The other day I saw an article on Facebook about a teacher who followed his students' schedule for a day, and ended up exhausted from sheer boredom. While, I haven’t lived the life of a 6th grader yet, I have participated in a lot of professional development recently . . .
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| Photo: parentmap.com |
Over the past year, I have heard the following words and phrases more than I care to remember:
Portfolio, Formative Assessment, Summative Assessment, Scope and Sequence, One-to-One, PLC, Understanding by Design, IB, MYP, PYP, Data Driven Instruction, Digital Citizenship, Approaches to Learning, Design Thinking, Authentic Assessment, Backwards Planning, etc., etc. My educational fatigue is so deep that even hearing the word “unit” gives me a physical reaction that includes lots of anxiety, eye rolling and sighing.
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| Photo: Concordiaonline.net |
My recent professional development has given me greater insight into what my students experience on a daily basis. And since I like to turn lemons into lemon drop shots; here are some thoughts on WHAT NOT TO DO in the classroom.
1. Forget to make your agenda, purpose, and timeline clear. There’s nothing worse than feeling like your time is being wasted, and this sentiment applies to little people too. I make a point of asking my students “What’s the point?” or "why are we doing this?” several times during my classes. I vow to plan engaging and meaningful lessons that make that happen more often.
2. Expect students to sit still in the same place all day. I have been in Chicago at a conference for the past three days, and I have not been outside of the (very nice) hotel once. During one session, I saw a grown woman so bored that she began rocking back and forth in her chair like Gillian in the last season of Boardwalk Empire. When I get back to work I’m going to make more of an effort to get my students out of the school, and at the very least out of their seats. I learned that even changing where I am standing when I teach can shift the energy in the room.
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| This is not how one should feel during professional development . . . |
3. Rely too much on the human voice as the means of communicating information. As riveting as I think I am, I am going to allow my students more time to run discussions, work independently and make decisions about how to use their own time. If I want them to become active learners who use school as an opportunity to discover and develop their passions, I have to loosen the reigns.
4. Fail to recognize when you have lost your audience. I am ashamed to admit this, but for the past three days I have been behaving like an eleven year old child with ADHD. I have texted, opened report cards, edited a unit, and worked on this blog post all while sitting right in front of the facilitator of my session. I have waited until a session began to discover that I have to use the bathroom or need a glass of water (the horror!).
Trust me, I was not alone in my rudeness. I watched one (grown) person take selfies during a presentation on rubrics and another (grown) person post on Instagram. From now on, when I see that students have that glazed look in their eye or are looking for ways to distract themselves, I will stop what I’m doing, shift gears, and find new ways of engaging them. This weekend I learned about two apps that can help me do that: Kahoot and Padlet. I encourage all of my teacherfriends to check them out!
Trust me, I was not alone in my rudeness. I watched one (grown) person take selfies during a presentation on rubrics and another (grown) person post on Instagram. From now on, when I see that students have that glazed look in their eye or are looking for ways to distract themselves, I will stop what I’m doing, shift gears, and find new ways of engaging them. This weekend I learned about two apps that can help me do that: Kahoot and Padlet. I encourage all of my teacherfriends to check them out!
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| I wasn't bold enough to take a selfie during my session, but I did take one in my hotel room! |
5. Forget that students have lives outside of school. Part of the reason that I was so disconnected this weekend was because I had a lot on my mind (report cards, MYP grades, portfolio requirements, professional evaluation, Chloe's birthday, Thanksgiving, how I'm going to get to Jersey to see Frozen on Ice). This reminded me that sometimes students aren’t focused, and it has nothing to do with what you are or aren't doing in the classroom. In the upcoming term, I will check in with my students more often to make sure that I know if there is someone I should cut slack for. Or, on the other hand, if there is a student with personal experiences that may enhance my lesson.
In my many years of teaching, the best staff meetings or professional development opportunities have involved discussions about children and or books (you would be surprised by how often this is not the case). I love when teachers talk about something they did that really excited them. Let's have more of that please; I'm in search of inspiration!
In my many years of teaching, the best staff meetings or professional development opportunities have involved discussions about children and or books (you would be surprised by how often this is not the case). I love when teachers talk about something they did that really excited them. Let's have more of that please; I'm in search of inspiration!
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