It's always hard when a student moves away but it is very much the reality of teaching in an international school setting. It's not always the case though that they leave your class a present either that changes the dynamic of the classroom and takes the class community in a whole new direction.
About a month or so ago, I had a few students ask me if we could get a class pet. I didn't say no but I didn't say yes either. I told them to come up with a plan and then we'd talk, which seems to be my go to line. I should also know by now that my particular group of students will always do that though. It just so happened that one of my other students was leaving our school due to a parent's job relocation and needed to find a home for his pet hamster. In an instant, that proposal and research went into double speed. First, a survey was created for the type of pet they wanted. Then, the students collaborated in making a Google Presentation for their proposal to the Head of Primary. In addition, an email was drafted to the Head of Primary to invite him to our proposal meeting and a letter was drafted to the parents to ask for volunteers to take the pet home on weekends. Each student researched a different part of the presentation. When it came time to the proposal day, we again talked about the need to be persuasive and what that meant. We had the Head of Primary listen to our proposal with each student doing a portion of the presentation. Then came the green light to go forward with having a pet! So the only logical thing to do was to put on the Hamster Dance song and celebrate. On Monday, we received our brand new addition to our class, our hamster Chubby. She is a very cute little hamster who my students have grown to love after only 1 week. We now have a Chubby Chart to split up the responsibilities each day and track who is on weekend duty. My students have also started a Chubby Scrapbook to document her adventures in Year 5. Already, they have instantly become more responsible and really care about the well-being of our furry friend. They make sure she has enough food and water, clean her cage and let her run around in the ball on the floor during reading and writing time. They love Chubby and it is so sweet to see how the want to care for her and make her new life in our classroom enjoyable. This is the first weekend Chubby has gone home with a family and even got to attend a sleepover with 4 of my students. I hope she comes back on Monday not too overwhelmed!
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So I can't help myself but be the proudest teacher in the world right now!
The same student who has struggled to process information, sequence events and get thoughts from pen to paper the past few years wrote a story today that pretty much blew me away. We were doing our pre-assessment for our new Writer's Workshop fantasy unit. The task was simple - show me as much as you know about fantasy writing in a small moment story in one period, try your best and let's see what you can come up with. Well, I wandered the room ensuring my ESL students understood and redirecting another student or two back on task and didn't notice the student writing away. About 15 minutes in, I wandered over to him and he had four lines written on. I gave him a high five and off he kept going. After about 45 minutes it was time to break and I asked if he was done. He said he wasn't but almost and asked if he could finish. I figured he wanted to write and he is allowed the extra time as an accommodation so I was happy to let him finish. When he handed his work to me that was almost a page long, I was beaming with excitement. He had done it completely independently as well. We exchanged our class secret handshake (which I did wrong, so we had a redo) and I gave him a ton of praise for his hard work and perseverance. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but for our personal narrative pre-assessment, I got a blank page in 45 minutes so this is a major step forward. Then he reached for the iPod, took a picture of his work and continued to write another sentence about his work before posting his blog. His fiction story was sequenced and had a beginning, middle and end. It had some descriptive language and he even wrote some of his words creatively to help create a feeling for his haunted story. Is it having the blog that is similar to Instagram that he loves that made things click? Was it sharing the positive feedback about his blog I got from his family with him? Was it the positive encouragement that has finally sunk in? Was it just everything aligning in one go? I'm not sure but I will do whatever I can to keep him on this path. It's simply a great reminder we really need to be these kids biggest cheerleaders and never give up on them. There is always something that might motivate a child. The student may not have the best progress every day, and likely many setbacks along the way but there is always something else that could work - so don't stop trying. This year started off quite rocky for me with many personal and professional challenges. I found myself not being at my best and not feeling inspired in the way I normally am and found things that never before bogged me down doing just that.
I was doing what I had to do each day and doing my best to make the students my focus. Feeling a little lost, I was trudging on hoping to find the internal spark that had dimmed a bit. On a whim, I decided I needed to get away from Singapore and the life it encompasses and travels on mid-break somewhere different than I was experiencing. I booked a ticket to Vietnam to visit some past colleagues and dear friends and wasn't really sure what I was in for. I had no plans, barely had a Visa in time and had thrown a few things in a backpack on the morning of my flight. Little did I know, what an eye-opening and inspiring trip it would be for me personally, and professionally. Ho Chi Minh City itself was such an adventure and reminded me so much of my experience in China where culture swirled around you and everything became a challenge. I began to realise how much I crave and thrive in situations where I am challenged. It became very apparent to myself that if I am not being challenged, I am not learning to my fullest potential. An interesting thought as a teacher, where my job is to challenge and support students in these challenges every day. It made me reflect in thinking - who is doing this for me? Am I doing this for myself? Am I waiting for others to challenge me? Do I need others to be the one challenging me? I'd say I'm often pretty self-motivated but at times I need someone there as well. As I'm still new to teaching, often I'm just doing what I 'think' is right and not necessarily the best way of doing it. I need others to challenge my thinking. I visited the International School of Ho Chi Minh City where some of my friends worked and was truly inspired by the teachers and the work environment. In addition, they also had a visiting math consultant which I was able to learn from for the day and a half I was there. It was such an eye-opener to see how other educators do things in other schools. I spent most of my time just watching, trying to take it all in and learn from others. I furiously would scribble down notes as I went and just tried to soak up the experience for what it was. I came away with so many ideas that I instantly wanted to implement in my own classrooms such as the bubblecatchers and the way they view home learning. I know that when I take my learning into my own hands, I get a much richer learning experience. Interesting enough - isn't that what we want our kids to do too? One of the biggest things I took away was the power of observation. So much of our time we spend worrying about getting paperwork done, marking or a variety of other things that have to get done that we don't make time for the things we should be doing. This year alone, I know I have not been into enough other classrooms to see what they are doing. Yet, I went to another school and that's all I wanted to do. We all have so many amazing things that we are doing but unfortunately, they don't always get shared. I went to Vietnam and was so inspired by the way others looked and acted towards education in a way that was similar to how I feel about my job. I also recently found out I was accepted into the Google Teacher Academy (GTA)- another professional development opportunity I have taken into my own hands. Last year I was introduced to Google Apps for Education and the GTA and instantly thought it was something I would like to work towards. My first year was all about developing the skills to use them and then I felt this year should really be able using them more effectively before I apply for the GTA the following year. However, something in the summer kickstarted my want to learn more and try for this year. So this past summer, I did all of the online courses that I could with Google and became a Google Educator by doing 5 Google Apps courses and exams and also did the Youtube Digital Citizenship course. From there, I decided I needed to develop my professional learning network through Twitter and began connecting with other educators and sharing what I do in my class. And then tried for Google Teacher Academy. I didn't get in the first time.... or the second time... but with perseverance, the third time did the trick. This is something I wanted to do, learn about and be able to apply to my teaching - not something someone is telling me I have to do. There is something about having agency over your own professional development that truly adds to the learning itself. When you are choosing to learn, the learning seems to be richer and the excitement and inspiration seems to flow. The question then becomes, how do we best transfer this knowledge into the classes we teach? About a month ago, our Year 5 team was approached with a new idea of how to engage students. Games. We all love games - there’s a sense of competition, challenge and a goal that you ultimately want to achieve by the end of it. The idea of challenges or quests allows students to feel like they are working towards something larger and with each quest they have accomplished something.
We decided this games based approach to learning might work best with our space and shape unit that was a stand-alone mathematics unit. The concept seemed like the students would love it but still, there were lots of questions and even more logistics to iron out as we went. The concept: Class against class against class as they took over various locations of the school. While it started as a general and vague concept we were able to narrow down much of the details. The week of the game beginning was where a lot of the decisions actually came into play. There are 7 locations to gain possession of, each with a different topic, specific tasks and challenges associated with it. In order to gain possession, the class has to accumulate the most points. We created a website as the point of interaction for students. Our homepage has a general outline of the game and each class has a google presentation learning journal that they can create/add to as we go. We also have the game map. Each week as a new level is introduced, we add a picture of the new takeover area as well as a graph comparing the 3 different teams points for that weeks topic. The graph updates in real time as the points change and are logged by the teacher. Our first week was to introduce students to the game, build a team mentality and develop an understanding of symmetry. We had all of the Year 5s join in one classroom for our official launch where we introduced the game concept and showed them the first video which introduced the 7 locations, game expectations and also the first topic they would be learning. For our ‘initiation’ task, students had to work as a team to come up with a name with 2 lines of symmetry, create a team cheer and develop a secret handshake. They also had to create a small flag with 2 lines of symmetry. Those that completed the tasks received points. It was an instant motivator knowing that the students in the room next door could not come out victorious. While I would have liked a bit more time to smooth out some of the rough edges of the game before launching, we went ahead and had a successful launch that had the Year 5 students on board with the idea. The next day we introduced our students (each class individually) to the tasks for symmetry. Students needed to demonstrate they knew how to draw lines of symmetry and create symmetrical figures/drawings. Once those 2 tasks were complete, they were to show the teacher and receive a 1 (complete with errors), 2 (complete with minimal errors) or a 3 (complete). If they received a 1 or a 2, the student could go back and correct their thinking and be reassessed to upgrade their marks. As a Year group, we had to work out a few kinks to make marking consistent especially with the bonus challenges where we debated having double points or just extra points (which is what we went with). We also had to discuss whether the challenge tasks could be completed before the mandatory tasks at each level. It is something to discuss more if we were to do it again and also consider having weighted activities and points based on difficulty or length of challenges. The students loved this sense of competition and constantly were setting goals of how many points they thought they could receive as a class by the end of the lesson. It was a big achievement when we overtook another class and broke the 200 point mark. It was really interesting doing a math lesson at the same time as another class on Friday as the students could see us neck in neck and continued to push themselves to complete tasks. We are tracking student data in Google Sheets and from there pulling the data to create graphs that we embed onto our site. The challenge with this is constantly updating it in real time when students complete a task. The first 2 days of tasks I was finding I was spending more time marking/updating the spreadsheet than working with individual students who needed help. It was great that I was able to have a lot of constructive feedback through conferencing with students as they came to get their work assessed. I was able to show them where they went wrong and question their thinking so they could go back and fix their mistakes. However, students who were quite low I felt I didn’t have the same amount of time I would normal work with them for. This is something I am going to work on managing better as we enter into week 2. In my class, my students write weekly emails to me and they also created their own class weekly reflection journal in Google presentation. From what the students are writing in these 2 spots they love it. It is clear they are motivated to learn and they are excited about playing a massive ongoing game in mathematics. I even have students taking home their books to work on the challenges and tasks at night and on their long weekend. I even received a parent email telling me how excited her son was to do extra math work at home so he could gain more points for his class - not bad for a kid who I was told struggled with math at the start. The students are really coming together as a team and supporting each other in order to propel the whole class forward in the game. As we begin Week 2, I am interested to see how the interest and engagement level keeps up. I have not assigned any math homework to my kids other than to complete any of their tasks (not challenges). I would love to see how much students do at home. As we introduce the topic of transformations, I would also be interested in seeing how many students go back to our symmetry level to try to upgrade and stay ahead of the other classes. I wonder how this would be different if we weren’t in the lead. Would students focus more on symmetry to regain a lead? Will they now not worry too much about symmetry because they are in the lead or will they want to further their lead? One class is close to us and could potentially take over the pool house if they continue to gain more points. Once all students complete the mandatory tasks, will they feel the need to continue to do the challenges? At what point will they feel ‘safe’ in the lead of one school location? I’m interested to see how the possession of locations on campus fluctuate between classes as the game progresses and how the students decide to try to regain an area or perhaps focus their attention on only specific locations. The other thing the students must remember is that the game can change at any time and new obstacles and challenges can come into the game. How can we the teachers create new ideas into the game that the students didn’t foresee that further pushes them to explore all parts of the game? This game is definitely something that we have been adapting and changing since the start and I know we will continue to. The concept of developing this game as we go has been a challenge for me as I feels more comfortable for me to see the whole picture before beginning something. However, now that a lot of the bigger items (assessment, website, task general layouts) have been ticked of things to figure out, I am sure a lot of smaller questions/concerns can be worked out more easily. There are constantly questions I have that pop up about how students are going to track their progress, what will intrinsically motivate them further, how can we get the best quality work out of our students instead of just having them rush to get a point or two and many more. I am excited to see where it goes and how it continues to take shape as we develop it week by week. This past Friday, our class had a pretty big deadline. We had to finish our personal narratives, to turn them into audio books, then create and lead assembly followed by a parent share time in our classroom.
No pressure at all. By the Monday, we had all finished our final copies of our personal narratives but most students were still on the creating of the audio recordings. It became a bit more complicated than expected when we decided to record in iMovie first. This would allow us to reduce the background noise. Then we had to save it as a file, open it in QuickTime and save audio only before importing into Garageband. From there, students were able to edit and add effects to their recordings. Some students chose to record directly into Garageband, however, it created its only problems when students forgot to unselect the metronome and had clicking sounds going throughout the entire recording. On Tuesday, it was time to look at the assembly, even though some were not done yet. Our class brainstormed a hefty list of ideas they wanted to do, as they always do which included: - news report about how to make a personal narrative - commercial advertising their stories - original music for their news report - flyer One thing to remember is that the news report and commercial had every person in it (as per their request). The students broke into teams and started on their plan. The editors started setting up in iMovie and the videographers got into position with their ipods to record. Due to the time crunch, I wanted to have all the recording for the commercial done by the end of the day. Maybe not the most realistic but still. I found myself slowly creeping into the driver's seat as I tried to move from having one group record in front of the green screen after the next. With limited time, it's easy sometimes to slip back into old habits of guiding the situation more than you should or really need to. Sometimes it's easier to lead because you can get to the same teaching point faster and have the same outcome as your students. At some point I realised this and put a student in charge of getting the rest of the recording done. Therefore it wasn't coming from me any more with directions. Of course, it continued in the same manner. I really hadn't made the process any more efficient. It is more powerful for them to have more ownership of their work. I hadn't seen the commercial in 2 days and so I wandered over to the child who was working on it. I was completely blown away. I had no idea he had the tech skills to do what he did - without my help at that. Then we started brainstorming for our parent visit. They were so thoughtful of their parents and really wanted to make coming to the classroom an 'experience' for them. They carefully planned games, chose songs to dance to and decided how to set up the room. They created a welcome banner and also organised a presentation to explain the events of the afternoon. I again would have liked more time to see where the students could have pushed themselves farther but sometimes you don't have those extra few minutes. While they executed their plan well, I would've liked to give them more time to practice before their parents came. Sometimes holding on to what you think you (and your students) need is what you don't need. Be willing to take a risk with your students and see where they lead you. Because chances are, what they'll do on their own, will be far more than you expected of them. We tell our students it's okay to fail. We tell them it's okay to make mistakes as long as you grow from them. We tell them not to worry and that it'll all work out. We tell them you learn more from doing something wrong than doing something right. We smile at our students and tell them to persevere, bounce back and to work through it. We tell them We tell them this when they get a bad grade, don't make the school team, or don't get into the college they want. But what about us as teachers? What about when you go after something just like our students do and you do quite reach what you want?
I make mistakes on a daily basis. There is no surprise there and it's something I really do embrace, usually with a good laugh at that. But sometimes you give something your all and you have those 'oh I really want this' moments and still it is just out of your reach. This is exactly what happened to me this week. I had applied to Google Teacher Academy in Southeast Asia and, of course, was waiting patiently for a response on the status of my application. I had made a video, answered the questions, shared my resume and was pretty happy with my application overall. Was it perfect? No, there were things I wished I had fixed or changed or added in the end but that's always the case when it comes to the learning process. Then I got the email that informed me this time wasn't my time to be accepted into the programme. Of course, I was a bit bummed at first. I had that sinking feeling that takes me back to my Grade 7 year when I didn't make the co-ed baseball team at school. It was an opportunity I really wanted to be a part of and felt I could learn a lot from. But I believe everything happens for a reason and it just wasn't meant to be right now. Sometimes when you want something, you seem to forget about what you already have. If I stop for a second, I see how much I have accomplished already. When I look back over my teaching career, it's amazing to see where I am already and I am so thankful for each opportunity that I've been given. As I begin only my third year of teaching, I've had the pleasure of living in 2 countries, developed my technology skills tremendously and been guided and inspired by fantastic international educators. I've had the opportunity to take PYP workshops, present at a conference, lead training within my school and recently moved into a Year Group Coordinator position. I get to work with students who inspire me each and every day and who bring so much laughter and joy into my life. Never did I think I would have a career that lets me create digital products, foster leadership in others, share my own love of learning and also get to play dodgeball and dance all in the few hours of a workday. I've really only been using GAFE in my 1 to 1 classroom for a year now and I can't believe the transformation I've had as an educator because of it. Just like I tell my students to do, I'll try again next round. Each time I'll have more experience under my belt, more knowledge of GAFE, and in general, will hopefully be better a teacher than I was before. I am presented with the challenge of using GAFE in my classroom and trying to become more knowledgeable with the tools I use on a daily basis. I will continue to develop innovative ways to learn with my students. I do hope in my professional future that I do have the opportunity to be a part of the Google Teacher Academy and other professional opportunities that lie ahead. An obstacle only lights the determination within more as I continue to focus on making my classroom a positive and engaging learning environment for my students. No one is ever going to be told yes every time. No one is going to get 100% every single time. No one is truly perfect. Mistakes matter. Mistakes make people develop character, resiliency and a different outlook on life. So failure isn't really anything but finding a new approach to the same problem, a new way of looking at things and just one of many ways that don't work. Failure is just a way of saying a you've still got a challenge to overcome. As a relatively new teacher still (just about to start my third year), I make mistakes every single day... and lots of them! Yet one of the things you'll often hear me say is "Tomorrow I will be a better teacher".
Each day you walk into your classroom you are opening up yourself to the possibility of learning something new. In the past two years of teaching, I have grown as a teacher ten fold and pushed myself beyond what I knew I was capable of as a teacher. I am constantly being a risk-taker in my classroom and it is something I hope I instil in my students as well. In my classroom, it is okay to fail and make mistakes providing you take away valuable learning from it and apply it to future experiences. My first year of teaching I taught Grade 1 in a PYP candidate school in Beijing, which was also my first international placement. I had a wonderful Head of Primary who encouraged me to try new things in my classroom and see how they went. Sometimes they worked, other times they didn't - but always I took away valuable insight that could be directly put back into my daily practice. Knowing that I had that freedom and support really pushed me to not be afraid of the unknown in my classroom. This past year, I was lucky enough to work at a school in Singapore that has grown very dear to my heart. Though some might think that moving to Singapore would be an easy transition, I found the learning curve steep, especially with the high expectations I often placed on myself. I was jumping up to Year 5 (Grade 4) with a 1-to-1 laptop programme in my class in a fully accredited PYP school. Coming from a school in Beijing with limited access to technology, my school in Singapore provided me with unlimited possibilities. Again, I was supported by individuals who knew a tremendous amount about the world of education technology but yet still let me explore, find my own way and ask questions. I had to really try to find my feet and figure out who I wanted to be as an educator and within our school community. Now that I am continuing in my second year at the same school and grade, I have the opportunity to improve upon what I executed last year and tweak, change, modify all of the many things I would have done differently. Not having to worry about moving and establishing myself in a new city and country, learning the curriculum, technology equipment and school culture will all me to focus more on just simply teaching and improving at a job that I am very passionate about. It seems to be the case always that the stumbles in life are where the most meaningful learning occurs and I know this year will be nothing different. I already am excited for the possibilities that lie ahead and the new mistakes I will learn from. This year I have decided to document some of those good days, mistakes, growth and experiences in and surrounding my classroom in the form of this blog. Reflection is one of the best methods I find for improving my own teaching practice and hope this documented form of reflection will help me continue to better myself for the betterment of my students. I hope you will learn with me through this blog, share your own thoughts and 'tomorrow be a better teacher'. |
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