The other day, I was reading and then re-reading a post by Bud Hunt about teacher inquiry and data collection, and the balance he talks about in regards to data analysis and hard numbers.

Bud wrote:

“Teachers, of all people, should have a good and always developing sense of this: they should know and understand what it means to measure, and how measurement affects the thing you’re measuring, and how there are ways other than percentages and standard deviations to explore vital areas of life and living and learning.”

His post crossed my mind again over the weekend, as I was sorting through a large stack of Benchmark Reading Assessment folders. This “data set” represents my current students. I try to be organized here, so I had a roster sheet from each class and began to mark down the Independent, Instructional and Hard levels for every child. I then used a highlighter to begin color-coding the instructional levels of every student so I have an idea of grade-level reading, from the data of the Benchmark Assessments. The visual helps.

Later, I pulled out a writing sample that I gave my students this past week. They had to write a paragraph response to a question about protagonist and antagonist from the story Rikki Tikki Tavi, using evidence from the story to support their ideas. I went through these short pieces, reading for paragraph structure and also for content. I made notes on my master roster sheet about where they are as writers in the early stage in the sixth grade.

When I am done here, I will have an overview of what my classes of young readers and writers look like. I know it won’t be perfect. There are all sorts of reasons why the data might not be accurate: perhaps last year’s teacher didn’t administer the Benchmark the same way that I do; maybe they had a bad day when I asked them to write the paragraph; etc. But at this stage in the year, I am looking to get both an overall impression of where the classes are at and where individual students are at.

And then, at our staff meeting, we started to get information about last year’s state testing scores (MCAS). I can’t share the results yet due to a state-issued embargo, but I am starting to crunch those numbers, too, not only to see if changes in the curriculum last year made a difference, but also, to identify this year’s students who might need some extra help or observation.

And finally, over at our iAnthology network, one of this week’s writing prompts from Janet Ilko is all about teacher inquiry and what it looks like in our classroom. It’s like the week of inquiry and data!

And now, thinking back a bit to Bud, I want to remember that the numbers from all of these different areas (Benchmark, paragraph, MCAS, etc), while important, is not everything and certainly no Knight on a Horse to the Rescue. The data collection will guide my planning and help with curriculum changes, but it will be my day-to-day observations and adjustments and flexibility that I hope will make a difference in their growth as readers and writers, but also as people.

Which brings me to yet another related point: I may be working with two UMass professors this year on a classroom research inquiry project around my students and their use of digital tools for composition both inside and outside the classroom. We’re curious about overlap, or not. Much of that inquiry will be observation and interview — the “data” will be what they see, even we know there will be many limitations to what students will let you see of their lives. I may keep coming back to Bud’s post as we move forward, as a gentle reminder of the complexities of classroom inquiry research.

Peace (in the inquiry),
Kevin

They were so cute. The three of them, trying to muster up the courage to tell me something just as class was about to begin, all the while they’re dancing around each other. They can’t decide who should speak.

One of my students began, “Mr. H, well … we …” and then she pushed her friend forward. “You tell him.”

The next girl clutched a bunch of paper to her chest. “The three of us are …” and her voice faded.

Meanwhile, the rest of the class is waiting for me to come to the front of the room and everyone has now turned to see where I am and what I am doing. The three girls turn to their classmates. One says, “You don’t need to listen!” Not in a mean tone, but in a playful tone. They know they are being overheard by friends and the class.

I remain patient, wondering what these three girls are trying to tell me. I resist the urge to say, Get on with it already! I have a class to run! No. Something interesting is going on here. We’ve only been together here in school for a week, so maybe they are trying to figure out how much trust they can put in me. What kind of teacher is he anyway? they are probably wondering. My hope is that it won’t be long before that possible thought isn’t even a question for them as writers.

The first girl steps forward again. “Mr H, we’re writing a novel.”

And with that word now off the tip of her tongue, its like some dam has broken free. They all start talking in a sing-song way about the book they have started to write collaboratively, with three main characters (and each quickly explains a character to me), and each girl is taking on the writing of a single character, and how they are weaving the story together from the three narratives and perspectives. The other two girls go to their notebooks and pull out papers to show me, as if they need to show me physical evidence to prove they have a novel underway. One even shows me an illustration “for the back cover of the book.” It’s an image of three girls walking, arms around each other as friends.

And then, the kicker. One girls says, “Mr H, when we are done with the first chapter, could you … read it for us?”

If it were proper to do so, I would scoop these three girls up in a hug for inviting me into their writing space. Instead, I can only give them words and hope that will be enough. “Yes! Absolutely! I would love to read the first chapter of your novel. And I would love to read the novel, too. That’s so exciting!”

I give them a smile, and they are now all caught up in the magic of writing and expectations, and I hope all of their classmates are still listening, and being inspired by the scene in the back of the room.

I can’t wait to read their story.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

We’re a week into school and once again, somehow, I know almost every child’s name. If you teach in a self-contained classroom, that’s relatively easy. You see the same group of students all day. They get burned into your mind easily enough. But if, like me, you have multiple classes and almost 80 overall students, it gets a bit trickier at the start of the year to track who is who and who they are. That’s a lot of faces to quickly implant on your memory banks, which (if you are like me) are getting older and rustier, and have been lulled into relative inactivity by the end of the summer.

And each first day of school as I stare out into four classrooms of kids, I think: I am never going to remember all of these names.

But I do. And I try to do it as quickly as possible so that they feel like true members of the classroom, as part of the community. Names have power to them, and there is power in recognizing someone for who they are, too. I want them to connect with them early on, so that later on, any rough spots become smoother by our early connections. So, when they are writing in class these days, I am staring at their faces, mumbling their names, thinking of siblings I had, and coming up with memory tricks, if needed. (I have warned them that if I am saying their names while looking at them, don’t worry. I am not going to crazy.)

The first step to getting know and understand my new students as people is to get to know them by their names.

Peace (in the memory cells),
Kevin

We had a great first day of school, doing all sorts of activities and making the slow step forward into the school year. One activity that I do with my sixth graders on the first day of school is to get them to write out the things they are excited about and the things they are worried about for the year ahead. We then use Wordle to pull those ideas together. This is what we got. Can you tell which is which?


Peace (in the words),
Kevin

Yesterday, I gave a version of this presentation at our school district’s convocation. The “gimic” I used was to calculate how many miles my students have “traveled” over the years as they connected and collaborated online with other students and schools. This video was my draft, as I ran through what I hoped I would remember to say in front of an auditorium of colleagues.

Peace (in the miles to go),
Kevin

We had our first day of Professional Development yesterday for our school district and the day began with presentations by two of the newest school principals: one at an elementary school and another at the middle/high school. The theme of both talks was very forward-looking.

“What year are you preparing your students for?” was the main underling question of both presenters.

They both asked us to think about what we want students to know when they graduate high school, and how can we use curriculum mapping and the new Massachusetts Curriculum Standards to get there. The message also indicated that we need to be going deeper with our curriculum, instead of skimming along the surface of ideas. And the 21st Century Skills that I find so important — collaboration, multimedia composition, and more — were front and center in their presentations, too. That was nice to hear validated at the administrative level, and maybe will give some colleagues an incentive to keep dipping their toes into the waters.

Stacey Jenkins, an elementary principal, talked about the shift to digital curriculum mapping and away from the large binders that sit in many of our classrooms. She espoused the potential of more collaborative curriculum design, and more alignment of scope and sequences across our school district. We’ll see how that unfolds over the next three years, but the idea is great.

“Once you print it out (curriculum), and put it into a binder, it becomes outdated,” Jenkins noted. “We owe it to our kids to map our curriculum in a way that will be easy to change. We need to update our instruction as quickly as updates happen in technology.”

She shared part of this video of Heidi Heyes Jacobs, curriculum mapping guru, talking the same message at a TED conference.

 

Laurie Hodgdon, principal of the middle/high school, acknowledged that teachers must admit that students today learn in different ways and at different paces than when they were a child in the classroom. While she pushed hard on the idea of “rigor, relevance , and relationships,” Hodgdon noted the many challenges that we face, including:

• Accelerating technology
• Changing workplaces
• Globalization
• Demographic shifts
• High stakes accountability
• Motivation of students

I liked the message they sent and it seemed to connect the work we do at the elementary schools with our colleagues at the upper grades.

Peace (in the shift?),
Kevin

I hate to admit it but I had been back to my classroom only once all summer. Mostly, it was due to logistics — I spend the summer  as main caretaker of my boys and they drive me crazy when I bring them to my classroom. But also, I needed a break from the space itself. Our classroom becomes our home (if you are lucky to have your own classroom) and removing myself from the space is another part of rejuvenation.

Last night, in a fit of stress that I head back to school for Professional Development today and that our students come back on Thursday, I finally headed back to my classroom. The school was mostly deserted (my math colleague was also in his room, so we chatted about vacations, families, Irene and paperwork, and The Game of Thrones) and I tried to be very efficient with my time. Still, I was there for more than two hours and am not yet done.

Here’s what I did:

• Dug my Mac laptop out of the closet and hooked it up to my Promethean Board. I had a hard time finding my speakers, but I found them and cranked out some Ben Folds (I came to a new appreciation for the song, Rocking the Suburbs). If anyone was knocking on the door, I didn’t hear them. They sure heard me, though.
• I booted up my desktop PC. It’s chugging these days. Ran updates. So slow…..
• I moved desks around in a way that I like for the first few days — very traditional: rows.
• I flipped my calendars from June to September, as if the summer were missing months.
• I removed all of the old names (so sad) from last year’s class from our mailbox holder and added this year’s names (excited) to it. I hate this job. It seems so simple and yet always takes me longer than I want, and I have little patience for it. Odd, I know.
• I began to wipe down desks, which were clean when I left but now have crumbs from summer school (my classroom is the main summer school classroom).
• I took down various “goodbye” signs from the back wall of my classroom. These were made by last year’s students. It was nice to see them. I could not yet pull down the colorful poster (see above) that indicates my room number. Two wonderful girls made it for me over a few weeks time, huddled quietly in the corner. It’s a nice reminder of last year’s class.
• I pulled out the bound student planners we got at the end of June and made a pile. They look pretty good. We’re all about organization in sixth grade so student planners become a lifeline for many students.
• I visited my file entitled “First Day Activities” on the PC, and tweaked it a bit before printing it out. This year, instead of bringing my homeroom on Pivot stickfigure, I am bringing them into our Bitstrips Webcomic site to create avatars. A little change of pace … The rest stays mostly the same: icebreaking activities, etc.
• I used our Google Calendar to sign out the Mac Cart for the first day of school.
• I opened up our electronic gradebook and started to create a class, when I realized that maybe one of my colleagues had already done that (and I could just import). Bingo! My science colleague beat me to the punch. I imported all that she had done and was finished in minutes.
• I printed out the class lists for my four classes (about 80 students) and began assigning lockers to my homeroom students.
• I finished updating our class weblog — The Electronic Pencil — and our online homework site to reflect the new year. I weed out some posts from the previous year but also keep a few as teasers for the year ahead.
• I scrambled around to find the packet of new Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks (which are our new version of the Common Core standards) because I know we are spending much of the day today working the start of curriculum revisioning for our district. Phew. I found it, and began thumbing through it again. I have some ideas for how to make changes to my curriculum. Still pondering it …..
• I shut off the lights and headed home.

Peace (in the prep work),
Kevin

We all stood at our bus loop yesterday, watching our students board the yellow buses for the last time this school year. They hung their heads out of the open windows, shouting out to teachers. Some hung back in their seats, dabbing their eyes with tissue. Someone put small bubble bottles in our mailboxes, so a few of us were blowing bubbles into the air. The buses then took off with a loud cacophony of honking and shouting and cheering, then doubled back through the loop for a second time (as is our custom on the last day of school), as all of us teachers waved and shouted out some final encouraging words as summer came into full view.
And then they were gone, and we shuffled back into our school — which now seemed a bit too quiet. Sure, we were happy to see the year end but already, I could feel some pangs of what tomorrow would bring when I would wake up and not be planning for a day of activities with my sixth graders, whom are now off to the larger regional school for middle school.

I’m going to miss those kids.

Before my homeroom class left — before we hugged or high-five or gave handshakes — they presented me with a HUGE oversized greeting card that two girls have been making in the far corner of the classroom for about three weeks now. I had purposely avoided the girls hard at work — I had some idea — but the card and the envelope were so wonderful, so touching, that after the school had emptied out, I stood there, staring at them on the chalkboard in the back of the room.

I’m going to miss these kids.

Peace (in the remembering),
Kevin