Dear Parents: Reinforcing Home-School Connections

In our #WeirdTBC "He's the Weird Teacher" Book Club meeting last night, we talked about working with parents and making sure that home and school are connected effectively. As I'm sure many other teachers do, I have parents every year tell me that they don't know what is going on in the classroom, as their children don't communicate clearly with them. I work really hard to make sure families have lots of opportunities to be part of life in EPCOTclass, but I wanted to remind both students and their parents.

Today, my students and I wrote this letter to their parents:

Hello to our lovely parents,

  This is EPCOTclass, the Gladiator Snails, comin' at you live from the Room 209 carpet! We are all wanting to send you a message together.

  Sometimes when we get home from school, we're tired. We are tired because all day long, we work, we prototype, we adventure, we explore, we imagineer, we have to listen to Shauna (who sometimes sings annoying songs), we design, we snuggle degus, we read, we type, we do Math, we dance, we Tweet, we take pictures, we plan, we learn and we eat. So, lovely parents, when we come home, and you say, "What did you do today?" and we say "Nothing", we are lying. 

  We might not mean to be lying, but we are not giving you the full story. However, you are welcome to come in to our class any time. If you can't make it into our class, you can still feel like you're here. 

  Here is how:

-you can look on our blog to see what we have been doing every single day by reading our "What Stuck With You Today?"

-you can look at our blog to read what we're up to in the week 

-you can look at our Twitter account and see pictures and stories. We tweet astwitter.com/epcotclass and twtiter.com/hitchbotjr . You do not have to have a Twitter account to see our tweets!

-you can ask me "Did you have to Check Yourself" today? Then, I'll tell you about my behaviour

-you can ask me if I was at a red, yellow, green or neon green light in the morning, middle block and afternoon block. Then, I'll tell you about my understanding of what I learned today

-we all look ahead in our Daybook and calendar and know what is coming up. You can ask me, "What are you excited about?"

-you can look at our calendar on our blog

-when we are hanging out at home, you can ask me to read aloud to you and use my Reading Comprehension strategies to show you what I am thinking

-when we are driving in the car, you can ask me Math Questions, like practicing adding, subtracting and even times tables

-when we are driving or walking, you can ask me about directions - I know north, south, east and west (and even things like south-east)

-you can ask me what it means to be an Experimental Prototype Classroom of Tomorrow.

  Here are some more reminders about how to connect home and school.

  We love hearing from our families and friends. Please consider leaving comments on our blog, tweeting at us, sending us an email to Shauna's account. Shauna is excited because from now on, we can never tell you that we did "Nothing" at school.

  Darling parents, we are so happy to be a classroom community. We have so much fun together.

Love,

Your children (scribed by Shauna)

30-Day Blogging Challenge Day 3: Observation Area for Improvement

TeachThought's day 3 challenge is to: "Discuss one 'observation' area that you would like to improve on your teacher evaluation".

It's five minutes until day 4 of the blogging challenge, so I've gotta write quickly!

In my school board, teachers are only evaluated every five years and I am pretty sure I'm not due for an observation for a few years yet. However, I'm always working on improving my practice.

An area I would like to be observed in this year, if possible, is in ongoing formative and summative assessments. Based on my own experience and feedback from students and families, this is an area for growth. In response, I've created my Annual Learning Plan for students. In the coming weeks, I will have one on one meetings with each of my twenty-three students (yep, my class reached it's cap today!) and their families. Together, we will collaborate to set curriculum-related goals for each student. The Annual Learning Plan document will be shared with students and their parents or guardians. Periodically, I will add feedback and have check-ins with each student to monitor progress.

Please let me know if you have any ideas on how to make this document more powerful or helpful for all three stakeholders: students, families and teachers.

30-Day Blogging Challenge: Day 1: My Goals

A principal who I really admire and who had a huge impact on my summer through his #SummerLS challenge and EduAllStars podcast (but I've yet to meet in person), Todd Nesloney, tweeted out a link to a 30-day blogging challenge. Despite the fact that I have an alphabetical list of at least 30 posts I'd like to write, I feel like this would be a good way to keep me on track. Plus, once I write one post, I'm always inspired to write another.

Reflective Teaching: A 30-Day Blogging Challenge for Teachers

Day 1:
Write your goals for the school year. Be as specific or abstract as you'd like to be.

I'm going to have to be specific. I have a LOT of goals and have spent a lot of time this summer reflecting on what they are. For ease of organizing my thoughts, I've split them into sections: Values in my Grade 3/4 Classroom (goals for my students and I); Professional Goals (things I'm going to work on as a teacher)

Values in my Grade 3/4 Classroom - EPCOT

Be Brave
Overall, my goal for the school year (for myself and my students) is "Be Brave". Day 1 in the classroom (tomorrow!), that will be our only expectation. As we form as a team, my students and I will work together to co-create roles, responsibilities and expectations.

I ADD EGGS
Last year, my grade 5/6 Rainbow Eggheads and I lived by the recipe for success: ADD EGGS. Initially, I created this recipe, but my students completely bought into it and owned it. They could reflect effectively on their choices, the choices of others and how to improve by using the language in ADD EGGS.

Last summer, I wrote a list of qualities I want to help develop in my students, qualities I'd like them to leave my classroom understanding and practicing every day. I came up with ADD EGGS - accountability, dynamism, drive, engagement, grateful, generous and supportive.
The Rainbow Eggheads lived these values last year. They could rhyme of the acronym easily and came up with "The Rainbow Rule" ("Be an ADD EGG, not a BAD EGG" - they even decided what BAD stood for)! In their end of year Ignite presentations, most of them referred to ADD EGGS and what a difference it made to their learning.

After lots of reflection (and discussion with my trusted colleague, Tiiu), I've decided to KISS (Keep It Simple, Silly) and share ADD EGGS with my incoming class. However, there is one quality that is missing from ADD EGGS, so this year, the acronym is changed to "I ADD EGGS" (I've added innovation to fit with another big class goal this year).

Imagineering and Blue Sky Thinking
Throughout my life, I've been inspired by Walt Disney, and lately, I've been reading a lot about his life, his innovations and his legacy. I can't help but think about how well his philosophies and his message tie into my dream classroom and teaching methods.

This year, my students and I will use Walt Disney (the person, not the brand) as a model. The way he, among other things: listened to all ideas while seeking the best way to do things; looked towards the future; learned from and embraced the past; told stories; thought about creating memorable and educational experiences; questioned everything and was open to change, will be essential to the way I think about teaching this year.

I will encourage my students to embrace Blue Sky Thinking by thinking big, following their dreams and believing in themselves.

We will think of ourselves as Imagineers as we use imagination to engineer our learning.

EPCOT
Because of my interest in all things Disney, I am inspired by Walt's vision for EPCOT (an experimental city, that, after his death, was repurposed as a theme park - my favourite as a child!). It breaks my heart that his vision never saw the light of day, but, learning from his passion and purpose, I thought about what I think a classroom should be.

I think a classroom should be a place where everyone can try new things, share successes with others and embrace change. Teachers should be futurists as we are preparing our students for a future we can't possibly predict. With that in mind, I've called my new class blog and twitter account EPCOTclass. In this case, EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype CLASSROOM of Tomorrow. The name and vision will help to keep me on track with all of the ideas, values and dreams listed above.

Goals for my BEd Students

Bringing Language to Life for Life
I'm thrilled (and nervous!) to be teaching my first BEd class (Language Instruction in the Primary and Junior Years) this term. I have outlined goals for my students and I as "Big Ideas" in our week 1 slideshow. What I am really aiming to do is ignite (or kindle!) a passion for teaching (Language in particular) in the pre-service teachers who I will have the pleasure of working with.

I've subtitled my course "Bringing Language to Life for Life" and look forward to working with the students in class, on Twitter and through blogs to do exactly that, bring Language to life.

I want my students to leave my class better prepared for and more confident to teach Language to students of all ages. Because of that goal, I have worked very hard to create a comprehensive course and ensure that all assignments are authentic and applicable to the classroom.

Professional Goals

Balance and Wellness
This year, our admin is committed to helping staff find balance in our lives and ensure our wellness. I'm excited to see what this looks like.

Over the summer, I've tried to work on balance, something that has always been a challenge for me. In order to really understand what it looks like, I've created a list of my roles and set goals for the amount of time to spend on each during a day. Since late July, I've been tracking those. It's been enlightening for me to see how my goals align with what I actually do. Also, I see that I only have 24 hours in a day and have to set priorities, one of which is myself as a worthwhile human being. I'm going to work hard to remember that during the year. I will make it a priority to do happy-making things. I'll even work hard to make sure that some of those have nothing to do with my job!

Ongoing Feedback Communicated to Students and Families
In the survey I shared with Room 209 families last year, parents told me to learn to say no (they recognized that I tried to do too much!) and that they'd like to get more ongoing feedback about their children.

Tiiu and I created an Annual Learning Plan for students, which will be a working document that is shared with students and families (an individual one for each student) and developed throughout the year. The link I shared is absolutely a work in progress and I am planning to meet with each family early in the year to set goals and make plans.

Developing my PLN
People call it different things, but I think of my PLN as my Professional Learning Network and I am lucky to include lots of people I know in real life and online in it. I love to collaborate with other educators to bring interesting experiences into my classroom. I will continue to do this through twitter chats, planning and collaborating via Skype and the Google Drive.

An element I am adding this year is to work with inspirational, passionate educators in formal and informal settings. I have started an Educational Think Tank (with Amy Bowker) and the Comment Consortium. Because of getting to work regularly with amazing people, I know will continue to be challenged and pushed me.

Sharing My Learning
I'll be presenting at some upcoming conferences this fall and love to share what I have learned and what I am passionate about with other educators.

By committing to the Comment Consortium and this 30-day blogging challenge, I will regularly share my process with others. More importantly though, I will actually be creating instead of just consuming and I will really take the time to reflect on my practice.

Alternative Education
I teach at an alternative public school and we operate based on a series of tenets that make us different from other sites. A group of us met regularly last year and discussed our school philosophy to celebrate our successes and build upon them for the future.

The idea for Tree Families was born from this collaboration. Each staff member and student in the school will be placed in a "Family" represented by an Ontario tree for their entire time at our school. Families will meet regularly to work together on character education, anti-bullying initiatives and develop skills. We are starting Tree Families next week and I look forward to seeing how they help to build a real sense of ownership and community in our school.

Overall Goal

You Matter
After listening to and reading Angela Maiers this summer, i am thinking in terms of her movement, "You Matter". All of my other goals can be boiled down into this one. Each of us is a genius and it is our duty to share that genius with the world.

By reframing my thinking and remembering that I am significant, I can meet my professional (and personal goals) and let go of issues in a non-judgemental way, using them to move forward and make life better for myself and others. To remind all my students that they matter and help them find their passions and "follow their heartbreaks", I can help them achieve their goals.


It's a good thing this prompt encouraged me to be as specific as I like! As always, I had a lot to say!

Thanks to those of you who got all the way to the end of the post.

What are your goals for this school year? How are you committed to meeting them? What small and large actions are you taking to achieve them?