. That’s why Disney has the published pamphlets up front each day and even an app. The first few days of school, I talk about my classroom routines and schedules. We even practice, so they know what to expect. Some may argue that it takes up precious time at the beginning of the year, but it SAVES so much time later on. Plus, I just work them into what we are doing so that it feels natural. Each week I write the daily schedule on the board, and each day, I go over the daily plan with students before we start the lesson. We are all on the same page that way and can get moving.

3) Kindness and smiles matter. There are so many opinions about whether or not to smile at students right away or be overly kind to them. I would even say that my own opinion here has evolved over the years. The people who work at Disney wear a smile as part of their uniform – and maybe they are just genuinely happy to be there. I mean, if I were a Disney princess instead of a high school English teacher, then maybe I’d be all smiles all the time, too. But I chose to be an English teacher – I want to be there. So why wouldn’t I let my kids know that with a smile? So can you be kind and smile AND maintain a professional image and relationship with students? Absolutely – yes. I am 100% not my students’ friend – not in any way, shape, form, or fashion. That doesn’t mean, though, that I can’t – or won’t – be kind to them. That also doesn’t mean that I have no classroom management either or that I’m crossing any lines or that I’m not stern or won’t correct them. Believe me, I have plenty of lines drawn. Kids of all ages crave kindness, and for the 90 minutes that I have them each day, I need to find ways to show kindness. And going back to the idea of really wanting to be there – I do and I like to see kids learning and hear what they have to say. That makes me smile. They make me smile. So from the first day of school to the last, I greet them at the door and smile. I say please, thank you, and great job, and I really mean it. Smiles are contagious – give one and get one!

4) Have a grand finale, but start with the fire fingers. The best closing show at Disney this year, in my opinion, was the Fantasmic show at Hollywood Studios. I loved all the closing and opening shows at all the parks because Disney doesn’t ever do anything halfway, but the HS park show had several things that really spoke to me in terms of back-to-school. If you’ve seen the show, you know that it opens with lights and music – it’s the best and biggest lead at any of the shows, and so you are expecting something really, really great. Then up from a mountain on a stage far, far away pops up a teeny, tiny Mickey. Granted, it was a live Mickey and not a projection or puppet, but he was so, so small. I guess I was just expecting more. Then several minutes of almost nothing go by and out of nowhere, he starts to dance and shoot fire from his finger tips!! That is a new level of spirit fingers, folks! Immediately, I was in. Why didn’t they start with that? Why didn’t they start with the fire fingers? The lead in was good and it got me interested, but then it was a huge let-down – until minutes later when Mickey whipped out those fire fingers. When I think about applying this experience to my classroom this year, I was reaffirmed that I must start and end the lesson with something great to get my students’ attention. It certainly won’t be fire fingers every time – or ever LOL! – but it needs to be relevant to activate their learning and draw them in – and keep them in – before I lose them. The law of primacy and recency says you remember the best whatever is at the beginning and ending. I’ll carefully plan bell ringers this year and exit tickets with specific purpose and pizazz so they aren’t just a waste of time or means to an end or a way to check a box. For me, that will look like carefully chosen daily grammar practice because my junior and seniors have ACT on the brain. For yearbook, it will be inspirational photos and team building tasks. To end, I’ll be sure to have students review the lesson and make their own connections. The beginning and end really do matter and make meaning. Every day won’t be “on fire” – that’s just going to be a reality – but this reminded me I do need to bring it to the best of my ability day in and day out.

5) Keep the focus and purpose in mind. I went to Disney with my family and two nieces – nine and three. The girls are super familiar with most Disney characters, and those we knew they weren’t interested in, we didn’t spend much time at. But there was one show we went to and about half way through, my three-year-old niece asked, “Who is that?” We all knew who it was and hadn’t even thought that she might not know. At that moment I realized that might be how our students feel when we present knew material to them. Sometimes we take for granted they know it. Because I have a very tight schedule, I can’t afford to spend time teaching material they already know, but I also can’t afford for them to be lost and have to rush and make it up later. So, at the beginning of the year, I always give a pre-test of 100 words that every high school English students should know. These are words from the CCSS, standardized testing words, and other words that are specific to English. Also, it’s really important to share with students the purpose of the lesson or activity for the day. They need to know why they are learning it and how it connects with the larger purpose. I usually explain it so explicitly to them so that they could tell anyone who comes into the class period to observe or anyone they talk to after class.

At the end of the day, Disney is in the business of making dreams come true. But we teachers are, too. In fact, the biggest of dreams are in our hands. What an honor and privilege to have that role in someone’s life. As I prepare for my 2018 school year, I want to make as much a magic in my classroom each and every day that I possibly can. Here’s to a “Soarin’” kinda year, and not a “Hollywood Tower of Terror” kinda one! Share with me in the comments how you prepare for back-to-school!

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Formula for Classroom Success Series Post #2: Modeling

Today we are continuing on in the Classroom Success Formula Series. I am excited to be sharing today one of my favorite teaching strategies – Modeling. It isn’t new, but perhaps I can share a few new ideas that you might can use.

How many of
us would rather watch a youtube video of how to make chicken dumplings rather
than reading the written directions? I know I certainly would. There are at
least seven major learning styles, and while not everyone would prefer to see
a video, the point is, working through a process to learn something is often
much easier than just diving in head-first with no guidance. After all, how does that saying go? – Teaching is
the one profession that creates all other professions.

1) Modeling is not the same as lecturing. I’ve heard educational trainers say
that lecturing is the worst way to teach, and you should never do it. I’ve
also heard that a carefully crafted lecture is sometimes needed. I’m torn on the concept of lecturing. Personally, as a learner myself I struggle being
attentive during lectures – unless they are very quick, show me what I need,
and then I get to try it myself. I
personally lean against an “old-fashioned” PowerPoint no matter how cute it is; I just think
they are dry. However, I note that my classroom is fully of diverse learners,
and to be as effective as possible, I must provide many different learning
strategies and opportunities. I do believe, though, that a teacher’s job is not
to impart knowledge but rather to insight discovery. ‘nough said.

2) “I do/we do/ya’ll do/you do” gradual release
model of teaching. In
this model of teaching the student is active the entire time, where in a
lecture, the student is largely copying notes or just watching the teacher talk
for an entire period or a large part of the period. This isn’t a new strategy by any means, and I
love it. It is pretty much what my classroom looks like every day. If you are
new to this strategy, it goes something like this:

– “I do”: The
teacher explains and demonstrates the skill while the students follow along,
trying on their own or processing. Here sometimes I do use a PPT, anchor chart, Activ Flipchart, white board, video, or guided notes. I just depends on what skill I’m teaching.

– “We do”: In
the “we do” stage, the teacher is again modeling, but the teacher engages the
class. For example, if I am teaching paragraph writing, I will have already
written one for the students in the “I do” phase. In this phase, I am asking
for student volunteers to give me sentence starters, active verbs, or
transitions. Faster learners often step up in this phase, and I think that’s a
good way to let them lead.

– “Ya’ll do”: Common
statistics in education are that you retain 10% of what you hear, 20% of what
you read, 50% of what you do, 75% of what you discuss and 90% of what you teach. Here students
are working on an activity with a partner or very small group. I like to give them something hands-on here or with movement, so they are talking about it and explaining it to each
other. This is an excellent place to use task cards. Also, students who are too shy to
speak out in class will be more likely to ask a friend or peer in a small
group. The teacher monitors during this
time taking notes for formative assessment.

– “You do”: Finally,
this is the time where students must show they understand the skill on their
own.

How to pace
this strategy for best results? Every period is different, and so is the depth
of every skill we teach, but I have 90 minute blocks. So I set up each step for
about 15 minutes. What I love most about
this strategy, is that anybody teaching anything can use this strategy successfully
and reach every student in the class. Every teaching pack that I have available in my TpT store is designed this way. I
had the privilege of meeting Sarah Wessling at a conference I presented at last
fall, and she was just as inspiring and down-to-earth as I had hoped. See a
video on the Teaching Channel of her explaining this process. https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/improving-teacher-practice#video-sidebar_tab_video-guide-tab

3) Build confidence and eliminate
frustration. I, personally, feel really uncomfortable
cooking. I’m not horrible at it where I
burn everything; I just don’t have that special touch. So the thought of trying to cook something
new causes me anxiety. If I’ve seen someone do it, I feel a little better about
trying it on my own. I think the same is
true for students.

4) Modeling works for new concepts and
even review. When I begin to teach writing, I use the RACE paragraph. RACE is an acronym for the formula I want students to use in my
classroom when we write. I’ve seen variations of this
formula, but I’ve tweaked this one specifically to help students formulate
short, entire constructed responses and branch out to larger pieces of writing.
In my mind, it is a simple formula – to my students, it’s foreign. I once just wrote the formula on the board,
gave a prompt, and said, “Go.” The students
tried, but what they produced was not on point.
Then I was frustrated, and so were they. Now, I just go ahead and stick
to my trusty modeling technique to ensure all students are comfortable before we
proceed. I understand sometimes letting
them take off flying on their own can work, but mostly I think they just
leave the nest and fall to the ground.

How to Write a Paragraph Constructed Response, Writing For

5) Modeling also ties in with classroom
management/routines. I described my grouping snafu in the last post in this series. Again, though, it’s critical to model what we expect of students,
even if we think it’s something simple. It prevents time being wasted, and we
know how precious class time is.