Free Twitter Closure Activity

One thing I know I need to be better about is doing a meaningful closure. I just found Tweets About Today's Lesson from Presto Plans and it's a FREE download. Since I teach high school and they tweet more than they text (really), this is perfect. Plus, I have a twitter account just for teaching, so I think I might tweet pictures of the best ones. They LOVE when I give them a shout out.

What are some other meaningful closure ideas?

Tips and Tricks

Hey y'all! Soooo this was supposed to go up Friday...but I spent ALL DAY Friday putting up all my lovely college decs in my classroom (I hope to figure out how to post my video this week) and re-personalizing my computer (gotta love unannounced updates!), so I didn't get this written. But anyway, Blog Hoppin' ended Teacher Week '13 with tips and tricks. Here are a few of mine:

1. I teach high school and there is A LOT of movement the first few weeks as students add and drop classes. Since I am kind of OCD about my rosters and grade books being in alphabetical order and not messy, I just print off paper rosters and grade books for the first two weeks of school. Then I transfer everything to my official grade books and rosters once things seem to settle down.
2. Speaking of grade books and rosters, make sure you keep paper and digital copies of attendance and grades. When I got overwhelmed and stressed, I would just update the digital ones since that's what the school and students/parents accessed. Inevitably, a student would change sections or teachers and I would lose access to their previous grades. Furthermore, sometimes I make mistakes entering grades online and have a paper copy to double check.
3. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING, especially behavior. Conferences are much easier when you can point to documentation, particularly multiple types of documentation. For instance, I started to just keeping a running log on Evernote (thanks, district iPads!) of student behavior. This year I'm adding in ClassDojo and a D-Log students will have to sign (and describe their behavior). 
4. If you dread contacting parents about behavior/academic issues like I do, decide on one day a week you will make contact (unless it is imperative you address the issue ASAP) and put it on your calendar. To make this even better, contact parents about good things. Aim for 1 positive call for every negative call. You'll feel much better.
5. I am planning on not discussing the syllabus the first day and just sending it home because they can read. Some of my coworkers have done this with great success. When I told one of the AVID students of my plan, she broke into a grin and shouted "THANK YOU!" Instead, they'll try to guess things about me and each other (a post for another day).
6. DOCUMENT WHAT YOU DID EACH DAY AND HAVE A SOLID PLAN FOR ABSENT STUDENTS. I failed so hard at this and it made my year so hard. Once you get more organized in this area, add in reflections so that you always know what you thought about a lesson/unit/activity/etc.
7. My Do Now (warm-up) EVERY Friday (even if we had a test) was to have the students share successes/good things from the week. Usually I had them share with their groups and then I would take 5 volunteers or so for whole class sharing. They got really into it and loved being able to brag. It's a fantastic way to get to know kiddos. One class even starting asking ME every week for a good thing.
8. Get to know each of your students. Each week, I pick a kid in each class I don't know too well and ask him/her a few questions when there's downtime and/or call on them to share on Friday. I could tell some had never spoken to teachers before unless absolutely necessary and it just made my day when I took the time to get to know them. One particularly reclusive student was always surprised when I remembered things he had told me and he became more willing to share in class.
9. Be consistent in whatever you do. Even my seniors loved knowing there was a routine or protocol for things. My students learned that if a phone was out, I sent it to the office EVERY TIME. They knew that when they walked into the room, they only had a few minutes to complete their Do Now. If I took up their Do Nows for a grade and they turned it in after I called time, they received a 0. It really does make them feel safe and secure knowing exactly how you will handle things.
10. Respect and treat your students like real humans with valid opinions. One of the best compliments that was simultaneously one of the most heartbreaking things I've heard was when one of students moved to another district. On her last day, she said "Ms. Poe is my favorite teacher ever because she respected me and didn't make me feel stupid." While I'm glad I succeeded in making my classroom a safe place, it absolutely broke my heart to hear she felt like none of the teachers in her life ever made her feel like a real human. 

Tomorrow starts my week of professional learning and then the kiddos come! I'm so freakin' excited!

Taming the Wild: Classroom Management

Hey y'all! Today's post as part of Blog Hoppin's Teacher Week '13 is all about classroom management. Now, I teach high school, so there isn't a whole lot of cutesy management happening in my room. As much as I would love to do it, I don't think a clip chart or anything like that would work in my classes. The one part of my ever evolving management that I do have a picture for is how I reward participation and on-task behavior:

I found these boxes in the Target dollar section last year (they always have some sort of little containers there) and labeled them for each of my classes. I bought a giant roll of raffle tickets and another little container serves as a container for the blank and ready to be used tickets. If a students shares a success on Fridays, gives a thoughtful answer, or is just following my directions, I give them a ticket. They just simply write their name on the ticket and put it in their class' container. At the 3 weeks mark, I do a drawing in each class for a class coupon. The coupons rotate among adding points to a test/quiz, dropping the lowest daily grade, an extra day on assignment, etc. At the 6 weeks mark, the drawings are for a small gift card (Sonic is always popular with my kiddos). At the end of the semester, I dump all the like classes together (last year I put all the geography tickets together and then all the economics tickets together) and do a course drawing for a larger gift card (I think I did a $25 Visa gift card both semesters last year). I wasn't always the best at remembering to hand out tickets, but the kids made sure I did the drawings. I always had one or two students who would really want to win the prize and when they didn't, they vowed to do better so that they earned more chances. I did notice that when I quietly passed out tickets to students who were completing work, the rest of the class would slowly catch on and settle down. So I definitely need to make following through on the tickets a priority this year.

Something I kind of started last year but never really did much with but definitely plan to change that this year is ClassDojo. I've heard of some teachers projecting it onto their screen while students should be working. That way students can see who is earning points and who is learning points. I know other teachers who just have the sound on and students then know whether someone earned or lost points and start monitoring their behavior and the behavior of their classmates. I like that you can send a code to parents so that they can track their child's behavior. I definitely need to do a better job of documentation and I think this will be a step in the right direction.

That's all I have for managing my high school classes. If you post, make sure you link back to Blog Hoppin'. Also, be sure to check out all the other posts on Blog Hoppin'! People are sharing some really brilliant ideas. 

Does anyone have any management tips for high school? I would especially appreciate examples of consequences! For example, how do you address side chatter in a high school classroom?

Now Teach! Organizing for Instruction

Hey y'all! Day 3 of Teacher Week '13 hosted by Blog Hoppin' is all about getting organized so that you can teach. As I explained yesterday, I never really got much of a chance to organize the way I wanted my first year. So today I'm going to just talk about my summer project that I have almost 100% completed- my Post-It Note lesson plan books!

Since I have 2 preps this year, I'm making 2 lesson plan books. I have finished all but one little bit of labeling on one book and I need to finish a lot on the other book...so maybe not almost 100% finished. Last year when I was looking at lesson plan books and not really liking anything I saw, I stumbled upon this post and decided to figure out a way to adapt it my needs (she's an elementary teacher and I teach high school). I ADORE Post-It Notes and I like that this system allows you to easily make changes (just move notes around!).

I decided to do 3 full rows on each page like so:

That's all my week 1. In the first picture, I have Monday-Wednesday. My big categories are I can (the student-centered objective), Materials, Agenda, and Assessments. The green 1/3 notes (I just cut regular notes into thirds) are for homework. The first 3 1/3 notes on top are for the TEKS (state standards) for Monday-Wednesday. The last 1/3 note on top is for AVID strategies I'm using those 3 days.

The second picture is Thursday, Friday, and notes. Thursday and Friday have the same categories as Monday-Wednesday. My categories in my notes section are the good things from the week (+), the changes (the delta sign- just a triangle), absent students, and general notes. The 1/3 green note in the notes row is what I'll need to prep for the next week. The notes up top are the TEKS for Thursday and Friday, AVID strategies, and technology I'm using for the week (I really wanted to focus on bringing more technology into my classroom).

I also wrote a post and an update about how I organize my to do list. The original post can be found here and the update can be found here. Check them out because they involve Post-Its! (Are you getting a sense of how much I love those things?!)

Now I need to finish up my books and start actually filling them in! Don't forget to link up to/check out all the other tips on Blog Hoppin'!

Classroom Digs

Hey y'all! It's day 2 of Teacher Week '13 hosted by Blog Hoppin'. I'm not allowed back into my classroom until next Monday (don't tell anyone, but I'm going to try to sneak in Thursday before our AVID party shhhh) and I never really had the energy to fully organize/decorate my room this past year. It's hard being hired 2 weeks before school starts! Consequently, I only have pictures from the very first day I laid eyes on my room. I hope to completely revamp it and get that posted for y'all by the end of next week. I definitely do not want another year of almost completely blank walls!

The view when you look in. You can see that I had already bought some things to start organizing my front table. I kept the desks in groups most of the year. The previous teacher left behind the giant lectern he built, so I spraypainted it purple and used it for storing papers I needed that day, the notecards I used for cold calls, and other various things.

Better view of the front table. I kept supplies for the kiddos in bins. Those buckets became table caddies for materials groups would need that day (holla at the Target dollar spot!). I used the square bins to keep every student's folder. They could keep notes and materials and I passed back papers to them instead of wasting time passing out papers in class. This year I bought some milk crates and will use hanging folders because those bins made it near impossible to flip through the folders. I put up schedules, memos, and my assignment trackers on my cute little bulletin board :)

Better view of my groups/2 of my 3 GIANT windows. The windows are great, but I wish I had more wall space instead of so many giant windows. You can also see the bookshelf that housed the partial class sets of the books I used and other random books.

Probably the least cluttered my desk looked all year. I have plans to make some cute supply holders out of cans. I also want to see if I can get those filing cabinets moved out as they are full of really old worksheets and I don't really keep that many paper copies of my materials.

So, yeah. Lots and lots of work ahead. I have college swag, AVID swag, and geography/history swag to put up and finally get my classroom looking like learning is happening. I think I'm going to use the small section of corner wall between 2 of my windows to create a fridge where I'll hang super awesome work just to brag on some kiddos. I've started a post card collection because my teacher bestie Mia is a genius and I'm jumping on board with her idea, so those will be hanging from my ceiling.

Here's the whole week of topics if you're interested. Don't forget to link back on Blog Hoppin'!

Update on the To-Do List

Many moons ago, I posted about the Post-It notes to-do list (found here). Many people have wanted it, but there have been issues downloading it. I put it in Google Drive, but since Drive doesn't exactly support Publisher, an error message always pops up. A reader pointed out that you simply ignore the message, click on "file" and then "download" or just simply click the arrow below "file" (thanks, Kristin!). YOU MUST HAVE PUBLISHER IN ORDER TO DOWNLOAD AND EDIT THIS FILE. If you don't have Publisher or still can't get it to work, email me what you would like the file to say and I would be more than happy to edit it for you and email you a PDF. My email is argyleandpolkadots@gmail.com.

Click here for the link again.

Teacher Week '13: Meet the Teacher!

Hey y'all! Oh dear. It has been some time. I figured Teacher Week '13 is a good time to get back into the blogging game. Blog Hoppin' is hosting this week, so check out all the blogs linked on that site!

Here are the topics for the week (so play along!):

Let's get down to this!

1. Probably the most important thing you should know about me is that I bleed purple. I am a proud Horned Frog from the Texas Christian University class of '11. My family has had season tickets to the football games for over 19 years. Consequently, I was dreaming of one day being a Horned Frog since kindergarten and I am so glad my hard work paid off. 
   
   
   
2. Speaking of dreams in kindergarten, I have wanted to be a teacher since then. Except in kindergarten, I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, in first grade I wanted to be a first grade teacher, and so on and so forth. In middle school I realized I really liked language arts, social studies, and theatre and went between those three subjects as possible careers. High school was when I narrowed it down to getting a double certification in theatre and social studies. However, majoring in theatre for two years in college made me realize I didn't want to actually teach theatre (I'm awful at design) and I finally settled down with high school social studies.
3. I spent two summers during and immediately after college working for a wonderful program called Breakthrough Collaborative. High school and college students spend the summer teaching rising 7th-9th graders in literature, writing, math, and science. The students are under-served, highly motivated kids who want to get ahead in school. They take the content courses they'll be taking the next year so that way they get the material twice! The students pledge to complete all three summers, participate in the academic year programs throughout middle and high school, and attend college. Those kiddos inspired me to also become certified in middle school and I hope to one day teach middle school! Such a powerful program. I cannot even begin to describe how much it means to me (it doesn't hurt I met some of my closest friends while teaching there). 
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. I have my composite in social studies which is awesome for hiring and terrifying for getting my assignment each year. Last year I taught on-level and basic geography (9th grade) and on-level economics (12th grade). This year I was told I would have all PAP geography but I've been surprised with two sections of PAP world history. The joys of being composite. While I'm slightly apprehensive about taking on these (somewhat unexpected) challenges, I am nevertheless excited for the new adventures and am so grateful to my friends and colleagues who have sent me resources, material, and tips.
5. Last spring, I joined my campus' AVID site team and attended the AVID Summer Institute. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT AVID. I definitely drank the Kool-Aid. AVID provides students who are in the academic middle with support, tools, and strategies so that they can excel in their classes (including PAP/AP/IB/honors). I have learned so many strategies to use in my everyday classroom and am completely rejuvenated for the new school year. I am most excited about creating a college-going atmosphere, helped largely by generous donations from friends, family, and strangers. People from all over the country have sent me their extra college swag. So, if you have any extra college shirts, waterbottles, flags, pennants, keychains, etc. that you just don't know what to do with, please contact me (argyleandpolkadots@gmail.com) and I will gladly take them off your hands!
6. How did I get donations from people I don't even know? Well, I was VERY involved in residence life in college. I started out on Hall Council, became an RA and Assistant Hall Director, joined the National Residence Hall Honorary, and ended with serving as my region's Associate Director of NRHH. That meant I went to conferences all over the country, met people from all over, and have stayed connected with the organizations. I posted all over various Facebook groups that I was looking for college swag (I knew NACURH and SWACURH would have plenty of leftover college swag) and was overwhelmed by strangers' generosity. The National Association of College and University Residence Halls obviously supports students going to college :)                                                                                                                                                            
   
                                                                                                                                                            
7. Reading is absolutely one of my favorite things to do, but I don't always make enough time to do it (I'm trying to be honest and say I'm not making time versus not having time). This year I set my GoodReads reading challenge goal at 25 books (I failed miserably at 50 last year) and I was so excited this summer to get ahead on my pacing! I'm trying really hard to make time to read every day because I really do want to get back to reading more. Plus, I'm making reading a priority for my students this year. I'm going to implement DEAR once a week and I'll update my currently reading list so my students can see what I'm reading. I hope that will also keep me honest and on track with my reading goals.
8. One of the first things people notice about me is that I love to laugh and I laugh LOUD. I once had a friend call me while I was walking to class in college. She asked if I was over by the fine arts buildings and when I told her I was, she informed me she could hear me laughing across the main road that cuts through our campus. When my kids make me laugh (which is basically all the time), they're always afraid they "broke" me. "Y'all broke Ms. Poe! Look!"
9. I like to pretend I'm super artsy craftsy, but projects either never get completed or end up looking WAY better in my head. But that doesn't stop me from pinning and hoarding materials. So that's why I could never teach elementary- I'm not genuinely craftsy enough.
10. Little known fact- I have become way more introverted over the years. I think it's because res life and education require you to be "on" AT ALL TIMES. I used to rejuvenate by interacting with people, but because that has been the majority of my life for the past few years, I now just need to hide out on my own for a while before I'm ready to face the world. Like, I have definitely made up excuses to not hang out with friends just so I can not talk to people for a few hours. But don't worry, friends, I am still a strong Blue/Gold (the True Colors personality assessment is how I relate to the world. You should take it) and still enjoy nurturing!

That's it for me! Please check out all the amazing teachers linking up on Blog Hoppin'!

What are some little known facts about you? Can you relate to any of my confessions? Does that mean we can be friends?!

Feelings about the STAAR

For anyone who happens to be reading this who either isn't in Texas or hasn't been keeping up with education, the STAAR is the state test in Texas. This will be the second year we have it and it's the most rigorous state test we've had yet.

I had my kiddos take a benchmark/practice test at the end of March. I told them beforehand that it was going to be a test grade, so they better take it seriously. I had 16 out of 102 pass the benchmark. Granted, the passing rate on the benchmark is a 70 and the passing rate for the STAAR this year will be much lower (I believe in the 30s-40s), but I am still upset most of my students either did not take the test seriously or did not take the time to read each question. I told them that even if they didn't know the answer/the content/whatever, they could still make a really good guess by reading the question carefully. The highest class average was a 59, so not too hot all around.

Their test is on May 9 and we start our boot camp tomorrow. I just worry about them being ready to rock the STAAR since most of them haven't proven yet this year they can think through a question.

While I'm mostly worried about them passing and being able to stay on track to graduate, a tiny part of me is freaking out because of how their results will reflect on me. Each student has a PEIMS number for state testing and teachers are tracked through that number. If a school notices that one particular teacher seems to always have struggling students, that's justification for not renewing the teacher's contract. While teachers should be held accountable, I don't think it should rest solely on how students do on state assessments. Teachers cannot control how students will do on tests, as seen by many of my students essentially refusing to take the benchmark seriously. I don't know if they'll react the same way to the real STAAR or finally get down to business.

Essentially, my first full year of teaching has been fraught with worries about my students' futures and my future.

P.S. If you have any ideas about motivation during a review boot camp or setting goals for state testing or review activities, it would be much appreciated!

To Do List- Teacher Style!

I don't think I could pin this post fast enough! I adore Post-It Notes and clipboards and Clutter-Free Classroom just really nailed it. Once I was hired and could finally log onto my computer, I quickly adapted this project to make it my own so that I could start organizing my thoughts. Here's the result:

I simply made it in Publisher by finding the one border I liked, putting in squares to frame the Post-Its, and labeling each square. Originally, I made the Post-It squares the same size as the notes, but I really like having them framed. I'm not super tech literate, so I don't know how to make it super fancy like CFC, but I'm still a fan of what I created. I printed it on cardstock and it is residing on my clipboard made of recycled bottles :)

If you want to use my template, here is the link. Click on the little arrow under "File" to download. You do have to have Publisher to download and edit, so if you don't, I am more than willing to edit it and email you a PDF. Just shoot me an email (argyleandpolkadots@gmail.com) if that's the case.

Sunday Sweets

It's time for my weekly roundup of good things!

• Monday was Open House. I wish more parents (specifically the ones who have had issues with me) had attended, but I was pretty pleased with the way it went overall. PTSA kindly fed us delicious food (including Chick-fil-A sweet tea!), I had some good conversations, and I was able to explain the method to my madness. I even had a decent number of kiddos show up. 
• This week was the first time most of my kiddos who said they would come in for make up work actually did. It was awesome.
• One of my freshman football boys has stayed after school twice now to finish up some stuff. The first time he stayed until six, which was a whole hour more than he needed because we were just talking. Those talks really do make a difference in the classroom, y'all.
• One of my girls gets super sickly, so she also came after school one day and, again, stayed longer than necessary just chatting. I didn't really know her that well because she's in one of my more time consuming classes and she's already missed about a week of school, so it was neat getting to know her. 
• My econ kiddos didn't do as poorly on their test as I was fearing. Not great, but they didn't all completely bomb.
• I've been able to connect more with my paras and I'm starting to feel better about all of my special needs kids.
• My kiddo who speaks practically no English started becoming more insistent this week on doing the same work as everyone else even though he doesn't understand it. And another ELL student has continued to be a rockstar and fill in my language gaps.
• 3rd period is one of my more talkative classes. Like, I'm constantly calling out the same kids over and over again. However, Friday I only had to do it once or twice. Even when they were having table discussions it was relatively quiet. I was so proud of them!
• TCU is now 3-0! My best friend came along with us to the game and one of my dad's co-workers bought us Sonic afterwards, so it was a good day.
• Friday I discovered my new favorite show- Secret Princes on TLC. Y'all. I'm never doing anything on Friday nights again. Say Yes To The Dress and this show. OH MY GOODNESS.
• I'm probably going to regret this tomorrow, but I did practically no work this weekend. Like, I have to have most of my weekend for me. I think that's really how I've managed to avoid the exhaustion everyone else seems to be fighting.

Wow. It has been a super good week (again). Tuesday (and I might need someone to hold me to this) I'm going to post about some of my time management strategies. Huzzah! Real teacher tips!

What are some of your good things?