I struggle with this idea, mostly because I’m itinerant, but also due to the short amount of time I work with students. It’s a challenge to implement some of his ideas, but where I don’t have my own space in most of my buildings, it would be difficult. But, I’d like to do more with innovation and creativity. I also want to encourage more resilience. I think this is one area that is difficult to foster – grittiness or resilience, but it’s so important for success. Recently I’ve read a couple articles by well-known college coaches, and that’s one area they see lacking in college athletes today. It’s going to be a goal to work on throughout this year and next year, to encourage resilience in my students!
Resilience is a very important quality for our students to have. It seems that our day to day world today doesn't teach that. Look forward to checking in with you and hearing how it is going
Making my classroom more "pirate-like" is definitely a challenge given the students on my roster. I have been thinking about ways to collaborate with gen ed teachers. I'm planning to focus on some more hands-on lifeskill activities for some students next year. I'm hoping that these experiences will build confidence and problem-solving skills.
I used to do alot of hands-on life skills until NCLB came along and we had to stop that and start teaching curriculum that some of out students would never use. I would like to get back to that also!!
I like Jessica am itinerant so it is more of a challenge, with time and where you might be located for that day. I would like to see my students be able to collaborate with others but also be empowered about their future choices. Being able to be responsible for their own learning and future. Coming from smaller communities has limitations and is harder for students to prepare for the "real" world, but having these skills will aid them in that planning
I agree with you that implementing some of these strategies can be challenging given our roles, when we're able to see students, the abilities of the kiddos we work with, etc. etc. However, I thought it was really neat that Solarz included his contact info for his Twitter, email, and website. So... Maybe if we have burning questions, we could get ahold of him to ask about the best ways of adapting all this to our individual situations :-)
One thing I noticed when I was helping with gifted students was that they have a hard time working with kids that are not at their level. They often times were talking above the level of their peers. At times, they were out right rude. I felt like I spent a lot of time working with my students in being able to collaborate with a heterogeneous group of peers. Because I was not itinerant and was based in the same school as my gifted students, I often saw them in reg ed rooms more often than I saw them in pull out, so it made it possible for me to talk to them about what I was seeing of them in classrooms.
I like perr-collaboration and encourage it alot on homework. If one student is finished early and another student has a question on the same homework I ask the one student who is finihsed to help the other. If a student can reteach the concept to others than that cements the concept even more!
How can you make your classroom more “pirate-like”? I think I can make my classroom more pirate-like in small steps. I have already tried a few things, and I plan to start more next year. It is a transition that will take time and not all of the things in the book will work in my classroom, but I have a long list of things that I think would work great. I plan to start with some the 21st century things. "Choose Kind", Shared Reading, Literature Circles, Notice and Note, Post it note board, SignPosts, and Interact. These are all on my list to try out.
I like alot of his ideas and I can see how that would work with his schedule of having the same class all day long. I will have to think how incorporate some of the ideas into my schedule of only 48 minutes daily. I am going to do more research on the 21st Century Skills Progress Report. I am interested in using that as a part of my students IEP's and especially at the IEP meetings. I think that information would mean more to the parents than letter grades since most of our students do not usually have good letter grades due to either a learning diability or beavior issues (or both!). I also like the amount of technology he uses, I would like for my classes to use the IPads that I check out from the library each year more than we do now. I did use the QR reader on each one in the book and those are in the history, so I can continue to go back and look at his ideas throughout the year. I do plan on doing more collaborate work next year verses individual work, that is definitely a change I can make right away!
Gifted facilitators and psychs. had an interesting discussion the other day about how we might be able to incorporate 21st century skills into gifted goals. One facilitator pointed out that there are standards linked to the skills in the KSCCRS.
I don’t have a classroom, and I also don’t see students in the same capacity as a teacher, so I’m really running into a roadblock in thinking about how I could make my classroom more ‘pirate-like,’ haha! However, I do like a lot of the ideas that Solarz mentioned and feel like I could share them with some of the teachers I work with. I think several of them would be a lot to take on initially, so I might not spring those on someone unless they’re really interested in taking on a project; but others seemed like they could be implemented more as baby steps.
I also felt I would be sharing ideas with peers more often than carrying them out myself because I spend the majority of my day in reg ed rooms and have very little pull out with students in my classroom.
I completely agree with you. For a student to process information and learn it from someone else is one thing, but then to turn around and be able to teach that information to another student takes a completely different kind of understanding. It's a win-win for both kiddos involved :-)
I can make my classroom more "pirate'like" by going out of my way to make every lesson more interesting. I want to make more collaborative assignments for the kids to work together as I believe it is a very important life skill. I already give a lot of control during math to my students and they are responsible for their own learning. Next year I don't have as many kids in math so it will be interesting to see how the student led learning works with a much smaller group!
I can make my classroom more "pirate'like" by going out of my way to make every lesson more interesting. I want to make more collaborative assignments for the kids to work together as I believe it is a very important life skill. I already give a lot of control during math to my students and they are responsible for their own learning. Next year I don't have as many kids in math so it will be interesting to see how the student led learning works with a much smaller group!
I think I could make my classroom more pirate like by incorporating some passion time into my weekly schedule. I do try to incorporate my students interests into reading lessons by choosing reading material that aligns with their hobbies and interests. However, I do tend to get bogged down with the work that my students need to be learning for reg ed classrooms. Taking a break from that and allowing them time to explore their interests in a learning environment I think could be a positive part to my students day.
I really want to incorporate passion time ass well, I love this idea. I agree it would definitely be a positive part of the day, and goals and common core can still be accomplished through passion time!
With the grade level I teach I feel this might be a little more difficult. I have a hard time envisioning Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergarten students running a classroom. I do wonder about working with the classroom teachers more to see if we could find more ways for them to be a peer model or leading things. Also when I do my pull out times for reading and math I might be able to have them be more independent with the use of center based learning.
Since I don't have a classroom of my own, I think more of ideas I can share with other teachers. We've discussed ways to do that, just in regular consultation, or maybe as one of the June training days in our district.
I can make my classroom more pirate like by incorporating more planning and revision, not only from me, but the kids taking part in that planning and revision as well. I love how much revision the students did on their own by watching them selves on video and recognizing areas that could use improvement. They could also recognize their strengths, practice speaking and presenting, and the revision process. I want to incorporate having my students make their own goals as well. Being aware of their own strengths and weaknesses will help guide their strategies in learning new topics; this skill will always be with them. To then make a goal on personal improvements bring so much more meaning and worth to working towards improvement. What an empowering thing to work towards what you truly want to improve on, right?!
I want to encourage risk taking too. This has been hard for me to accomplish because so many kids have this intimidation just imbedded in them and fear of being wrong that they remain quite in class. This will be one of the hardest "habits" to break with students who have learned to just sit back and be quite. The fear of failure and/or embarrassment is so strong in some of these students.
I struggle with this idea, mostly because I’m itinerant, but also due to the short amount of time I work with students. It’s a challenge to implement some of his ideas, but where I don’t have my own space in most of my buildings, it would be difficult. But, I’d like to do more with innovation and creativity. I also want to encourage more resilience. I think this is one area that is difficult to foster – grittiness or resilience, but it’s so important for success. Recently I’ve read a couple articles by well-known college coaches, and that’s one area they see lacking in college athletes today. It’s going to be a goal to work on throughout this year and next year, to encourage resilience in my students!
ReplyDeleteResilience is a very important quality for our students to have. It seems that our day to day world today doesn't teach that. Look forward to checking in with you and hearing how it is going
DeleteMaking my classroom more "pirate-like" is definitely a challenge given the students on my roster. I have been thinking about ways to collaborate with gen ed teachers. I'm planning to focus on some more hands-on lifeskill activities for some students next year. I'm hoping that these experiences will build confidence and problem-solving skills.
ReplyDeleteI used to do alot of hands-on life skills until NCLB came along and we had to stop that and start teaching curriculum that some of out students would never use. I would like to get back to that also!!
DeleteI like Jessica am itinerant so it is more of a challenge, with time and where you might be located for that day. I would like to see my students be able to collaborate with others but also be empowered about their future choices. Being able to be responsible for their own learning and future. Coming from smaller communities has limitations and is harder for students to prepare for the "real" world, but having these skills will aid them in that planning
ReplyDeleteKim-
DeleteI agree with you that implementing some of these strategies can be challenging given our roles, when we're able to see students, the abilities of the kiddos we work with, etc. etc. However, I thought it was really neat that Solarz included his contact info for his Twitter, email, and website. So... Maybe if we have burning questions, we could get ahold of him to ask about the best ways of adapting all this to our individual situations :-)
One thing I noticed when I was helping with gifted students was that they have a hard time working with kids that are not at their level. They often times were talking above the level of their peers. At times, they were out right rude. I felt like I spent a lot of time working with my students in being able to collaborate with a heterogeneous group of peers. Because I was not itinerant and was based in the same school as my gifted students, I often saw them in reg ed rooms more often than I saw them in pull out, so it made it possible for me to talk to them about what I was seeing of them in classrooms.
DeleteI like perr-collaboration and encourage it alot on homework. If one student is finished early and another student has a question on the same homework I ask the one student who is finihsed to help the other. If a student can reteach the concept to others than that cements the concept even more!
ReplyDeleteHow can you make your classroom more “pirate-like”?
ReplyDeleteI think I can make my classroom more pirate-like in small steps. I have already tried a few things, and I plan to start more next year. It is a transition that will take time and not all of the things in the book will work in my classroom, but I have a long list of things that I think would work great. I plan to start with some the 21st century things. "Choose Kind", Shared Reading, Literature Circles, Notice and Note, Post it note board, SignPosts, and Interact. These are all on my list to try out.
I like alot of his ideas and I can see how that would work with his schedule of having the same class all day long. I will have to think how incorporate some of the ideas into my schedule of only 48 minutes daily. I am going to do more research on the 21st Century Skills Progress Report. I am interested in using that as a part of my students IEP's and especially at the IEP meetings. I think that information would mean more to the parents than letter grades since most of our students do not usually have good letter grades due to either a learning diability or beavior issues (or both!).
ReplyDeleteI also like the amount of technology he uses, I would like for my classes to use the IPads that I check out from the library each year more than we do now. I did use the QR reader on each one in the book and those are in the history, so I can continue to go back and look at his ideas throughout the year.
I do plan on doing more collaborate work next year verses individual work, that is definitely a change I can make right away!
Gifted facilitators and psychs. had an interesting discussion the other day about how we might be able to incorporate 21st century skills into gifted goals. One facilitator pointed out that there are standards linked to the skills in the KSCCRS.
DeleteI don’t have a classroom, and I also don’t see students in the same capacity as a teacher, so I’m really running into a roadblock in thinking about how I could make my classroom more ‘pirate-like,’ haha! However, I do like a lot of the ideas that Solarz mentioned and feel like I could share them with some of the teachers I work with. I think several of them would be a lot to take on initially, so I might not spring those on someone unless they’re really interested in taking on a project; but others seemed like they could be implemented more as baby steps.
ReplyDeleteBaby steps count....and are progress in the journey !
DeleteI also felt I would be sharing ideas with peers more often than carrying them out myself because I spend the majority of my day in reg ed rooms and have very little pull out with students in my classroom.
DeleteCarol-
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. For a student to process information and learn it from someone else is one thing, but then to turn around and be able to teach that information to another student takes a completely different kind of understanding. It's a win-win for both kiddos involved :-)
I can make my classroom more "pirate'like" by going out of my way to make every lesson more interesting. I want to make more collaborative assignments for the kids to work together as I believe it is a very important life skill. I already give a lot of control during math to my students and they are responsible for their own learning. Next year I don't have as many kids in math so it will be interesting to see how the student led learning works with a much smaller group!
ReplyDeleteI can make my classroom more "pirate'like" by going out of my way to make every lesson more interesting. I want to make more collaborative assignments for the kids to work together as I believe it is a very important life skill. I already give a lot of control during math to my students and they are responsible for their own learning. Next year I don't have as many kids in math so it will be interesting to see how the student led learning works with a much smaller group!
ReplyDeleteI think I could make my classroom more pirate like by incorporating some passion time into my weekly schedule. I do try to incorporate my students interests into reading lessons by choosing reading material that aligns with their hobbies and interests. However, I do tend to get bogged down with the work that my students need to be learning for reg ed classrooms. Taking a break from that and allowing them time to explore their interests in a learning environment I think could be a positive part to my students day.
ReplyDeleteI really want to incorporate passion time ass well, I love this idea. I agree it would definitely be a positive part of the day, and goals and common core can still be accomplished through passion time!
DeleteWith the grade level I teach I feel this might be a little more difficult. I have a hard time envisioning Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergarten students running a classroom. I do wonder about working with the classroom teachers more to see if we could find more ways for them to be a peer model or leading things. Also when I do my pull out times for reading and math I might be able to have them be more independent with the use of center based learning.
ReplyDeleteSince I don't have a classroom of my own, I think more of ideas I can share with other teachers. We've discussed ways to do that, just in regular consultation, or maybe as one of the June training days in our district.
ReplyDeleteI can make my classroom more pirate like by incorporating more planning and revision, not only from me, but the kids taking part in that planning and revision as well.
ReplyDeleteI love how much revision the students did on their own by watching them selves on video and recognizing areas that could use improvement. They could also recognize their strengths, practice speaking and presenting, and the revision process.
I want to incorporate having my students make their own goals as well. Being aware of their own strengths and weaknesses will help guide their strategies in learning new topics; this skill will always be with them. To then make a goal on personal improvements bring so much more meaning and worth to working towards improvement. What an empowering thing to work towards what you truly want to improve on, right?!
I want to encourage risk taking too. This has been hard for me to accomplish because so many kids have this intimidation just imbedded in them and fear of being wrong that they remain quite in class. This will be one of the hardest "habits" to break with students who have learned to just sit back and be quite. The fear of failure and/or embarrassment is so strong in some of these students.
ReplyDelete