Best Practices - In Style: Creating a Growth Mindset in Math

I recently attended day long math professional development session. The presenter was phenomenal! I left the session feeling so inspired and wishing I could be her...or at least be her best friend. :) While the bulk of her PD session focused on how to use bar models to help students solve math problems, she spent a little bit of time at the beginning of her session talking about how important it is for us as educators to help our students feel confident in math. How many students start Kindergarten on the first day saying "I'm not good at math"? Not too many, but how many students enter third or fourth grade saying the same thing. Something happens to students as they begin to navigate the difficulties of the numerical world. As educators, we not only have a responsibility of helping our students learn math, but to also learning how to believe in their ability to be good at math...does all of this sound familiar?

If you keep up with the latest and greatest trends in education then you're familiar with the the research behind helping your student develop a growth mindset. If you haven't heard about it, I suggest you start doing some research. The goal of developing a growth mindset is to help your students realize that it's not about what they can and can't do at the current moment, but rather focus on what they are willing to try and the effort they are able to put into new learning experiences. We want our students to be risk-takers who aren't afraid of trying new things or embracing challenges.

One of the ways you can help your students develop a growth mindset is to give them little mantras and sayings that they can repeat to themselves when things get difficult. There is something to be said for the power of positive thinking. If you repeat something over and over and over again, eventually you believe it's true. Take this blog for example, my blogging partner, Megan, and I regularly comment on how new and green we are to blogging...it doesn't come natural to us...we aren't good at it...no one reads out posts...and when we leave our comments at that I have very little motivation to keep plugging away at it. However, I have recently started to add yet  to the end of our moans and groans. Blogging doesn't come natural to us yet...we aren't good at it yet...no one reads out posts yet. This simple three letter word opens the door of possibility and leads me to believe that one day we could be successful at it and that little bit of hope makes me want to invest more time, effort, and energy into becoming a better blogger.

Many of our students feel the same way about math... I've heard many students say I'm not good at math... I don't understand math... I don't like doing math. If we could convince them to add that powerful three letter word to the end of their self-deprecating statements think how much more motivation they would have to pursue math.

To help your students develop a growth mindset in math, I've developed a set of Math Growth Mindset Posters. 

             

Weather its through posters on the wall, mantras you repeat with your students everyday, or leaving them little post-it notes with positive messages. Make sure you are promoting a growth mindset during your math class this year. 

Back To School - In Style: Getting Your Students' Attention

We all have chants, call and responds or clapping patterns we may use to grab our students attention. I am looking forward to trying a new technique I read in an article on Classroom Management Tips by Mr. Greg from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard. It costs about $10-$15 but you are guaranteed to almost grab all of your students' attention in this new and exciting way- DING! DONG!- using a wireless DOORBELL! You heard me right- a doorbell in your very own classroom. They are super easy- plug it in and ring the doorbell- the button is wireless, so you can move it around with you! As long as you are in range, you will be able to press the button and the doorbell will sound, thus becoming the signal for your students to stop talking and look at you!

One may ask: Where is the best place to put it?

1. Clip it to your lanyard- hot glue the button to a clothespin and clip it to your lanyard.

2. Clip it to your clipboard- if you usually walk around with a clipboard, this may be the best place to keep your doorbell.

3. Stick it on the whiteboard- hot glue the button to a magnet and now it can stick to your white board.

Make sure you teach this new signal and your expectations from the first day of school (or when you first introduce the doorbell). Make sure to not move on to talking without full participation with students being quiet and looking at you! I bet your students will love this new way to show you their attention in the classroom!

Google or Amazon search these keywords: "wireless doorbell" and browse for the perfect style for you! :)

Happy ringing!
-Megan

Getting Personal - In Style: Ways to Stress... Less

It is so important to stay stress-free and keep your energy, especially as the school year begins! Often times we end up EXHAUSTED just from the days of prep and planning before our students even arrive! So what can be done to help limit the amount of stress we feel? 

I could write over 20 tips about things to try and do, but I will list 7 things that can help assist with living a more stress-free teaching life!

1. Balance: I have learned that even if you stay at work 4 extra hours, you may get 1 or 2 things completed but there are still 15 more on the list that were untouched. A great way to balance your time is to create a priority list (writing down all the items you would like to get done and level their priority) then assign those tasks to days of the week. You will feel much better about your progress knowing you accomplished the daily tasks.

2. Set a Timer: Along with balancing, a great way to not overwork is to set a timer! During the time you are giving yourself to work on tasks, commit to doing just that! Stay off Facebook, Instagram, text messages, etc. and listen to your music while you accomplish your goals. When the timer is up- you are done. Do not try to overdo it! You will find yourself less stressed knowing you are balancing the time spent on work versus your non-work demands.

3. Divide and Conquer: So often we are put onto teams but then end up operating on a team by yourself, in terms of prep! Find a teacher buddy, or two, and divide the tasks- at the end of the day, you will have 3-6 new things made or done versus the 2 or 3 you managed to do on your own! This is applied to center activities, newsletters, parent letters, whatever!! Find your buddy and work smarter, not harder!

4. Flash Drive: Save, save, save everything you make or create! If you take the time to save everything you make, it will become much easier for you, year-after-year, to make minor updates and get it ready for use! How much time do we spend on recreating the wheel? A TON! It is simple- save everything you make, type or do, save it in the folder (categorize it by school year, month, etc) and you will have saved yourself a lot of time and stress for years to come!

5. Organize: Organize things you love now. As you make a center you love, laminate it to help preserve it and store it in labeled bags or bins when you are done using it. Take the extra time upfront ensuring it will last a long time and creating a system for it. So often at the end of the year, we toss everything to "spring clean" or with the idea "I will just make it again next year." NO! Take the time to figure out the ways to store it and you will save a lot of time and stress recreating materials.

6. Happy Hour: This is not about getting a half-priced drink- this is about fellowship and decompressing. Take the time to be around other people and forget about your to-do list for the moment. This is an event that helps me to get through my week! There is something, preset, to look forward to and this releases stress! Find some people (coworkers or other friends) who can consistently commit to Happy Hour on whatever day of the week and simply ENJOY the time!

7. Hobbies: Make time for what you love! If you do not do the things you enjoy, you will quickly find your level of happiness decrease. Whether it is working out, reading a magazine, watching Netflix or going to pamper yourself- make time for it! Begin the day AND end the day with something that you love- this will help make sure you are including those important parts of your life that make you YOU!

The saying goes "It is easier said than done." however, in this case, it is actually pretty easy! 

I know our "super power" is teaching but remember that you are also human! :)

Happy 2017-2018 school year!

-Megan

Best Practices - In Style: Creating a Student Centered Math Block

As you get ready to embark upon a new school year I'm sure you are starting to think about schedules, routines, strategies, and structures you want to incorporate into your daily practice. This post is for all you math teachers out there looking to create a student-centered math block.

Last year I supported several of our teachers (both lower and upper elementary) in creating a math block that is both engaging and purposeful. I think we came up with a great recipe that is easy to replicate at any grade level. 

Let's get to it!

Here is my recipe for a student-centered math block. 

Spiral Review

All math blocks need to have a time set aside for spiral review. Students learn so much new content throughout the year and without a consistent spiral review they will more than likely lose some of their new learning. Spiral review should be short, quick, purposeful and filled with routines that can be applied to a variety of content areas. Some strategies that work well for spiral review are Number Strings, Number of the Day/Week, Number Talks, or Fact Practice. Remember, spiral review isn't the meat of your lesson and therefore shouldn't take the bulk of your time - keep it short - think 5-10 minutes. 

Problem Solving

Problem solving is such a critical part of any math block. It's important that teachers dedicate part of their math block to giving their students opportunities to apply math skills to word problems, and more importantly, actually teach students specific problem solving strategies. Confession - my go to place for finding problem solving strategies is Pinterest :) UPS Check or CUBES anyone?

Provocation

This might be a new term for some of you. The goal of a provocation is to spark curiosity and interest in your students to get them thinking about the content you are going to teach. Rather than just jumping in and saying "Today we are going to learn about fractions", you might want to start with a question, controversial statement, picture, video, or anything that gets your students thinking. By giving your students the following statement "all halves are the same size"  you get your students thinking about fractions. You can get students to take sides and defend their position. This gets them thinking about fractions and applying their background knowledge before you even begin your new instruction. Provocations are meant to be short (3-5 minutes max) and get students curious about what they will be learning. 

Provocation Strategies: Tug-o-war, Bottoms-Up, Correct the Teacher, Pictures, Videos, 4 Corners, Think-Puzzle-Explore

Mini-Lesson/New Learning

This one is an obvious (or at least I hope it is). Most of the time your math lesson should be teaching brand new content, or extending your students' learning in a new way. The most important thing to consider when preparing your mini-lesson is to actually keep it mini (this means short). 

These helpful hints can help keep you on track during the mini lesson. Give yourself a time limit, try to keep your mini-lesson less than 10 minutes. Limit teacher talk. Script out your questions and prepare your example ahead of time. Prepare student notes ahead of time. Remember that your students don't have to master the content by the end of the mini-lesson (that's why we have all the other parts of the math block). 

Independent Practice

When you hear the terms Independent Practice how many of you immediately start thinking of worksheets? I know when I was in my first few years of teaching my vision of independent practice involved my students sitting quietly working on a worksheet while I walked around the room...boy, has that changed. I love giving students choice and the freedom to talk and move during independent practice. Independent practice can look like a worksheet, but there are so many other strategies that can be just as, if not more, effective. 

Here are some of my favorites: Student Created Concept Posters, Rally Coach, Scoot, Quiz-Quiz-Trade

Reflection

I think this is one of the hardest parts of any lesson for a teacher to consistently incorporate, but I also think it is one of the most important. We need to give our students time to reflect on what it is they just learned and experienced as learners. This is where they begin to internalize the content, and let's be honest, if it was important for us to spend an entire 90 minute lesson on it, we want to give them time to reflect on it. There are several thinking routines that work great as reflections. If you take time to teach your students this routines at the beginning of the year you'll easily be able to cycle them through your math lessons throughout the year. 

Reflection Strategies: I used to think/but now I think..., 3-2-1, Quick-Write, Draw-Label-Caption

So as you are planning your math block this year I hope this post gives you some new ideas and strategies to incorporate into your math block. I'd love to know which ones you try. 

Getting Personal - In Style: Mother Nature

Wow! I cannot believe that I was able to witness two science-related events, both occurring in the same week in Houston, Texas!

Monday, August 21st marked the Solar Eclipse
Friday, August 25th marked Hurricane Harvey

The Solar Eclipse was a great sight to see- although it was not in full totality in Houston, TX, it was still amazing to see it around 1:15pm in the afternoon with our special glasses! Teamwork makes the dream work! 7 more years and we will see it in totality! P.S. I recognize we are in long sleeves in the middle of August LOL! Buildings keep the indoors super air conditioned since it is SO hot outside! :)

Hurricane turned Tropical Storm Harvey was devastating. Never, have I ever, been in the path of a hurricane and it definitely destroyed our city of Houston. I will not post several pictures as it is plastered all over the internet and news and it is just an awful sight to see. However, it has been amazing to witness the community coming together and working together to restore Houston! Please keep Houston, and all the other cities affected by Harvey in constant and consistent prayer!

If you are willing and able, please donate to help out the city of Houston: https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation (I want to support "Hurricane Harvey")

-Megan

Back to School - In Style: A Must Have for Reading Teachers

I'm one of those educators that spends their summer break dreaming about the upcoming school year. I spend countless hours on Pinterest and teacher blogs searching for new ideas, resources, and strategies that I can implement in the upcoming school year. This summer I came across the ultimate teacher resource book for reading. 

The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide To Developing Skilled Readers

If you teach reading, you need this book. I'm not even kidding. You should probably stop reading this post and just go order the book....but then you can come back to us. 

As soon as I opened this book and started scanning the pages, I got so excited about teaching reading. I immediately knew this book is one of those resource books that will get loved on with post-its, dog ears, and all sorts of teacher notes in the margins. It will become your best friend at the guided reading table. 

My big Ah-Ha from the book is how Jennifer approaches goal setting. This book approaches goal setting in a way that I hadn't seen before. I had always given my students independent reading goals - in the form of a reading level I was hoping they would reach by the end of the year. I had also always been committed to teaching guided reading - I always thought I was pretty good at it, but the vision that Jennifer sets out in this book connects the two in such a meaningful way. 

She takes goal setting beyond just giving students a set reading level we want them to get to by the end of the year. She breaks it down even further and suggests that we identify the specific set of reading skills that students need to reach those goals. In order for student to master those skills they need to have a bank of strategies to be able to apply to any text they are reading. I realized that while I was focusing my guided reading lessons on skills, I was relatively weak in teaching my students a variety of strategies connected to the skills we were focusing on. I mean is there any other way to teacher inferencing other than Background Knowledge + Text Clues = My Inference? Well, in case you didn't know, there is. Jennifer has over 300 strategies that connect to the key reading skills all elementary teachers are teaching. 

In addition to giving me a new perspective on goal setting, this book is laid out in a way that makes it easy for teachers to digest. 

What I love about this book:

- It provides over 300 reading strategies.

- It is super user friendly. 

- Each strategy page includes a sample anchor chart.

- There are suggestions for genres and text levels included on each strategy page.

- It applies to all reading levels and genres.

I can't wait to hear what you think about it. 

Happy Reading!

~Sara

Back to School - In Style: Pens, Pens, Pens!

Pens, Pens, I love PENS. Black ones, red ones, blue ones, bright colorful ones... all pens, I love! For the past 7 years, I have been ALL about using my colorful Flair felt-tip pens, but recently I have come across some new AMAZING pens!

Now, before I tell you what they are called, I know there may be some reactions: "You are just finding these?" "These have been around for forever!!" "Umm... you're super late!" But let me just tell you one thing about myself- I am a woman of commitment! So Paper Mate Flair Felt Tip Pens have been my go-to pens for years now.

I am beyond honored to present to you all: Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pens!! Y'all- these pens write so super smooth and very fine to the stroke! They come in an assortment of colors (just like the Flair pens do) and they are easily becoming my favorites! You can get a pack of 20 pens for about $17 on Amazon so in terms of price- they are about the same as Flair pens! You can find these pens below!

                                                     
                                                        Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Pens!

In case you are searching for back-to-school colorful pens for lesson plans, staff meetings, jotting notes and more- check them out!

Enjoy!

~Megan