Nuerodivergent assessments are DEI planning.

Abolish the description “just” when talking to someone about their time.

Pathways hung on the outside of the existing curriculum or partially tunneled through an interior redesign?

How do we follow up Frosh Creation to help them grow as intellectual risk takers?

The pursuit of success encourages overly strict adherence to models at the cost of discovery.

I can see signs of legitimate burn-out in many peers, and it is only October.

Creativity is not the property of specific academic departments.

A PD day re-watching the no.1 TED talk of all time followed by various discussions and ideation parties – including all staff.

Service units for active participation in someone else’s club as a member

Normalize paper covered tables around the school with cups of crayons – hanging up sections of them often 

Bring back buskers.

I highly value intent and approach.

Paragraphs are not always better.

Following Vygotsky’s ZPD, I have experimented with a variety of digital platforms to create online networks for my students so they navigate their thinking, creative, and professional paths. Such an online space makes my students continuously interact through online platforms to share/diversify thinking processes, capture visual research, and keep learning anytime from “knowledgeable others ‘. Online collabs accelerate inclusion through virtual presence and produce new possibilities for academic performance across screens, devices and realities. here some frameworks ->

My past experiments with creating data-driven online collabs have shown that sharing digital identities in the real world makes students feel that they belong to the community and embrace diverse perspectives when researching their subject matter. By sharing their creative process online, students are likely to stay connected with their creative community and enfuse academia into life experiences.  

This year, I adopted visual thinking frameworks from professionals into online graphic organizers to scaffold a complexity of perception in art which stands for a relation between common visual stimuli (knowledge) and a personal understanding of them. As Technology (Data, Ai, Neural Nets) has become a vehicle/tool for contemporary artists connecting multiple perspectives on their original ideas, my students follow online graphic organizers to reflect on each other’s ideas. This helps students observe how views of both an artist and an observer contribute and deepen their artistic concepts. 

I recently discovered the platform Miro which gives participants visual frameworks to capture thinking processes through online collaboration. Such collaborative graphic organizers gamified my coursework research stage and deepened interpersonal connections in the group. Working together on the online board for their inquiries they explore/copy/adopt each other’s thinking processes and contribute to one another’s research. The connection between online and offline interaction makes even the most under-radar folks contribute to the collective art process with their authentic digital identity cues. 

Neurodiverse students  accelerate their academic performance from such online collaborations as they can choose their own way to perform skills, stay connected to the instructions, and contribute to teamwork. Working on the organizer,  students may choose to prioritize text over drawings or share references as video/ imagery or links to the articles. They assign roles and pick their own ways to complete tasks. Such a differentiated approach vests my students with an agency and makes them take ownership of their learning experience. As everyone uses the platform in their own way, collaboration becomes more diverse and accelerates a supportive and professional community. 

Here are a few graphic organizers for online collaboration. I have been using these since the beginning of this year: 

 

Diversifying Inquiry with Bull’s Eye Chart Collaboration

Students observe how others react/reflect on their inquiry question/concept, and receive diverse feedback and references connected to their ideas. 

Goals:   

• narrow inquiry question 
• diversify concepts/ hypothesis around inquiry question 
• collect visual references  
• clarify visual metaphors

Prerequisites:   Class of at least 15 

                       Inquiry Question (Draft)  

Steps: 

• Chart Preset.  I design a framework visual organizer in Miro called the Bull Eye chart.  The Bull’s eye framework allows a researcher to collect and retain visual data associated with their theme/inquiry and get a diverse view on it from multiple perspectives. 

• State The Inquiry Question. Students initiate visual research by placing their inquiry and critical hypothesis in the center of the Bull Eye diagram. 

• Crowd share. Students rotate through one another’s charts to share responses/visual references/reflections on the theme of inquiry. They follow steps on the notes.   

• Calibrate Your Vision. After a few shifts, students return to their initial inquiry and re-design it based on the collective data. 

• Capture The Experience Offline. Students journal their inquiry, guiding questions and reflections in their sketchbooks. The journal entry is part of their portfolio.

Collecting Sources. Collaborative Mind Map 

Students deepen their inquiry once they have collected and analyzed the sources, ideas, and hypotheses about their inquiry from group mates. 

Goals:  

• get unstuck when starting a complex new project 
• collect sources and visual references 
• find diverse ideas for perspective artworks 

Prerequisites:   A group of three students

Subject Matter /Inquiry Question   

• Mind Map Preset. Mind maps represent the workflow of the inquiry with  big questions and guiding questions/hypotheses.

• Inquiry Set Up. Students place their inquiry question in the center of the mind map preset. Students add guiding questions/ hypotheses/ visual references to their mind map. Students work on the same board so they can see/copy each other’s process. 

• Collaborate. Students rotate to add a fresh layer of sources/reflections to the general concept. They built the hypothesis/ add process on the established original idea but use their own perspectives and knowledge about the subject matter. Students ask a few questions that might deepen the ideas behind the original question. 

• Calibrate your vision with journal entry. Students revisit their inquiries and read through all the insights from their folks. The senses make students collaborate on their vision and clarify key messages of their artworks. Students use digital data to create hands-on preliminary sketches and drafts of the inquiry. 

Deepening Content Knowledge with online art crowd  

Students use assignment roles to explore complex content and use visual thinking to present their material as a group. 

Goals: 

 – Collect and analyze complex data 

–  Acquire under layered concepts in art  with visual thinking

–  Present complex ideas 

Prerequisites:   4 groups of 5 students 

                             A list of resources and materials related to the content 

• Prefiled Mind Map Preset. Students place the subject of exploration in the center of the mind map. They follow prefield threads to explore the subject matter.  

• Assign Roles. Students assign roles in their collaborative group, so everyone has the opportunity to equally contribute to the research and explore at least part of the content.  

• Presentation. Students take 2 min to showcase their mind map and present the research. They follow the structure and showcase their mind map when presenting.

So far so good! I’ll keep experimenting with the digital tool and keep you posted, folks!)  

much love,

D xx

In the wake of Summer 2020, I realized I needed to diversify the voices I was hearing from. My Twitter feed was pretty limited (my sibling and a couple of scicommers was it), so I decided to start actively expanding my Twitter feed to include a broader diversity of voices in the scicomm community. As I read about experiences of a series non-white science professionals, I started hearing common threads- that well-meaning teachers hadn’t gotten how their experiences in academia were not generally applicable to students from wildly different backgrounds, and how many blind spots those same well-meaning teachers had. Along the way, I was introduced to the work of Zaretta Hammond- specifically Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain.

If you’re looking for a book that gets into the neurology of learning, why and how culture affects learning, AND gives practical ways to use the first two parts constructively, this is a great book. Even better- it also has a study guide, because it is truly meant to be digested in the community where you can dissect school and personal culture, find blind spots that you didn’t even know you had, and creatively strategize together. 

It was really interesting to dive into the concept of culture, and how it can play into our classrooms in unexpected ways. The standard use of culture in today’s political sphere, which usually refers to things like holidays and traditional clothing, is really just the superficial layer of icing on top of the truly rich culture that students have internally. The deeper cultural levels are things like collectivist versus individualist cultures, the importance of being on time, personal space, etc- things that can be similar across many cultures that appear superficially different. These deeper levels can dictate why individual students behave and potentially introduce conflict. This book is a shift from multicultural teaching, which is all about celebrating student diversity at that surface-level culture, into culturally responsive teaching, which really gets at the deep embedded culture that students don’t even think about.

A truly timely example was given in the book, which had played out similarly in my classroom a couple months before I read the book. In the example in the book, two elementary school Latina girls were murmuring together as they did an assignment, then writing down answers. Depending on the frame of reference, it could appear that the students are cheating or that they are using their mental resources wisely by collaboratively learning. In my class, it was a pair of girls who had remarkably similar final projects- minorly different details, but so many similarities that it was clear they had built the framework significantly together and plugged in the specifics later. For me, it was a no-brainer case of unauthorized collaboration when I had specifically told the students that they each needed to do their own project. In their minds though, they had created individual projects, and they were legitimately confused why this was problematic. At the core, the issue was a mismatch between our basic understanding of what it meant to create your own project, and how much collaboration was appropriate for this type of assessment. 

The other aspect that I love about the book is the focus on moving from dependent learners to independent learners. I know that among faculty there have been numerous discussions about how students just want the answer, they want to have things spoon-fed, etc- this book actually addresses how to scaffold the shift to independence, and WHY it works based on neurology and psychology, using culture. Some of the practical suggestions are things that we all already know- creating a safe environment where they feel supported but challenged, creating rapport, using graphic organizers. But the book also explains why they work, and gives other ways to access and use the deep culture of students to help scaffold them to being independent learners. Other suggestions are not so obvious. For example, what values are we communicating through our environments? What do the artifacts on the walls communicate to students, parents, and even ourselves about what is important? For me, that meant changing my classroom to have science art around the room to emphasize the beauty, diversity, accessibility, and love of science- along with their innate belonging in and among science. 

This book is one that I’m going to have to keep diving back into, and keep implementing and tweaking new small bits. If anyone wants to do a book club for this book, complete with the study guide, I’m in to read through it again!

I’ve been playing around with Pear Deck, seeing if I can use the tool to boost engagement in my US History classes. I had created a set of slides that I wanted to go through in class, and many of the slides included graphs or images that I wanted the students to interpret. So, I thought, why not use Pear Deck so that I can see their responses to the prompts in real time?

Here’s what I learned from the experience:

A. Asking students to respond to a prompt on Pear Deck is great, if the prompt requires extended thinking and writing, not if the prompt is a quick question meant to be covered briefly.

Teaching inverse relationships 

In your math class
Who you gonna call?
Art Teachers!

OK, the lyrics are a little clunky …

Inverse relationships are created by reflecting the graph of a relationship across the x-y line on the coordinate plane. One way to do this is to swap the x and y coordinates of the points of the relationship and create a new graph – this method is tedious and can be prone to errors. Another method is to swap the x and y variables in the equation of the relationship and then solve for the new y-variable – this method requires that you start with an equation for the relationship which is not always possible.  

The method that is easiest to do, is fun and allows students to actually visualize the inverse relationship is to paint over the relationship with your favorite color (or multiple colors) and then, before the paint dries, fold the paper along the x-y line; finally, open the paper to reveal the image of the inverse relationship. Students did just this with supplies from our resident art teacher, Daria Sur.

When I found out that we were going to be having ongoing PD, I was tentatively hopeful that having one person walk with the social studies department for the whole year might actually be valuable. I figured that as they got to know us they would be able to eventually give us pointers that would help us as a department. I thought this would take session upon session to achieve, but after just the first two sessions, I realized how much of a fog I have been in for the past two years. Between Covid and maternity leave I feel like everything Rubin shared with us was lost gold. As I was writing down takeaways, I was thinking to myself how did I forget this stuff?? What have I been doing for the past two years??

I am not saying that all standards and good teaching has fallen by the wayside but upon reflection from PD and student feedback – between Covid protocols and writing 8 weeks of sub plans for maternity leave last spring so much of what my students were getting from me, especially in AP Psych was passive, self paced learning. To be perfectly candid as I was reading the surveys from the students I am writing letters of rec for, I was horrified to see how many students described how they struggled with what I considered to be brilliantly planned self paced units. It was just a wake up call to step it back up and take the best from what I learned during Covid and to ditch the rest. 

I am ditching:

• Self paced units. I got enough feedback to know my students were not into this. I am seeing much more desire from students in a post covid classroom to do less on your own work and more teacher/student led assignments. Students seem to recognize that free time to work does not actually mean work will be happening for them and as their outside of school lives ramp back up I think it is important for me to hold space for them to work with a certain level of accountability. 

• Assuming that all students should come with certain skills. A lot was lost in the Covid years. It was also hard to gage who was following you or lost when teaching on zoom. I think to be honest I forgot to check in a lot last year about what students knew vs. what gaps there were. In our first open note test of the year Frosh World History students had a pretty underwhelming performance over all. The biggest thing I saw was students struggling to take effective and organized notes. Note taking is honestly a skill that I consider a “given” when it comes to high school. Not anymore! Thanks to Ally and others in the department notes are now being scaffolded in a much more strategic way – hoping this works in the next unit. 

• Electronic feedback for more in-person live feedback as a less confident teacher I provided as much feedback as I could via google docs or power school because I hated the hard in person conversation giving students feedback they probably didn’t want to hear. Distance learning really made this habit entrenched. I am really trying to actively be mindful of giving feedback in person, especially when a student is struggling and I know a quick conversation will go farther than an email that may not be read.

• Group work that lasts more than one class period. I love and hate group work. Rubin both affirmed why teachers liked it, but hit the nail on the head about its issues – a teacher (usually) has no idea how much an individual student knows or contributed to the final product. Group work often leads to some students carrying the load while other students skate through – I do know that some teachers in my department have mastered group projects. I have not. For now I am going to limit group work to only SHORT and LOW STAKES classwork.

I am doubling down on:

• Using every minute of class time. I know as teachers we are supposed to use every minute of class time but let’s be honest if we ever walk through the halls on our preps during the last 4 minutes of class not all of us are. While we may reserve the last 5 minutes of class for students to start on a homework assignment 

• Checks for understanding- I do WAY TOO MUCH ASSUMING in class that everyone is following me/the content. See my point above. Especially in AP Psych. I am upping my check for understanding the game as much as possible this year in a way that is not boring exit tickets or quizzes. Last week in AP Psych when reviewing the endocrine system I gave students a scenario of being at Thanksgiving with their cousin who just had a baby, their crush, their racist uncle, and the rest of their family and had them write down all of the hormones that might be running through people’s blood stream. They definitely took creative liberties and I got to see way more of their personalities when we shared out, rather than just having them post their ideas on Schoology. It was clear they knew the endocrine system!  

• You, We, Me  Another very basic teacher move that I rediscovered is similar to the think, pair, share move. Here the teacher demonstrates. Students practice together. And then students manipulate content on their own. This is teaching 101 I get it but like I said I needed a reboot. I think sometimes I disregard certain teaching strategies as too basic for high schoolers – lol oops. Today in class we analyzed the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen. I began by showing students how to annotate a primary source. They did it at their tables and shared out. Finally students annotated on their own – once again I get this isn’t rocket science but I was really impressed with what some of my struggling students were able to do on their own with the right scaffolding. 

• The Think Aloud Rubin also encouraged us all to practice the think aloud. Once again I thought that this was more of a Math or elementary school strategy. This is where you explain YOUR thought process as you go through a problem so that students can see how you THINK about a problem. I put this to the test after the UNIT 1 Psych test. I took the 11 most missed questions and recorded myself talking through how to successfully navigate each of these questions. I am still waiting on student feedback but I am really hoping that this builds metacognition around multiple choice test questions. 

Can you relate to feeling like you are needing to remind yourself of the basics? What have you ditched this year? What are you making a priority in terms of teaching strategies this year?

After our PD Day I was fired up to modify my teaching practice. While I feel that I am pretty honest with myself and generally self-aware, I wanted to see my teaching from the perspective of the student. In writing this blog I went to a classic website, Edutopia, and of course found an article speaking about the benefits of recording yourself teaching. As the author of the blog stated, “I not only learned more about myself and how I taught, I also learned more about the students in the class.”

Watching a recording of myself teaching was a scary thought but not a scary task. I am actually very happy that I did it and I honestly want to record myself every year if not every semester. Thank you to Elizabeth for the Swivel camera use and intuitive technology for an easy process!

A few things that I learned from recording myself:

• I switch between side commentary and class coursework pretty quickly and multiple times in this class. I wonder if this is actually good for some students in order to keep their attention span going or if it is actually distracting. I think this is why I have been labeled “chaotic” before. I have also had a student say that I allow tangents but somehow wrap them back into class, so I think this has been common to my teaching practice. It is definitely something to ponder!
• I am delighted by how comfortable the class feels on camera. My redirection of students who were hamming it up for the camera felt playful and not harsh. Similar to my transitions and corrections of technology being out, I was reminding students of procedures and expectations and not chastising them which I am happy to see. I sometimes feel I am too harsh.
• I mentioned an anecdote to a section of the class that involved body image and I do not like how that anecdote came across on video. I need to be more mindful about those types of anecdotes/comments. (I ended up circling back to this the next class period and was a little more vulnerable in my weight loss journey and gave some context to my comments from the previous class.)
• This is the second class that I have used Nearpod and I love it! I like that they can see the results but that I can leave the names anonymous. It also gets conversation going that I don’t think would have the same engagement had I just led the discussion with student volunteers answering the questions. It also gives them an opportunity to critique the way I write questions, which gets them engaged, so I like the feedback!
• I think I needed to intervene less and have the students who led the class in a sorting exercise work harder to get the class engaged. However, this was the first time doing this type of activity with the class so I think I needed to lead a little more than I would have liked.
  

 Chasing Greatness: 26.2 Ways Teaching is Like Running a Marathon (Mike Roberts)

Chapter 1

   First, I wondered if anyone else was reading this book from the PD day before school began. If so, this could transform into a virtual book club where someone else could take a different chapter to write about, and we could rotate. If not, I will just share my thoughts on the book as I read it ☺

  My initial thoughts on picking this book up were that it sounded a bit gimmicky. However, the more I thought about it, I realized that I don’t spend very much time listening to other teachers’ experiences as teachers. My understanding of others’ experiences is limited to my department members, colleagues, and social media posts. So I’ve decided to give it a fair go and see what comes up for me reading it. 

  Reading the story of Mike on his first run was great because I could hear him explaining it in his voice the way he did during his PD. He tells the story and then pauses to ask, “How do challenging workouts help make you a stronger runner? How does this apply to teaching challenges that make you grow and stretch as an educator?” (p. 15). This gave me a lot to reflect on, and I would love to hear others’ answers to this as well. For me, I’ve learned the most from the challenging moments. Pivoting during COVID to distance learning pushed my own knowledge to gain technology skills that I am not sure that I ever would have gained. It also made me realize that I could continually learn new technologies indefinitely and will likely need to! 

     When I started teaching, I was convinced I had so many “better” answers on how to do things. My first year was an actual dumpster fire for me! I was clueless about classroom management strategies and got a real wake-up call. I had the most challenging year, but I learned so much. I realized that I needed to ask for help from other teachers, find strategies that worked for me, and that at the heart of classroom management is fostering strong relationships with students. I am much more confident in my abilities in the classroom now. Still, I have expanded upon the realization of necessary continual growth in my practice. 

  Perhaps one of the most critical questions for the teaching climate today; Mike asked,  “Why do so few people run marathons? Does this same logic relate to the teaching shortage?” (p.15). Honestly, I have no idea. I think there are significant differences in teaching at a public school versus a private school. Still, I sympathize with many of the issues in conversations about education. It is a challenging, often under-appreciated profession. I am curious to see what happens to teach over the next few years. Still, I wish more people could see the good parts of teaching (maybe similarly, there are also great parts of running a marathon… I wouldn’t know!). 

  Tomorrow’s Training Plan: A checklist of things to work on

1.) What can I do tomorrow to improve my class by 1%?

I like the idea of getting 1% better at teaching each day, and I will work to do this in my own practice. There are so many areas that I would like to work on, but 1% seems manageable! Mike mentioned that even working to remember students’ names faster was part of the 1%, which is where I am starting. I really struggle with names! 

2.) Make a list of PD opportunities (books, conferences, etc.) that would enhance my teaching and pursue one per month/.

This book and the book club for classroom management will start next week!

3.) Identify 3 small goals for this school year, explain why I want to accomplish them, and the steps needed.

My main goal this year is to acclimate to Carondelet as a first-year teacher. So I will pick three ways to do that: 1. Increase my involvement (chaperone a dance, go on a retreat, be involved with a club, attend sporting events/theater/etc.). This is important to me for building relationships with my students outside my classroom and getting to know the community better. 2. Create meaningful relationships with colleagues. This is important because the community is how I feel connected and engaged in a work environment. It also energizes me to socialize. 3. Listen more. This is important to me because I am a fixer and often jump to action before taking the time to understand the complete picture. In a new environment, there is a lot I will not understand, and listening will significantly aid my understanding. 

It could be fun if anyone would like to continue and do Chapter 2 in this book!

 “How does the CSJ charism of unifying love intersect with algorithms and technology?”

AP Computer Science Principles isn’t just a coding class. I think a lot of people expect it to be that, or a watered-down version of CS A (java object oriented programming). We do a lot of programming, but the focus of the class is broader than just writing code. 

One of the five units of the course is “Impact of Computing” (IoC). Last year, because of time pressure, I ended up assigning a lot of this as independent study, which we would touch base on periodically. This year, I am going to continue to intersperse the coding/data/algorithms content with IoC stuff. It allows flexibility to talk about things as they pop up in the news, or to apply the concepts to coding/data/algorithms and make it a bit more personal. 

Today was my “overarching theme of the course” day. I touched on their summer reading (Algorithms are everywhere!), discussed some old news and personal experiences (I was at Michigan when Gratz v Bollinger and Grutter v Bollinger came down and changed their admission policies), and asked them to consider how technology affects our lives. 

First, I had several students hold signs representing the following tech:

• GPS
• Alexa
• Artificial Intelligence
• Video Games
• Social Media
• Fitness tracking apps/devices
• CCTV
• Self-driving cars

The remaining students got one move each; they could tell a sign-holder to move one space to the left or right. To stage left was “least beneficial;” stage right was “most beneficial.” We went around the room, and then discussed whether people agreed or disagreed with the results.

Then, the sign-holders picked someone else to hold the sign. Now, they were to rank the same tech from least harmful to most.

As most of you know, I’m a neophyte teacher. I have exactly one semester at the high school level. As such, I’m still learning a ton from my students. This was enlightening for me. I’d have GPS-related things much more harmful and video games as least harmful. I didn’t realize how little understanding of the omnipresence of tech, algorithms, and internet they had. I learned how much space they have to grow in that area, and consequently I will focus on that each time we have an IoC day.

After that, I had them reflect on whether they would prefer to be prescreened for an interview by a human or the software mentioned in the summer reading. Again, a big surprise for me. I expected everyone to say human, but about half said the software, because they felt it would be more impartial. Note to self: remind them who writes the algorithms that create that software.

I contrasted that with a quick rundown of the University of Michigan race-conscious court cases, and asked whether they’d prefer to be evaluated by the points system (Gratz, undergrad), or the more nebulous system (Grutter, Law school). Again, I was surprised. They wanted the more qualitative system. I would prefer the points system, because it’s more transparent, and thus could be critiqued and tweaked. They felt that people would be more likely to game the points system. I’m curious as to why their opinions on interview screening versus college admissions differ.

Finally, as something for them to mull over (hopefully), I asked them how the CSJ charism intersects with technology and algorithms. Many of them made the basic connection: don’t be a jerk on the internet. Some started to go farther: understand that people may use tech for direct and deliberate spread of CSJ ideas through electronic communities. Some pointed out that the CSJ mission sometimes goes against our love affair with tech, and that we should remember to get off of our devices from time to time. A handful delved deeply into the question and started to think about how technology could be used to unite physical communities and effect a more peaceful and just society.

I plan on closing out the year by asking this same question, and showing them their answers from today.

And I’ll leave you with a reflection from one of my students:

“Since the 17th century the CSJ sisters respond to the needs of that time, we are still able to follow in the CSJ sister’s footsteps, but now have an advantage with the help of technology. As a community, we are now able to spread awareness of injustices that are happening across the world and would not be able to bring action through these injustices without social media platforms that are provided by technology.”

A favorite college professor of mine, Dr. Gary Albright, used to challenge his students with the statement, “If you can’t explain it, you don’t know it.” Every claim his students made had to be explained. No statement ever went uncontested by Dr. Albright. I have used this technique throughout my teaching career. Whether it be challenging answers to math problems or statements about world peace, I have followed this same method of making students explain their answers. Explain it to me so I know you understand. This is a simple and powerful technique for increasing student understanding of what they know and don’t know. But is this comprehension test the key to being a good teacher? It is not. Although Dr. Albright was a brilliant leader of socratic seminars, he could be devastating for students who were not prepared for his assaults. If you were unprepared or just did not understand, he would dismiss you and command you to leave the class until you had an answer. Some students never returned. There is more to being a good teacher than intelligence and one successful teaching method.

For the past fifty years I have been searching for those key attributes that make a good teacher. I have not discovered a silver bullet or holy grail answer. What I have discovered is that teaching is an art. Like all art, the more the artist masters the medium, the better the artist will be. With effort and determination one can become a good artist, or a good teacher. It takes a whole other combination of qualities to become great. 

This distinction between good and great became abundantly clear to me when I had the opportunity to work with the chefs at Jeremiah Tower’s Star’s Restaurant. The executive chefs were able to create amazing original recipes every day using only the freshest ingredients they purchased each morning. I was not even in the same class as the sous chefs at Star’s. The sous chefs were amazing. The talents of the executive chefs were beyond my dreams.  

I got to know the owners and employees of Star’s Restaurant because I once owned a recreational resort where we cooked BBQ meals and provided entertainment. Star’s had its employees’ parties there for many years. I once asked executive chef Mark Franz why they kept coming back each year. He told me our food was good, our entertainment was good, and our prices were good. That perfectly fit what they wanted. It made me realize that, sometimes, being good can be great. I have always aspired to be a good teacher, even a great teacher. Every day is a new adventure and a new challenge to be a better teacher.

My lifelong quest to be a good teacher led me to read many books and articles about education. An article recently posted in Edutopia, How to Engage Students in Any Subject Area by Esther Wojcicki rang true to me. It lists and explains four attributes of effective classrooms. I am going to use Ms. Wojcicki’s four attributes as a foundation to explain in my own words what each one means to me.

1. There’s a culture of caring and kindness within the class.

Letting your students know you care about them is essential. Without this connection, students will never feel fully vested in the class.

 I do a few simple things to let students know I care. The first is greeting each student by name. I walk around the room and make eye contact with each student. Just saying their names and making some quick remarks or asking a question makes students feel I care about each of them as individuals.

Another thing I do is an assignment called Monday Feedback. There are three questions; “What did you like?”, “What did you not like or not understand?”, and “What random question or thought do you have?. I respond to each student. This personalizes our relationship. It makes students feel more connected and gives me insights into each student. This assignment is time consuming for me, but the feedback makes the effort worthwhile.

Student teams give students the opportunity to really get to know at least some of their classmates. It takes practice to make teams work well. Done well, teams build a strong comradery among teammates. Showing teammates how to support and help each other raises the level of learning for everyone. Teams also give me an opportunity to talk with small groups in a more personalized setting.

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2. Students know why they’re studying the subject.

There is so much material to cover in social studies. There will never be enough time to cover all of it. Long ago I decided to focus on skills instead of content. I focus on three main skills, research, synthesizing and creating.

Research must go beyond assigned readings or DBQ’s. According to The X Files “The truth is out there.” But how does one find the truth? How does one distinguish between truth and falsehood? How does one find quality vetted sources? How does one separate the wheat from the chaff? Research must be a treasure hunt that enables students to use the most obscure clues to find the gold.

I have always been an advocate for Bloom’s Taxonomy, but Bloom’s does not include research. It does not address the acquisition of information. It just assumes the information is there. In today’s world the acquisition of information is huge. So many jobs focus on this one skill. Throw away the textbooks. Bring out the essential questions and begin the research.

The essential questions are the key to students understanding why they are learning a topic. Look at all the potential content, the current hot topics in the world, and select content that will spark students interest. Work with students to find interesting essential questions. Students love learning content that is both mind blowing and new to them. Seek out those topics. For example in past years we have asked, “How did America get itself so deeply involved in the War in Vietnam?” This year, during the research phase, I could see this topic was not fully engaging the students. We switched focus to “Was Daniel Ellsberg justified in publishing the Pentagon Papers?” They got hooked on this one and went with it.

If you cannot at least explain to students why they should be learning a topic, why the topic is important, move onto something else. There are plenty of topics that can be chosen to teach the lifelong learning skills that will enable students to learn everything they need to know for the rest of their lives.

The final phase is creating, or making it their own. Whether it is an essay, a video presentation, a discussion, or an artistic expression, students must create something to both show understanding and to make it their own. This is the step that adds to and enhances their world view. For example, how a student feels about gun control is not as important as is their understanding of the arguments pro and con. If students come to conclusions based on solid clams, with strong evidence, we have done our job.

3. There’s a student-friendly revision policy.

Way back in the day I taught 6th grade. I returned an essay to a student replete with notes written by me with my trusty red pen. He looked at the grade and dropped the essay in the garbage can. That incident made me realize I was doing something wrong. From that point on student essays were written, corrected and graded, rewritten on unlined paper, regraded, and bound into a book of student work to be presented to parents at the end of the year. The quality of the work improved, student engagement improved, and there was no more ignoring my notes.

From that time to the present I have always allowed students to revise their work. Most student work is categorized as formative assessment. There are built in opportunities for self correcting or peer correcting before I see the assignments. I am rarely asked by a student for an opportunity to revise one of these assignments after I grade it. 

I only give two or three summative assessment projects each quarter. The students know the value of these assignments and really want to do well on them. They ask questions. They ask their classmates and me to review their written work. If the final product does not meet expectations, students generally ask for permission to revise their work. For students who need to make revisions, this is where the real learning takes place. All summative assessments are submitted to TurnItIn, so plagiarism is not a problem.

4. Embed collaboration in most of the assignments 

Students must learn to work together and to help each other. This is always a challenge at the beginning of the year. Most students are used to working alone, sitting in rows with interpersonal contact discouraged.

There are many ways to encourage collaboration. For example, if I give a team worksheet with 10 questions, I will only grade three answers. Team members must work together or risk bad grades. Other times I randomly quiz students on the answers. No one wants to not be able to provide the correct answers. Research can be done as a team with each teammate finding three or four good sources. Peer pressure is a wonderful way to motivate students. Once the teacher gets teams working together, little oversight is needed. 

Jigsaw projects necessitate collaboration to get the pieces of the puzzle correctly placed together. Large topics are broken up into smaller topics. Each team gets a topic. Each student gets a piece of that topic. Through sharing, first with the teams and then with the whole class, everyone gets to learn from each other. The final piece of the project is designed so everyone can demonstrate what they have learned.

Students enjoy sharing their learning with their teammates. They enjoy talking to each other. Once the parameters are established the power of teaming becomes self-evident.

Students never seem to tire of telling what they have learned. I have so often been told about great ideas and interesting facts students have discovered for themselves. Sometimes these are the same materials I put in a lecture a day or two before. Being told never has the impression of discovering something on their own. Teaming gives a ready audience for discovery and multiplies the material being discovered.

These four attributes are just a place to begin, a foundation to build on. Teaching is as individual as each of us. We all have different knowledge, different skill sets, and different personalities. Whatever we bring to the classroom, students should leave with a feeling of accomplishment. If you can make students feel like they are really learning something and feel proud of themselves, you have done your job.