Learn Like a Pirate: Peer Collaboration

Now we're getting into the nitty gritty of what PIRATE really means!  In this section we find that the P stands for "Peer Collaboration."  Again, this is one of those things that I kind of prided myself on.  You could walk into my classroom and see students collaborating together.  At least I thought you could.  From reading this I'm starting to think that sometimes they weren't necessarily collaborating so much as just working together; which is fine and dandy sometimes, but not what I want.

We as teachers have to set the stage for a collaborative community.  A place where we are hands off (No more micro-managing!  This will probably be the toughest of them all, lol.), give lots of support and feedback and set our goals and expectations high.  The second I read this I instantly thought of the company GOOGLE.

This video reiterates how the employees come up with ideas talking with people from other departments, how the bosses are very hands off and trust their employees, how they are a family, etc.  Everything this book talks about!  Fair warning, the end of the video does talk about how Google promotes women in the work place, so that might not necessarily be as relevant to your students if you decide to show them this video.

Just a few changes in your day to day occurrences can end up having a big impact!

1. Encourage Leadership with Give Me Five:  This gives students to power to interrupt at any given time.  Now, the southern girl with matching manners in me instantly broke out in hives. BUT he makes a valid point.  A lot of the times the kids will interrupt what you are doing to ask you something, tell you something or share something and that interruption could cause the student you are working with to lose focus.  Of course now all I can think about is Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter,  "OOH, OOH, OOH!" You know we've all got one...

By giving students the power to interrupt you are letting them become leaders.  Telling them it is okay to share what they have found so no one else runs into that problem.  It is okay to ask different students for help.  It is okay to clarify something we are learning about or ask questions.  Even when they interrupt and it is inappropriate, that's a teaching moment!  Show them how to do this correctly, it will take some time.  When you allow this to happen you will see a significant change in how much they rely on you to tell them what to do and how they become problem solvers and leaders themselves.

2. Space that Encourages Learning:  Let them roam free and pick a spot in the room they want to work in.  This is something I do A LOT and it works out fabulously!  If another group is too loud my kids make the executive decision to get up and move themselves, no hinting from me or anything.  I mean, look back at that GOOGLE video.  Who wouldn't want to work in tent!?  You don't even need fancy settings like that, trust me, your kids will love to just get out of their desk and lay on their tummies.  But if you do feel the need to have a cool space, you can always add an igloo!  Get it, cool space??? Punny, I know ;o)

3. Responsibility Partners: And I shall call you Accountability Partners (because it's part of our 7 Habits lingo - Sorry Paul!).  A lot of you probably do something for this already: clock partners, phone partners, Popsicle sticks, etc.

This will not always be a normal partner scenario though, in fact sometimes you're not even working with them!  They are there to make sure you are on track, bounce ideas off of, or even ask for help.  "How are you doing?  Do you need a water break?  What do you think of this?" and back to their assignment they go.  They are responsible for each other which gives them an interest in one another's success!  Paul suggests you keep responsibility partners for a while so they get to know one another and feel comfortable in their pairing.  This partnership really helps keep your students on track and in charge of each other (leaders anyone???).  Loving it!

4. Classroom Meetings: This is something we will be starting this upcoming year and I am very excited about it!  Paul suggest that this is where you talk about class issues and solve them together.  This is also the place and time you will really talk about how people are different, what they can bring to the table and empathy for one another.  When kids understand differences they are more accepting of others.  This is not something they are necessarily born with, some yes but not all, and we need to teach them this concept.  In the book he has a lot of ideas and topics for this category but one thing he recommends is a WONDERful (man I am on a roll!) book: Wonder by R.J. Palacio, to help you show and teach your kids these skills.  Click on the image to learn more about this amazing book!

5. Competition: Don't make the focus of your classroom the end result, the grade, completing the task.  Make it about the process, the learning.  As I was reading this section and he was talking about how he could see competition having a negative effect on his classroom, I thought "my kids handle it well, so no worries there" but it's not a matter of how they handle the winning or losing, its how they get there.  When I assigned problems it never failed that my kids would always split them or one person would find the answer.  No matter how many times I tried to explain that that wasn't the purpose or that's not how I wanted it done.  I realize now I was not starting off with a good foundation and I was making the end result more important than the learning.  This was a HUGE eye opener of a section for me and it's really probably the smallest section, lol.

Needless to say, big changes are coming my way and I'm excited to implement them and I think the kids will really be excited by these shifts as well!  Again, if you have not gone out and grabbed this book, you must!  Click on the image below and you can have it at your door in two days time ;o)  Got to love Amazon Prime!

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts along the way!  Next up is the I in PIRATE...  What do you think it stands for?

Learn Like a Pirate: Student-Led Classrooms and Concerns

Ahoy mateys!  Every summer I read at least one professional development book for school.  This summer I was very excited to see that there was another book in the Teach Like a Pirate family: Learn Like a Pirate by Paul Solarz.  I absolutely adored Teach Like a Pirate, so how could I not love this one?!  As I read this I realize it is PERFECT for the Leader in Me model at our school!  Paul in fact even mentions it a few times in the book ;o)

I'll be joining some other amazing teachers for this book study thanks to The Primary Gal!  Click on the images below to see what everyone else thought about these sections! I am going to try my best to condense these as much as I can since I combined them into one post.

What is a student-led classroom?
"A student-led classroom is one in which students make decisions and choices throughout the day without consulting the teacher."  Everyone in the classroom appears to have equal power and equal say in what happens, although they understand that you, as the teacher, have the final word.

For the most part, I thought I had a good chunk of my day as "student-led."  Even reading through some of the concerns, I didn't feel like a lot applied to me so I thought I had this in the bag!  I. Was. Wrong.  I'm on the right track for the most part but it is not as amazing as it could be and that is my goal for next year!  Paul gives you some really great tips, ideas, words to calm your nerves (lol) and videos to help you through this process.

Is my classroom a student-led classroom? Eh.

Yes, my students make decisions but they aren't always the best choices (GASP!) and they don't always think about how their actions will effect themselves, their peers, or even me.  Reading through this book has shown me by taking control they are really starting to see things in a new light.  They are actually taking control of the class (interruptions and all - this makes me a smidge nervous as there is a fine line between teaching moment and bad manners, but Paul says it works so I'm going with it!), teaching each other, helping each other and learning from one another!  I've got a lot of work to do but I'm very excited for the journey and I think my kids will be too!

Concerns
Don't worry, it's not a free for all!  You still have teacher led time (mini-lessons) and there is also collaborative work time and time to reflect or synthesize.  This is a scary endeavor to embrace wholeheartedly though, let's be honest.  We're teachers.  We're perfectionist and micro-managers by nature usually.

Here are some of the main concerns (not all mind you):

• "I'm worried about giving up control to my students." (Let's be honest... WHO ISN'T?!)
• "I can't do this.  I'm definitely going to make a lot of mistakes and fail." (Yep!  We sure are!  But that's okay because we can use them as teaching experiences and if your kids see that it's okay to fail and try again, they won't be as hesitant to embrace this experience with you.)
• "There's just too much at stake.  I can't risk this not working." (If you fail at a student-led classroom, you end up with a teacher-led classroom! At least you tried!)
• "This will be too much work.  I can't take on another thing right now!" (Hopefully your kiddos will take on most of it after a while.  That's the whole point.  Consider this the epitome of the "work smarter, not harder" saying.)
• "I'm overwhelmed.  I don't know where to begin." (Begin by getting this book! It's amazing!)
• "But won't my room get loud?" (I have a love/hate relationship with my loud room.  Love that they talk and collaborate and really, they are a little family because of it.  That being said... they talk and collaborate about things that are not necessarily academic or even what were working on sometimes.  You probably don't have kids like this in your room, lol.  I need to find my happy medium.  All in all, I'd prefer talking to no talking.)

There are many other concerns and Paul addresses them all beautifully in the book.  By the end of the chapter you have this wonderful self-confidence that you can do this... and you can!

This won't necessarily be easy.  It will take LOTS of practice for your kiddos to be comfortable making decisions without you.  They are used to "perfect classrooms."  Where the goal was to make the perfect choice, the perfect grade, etc.  Here, you want them to make good choices and do well, but you want to see improvement, growth, thinking, taking risks all while being comfortable enough to make those decision and feeling safe with their choices.  Make sure to show praise for making an effort, even if it didn't go as planned.  For this to work, your students need to feel safe with you (and not in a "I got your back in a fire drill" kind of way).  They need to know you care about them as people: how their soccer game went, what their hobbies are, working one on one with them throughout the week, etc.  If they know you care about them, they will strive to make this work.

Every day you'll want to provide learning opportunities and show them what a student-led classroom looks like.  Because as new as it is to you, it's definitely new to them too!  Some things, like the interrupting, you are going to have to show them when and what is appropriate to interrupt for and what isn't.  And this will take you more than one day.  More than one week even, but you can do it!  You will have some push back from your students, co-workers, maybe even admin.  It's going to take work but by the second semester, you'll see a student-led class in action (Paul says so, so I'm taking his word and keeping my fingers crossed)!

All in all I'm very excited for this journey and I hope you continue along with me and the other fabulous teachers over at The Primary Gal's blog.

Leader in Me Mini-Series: Leadership Notebooks

Something big is happening at our school this year!  We are becoming a 7 Habits Leadership School.  If you're not sure what this is, don't worry, I wasn't either, lol.  Stephen Covey wrote the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Leader in Me is essentially the school/kid version of that book.  As a school we won't start implementing the 7 Habits until next month but we have started using Leadership Notebooks regularly in place of our Data Notebooks.

If you use a Data Notebook in your class you'll notice that our Leadership Notebooks are not that much different...  Just a few more things added.  Now, I will be the first to say that I'm not 100% sure that this is how a Leadership Notebook should look/be set up, or if there even is a way to do it perfectly, but this one works fabulously for us!  Here is an inside look at what we have in ours. 

 

FAIR WARNING:  This is an insanely long post but full of freebies.  Just click on the image to snag yours!

Starting off, every student has a 1" white binder with a page view cover.  You can have your students bring in tabs or make your own.  We made our own using file folders that we cut in half and hole punched! 

The very first thing the students and parents see when you open the binder is a letter to the parents explaining what a Leadership Notebook is and the expectations for both the student and parents.

Next up is a Parent Review and Comments page.  We will send these notebooks home a few times every month.  This page keeps parents updated on what has been added since the last time they saw it and has a section for them to sign or comment and ask questions if need be.

Our tabs are as follows:

My Self: This is where you can find everything personal about students.  Their goals, behavior, homework tracker, contributions, etc.

 Every month students create an academic goal and a personal goal to work on.  The first time I introduce this I only have them focus on their academic goal.  The following month we will write a goal for each: academic and personal.  More on this coming up with Leader in Me Mini-Series: SMART Goals.

 

Academics is a huge focus in schools, obviously, but you also want to teach your students to be good people!  We talk about contributing to our communities in different ways and keep a log of how they contribute to our school.  We have many opportunities to do so through fundraisers and Kids Care Club and every time they contribute something (time or money) they get to color in a box.  I will tell you that this is what my students gravitate to more than anything!  They LOVE being a part of something and helping in any way they can.  Since they have started filling out this form I have become inundated with contributions from my kids!  Makes for one proud teacher :o)

Reading Data: Here you can find their Lexile scores, fluency graph, graph for Unit Tests, and their Reading DE scores.  You can also keep track of how many books they've read, Reading Genre Challenge, etc.  Add whatever you want!

Math Data: Very similar to the Reading Data section!  Students keep their  Multiplication Masters Fluency Tracking Chart, Math Chapter Tests, and Math DE scores here.

Science/Social Studies Data: This holds their science and social studies tests so far...  Maybe later on I will think of more things to add but that's about it for now!

Writing Data: Samples of student writing and county writing scores are housed here.

The back also has a special cover that we slide in!  Together we made a Class Mission Statement and everyone's Leadership Notebook has their own copy of the statement so they can see it even when they go home.  This was written word for word by them!  If you want to know how to write your own class mission statement, keep your eyes open for Leader in Me Mini-Series: Mission Statements, coming soon!

Whew!!!  You made it!  I told you it was a long post, but click on some of the photos and you can grab yourself a free copy of that document!  Do you implement Leadership Notebooks in your class?  How do you like it?  Anything I should add to ours?