Collaboration in Centers

I’ve been thinking a lot about centers since my article discussion.  The article that I used (http://cte.jhu.edu/ELC3/Uploads/ELC_78/centers_and_differentiation.pdf) and the article Nicole presented on (http://www.reading.org/Publish.aspx?page=RT-61-1-Fisher.pdf&mode=retrieve&D=10.1598/RT.61.1.4&F=RT-61-1-Fisher.pdf&key=E425A2BF-F244-4E36-8F19-B982D91E44EF) both talk about how important collaboration and communication are in literacy centers.  This prompted me to think about my centers and the level of collaboration that takes place during center time in my classroom.



For the most part my structured centers, or my “must dos,” don’t require collaboration.  They are usually things like writing about your favorite part of the story, or draw and label the problem and solution of the story.  I am planning to add “theatre” as one of my structured centers so then at least one of the four would be an interactive center.  I can try to make the other structured centers more collaborative by modeling how to talk about what you write with a partner before you start to write.  



Most of my unstructured centers are more interactive.  I have things like ABC games and puzzles, reading (independently or with a partner), spelling word wall words on the Promethean board, making play dough letters, writing around the room.  Even for the unstructured centers that are independent activities, like writing around the room, my students know that they are allowed to help each other and talk while working.



My math centers are a different story.  My structured math centers are usually worksheet based and related to the previous weeks lessons.  Some of the worksheets are created by me or another member of the kindergarten team at my school and some are from workbooks.  For example, this week one of my centers was to cut out letters and numbers from a sheet and paste them onto another page, with the letters above a line on the page and the numbers below.  We taught positional words the week before so this was a review of above and below, and was also an introduction to sorting which we were learning that week.



The unstructured centers are more fun, math games and puzzles, manipulative's, math literature, and Promethean board games.  I’m sure I could come up with creative activities for the other centers... but I like having the review work because it is a built in formative assessment for me.  Each week I get to see how my class internalized the information from the previous week and if they are able to apply it individually.  I’m hoping this does not make me a horrible teacher for liking my few centers that are worksheets.  Thoughts?

Parents as Partners

Our discussion about teaching and professionalism really struck a chord with me.  It seems that part of the problem is teachers taking themselves seriously.  But a much bigger problem is how the rest of the world views teachers.  A large subset of “the rest of the world” is parents.  How can we expect to be treated as professionals when the people who are entrusting us with their children don’t even view us that way?  I came across an article on cnn that touches on this topic (http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/06/living/teachers-want-to-tell-parents/index.html ). 

If you don’t have time to read the article, (although it’s good… I would recommend it), it talks about how teachers are citing parents as a reason for leaving the profession.  I love the example it gives of having a conference with a parent and telling them something their child has done in the classroom and the parent turns to the student and says “Is that true?”  The author of the article points out that what you really want to say to the parent is “of course it’s true… I just told you that!” 

The discussion we had along with this article made me start to think about how we can make parents our partner rather than our enemies.  If we really want parents to support our work in the classroom then we first have to make sure that they understand what it is that we do in the classroom.  Back to school night theoretically gives you time to talk with parents but it seems to me that all you ever have time to share is logistical information, not really content or how to help at home.  If I had an abundant amount of free time I would love to have a parent training workshop to teach the parents of my students how to help at home.

Lucky for me my school is hosting a kindergarten literacy night next week.  The parents and students will be rotating through three stations.  At one station parents will learn how to read aloud at home and what kinds of comprehension questions to ask when reading at home.  Then the kids get to pick out a book and the parents can practice reading out loud.  At another station there will be six different ABC and word wall word games set up (mix and fix with cut up words, sorting upper and lower case magnetic letters, concentration with ABC cards, ect.).  Parents will learn how to play these games and then have a few minutes to play each one.  At the last station parents and students will explore literacy web based games that they can access at home (I highly recommend www.starfall.com ).

In addition to having an evening set aside to educate parents, I think communicating with parents about what’s going on in the classroom is really important.  I send home a weekly newsletter ( https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B6KbKa8ILJIUYzcwYTA2MjAtMmFlYi00NDQ2LTlmY2YtYTRhZmJhMDBmYWNl&hl=en_US ) to tell parents about our lessons for the week.  Included in the peek at the week is a “tips for home” section that changes every week or two to give parents ideas for ways to reinforce the classroom concepts at home. 

I really believe that teachers and parents both want the same thing; they want what is best for the child.  If we can communicate with parents about our goals in school, most parents will want to help reach these goals at home as well.

Prior Knowledge

It makes sense that one of the essential components for being a “good reader” is to have access to background knowledge.  What troubles me is that in my classroom I have about 30% of my students who are ESOL, most of whom were born in another country.  I have always known that not all of my students will have the same background knowledge but have never really stopped to consider what I can do about it.

This was bothering me so I started looking around online.  I found an article, http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9219/prior.htm that sites teaching vocabulary and providing experiences as ways to increase background knowledge.  I know that ESOL teachers do a lot of work with flash cards and words in their classes.  For some reason it never occurred to me that I could bring those strategies into my classroom as well.  I’ve done picture splashes a few times but not with any consistency.  It would be nice to have a wall in the room where I could post pictures related to our big book for the week.  For example, next week’s book is Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  I could put up pictures of bears, cabins, woods, porridge.  We could use these pictures as a phonics activity each week as well and label them with the beginning sound that they make!    

Ok so teaching vocabulary seems doable, what about providing experiences?  There are probably several students in my class whose parents don’t have the means or the interest in taking them to places like the zoo or the beach.  Ideally I’d love to pack up my kids everyday and go experience different places but I know that is not realistic.  However, I could easily bring in a bag of sand and let my students touch it and play with it to introduce a book about a beach.

Last week we read Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom in my class.  Now that I am thinking about strategies for prior knowledge, it’s making me think that it would have been AWESOME to bring in a coconut to pass around.  Then we could have looked at pictures of coconut trees online.  I know the story has nothing to do with coconuts, but some of the kids may have no idea what I even mean when I read the words “coconut tree” in the story.  Next week in science we will be talking about the 5 senses, so I think I will bring in a coconut and relate it back to Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom!    

Behaviorism

I was really interested in the reaction that most people in class had to the philosophy discussion, in particular the information presented on behaviorism. Whenever someone with a background in education hears the term "behaviorist" they immediately think of Pavlov and his dogs (kinda ironic that we're been classically conditioned to think of him when we hear the phrase...). We usually assume that behaviorism is a bad thing. We see this as some creepy, robotic type of system that does not allow for people to be individuals. However, Pavlov may be onto something. We can in fact "train" students to behave in a certain manner through the use a system of rewards and punishments (if I could train my dogs half as well as my students, I'd be thrilled!).

Before I entered the classroom last year I was adamant that I was opposed to positive behavior systems of classroom management.  I didn’t want my class to behave well because they will get a prize or a ticket; I wanted them to behave well because that is the expectation in my classroom and their job is to meet my expectations.  As it turns out, 5 year olds don’t care very much what I expect them to do; they care much more about extrinsic motivation.  It also turns out that I don’t really care what their motivation is; I just want them to behave well for any reason at all!  My school used the stoplight system for behavior management so I put one up in my classroom but was hit or miss about actually using it to enforce behavior.  It was two months into my teaching last year before I broke down and started a class marble jar.  When the whole class was doing what they were supposed to do we earned a handful of marbles.  When the jar was filled they got a class prize (lunch in the classroom, extra recess, etc.).  I could not believe the difference.  Just saying “Looks like we won’t be earning marbles during math today” would quiet down my entire class in an instant.  Marbles became better than stickers (which is a big deal because to Kindergarten students stickers are like a drug).

This year my school did away with the stoplight system due to the embarrassment and anxiety it caused students because of the fear of having to move their clip from green to yellow.  Teachers at my school are now only allowed to use positive behavior systems in their classroom.  While I think negative punishments do have their place in the classroom, I was secretly excited to break out the marble jar this year.   I introduced the marble jar in the first week of school and at the end of week two we have filled it up and received our first reward!  I start out very heavy handed with the marbles so the students learn what it feels like to earn the reward.  As we get further into the year they earn less and less marbles at a time so that it takes longer to fill up. 

My school has opted not to become part of the PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) system just yet, this year we are all implementing positive behavior systems in our classroom independent from a school system.  The PBIS program website, http://www.pbis.org/ has a lot of information about how to implement positive behavior.  They even provide templates of “good behavior tickets” to pass out and a list of free or inexpensive rewards, http://www.pbis.org/training/student.aspx (for the list of rewards click on “free rewards for students” under the Gotcha resources).

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Welcome to my blog. My blog title is borrowed from Dr. Suess... I'm not clever enough to come up with something like that :) I hope you enjoy my posts.