A Gathering of Minds!

I was thrilled to get to take part in a workshop yesterday where teachers trying new ideas were allowed to get together and talk about them.  The best part was hearing what other people were doing.

I met one teacher D who is doing amazing imaginative role play in his class.  We had time to share and talk and I'm hoping that he can help me with my issue for next year.  The issue currently is if I have 28 kids in the fall how do I fit them all in the classroom?  Putting another table in would make the space smaller.  After talking to D I've decided to talk with the kids about how that can happen.  Perhaps bleachers in one corner, some stand up places to work and a lot of floor space.  I may move tables OUT of the room.
We'll talk about it before the end of February.  D and I also discussed planners and their purpose.  I'm realizing they are JUST to provide parents with info, which I do on my website and through email...so do I need to set aside 15 minutes JUST to do them?  I'm thinking that may need to change too.

I also met G who introduced me to edumodo which is like a facebook site for a classroom.  I'm going to check it out over the summer and try to integrate it for September.

A friend of mine emailed me about the gallery of teachers being shown on the district website and whether that might make some teachers feel bad.  I am still mulling this over.  Yes, it's true not all teachers would be featured...cause that's not possible.  However, I think that if people have ideas they are willing to share, they could call up G (who runs it) and invite him in!  After all, it's by word of mouth that these things get discovered.  I was talking to E who told G...and that is where it went.   So if you are a teacher and you feel you have an idea you'd like to share, call G up!  If you want to know how, contact me personally.  I'll help you.

Tell me how you feel about this!  My true belief is that G is trying to share ideas and link teachers up to each other to learn from each other.  Join us!

28 kids and counting

I found out that next year I will have 28 grade 4/5s in my room!  I've never had more than 24 so this will be interesting.  I will need a whole new table, and 8 more tubs!  I may even need to reorganize my Ikea shelves to fit more tubs.  How will we do with 8 more bodies?  Not sure...stay tuned.

However, the best part is that the Montessori program is going strong at Seaview and that is all I care about!  Keep it up!

Approvals!

Research is getting up and moving!  I have approval from SFU, the School District, my principal, almost all my students and most parents.  I'm just awaiting a few more parents and I can start filming!  I've very excited.  There are now 24 teaching days until I go on Ed Leave to work on my Masters full time.

Thought for today:  During gym on Fridays I have the kids roam free.  They have split the gym into two sections, one side is for floor hockey and the other for scooter madness.  They love to tie ropes to their scooters and just drag each other around.  Today they added a new element.  Some kids started piling mats on the stage and laying on them.  Then some boys started wrestling.  Not in a mean way but in an old fashion kind of rough and tumble way.  I kept my eye on it, but chose NOT to stop it.  They were smiling and laughing and having a great time.  Then a few other boys joined in.  And then to my surprise the girls came and piled on.  No one got hurt the entire time, they were very careful.  I was shocked.  I hadn't seen this kind of wrestling action ever in school because this kind of play has been banned for years.

After seeing and hearing how much they loved the chance to just wrestle, I decided they can.  I will keep my eyes on them on Fridays and if anyone gets hurt it's DONE.  But after today my eyes were opened.  Why can't kids have fun and play?  In today's society it's like they all are in bubble wrap.  At the end of gym they were all red faced, sweaty and had huge smiles on.  They declared it to be the best gym block ever in their lives.  Hilarious...Just mats, and kids, and old fashioned fun.

Kudos and such

My goodness.  In the last few months I sure have got my share of "fame"!  One, I was on the front page of the Coquitlam Now in November regarding teacher assessment strategies in the face of job action.  I had no idea I'd appear on the front.  I thought I'd be tucked in the back somewhere!  Then just recently G, a fellow blogger and innovations master, put together a website which highlights what teachers are doing in Coquitlam with classroom design.  I appear on that page.  Then due to that page TG (head of Coquitlam SD) sent me a card congratulating me on my achievements.  Wow!

In terms of my classroom,  I have recently mixed up where the kids sit on alternating days.  I have to pilot my checklist in February and I want the kids to be familiar with choosing their own seats AND having me choose them.  Before they just chose their own, now I'm in the mix.

So how are they reacting?  Funny, some kids really like me choosing their seats because they like to sit with other people and when the kids choose their seats they choose the same kids to sit near all the time.  So mixing it up pleases some of them.  Others get really upset and don't like being told where to sit.  The girls hate sitting with the boys and vice versa.

I'm also creating a survey as my second tool for my evaluation class so we'll see how that turns out!

Long time no post!

My goodness I have neglected my blog.  Tis the life of a teacher, busy busy.  I was thrilled to be featured in the Coquitlam Now recently discussing how teachers are communicating with parents without using report cards.  To be honest I prefer this method to report cards.  I've always found that when you give people grades on something that is all they care about.  They don't read your very thoughtful comments on their child or what you could do to help improvement, it's all about the grades.  And how do you grade a 4th or 5th grade child?  Really they are still developing.  I can't give them percentages or large reports to do.  I have to look at a performance standard rubric and base my interpretations on that.  As someone who has taught this grade for a while it's a little easier for me to say, that's an A or that's a B.  But in today's society people just assume they will get an A and if I don't give it, it's somehow my fault??  This is bizarre thinking considering I received mostly Bs or C grades my entire life.  I worked very hard but sometimes I just didn't quite reach the A.  A's should be hard to achieve, they stand for "Excellent" and I'm afraid we are not all excellent all the time.

Anyway, enough about report cards.  I also received a link that will be put on the district site soon which shows people who have created innovative spaces in their classrooms.  I appear on the link, which was created by Greg!  Who helped inspire me with my space!  So I'm looking forward to seeing and reading all about other people's ideas.

My master's project needs to be piloted this coming month.  I will need to get permissions and figure out where to place a video camera to record the kids.  My project has updated itself a little.  I'm looking at how choice of work space affects students on-task behaviour in a work choice setting.  Since my kids will be choosing their own work (which they are used to) I will be filming them on how they behave when they sit where they want, versus me telling them where to sit.  In order to keep this real I will be using January to alternate them with choice versus no choice, then in February I will be recording and documenting.  Fun times!!!  I hope it all goes well and I get some results that help teachers with their work spaces.

Another new development:  the students asked to be able to bring in pillows for working on/with.  I said yes, with parent permission.  One pillow has arrived.  That student seems very happy to do his work while resting his back against the pillow.  The chairs we have suck, so if pillows work, so be it!  We will see how this continues but the kids are great at decision making and helping me make the space easier for them to focus.

Hopefully I will update more often!

The leader of the class

Last year for the first time I came across a certain problem in my class.  I found that the boys elected (in their minds) a leader.  Someone they found was cool and then they without question followed this boys behaviour.  It was such a problem I had to devise ways to group the kids so that the girls separated the boys.  It was a massive pain because that is not how I like to work.  I believe in letting children choose.  But when you have a child with "power" it becomes a struggle to get the other children to realize they have their OWN minds.  After a lot of work on this:  Separating kids, getting my prinicipal and parents involved, constantly checking behaviour...I finally got this settled around April and things started to look up.

Fast forward to this year.  The leader has moved on to middle school and all the kids seem to have their own thing going on.  Until this week.  I was gone for one day and they decided to elect another child a leader.  Once again the boys fought to sit near this child, to the point where fights broke out.  This child is "cool" and must be followed.  OY.  Why does this happen???  What is this need to find someone to follow?  Unfortunately the boys also follow the behaviour of the leader, so of course it's a leader who needs reminders on his behaviour.  My Friday was stressful because I now have a little posse of kids following one boy.  I had to move kids to new spots because of arguing.  Argh.

I'm going to keep my eye on this situation this week and see if it falls or increases.  I'm hoping it's a one off fad and they move on.  I can't go through another year of "leader" worship.  I just won't let it happen!

Research Hypothesis

Most of you know I'm working on my masters and right now I'm heavily into figuring out what my research question or hypothesis should be. 

I've done quite a bit of background research on how furniture affects students on-task behaviour.  Studies I've read have said that students are more on-task with ergonomically correct furniture and that there is no difference between rows and group clusters.  Another study concluded that students arranged in a circle formation had more on-task behaviour and more positive on-task discussion than those in rows.  So after doing some background research what I saw was a need to see if student choice factors into this.  If a student is given a choice of where to work rather than me telling them where to work, will they be more on-task?

This is my basic question.  I'm thinking of this as my hypothesis:  students on-task behaviour is greater when given the choice of where to work versus being directed by a teacher where to work.

I was thinking that if I direct the kids in one setting and then in another give them the choice I use the data to see if my hypothesis is correct.  I was also thinking...should I use another class too?  I teach Montessori, perhaps that is too narrrow a sample.  Montessori kids are used to choice.  So if I also sample a regular classroom, it might make my research more applicable to other teachers.

Hmmmm. 

I also want to look at surveying the kids and asking where they like to work and why?  I want to see if there is a difference during Language vs. Math topics.  So I have a lot on my mind right now.  I have to write a paper detailing my question and what my sample might be.  So I need to decide this week on my sample.  I'm also afraid it might be too small.  It will also only apply to classrooms with tables and alternate work spaces.  Classroom with rows of desks and set seating...don't work for my study. 

Thoughts thoughts thoughts.