In Which Student Assessment All Becomes Quite Clear

And thus nearly an entire school year has passed without another blog post.  June finds me teaching 4th grade, but in a different school than where I started.  Rather than go into all the details as to how that happened, I want to share something really positive that occurred yesterday after we teachers had loaded the students on the bus 3 hours early (it was a half day) and gathered together to share successes of the school year.

Here's the deal:  During my short career as a teacher, I had seen standardized tests scores, I had heard bits and pieces as to how that data was typically used, but I had yet to play any role in analyzing that data, nor did anyone really properly explain to me how to read and understand results.  I am happy to report that I am now a data-analyzer extraordinaire!

One of the things that I really like about the school I am currently at is that the administration provides the teachers with quarterly assessments that they are required to give students.  Now, this type of thing may be on par with what a school typically does, but my previous experiences were that teachers were often left to their own resources.  And, if you are a new teacher, that is overwhelming, not to mention completely confusing!

Yesterday, we split into groups according to grade level and took the data from the tests the students were given at the beginning of the year and compared them to end-of-the-year results, calculating percentages, figuring out growths (or deficits), and charting the progress of individual students during the course of the year.  At the beginning of the year, teachers had been given specific goals as to what students should be able to do each quarter and each time a test was given, the results page was color-coded into 3 groups: at level, slightly below level, and warning: this kid needs help!  It was all so lovely and clear-cut and .... easy to understand.  Experienced teachers may read this post and say, "Duh, how come this is news to you?"  Well it is news to me, so there, and also one of the many reasons I have been thankful to learn and grow as a teacher at this particular school.

At the end of the data collection meeting we were all given noisemakers and celebrated goals that were met and percentages that had been raised.  It was silly, but fun.  It also challenged us to look at things in a different light.  And I think involving teachers at this level is ingenious of the administration (and, I imagine, takes some of the work off their shoulders, giving them time to provide support elsewhere).  Bravo, school!



What's up next for Ms. Olson?  Weeeeellll, school's out in a week and then I'm off to Europe!  Details to follow ....  (Although it's only for a short visit.)

A Week At Wizard (Harry Potter) Camp

Last week I spent time with a group of witches and wizards. Seriously.  I got a job this summer teaching Wizard Camp and, oh my, was it a fun time.  And tiring.  The kids (ages 6-11) were dropped off at 8am and I had them until 5pm.  No breaks, no down time, and we went swimming for two hours daily.  Exhausted as I was at the end of each day, I never knew a job could be so much fun.

So what do you do at Wizard Camp?  The first thing we did was find our wands. This consisted of going outside and looking around for sticks on the ground.  If they wanted, I had glitter and other materials on hand so they could decorate their wands.  Most kids were happy with their sticks plain.  Wizard Camp kids, you see, have a lot of imagination.

In fact, these kids were hardcore Harry Potter fans.  Now, I consider myself a fan of the series BUT I had nothing on some of these self-proclaimed wizards and witches.  One explanation would be that they have read all of the books multiple times within a short time period, while my Harry Potter reading, although I've read all of the books at least twice, has been spread out over the past 11-12 years or so.  Or else they're just plain crazy.  (I'm kidding, obviously.  I adored them.)  A fun fact I shared with my Wizard Camp kids?  When the first movie came out in the Fall of 2001, I was in college.  They either were not born or were babies.   Yep.  

I am now kicking myself for not taking pictures of some of the activities we did.  The only time I remembered to take out my camera was to take a few pictures of the group creating the Tri-Wizard Tournament Maze (out of sidewalk chalk) on our very last day of camp.

The Sphinx at the end of the maze.  

My most popular Wizarding activity?  Every day we made a different Harry Potter-themed treat (we were lucky enough to have access to a kitchen). Butter Beer was, by far, the biggest success, followed closely by Chocolate Frogs.  The Butter Beer recipe I found is apparently really similar to what is sold at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios and consists merely of cream soda, butterscotch sundae topping, and whipped cream.  (Recipe here: http://www.mugglenet.com/misc/rosmertas/cicisbutterbeer.shtml )
For Chocolate Frogs, I purchased this mold from Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003QMMOZ8/thehomeimprovemz ) and they turned out beautifully.

Before putting them in the refrigerator to harden, I had the kids stand around (with their sticks/wands) and perform various enchantments on the frogs to make them hop like the ones in the books.  I then told them that if anyone opened up the refrigerator door to see how the frogs were turning out, the magic might get out.  Well, as luck would have it, a few peeks were made, so we had lifeless Chocolate Frogs.  Lifeless, but delicious.

Quidditch proved to be more of a challenge.  After doing some research on "Muggle Quidditch", I came up with a version that represented soccer more than anything else.  I gathered all of my witches and wizards together and presented my ideas and asked them how they wanted to play. One girl had brought her copy of Quidditch Through the Ages and wanted to stay true to all of the fifty gazillion fouls mentioned.  A boy was upset that I was downsizing the amount of goals to two.  A couple of the less athletically inclined wanted to sit out and watch.  I reminded them that at 10 wizards and witches (including myself) we were already short and need all the players we could get.  So we finally were able to agree on most aspects of the game, found a place outside, and played.  After lots of running around and being confused about who exactly was keeping score, among other things, one of the Seekers finally found the Snitch (a tennis ball the Keepers hid before the game started).  We never played again.  Although during our final hour, while sharing our camp memories around a Pasta Pensieve (a bowl of spaghetti noodles with some dry ice mixed in to give it a nice magical effect), playing Quidditch frequently came up as a favorite.  Score!

One day, as we were going back inside after playing a game of Aurors and Death Eaters (i.e. Cops and Robbers), I heard an outsider mutter, "Harry Potter nerds," under his breath.  He received a very dirty look from my direction.  Anyway, being a Harry Potter Nerd is quite a wonderful thing to be, if you ask me.

The Joys of Substitute Teaching

So I've been subbing now.  It's kind of the pits.  Remember in grade school when you'd have a substitute teacher and you'd say to yourself, "What's the deal with this idiot?"  Yeah, me too.  Well, there's no possible way for a substitute teacher to know exactly what to do.  First of all, chances are that the sub has gotten the job last minute and has had to rush to the school, completely unprepared.  Second of all, upon entering the building, the sub is merely pointed in the direction of the classroom they will be taking over.  There is no tour of the school; the sub is not even told where the lounge is so that he or she can put his or her lunch in the refrigerator.  If the sub needs to take the students somewhere during the course of the day, one can only hope that the students will be honest and help the sub find where to go.  Third of all, no matter how detailed the lesson plans that the teacher leaves are, and no matter how hard that teacher tries to make sure all the materials are in an easy-to-find place, there is no way for the sub to know where everything is.  It's challenging, I'm telling you.  Not unrewarding, but definitely challenging.

If I showed up to a class revealing my garter belt in this fashion, I would probably be asked to leave.

 Anyway, I was excited to be able to work in the same classroom for two consecutive days last week.  It was a Kindergarten class, which I chose specifically not because I like working with younger students (I much prefer slightly older), but I had never worked with Kindergartners before, so I was looking forward to the challenge.  And what a challenge that turned out to be!  This was at an inner city school, so the classroom was very diverse and, with diversity comes names that are hard to get down in the course of one day.  And these Kindergartners were particularly unruly ones.  They were very, very thrown off by having a substitute teacher and many spent a good part of the day being argumentative amongst themselves, crying periodically, and tattling -- oh, the tattling!  Needless to say, it was next to impossible to follow the lesson plans the teacher had left for me.

The worst part, though, was getting them on the bus.  It suddenly dawned on me that I was responsible for the safety of 24 children.  And I could not begin to know for sure which student was who, nor what anyone's name was.  Yet, they were entrusted in my care and it was up to me to make sure they made it home.  It was too much.  Everybody did make it on the bus/were picked up by the correct parent but I could barely keep back tears as I made my way back to the classroom (which the students had all but demolished by the end of the day).

And I had to do it all over again the next day.  I briefly considered admitting my incompetence and giving up the job, but couldn't let myself do that.  Then I thought about ways to make myself get sick overnight.  I didn't feel sick but maybe I could skip taking my nightly Airbourne which would, in turn, weaken my immune system and maybe let my body give into all the germs I had been exposed to during the course of the week... 

I woke up Friday morning feeling just fine.  While getting ready, I Googled "Kindergarten Classroom Management" and jotted down some notes.  Guess what?  Friday went extremely smoothly.  I like to think that I changed into a better teacher overnight, but I think it had more to do with the fact that the students had gotten over my being new and decided to settle down.  Still, I installed a few very important classroom rules at the beginning of the day and made use of some of these surprisingly good ideas:

1.  I put a stuffed elephant on a chair in the corner of the room and told the students that if they felt like they needed to tattle on someone, they could go tell Mr  Elephant.  I cannot begin to tell you how well this worked.  A few times, when a couple of students got into a fight over who got to talk to Mr. Elephant first, I just told them that Mr. Elephant was tired and needed to take a break and they actually listened to me.

2.  The Quiet Game.  I was extremely skeptical of this, but right after snack time when I could sense that they were seconds away from getting out of control, I told them that I had a really good idea for a game.  At that, every one of them perked up and wanted to know more.  Moments later, I had them all at their tables with their heads down, silent.  It was nuts, I'm telling you!

3.  Taking time to sing songs and play games during transitions makes all the difference.  This is sort of a no-brainer, but it was something I did not think of the day before.  Oh my, did it make things easier, though!

The best part of the day?  When the time came to take them to their buses, I realized that I knew the names of at least 80 percent (maybe more) of the students.  I was able to send them on their way knowing that they were on the correct buses, accounted for, and that I didn't compromise their safety in any way.

What a relief!