Book Study at Panera-We had a great turnout to our collaborative book study last Thursday. I think we had 20 in attendance. WOW! A big thank you to everyone who attended and their input regarding Teaching with Poverty in Mind. We had some great discussions about all of the wonderful things that we are already doing to ensure student success. You can find our agenda on the Resource page. Below is the ACTION PLAN of what we would like to implement this school year from the book. Please remember that this is nothing "new" just a way to fine tune what we are doing.
New Student Enrollment-Here is a Google Doc with current enrollment numbers by grade level and building totals. Today we enrolled 15 new students. I will update this document after new student enrollment again tomorrow! Our numbers still look great. Movie Night-Don't forget about our school wide MOVIE NIGHT on Friday, August 10th at 7:00 in the cafeteria I thought it would be a great way to kick off our school year. I will need help with setting up, popping popcorn, making hot dogs, taking money, front table for raffle basket.... Please let me know if you would like to help. I am including a "movie ticket invitation" in the letters to students that will be mailed out on Friday. I am hoping for a good turnout of staff members, parents and students! Lights, Camera...LEARN!-Here are a few pictures and ideas of some building decorations for our 2012-2013 theme. I ordered these clapboard yard signs with your name and grade level to hang outside your doorways this year. So, you will NOT have to decorate any poster board signs this year. Please don't start crying! I am also covering our tree at the end of the hallway this year with black paper and this hollywood arch. Students who earn individual tigerific tokens and have their name announced on Friday mornings will add their name on a star to this wall. They will still sit at the special table with a friend in the lunchroom.
Donna Creed-I talked to Donna's husband this morning. He said that Donna is getting gaining strength each day with the help of therapy. They are running one more test and are hoping she will be released to go home on Friday. Please continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers. Anita Yates-Anita had laparoscopic hernia surgery on Monday. The surgery went well and Anita is recovering at home. She hopes to be feeling even better by next week with some rest. Keep her in your thoughts! NCLB Waiver-As you might have heard, Missouri passed the NCLB waiver this year. This means that we do NOT have to offer school choice to students! The students who did choose to transfer to WOHE or WC can remain at those buildings through fourth grade. However, if they have younger siblings who will be starting school, they will have to go to WS. We will also NOT offer transportation...no shuttles. Dr. Bishop and Mr. Medlin have communicated this change to families. All of the students who transferred to WOHE will remain at that building this year. At this time we have seven WC students who will be returning to WS due to no transportation. I will try to keep you posted on updated numbers. MAP Scores-I have added 2012 MAP scores to our data page. Please feel free to take a look at what I have added. I will be uploading more as the reports become available. It is going to be a little different for us to look at data this year due to the NCLB waiver and not focusing on AYP. We will be looking more at APR, Index Scores and growth of students. My plan is to have Danielle Sellenriek present this information to our entire staff at a later date. PTO/Volunteer Program-I shared the email with you and parents regarding our dissolution on PTO and starting a volunteer program at WS for this school year. We will discuss this in detail Thursday, August 2nd at 7:00 in the WS library. I have received a couple of emails from parents that were very complimentary for "thinking outside the box" on ways to have more parent involvement. If you have ANY IDEAS for what a volunteer program should look like or any forms/resources Teaching With Poverty in Mind
By Eric Jensen Chapter 6: Instructional Light and Magic The final chapter of our book study looks at the implementation of what would have been called a few years back, a paradigm shift. To successfully implement the Five Share Factors we must first buy into this idea that even financially disadvantaged students can learn. Next is the challenge to sort through the many new strategies and apply them in our classrooms – knowing how and when to do each thing. I believe that we as a staff know that all students can learn, but we also know that our students come to us with different levels of preparedness and abilities. (Do I hear an “Amen!” from the kindergarten teachers?) This is not an excuse, but a reality that we face daily and use to guide our instruction. I especially like that the author recognizes that no one teacher can integrate ALL of the strategies mentioned in the book, but encourages us to “shine a spotlight on what matters most” and then to “get ready for the magic.” Mr. Hawkins, the imaginary teacher who was counting down the years to his retirement in Chapter 1, has seen the light and is now on board. He takes us through a typical Monday and shows how some of these new ideas can work in a classroom. Before class he:
In the first 10 minutes he:
During core class time he:
During the last 10 minutes he:
It looks like a lot of “extra” that falls outside of the instruction which we are expected to give, but really, it doesn’t take much time once we are comfortable with it. Many of you instinctively do similar activities already. My plan is to choose one or two strategies from the book and try them for a quarter, and tweak some of the rituals I currently have in place. And I hope I never underestimate what can be accomplished by fostering caring relationships with our students. Most of us have read The Help or seen the movie. As I close, I picture a chubby, preschool girl repeating through her tears the wisdom she has learned from her beloved maid, Aibileen – “I is kind, I is smart, I is important.” If our students can believe that of themselves, we will all be successful. Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen Chapter 5: Classroom-Level Success Factors “The best way to launch an improvement effort is to increase the odds of success with the factor you have the most influence over: the quality of teaching in your school.” Eric Jensen Important Question: “Do I have what it takes to succeed at working with kids from poverty?” (p. 106) In Chapter 4 we learned about district level success factors. Chapter 5 takes student success to the classroom level. Although the list of classroom factors that contribute to student success is huge, Eric Jensen narrowed the findings from the research to five themes: SHARE · Standards-Based Curriculum and Instruction · Hope Building · Arts, Athletics, and Advanced Placement · Retooling of the Operating System · Engaging Instruction S—Standards Based Curriculum and Instruction includes formative and summative assessments, using data to guide instruction, instructional groupings, and differentiated instruction. We have a start with our math assessments, writing rubrics, and reading assessments. Suggested action steps include: *Turn standards into meaningful units o Identify core concepts, skills, and essential questions (Does this sound familiar, Betty? Think about our lesson plans for our Write to Learn Project. We used an Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe lesson plan template. The template itself helped us think through what was important for students to learn.) o Chunk similar objectives together within units to help students make sense of their learning (the Math CAP process) o Help students see patterns within the content; resist teaching isolated, unrelated objectives o Create open-ended questions to guide instruction and learning o Develop detailed lesson plans that utilize challenging verbs rather than simply jotting down a topic in your lesson plans, keeping in mind what will be assessed at the end. *Pre-assess (Our formative assessments) *Adjust your lesson plans based on the pre-assessment results H—Hope Building “However, the likely conclusion—the one that says children of poverty will necessarily do poorly in school—should not be automatic.” Eric Jensen Action steps to ensure that doesn’t happen include: · Inventory students and staff · Implement 24/7 Hope (if they don’t have it, teach it) · Monitor Results Jensen’s quote really struck home with me. Too often I find myself trying to make excuses for some of our students. When I do that, I contribute to the cycle of expect less, get less, and lose hope. Since research shows that hope changes brain chemistry which influences behavior, a better approach for me would be to show students that persistence and hard work result in learning. By pointing out what the student did to be successful rather than just saying “Great Job,” we can help students feel hopeful that doing the same things next time would produce another success. A—Arts, Athletics, and Advanced Placement We have several things in place with this one! After School Actors, intramural team sports, and our music programs. Cindy Brown even has the data to show how students in After School Actors improve in reading. Yea, Cindy! There is another program I would love to start here at South called Girls on the Run. It is a program that works with third and fourth grade girls to help them with self- image, nutrition, and physical activity. Anyone interested in learning more about this? It fits in with Eric Jensen’s action steps for this theme. In one of the successful schools stories in this section, the performing arts teachers met with the regular education teachers to integrate key concepts and vocabulary from each subject into the performing arts curriculum and performances. We have a start to this with our special area teachers attending grade level meetings and integrating classroom curriculum vocabulary and concepts into the special area classes. (Think Common Core) R—Retooling of the Operating System Implement CHAMPS. If students do not have these necessary essential skills, we have to teach them. Champion mindset, Hopeful effort, Attention skills, Memory, Processing skills, Sequencing skills Suggested Action Steps: *Use a 360 degree assessment -Consult the data to determine strengths and weaknesses *Develop Targeted plan -Students need consistent, sustained support in skill building (Think: I do, We do, You do) *Enrich operating systems – CHAMPS *Monitor Results and modify skill building as needed E—Engaging Instruction “Generally speaking, engaging instruction is any strategy that gets students to participate emotionally, cognitively, or behaviorally.” Eric Jensen Suggested Action Plan: · Find, recruit and train the best staff you can find · Gather information from students · Communicate the evidence and make a plan · Add a strategy each week and monitor the progress Tips for making the instruction engaging: · Switch up social groups regularly · Incorporate movement (stations, switching etc…) · Ask more compelling questions · Appreciate and acknowledge every response · Use energizers (games, dramas, simulations, demos, etc…) · Keep the content alive with call backs, hand-raisers, stretching etc… · Be passionate. If you don’t make it exciting and interesting, it won’t be! Eric Jensen called the classroom “ground zero.” It is the place where we have the most control of what happens with student learning. For me, it comes back to the question I quoted earlier, “Do I have what it takes to succeed at working with kids from poverty?” (p. 106) In chapters 1-3 the author helps us get to know and understand students living in poverty. Chapters four and five start to address the policies that can be put in place in order to have the greatest positive impact. Chapter four introduces the successful policies that can be implemented at the school –level, whereas Chapter five looks at the classroom level. In order to come up with these policies Jensen consulted several studies of “turn around” schools. He first came up with a list of approximately 20 policies, but felt that it needed to be narrowed down. After much of consideration Jensen came up with five main factors that the successful schools had in common and came up with the acronym SHARE. At the school level these factors are as follows: Support the Whole Child Hard Data Accountability Relationship Building Enrichment Mind Set 1. Supporting the whole child all comes down to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If a student’s basic needs are not being met, he or she simply cannot perform to full capability. Schools need to commit to meet the basic needs of these children. This involves a survey to find out what the exact needs are and then developing community partnerships so that the school not only reaches out to the students, but to the adults as well. Jensen states, “ that we must remove the real-world concerns” so that they can concentrate on learning. The students, and their families, must know that school is a place where their needs are met; they need to feel safe, secure, and cared for. At the very bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy is food. Personally, I have always noticed just how important a mid-morning snack is to my students. Providing a snack to my students has always seemed to make a great improvement in not only their ability to attend, but their desire to as well. I have tried to provide snacks for my students, but it has been hit and miss because of financial and time constraints. I would love to be able to provide a small nutritious snack for every student every day. 2.Hard Data is next on Jensen’s list. This is simply looking at all the available data and using it to guide instruction. However, it is not so simple after all, because tough decisions have to be made by the school as a whole. Decisions have to be made about what is the most critical data and practice is required to collect that data and that data only. Many schools collect too much or not enough. The data then needs to analyzed, shared, and then developed into a plan of action to apply the results. In order for all this to be effective, it has to be done in a timely manner. This is all easier said than done. I have attempted to do this in my classroom for the past several years. It is a daunting task. I usually end up with way more data than I have time to implement, or I spend hours collecting that data (i.e. Study Island). However, I will have to say that I am getting better with practice. Likewise, Jensen made the comment that schools usually don’t get it right for a couple, or more, years. It takes practice, and trial and error. It also takes everyone being on board, which brings us to the next letter in our acronym. 3.Accountability, as opposed to a sense of responsibility, can be evaluated. In order to achieve accountability a “compelling , comprehensive goal” has to be set and then progress toward that goal has to be assessed. Jensen points out that educators only have students for 28% of their waking time. Not much really. With that short about of time, everyone has to be on board working toward a common goal. He is also quick to point out that teachers need to be supported and feel appreciated in this endeavor. True to form he also provided recommendations to administration on how to help staff get, and stay, on board. The whole time I was reading this section I was thinking two things: 1- Everyone of us, at one time or another, has wavered and wondered, “ is all this really going to make a difference?” and 2 – the aforementioned doubt is not coming from Kara, because she does a great job making her staff feel valued and supported. So, exactly where is the doubt coming from? I think it changes from day to day. Some days it is fatigue, other times it could be an unsuccessful lesson, or uncooperative technology. I fear I concentrate more on these little blimps rather than the whole picture. I know I need to concentrate on the good that gets done, on the data I did use effectively rather than the data I did not get to. 4.Relationship Building is something we all know is important. However, Jensen reminds us that it is also important for students to see their teachers get along and support each other. Students also need to build positive relationships among each other. Here again, this fits in with Maslow’s Hierarchy as a good relationship among all the students creates a feeling of safety and belonging. Most important, however, especially for kids of a low SES is the teacher/student relationship. Building that all important relationship is something I feel very passionate about. Jensen provide what I think is a very important list on how to treat your students, so I am going to take the time to type it out …please take the time to read it… Avoid raising your voice unless it’s an emergency Do what you say you are going to do Acknowledge a change in plans if you need to make one Always say “please” and “thank you”: never demand what you want Take responsibility for any mistakes you make, and make amends Be consistent and fair to all students; show no favoritism Offer support in helping students reach their goals Positively reinforce students when they do something right Show that you care more that you show authority or knowledge Disclaimer: I am not saying I do all these things all the time, I am saying I aspire to. J 5.Enrichment Mind Set means to change our mind set of “those poor kids” to “our gifted kids.” Stop thinking remediation and start thinking enrichment. Do everything possible to offer a challenging, engaging learning environment. As in all the sections of this chapter Jensen provides Action Steps teachers and the school as a whole can take to provide a more enriching environment. Cindy is a big advocate for enrichment and does a great job of providing it for her students. I have always agreed with her that it is important, but I always felt like we needed to get the “basics” first and then worry about the enrichment. I know see that enrichment is a “basic” we need to provide for our students to reach their full potential. For each one of the above five factors Jenson provides theory and research, examples of what “turnaround” schools have done, and action steps we can take to reach that goal. He also provides a list “achievement killers” to avoid. 1. Overdoing the pep talks and hot air. 2. Planning endlessly. 3. Putting kids first and staff last. 4. Creating a climate of fear. 5. Measuring improvement solely through test scores. 6. Treating the symptoms, not the cause. 7. Counting on big wins early. I know it will be work, but Jensen’s acronym makes a daunting task seem doable, I can’t wait for Chapter 5 to see what I can do at the classroom level. Chapter 3 Embracing the Mind-Set of Change By Amelia Yates Brains Can Change I first learned about neuroplasticity while training with Pat Wolf, the author of the book Brain Matters. In her book she writes about how to use what we know about the brain in the classroom. During her training, she called teachers, brain surgeons, because of how the experiences that occur in our classrooms literally change the formation of the brains in the students in our classrooms. The brain is the only organ in the body that we are able to mold by the experiences that we provide. She said that the actually weight of the brain will not be the same at the end of the year, if a teacher provides the experiences necessary to grow the brain. That fact has changed the way I think about teaching. I don’t want any student in my room to have the same size brain just because of my decisions. I realized for the first time how important the decisions that I make about daily lessons and classroom management are, and how they impact the students that I teach. It wasn’t just about a grade or a test score anymore; it was their brain being a different size because of what I did in the classroom that year. I felt that if I was a “brain surgeon” I could be held responsible for “malpractice” if I didn’t do my job and help my students’ brains get bigger. Jenson also talks about neuroplasticity and gene expression which I found very interesting. He said that the old debate of nurture vs. nature is outdated, and there is a third factor call gene expression which is the process that makes a gene active or silent. Stress, nutrition, exercise, learning, and socialization all influence gene activity. Jenson says, “Through gene expression, students can make significant transformations in behavior and cognition regardless of the genetic makeup of their parents.” Socialization is the factor that stands out most to me. Sometimes as a teacher, I suppress their need to socialize, because I feel the need for them to be quiet while I teach. I am going to try to implement more cooperative learning into my day, so that the need of students to socialize is met while they learn. It also makes me think of the playground and the students that are continually playing by themselves day after day. How do you help those students to socialize with the other children? Changing IQ I am not sure where I learned this, but I thought that a person had about the same IQ all through their life. However, Jenson taught me that IQ is not fixed but variable. Heredity is huge, but there are also many factors that can affect IQ such as: · Home environment and living conditions · Early childhood experiences and early educational intervention · Amount and duration of schooling · Quality of nutrition Jensen says that educational intervention has the potential to narrow the performance gap across socioeconomic status. He says to focus programs of the neurocognitive abilities that vary most steeply with socioeconomic status such as: · Working memory · Vocabulary · Ability to defer gratification · Self-control · Language skills Fluid intelligence is a way to improve IQ intentionally. Skills like problem solving, pattern recognition, abstract thinking, reasoning skills, drawing inferences, and understanding relationships of context in a new setting are a part of the fluid intelligence. These skills transfer from one content to another. Jensen suggest teaching these skills by using brainstorming, mind maps, prewriting, science projects with a planning process, and graphic organizers. I also think as teacher we can expect students to solve many of their own problems in the classroom. At the beginning of the year, many of my students came to me with a pencil and told me that it was broken. I asked them what they planned to do about their problem. They looked at me with this strange expression and went back to their desk. Later, I would see them either using a different pencil or sharpening it, so I would let them know that I was proud of them for solving their problem. There are lots of opportunities for students to solve their own problems, if we as teachers don’t fix it for them. The Brain’s Operating System Many low-SES kids lack skills that are essential for school success. The skills that are must-haves in order for a student to be successful in schools are: · The ability and motivation to reach long-term goals (tiger tokens) · Auditory, visual, and tactile processing skills · Attention skills · Short-term and working memory capacity · Sequencing skills · Confidence In this section, it reminded me of how important special classes are to our students’ brain development. P.E.- Increases the production of new brain cells Art- Improves attention, sequencing, processing, and cognitive skills Computers- Increases working memory by using programs that require students to identify, count, and remember objects. Music- enhances self-discipline, wide brain function, and verbal memory This section also discusses the importance of early education and its ability to narrow or eliminate the socioeconomic performance gap. In order for a school to make changes necessary to help students in poverty acquire the skills necessary to be successful in school and increase brain development, teachers must understand the power of the decisions that they make in the classroom every day and the difference that they are able to make despite a child’s circumstances. Action Steps 1. Change staff members’ mind set 2. Invest in staff 3. Support ongoing collaboration 4. Encourage staff dialogue 5. Gather quality data Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen Chapter 2 How Poverty Affects Behavior and Academic Performance Review by Felecia Creed This chapter is jam-packed with data that supports many things that we already know anecdotally. Jensen looks at four significant risk factors for children raised in poverty that can affect our students: · Emotional and Social Challenges · Acute and Chronic Stress · Cognitive Lags · Health and Safety Issues Emotional and Social Challenges Because low-SES students often experience an environment of emotional and social instability, they may not have seen appropriate responses to situations modeled for them. Jensen uses the term “emotional dysregulation.” Students in poverty may get more easily frustrated, give up more quickly, and have difficulty working in cooperative groups. I found the reference to the Emotional Keyboard interesting, particularly the reference to the five emotions that must be taught: · Sympathy · Patience · Shame · Cooperation · Gratitude Jensen recommends that as educators, we need to address these emotional /social challenges by taking some of the following steps: · Teach basic meet-and-greet skills. This summer I found that the website http://www.teachingchannel.org has some great morning meeting example videos that I think provide good ideas of how to teach these skills. · Embed turn-taking skills. · Remind students to thank their classmates. I think I may add a category to ClassDojo for “Thanking a Classmate.” · Create a familial atmosphere, with emphasis on using specific language such “our class” and “our school.” I liked having students write their names on our classroom windows during “meet-the-teacher night” to start building that sense of ownership. · Thank students for even small things they do for others or our class. ClassDojo again I think can be a quick and easy way to recognizing students in this area. Last year my class voted to add “taking care of our classroom” as a positive Dojo behavior. · Make sure we celebrate effort; praising students for reaching milestones on their way to a goal. I think many of the recognition activities we have implement at Willard South help to address some of these social/emotional needs. I know I need to take a step back at times and not assume that a lack of social skills or “manners” is not necessarily a lack of respect, but in fact a lack of experience with appropriate responses. Acute and Chronic Stress Learning that the stress hormone cortisol actually shrinks the neurons in the brain’s frontal lobes was one of the most interesting facts I learned in this section. When the prefrontal cortex is impacted, it can affect a student’s ability in making judgments, plan, and regulate impulsivity. Because stress can have such significant impact on the brains of our students, Jensen recommends that we “alter the environment” of our schools and classroom to help mitigate the impact. Suggestions include: · Reduce homework stress by incorporating time for homework in class or after class. · Include physical activities in the day. · Teach students how to “make it right” when they disrupt the class. I hope to incorporate the phrase “How can you make this right?” more often when discussing discipline with my students. · Model solving real-world problems by giving students a weekly “life problem” to solve. I was thinking of asking Sarah about some resources to do this. Cognitive Lags A powerful statement from this chapter is “the correlation between socioeconomic status and cognitive ability and performance are typically quite significant and persist throughout the stages of development….” However, it is followed by the statement “the good news is that brains are designed to change.” Deficits in language development are the most marked for students living in poverty and one that we work hard to address with students. Some of the specific skills that Jansen tells us we should be building address cognitive lags include: · Attention and focus · Short-and-long term memory · Sequencing and processing · Problem-solving · Perseverance and the ability to apply skills in the long term · Social skills · Hopefulness and self-esteem. I know that we routinely work on these areas with our students, but I think I need to be more purposeful about them. There are many on-line activities available to work on sequencing, processing, and problem-solving. I plan to work more closely with Nikki on specific skills I would like to work on, as she is a great resource for on-line skill development. My daughter introduced me to a new iPad app that I plan to use called “Flow” that is simple, but is a great focus on sequencing. (It is also very addicting, so play at your own risk!). I know need some help in the area of helping my students with “perseverance and the ability to apply skills in the long term” to help reduce the frustration of teaching a skill for a month then a few weeks later, some students seem to have lost it. Jensen also recommends posting in our classrooms a problem-solving process that we can refer students to when they need helping thinking through a challenge. Posting this process could work well with a “problem of the week activity.” Health and Safety Finally, Jensen tells us the health issues about lower-income students can lead to increased absences, tardiness, illness during class, and undiagnosed/treated health problems. He provides a list of activities to partner schools with health-care providers, many of which I know we have implemented in our district. One of the main take-aways I have from this section is “teachers may see students as uncaring or uninterested, when the real issue is that they are not in class enough to keep up.” After reading this chapter, I ran across a poster on Pinterest (the source of all knowledge!) by KTVee on Flickr. I thought it summed up the sentiment in this chapter well. Teaching with Poverty in Mind By Eric Jensen Chapter 1 Understanding the Nature of Poverty Some of the first images that come to mind when I began reading the book were particular faces of students in our building. I am sure that some of you might have those same images as you begin to read the book. We all know the dynamics of some of our families. They range from the typical three-bedroom/two bath modern houses in neighborhoods with community pools down to one-bedroom/one bath trailers with no running water or electricity. However, do these students that come to mind actually live in “poverty”. Eric Jensen describes poverty as a “chronic and debilitating condition that results from multiple adverse synergistic risk factors and affects the mind, body and soul”. If this is the definition, I do believe we have a significant number of students who fit this definition. He also categorizes poverty into six different types. · Situational (sudden crisis or loss) · Generational (two generations born into poverty) · Absolute (scarcity of shelter, water and food…very rare in US) · Relative (economic status ) · Urban (metropolitan areas over 50,000...crowding, violence and noise) · Rural (nonmetropolitan area below 50,000) The majority of the students who attend WS and meet the criteria of poverty status would fit the generational or relative definition. These individuals face emotional and social challenges, chronic stressors, cognitive lags and health and safety issues. I have seen these families daily, visited their homes and talked to them in detail about their particular situation. However, I would NEVER pretend to fully understand their struggles on a daily basis. Some of their homes are unstructured, chaotic, unsafe but still the only home they know. So, how do we help these children from poverty that are already significantly behind both cognitively and emotionally? We must be aware of the risk factors affecting these students and take steps to build a safe and caring school environment for the students! Our mission is to educate all students, that begins by understanding their struggles and helping them grow emotionally as well as academically. In Chapter 2, Eric Jensen discusses how poverty affects behavior and academic performance. Please make sure you check back on Monday with a Chapter 2 blog post from Felecia. Happy reading! |
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