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Samantha.Perrin Occasional Teaching, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth

Colleague Collaboration and Leaving a Teaching Assignment

In just over a week, my LTO (long term occasional teaching) teaching assignment will be over, I will say good bye to my lovely Grade 1 students and surrender myself to new students and the world of unpredictable daily occasional teaching once again.  Leaving a classroom, just like starting up a classroom, is a process that requires planning, communication, organization, and it is a process that is seriously benefitted by collaboration.

In my school year start-up planning, I was mindful of the kind of student-information that I would need to have on-hand to transfer over to the returning teacher. In my planning I made sure that information on students, timetables, assessments and the like were all clear, concise and put together in such a way that anyone could make sense of the information.  I started this when I created learner background forms back in September (with parent information, information on allergies, caregivers etc.), which were placed in a divided binder where the students’ progress report, report card, IEP’s and parent communication records would later be added).  This process of having to later transfer student information was also in mind when I created student files with examples of student work and diagnostic testing for an informative ‘at a glance’ of each student, that could easily be passed on to a new teacher.

In the month leading up to the ‘transfer’, I took inventory of the classroom supplies that the new teacher would need for the upcoming months and made sure to place my order so that the class was short on things that might come in handy (fresh glue, markers, erasers, pencils). I also made sure not to over-order knowing that the teacher might want to order supplies in June for the upcoming 2012-2013 school year. I made sure to return books to the library and return any borrowed resources to other teachers in the school. As a child I was always told to ‘leave a place in the same, or better,  state as which you found it’, good advice for any teacher, whether they are changing classrooms, leaving from a leave, leaving after a day of supply teaching or leaving a long term occasional assignment.

I have also been in touch with the returning teacher, and we plan to meet next week, when she will observe the classroom routines, meet the students and we will also have a chance to go over some of the planning and she will get a sense of where I will be leaving off. I have also emailed her my day-plans template, week at a glance timetable and class list, so that she does not have to re-invent the wheel, and so that she can focus on other priorities such as getting to know her new class.  She also knows that she can contact me with questions once she returns to work.

I know that a lot of what I am doing isn’t actually required of long-term occasional teachers, or of contract teachers who are going on leave, but I believe that teamwork and collaboration are positive and essential practices for any teacher. We teachers  are not required to meet, or to share our personal ‘creations’, to share our units, resources, ideas, or hand over our ‘intellectual property’, but we put so much of ourselves into our work to benefit our students, why wouldn’t we share if someone could add to it and make it better? Why wouldn’t  we divide the labour so that more attention can be given to an area that needs it? Or Why wouldn’t  we lean on one another and be a team so that we restore ourselves from time to time and take turns leading the charge?

I have been in teaching situations where I was given little, or any information on how to program my classroom, which resources to use, how to order supplies, establish systems or routines (teaching under these circumstances can be quite challenging, a trial-by-fire learning experience that is never forgotten), and I have also been in teaching situations where harmonious team work, sharing and planning was the norm (which had an even more positive impact on my experiences as a teacher, my learning and on the kind of things the students and I were able to accomplish in the classroom). Perpetuating a practice that supports teachers, inexperienced and experienced, that allows them to succeed and in turn assist the students succeeded is just another reason why we teachers should do our best to help each other out.  Whether we are moving classrooms, going on leave, leaving an LTO behind, or leaving a classroom after supply teaching for a day, I hope this post helps us all be a little more mindful of other ways we can be more positively collaborative and communicative with our colleagues.

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Alison.Board Assessment, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning About Your Students, Learning in a Real Life Context, Planning

Opportunities Beyond the Classroom

This week is our school’s Speech Arts Competition. It was introduced at a staff meeting with the hopes that all classes would participate. Some teachers are enthusiastic, some are not participating, while others (like myself) are using it as an opportunity to focus on oral language skills. I am presenting it to the students more as an opportunity  than a “have-to”. There are kids who are thrilled to create or memorize a poem, add dramatic flair and share it with the class. There are others that are anxious about selecting a poem, being able to memorize it, and having to present in front of their peers. Despite emails of worry from concerned parents of the anxious children, I continue to remain calm and relaxed about the process. It is the process that I want the children to learn from. If a few of the students are too nervous, they can recite their piece to me quietly when students are working independently. This option has eased their worry, however I am sure that when the time comes they will be fine, as a sense of community and support already exists within the group.

There are so many opportunities at our school for those who are confident expressing themselves in writing, visual art, or sports. I think that the Speech Arts Contest will appeal to those students who have abilities in oral language and drama. There are so many forms of expression, yet children are often presented with the same options. As teachers, we need to look for opportunities to explore other options and to provide students with a multitude of languages for self-expression, whether it is sculpture, nature, music, or math. I have one student who is often invisible in group discussions. Yet, if I play music or show a video with music, her face lights up, she moves to the beat, and she becomes the most visible.

With over 30 teachers and 500 students, our school buzzes with activity and events. It can be overwhelming for some (like myself) to participate in all the opportunities that are created by various staff members, such as growing seeds and tending our school garden, attending the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, participating in food drives, or sending Valentine’s to the Senior’s home, in addition to your own class trips and activities. However, I have realized that these are opportunities for the students to experience forms of expression beyond what I may provide in the classroom. If you can connect these opportunities with your own plans (such as graphing for Data Management during the food drives), the learning and the experience becomes authentic.

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Alison.Board Mentorship, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

Relationships

Reading through the previous posts, I see a common thread; the value of relationships. Building relationships are an integral part of our success as teachers and require initiative, consistency, and care. I often feel drained at the end of a school day, and need a quiet space and time to recharge (usually this is limited to my car and the time it takes to drive home!). When you think of how many children, parents, teachers, and support staff that you engage with in a day, it is understandable that teaching can take a lot out of you. On the flip side, it is also stimulating and energizing. It is the rewarding relationships with students and colleagues that motivate us and support us as professionals to keep doing what we do.

A new teacher has many things to keep in mind, but building positive relationships with a network of people will have lasting effects. A mentor may be a teacher that you are paired with based on a commonality recognized by administration, or simply by the willingness of the mentor to take on the role. It is an excellent opportunity to have a “go-to” person for your questions throughout the year. Often, there are other teachers that you meet that become unofficial mentors or supporters. In my first year of teaching I got to know the teacher that was the closest in physical proximity (the classroom next to mine) and although she taught a different grade and left the school a year later, she continues today to be an unofficial mentor for me, always receptive as a sounding board for my concerns and offers thoughtful guidance. Exchanging ideas with a colleague is another way to support your practice in a less formal way. There is a teacher at the other end of the hall at my school that I have connected with and we often cover an array of topics from instructional practices to field trip ideas to incorporating technology, all within a five or 10 minute conversation. It has become a routine that we walk to the parking lot (it’s a long walk) together once or twice a week as an opportunity for exchanging ideas and sharing information.

Build relationships and build a network to sustain your growth as a teacher. Be willing to ask questions and be willing to share your knowledge and experiences with others.

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Sangeeta.McAuley Building Inclusion, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

Are We Open?

Reading Samantha’s post about interviews and Tina’s post about co-teaching brings to mind a recurring theme I feel I’m living: teaching is about being open to partnerships.

There are many different ways we can show we are open and they may be as simple as:

-keeping our classroom door open to welcome others

-walking our students outside at the end of the day and talking with parents

-trying a new idea that someone shares with us

-taking time to listen to stories from our students, their family members, or our colleagues

-letting our students take the lead by sharing their ideas and insights

-asking questions when we are unsure

Through these examples and more, we can gain so much information about our students, our school community and most of all, ourselves.

It may be that my perspective is different, given that I haven’t had my own class for the last 6 years, but I like to think that being “new” allows me to see things in another light and I, for one, am glad to be in this position!

 

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Tina.Ginglo Learning in a Real Life Context, Mentorship, Professional Learning and Growth

The Power of Co Teaching

I have heard about the power of co teaching for some time now, but I have only had the opportunity to experience co teaching first hand in recent weeks.  I am sold!  Co teaching mathematics with my teaching partner and Family of Schools Math Coach challenges me and engages me in authentic context based professional learning.   For those who are not familiar with co teaching, co teaching is not synonymous with team teaching. In team teaching, the students basically have two teachers teaching them a lesson.  Each teacher takes a turn leading a specific part of the lesson.  When co teaching, one teacher is the Lead Teacher and the other is the Co-teacher.  The Lead Teacher teaches all parts of the lesson and the co-teacher is the “kid watcher” as well as “teacher watcher”.  For example, today I was the co teacher for a third grade number sense lesson.  In addition to paying close attention to the strategies my students were using to solve an addition word problem that required them to add two large numbers, I was also paying close attention to the probing questions the Lead Teacher asked the students.

Valuable learning occurs at a number of levels.  First, I value the opportunity to observe my students closely, recording every noteworthy observation, what challenged them, student “aha” moments, and evidence of understanding or confusion.  I am free to concentrate fully on my formative assessment.  On another level, I am also gathering data on the questions and instructional strategies the Lead Teacher used while teaching the lesson.  During the debrief (which usually occurs during lunch or a common planning time) we first focus on what the students were doing.  We assess the problem we presented to students, analyze the different types of responses students provided and we determine where we are going to go next.  For example today, we concluded that our students are ready to move on to adding and subtracting larger numbers.  We also noticed that many students use place value algorithms to solve addition math problems, but they don’t understand why they are “carrying a 1 over.”  We decide that we need to review grouping and tens and ones with my class.

After we have decided on our next instructional steps.  We then reflect on the Lead Teacher’s instruction.  How were the questions?   Is there a different way we could ask students a particular question?  How might we phrase questions in our next lesson?  On the days that I am part of a co teaching experience, I leave for home feeling confident about where I am headed in my math instruction and committed to following through on the next steps that were collaboratively planned.  For the next co teaching lesson, teaching roles will be reversed and I will be the Lead Teacher.

My teaching partner and I both value this professional learning and instructional strategy.  We are now looking for creative timetabling ways to make co teaching part of our literacy program as well. If you have an opportunity to participate in a co teaching experience, I strongly encourage you to go for it!

 

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Samantha.Perrin Mentorship, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

Using Release Time….

In my last blog post ‘ The Power of Partnership’, I discussed the powerful impact that partnering with a grade team member/mentor has had on my teaching.  I related that my mentor and I have been using common planning time and regular check-ins  to align what is going on in both our classrooms and share our resources and reflections.

Mentorship and co-planning  has been wonderful for me, however  for some teachers, establishing a common planning time with a colleague can be challenging for many reasons such as differences in scheduling or teachers’ responsibilities. There can also be school or board-wide initiatives that might require more of a teacher than time that they set aside for classroom planning.   Fortunately the New Teacher Induction Program enables Ontario school boards to provide beginning teachers (and their mentor teachers) release time that allows for such planning.   The school board that I teach in has a Job Embedded Learning Initiative that allows beginning teachers and newly hired Long Term Occasional teachers release time for activities such as attending workshops,  visiting  a model classroom or working with a mentor, and I have found it to be helpful in the past and intend to use it again this year.

In my case, our school is adopting some new initiatives that are intended to improve upon the  way we have been typically teaching in the past. My mentor and I feel that we could use some time for long-range planning and to effectively wrap our heads around what these initiatives look like in our classrooms ( with respect to the materials that we already have and the curriculum). We are going to utilize my board allocated release time for planning and we  plan to find ways to combine the resources and materials that we already have with the school’s learning goals.  We hope to try out our new ideas and then share our successes and strategies with the other teachers in our division.

For beginning  teachers that don’t have a close mentoring relationship or someone to take planning time with, there are options to visit other classrooms in the board or attend workshops.  In the past, I have found that using release time has really allowed me to spend a block of focused time on classroom planning. It has also been beneficial to visit other schools and look at the best practices of other teachers.    I am thankful that my school board recognizes the huge learning curve that beginning teachers face and provides opportunities and choice for how teachers can best use their time for learning.

So, if you haven’t thought of it already, mentors and beginning teachers, consider looking into what kind of support your board is able to provide you with, and consider the many options that will enhance your teaching!

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Samantha.Perrin Mentorship, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

The Power of Partnership

Like Roz and Sangeeta, I too am figuring out ways to strike a balance between work and life amidst the organized chaos of teaching.  Teaching a different grade each year is a challenge.   Every day, the joy of teaching is a juggling act: IEP’s, managing behaviour, integrating lessons, preparing materials and assessments, chasing down assignments, reporting, communicating with parents…     It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child, and I believe  us teachers are doing our students and ourselves a disservice if we try to do it in the  isolation of a single classroom.

Being new to a school can be a little isolating at first because one hasn’t had the time to develop the strong collegial relations that an established staff already has.   Though every school I have  taught at has welcomed me warmly,  I have found that it takes some time to learn who your ‘go to people’ can be which can be complicated further if you’re using your lunch hour for work and others are busy making the most out of their time as well.  Over time, I have learned that to start building collegiality and partnership is to start by asking.  I ask questions.  I  ask if teachers are interested in collaborating.  I ask if they can share.  I ask if we can meet.  And I offer too. I offer what I have and the skills that I bring. After all, partnership is give and take. Through the power of collaboration I am learning that I  able to be more attuned to the things that need to be done,  while feeling less fragmented by all of the balls that are flying  in the air.

This year, I have been collaborating closely with one of my colleagues who has inadvertently become my mentor.  We meet on a common prep time once a week and map out what our week looks like, share materials and resources and brainstorm ideas together. We build on each other’s ideas, pull out books to read, make to do lists, refer each other to helpful information sites,  pull what needs to be photocopied, divide the labour and regroup halfway through the following week to reflect on how the students are doing, what we found challenging and share with each other what we would do differently.  It is a wonderful partnership.

I can’t even begin to share what a relief it is to be able to collaborate so closely with an experienced teacher on such a regular basis.  For one, my thoughts aren’t going into overdrive figuring out ways to organize the multitude of information that I come across daily. Because we approach the teaching of our respective classrooms as a shared responsibility, I can worry a little less that I may not have certain materials in the classroom to do an art lesson, or that I am missing information that needs to be communicated in a newsletter or calendar to parents (which is likely to happen if you’re new to a school or a newly hired LTO).  I have a ‘go-to-person’ that can come to my aid or fill in the blanks, and this has been so good for my peace of mind.  I am sleeping better and have the energy to accomplish all of the things that I set out to do with my students , and I think it is making me a better teacher.

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Alison.Board Building Inclusion, Classroom Management, Communication Tools, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Interviews

Staying Connected

Similarly to Tina and Roz, I use different means of communication to stay connected with families throughout the year, mostly our classroom website, face-to-face contact, and agendas. It is difficult to limit yourself to one tool to suit the needs of all families. At the beginning of the year I send a paper newsletter and ask for email addresses to invite families to view our classroom website and receive updates from our weekly blog. This is a big hit in the community where I teach, as many parents like to get reminders on their mobile phones or sync our class calendar to their personal calendar. Most of the emails I receive are simple questions that require a simple and quick response, such as setting up interview times or confirming ad due date. Like Roz, if the request is something more delicate, I often call the parent and discuss the concern over the phone or set up a time to meet in person.

Since I teach a grade one and two class, I walk them each day to the outside door to meet their parents or sitters. The parents that I see daily or weekly can easily approach me with a quick question or I can provide an update without having to make time for the phone or computer. For example, I have a grade one student who has arrived in September with no English language. One or two days a week, her mother may ask me about something we have done in class that her daughter is trying to understand and has told her mother at home. With the mother there as the translator, we achieve quite a lot in a few minutes. These quick discussions are easier, more casual, and provide positive support for the student’s learning on a consistent basis (in addition to the support she receives in the classroom), which connects her learning to her home and family.

At my school, every student from grade one to six purchases an agenda in September. At first, I thought this was taking a step backward on my path to improve parent communication with the use of technology. Now, I realize it is just one more means of communication – not only between me and the parents, but it supports communication between the students and their parents when they refer to it together at home. I decided that if the children are all buying the agendas in my class, then we would make good use of them. So, when the students get settled at entry they first open their agenda and find the day’s date. We do quick math skills, talk about health and wellness while evaluating our feelings and assessing our exercise and eating habits for the week, in addition we use the calendar in the agendas rather than a shared calendar, and the students write reminders to themselves. I do not sign the agendas daily, but I do a quick walk around to either read, respond, or initiate a comment as needed. It has also helped with classroom management during the transition from entry to the time we meet together for our gathering circle. The children have learned to explore their agendas (agenda work), if my attention is focused on addressing a student concern or speaking to a parent at the classroom door.

Although keeping up a few forms of communication sounds like juggling balls in the air (and it sometimes is), it is the best way to meet the needs and include all families. By ensuring that you have communicated with parents about any concerns, your face-to-face communication during scheduled interviews will be easier for you and the parents!

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Sangeeta.McAuley Before School Starts, Mentorship, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

Go-to-People

Thinking about Roz’s commitment to taking care of herself, I realize that one way I have been taking care of myself is by making a mental list of “go-to-people”.

In my classroom, my students have “go-to people” they can approach when they need some help: it may be someone who draws comics well or someone who likes to incorporate humour into their writing. But this concept isn’t limited to just kids…

There are a variety of colleagues I am learning from who I can go to when I need to talk about curriculum planning or when I have a student that I’m trying to reach. That’s the beauty of teaching: we are not alone working in our little cubicles, there are doors open to us and we need to take advantage of that, for our own peace of mind and wellness.

The relationships we nurture with our students is just as important as the relationships we nurture with our colleagues.

So, when you look around, who are your “go-to-people”???