Hello, and I once again apologize for my absence. Remember that Teacher Burnout my last post talked about? Well it hit me, big time. As is the case with Murphey's Law, right about when my teacher burnout started to hit, my kids behavior also went completely haywire. I actually had my first formal observation this week, and my students disengagement was the worst that I have ever seen!
While all of this has been a myriad of tragedies, I was reminded that I have yet to make a post about my management of student behavior using PBIS Strategies in my classroom! With my classroom taking a bit of a reset to 'beginning of the year expectations', I thought that it would be a perfect time to check in on the behavior management strategies that I am currently using to promote positive choices with my students! First, I started with the most tried and true method of improving student behavior: changing my students seats! My students until this point had been at the same tables for months, mostly because my classroom structure kept changing. I had three students enter my class, and so my 'balance' would continue to be disrupted, giving new personalities for my students to get used to. However, we had reached the point that pretty much all of my tables were in some form of conflict. Plus, with "table seating", students are constantly facing one another, leaving more opportunities for students to talk during whole group instruction. I changed my structure to "row seating" in each cohort. There are two to three students in the back "row" of each table, with one to two students in the front "row". Student rows face away from one another, leaving students only real option the people next to them to talk to. I tried to put students next to people that they could work well with, but that they wouldn't talk to during lessons. I used my group of "rule following girls" very strategically for this part of my seating chart! This is how I set up cohorts 1-4. Cohort 5 is a cohort of 'independent seating' with student desks placed far away from each other. I put students in this cohort who have shown to be a distraction to the students sitting around them, or who are easily distracted by those around them. These seats form a "row" down the middle of my classroom, which actually opened up a lot of space for student movement. With the table system, my formal observation noted that student movement was cramped. So far, the change in student seating has significantly improved inattention and overall understand of classroom expectations. Hopefully, this peace will last until their Field Trip to Fenner Nature Center April 11th-14th, as field trip groups were determined by these cohorts! Team 5 was split up into the other four teams during centers, and also when setting up field trip groups. For classroom systems, we can start with the widely debated: CLIP CHART! When utilizing a clip chart, as you can see in the picture below, I make clips based on student numbers instead of student names. This is because, while I can have a list of student numbers for reference at my desk, students won't necessarily have the numbers of other students memorized. This leads to a certain level of anonymity in student behavior, and discourages "tattletale" type of discussions regarding other students clips. Students can use the clip chart to earn "Barnhart Bucks", which can be used in our classroom store to buy things like pencils, notebooks, journals, fidgets, etc. Students only get bucks if they are on "Ready to Learn" (1 Buck) "Good Job" (2 Bucks) "Great Effort" (3 Bucks) and "Role Model" (4 Bucks). Students on "Think About It" miss five minutes of their recess, students on "Slow Down" lose their entire recess, and students on "Oh No Stop" lose their recess, and get an email or a phone call home at the end of the day. Until this point in the year, the Clip Chart was really the only behavior management system that was necessary to keep student behavior in check. Well, that, and the weekly Barnhart Bucks store. This started small, with me selling just pencils, erasers, new boxes of crayons, little notebooks, stickers, basically just materials to make students educational experience customizable within my classroom. Students receive Barnhart Bucks at the end of each day, and are expected to save them in their "wallets" which are stored in the classroom. Students are expected to keep track of their Barnhart Bucks, as well as their wallet. This was intended to replicate real life, and increase the feeling of my classroom as a self contained "Community". My students were EXTREMELY motivated by the Barnhart Store and I have included things like: squish animal fidgets, headphones, card games, pop its, colored dry erase markers, water bottles, markers, and colored pens. I add and take things away from my store, based on paying attention to the things that are high demand in my classroom. Students hate the headphones we use? I add a couple pairs of cool ones from Five Below. Students are constantly breaking their crayons? They can buy them from me, on a single level, for ONE BUCK, or buy a whole new box for 15 bucks. They don't like the broken orange pencils? I bring in some cool glitter ones. I used to do store every Friday, but as the store grew, this became too much to maintain. And with student behavior as off the chain as it has been, I wasn't exactly keen on rewarding my class. For now, I have solved this problem by employing a Visual Behavior Chart on one of my most predominant classroom whiteboards. For each part of my students day, then will either get a BIG SMILEY FACE (if they follow all classroom expectations, worth 2 points), a SMALL SMILEY FACE (worth one point, given if pretty much everything went well, aside from one or two mistakes), a MIDDLE FACE (minus one point, given when students complete classroom work, but classroom behavioral expectations aren't followed) and a SAD/MAD FACE (given when students don't complete their work, and also don't follow classroom expectations). The classroom expectations that we are going over right now as a class are: 1) Staying In Your Seat, 2) Raising Your Hand When You Have A Question, and 3) Maintaining a Level 0 or a Level 1 Voice During Independent Work Time. My students are working towards five points to earn store back, and right now are at 3. I'm hoping they earn it back before the start of Spring Break this Thursday! This has so far worked well as starting a conversation with my students regarding where, specifically, their behavior required improvement. Another thing that I have implemented from the start of the year with my students, was a 'Place Value Party' chart. Students unlock 'Place Value Party' cards with their behavior. If I really need them to be paying attention to the board or to me, I will tell them I need their eyes on the board, with voices off, and hands empty in "5, 4, 3, 2, 1... for a checkmark". If I really need their behavior to improve quickly, I will give them two checkmarks to getting to complete attention. If students get five checkmarks, we get to put a "Place Value Party" Card on our classroom Place Value Chart. The goal was to work with my students and visually draw out the numbers 1-100, as this is something that is asked frequently by my students math curriculum. Once students fill up the entire Hundreds Chart, they will earn a classroom party. My students are extremely motivated by the place value party cards, and enjoy unlocking each new card. They will go back and look at the chart independently, and come to me with observations they have noticed about the patterns in the numbers. I also have a student that is keeping track of how many more cards we need until we can unlock our party. When it gets closer I'll put a class vote for our party in the Google Classroom (though they have all been excitedly talking about an Encanto party, so we will probably do that). Oh yeah, and my students are obsessed with cats, and so I bought a reversible cat/unicorn that switches from "happy" to "sad/mad" and named it Sprinkles. Don't ask me why, I still don't know. So if my students are having their own discussions during whole group time, I can switch Sprinkles to mad and tell my class that "all of this noise is stressing out Sprinkles". Half the time I don't even have to say anything, as my students will all get extremely stressed, and start whispering to each other "sprinkles is mad, SPRINKLES IS MAD" every time I switch it. This is an upside to Sprinkles. The downside is that, oftentimes some of my more 'distractible' students will get out of their seats to apologize, personally, to Sprinkles themselves. Despite this distractions, the benefits definitely outweigh the cost of my new classroom mascot. Is this too much behavioral support in my classroom? MAYBE! But it's backed by what I believe to be the most crucial part of classroom management (and where I began when coming up with my classroom management systems), and that is KNOWING MY STUDENTS. From the beginning, I tried an build open and honest thread of communication amongst my students, and let them know that they could trust me with anything. There are times that they may overshare, or trust me with two much, but I'd prefer this any day to not knowing what's going on with my students. Every time one of my students raises their hand and asks to "take a break", or verbally asks for my help when things get challenging instead of melting down, I consider it a win. Anytime some of my more reactive students pull their desk to mine because "they're pushing my buttons, and I don't want to get upset" I consider it a win. Education is about more than just reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. Social and Emotional Learning is an essential, and important part to classroom learning, and overall classroom functioning. All the behavior systems in the world can be employed, but if the Social/Emotional component is missing? Overall classroom culture WILL remain stagnant. With a push towards academia following the pressure standardized testing places upon students, a lot of times it's easy to leave the SEL piece out, and replace it with academic content. It's IMPERATIVE as educators that we make room for these conversations with our students, to promote a well functioning classroom.
0 Comments
image credit: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/s7qMSKpeavBerH1LCyFPIkNrW4k=/0x0:900x500/1400x1050/filters:focal(378x178:522x322):format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49493993/this-is-fine.0.jpg
Wow, it sure has been a minute since I last touched base here. Let's take stock as to what's happened in my educational life in that timeframe. My students have been doing well in their small groups! While I haven't yet had the opportunity to put together, and run, small group lessons based on How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction, basing my small group instruction on my students blend it books has been showing significant reading progress. My students are also motivated to come work at my back table, which creates a high engagement place to tackle chunking out words. That routine feels like a success :) I held most of my parent teacher conferences, before and after school. Most of my days were 10-12 hour days, which honestly felt close to impossible. I hate to be the teacher that complains about extra hours, because it does come with the territory. But it's very difficult to to complete a parent teacher conference when your battery is drained from teaching all day, or when your focus is on what students need to learn for the day. A specific day set aside for conferences is truly what is best, for students, parents, and teachers alike. That leads me to my next point, and the point of the blog post, Teacher Burnout. Teacher Burnout was something I decided I wanted to write about the week of conferences, but I doubled down even more after talking to a number of the teachers in my building this week. I work in a building of incredibly supportive staff, both of each other, and our students. But, even amongst this supportive space, teachers at my school are getting fed up with the extra tasks that are continually asked of us. Rolling out a new curriculum? "Take some time this week to take a look at the new lessons, to see if you want to incorporate them into your classrooms this week or next!" After school Zoom meetings seem to compile, and did I mention, that my school district doesn't have planning time? Aside from 35 minutes every two days, and lunch, my students are pretty much always in the classroom with me. There are murmurs of "too much" and "when do we have the time", as I walk the halls, and I can't say that I disagree. Lesson planning responsibilities, the paperwork of teaching, all of these things are unavoidable, and need to be dealt with at some point. This discussion of teacher burnout begs a relevant question: So why haven't I posted to my blog in two weeks? Honestly, by the time I get home from school, I'm in a state of shutdown. Education is a passion, and that will never change, but the constant call of "MS BARNHART" does get draining. The need for silence, for rest, at the end of the day is palpable. But, usually, there's still work to be done. Papers to grade, a classroom to clean, emails to send, paperwork to deal with. It can sometimes feel like the responsibilities just keep compounding, with no real solution other than simply surviving. Hobbies like writing? Reading? A blog, partially in place to keep my mental health afloat? Fall by the wayside, and I know I'm not the only teacher that feels this way. Crafty teachers are putting down their glue guns, technology inclined teachers are plugging up their laptops and don't even get me started on the specials teachers. Heck, I'm a reading teacher, and I haven't finished a chapter book (that wasn't a student read aloud) since October. Teachers are tired, no, more than tired. Exhausted. Depleted. This is a real problem, a problem that could change the entire landscape of education if it isn't properly addressed. I feel like this dynamic is best exemplified by an experience I had at a work training today. This training was for Annie's Big Nature Lesson, a field trip that I am extremely excited to take my kids on. My excitement was clear, and as I talked about how this year has been an "exciting" one, my trainer looked at me in a state of what I could only describe as awe. "We need to get you on a billboard" she said, continuing that "that just isn't the way people see education these days". She's not wrong, and I could even feel that my own passion, while real, felt... off. This is a tangible example of the way that Teacher Burnout is changing the landscape of education. Excited and motivated educators are still there but quiet, drained, showing up daily mostly just for the kids that they love. The spark of joy has been placed by apathetic following of COVID restrictions. Teacher burnout is sucking the joy our of education, but worse, it's sucking the joy our of our teachers. So what can be done? As a new teacher to the district, I feel in no way qualified to answer this question. I will, however, echo the sentiment that has followed me since we came back to in person learning. The need for social emotional learning in the classroom is a REAL one. It can be easy, especially with so many students academically behind, to get locked into a grind for raised test scores. In fact, the way that our system is set up, the grind for test scores is almost inevitable right now. Student growth means government funding, which means opportunities for students and teachers. That being said, the emotional needs of our teachers and students should not be put to the wayside in lieu of pushing standardized testing. Social emotional learning lessons are a must for building positive classroom community this year. But more than that, TEACHERS NEED TO TAKE A BREAK. Not a break where they're at home grading papers. Not a break where they're checking emails, or doing lesson plans, or making student projects. No, teachers need a sincere break where they can come home, and put some energy back into their own lives. If we continue to overwork our teachers to such a significant point, will there be enough educators left in the field? What happens if there aren't? Is that a sustainable future to our country? Essentially? The answer is a shift in our educational landscape. A change in requirement, and expectation, on our current teachers. If this can't be achieved, I feel that that teacher burnout will continue to be a problem. This week, I was attending a professional development where the deeper areas of reading development were being discussed. In the Lansing School District, students reading development is a hot button issue right now. Theories were being presented, in which the varying needs of the students in the class could be addressed. Many of the comments in the Zoom chat talked about how this was the impossibility, these theories being "beautiful, but not able to be implemented in the classroom". One teacher even commented that differentiation was a curse word! This was insane to me, given the dynamic of what I've seen in this classroom; and in classrooms that I've worked in since students returned after the pandemic.
I teach 2nd grade, after spending a lot of my professional career working in 1st. When I first walked into the classroom, one of the first things I noticed was my students were extremely lacking in phonetic ability. I would tell them to write in their notebooks, and many would only write a sentence. Just this would cause some to melt down completely. Some of my students would only be able to write 'sentences' that looked like strings of letters. My school uses DRA as an assessment tool, and at the beginning of the year, my students ranged from a Level A, to a level 18. From the moment of entering the room, I was plagued with the issue of how to reach all of these kids at where they were at, while still challenging my students at grade level. I began with running sight word assessments and using my DRA assessments to begin to put small groups together. Even with this though, I was struggling with routines that I could use for small group instruction. The most I had was decodable readers, that were not at the level that my lower kids needed. I also supplemented these tools with alphabetic recognition assessments. I expressed these concerns in a meeting with my mentor teacher, as I was worried about how it would affect my students testing, and overall, progress. If they didn't understand the basics, how were they going to understand 2nd grade level, whole group content? She suggested using the text: How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction as a skeleton for small group reading instruction. There's an assessment called the Informal Decoding Inventory, that identifies where students are at phonetically. I ran this assessment, as well as rerunning the Letter Names and Recognition assessment with some of my newer, struggling, students. I then, used this assessment data as well as the Words Their Way to put together new, targeted, reading groups. For each of these reading groups, students are given a "blend it book", with words that are specified to a phonetic skill (my class ranges from short vowels, digraphs, vowel teams, and irregular word endings). During centers this week, one of the centers is that students need to read their blend it book three times, circling the words that they aren't familiar with. Then, I call the students to my table 2-4 at a time, who are reading the same book. I have students use Elkonian boxes to sound out the words in the story they are unfamiliar with (highlighting the phonetic skill the book is supposed to be teaching). I also run small group sight word lessons, and with each word, would have students go back to the text, and underline that word in the text. This structure is a new one in my classroom, and so I'm excited to see how well it works out. So far, I've had a number of students that can completely read their blend it books, and can sound out all of the tricky words. I'm excited to see how my students progress with this new information! As an educator who's passion has always been in the realm of narrative and personal writing, it seems only natural that I would document my professional experiences to this point through a weekly blog. My professional journey this year has taken an unexpected turn, and so for my first post, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on how these changes, and what they mean for my professional life. In 2019, I began pursuing getting a Masters Degree with a focus in Literacy Education. I had planned to substitute teach while working on my Masters, nervous about how I would handle the workload of teaching in a new district in conjunction with homework/responsibilities for my masters. However, instead, I happened upon a part time Reading Interventionist in a town just outside of Jackson MI, Hanover Horton. (image from https://www.hanoverhorton.org/) This position gave me a unique opportunity to take the valuable information I was learning about the different aspects of reading development, and directly apply them in a professional setting. Many of the projects completed for my Masters came from small groups whose data I was extremely familiar with. They were students who I worked with on the daily, and I was excited to dig into their data to come in with lessons designed to meet exactly their level. I learned in this position just how important foundational reading support is in a district school. I also grew to love the world of reading intervention. Once the pandemic hit, however, my job description shifted. I went from seeing my students in person every day, to (overnight) being stuck at my home until the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Though virtual learning was attempted, a number of my students struggled with the technology, or even having a WiFi connection, as my school was out in the country. With the start of the 2020-2021 school year, I faced, as an educator, the impact that 'staying home' had upon the students of our school. Data demonstrated that while some students were on grade level, there were more students than years before who were years behind. Our school, as I'm sure was the case with interventionists everywhere, handled this with a push towards small groups. The logistics of this were a struggle with the implementation of new cleaning routines and quarantine procedures, but we pushed through and instruction stayed mostly consistent. Due to the challenging nature of the pandemic, however, interventionists were frequently pulled to do other jobs. By the end of the school year, I was spending more days substitute teaching than I was doing small group work. While I loved working as an interventionist, I found myself looking forward to the structure of whole group classroom routine when I substitute taught. There was something comforting about the consistency of a day to day classroom routine, and of spending all day with the same students. Even though I still had a year left of my Masters, there was a part of me that missed the community of classroom teaching. Over the Summer of 2021, I spent my time casually looking for a more full time reading interventionist position. I was, however, still planning on staying at my current spot. In my applying, I noticed that the city I currently lived in, Lansing, was hiring for teachers of all grade levels. On a whim I applied, and was quickly contacted by the district. Lansing School District holds a special place in my heart, simply because it is where I did every one of my placements throughout my college experience. My student placement at Willow Elementary School was particularly meaningful, and was one of the schools I actually considered for employment. However, after talking to several principals in the district, I found myself walking into my current place of employment, Forest View Elementary School. I was drawn to the school due to the closeness of the school's colleagues, and due to it's environmental education focus. My school also has a daily option of 'outdoor classroom', a school garden, multiple planned, outdoor field trips, among other great benefits. This image is taken from Forest View's Facebook Page. I came into this school September of 2021 as a 2nd grade teacher mid year. It was nerve wracking, as my last permanent classroom teacher position hadn't been until 2018 by this point. I was nervous until approximately 30 seconds after I walked into my classroom on the first day. The kids in my class impressed me from day one, and continue to impress me to this day with their kindness and integrity. They have a lot to say (while maybe not always at the right times), but welcomed me as their teacher with open arms. This year has held it's challenges, but it is invaluable to face these challenges with my 23 inquisitive, kind, and hilarious 7-9 year olds. Most of the blog posts moving forward on this site will feature the activities, lessons, and challenges that these new experiences have brought me to this point. Tune in next week for a talk about DIFFERENTIATION, and why, in some ways, it can seem like an impossible task- particularly in the face of Omnicron. After just coming off of an unplanned quarantine, I am even more reminded of how the state of the world right now is directly impacting the world of education. |
Lindsay BarnhartJust a teacher, trying her best to learn as much as she can about Education :) Archives
March 2022
Categories |