Flipped Classroom

Lately, I have been reading and considering flipping my classroom.  One of the best pieces of advice that I have heard is to integrate slowly.  That every lesson does not have to be a flipped lesson.  I have decided to introduce a topic using the flipped method and then slowly build upon the topic in class with hands on assignments.  I am going to begin this strategy with Properties of Real Numbers. I choose to structure my at home lesson into three sections: Ponder, Learn, and Apply.

This is the beginning of the lesson.  It also includes questions from the video and application questions.

Book Organization

At my old school, we had to use book boxes.  Each student was assigned one that they had to take care of that year and had their assigned number on it.  I HATED THOSE THINGS.  I liked that it kept books out of the desk, but I hated how it would become unbalanced and fall over.  And of course, when it fell over everything went everywhere and say goodbye to a nice quiet reading time.  SO, when I moved to my new school I was determined to come up with a better solution. They didn't have book boxes anyways, so...  Thanks to Pinterest I came up with book smocks.  I went to Home Depot and purchased 28 smocks for less than a dollar each.  Then, to make them cute and pretty, my friend and I painted over them in blues and greens (I was attempting to have a less chaotic color scheme this year.) Each smock has a number on the back that corresponds to the number I have assigned the students, this way I can reuse them year and after year.

Pros:  My students can keep their books on the outside of their desks.  Other students, other teachers, and I can quickly view what the students are reading.  I can use it to make random groups (if you have a book that title begins with A, if you are reading Fantasy...)

Cons:  Not very durable.  I have one student that is rough with it, and it has already begun to tear. Must take on and off to stack chairs ( I have changed my routine to have the students stack the chairs on top of their desks.)

PBIS +Math

I currently work in a Title 1 school.  My teammates and I decided early on, that it was extremely important that the students leave 6th grade understanding how to balance a checkbook/bank account, credit, debit, and savings accounts.  Each month the students have a checkbook that they need to balance.  When they have great behavior or do something positive, they are positively rewarded through their checkbook.  In addition to the money they earn through their behavior, every morning in my math class they have an early bird assignment that involves decimals, fractions, percents, and multi-step problems. The early bird is designed that they will lose and earn money.  Depending on their behavior, the early birds will also put students in debt a couple of times.  This leads to conversations about working overtime, credit card fees, and dipping into your savings account. At the end of each month, the students have an opportunity to purchase a party for 70 dollars.  The remainder of the balance goes directly into savings, and they began with 0 each month.  At the end of the year, we have an auction where the students can use their savings to purchase items such as posters, toys, books, etc. I have attached October's early bird so you can see what I mean.  So far, it is working out great! We shall see as the school year goes on. 


Behavior Checkbook Smart Notebook

Cornell Notes in the Math Classroom

A preview of the Guided Notes

When I was in middle school I was in the AVID program.  Needless to say, I thought I was hot sh**.  I always had good grades, never had to study, never had to put any effort into my school work.  Then 7th grade hit.  I found myself in harder math and language art classes, and I was in crisis mode.  I wasn't able to get by without studying anymore.  I will never forget when my AVID teacher taught us about Cornell Notes. Instead of zoning out, I was so focused on learning this technique because I could feel how important this was to me.  I started using Cornell notes in every subject all the way throughout college.  Yet when I became a teacher, I stopped using them.  I simply forgot about them.  About a month ago I was cruising on Pinterest and found a picture that talked about how the brain works and how note taking with Cornell notes have been proven to help students perform better.  It was like a light bulb went off.  If it helped me, it could help my students.  I tried doing a couple of lessons where my students created their own Cornell notes using a piece of paper, folding it, drawing a line down the crease, yada yada.  And I found that the majority of my math lesson was spent of setting up the Cornell notes.  SO, I created the following guided notes that are set up in Cornell form.  This allows the students to still process the information by creating questions, but without spending the time on set up.  

Answer Key
Guided Notes for Dividing Fractions

Guided Notes for One Step Equations (Based upon This awesome middle school math teacher)

Disrespect

I am stuck inside with the hurricane bearing down on us.  Thank goodness we still have energy.  However, as I sit here bored out of mind I keep thinking about a situation that a student and I were in the other day.  When I picked up my students from the cafeteria, I overheard one of my students talking disrespectfully about another teacher.  Thus began the long list of things I shouldn't have done.  I pulled the student to the side and asked him to stop speaking disrespectfully about the other teacher and explained it would do no one any good to trash talk another person.  I assumed incorrectly it would end at this.  Instead the student started arguing back.  In front of my students I continued to talk to him about...*big sigh* I was giving him attention in front of his peers and was quickly losing control of the situation.  After a couple of minutes when I determined that the student was not going to back down and I had reached my frustration point, I looked up from our conversation and came face to face with my interested class staring at us, along with the office ladies.  They told me to put the student in the office. *big sigh* I did.  In hindsight I should have continued the conversation with the student at a later time when both us had distance time and there was no one but us around.  I lost control of that situation, and I worry that my relationship with this student has been damaged because of it.  But I don't know where to go from here.  I stand firm on disrespecting anyone, teacher or peer.  However, there are 20 million other ways I could have handled that and I know sending him to the office was not a good choice.  :( I don't know what I am going to do when I get back to school.  Should I apologize? Try talking to him again? Ignore the situation?  Involve parents?  I don't know...

Giving Directions

Recently I was sitting in class zoned out and thinking about how next summer was going to be different than this summer.  When I zoned back in, I realized that my teacher had been giving me instructions for a partner activity that we were supposed to do next.  His directions were confusing and jumbled, and I realized that I had already missed half of the steps.  But I was too afraid to stop him and ask him to start over.  I knew how it felt to be that teacher that had planned and thought this out to the point where I would get upset if they were not paying attention to my fabulous lesson.  At the end of the multistep instructions, he asked what all teachers asked, "Any Questions?"  Of course, no one raised their hands. I didn't know if others had understood it and were ready to move on or if they were as afraid as I was.  After 18 years of being a student I depended on my survival techniques, turned to my partner and asked, "So….what are we supposed to do?"  My partner looked at me with a deadpan face and said, "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention."  It clicked.  This is how my student's feel.  I often have the ADHD students that are non-medicated.  How do they handle it?  How do they deal with the fear of not understanding the directions, the fear of speaking out, and the fear of failing the assignment.  I consider myself an outspoken person, yet it wasn't until 5 minutes had past that I asked the teacher to go over the instructions one more time.  As the teacher went over the instructions, I looked around and saw the looks on the other teacher's faces.  Most of them felt similarly to me.  Yet, how can we expect our students to speak up if we as teachers don't?

Pinterest

Pinterest is going to be the death of me. It is the most addictive site since Facebook was introduced. That being said, it is an AMAZING professional development tool.  I suddenly have resources from around the world at my fingertips in an organized way.  The best part of this site is the use of visuals.  In the past, I would Google ideas and would skim and scan about 5 or 6 resources before calling it quits.  It wasn't that I found the answer to my question or the lesson plan that I wanted, I was just tired of looking.  My eyes would hurt from reading and searching for a particular piece of text or idea.  By using pictures on Pinterest, I am able to search for longer and get better ideas for my lessons. I have collected over 600 pins in S.S., Math, and L.A.

BYOD

Where do you stand?

My school is beginning the Bring Your Own Device program this year in sixth grade.  My teammates think we are the Guinea Pigs, but they don't realize I pushed for this.  I have been reading about this program for the past year, and I was excited that I finally had an administration that was willing to let me test out what we could with it.  Needless to say, there is a lot of backlash.  My SBTS and TSPEC are already overwhelmed at what is going on in our school they are pissed that I am adding one more thing to their to do list.  I also have a couple of team members that say they are interested but then make backhanded complaints about how this is adding work to their classroom.  I am new to this school, so I am trying not to shove this down my teammates throats, but I think they are missing the fundamental principle of the BYOD program.  This program allows students to take ownership of their own learning.  It allows them to extend their learning in a situation where I am not necessarily integrating technology.  Maybe they have a question about a book they are reading? Or they want to see what other books an author has written? What if I am working with a small group, and they have a question. Instead of interrupting my small group (which happens way too much), they can go watch a video that I have posted on my blackboard site!  The possibilities are endless.  None of these experiences require me to plan extra activities.  If anything, it alleviates my stress.  Like anything else in the classroom, it will require some additional training and there will be hiccups in the beginning.  But if you can get the students used to this program early on, it will become a school norm and students can start becoming life long leraners.