O is for Organization

When I was a teenager, I sang in the school choir.  (I took a hiatus for a few years because of some embarrassment issues stemming from a rather late puberty and getting teased for being a ninth-grade soprano, which is interesting character development but not important for this particular example.) In addition to practicing the music we would perform in front of adoring parents snapping Polaroids and wielding camcorders, we also spent what seemed like hours practicing lining up, walking onto the stage, and filing onto the risers. This seemed tedious and unnecessary to me at the time, but hindsight tells me that my choir directors were extremely wise. They knew about the importance of organization.

Do you ever have those days when you think your seventh period class looks like the Hollywood example of a classroom out of control? Either your students are literally bouncing off the walls or they’re drooling face-down on their desks and occasionally snoring. Student engagement seems like a far-flung fantasy. You stand helplessly in front of the class and consider other career options. You silently count to ten and then start over at one, hoping not to blow your top. Most of us have experienced this a time or two. Or daily.

Of course, there’s no simple solution to this, or I would have written about it in a book and retired wealthy. But one way that can help any teacher gain some extra control and carve out a few moments of sanity is to implement some new organizational strategies in the classroom. Classrooms with efficient procedures minimize downtime and maximize student productivity and engagement. When the teacher is organized, he or she appears prepared, and the students respond favorably. Additionally, impeccable organization makes efficient use of time and materials, which inevitably lowers teacher stress.

Organization,the O in AVID’s WICOR acronym, is also vital for student success. When students learn to manage their stuff and their time, they get things done, turn things in, and perhaps even have a few spare minutes after checking off their to-do list to play a video game or text their friends. Just think. If you were transparent with your students about your mid-year improvements in the organization of your classroom, this could spark some valuable conversations about the importance of organization for your students, too.  

Here are a few of my thoughts about some organizational areas that will give you maximum bang for your efforts:

Managing Time:  Do you have a procedure for your students to get them working as soon as the bell rings so you can take attendance and tend to teacher tasks? Do you plan out your transitions between activities so there’s little or no downtime? Kids with nothing to do are kids who run amok. My mom, who was a second grade teacher, knew that, so she kept my brother and me busy. Keep your students working bell-to-bell. Move smoothly between tasks. Set clear expectations for what students should do when they finish work before the others. The more time you spend planning things like this, the more smoothly your class will run.

Managing Materials:  How long does it take you to hand back papers and distribute handouts? Do your students have something to do while this is taking place, or do they wait on you? I have found that passing out handouts and handing in papers across the rows (if you still have rows) instead of from front to back is more efficient, and it keeps the kids facing the way you want them to face. If your class is set up in interactive pods (because that’s how collaboration happens!), have your handouts sorted into piles with the exact number you need for each pod. Or ask one student from each row or pod to get up and fetch the materials for the others. This gives that wiggly student a chance to release some energy. Or how about trying a brain break for the kids while you’re handing things out? You can give instructions that allow students to stand and stretch, jog in place (time them!), or play a quick game of rock/paper/scissors with their table while you move about the room and distribute things. Another option is to deliver the next handout to rows or tables face-down while students are working on something else. When it’s time to transition, ask them to pass the handouts around the table or across the row. I find that it’s easy to alphabetize papers I need to hand back and then ask my students to line up in front of the class in A-B-C order so I can give them their papers as they file past me. This takes no time at all and gives the kids a stretch break, too!

Giving Cues:  What do you do when you want your kids to get quiet and pay attention? I’ve witnessed many effective strategies.  Yelling isn’t one of them (I mean, it works sometimes, but it’s not good for your blood pressure nor for creating a positive classroom climate). One teacher I know says, “Loud…,” and her students know to respond with, “...and clear,” and turn their attention to her. Another says, “Watch me whip,” and her students get quiet after answering, “Watch me nae nae.” Choose something that is fun and that fits your unique personality.

Knowing What Goes Where:  Do your students know where to get makeup work when they’ve been absent? Is there a place where students are supposed to turn in assignments so you’ll be sure to find them? Having clear locations for these two processes to occur solves many problems and keeps things running like clockwork.

Giving Time But Not Too Much Time: Are you aware of how much time it takes for your students to finish an assignment or activity? Do students who are finished early know what they’re expected to do? A good rule of thumb, is to allow less time than you think it will take for all students to finish. Set a timer (perhaps on the screen where the kids can see it). As the time gets close, ask the students to hold up fingers to indicate how many more minutes they need to finish. Adjust the time if needed, and make provisions for those who are finished.

Dealing With Devices: I’m the first to say that handheld devices have an educational place in the classroom, but without a plan in place, cellphones will creep out of hiding constantly and become a barrier to learning. Devise a method for letting students know when it’s okay to use their phones and when they need to stay out of sight.

Posting Important Announcements in a Predictable Place:  Prominently display assignments, due dates, objectives, and other essential information consistently, and make students aware of where to look to find them.  Encourage students to keep a planner, and provide time in class for everyone to record important dates and assignments. 

Having organized materials and procedures is the key to efficiency. That’s how Southwest Airlines gets everyone to line up in an orderly manner and board the plane quickly. That’s how the post office handles long lines and numerous needs without having customers go postal. 

I’d like to give a quick nod to another useful resource if you decide you’re serious about adding some new organization to your teaching life. Two of my outstanding educator friends, Allison Venuto and Laura Blankenship, are creating podcasts that help teachers be more efficient, handle stress, and leave work each day with a smile (or at least not with a frown.) Check out their podcast here. It makes perfect listening on your commute to work.

Best of luck on your new organizational endeavors. I hope that at least a few of these tips will help add some sanity and calm to the chaos.

Academically Speaking

I’ve never been very good at keeping up with the slanguage of the youngsters. My conversational skills are hardly on fleek when I realize I’m not sufficiently jiggy wit’ it to tell the difference between someone who’s your bae and someone who’s basic. Clearly, I’m not fly or legit. My bad.  

Slang and colloquial expressions fall under the broad communicative category of the “casual register.” We speak in the casual register when we’re hanging out with friends and perhaps family. It’s language that doesn’t have to abide by the formal rules of grammar and sometimes consists of short bursts that aren’t “complete” sentences.

For many of our students, the casual register is the only register. Even when they write in school, they reproduce strings of words and not-words that defy traditional grammar rules and don’t approximate standard English.

As teachers who are preparing our students for the post-high-school world--whether it be college or career--we have the responsibility to introduce our students to a new mode of communication:  the formal or academic register.

This doesn’t mean that we devalue the casual register that may be many students’ preferred (or only) method of discourse. While honoring this aspect of the students’ language, we need to make students aware of when it’s appropriate and inappropriate to use.

Speaking in casual register is probably not a good idea when you visit a bank to talk to a loan officer about securing funds for your startup business.

I wouldn’t advise trying to schmooze a judge or woo a jury with your mastery of the casual register.

There’s probably a study somewhere that shows that the casual register doesn’t get you too far in job interviews.

And if you’re trying to impress a college professor with a bright idea you’ve thought up, expressing it in the casual register is likely to lessen the idea’s impact.

In our classrooms, we should teach students how to use a new register--the academic register--so they can use it skillfully when the situation is right. Not only do we need to introduce the academic register; we also need to practice it. Simply talking about it is not enough. Students need to be able to shift smoothly into the academic register when the situation calls for it.

Last week, I attended an ESL symposium where Dr. Kate Kinsella talked about this very topic. If Dr. Kinsella had her way, teachers would never slip into the casual register with their students and classrooms would become linguistic sanctuaries where the academic register could flourish. Some teachers who like to make students feel comfortable by interacting more colloquially with them may find this a bit extreme. I think, though, that even the most casual among us will concede that it’s our responsibility to teach students how to speak in a way that will increase their odds of future success in a world dominated by those who have attained some advanced education.

So how do we teach our students how to employ the academic register? Here’s a brief list of strategies, many of which I learned from Dr. Kinsella’s presentation:

Model academic register in your classroom discussions. Provide written examples of statements in the academic register, allow students to follow along as you read them aloud, and then ask students to repeat them chorally as a class. This gives your students a chance to hear how scholars put words together and practice hearing themselves do the same.

Make the students speak, and require them to speak in academic register, even in small-group discussions and pair-shares. Don’t accept one-word answers to discussion questions. People who speak in the academic register speak in complete sentences. Before a discussion, remind your students to practice speaking in complete thoughts.  

One way to reinforce responding in complete sentences is to teach students to flip the question. For instance, if the teacher’s question is, “What is one way we can reduce our carbon footprint?”, students can begin their academic-register response with, “One way we can reduce our carbon footprint is….” Depending on the skills and abilities of your students, you may find it useful to display the question and the flipped response so your students have it handy.

Sentence stems and word banks can provide guidelines for academic-register language in discussions. If a student has a handout or card to use, he can refer to the sentence starters and replace “Nuh-uh” with something more appropriate, like, “While I see your point, I think…” or “I understand you think…; however, I believe….”  Giving students lists of transitions to use in various discussion situations provides them with the scaffolding they need to construct increasingly thoughtful contributions to conversations that will sound more scholarly than before.

Noticing academic register in the speaking of others is an ideal way to raise awareness. Using a short video clip of an interview or a TED Talk can provide fodder for discussion about how the speaker communicates as well as about the content conveyed. Let your students see how experts speak and how their method of speaking adds to their credibility.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Imagine the impact you could have if you were the adult who unlocked this simple secret, one that will open so many doors for your students. It’s, like, totally awesome. It’s wicked.  It’s phat.  Word!

Thanks for all you do to keep your students’ futures full of possibilities.

Craig

I Dare You: Formatively Assessing the Teacher

Formative assessment is all the rage now, and rightly so. It's important for teachers to check on their students throughout the learning process to see how they're doing, to take steps to correct any misunderstandings, to strengthen any weaknesses, and to avoid a costly "gotcha" at the end when the grade counts. Teachers who use formative assessments are in a constant state of troubleshooting; they're adjusting course at every turn to steer their students onto the road to success.

As reflective practitioners, many teachers solicit feedback from their students. The end-of-course evaluation was a staple in my college classes but not so much in the earlier stages of my education. Sometimes--time and self esteem permitting--I polled my own students with a feedback form at the end of the school year, asking them to tell me what went well and how they thought I could make the class better. I vividly remember the elation when students said kind things and being a bit hurt when they were frank about their dislikes. Occasionally, a particularly negative comment gnawed away at me for weeks into the summer.

The feedback I received, overall, was extremely helpful, and I would compile a list of things I wanted to make sure I did differently the following year.

This was helpful for next year's students, but it did little good for the ones who were giving me the helpful feedback. They moved on to someone else's class while I changed for the better.

Why is it, I now wonder, that I never thought of the idea of having my students evaluate me in the middle of the year so I could actually do something about it?  A formative assessment in December would give me some insight about how I'm doing as a teacher, and I could return in January ready to announce any changes that resulted from the students' feedback.

Imagine how awesome it would be for a student to know they had a teacher who asked for their opinions, considered what they had to say, and then did something about it. What a great way to model the way I hope they'd respond to the feedback I give them on essays and assignments!

This would, of course, necessitate having a thick skin. Asking for honest feedback from kids runs the risk of unveiling some answers I don't want to hear. But if I can dish out the comments on students' papers, shouldn't I be willing to hear some of their remarks about me?

I'd also have to carefully consider the questions I ask. No amount of student complaining is going to convince me that writing and reading are unnecessary components of my classroom instruction. And I'm not likely to install a vending machine in back of my classroom, no matter how vehemently the students argue that having snacks would help them learn.
Here's a list of the things I'd ask in a mid-year survey:
_________________________________________________________________________
Answer the following on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 = definitely yes; 3 = sometimes; 5 = never)
1.  Does Mr. McKinney treat you and other students with respect and fairness?
2.  Do you enjoy the class?
3.  Do you feel like you are growing as a learner in this class?
4.  Do you receive feedback about your assignments in a timely manner?
5.  Do you know what to do if you want to improve in this class? 
6.  Is Mr. McKinney available and approachable if you need help?
7.  Is the classroom environment suitable for learning?
8.  Are the homework assignments useful and meaningful?  
9.  Is Mr. McKinney prepared for class on a daily basis?
10.  Do you feel successful in this class?
11.  Do you have enough opportunity to interact with your classmates as you are learning?
12.  Does Mr. McKinney communicate his expectations clearly?
13.  Does Mr. McKinney use class time effectively to help you learn?
14.  Does the use of technology help you learn in this class?
15.  Do you understand what you are supposed to be learning each day?
16.  Do you have the opportunity to show what you are learning in multiple ways in this class?
17.  Do you think this class is challenging enough?    

Respond in the space provided: 
18.  Outside of class time, how much time do you spend preparing for this class (homework and studying) in an average week?
19.  What could Mr. McKinney do to help you be more successful in this class?
20.  What else do you want Mr. McKinney to know about you or about this class at this point in the school year? 
  
_______________________________________________________________________________

Being a bit of a technophile, I'd probably create a Google Form for the survey and allow my students to respond electronically so I could compile the data online easily. I could, however, also conduct my survey on paper the old-fashioned way.

Here's the catch. Since I'm not in the classroom anymore, I don't have a class of students to take this survey. So I'm daring you to make yourself vulnerable and conduct a similar survey in your own class in the next two months. The data will give you a clearer picture of how you're doing, you'll have the opportunity to fix some issues in the middle of the year to help your students succeed, and you can even follow up at the end of the year with another survey to see how you've improved. And, perhaps most importantly, you will create a classroom community that honors student voice and will model a growth mindset--something all students can benefit from witnessing in action.

If you take me up on the dare, shoot me an e-mail to let me know how it goes. I'm excited to hear about it!