Student Surveys-Reshaping Your Practice Through Student Feedback

One year I was teaching a class and a student said "you always let Robert do what he wants because he's your favorite."  This bothered me. Out of curiosity I asked who was my least favorite student? And they said "Carlos". I was horrified. I love all my students. I don't have a favorite or a least favorite. So this information made me reconsider my classroom management strategies and I think revolutionized my teaching practice.

So every year I formally do a survey of my students. I use Pear Deck and ask them for their honest opinions. 

* what does Miss Trayers like?  (I really liked that their answers this year showed they knew me well and it wasn't all about rule following).

* Miss Trayers doesn't like.... (again if they say a student's name here-I failed them).

* What does Miss Trayers always say?

* and for fun I asked them to draw me. I LOVE that I am smiling in each picture but they also captured my big earrings. :) I am known to accessorize.

The important part is I take these responses and reshape things for next year. For example, I taught 4th grade this year and would see a lot of immaturity from the boys-I think I acknowledged that too much because several said I favored the girls in the class. Next year, I will make sure I focus on changing that. They had a lot of positive things that I would say. One said "I love you"-I have never actually said those words, but I think it must be the way I made them feel so  that makes me smile.

A simple practice, but one that can really give you a view into what works and the biases you may have that you don't even see.

Teaching Elementary Students About AI

So it seems like AI is an inevitability-however you feel about, it is already here. Students are using regularly without even knowing that Google is an AI tool now. We need to teach students how to navigate these tools responsibly.

Information Literacy is something that it is never too early to introduce. Even with my Kinder students are on Instagram and Tiktok. They will tell me stories about something as if it really happened because they saw it on YouTube. Many of these students have unfettered access to technology at home. Parents don't even monitor what they are looking at. I had a Kinder student who would go get her mom's phone after she went to bed and spend hours on YouTube (mom thought it was something wrong with her phone battery because it was never charged the next day). 

So how can we introduce this to younger kiddos. There are videos like this one:

This is AI generated. This videos expalins how that works. 

https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/openai-sora-identifying-ai-videos

I am always talking through how I model Googling something. A student asks "do fish drink water?". I google it but am cautious to point out that even though an answer appears-the sources are to the right. Am I going to trust a source like YouTube? Reddit? Or the National Oceanic Institute?

Laying this foundation early on will help these students in future research endeavors. I truly believe kids who are more informed about what is reliable and trustworthy will make better decisions in the future.

Books to Teach Kids to Build People Up

One of the things I hate to see is kids putting each other down. Whether it's laughing at a question or mocking each other for differences. We have a mantra in our class--is that bringing that person up or putting them down. The kids laugh in the beginning but by the end of the year they are quoting that mantra themselves. 

Here are some books that can help teach students to be kind:

One thing kids today do not know how to do is listen. They make everything about themselves. If you talk about your dog they start saying "well my dog....". We have to teach them how to listen and I think this book helps do that. 

This is a wordless book but powerful nonetheless. It's about standing up for people who may not have a voice of their own.

One of my all-time favorites. Talks about how kindness ripples out to others.

Everyone does not think the same way. This is a book about embracing and valuing differences.

I have actually had parents complain about kids making fun of the lunches their child brings to school. We need to be open-minded to differences, especally cultural differences and this is one way to explain that. 

My all time favorite book! Molly is different-she has buckteeth and is short. But it does not stop her from being fierce. They say she sounds like a duck and she says "quack". What an amazing role model for just being who you are.

Kids today are not getting instruction in SEL skillds. We need to correct that.

Let me know if any of these are your favorites as well.

Introducing Ethics to Young Learners

Critical thinking and creativity can absolutely be taught to our learners in early childhood. It takes persistance-they may not get it the first time. But if you are consistent in challenging your kiddos you will see the growth in their application of these skills.

One of my favorite concepts from Kaplan's Depth and Complexity is Ethics. Judging what is right and wrong. This can be achieved with stories:

Was it right for the Gingerbread to run away from the little old couple?

Was what the boy did right? What the tree did?

Of course we can look at David and say what he did was wrong but was his mom right in her response?

Was it right for the letters to go back up the tree again at the end?

Ethical arguments: I would also include an activity to discuss a question as part of my ELA warmup-it's oral language skills right?

So every day I gave them a question? Is it right to pick up a dollar you found on the sidewalk? What about if you saw who dropped it?  Is it right to have rules at school? I teach them how to listen to their partner and then form an argument as a response.

What I want to impart in my students is there is usually a grey area. I am reminded of Les Miserables when he is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread. It is wrong to steal of course, but ther eare situations where people may see the grey area.

My favorite thing is to watch them grow into good arguers (although their parents probably do not appreciate that. :)   

Depth and Complexity with Little Ones

My passion in education is rigor. I wanted to share ways to incorporate that into your daily lessons. These activites can be done with all children. They inspire deep and critical thinking. 

Let me know if you listen and what you think. )

Thanks so much! Enjoy!

Depth and Complexity in the Early Grades

Using Tech with Little Ones

I know this is a controversy among many people. There are so many comments, especially on social media about how Kindergarten students go home and are on screens so maybe they shouldn't spend time on that in schools.

I disagree. We have a responsibility to teach students how to use technology to create, to play, to learn and to write. Young kids are easily engaged with tech and it teaches them skills they will need for their entire academic careers. All of our standardized testing is online-if they never learn how to navigate it, how will they be successful.

How do you do this with little ones?

*Digital Stories-there are several apps like Book Creator that allow students to write and draw. We do stories for fairy tales-they write their own and also for Mother's Day they write about their moms.

Differentiation-I LOVE Pear Deck! The paid version allows you to record and I use this often with my students. I make one version for kids struggling with letters and sounds and one version that's a little more challenging for my advanced kiddos. I have digital activities that I bought during covid and I use reading a-z readers. 

Blooket-I used this even with my Kinder students! I would make up games to review concepts we were learning or just for fun I would make up questions about how well they know me as well as how well they know their classmates. Who is an only child? Who love unicorns? For my advanced students I would let them make up the blooket game. Not only did this help foster typing skills but also critical thinking but coming up with wrong answers helps them learn how to navigate multiple choice questions they will see in the future. 

This was a student created game. They were so excited to play it!

An example of how to practice decoding skills with it-most were cvc words-mad, sad

Math-fill in the missing number

They even practice typing and spelling by choosing a name.

So technology can go beyond the daily reading and math apps! Even with the younger kiddos. I am always amazed at what they can do but they are growing up in a digital era. :)

Introducing Depth and Complexity

I read a query on a FB group for gifted education. They were asking how do you introduce Depth and Complexity. In the beginning? In a certain order?

So I wanted to share how I do it. Remember I work with little ones-they have never heard of these concepts before.  I start with Multiple Perspectives. I read:

I show the kids how if I stand up on the table my perspective changes. I have them stand in their chairs and look around. What is different? This story is told from the perspective of a school on the first day. How does our school feel?

The next one I introduce is Ethics. Ethics is my favorite concept from D&C. I ask them questions-is it ever ok to steal? (this is going to be an interesting conversation this year when "Thou Shalt Not Steal" is framed on our wall.)  Anyway is it ever ok to steal? They always say no. What if your baby is starving? (the Jean Valjean argument) What if there's a hurricane and my neighbor's not home but I know he has batteries? It is important to me that the students learn ethics are not black and white. Right and wrong is not always black and white. So every day as part of our ELA warmup I give them a question to discuss.

Some examples:

It is ever right to lie?

How what is the difference between fair and equal?

Should teachers treat all students the same?

Should kids treat all teachers the same?

Should girls be soldiers?

Should we always share? (Giving Tree is a great story for this idea).

Is it ok to break a rule?

The students discuss and learn how to make an argument. I give them sentence stems to help guide them "I agree with that because..."  or "I do not agree with that because". By the end of the year they are expert debaters. :) (the parents love that).

Next I introduce Rules. What is always true about something? What is always true about a car? What is always true about our school? What is always true about teachers? The car is my favorite discussion they say "all cars have tires" and I show them a picture of a car on cinder blocks. All cars have a roof-I show them a picture of a convertible. It's hard to set "rules" for things because there are often exceptions.

Unanswered Questions-my students come to me not knowing how to ask good questions. As part of our daily warm up for ELA I show them a picture. What questions can you ask? 

What is going to happen next? Are they on the same team? How do we know?

You can ask math questions as well:

    

How many cars? Are there more white cars or red? What is the temperature?

The key here is not answering the questions, but coming up with questions to ask.

That is where I start. Then we focus on these concepts for a while before introducing the others.