Help Students Express Gratitude and Brainstorm Solutions

Behavior: Do We Really Understand Series? Part 2 of 3

When considering our students’ misbehaviors, let me pause this scene for just a minute and zoom in closely as to what is really going on here. It’s a total conflict of mental desire and physical action. The classic case of knowing what the right thing to do is, but not wanting to do it. So, the real question becomes what is causing the conflict? And perhaps at six or seven years old it’s probably safe to assume that not all students know how to articulate their needs.

Build a Grateful Community for Solving Behavior Challenges

There is so much to unpack here. First, we need them to recognize their feelings so that they are aware of the discomfort and hopefully move to addressing it before it becomes an unmanageable crisis in the classroom. How they are feeling first thing in the morning. Then I connect with a social emotional activity. Keep it simple, I generally use gratitude. What is one thing you are grateful for in the last 12-24 hours? Building a grateful community allows for the practice of compassion. This is how a safe space begins to develop. Students are encouraged to share their vulnerabilities. After all, we are ultimately talking about mistakes being made. We need to offer the opportunity for students to speak about the problem without judgement. Solutions are not resolved at this time. The floor is only open for a candid conversation about their current social emotional state.

We will learn how to create a goal setting behavior checklist next week.

Danielle

Understanding Students’ Behaviors

Behavior: Do We Really Understand Series? Part 1 of 3

The saying that has been cycling around my head goes something like this. Look around you. The five closest people in your life are those who you most likely emulate. They influence your thoughts, behavior, and overall choices in life. With that said, if you find yourself asking questions such as, Why did ____ do that? Doesn’t she know better? How many times do I have to tell you to ___? Chances are if you look around your circle, or your child’s circle, you will find someone in it who either mirrors the behavior or triggers it. Our actions are really not a mystery. However, changing them is a whole other story. This solution can very easily work at home for distance learning.

Use a Social Emotional Clip Chart

As educators and parents, we struggle with understanding behavior. In my 13 years of teaching, I had my first ah-ha in this area last year. Last year was one of those years where the students’ social emotional needs literally hijacked the classroom on a regular basis. Several often entered in the morning with a rating of 6-8 on a social emotional clip chart where 10 was considered exploding with anger.

Change the Top 5 Disrupting Behaviors

I was desperate to get the students’ buy in and to own or at least acknowledge what they were doing. So one day after many iterations of a behavior management system, I decided to show them a graph. I plotted the top 5 disrupting behaviors and told them I needed them to team with me to become ambassadors, who could model the right behavior in these critical areas.

Help Students Self-Regulate Their Choices

To my surprise the ones who contributed to the disrupting behavior were the very same students who willingly volunteered to be the representative for the desired response. My first thought was I didn’t see that coming. Then I reflected and realized that I was wrong because I was asking the wrong questions. Asking them to stop the behavior was never going to work. But if I could get them to wrap their thinking around what they were doing and guide them to make different choices, then I could partner with them in self-regulating their choices. This was a fundamental shift on a continuum of denial of their disruptive behavior. It ranged from mindless impulsivity to awareness, acceptance, choice and finally action.

Next week we will learn how to help students express gratitude and solve behavior challenges.

Danielle

Performances Document Student Learning

Measuring Academic Progress series, Part 3 of 3

Welcome to another school year of changed schedules and routines as our students modify their daily lives in response to social distancing and the coronavirus. Most students will be asked to use alternative assessment strategies that include authentic performances in learning.

Alternative Assessment Examples

RUBRICS: Scoring scales for assessing learning using a defined set of criteria ranging from spelling to creativity

CHECKLISTS: A register of essential goals and learning outcomes during learning

LEARNING CONTRACTS: Agreements between students and teachers that describe mutual learning goals, strategies for achieving them, and expected outcomes of learning

SELF ASSESSMENT: Review of learning when considering evidence of learning, progress towards mastery, lingering confusion, and a plan of next steps to improve outcomes

PEER REVIEW: Provides an alternative perspective on learning that relies on rubrics, checklists, or open-ended prompts for feedback and advice

CONCEPT MAP: Graphic models of learning that illuminate the progression of knowledge from essential content, to applications, and creative/constructive processes of learning

PORTFOLIOS: Compilations of learning in an evidence-based system of process, progress, and outcomes

These examples illustrate that there are many ways that students can assess their learning with their teachers.

How to Create Portfolios

For added information on how our children can learn by creating portfolios to assess their learning, you can check the resources on these websites:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/100046/chapters/Determining-the-Basics-of-Student-Portfolios.aspx
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/grades-6-8-digital-portfolios/
https://www.edutopia.org/article/3-tools-creating-digital-portfolios
https://www.kqed.org/education/528577/free-robust-and-unglitchy-digital-portfolios-with-seesaw https://www.today.com/parents/how-homeschool-during-coronavirus-crisis-t176020

You can also order the newly released Student-Engaged Assessment book by Laura Greenstein and Mary Ann Burke with a 20% discount until 12/31/20 by using promo code RLEGEN20 from Roman and Littlefield at https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475857825/Student-Engaged-Assessment-Strategies-to-Empower-All-Learners.

Happy learning with your children while helping them compile their portfolios of learning!

Laura

New Ways to Help Our Kids Document Learning

Measuring Academic Progress series, Part 2 of 3

Parents can help children track their progress through alternative assessments. This is an effective way to help our children document their learning during these challenging times as well as when children do not attend a “brick and mortar” school during extended vacations. Alternative or authentic assessments rely on a foundation of learned knowledge and skills that learners integrate in their understanding and evidence of mastery. Alternative assessments ask the student to use what they have learned for a purpose rather than simply reiterating it.

Examples of Authentic Performances and Displays of Learning

PRODUCTS: Puzzles, games, timelines, simulations, primary research, experiments

WRITING/PUBLISHING: Scripts, stories, headlines, catalogs, press releases, marketing plan

ORIGINAL DESIGNS: Artwork, music, cartoons, book covers, illustrations, models, graphic designs

DEMONSTRATIONS/PRESENTATIONS: Show/explain how it works, teach another, simulation, lab experiment

PERSUASIONS: Debate, defense, advocacy, advice, editorial, soapbox, urge to action

MULTIMEDIA: Visual/auditory/digital products such as an infographic, video, storyboard, e-zine, newscast

How to Document Performance

Performances and displays require comparisons and alignment with the purposes of learning. For example, if you were learning to play tennis, the coach would watch your movements and make recommendations for improvement. If you were writing a press release or a summary, it would be fact-checked and assessed for organization and persuasiveness.

For more information, you can also order the newly released Student-Engaged Assessment book by Laura Greenstein and Mary Ann Burke with a 20% discount until 12/31/20 by using promo code RLEGEN20 from Roman and Littlefield at https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475857825/Student-Engaged-Assessment-Strategies-to-Empower-All-Learners.

May your children’s alternative assessment documentation reflect how they have accomplished progress towards specific goals or by achieving mastery of learning objectives.

Laura

Education and COVID-19: Pressing the “Pause Button”

As I write this blog entry, we are about a couple months into shelter in place due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19. Even as we are ending the school year and planning what our family’s summer will look like, there are still many uncertainties and undecided factors surrounding what the re-opening of schools will look like in the fall. I wish there could be a “pause button” so we could evaluate some of the issues and consider the best way to move forward. On top of the obvious health risks with opening up schools and increasing exposure, here are some of the issues that I have been thinking about, and maybe you have, too.

Racial Tension

For the first time in a long while, people of Chinese descent have been targets of xenophobia as related to COVID-19. Even though I have not experienced any of the racially-based anger directed personally at me, I am saddened that it still happens. On a more global level, it troubles me immensely that racial inequalities still exist in marginalized communities! What implications do racial issues have for school-aged children when they return to school when it opens? Will they have picked up misinformation from the press? Or will they hang on to the message of kindness and hope, of doing what is right in the face of injustice like so many of my fellow teachers have taught?

Social Emotional Needs

One of the big concerns that schools have been addressing are the social emotional needs of children. Especially after such a traumatic event like this pandemic where everyone’s lives have been disrupted, students will need a safe place to process all of their pent-up emotions. Will schools be equipped to provide enough counseling services? Will teachers be trained to support students’ emotional needs? How can social emotional needs be addressed along with academic needs?

Digital Divide

Even before the corona virus reared its ugly head, the digital divide was a problem lurking in the background. While students had access to technology when they were in school, they might not have had the same access once they returned home. Sure enough, the shift to distance learning proved just how great the need is for access to technology. Even as schools were providing Chromebooks to use, students’ homes still needed WiFi to operate. And it’s not just the equipment, it’s people, too. Not all teachers were well prepared to move their teaching to an online platform. Will there be ongoing tech support for families who receive school-issued computers? Will there be ongoing professional development for teachers to learn how to teach online effectively?

Opportunity Gap

You may have heard of the term “achievement gap” to refer to the disparity in academic outcomes, but there is also this notion of the “opportunity gap,” the idea that students are not provided the same level of opportunity to achieve to the best of their potential. Whatever racial, socioeconomic, or systemic inequalities which existed pre-COVID-19 have now been exacerbated for all students. When considering the continuing deep budget cuts to education, more and more programs may be streamlined or eliminated. This means that fewer students will have access to programs and educational support personnel like teachers, librarians, or academic counselors who help students navigate the system that will bring them success. Will the state or federal system invest in America’s future? Will parents rise up and make their concerns known and voices heard on behalf of their children?

If these thoughts echo your own sentiments, I encourage you to reach out to your child’s school administrators and communicate your concerns with them.

Wishing you well,

Jaime