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Thought starters

1. What information should be shared during the pre-observation meeting?

2. Why is it essential to have a "back-up plan" for your lesson?

3. How self-reflective and open to constructive criticism is the teacher during the post-observation?

School Details

Herricks High School
100 Shelter Rock Road
New Hyde Park NY 11040

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New Teacher Survival Guide: The Formal Observation

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A new chemistry teacher at Herricks High School in Long Island, New York, participates in a 3-step formal evaluation process. The process includes a pre-observation meeting, the formal observation, and a post-observation meeting. The department head, Karen Hughes, conducts the evaluation of Laura Gurick.During the pre-observation meeting, Laura shares the classroom dynamics and plans for the lesson.

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Solve the puzzle by identifying place values.

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Place Value -  How Much Is This Number Worth (Mr. Pearson Teaches 3rd Grade)

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Formative assessment has never been faster.

Plickers is the free card activity your students will love.

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Formative assessment has never been faster. Plickers is the free card activity your students will love. Join millions and play in your next lesson. Sign up for free Used by K-12 teachers in over 100 countries

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Writing numbers in words and standard form

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3rd Grade Math: Multiplication - Equal Groups Picture Strategy (OA)

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Explore math with desmos.com, a free online graphing calculator

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"Wixie is a great tool for my students to showcase their learning by creating original digital projects, which can be easily shared with their teacher, classmates, and family members. It is a unique program that allows students to access all 4 C's, is highly engaging, and most of all FUN! My students cannot wait to log in to Wixie and ask about it all the time!"

Dr. Monica Winkler
Buffalo Trail Elementary, CO

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Wixie is a creative platform for powerful teaching and learning in the cloud.

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A question popped up in one of my classes last week about cultural accommodation: "Dr. L, how much should we acknowledge or accommodate our students' cultures in our classroom or school? How do ELLs learn to function in the new culture if they're constantly living in the old one?"

This must be on the minds of many teachers, because I came across two different studies via Education Week: one about how prior school experience is one of the largest predictors of the success that refugees will (or will not) encounter in a school setting, and the other about how important it is that teachers adapt to the culture of their newcomer students. Fellow TESOL blogger Nathan Hall also provided some ideas for helping ELL students acculturate to a new context, as well. While not every ELL is a refugee or a newcomer, both of these studies and Nathan's blog support the answer that I gave in class, which supported the necessity of including culture in the language classroom for both students and teachers. For TESOL teacher educators, though, I think there is one more step that teachers should take, and that is to go so far as to integrate students' culture and background knowledge into your instruction to be more effective.

In one approach to culturally-inclusive education, González, Moll, and Amanti (2013) stress the importance of using students' , which are created by the out-of-school life experiences that students have. For example, it may be tough for a beginning ELL to express his knowledge of fractions, but he may be well-versed in portions and ratios as he helps his parents cook. Thus, it isn't that he doesn't understand fractions; he might not understand them as presented in a book, but is well aware of the concept in real-life. A math teacher who is aware of this would try to incorporate more of the familiar context to support the classroom learning.

It seems the more we know about the role of students' funds of knowledge, the more important they seem to be. Even if you are working with English learners in a foreign language, rather than a second language environment, drawing upon your learners' life and cultural experiences as they learn language can strongly impact their language learning. In addition, if you're a teacher trainer or teacher educator, teachers' life experiences and beliefs should also be taken into account, as Johnson (2006) put forth in her discussion of the sociocultural turn in L2 teacher education. Teachers who are learning how to teach in a preservice university setting, as well as in-service teachers with their own career experiences, have their own funds of knowledge that effective teacher educators will account for as they facilitate coursework, professional development, and reflection.

Some practical ways of beginning to learn more about your students' cultures and funds of knowledge, in addition to web-based research, are:

conduct home visits;

have students create photo essays of a typical day or weekend in their home/family life;

have students create a collage of hobbies/pastimes;

interview your students/students' families;

invite guest speakers from various linguistic communities to share traditions, celebrations, or slices of daily life;

attend public events in your students' communities;

host an event at your school where students and families can contribute food and/or music; and

advertise events from your cultural community that students/families might enjoy.

Then, don't stop there-challenge yourself or the teachers that you work with to take that cultural knowledge and integrate it into teaching via texts and activities that place language and content in contexts that tap into those valuable funds of knowledge.

Feel free to add ways that you've integrated funds of knowledge into your language teaching in the comments below!
Reference
González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2013). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Routledge.

Johnson, K. E. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 235-257.

About Kristen Lindahl

Kristen Lindahl holds a PhD in linguistics with a specialization in L2 teacher education from the University of Utah. She is currently assistant professor of bicultural-bilingual studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she teaches pre-service ESL/TESOL educators at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. Dr. Lindahl has taught K-12 and college ESL, and actively pursues consulting and coaching teachers of English learners in public and English language schools around the globe.

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A question popped up in one of my classes last week about cultural accommodation: "Dr. L, how much should we acknowledge or accommodate our students' cultures in our classroom or school? How do ELLs learn to function in the new culture if they're constantly living in the old one?"

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Teachers have long known that feeling safe and secure in school helps students focus their energy on learning. And the research bears that out: A 2018 study found that when teachers deliberately foster a sense of belonging by greeting each student at the door of the class, they see "significant improvements in academic engaged time and reductions in disruptive behavior."

Edutopia covered that study last year, and we've shared many other ideas from teachers for ensuring that every student in the classroom feels like they belong.

Some of the activities below take less than five minutes. They're divided up among the grades, but many can apply across all of the years from kindergarten to 12th grade.

Elementary School

Shout-Outs: This is a quick way for students to celebrate each other for doing a job well or for attempting something difficult. Shout-outs can be incorporated at any point in a class. First-grade teacher Valerie Gallagher of Providence, Rhode Island, rings a chime when she wants to get the class's attention to ask who has a shout-out.

"It's not just me as the teacher saying, 'You're doing well'-it's a way for them to interact with each other and celebrate positivity," says Gallagher.

Friendly Fridays: Elizabeth Peterson, a fourth-grade teacher in Amesbury, Massachusetts, uses Friendly Fridays as a simple way for students to lift each other and themselves up. Peterson has her students write a friendly, anonymous note to a classmate, practice using positive self-talk, or use storytelling to give a peer a pep talk.

Sharing Acts of Kindness: Fifth-grade teacher Marissa King, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, shares two activities that encourage kindness. In the first, the teacher gives students secret kindness instructions, such as writing an anonymous note to a peer who is struggling in one of their classes.

The second activity revolves around noticing others' acts of kindness: When a student sees a peer tidying up in the classroom, for example, they can post a thank you note on a shared digital "kindness wall." Both activities coach students to be kind to their peers in the hope that they'll begin to practice kindness unprompted.

Middle School

Paper Tweets: To build community in her seventh-grade classroom, Jill Fletcher of Kapolei Middle School in Kapolei, Hawaii, created a bulletin board modeled on Twitter. Students use a template to create a profile, and they enlist at least three followers-a friend, an acquaintance, and someone they don't interact with much.
Courtesy of Jill Fletcher
When the class does this activity-which takes about 45 minutes to set up the first time-Fletcher has them respond to prompts about their current mood or new things happening in their lives, and then their followers respond.

Class Norms: Bobby Shaddox, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at King Middle School in Portland, Maine, has his students develop a set of norms for themselves-adjectives that describe them as a community of learners. Having students come up with their own norms creates "a pathway toward belonging for every single student in that class," says Dr. Pamela Cantor, founder of Turnaround for Children.

"Instead of a top-down list of rules that a teacher gives a class, these are words that we generated together," says Shaddox. "It helps us own the behavior in the classroom."

Group Salutes: A moment shared between two or more students at the beginning or end of an activity, a Group Salute is a teacher-prompted interaction that is a quick, low-prep way to cultivate community. The shared gesture can be physical-like a high five-or social-a teacher could ask students to express gratitude to their group members.

There's some interesting data supporting this idea: Researchers found that NBA teams whose players touch the most early in the season-high fives, fist bumps, etc.-had the best records later for the season.

High School

Morning Meetings: Morning meetings have long been a staple of elementary classrooms, but they can help students in all grades transition into class. Riverside School, a pre-K to 12th-grade school in Ahmedabad, India, uses a version of morning meetings at every grade level as "a pure relationship-building time." Bonding exercises led by teachers or students include physical or social and emotional activities, or discussions of sensitive topics like bullying.

Appreciation, Apology, Aha: As a quick, daily closing activity, students gather in a circle and share an appreciation of one of their peers, an apology, or a light bulb moment. The teacher models the activity by sharing and then asks for volunteers to speak.

"Those types of appreciations and community recognitions can go a long way toward building bonds," explains Aukeem Ballard, an educator with Summit Public Schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"A low-stakes thorn might be 'I feel tired.' Yet many students choose to share more personal items, like 'My thorn is that my dog is sick and I'm really worried about her,'" writes Alex Shevrin Venet, a former school leader at a trauma-informed high school.

Snowball Toss: Students anonymously write down one of their stressors on a piece of paper, crumple it up, gather in a circle, and throw their paper balls in a mock snowball fight. When that's done, they pick up a snowball and read it aloud.

"The idea is that we're moving around. We're able to have fun, laugh, scream, be loud, and then have that discussion about stress," says Marcus Moore, an advisory leader at Urban Prep School in Chicago.

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These community-building ideas for the classroom can help teachers ensure that students in every grade feel like they belong.

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How well organized are your emergency sub plans? I have to admit that mine were not well organized. I'd dutifully throw together some worksheets and a generic agenda, but they were no where near complete.

Thankfully, I never had to use those emergency sub plans. However, if a sub ever had to use them, it might have been chaos!

Kelsey from Wife Teacher Mommy is here today to share with you six simple steps for organizing your emergency sub plans. These are some great tips for pulling all those resources together in one place.

Every teacher knows how difficult it is to take a day off. At most jobs, if you're sick last minute you can just call in sick! However, as a teacher you must have sub plans ready whenever you need to have a day off. That can be enough to make a teacher decide to just go in rather than take time to rest.

Emergency sub plans can help alleviate that stress when you or your child wakes up sick in the middle of the night. If a family emergency comes up, you know that you're taken care of! When you have plans already ready, that's one less thing to worry about and you can just deal with whatever else it is that you need to deal with, and temporarily forget about school.

I would recommend putting together at least a day's worth, and up to a week, of emergency sub plans ready to go for your class. These can be worksheets or other easy activities that are at grade level for your class and would be easy for a sub to implement last minute.

However, putting them together is just the first step! It's important to have your emergency sub plans organized. If you leave your sub with a huge stack of papers, that's likely to be very confusing and lead to a very hectic day for your sub AND your students. Here are some ideas to have your sub plans organized ahead of time, so when you have to take one of those unexpected days off they are completely ready to go.

#1: Create an Outline of the Sub Plans

Include a basic outline of the plans for the sub. This can simply be a list of everything that is included in the plans.

For example, in my sub plans, I included an outline for each day. The outline includes a morning writing prompt, a list of all the lessons and their topics for the day, and which lesson plan to refer to for each lesson. However, any sort of outline will help keep things organized!

#2: Organize Sub Plans by Subject

Keep the worksheets for each subject with the lesson plans or directions for that subject. If the order of the lessons matters, then put the subjects in that order.

#3: Have a Class Set of Each Worksheet Printed

Have a class set for each worksheet printed so it is ready to go in the case of your absence. If you have 30 students in your class, make 30 copies of each worksheet. Then put them together in your sub tub.

#4: Put It All Together

This is putting together your "sub tub", as many people like to call it! You need a way to physically organize your plans. It can be as simple as a file folder for each subject in a bin or filing cabinet drawer. You could also put them together in binders. An accordion folder could work great because you could use a different tab for each subject. Find a method of organizing the plans that works for you.

#5: Find a "Spot" for your Emergency Sub Plans and Label It

This is very important! You have put all this work into putting together your sub plans, so you want your sub to be able to easily find them. Put them in a spot that it safe (where they won't be disturbed) but that will be able to be found easily by your sub.

#6: Communicate with Team Members

Tell your team members where you have put this so they can also tell your sub where to find them if you are out last minute. You won't need to worry about your sub not finding them, because you know that your coworkers have your back!

It can be a bit hectic to put together emergency sub plans, but you will definitely be thankful that you did it if/when you need them! The peace of mind alone is worth the time putting them together.

If you're wondering what to include in your sub plans, check out my post "5 Things your Emergency Sub Plans MUST include" on my blog! This post outlines everything your sub would like included in your sub plans, BEFORE you begin to organize them!

Additionally, if you're just getting started with your emergency sub plans, you might enjoy my Sub Plan Mini Lesson Freebie! This includes a text questioning mini-lesson and a graphic organizer that students can use while silent reading. It also includes an editable school schedule form and a handy "How Did The Day Go?" Substitute Notes Form, so you can know how the day went while you were away!
Click here to grab your sub plan freebie to get started! Kelsey Sorenson is a former elementary teacher and substitute teacher turned stay-at-home mom. Kelsey specializes in creating ready-to-go sub plans, integrated units, and seasonal curriculum for her Teachers pay Teachers store . She also writes about her teaching ideas, including fun ways to integrate the arts, on her blog, Wife Teacher Mommy.

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Six Simple Steps for Organized Emergency Sub Plans

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Every teacher know how difficult it is to take a day off as a teacher. At most jobs, if you're sick last minute you can just call in sick! However, as a teacher you must have sub plans ready whenever you need to have a day off.

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Explore topics about ADHD, dyslexia, and learning disabilities. Learn about focus, hyperactivity, executive function skills, and trouble with reading, writing, and math.

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RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have the time to develop them from scratch.

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By Barbara Blackburn
Although our assessment of students is critical to learning, we also want students to learn to assess themselves. Encouraging students to take measures of their own learning is more rigorous than the teacher providing all the assessment.

As always, with greater rigor comes plenty of support. We can't expect students to immediately grasp what it means to gauge their own academic progress.

Let's look at four strategies that allow students to provide a brief snapshot of their learning, then three that are more detailed.
First, you may want to have students assess simply where they are in the learning process. Although these provide a brief look, you could ask students to expand on their responses.

Triangle Reflection

Melinda Crean, author of Top Notch Teaching, shares a way to have students reflect on where they are in the process of learning. Using triangles, she asks students to choose their level of learning.

Musical Notes/Color Clusters

Carolyn Chapman and Rita King in their book Differentiated Assessment Strategies: One Tool Doesn't Fit All provide two ways for students to share how well they understand the content. Both require students to think about their own learning and identify their progress. In musical notes, students use songs to identify their learning stage.

Similarly, in color clusters, students label their learning progress through a series of colors.

Laundry Day

Similarly, in Laundry Day, students group themselves in four categories derived from detergent brands. With the groupings you can then determine how much re-teaching needs to occur.

You also may want to ask students to provide detail on their thinking, rather than simply gauging their progress.

A Bump in the Road

With A Bump in the Road, students reflect of their learning and identify two to four points where they hit bumps in the road, or struggles. Then they partner with another student to see if they can work their way through their struggle.

Muddy Point Board

With Muddy Point Board, you designate an area in the room or a board for students to use to pin questions they have - the "muddy points" that confuse them.

You may have students do this at the end of lessons, or you may use them throughout the lesson. Not only does this provide you a perspective of their learning, it allows you to customize your instruction to their needs.

Reflective Journals

Another strategy for self-assessment is the use of reflective journals. Former middle school teacher Kendra Alston used journals with her students. She asked students to continually reflect on their learning in their daybooks, simple bound notebooks. Then she asked them to write a reflection on their learning at the end of the nine weeks. Some wrote about specific content they learned; others of her students reflected on how they learned.

You can also use journals for students to reflect on specific information about their subject area. For example, in math, students might focus on explanations.

Your students can write in their journals daily, weekly, or at the end of the month or grading period. Students can also keep their journals online in a blog format, or through Google Docs.

Conclusion

Providing students opportunities to reflect and self-assess is an important part of your instruction. It allows students to take ownership of learning, and reflects a more active, rigorous approach to learning. When you use self-assessment techniques frequently, you're gathering information "in real time" that can help fine-tune lessons and differentiate more effectively.
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A nationally recognized expert in the areas of rigor and motivation, she collaborates with schools and districts for professional development. Barbara can be reached through her website or her blog. Follow her on Twitter @BarbBlackburn. Barbara Blackburn was named one of the Top 30 Global Gurus in Education in 2017. She is a best-selling author of 16 books including Rigor is Not a Four Letter Word and most recently Rigor and Assessment in the Classroom.

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7 Ways to Help Students Self Assess Effectively

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By Barbara Blackburn Although our assessment of students is critical to learning, we also want students to learn to assess themselves. Encouraging students to take measures of their own learning is more rigorous than the teacher providing all the assessment. As always, with greater rigor comes plenty of support.

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Olympia Della Flora: Creative ways to get kids to thrive in school | TED Talk

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To get young kids to thrive in school, we need to do more than teach them how to read and write -- we need to teach them how to manage their emotions, says educator Olympia Della Flora. In this practical talk, she shares creative tactics she used to help struggling, sometimes disruptive students --…

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Amy Edmondson: How to turn a group of strangers into a team

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Business school professor Amy Edmondson studies "teaming," where people come together quickly (and often temporarily) to solve new, urgent or unusual problems. Recalling stories of teamwork on the fly, such as the incredible rescue of 33 miners trapped half a mile underground in Chile in 2010, Edmondson shares the elements needed to turn a group of strangers into a quick-thinking team that can nimbly respond to challenges.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Teaching Tools | Resources for Teachers from Scholastic