Teacher World

Here we go again! Facing more changes to our standards in the state of Ohio! If you are anything like me, you are waiting anxiously for these revised standards to be released, as I understand it, sometime in the summer. Then the questions will be answered: what does this mean for us; how will it change what we currently teach; and what new materials will we need to do our jobs?

This is just so typical of education. Just as we get used to what we are doing, things change yet again, and we are told to make the necessary adjustments to our curriculum to accommodate those changes. So for us begins the worrisome questions which seem to have no definitive answers: What standards that we currently teach will be changed, and what new standards will be added? Will we know early enough in the summer to prepare and gather the materials we will need in order to adequately cover these new standards?

If you are like our school system, you order test prep materials in the summer for the following year. Will what we order align with the revised standards, or will they be ineffective in preparing our students for the state achievement tests? Will those who are responsible for deciding on these changes also be adjusting the achievement tests for next year to reflect those changes? This seems unlikely when you consider that for two years there is not enough money for our state to produce social studies tests, so we aren’t taking them this year or next year. If there isn’t enough money to provide us with all of our tests, where would the money come from to update current tests to reflect the new standards?

What about those standards-based report cards we worked so hard on last year? Will they be obsolete, or will they require minor tweaking? And will we know in time to meet as a committee to make decisions as to exactly what changes need to be made before the start of the school year so that teachers know what they are expected to assess for each trimester? And what about the formative assessments that many of us worked to create? Will they have to be changed as well? And when and how will all of this take place in order to start the school year off in an organized and prepared fashion?

Does anyone else feel like we are on a merry-go-round that never stops? Anyone else feeling like jumping? Oh, I know we won’t! We’ll do what we always do. We’ll complain for awhile, and then we’ll roll up our sleeves and dive in. And we will do what is necessary to provide the best instruction for our students.

But, for right now, I’m still in the complaining stage! Feel like joining me?

Changes in Teaching, Teacher-World's Blog, state achievement tests formative assessments, standards-based report cards, state achievement tests, state standards

I am here to tell you that I love co-teaching! Now that the intervention specialist and I are more aware of what we should be doing and we are trying correct approaches to co-teaching, we firmly believe that it is the best way to service most special education students, and I am so glad to be involved in this experience.

Since participating in the class taught by Marilyn Friend, we have been experimenting with different techniques. My team teacher, co-teacher, paraprofessional, and I blocked off the whole morning one day last week to set up six stations, three in each classroom, to do a variety of math and reading activities that would reinforce and/or review concepts we have been teaching. Students circulated in groups that were strategically planned to provide a heterogeneous mixture and a blending of the two classrooms. The activities were fun but content aligned. The students loved it and expressed their desire to do this again. So we just finished stations with activities to reinforce the differences between homophones, homonyms, and homographs. Again, the activity level was high, kids were physically and mentally involved in each station, and the day was a success.

The intervention specialist and I have also been utilizing parallel teaching. The benefits I see to this technique are numerous. It is advantageous to the students to work in smaller groups allowing us to better determine understanding of the concepts we are covering. There is better opportunity for students to get their questions answered. The movement from group to group provides a break between activities which many of our students really need. The intervention specialist and I have learned that we need to watch our volume when we teach. There are times I find myself listening to what my co-teacher is saying rather than to my students, and she admitted the same to me. So this is something we will continue to work on. 

We have a long way to go, but this is so exciting! We sense it, and so do the kids. We are on the right road, and working hard to make up for lost time. And my fervent hope is that I will be able to do this again next year. Now that we know what we are doing, you’d better believe we will do whatever it takes to get it right!

Changes in Teaching, Teacher-World's Blog, special education, teaching strategies co-teaching, co-teaching training, students, teacher, teaching strategies

We have missed the mark when it comes to co-teaching. Oh, don’t get me wrong! I firmly believe that co-teaching is the right strategy for effectively teaching our special education population. But at the administrative level things break down when the time and the money is not spent to educate all teachers in a school system as to what co-teaching is and how it works before they ask them to become involved in a co-teaching classroom.

Teachers are pragmatic, content-driven, goal-oriented, problem-solving souls. But to be successful, we need all of the information up front that will help us to accomplish our task. Teachers are wired to work in a unique way. When faced with the need to make significant changes in our teaching assignment, we need to do our homework (reading about and studying that new technique) and our planning (aligning our curriculum and creating the strategies and materials we will need to support that new technique) before we are comfortable with the changes we are asked to make.

So, along comes co-teaching. A significantly altered way of teaching and running a classroom than most of us are used to. Now, what happens when we are asked to teach in a co-teaching classroom but we have not had any training or been provided with the opportunity to gain the expertise we will need to be successful? Panic, fear, stubborn unwillingness to comply, anger, frustration! The reactions are usually negative because this is not how we work. And then our administrators are surprised when we don’t get all excited about the prospect of this new assignment.

Train us first. Make sure we are comfortable with the concept and even excited about the potential. Give us time to do the research and practice the techniques. Let us even observe co-teaching at work. Then come and ask us. I guarantee that in most instances, the reaction will be so much more positive. Now, I am not naive.  I know that there are going to be a few teachers who will dig in their heels and be unwilling to put forth the extra effort that it most certainly takes to teach in a co-taught classroom. And there will be some, no matter how much they are trained, who will never be comfortable in this type of classroom and probably should not attempt it as a result. But I am sure that most teachers would be much more willing if they knew what they were getting into first.

Instead, teachers are usually asked first and trained sometime later, if at all. Our training was way too late, and I know of some teachers involved in co-teaching who are still waiting to be trained. Where else would this ever happen? (Certainly not in business, medicine, law, etc.) And then when we don’t meet AYP with our sped population, how can they wonder why?

Come on! Let’s get this right! Train us and we will come! Train us ahead of time and watch the excitement and success rate increase. We are in this career because we love education, so give us what we love. Give us a thorough education in co-teaching before you ask us to co-teach, and we might just surprise you by our willingness and even desire to be a part of this awesome experience!

Changes in Teaching, Teacher-World's Blog, special education AYP, co-teaching, co-teaching training, school administration, special education, teacher training

According to Marilyn Friend, co-teaching is like a marriage. To make it work, the general education teacher and intervention specialist must be committed to the job they do and committed to doing it together. They must be as united in their efforts to be successful in the classroom as a couple is united in their efforts to be successful in their marriage. But the question is: how does that happen in situations where the two parties involved do not have a good working relationship?

I have been extremely fortunate in that I am not only friends with the intervention specialist I work with, but we agree philosophically about how to educate children and love the job we do. So our relationship is a marriage now, but that took time to achieve. It was not an immediate thing but grew over time as we learned how to best work together to accomplish our goals. And, as a result, I feel that we have been successful, even if we haven’t always followed the co-teaching model.

But what happens to those teams who have to work together when they have no relationship at all or, worse yet, do not get along? It is a challenge to share a classroom and your space with someone. How does that work if there is no comfort level or even tension between the two sharing that space? I suppose this is when we must be bigger than our petty differences and do what is best for our students. We are always going to be placed in situations in our work place where we don’t get along with a co-worker, but usually this is easily rectified by using the simple technique of avoidance. That is not an option when you are co-teaching. It is hard to avoid someone who will be in your room most of the day, and needs your total cooperation.

I wish I had answers and could tell you how to accomplish this minor miracle, but I don’t. I do know that Marilyn Friend is right though. It must be done. So, have at it! You can do this because you need to for the sake of your students. And, who knows, in the process you just might find you have more that links you together than the things that pull you apart. Good luck!

Changes in Teaching, Teacher-World's Blog co-teaching, Marilyn Friend, teaching strategies

Our school system, like so many others in this troubled economy, is facing massive cuts if we are unable to pass our next levy, and if our levy passes by some miracle, we are so far in the red, that cuts will need to be made regardless. If your schools are facing similar financial concerns, you know the fear that such uncertainty brings.

In our school system, rumors are running rampant, and teachers with little seniority and no tenure are sweating bullets. This makes for an uneasy feeling as we all wait impatiently to discover the fate of our schools, teachers, paraprofessionals, and other staff members.

We have faced these issues in the past. Earlier in my teaching career I spent three summers on the RIF list myself, so I know the fear and worry that such times create. These fearful times will either bring out the best or the worst in us. When we work together to try to save as many jobs as possible, we show our compassion and concern for each other. Unfortunately, the opposite is usually seen, as self-preservation takes over, and everyone begins to look out for themselves. And some people just love to spread the rumors that are so very destructive and so often completely fabricated. The turmoil that results creates negativity and suspicion, two emotions that are counterproductive and harmful for a school system and the education of our children.

So, I appeal to my school system and so many schools like ours to be cautious. Know your rights and your contract, and wait patiently for the facts to be determined. Don’t get roped into the rumors, and don’t help spread them. Be kind and fair, especially to those who face uncertainty. When the dust settles, we need to be able to work together in a co-operative and cohesive fashion for the sake of our students. So let’s practice now until we get it right!

Funding Education, Teacher-World's Blog cutbacks, RIF lists, school budgets, school levies, troubled economy

Here is my latest pet peeve. I have a student who was absent for over a week, supposedly too sick to come to school. Yet this same student was spotted, during that same week, at a Cub Scout meeting. Apparently he was feeling fine that night yet was too sick to come to school either that morning or the following day. Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

In my house, my kids knew that I had a steadfast rule: if they were too sick to go to school, they would not be going anywhere after school. Period! No wiggle room! This simple rule tended to solve two basic problems. First, it helped us clarify pretty quickly just how sick we were. Often, my sick children suddenly realized that they weren’t as sick as they thought they were when reminded that they would be staying home all day and all evening. I will admit that there were times that I was as disappointed as my child that we would miss out on an activity which we had both been looking forward to. But the rule truly helped cut back on some of the times when they might have stayed home unnecessarily.

The other advantage to this rule was that it kept truly sick kids home in the evening so that they did not infect other people. I am always amazed that parents will allow their children to be around healthy people when they are clearly sick because they don’t have the courage to make a stand that is best for their child and everyone else.

Parents, we need to be parents in the tough times as well as the fun times. It is so much easier to just give in to our kids because we don’t want to upset them. But we send the wrong message when we do so. The parent of my student, who went to a Cub Scout meeting but could not come to school, either taught their child that an after-school activity is more important than an education or that it is okay to expose other people to their sick child’s germs. If their child was not too sick to attend school, they have also conveyed a not-so-subtle message that it is okay to lie about being sick and use it as an excuse to stay home. You don’t have to be a fortune teller to predict that this will bite them in the butt someday.

So, parents, protect your butts and teach your children an important lesson at the same time! Keep them home after school if you are going to keep them home during school. Period!

Pet Peeves of Teaching, Teacher-World's Blog after-school activities, parents, school attendance

In previous blogs, I have told you that I have been co-teaching for a year and a half but have never had the opportunity to be trained by Marilyn Friend, the co-teaching guru. Well, that changed recently when I had the privilege of attending a two-day class with her which was both informative and exciting.

Okay, true confession! We thought we were co-teaching, but we most definitely were not! Oh, there were brief periods of time when we came close, but after taking this course, we realize that we have a long way to go.

One of the biggest mistakes we unwittingly have made is not blending our classroom in such a way that there is no “my kids, your kids”. Our grouping has most frequently been the traditional pulling of SPED students to work on skill building and reinforcement. Only occasionally has our grouping been heterogeneous. We thought we were providing instruction in a way that would be most helpful to these students, but the research proving otherwise is quite compelling, so this is a mistake we will work diligently to rectify.

We are also reevaluating the approaches we use in delivering instruction. We learned about the various co-teaching approaches: one teach, one observe; station teaching; parallel teaching; alternative teaching; teaming; and one teach, one assist. We were asked to evaluate which techniques we use and to what extent. Again, I must confess, we have missed the mark. Our approach has been pretty traditional, relying primarily on the general education teacher to do the teaching with the intervention specialist assisting. Occasionally we did some parallel teaching, but not often. We are working now to balance our instruction and intervention allowing for a better balance between our team members. And we are also collaborating as a team to utilize a variety of teaching approaches increasing our opportunities to gather important data to determine the effectiveness of our instruction and to provide proof of student progress.

My only regret is that we didn’t have the opportunity to take this course before our first year of co-teaching. I regret the lost opportunity to do so much more with last year’s students and look forward to working more productively for the remainder of this year. And if given the chance to co-teach again next year, which is my hope, we will set the right tone from the start, and I have no doubt that it will be a better experience for all those involved. That’s one of the joys of teaching; it is never stagnant. It is always changing as we strive to deliver effective instruction to optimize the opportunity to turn out successful learners. And that’s just what we plan to do.

Teacher-World's Blog co-teaching, co-teaching training, general education, special education, teaching strategies

While visiting other blogging sites, I spent some time on http://assortedstuff.com. The author of this blog talked about a gathering of educators to discuss “why schools have remained isolated islands of status quo over the past twenty years, while the rest of the world has been fundamentally altered by computers, networks, and communications tools”. He will be a speaker at this conference where he will talk about his “growing frustration with American education and the two-faced embrace of techie tools while at the same time rejecting the transformative possibilities they offer.” He continues to contend the following:

“Schools in the US have spent billions of dollars in just the past decade to buy laptops and software, install networks, connect classrooms to internet, and train teachers. However, walk down the halls of your average American school, especially high schools, and you’re likely to see a teacher-directed, lecture-demo formatted lesson, with little or no technology use by either teacher or students. Over the past few years, the most visible example of technology use in the classrooms of our overly-large school district has been interactive whiteboards, devices which chain teaching to standards of the previous century. Talk all you want about ‘student engagement’ and ‘interactivity’, these boards are little more than expensive electronic extensions of blackboards and chalk, controlled by the teacher, and locking the learning focus on them, not the students.”

First, I use a smart board daily in my classroom, and I do allow it to direct my instruction by either introducing or reinforcing subject matter which is to be covered in an interactive way. And with more professional development, I am sure I could utilize it even more effectively. But therein lays the problem with incorporating technology into the classroom to its full extent. How many schools in this crippled economy have the financial resources to purchase the technology needed and provide the professional training required to truly bring classrooms into the 21st century? Our school still doesn’t even have smart boards in each classroom, and those we do have are hooked up to antiquated computers which are living on borrowed time. Our district has been unable to pass a levy, which is true of many districts in this troubled economy, so we are looking at significant cuts in order to survive. We have already been told that the budget for replacing computers is non-existent, as is money for professional development. Now that is about as bare-bones as it gets.

How can we provide 21st century classrooms without the significant amount of money it requires to do so? It is expensive to purchase the technology, and even more expensive to train teachers to use it adequately. So often, software is purchased, but teachers are not thoroughly trained in how to use it. And if they aren’t comfortable with it, they will not use it. It is that simple. And the cost to purchase software licenses is often a deterrent for school systems that are pinching pennies.

So here is the bottom line. You cannot expect significant changes in the use of technology, which I totally agree is necessary to better prepare our students for the future, without the resources that it takes to implement them successfully. Where is that money coming from? Because, sure as shooting, it isn’t coming from our overwhelmed school systems or already-taxed tax payers.

.

Funding Education, Teacher-World's Blog economy, school levies, technology

I am always so encouraged when I see students show empathy and concern for other people. By their very nature, young children live in a world that predominately revolves around them. Their world consists of those events and people who impact them, and they have a tendency to tune out anything else. So when our world is altered by such a catastrophic event as the earthquake in Haiti, it consumes adults who cannot imagine such tragedy and death. But, it may register as a mere blip on the radar screen of a young person. I don’t mean to sound judgmental. This is just the way kids are psychologically wired.

So what a beautiful thing it is to see children pitch in to help out those whose lives have been forever altered! It happened in our school, and I am sure similar events are occurring all over the world; kids working together to bring some relief to these poor victims. And what an awesome lesson they are learning by looking beyond their lives to see the need around them! So, as a teacher of young children, I just want to express my appreciation to all children everywhere who are doing their part. As educators, we need to encourage them to keep paying attention and keep looking for ways to sincerely reach out to those who need help. After all, these are valuable lessons which help shape the character of our future citizens.

Teacher-World's Blog Haiti relief, students

We recently had a snow day due to the prediction of a huge snowstorm that never materialized. Based on the weather forecasts, we were due for several inches which would have hit during the school day making it very difficult for students to get home at the end of the day. So school was called off for most schools in the area, not based on any actual snow but based on all of the indicators that the forecasters used to make their predictions. As it turned out, it was a beautiful day with very little snow, and it would have been an easy commute home at the end of the day. It was then that it hit me! Teachers face many of the same difficulties that weather forecasters face.

Let’s think about it. Teachers use all of their knowledge, skills, resources, and strategies to assess the current situation, take measurements, calculate what those measurements mean, and predict what is most likely to occur based on all empirical data. The same can be said of weather forecasters. And just like weather forecasters, even the best of our efforts and information can often lead to an incorrect forecast.

Now here is where the difference between our jobs breaks down. When weather forecasters get it wrong, everyone is quick to point out the fickleness of Mother Nature. After all, how do you predict a force that can be so unpredictable and even wild? Therefore, they are quickly forgiven, and people are quick to tune in again the next day to see what new predictions are in the works for the new day.

But what happens when teachers do all that they can to prepare their “forces of nature” for their achievement tests in the spring, and in spite of all of their knowledge, skills, resources, and strategies, students who they predicted would do well, do not? Is there an understanding of the unpredictability of individuals, especially young ones? Talk about the unpredictability of Mother Nature, what about the dynamics of family situations and some of the uncontrollable problems that some students bring to school due to divorce, money problems, parents without jobs, alcohol and drug problems, and abuse? How can teachers control the effects of lack of sleep due to sleepovers, video game marathons, or late nights in front of the television? How do we factor in and make the necessary accommodations for those students who get little to no academic support at home, who don’t have parents making sure homework is done, let alone taking the time to make sure their children understand their homework? How do we change the fact that all of the intervention and individual help in the world just doesn’t matter to some kids who don’t think these tests matter and race through them in thirty minutes flat? How do we keep children from getting sick or control test anxiety which some students face when taking these tests?

In spite of the number of times weather forecasts are wrong, we continue to tune into the news everyday to hear the next day’s forecast, and we graciously forgive the previous day’s wrong predictions. We even revere the forecasters for the job they do. And what about teachers? Are we revered when, despite all of our best efforts, the goal we seek is not met? Give us a break, guys! We may not have to tackle Mother Nature, but I believe what we do tackle is even less predictable. And, just like your favorite weather man or woman, we do the best we can.

Teacher-World's Blog, state achievement tests forecasting, predicting results, state acheivement assessments, teachers, test prep, test results, weathermen