Hard Work Pays Off

I said before that be ready for some exciting news and I'm finally getting around to sharing! Let's start at the beginning....

This year during one of my graduate classes, we were required to try doing some of our own writing because being a good writing teacher means practicing writing yourself. I decided that I was going to try blogging (hence this blog!) and grant writing. It took me a long time to find a grant that our school qualified for, would fit my project and did not have a passing due date. 

I finally landed on the Michigan Literacy Legacy Fund. After brainstorming, drafting, editing, revising, more editing and more revising I sent my grant narrative to my teacher. I thought that this was going to be as far as I would take this grant, but no more than a week later my teacher emailed me saying that she thought this was one of the best grant narratives she has seen and even wanted to use it as an example in the future. She said "Let me know if you get it".

At this point I was not planning on sending the grant in. I did not think I had a chance, but based on my teacher's feedback I decided to give it a go. I only had a couple days to get it turned in so I finished up the paperwork and sent in the grant. 

To be honest I kind of forgot about it, but one day our secretary came into my classroom and said "You know that grant that you sent in? I just got a call and you got it!" I yelled out "What? No way!" I could not believe it. Our secretary said the letter would be coming soon.

It's not a huge amount of money, but it is helping out my school get some much needed nonfiction materials. The best part was I got to share an important lesson with my students, which is that hard work pays off and writing is an important way of communicating to others, in this case a way of communicating to a group of people that will help fund projects in your school.

Alright I'm done tooting my horn now.

Changes occur over time

Sorry I have been MIA! We know, teachers, that the end of the year flies. I got lost in assessing students' reading levels (only two more to go!), meetings, planning special events and just wrapping up the school year. I have some exciting news to share, but that will be coming in a later post : ) I don't want to jinx anything quite yet.

One of the goals I set put for myself was to improve my provocations for each of my units. I want to get my students excited about the unit, asking questions and really diving in. So this last unit of the year is all about changes, specifically landforms changing, how schools/our community has changed and just over looking at the past. During this unit we usually go to a one-room schoolhouse, but unfortunately we were unable to schedule a field trip for both classes to go, so I had this amazing idea to bring the one room school house to our school! 

Now I'm not going to lie, it took a lot of preparation and planning to pull this off, including moving furniture, getting rid of students' pencil boxes and covering things up in hopes that students would be able to experience what it was like for a student back in 1886.

Students were given chalk boards and were introduced to a new piece of technology 'the pencil' during our typical computer time. At first students were very nervous and confused. It was actually the quietest they came into the classroom all year because they had no idea what was going on, wondering why their teacher was dressed in such funny clothes and I heard some of them whispering 'It's like the olden days.'

Students were introduced to the date and rules right away. Some of them even enjoyed standing up to speak, but a lot of kids did not like having to sit up straight all day or not talk to anyone unless it was lunch time. 

 

Throughout the entire day students were asking me questions like if different things were invented or trying to get me to talk about computers or phones, but I stayed in character throughout the entire day. Students were telling other teachers at recess that "Ms. Mulville is acting crazy. She thinks it's 1886."

At the end of the day we got both second grades together to discuss their feelings on the day, parts that they liked and didn't like as well as made a Venn diagram comparing schools in both years. My students have never been so excited to learn more about a unit all year. During our reading time students would want to (and still want to) read the McGuffey readers or read books about schools of the past. Interestingly enough, part of our school was a one-room school house, so students were really interested in learning more about our school and its history. 

It just goes to show you that a good provocation can get students really excited to learn about a specific topic, so much so that they want to learn more on their own and for me that is my overall goal in teaching. Creating lifelong learners. With well-thought out provocations, I think it is a good first step for my students in taking control of their learning and wanting to learn more.

Taking Action!

What an exciting week in my classroom. My students have been learning all about 'The Power of One' meaning that one person can influence change in the world. A big part of this unit is students figuring out ways that they can get involved and make a change in their school, community and the world. 

Action.

Taking action is a large part of the PYP. The goal is not just for students to learn different concepts and memorize them. We want our students to apply their learning outside of the classroom as well. We call this Taking Action. Each classroom at our school has a 'Taking Action' poster either inside or outside the classroom where we post pictures, notes and examples of students who are taking action.

Sorry about the blurriness...

  Originally, I thought that students had to bring in examples of what we are learning about from home and when I taught kindergarten it was very difficult to remind students to bring things from home. At an IB conference I went to in Indianapolis two years ago, I learned that action can take many forms. 

Since action is all about a verb, I started to write down on sticky notes when I noticed students taking action by sharing a thought wit the class or noticing something in books and let students know that this was taking action. I soon began to realize that students were taking action every day!

So back to second grade... My students this week really ran with Gandhi's quote "Be the change you wish to see in the world." They decided to come up with their own action plan. They wanted to encourage others to pick up trash, stop littering and recycle more. On Monday, they are going to be making an announcement to the school to get the community involved in their action, as well as make posters to hang around the school reminding people to pick up their trash and recycle. 

How awesome is that! Students taking action and getting excited about it! 

Also, something else we did this week was a Pathway to Change. I got this idea from A Year of Many Firsts. Students traced their feet and wrote on them how they can make a change. It is our hope that anyone who comes into our school will read our feet, which will inspire them to make a change. Check out the pictures below.

Our pathway goes from the front of the school all the way to the second grade classrooms. We have already received a ton of compliments from students, teachers and parents about how impressive and motivating this project is. The only downfall is that it has slowed some students down when walking to their next class because they are stopping to read our feet!!!

Whether you are a PYP school or not, encourage your students to take action with their learning. you could also start your own Action Board in your classroom or in your school to encourage students to take that next step to apply their learning.

Teachers Love Breaks Too!

Alright my blogging friends, the reason I did not blog last week is that we were on our Spring Break! We have had a cruise booked for 15 of my family members for almost two years and last week was the big week. Let me tell you... I needed this break. Teachers need breaks. We work hard day in and day out. We spend most nights, weekends, breaks and summers working to do everything we can for our students. (I'm not knocking any professions. Everyone works hard and needs a break too!)

This was the first break where I did no school work. 

No lesson plans.

No planning.

No paperwork.

No emails.

No Pinteresting (that counts as school work!)

I did not even think about my students until the last day of my break. 

And let me tell you... I needed this break.

I know I spend a lot of time working and being in a teacher mindset. I am constantly thinking about my students and how I can be a better teacher. As I once heard a great teacher say "teaching is not a job, it's a lifestyle" and it is so true. So at first before break I felt a little guilty not working on anything school related, but now I know that this Spring Break has made me a better teacher because it allowed me to recharge. 

Yes, all most? teachers love breaks too, but they need them to be the best teacher they can be. 

Here are some pictures from my trip! (My younger brother is an amazing photographer)

Remember teachers, take time for yourself and recharge!!!

Learner Profiles and Attitudes

Happy (almost) Easter everyone! One more week and we are on Spring Break. Whoo hoo! Something that people ask me when it comes to teaching the PYP is "What is the biggest transition going from non-PYP to a PYP school?" Honestly, I think there are a bunch of things, but one of the biggest transitions for me was the vocabulary, specifically using the Learner Profile Words and Attitudes. 

Learner Profile Words

The learner profile traits and attitudes are characteristics that we want our students to not only know, but develop within themselves. It is like a 'character development program', but it is incorporated within the PYP. At our school, the learner profiles and attitudes are posted in every classroom (forgot to take pictures of mine, oops!) and teachers use these words throughout the school day. 

My first year, I really struggled with using this vocabulary, but once you start making it a point to say the words daily, it becomes a part of your teaching. For example, you may start a lesson by saying "Today we are going to be thinkers..." or you might notice a student doing something and say "Wow Susie, you are being so caring by helping your friend zip up their coat." When you use the language often and refer to your posters throughout the school day, students begin to use it as well.

Attitudes

Once a week as a lower elementary team (K-2), we take a half hour where we meet to talk about the learner profile traits and attitudes. Usually we read a book and complete an activity that surrounds the learner profile trait that we are focusing on that month as a school. We call this 'Team Time'. It is a great way for the students to practice and develop these traits. You can see our monthly Learner Profile focus at our school below, which also incorporates the attitudes.

Our current unit of study in second grade revolves around the phrase 'The Power of One', we we are learning about local and famous heroes. The past week we learned about Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges and how they made a change. But something I really like that we are doing in this unit is thinking about what learner profile traits and attitudes these people display. It is great to see that students are recognizing these traits in others. My hope is that my students see these traits and attitudes in action and develop these traits within themselves.

Happy Easter!

From Private to Public

Alright, I need to take a second and get on my soapbox....

We had a staff meeting this afternoon and a big discussion that came up was what aspects of our school still hold true to the 'private school mentality'. Let me give you a little background... Our school originally was a private school, but due to a lack of enrollment and funds administration decided the best route for our school was to become a charter school. So three years ago we 'closed our doors' as a private school and opened up as a public charter school. Since then our school has grown leaps and bounds, but we try to give students a 'private school education on a public school dime'.

So back to our staff meeting, we were discussing how there are some families leaving our school because they said that our school has changed too much. As a staff, we talked about what types of things that have changed and what we still do that is the same from our private school days. It seemed through the discussion that the biggest difference we feel as teachers is the pressure.

The pressure to make sure we cover all the standards.

The pressure of documenting everything that we do.

The pressure to monitor progress and to constantly collect data on our students.

The pressure to prepare students for standardized tests.

Just looking at this list it is frustrating to see that teachers have no control over any of this pressure or relieving it. It is the people above us that put this extra stress on us. As a private school, the teachers could just teach! Yes we had the standards in mind, but we did not have to document everything we did or take weeks and weeks to prepare students for tests. 

I wish we could go back to the days where teachers could do their job and just teach...

Ok, I'm off my soapbox now, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

PYP Portfolios

I know I briefly mentioned PYP portfolios in my student-led conference post, but I wanted to elaborate a little bit more on those.

First of all, whether you are a PYP school or not your students should have some type of portfolio to display their work over time. Many teachers keep student writing pieces throughout the year so that they can show parents at conferences and students can see their own growth. I know our middle school (which does not use the IB curriculum) uses online portfolios and this is a huge part to their student-led conferences. 

What I like about the portfolios is it allows students to visually see that they have learned a ton over the course of a year and even parents can say "hey, my kid has learned something this year!" 

 

What is unique about the PYP portfolios is that there are artifacts from each unit that get stored in this binder. The artifacts we choose to put in at our school is their summative project (or picture of it) and a reflection about what they learned from completing that project as well as an activity that the student completed during the unit and a reflection about what they learned from completing that activity. The second set of artifacts are what we call 'student-pick' reflections. 

From kindergarten all the way through fourth grade (at our school elementary ends in fourth) students collect artifacts from each of the six themes that are covered each year in the PYP programme. So not only are students seeing what they learned and how they grew throughout the school year, but they are also can see how what they learned in kindergarten in the theme 'Who We Are' connects to what they learned in first, second, third and fourth grade. Amazing!

I encourage you to start incorporating portfolios into your classroom. Students will never be allowed to say "I didn't learn anything this year" ever again!

Provocations

First of all, conferences went really well this year. My students did a great job 'running the show' and displaying their learning to their parents. They also surprised me because there was a point where I was explaining their PYP portfolios and I thought no one was listening, but most of them were able to explain to their parents what they were all about. I even heard some of them using the same language I used! So sometimes when I think my students are not listening, they actually are. Who would have thunk!

So we just wrapped up our Marketplace unit, which was awesome! For our summative, or final project, students created their own classroom business. They chose to produce bracelets and sold them for $1.00 during lunch. We counted the up the profits and students end up making $94.00! They decided they wanted to spend some of it on themselves as a special treat, like popsicles or ice cream, and then donate the rest to the school.

Making posters to advertise our business 

Making our product

 

Selling our product

Since we finished up a unit, that means it is time to begin another! At the start of every PYP unit, it is important to find out what students know about the topic and what they are curious or wondering about because students drive where we go in the unit. The way we get this information is through provocations. Provocations not only help teachers learn what students know and want to learn, but it gets students excited about the next unit as well. 

There are many different ways to do a provocation. A lot of teachers pull out pictures that relate to the unit and ask students what they know or notice about the pictures. Some teachers do KWL charts or have students to a free write on a topic. But some of the best provocations get students to really think and get them involved in the topic. 

At an IB Conference, there was a teacher that was teaching about migration and she wanted her students to understand what it means to migrate and to constant pack up and move. She told her students to bring their backpack in and put any materials that they students thought they would need during the day in their backpack. Some students packed everything from their desk, including textbooks they had never touched all year while others packed a notebook and pencil. Throughout the day students moved from the classroom, to outside, to the library and all around the school! Students were able to experience what it was like to migrate from one place to another and how you have to think about what items are truly necessary. This provocation got students excited to learn about migration as well as provoked a lot of questions they wanted to investigate. 

My goal this year was to work on improving provocations by doing more than showing students pictures and asking what they knew or questions they had about them. Our new unit surrounds the phrase "The Power of One", where students are to understand that all it takes is one person to influence change in the world. 

I started by having students discuss what this phrase means to them and discussed how these people are considered heroes. I then had them create a bubble map by putting 'Hero' in the middle and they had to write characteristics of a hero and write people who are/were heroes. 

But the most powerful part of the provocation came two days later. I set up a scenario where students were going to vote for a book that we were going to purchase for our class from the book fair, but the only students that were allowed to vote were students that were 7 years old. I told my 7 year old students to put their heads down and I heard some of my 8 year old students say "Wait a minute, do we get to vote?" I said "You are not 7, so you can't vote". Some of the 8 year old students said they didn't care and it did not bother them, but there were two that were very upset. When asked what they were thinking and feeling they said "This is not fair. It is like how women were not allowed to vote and only men were a long time ago and like how the black people were not allowed to do stuff, but the white people could". (These ideas were discussed on MLK Day.) Some other students also described their feelings. Even the students that could vote said it was not fair. After this discussion I pretended that I didn't really care and still said, "well 7 year old's you are still going to vote, so put your heads down and lets vote."

That's when it happened.

One of the students that was allowed to vote, stood up, took two steps towards me and with his hands on his hips said "Ms. Mulville, this is not fair."

I said "Wait, are you standing up to me right now?" in the most serious tone I could convey. 

A bit nervously, he said "Yes, this is not fair."

Non more than a second later, another student came up and said "This is not fair." and the domino affect began. I had 6-7 students standing in front of me shouting "This is not fair!"

This is when the discussion began. Students realized that one person stood up for what was right and then others joined in. Students began to say "It is the Power of One!" Just from this simple scenario students began to understand what this statement meant and how they can make a change. 

My students wrote a quick reflection about what happened to them and how they felt and then I asked students to write down names of people that they want to learn about that made a change, or if they didn't know the name of the person, what change they made. 

It looks like this unit we will be learning about Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges and Harriet Tubman. 

My students are so excited to start this unit and so am I! I can't wait to see what they are going to learn from this unit and the changes they are going to influence in our community.

Student-led Conferences

Phew! Having report cards due and getting ready for conferences in the same week can make for one busy teacher. At our school we have 'Team Conferences' in the Fall, which is like the traditional Parent Teacher Conference most schools use, but something special that we do in the Spring is we have "Student-led" Conferences. 

If you have never heard of these types of conferences I am sure you will soon because they are becoming more and more popular around the country. In these types of conferences students are the ones sharing about what they have learned and how they have grown with their parents and the teacher acts more like a mentor or facilitator by guiding the conference. There are many different ways or structures to a successful student-led conference, but the principles and goals of them are the same no matter what school you visit. 

The reason we organize student-led conferences is because it ties perfectly with the philosophies on the PYP. Students take the time to reflect on what they have learned, display their learning in multiple ways (through writing, projects and portfolios) and it is a way for students take take ownership of their learning.

There is a lot of preparation that takes place before students can take part in the conference. All the PYP teachers at our school have students complete a reflection. Depending on the grade level will depend on the amount and types of questions ask, but most teachers have students reflect on the learner profiles the exhibit, the PYP units they have taken part in this year, what they have learned in each subject and goals they have for the rest of the year.  Below is what part of the reflection students have to complete before conferences.

Along with these reflections teachers will have students share projects, teach their parents a math game, read a book, share their writing pieces and their PYP portfolio along with online portfolios. Once again, the structure and what students share/do depends on the teacher and school. My students will be sharing their reflections at the teacher table, sharing their writing folders and PYP portfolios, playing a math game and sharing a project they completed in ESP this year. Students have a checklist at their desk so they do not miss any part of the conference. This is what the checklist looks like.



The last things students need to do to get ready for conferences is to practice! We take a day or two and practice reading our reflections, looking through our PYP portfolios and comparing writing pieces from the beginning of the year until now by discussing their noticings. This way students feel comfortable and ready to share with their parents the day of their conference.

Our conferences are this week, so wish us luck!
 

PYP and Report Cards

I was really hoping to do at least one post in the middle of the week, but many of you know sometimes it is hard to juggle all the paper work, volunteer work, assessments, and oh yea and the actual teaching we have to do on a daily/weekly basis.

This week is report card week. EEK! They can take up a lot of teacher's time, especially if they do not receive a "Records Day' to work on them (Does anyone have those at their school/district???) The report cards that we complete at our school are very different from what you see at a typical public school. More IB/PYP schools are adopting their report cards to fit the curriculum, but it is not a standard report card.

Like most of you, we have each academic subject (Math, Reading, Writing, Science etc) and we give our students a 1-4 scale on each subheading within that report card. For example in math students are given a 'grade' for their fact fluency, solving problems using multiple strategies and understanding math concepts. 

But something that is unique to our school, an many IB/PYP schools is that we also give students a 'grade' for their transdisciplinary skills. We know that there is more to just students doing well on tests or quizzes. It is important that students are improving in areas that are not typically 'graded' or seen on standardized tests, which is where the transdisciplinary skills come in. Students are 'graded' on their social, self-management, thinking, communication and research skills. 

Could you imagine if there was a way for administrators, school boards and politicians to see what amazing abilities these students have that cannot be found by a simple test score??? There are so many students that are able to problem solve, find answers to questions they have while researching and keep themselves organized and on task at school. Unfortunately there's no test to see that. 

That is why I love that we show growth in our students in more than just academic areas. Parents and students can see growth in their ability to work with others, use their time wisely and apply the appropriate steps of inquiry. And when our students go to high school or move to another school teachers will really have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the whole child before they step foot in the door.

Let the fun begin!

Hi everyone! I am really excited to start this blog because I have been inspired by so many amazing teachers out there who share what they do in their classrooms that I wanted to give it a try too. It is amazing what I have learned just by reading other educator blogs and the ability for all of us to collaborate and share through a platform like the internet is truly awesome. 

The reason I wanted to start this blog was that I follow so many educators, but I have found very few teachers who blog that teach using the IB/PYP curriculum. At least here in Michigan, there are IB schools popping up every where, but very few people talking about it! I figured why not get that conversation started! 

So I will be here to show you what IB looks like in a second grade classroom, what it is like to be an IB/PYP teacher and what it looks like at a school level. 

Let the fun begin!