Grade 4 Best practices

For our Grade 4 Best Practices, we've decided on this TQS Standard:

2. h) the importance of respecting students’ human dignity. They know how to establish, with different students, professional relationships that are characterized by mutual respect, trust, and harmony

Since the beginning of this year, many staff (ourselves included) have noticed an attitude of disrespect among our students. We have found ourselves needing many more tools this year to help us handle these challenging situations. We both reflected on things that we do in the classroom and things we would like to do more of. The articles below highlight some key points that we find important and helpful to maintain a positive classroom environment.

How to Get Difficult students to listen

Why you shouldn't have to convince difficult students to behave

Below are some additional practices that we have been implementing this year:

1) Consistency: One of the most important things we can do to is to be consistent with our classroom rules. When challenging behavior is a constant problem it is tempting to sometimes ignore the behavior but there should always be consequences for ignoring the classroom rules.

2) Reset: It is essential to start each day anew. by mentally removing stressful thoughts of the previous day or week. Recharging at home with an activity that gets your mind off the chaos of your day and focusing on something you really enjoy is helpful. This may be difficult to do, but important not just to promote harmony in ourselves as professional teachers, but for the students as well.

3) Calm: It is important to remain calm when you dole out consequences. If a student acts up in class, calmly remind them of their consequence, and continue on with your lesson. This also allows students to know they don't have the leverage or power to get a rise out of you and ruin your day  (some students have learned over time to be very good at this). Try postponing a one-on-one discussion until you are in a calm state of mind where you are not going to lose your temper.

4) Positivity: Focus on encouragement and praise as much as you can. Making sure the child knows they matter to the classroom. Have little chats with your kids as they are coming in or doing work. Make sure it's not about the work itself but about them so they can feel they matter and are noticed. Minimize negative interactions and maximize the positive ones.

5) Community: As teachers, we need to remind ourselves that we do not work in isolation. We have a community of team members that include other teachers, EAs, support staff, and administrators.
As much as we'd like to have strong connections with ALL of our students, sometimes they feel a stronger bond with other adults in the school. These connections should be fostered and encouraged by the classroom teacher if they are beneficial to the student. Ask your challenging student who they feel is a trusted adult in the school. Look for opportunities for the child to engage with that adult role model. This can be something as simple as letting them eat lunch one day a week with the trusted adult.

Google Form- Self graded quizzes

In the past, you could use Google Forms to give students quizzes, but you needed to use an external add-on called Flubaroo to grade it. At the end of last year, Google updated their forms, so you can now turn them into a quiz and have it automatically graded and give feedback to students without a third party tool. I don't know about anyone else, but I always like finding tricks that will save me time from marking!Another reason I appreciate using Google forms for quizzes is that it allows students to use an add-on that will read them the questions (Select and Speak is the one we use)- great for accessibility for our lower level readers! 

Here is a quick overview of how to create a quiz using forms:

When you have your form open (In Drive--> New--> Google Form), you will want to go to settings (the little gear icon in the top right-hand corner). Then you will want to click where it says "Quizzes", and then slide the little bar that says "make this a quiz". There are also a few settings here you can change as well. I like to allow my students to see their grades after they finish so they can see their mistakes and read the answer feedback on the questions they may have gotten incorrect.  

Next, you will start to type up a question. Once you have it entered, you will click where it says "Answer Key"

 Then it will flip your question over, and you can select the correct answer, and give it a point total. You can also add answer feedback. 

Once students begin to submit, you will be able to get their responses by clicking on the responses button on the top of your form 

You can then choose to view it in a spreadsheet or see the visual created by forms. **You will have to mark long answer questions by yourself**

Also, one extension for Chrome that I have loved this year is called 'NIMBUS SCREENSHOT AND VIDEO RECORDER". It is what I used to capture and annotate all my images. If you are looking for a tool to take screenshots, Nimbus has a lot of useful features and is really user-friendly. 

Math Opener--Splat!

One of the starters we learned about at the Dr. Nicki Newton's Guided Math PD was called Splat! created by Steve Wyborney.  It can be used at all levels.  It links with many number concepts and can be used to build equations, etc.  

When looking at Steve Wyborney's blog, he has many different activities to use in the classroom.  It will be fun to experiment with them.  The link to his blog and to the Splat! activities are below.

Steve Wyborney's Blog

Splat!

Guided Math

On Monday, several of us had an opportunity to go see Dr. Nicki Newton present about Guided Math.  This was a phenomenal PD opportunity and what we learned will definitely change my practice in math.

Below is a link to Dr. Nicki's blog.  I would encourage you to check out her math running records, games and various videos about work stations, etc.  Over time, as we try different elements of her program, we will try to share specific activities and ways to implement guided math in your classroom.

Dr. Nicki Newton's Math Blog

Google Updates

Google has some new and notable updates that I thought would be helpful to share :) 

Google Sheets now has add-ons! 

Docs have had this feature for a long time, but Slides just updated to have them this past week. If anyone has ever used Peardeck (which allows you to add fun interactive questions to your presentations), it now has an add-on. It makes utilizing this engaging tool super simple! I would highly recommend checking it out. It also ties nicely into the idea of exit tickets we discussed at our PLC meeting the other day at lunch. There is a whole post I wrote on Pear Deck on the blog if you want to read more about it.  Another add-on that seems like it has good potential is Unsplash photos (Free stock photos to use as backgrounds), or the noun project (free icons to add to your presentations). Since its a new feature, there is only a limited number created right now, but I'm sure there will be more to come!

Digital Tools to Engage Learners

Here is some Monday morning Tech inspiration :) 

This morning as I was driving to work listening to my Monday podcast from Google Teacher Tribe (Kasey Bell & Matt Miller), they were speaking about practical  & engaging ways to use Google drawing in the classrooms. I love Google drawings for things like graphic organizers, digital posters, etc. It is nice because the students can interact with them, they can be saved as an image and inserted into Google Slides (think background you can't move for story maps or other graphic organizers that kids can add text over top), and it is a tool that is really easy to navigate and use. By editing the page size, you can make them printable as well on a regular sheet of paper. Below is a link to a really good list of ways to use Google Drawings in the classroom if anyone is looking for some inspiration: 

Google Drawing Manifesto

Also, the same author (Matt Miller) wrote a really great e-book called "The Digital Pirate: Adding Techno-Wizadry to Teaching with Passion and Engagement" which has some really amazing ideas for integrating different tech tools meaningfully in the classroom. I have attached the link below to that as well.

The Digital Pirate

Best Practices

My best practice focuses on 2 of the TQ Standards, i) there are many approaches to teaching and learning and l) the importance of engaging parents, purposefully and meaningfully, in all aspects of teaching and learning.

I know this is nothing new to any teacher in Ashmont but maybe I use it in a different way than you. Hopefully, you will find something useful.  I have created a Google Classroom for each unit taught in Gr. 2.  Each classroom includes teacher- created presentations using the various resources we utilize, videos and links to games that are at, below and above grade level,  that support the curriculum.  As we begin a new unit, we join another classroom.  The entire unit’s information is available from the beginning of the unit.  

             

Each student and family has access to the classrooms at school and home.  I encourage students to involve their families during learning by showing families what we are learning but also what is coming up.  This gives those students who need pre-teaching / awareness of what’s coming up and gives students and families a chance to go back and review what was already learned.  

Over the last three years, I have noticed an increase of willingness to participate in activities and discussions.  Conversations often include things like, “I saw that in Google Classroom,”  “I watched that at home last night.”  Also, I’ve had students write comments on the links in classrooms.  I’ve received notices from students who’ve commented on certain links on how they enjoyed a video or game in the evening and weekends. :)