Never Too Late Tuesday

Hello Internet Audience!

I first want to apologize for not posting on Monday, I have been living out of a suitcase between traveling for fun and for conferences. Nevertheless, I must remain consistent with my weekly posts!

Today is Day one of my adventures with Golden Apple at Core! We are studying a variety of pedagogy here at St. Xavier University in Chicago and the conference is truly off to a great start!

                        The first session was of course ice breakers. If you haven't heard of the following ice breakers for your business or classroom, please take notes!

                      The first ice breaker was a simple blank puzzle piece that was handed to each of us teachers as we walked into the room. We were given our choice of sharpies and/or gel pens (so 90's right?) to respond to our favorite Golden Apple memory. After we were through with our memory we were to take a push pin and pin it to the back wall in the back of the room. It was truly a great idea and looked amazing with all of our puzzle pieces interlocking with each other!

-------> Now application to my future classroom: I definitely think I am going to use this strategy for the upcoming fall. However I may switch it up. Since my concentrated content is in both ELA and SS, I think this activity would work best in my social studies sections in order to set the tone for everyone to welcome multicultural and multi modal learning in our classroom. For the puzzle pieces I plan on introducing myself at the door on the first day of class and hand them a sharpie and a puzzle piece. What I am going to have them do is write their name on one side of the puzzle piece and on the other side they will write down all that they know about where their family comes from. Instead of pinning it to the board right away, their first homework assignment is to gather as much information about their family heritage as they can and create words, flags, or just doodles that represents that heritage on the puzzle piece. Once they come into class the next day, there will be an American flag at the very top with a picture of a salad and a melting pot. Both images will be referenced as the year goes on and we discuss the adventures of world history. (In sixth grade we discover the amazing journeys that our ancient predecessors went through.) The students will then pin their puzzle pieces together and have a discussion about why it is important to have such an over sized image of where we come from! This would then lead into more conversation about where we came from as people and then hopefully I can transition into teaching about the Early Humans!  (YAY!)

                      The second  ice breaker was another very simple and very popular idea. This icebreaker is called Clumps. During Clumps, the moderator or the leader has a set of questions or prompts to ask the group, the group responds to each prompt by finding another person who can respond similarly and they must move to a different spot in the room. For example: Dream vacation, birthday month, and favorite dinner. Prompts like these help to build a rapport within the classroom and it initiates conversations right from the get go. Students wont have a chance to create clicks like they typically do during those first precious days of school. I definitely plan on using this as well during the first week.

Key note speaker today---> Beth the storyteller!

I have gone to every conference with a very open mind to what I may learn. I am so happy that I am able to do such a thing because this woman was telling amazing stories and doing it with poise, comedic relief, and that "just right" tone of voice to make you lean in to listen deeper. She provided us with resources that shows us data driven teachers that story telling actually increases student comprehension and test scores in ALL subjects. Not only does it do that but for those students who suffer in the area of audio learning, practicing that skill through storytelling is just a splendid way to strengthen it. Just like a muscle!

Beth taught us two activities that we can bring to our classroom.
1. Annoying interrupter: One partner is to tell a story, any story about anything. I used The Wizard of Oz to tell my partner. My partner's job was to blurt out a random word that had nothing to do with what I was saying. I then had to somehow incorporate that word into my story. This was an ingenious strategy! I don't know about any of you, but sixth graders love to add in their own piece of the puzzle to what I am teaching them.
2. The second activity was equally as great. The demonstrator takes one boring sentence. For example: "The dog drank from the bowl." Leaving out as many details as possible. The instructions to the group then turn into "You may ask a question about my sentence but you must raise your hand and someone else must answer it." This turns into a fun and interactive version of Mad Libs but it gets students to think creatively and develop those interesting descriptions and details we always want to get them to write about in their journals and narratives!
------->Application to my classroom- I am definitely going to try activity #2 and have my students video themselves. They will then listen to their final story and write what they hear. This practices many Common Core listening and speaking standards and it can help them identify what "sounds right" and what grammatically needs to change in their creative writing.

Here are a list of links Beth provided us about Story telling in the classroom!
August House Publishers
Northlands Storytelling Network and Conference
Parkhust Brothers Publishers
Racebridgesforschools
StoryNet
Story Telling
Timpanogos Storytelling Conference Festival
Youth, Educators & Storytellers Alliance
Beth Horner-Storyteller

All are very great resources to help incorporate some speaking and listening into your daily routine as teachers!

I have had such a great start to this conference and look forward to posting more reflection based blogs about this three day experience!

With each day that passes, I am one day closer to starting at my new school! I am so excited! I just cant wait to start implementing all of my new and fresh ideas!

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you were able to take something away from this post! Once school gets closer I will have more pictures for you visual learners!

Until next time!

-HK

End of Summer Institute-Planning for School year commences

Hello internet audience!

Fourth Summer institute has officially ended for Golden Apple and yes, I am sad. However, I am also so rejuvenated for this upcoming school year! Belonging to such a fascinating organization has allowed me to open my mind to so many new and exciting ideas! I know that I am still young and will have energy for the next ten years, however, working in cohorts with Golden Apple gives me the spirit to continue that energy!

Working with these aspiring teachers reminds me of the idealism I had just two years ago! It is definitely something I needed to revisit after my first year of teaching.

Not only was I able to communicate with future colleagues, but I was able to attend more professional development courses to help my bag of teaching tricks grow.

Now as I am officially on Summer Break, I am thinking of different activities that I would like my students to experience.

One idea I learned from my time with Golden Apple was a website called Todaysmeet.
With this site, students can use their mobile devices or computers to help communicate with each other giving a chance for authentic discussion to travel throughout the room. Students understand this instantaneous way of communicating because it relates closest to Twitter and Instagram. Students are immediately drawn into communicating with their peers and have to be conscious of what they say because it goes public in the classroom after hitting enter.

The great thing about todaysmeet.com is that you as the facilitator can set the discussion to last as long as you need to for the class. Whether it is 10 minutes or the entire day, students will not be able to access what they had said after you have shut down their personal discussion. This makes it important for students to really think about the discussion they want to have while they have the time to do it.

Last year, I conducted a socratic seminar with the text, Robin Hood. My students were in the traditional two circles where the inside circle had to verbally answer questions that they had prepared for while the outside circle wrote their reactions to the discussion via paper and pen. HELLO!? This is the 21st century right? I know, rookie mistake, but I had to work with what I was given.

This year I am at a new school and I am so excited to have one-to-one access with MacBooks! I cannot wait to try the same assessment activity with Todays meet!

Now that my rant is completely finished about that website, I am going to try to update my blog every Monday. I feel this is when I am most refreshed and ready for the week. I look forward to sharing my second year with my new internet family! Thank you for reading!

-HK

First post!

Hello everyone! As I continue to grow and enjoy learning, I am always wanting to work on my consistency with communication! Bare with me as I enter my second year of teaching! I am going to practice reflection and communication through blogging! Wish me luck! 

-HK