The Cornerstone For Teachers Blog

Ask Angela Anything: May Edition

Angela Watson — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:58:19 +0000

Yes. I changed the name of this post series. Initially, I called it “According to Angela” because I’m sharing what has worked for me in my own classroom and in the rooms of the teachers I coach. But there’s something about the phrase that just kind of grated on me the more I read it: it sounded kind of haughty and overly authoritative somehow. I always heard the voice of a butler with an English accent booming, “Welllll, according to ANG-ela…” and it just didn’t strike the tone I was going for.

So here we are, with “Ask Angela Anything.” I hope that title betters conveys a sense that you can submit any teaching-related question anonymously to maintain your privacy and student confidentiality, and I’ll share some ideas that you can adapt for your situation.

Though the content of the post is completely mine, the series is sponsored by companies and organizations that are committed to providing high-quality resources for educators. This month’s post is brought to you by Marygrove College’s Master in the Art of Teaching, an online degree program designed to empower teachers by focusing on the knowledge and skills required to deliver effective instruction to diverse learners from preschool through high school, including those with special needs.

Angela,
What would you recommend to teachers who are continuously being moved from one grade to another? How would you organize with so many changes? During my summer break I will try to organize by subject. At this time, I don’t know where I’ll be or what grade I will be teaching. Any pointers? Thank you for your wonderful ideas!
–Alba

Hi, Alba! Being moved to other grade levels can be very tough organizationally. I think using your summer break to organize your materials by subject is a great idea! Anything you have that you can’t use in your new grade level can be stored in boxes, one for each subject area. Since you’re not sure what grade you’ll be teaching yet, try to have smaller boxes for a range of grade levels that you place inside the subject area boxes. So for example, anything that could be used for the full K-6 range can be placed in your larger science box, alongside a small box for primary grades science stuff and a small box for upper grades science stuff.

This will be a nice opportunity to clear out clutter and get rid of stuff you’re not using, and I think you’ll find that a lot of the materials can be used for multiple grade levels. If you end up teaching a higher grade next year, you can use your current materials to provide additional small group support for struggling students, and if you teach a lower grade level, your current materials can be placed in centers or otherwise used to challenge high-achievers and differentiate instruction. The Lesson Materials and Files page of my website has photos of how I organize the materials currently being used for each subject. Hopefully that will give you ideas about what types of containers you can use and how to store everything. All the best to you in your new grade level!

Angela,
I teach at a Spalding School and it is a daily struggle for me to keep my 2nd graders in their seats for more then 30 min at a time. Our lessons usually last about an hour per subject, so I need ideas about how to keep them actively engaged while seated and still. Help!
–Amy

Hi, Amy! I had to do some research to learn about the Spalding method–my understanding is that it’s a very rigorous, scripted program which is basically the opposite of the whole language approach. So, my usual advice in this scenario–to get students up and moving, vary the types of activities they do (small group/centers/cooperative learning), incorporate more student-directed instruction, etc.– probably don’t apply to you. But, all is not lost!

Even if you don’t have a lot of freedom to choose the type of activities you do with your class, you CAN choose teaching strategies to keep them engaged. I talked in last’s month post about the FMAP guideline: 15 minutes, active participation: make sure you check that out. In addition to that, the best thing you can do is get yourself a class set of dry erase boards. Go to a home improvement store and buy a huge piece of shower board (also called tile board) and have them cut it into one foot-by-one foot squares. You’ll get 30 dry erase boards for about $20. Have parents donate markers and use squares of felt for erasers. Kids can solve problems on their boards and hold them up for you to see and check. Even writing spelling words and doing phonics drills can become more engaging for little ones because they love using the markers! My students used the boards all day long and never seemed to get tired of them. Good luck!

Angela,
Can teachers be bullied by students? Today a student took another students paper and when I asked her why she had it, she announced that it was none of my business and I should just leave her alone. She refused to give it to me or to the other student until I told them they would both get zeros on the assignment. Then she announced that I was crazy and she can’t believe she has to put up with me for two more months. Meanwhile, the rest of the students either laughed or were silent. I told the student to stay after class and she would call her dad and she said she had a family emergency and didn’t have to stay, when I stood in front of her she taunted me and said “What are you, a body guard?” Last month, she was eating in class and I told her to get rid of it and she ate it anyway and called me a b*&$#. I have a parent conference next week, but I’m not sure where to go from here. I’ve been humiliated in my own class. I feel harassed because she’s treated me like this before and I suspect she bullies the other kids and that’s why they let her cheat.
-Anonymous

Wow, Anon, I’m really sorry you’re going through this. Absolutely, I believe teachers can be and are bullied by students. There are two different aspects that I think need to be addressed here. The first is that your administration needs to know what is happening. Ideally, they would show you support, but even if you feel they won’t, you still need to inform them so that you are covered in case the situation ever escalates. If the student lashes out physically, for example, you will benefit if there is already a paper trail documenting her behavior. I would imagine your school or district has a procedure in place where there are levels of consequences for various behaviors: make sure you are adhering to these. If you have a union representative, get that person involved immediately so that you know your rights and the resources that are available to you. This is not something you should be dealing with by yourself.

The other thing that needs to happen centers on your relationship with this student. If you can address the root of the problem, the symptoms will improve. There are so many reasons why this child could be acting out. The two that pop into my mind first are that she might feel like you “have it out” for her and will get fussed out for every little minor thing (so why should she bother to listen to anything you say); and the other is that her behaviors have very little to do with you and are stemming from issues she has with school, authority, and her life in general. It’s impossible for me to tell for sure, of course. If your school has a good guidance counselor, you might want to speak to him or her and get suggestions on dealing with this particular student (chances are, you’re not the first teacher who has seen these behaviors from her), or even have the guidance counselor mediate a session between you and the student.

Regardless of the reason why a student is bullying a teacher or acting disrespectfully, a big part of the solution centers around building a rapport and relationship. I don’t want to sound trite and tell you to talk to her directly about how you feel, but I do think that’s a useful strategy. Use I-statements that are non-accusatory and don’t hold on to any expectations about how you think she should respond; just tell her you’ve noticed that there’s a problem between you, and you care about her and want to resolve it. If you do this with sincerity and kindness, this girl will sense that and it can make a BIG difference. In class, avoid direct confrontations with her so that you don’t have a stand-off. Pick your battles, and anytime you do correct her, make sure it’s done privately rather than loud enough for the whole class to hear. Hang in there, my friend–there are no easy answers, but I’ve seen situations like these get better many, many times. It’s far from a hopeless case.

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Teaching Is… (Give-Away)

Angela Watson — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:00:51 +0000

I recently got an email from Marjan Glavic of The Busy Educator. He and his wife were visiting NYC from Ontario and wanted to know if I’d like to get together. I always love chatting with other educators, and I’ve followed Marjan’s work for many years, so this was a real honor!

We met for dinner at a fabulous little Italian restaurant in the East Village called Giano (the ravioli with mascarpone cheese was so good I could have licked the plate) and did some catching up. After appetizers, dinner, dessert, wine, and coffee, I realized a) I wouldn’t need to eat again for a week, and b) several hours had passed and I hadn’t even noticed. Marjan and his wife are both just so down to earth and easy to talk to, I could have sat there all night.

Marjan was a teacher for nearly 30 years, and has some great stories to tell about how education has changed since he started. Now in his “retirement”, he’s pursuing consulting and professional development work on a greater scale. He’s also still publishing The Busy Educators’ Newsletter which he’s been sending out since 1998 (!!) and he’s just published his fourth book!

As we were leaving, Marjan was kind enough to give me two copies of Teaching Is…Moments That Inspire and Motivate Teachers to Make a Difference…so of course, I thought of you all and decided to give one away! As soon as he pulled the tiny, glossy-finish hardcover book out of his bag, I thought to myself, Oooh, that book would make a PERFECT gift! Apparently I also said that out loud, because Marjan smiled and said that’s exactly what he had in mind. It’s wonderful to give to new graduates, student teachers, colleagues, people who are retiring, and so on.

The book is a collection of quotes that reinforce the power of teachers to inspire, motivate, and make a difference. And like teaching itself, some quotes make you laugh out loud, others make you feel wistful, while still others make you nod in that “I wish I didn’t relate to that!” kind of way. Here are a few of my favorites:

You can immediate understand why a student behaves a certain way after meeting his or her parents.
That incredible, indescribable feeling of relief when the last report card is written.
Reluctantly lending a student $1.29 in February, writing it off as a bad loan, then seeing a neatly piled stack of coins on your desk on the last day of school.
Anxiously waiting and silently praying that the bus shows up for your end-of-year field trip.
You can tell if it’s a full moon or if a storm is coming without ever going outside.
Leaving school on a late Friday night exhausted, but knowing deep down that you made a difference.

Check out some more in this video from TeachingIs.com.:

Such a great concept, right? To win an autographed copy of the book, leave a comment on this post finishing the statement “Teaching Is…” with whatever our profession means to you. The contest closes on Thursday, May 24th at midnight. I’ll send the winner’s copy out right away, so you can have it quickly if you want to give it as graduation or end-of-year gift (or a gift for anyone who has made a difference in your life). Good luck!

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Teaching like it’s 1999

Angela Watson — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:25:01 +0000

(Sorry if you’ll be singing a Prince song all day now.)

I’m more than a little sad that I didn’t have access to a digital camera during my first three years of teaching, and was too cheap to buy and develop film just for classroom pictures. I had no idea that I’d later start documenting tours of all my classrooms online. And I also didn’t realize how precious those memories would one day be.

Recently I was going through some old notebooks and found a large collection of photos from my very first classroom, in 1999. My heart nearly leaped out of my chest when I saw those images. I don’t remember why I took them, or why I glued them to paper where I had typed up incredibly detailed captions (maybe it was an assignment for my masters degree?) but it makes me really happy that I did.

Sharing the images with you, on the other hand, was not so much fun. The laborious process required me to scan each photo, upload it to the server, add the metadata (don’t ask), type the caption, and format the post. Altogether, it probably took me five (incredibly tedious) hours. But it makes me smile to see that little classroom preserved and on display for the world to see, even if no one else particularly cares.

One of the most special things about this set of pictures is that the students are in them. I can remember each and every one of those kids’ names as I pour over the images. This is the first time I’ve ever shared my students’ faces unblurred on the website before: they’re all over the age of eighteen now (!!) and I’m not disclosing the school’s name or where it’s located. You just have to see the looks of pure joy they’re experiencing in learning.

My heart is actually a little heavy as I think back on those days. It wasn’t that long ago, but so many things have changed in education since 1999. I had a record player and a cassette tape deck in the classroom (in case you’re new to the field, yes, technology in schools has always lagged ridiculously far behind what we use outside of school.) I used felt boards and magnet boards to illustrate concepts. There was no internet access in the building, and without access to high-quality teaching materials online, I bought books to get lesson ideas and made almost every single game and prop from scratch.

My students had no formal testing at all; I wrote up lengthy anecdotal reports each quarter which read more like memoirs than assessments. In fact, there was no curriculum: I wrote and scaffolded the lesson objectives based on my knowledge of child development and chose the themes we studied based on students’ interests. We used project based learning before the term was coined: no skill was taught in isolation, and each lesson and center activity helped students make connections to what they already knew.

I think that’s the other thing that makes these images so special: they remind me of a time when education was focused on children. My first few years of teaching were undoubtedly my favorite because I had the most creative control and freedom to meet students’ needs, and the least amount of micromanagement and assessment demands. I know things weren’t that simple in every school in 1999, and a lot of my wonderful experience was because I taught in early childhood. But even that age group has not been left untouched by the rush to standardize and measure: the pre-kindergarten curriculum today is basically the kindergarten curriculum of 15 years ago.

These pictures take me back to a simpler time. They connect me with what’s really important in the classroom: sparking childrens’ passions, building relationships and community, providing meaningful opportunities for students to problem solve and think creatively. It’s harder now than ever to provide that for our children, and it’s more crucial than ever for me to say thank you to those in the classroom who are continuing to try. Only people who have been teachers know how tough the job really is. The public opinion of educators seems to be at its lowest, but please know that your job has never been more important. You are the buffer between your students and a broken system. You make the difference. Thank you for doing what you do every day in the classroom.

You can view the complete set of pictures from this classroom and their original captions on my new Classroom Photos Before 2003 page. You’ll see each center area, our whole group meeting area, some games and activities I made, and projects we did as a class.

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Child-like wonder

Angela Watson — Thu, 10 May 2012 04:00:18 +0000

It’s rainy season now in South Florida where I’m spending time with my parents and friends. Apparently the rains came a few weeks early this year, and they won’t end any time soon–the season technically lasts for half the year. This is the most intense period: from now through July, it won’t rain all day, but it will probably rain every day at some point. Huge downpours and fierce thunderstorms will be the norm. The electricity will flicker and the cable will go out. The sky will go from light to dark and back again, quickly and repeatedly.

When I taught in Florida just a few short years ago, I remember getting so annoyed with the way the kids got sidetracked by the rain. “Guys. Stop staring out the window. Stop jumping and ooh-ing and ahh-ing each time the thunder cracks. There’s a storm every single day. Relax. Now who can show us how to solve 43×17?”

The kids would reluctantly shift their gazes from the glorious show of nature outside back to the multiplication problem on their papers. And having been sufficiently chastised, they’d concentrate, for the most part. They knew when I took them to lunch, they could take advantage of the outdoor hallways and skip through the puddles when I wasn’t looking, or stick their hands under the edge of rain gutters to feel the cool rush of the water, or shriek with laughter as the sideways rain escaped the protective barrier of the overhang and pounded across their feet.

I wish I had let them watch the rain more often. I wish I had stopped being so serious and instead smiled when their faces lit up in wonder as the lightning flashed through the sky. I wished I’d splashed in a few puddles myself. Those moments were precious: they are what I miss most about teaching. And the kids were right to notice the beauty that was all around us.

Just because we’ve seen something a million times doesn’t mean it’s not still majestic. The deep roll of the thunder, the glimpses of sunlight through the dark clouds, the juxtaposition of the green palm trees glistening with rain against the grayness of the skies…why should we stop being amazed?

I could use a little more wonder in my life. I could benefit from putting down my work for a few moments to look outside, gaze up at the sky, and take it all in. I could accomplish more during those periods of concentration if I paused for more moments of being still and reconnecting with a child-like sense of wonder. Could you?

Taken from a school parking lot at sunset after a storm.

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Top 10 free educational game websites for kids

Angela Watson — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:44:53 +0000

Gaming in education is a rapidly growing trend with lots of benefits for kids: high-quality games help children develop problem-solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking skills in a platform that is naturally engaging and motivating. I’m always looking for the best free game sites for kids so I can share them with the teachers I coach. Here’s a list of my current favorite kids’ interactive game sites for grades PreK-12:

Sites you absolutely must check out right this second–no, seriously, go

1. Utah Education Network has curated a collection of free games from all over the web. Basically, the UEN has done the hard work for you and pre-screened the sites so every game they link to is useful and developmentally appropriate. There’s something for every subject and every grade, and the interface is attractive to kids and easy to use. Look in the sidebar on the righthand side and click K-2, 3-6, or 7-12 interactives.

2. Sheppard Software has top-quality games for every subject spanning preschool through middle school. Fun and easy to use. There are ads on the site, so be sure to teach young students not to click on anything to the left or right of the game.

3. BrainPOP’s GameUp is a collection of free games for grades 4-12 in social studies, science, health, and math with no advertisements and no login required. The team at BrainPOP looks through hundreds of online games by various publishers and selects the ones that are of the highest quality, so only the best games make it onto the site. BrainPOP also lists corresponding movie topics you can play if you have a BrainPOP subscription, and provides a lesson plan (written by yours truly!) to show how you can integrate the game into your instruction.

If you like a particular game on GameUp, click the game developer’s icon on the game page to see their full list of offerings. Most of the partners have a bunch of additional high-quality games on their sites that are available for free. I particularly recommend:

Numbaland (gr. 3-8 math)
NCTM’s Calculation Nation (gr. 3-8 math)
Manga High (gr. 5-12 math)
Explore Learning (gr. 3-12 math and science)
Taking IT Global (gr. 6-12 seriously in-depth games on important real-world topics)
NOAA (gr. 3-6 life science and environmental science games)
iCivics (gr. 5-12 civics: really amazing simulations and teaching resources that all civics teachers should be aware of)

Awesome sites that your students will want to use on a daily basis

4. ABCya has K-5 games on language arts and math, as well as various other topics (both educational and just for fun.) There’s also a large collection of games available as apps if you have an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch in your classroom.

5. BBC UK features a kid-friendly landing page which makes learning look like all fun and games, or use the schools-games page which organizes activities by subject area.

6. Hooda Math is an up-and-coming site for gaming that also has a separate section for interactive whiteboard games. There are also some PDF worksheets for some of the games and some math tutorials for grades 3-7.

7. GameStar Mechanic not only offers free games for students to play, but allows kids to make and publish their own games. Very cool!

Other fantastic sites worth mentioning

8. PBS Kids is great for younger students. There are educational and just-for-fun games, which you can sort by subject area and skill. Be warned that some games are premium and require a subscription. I also like the PBS CyberChase collection of math games.

9. FunBrain makes the list because I see kids return to the site again and again even when they have the choice to play non-educational games. My own students were always obsessed with FunBrain, especially Mad Libs Jr. and Grammar Gorillas. The online books and comics addition is wonderful. It’s not the easiest site for kids to navigate independently if they’re looking for a specific game, but that’s mostly because there’s so much there.

10. IXL allows students to practice a variety of math skills online. These are not so much games as they are timed drills and practice sessions, which means it’s not particularly fun and doesn’t have a lot of higher-level thinking questions. What makes it worth mentioning here is the fact that it spans practically every math skill and concept from PreK-12 for free.

What did I miss? Any other favorite interactive websites and online games for kids that your students love?

Disclosure: I received no compensation from any of these websites. I work part-time for BrainPOP but was not asked to write this article or include their resources in it. This list reflects what I truly think are the THE best educational game websites for kids, and I regularly use them in schools with the teachers I coach.

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