Becoming a Writing Teacher

 

I want the focus of my ICDP this year to be on becoming a Writing teacher.  The school decided that I am no longer teaching first-period Reading, but instead teaching first-period Writing.  Obviously, this is supporting an initiative in the Middle School to improve Reading and Writing scores.  This will take a lot of effort and planning so I would like my ICDP to be centered around that process. 

The school purchased a Reading and Writing curriculum for us to use this year.  The main data that will be used to determine how successful this implementation is going will be FAST and ISASP scores.  

RESEARCH AND FINDINGS - Most of the research was already done for me in a sense.  Our 5th Grade Reading and Writing ISASP scores weren't great last year so we invested in a new curriculum this year for Reading and Writing.  Most of our "research and findings" is becoming more familiar with the new curriculum, what resources are available, how to best use them, and what we want to change and/or supplement with the given lessons.  

We started out the year focusing on letter writing.  We've moved into the grammar portion of the curriculum.  Eventually we will work with the Writing portion of the curriculum, but we aren't ready yet.  Today as a team, we looked at the curriculum for writing and tried to get a better sense of what the writing lessons will be like.  We also did some short term and long term lesson planning.  

• PLAN OF IMPLEMENTATION - My plan of implementation is to teach writing and our new writing curriculum during first-period Writing class.  We started out the year working on some other things so that the Reading curriculum could catch up and align with the Writing curriculum.  So we have started working through and teaching the prepared lessons from the curriculum.  I think everything is going well, though I still lean on my team a lot.  But we plan together so it's very convenient.

  I also find myself connecting our Writing lessons into Social Studies which is good.  The cross-curricular connections benefit both me and the students.

-MS Teacher

SEL in the Classroom

This year I focused my ICDP on becoming better at explicitly implementing SEL within my classroom. I chose to focus on my opening and closing of the day this year. I had hoped to get further in my journey, but I had a student teacher which did not allow me to implement for as long as I would have hoped. Throughout the process this year I found authentic tools to use as the opening and good things within my classroom to build relationships with students. I also used some tools from Jeffrey Benson in helping with my closing of the day or my launch. Benson's book provides many good prompts for closures to lessons. I chose what to implement based on what the lesson is for the day. For my good things I started to use some questions that I found through a teacher on Tik Tok. Doing the different questions each day and still continuing to do Bop or Flop has helped me to better build relationships with students this year. I have also started to use different launches. One that I probably use the most is with the last 30 second of class having students look around their seats and making sure they have everything and everything is picked up. I have also used launches such as find a partner and share the most important take away you had from the lesson, discuss something from the lesson you need a little more help with and questions along those lines to have students reflect over the learning. I feel overall that I still have more work to do on my ICDP because I want to continue to be intentional with SEL but in ways that are authentic to me. I would like to start off next year having a focus each day and being intentional with linking them to the SEL competencies. I also would like to have some SEL integrated with my formative assessments. This is going to be a continual goal whether I use it as my ICDP next year or not because it is important work.

In this video I talk through what I have implemented this year as well as provide video examples of how I start my class each day and different launches that you can use.

Summative and Formative Assessments

My journey this year was to alter my summative and formative assessments.  I have leveled my summative assessments for all my classes and incorporated many primary sources to challenge students in their thinking.  But as I challenge them more in their thinking, I also want to give them choices when answering certain questions. While I have included more formal and informal assessments in my teaching I have realized that I may need to restructure what I'm really asking students to do and give them the appropriate feedback that will help them succeed.

Animal Adaptations - PBL Style

Independent Literacy Stations

 

Formative Assessments in Ag Classes

 

Formative Assessment

 One key piece that I will continue to work on and refine is being even more consistent with making sure that my formative assessments and feedback are timely and done often enough.  Once in awhile, I struggle a little bit with the timing of some standards.  For instance, the balance between making sure content is being covered thoroughly enough without overwhelming students.  One of the hallmark things that is on all of the social contracts in my room is being understanding of time, so I try to balance giving students a break to either get caught up or not be overwhelmed with making sure we continue making forward progress while also allowing enough time for feedback.  

Civil Discourse

 Civil Discourse - ICDP Presentation

Social and Emotional Learning in Music - The Journey

 

My Journey of SEL and Music

Social Emotional Learning in the Music Classroom

Getting Started

 My ICDP focus this year is on SEL in the music classroom.  Music programs naturally embed several aspects of the social/emotion end of education, however, the effects of Covid have really hurt students' desire to participate in band/choir due to various fears.  Due to these concerns, our retention and recruitment has been negatively affected and we are trying to recoup our ensembles.  Data will be taken from the Conditions of Learning survey, recent ensemble numbers, and qualitative feedback from students.  Adjustments will be made to my teaching by additional research and experience implementing SEL lessons.

Resources

SEL Arts (Links to an external site.)

One of the best resources I received from the Iowa Arts Summit last summer.  This gives examples and language in directly connecting the SEL standards to the national music standards.

 

Social Emotional Learning and Music Education:  Now More Than Ever (Links to an external site.)

This is an article by the leading researcher of SEL and music, Scott N. Edgar, giving examples of things music educators can do in their classrooms to further reach students in their social emotional learning.  He explains the connection between the musical arts and the variety of ways we implement SEL on a daily basis.

 

Fostering Social Emotional Learning In and Through the Arts (Links to an external site.)

Some good ideas, but the best part is the resource list at the bottom which includes a shared Google Drive with even more resources.

 

Teaching Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Through Music (Links to an external site.)

This resource center includes a wide variety of videos from music educators with ideas of how to intentionally implement SEL into the music classroom at any level.

 

Music Education and Social Emotional Learning: The Heart of Teaching Music (student workbook) by Scott Edgar (GIA Publications)

Reproducible pages and ideas for use in music classrooms.  It is split into the goal groups of SELF, OTHERS, and DECISIONS with teacher resources (including goal, learning standard, student skill set) and student worksheets.

 

 

This is truly just a work in progress as I keep finding new resources.  I have been implementing a variety of voice and choice ideas within my ensembles while trying to gather informal feedback along the way.  I have found that some ideas work better with 7th graders than they do with 5th graders and vice versa.  I appreciate how students are willing to give feedback on which activities they enjoy and which we need to send back to the drawing board.

It has been rather validating to discover in some of the research several ideas I have been doing already as prime examples of connecting with students.  It can feel overwhelming though with the amount of information and potential ideas/examples.  I need to continue in small steps with the idea of a little at a time makes a difference.

Research Findings

In attending the Iowa Fine Arts Summit last summer, I gained several resources and examples of lessons or units I could potentially use in my classroom.  One that I found very intriguing and tweaked to fit my students is a unit called What’s in a Name?  For our winter performance set of music, I copied a song for the 7th grade band without the title or the composer at the top.  The students had a packet to be completed along the way while we sightread and started learning the song.  Several times the students were asked what title they would give the piece of music.  After working on the song for several rehearsals, we had a ‘big reveal’ day.  I asked students what titles they came up with, why they chose those titles, and general thoughts/feelings regarding the piece in general.  I also had them look at photos of composers to other songs we had played in the past along with the composer for this tune and try to guess which person it was before revealing the actual song title.  It was very interesting hearing student song titles and getting overall feedback on how we approached this unit.  I will be doing something similar in the future with a few changes to the overall layout.

One thing I was more purposeful in doing in general this year with all of my groups was asking for more student input.  This ranged from feedback on song choices to students ranking percussion assignment preferences to voting on which songs to perform for a concert.  I also played a few songs for students as potential ones to pass out and learn and received great feedback on what to proceed with versus what they were not as interested in playing.  Several of these ideas were very successful and ones that I will be doing again in the future (percussion assignment preferences and working on several songs but then voting on which ones to perform).  Students gave positive feedback on having more voice and choice in these selections.  

Lastly, there were several smaller activities or parts within lessons that I discovered in the Summit last summer or in my other research that we implemented in class.  We continually change up how we do Good Things (question of the day, would you rather, 2 truths and a lie, get to know you questionnaire, fist to five, favorite….).  I have had students conduct a warm-up, help with being music librarian, and help teach new-to-band students on their instrument during rehearsals.  We ranked ourselves using a preparedness chart on the marker board (sightreading - familiar - comfortable - confident - performance-ready).  We also discuss perseverance and working through the hard parts of music being like tackling obstacles in life.  Finally, setting small goals rather than large ones makes them less overwhelming and gives us points of celebration along the way.

Independent Reading Stations

 

Image by DavidRockDesign from Pixabay 

 This year I have decided I want to work on my independent reading stations. I have looked at the quality of work and challenging task I have gave in the past to keep them engaged. I have noticed some children have a more difficult time focusing and getting work done. I want to make student's stamina stronger to be able to stay focused and engaged the whole 20 minute stations. The data I gather was observational and anecdotal data through the years. I see this as a focus because students need to learn the routines better to eliminate wondering, focus, and quality of work. My hope is this topic will enhance the support and student learning by building stamina and giving them more challenging task to then help their word work and reading scores at the end of the year. I will be using the Jim Knight book, Jen Burns, and other staff members to help me this year. 

Effective Literature Circles

 I am focusing on literature circles in the classroom for my ICDP. I want to focus on this area because we utilize them in the Language Arts classroom and they are not as effective as we would like to see them be. Currently, students are given directions on lit circles and expected to complete their assigned role, but there seems to be no additional learning taking place. Creating plans that will assist in student growth and using methods that have been researched should increase student engagement and understanding.

At the moment, I have one book that discusses mini lessons in lit circles. I plan to use the AEA library and experts in reading for my resources. I will know that I have improved in this area with student growth. The evidence will come from their papers/projects that show an increase in understanding.

Learning after Trauma

 I am going to focus this year on trauma and school.  I am finding more and more that my students are experiencing more trauma and they do not have ways to cope with it. In a day and age of technology, kids often turn to the computer to find the information and that can lead them down some very shady paths if not done correctly.  By learning more about how to help trauma and coping with today's issues, I will not only be able to help my own students but I will also be able to help the population as a whole in the building.  

Learning to handle trauma will help my students be more successful in their daily lives not only in my classroom but long after they are gone from these walls. Unfortunately, trauma is becoming a bigger issue each passing year.  As we know now, no student has had a normal school year in awhile.  The last time my 8th graders had a normal school year was in 5th grade. That was their first year with me.  The rest of the kids in this building have never had a normal school year in this building.  

Literacy Footprints with Guided Reading

 I will be doing my ICDP on using the Literacy Footprints Kit so that I can be a better with Guided Reading teacher.

Being consistent and more intentional about using the kits will hopefully allow our students to make more growth in Guided Reading.

I will be more intentional about taking notes during Guided Reading groups, I will be more consistent about seeing each of my groups and I will be intentional about using shared reading strategies. I believe this will allow students to grow.

My  plan to use some of the shared reading ideas that we learned from Jennifer Burns will also be beneficial and allow our students even more growth. EK now has the goal of getting students to a level C by the end of the school year. Last year our EK data showed that we had only 34% reading at a level C. The goal is to use the kits for the entire time we are doing our Guided Reading groups .

My research will be focused on improving student achievement by using the Literacy Footprints kit to improve student achievement and prepare them for kindergarten. I will also use strategies in Jan Richardson's book in conjunction with the kits as well as shared reading strategies from Jennifer Burns. Using the books "The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading and "The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics", the Literacy Footprints kits and information from Jennifer Burns will improve my teaching.

I will know growth was made by using our leveling information from last year. 

To be successful with implementation of all strategies our leveling data will improve from last year to the end of this year.

Alternative Assssments

 For my ICDP I want to learn more about tying the essential elements to alternate assessment tests and how these assessments can be illustrated in my student's iep goals.  Teresa Kaloupek is the master of this, and I'd like to learn more on how to tie these all together.  We give these alternate assessments, and currently they seem to not reflect the topics we teach or progress is not reflected on student iep goals.  When essential elements and alternate assessment are used together, they can drive our iep goals for our students.  Current practice leaves these three pieces jumbled and confused.

 

My learning into the essential elements has been progressing this past year as I've taken the elementary life skills sped position, and I have more to learn on how to adapt these to students.  I've worked on looking at curriculum, student needs, and progression for teaching.  More work needs done in this area, as well as incorporating alternate assessment into this mix.  My learning will come from studying with Teresa as well as researching trainings from the internet.

Alternative Assessments aligned to IEP Goals

Close up of young female teacher sitting at desk with a Down syndrome schoolboy using a tablet computer in a primary school classroom, smiling, close up, side view. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 01-04-2019, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=1595552&tl=photos. Accessed 29-09-2021.

 I am going to be working to align my students IEP goals and our daily curriculum to connect to the alternate assessment's essential elements. The essential elements are the equivalent of the common core standards for our Level 3 students. Kerri, Teresa and I are hoping to create a more streamlined program that flows through the grade levels and supports all of our students.

This would be great for helping to create IEP goals that not only support the student's needs but also gives them more support for their assessments. 

We also feel that this will help point out more specifically and on a broader level, the skills that they have mastered as well as the ones they are struggling with. This allows us to break those skills down into even smaller steps to see how we can better support our students.

Literacy Footprints in Early Kindergarten

 

Female infant school teacher working one on one with a young white schoolboy, sitting at a table in a classroom writing, looking at each other, close up. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 01-04-2019, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=1595800&tl=photos. Accessed 29-09-2021.

I am going to be doing my ICDP on the topic of using the Literacy Footprints Kit to improve my guided reading instruction.  By using these kits consistently as they are intended to be used I believe our kids will show greater growth in the are of guided reading.  I believe this will be beneficial in helping to prepare them for kindergarten, which is my goal as an Early Kindergarten Teacher.  I will work to improve my note taking during guided reading time and I will work to get to groups consistently so they have plenty of opportunity for growth in the area of literacy.  We also have plans to implement some shared reading strategies that we learned this summer that will help support the work we are doing in our guided reading groups.

This school year the goals for EK have changed.  We have the expectation of getting our students to a level C by the end of the school year.  When looking at our data from the end of last year only 34% of our Early Kindergarten students were reading at a level C.  I want to use these kits to  accomplish this goal for more of our students.  Last year we only had the kids for part of the school year so I am looking forward to using the Literacy Footprint Kits all year.  

I plan to focus my research on the progress that can be made by consistently using the Literacy Footprints Kits to improve student achievement when it comes to literacy.  I will focus on strategies in Jan Richardson's book as well as the kits to improve my teaching.  I plan to use the resources that came with the kit, the resources I have received from Jennifer Burns on the topics of shared reading and guided reading, and Jan Richardson's books:  "The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading" and "The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics".  

I will know that growth has been made in this area by using our EK leveling data from last year.  If we are successful in implementing the Literacy Footprints Kits for the school year then our leveling data will improve from last spring to this spring. 

Morning Meeting in Preschool

Elevated view of infant school children in a circle in the classroom giving high fives to their smiling female teacher, vertical, close up. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 01-04-2019, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=1595730&tl=photos. Accessed 29-09-2021.

 I will be focusing my ICDP for 2021-2022 on developing strong morning meetings with preschoolers. I chose to focus on this after I attended a Nevada PhD session on morning meetings that really intrigued me. I have always done calendar and good things but it never felt complete to me and after my morning meeting session, I realized I needed to add a classroom community piece that connects to social emotional learning. As a building, we have a goal to incorporate more social emotional learning throughout a student’s day and this is an excellent way to do just that.  Adding a morning meeting will help my students feel connected to each other as a classroom family and build social emotional and academic learning.

I would see implementing morning meetings more of an area of growth rather than an area of concern for me. I want to grow my student’s relational capacity and understanding with their peers as well as merging social emotional skills and academic learning. I will read The Morning Meeting Book by Roxann Kriete & Carol Davis as well as reading blogs or social media posts that gather ideas to strengthen morning meetings.  

I will use my Teaching Strategies GOLD data from Fall, Winter, and Spring to see the growth in my students. The areas in GOLD I will mainly focus on is social-emotional, language, and cognitive. I will know I have improved in creating strong morning meetings is the growth I will see in GOLD by increasing over the color bands.

Guided Reading with Intentionality

 

Cute cheerful little girl reading book wearing glasses, isolated over white. Stock Photo. Clipart.com School Edition, Vital Imagery Ltd., 05-09-2013, https://schools.clipart.com/download.php?iid=639741&tl=photos. Accessed 29-09-2021.

Sep 27 at 9:04am

Manage Discussion Entry

This year my focus for my ICDP goal is going to be guided reading.  I feel like I've focused on math instruction a lot in past years and need to spend time focusing on reading instruction.  Last year I was able to dabble in Literacy Footprints with my online students and then when I moved back onsite, I was able to continue.  I want my guided reading groups to be calm and intentional.  I want the kids to walk away with a love for reading and writing and having grown in their abilities everyday.   Looking at Leveled Benchmark data from the end of the year last year, I have quite a few 1st graders that did not meet end of year goal in Kindergarten.  I will be taking the Literacy Footprint Guided Reading class once a month with Jenn Burns and Erin Klopstad.  I will be using Next Steps Teacher's Guide to Guided Reading text along with videotaping myself working with students and digging deeper into the why and how of each piece of a guided reading lesson.  I will know students have been impacted by this goal when I do the Jan Richardson Leveling Benchmark at the end of the year and students will have grown at least 1 year or met the end of year goal.

Folk Dancing in the Music Room

Image from Unsplash (Yan Berthemy)

 For my ICDP this year I would like to focus on integrating more folk dancing into the music room!  

4th quarter last year (20-21), I started using a few folk dances as a way to get students' bodies moving either at the beginning of class to wake us up or at the end as a reward for hard work (because they are fun!!- at least most students think so).  The first time I did this in class with the 3/4 students, I got tons of eye rolls and groans that I was going to make them dance... by the second class period they were begging to have enough time to "Sasha" and wanting to know when we were going to learn a new one!  I quick checked with Shawna and Lisa about what dances they knew that I could learn/teach quickly and I made a list of 4/5 that we did throughout the remainder of the school year.  

I would like to spend more time researching and learning new dances that I can integrate this year with the students because movement is so important to our learning and (I am working on this next part) but research shows that dance teaches so many different parts of music as well (beat reinforcement, form, phrasing) as well as many other areas outside of music (posture, cooperation, SEL), not to mention it can be very fun!  I know though that I have to be purposeful in how I teach the dances and what I emphasize if I want to be able to actually teach those areas so I want to spend time a) finding more dances and b) planning how I will incorporate the teaching of form, beat, SEL, cooperation, etc.