Differentiated Instruction

April 19, 2015 Lisa.Taylor Assessment, Before School Starts, Communication Tools, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, General, Math, Resources

Bulletin Boards – Teaching Tool, Art Gallery, or Wallpaper?

Every classroom has bulletin boards, some have one, some have 10! It all depends on the space you have and how you plan to use it. It is easy to set something up with plans for it to change or evolve, only to find that 4 months later you haven’t touched it, taught to it, or even referenced it!!

In my experience, Bulletin Boards end up falling into 1 of 3 categories: Teaching Tool, Art Gallery, or Wallpaper. Some bulletin boards are a blend of two or even all three of these categories. It is important to make the most of the space you have on your walls, while being cognisant of the fact that many children find too much stuff on the walls to be distracting.

When planning your walls, make sure you check with health and safety regulation, as many school boards have a maximum percentage of walls space that can be covered to stay within the fire regulation. So before you hit pinterest for some great ideas, make sure you are even able to cover the space! In my classroom, I have 5 large boards that cover almost every space that isn’t blackboard, windows or doors. The space that the bulletin boards cover is actually above the maximum percentage I can have covered in paper!! So I can’t paper back my boards as it is a fire hazard.

Many teachers like to paint their boards so they look crisp and clean all year. Again, double check with health and safety, as it is often an issue as it adds weight to the board which might not have been considered when mounting it. Especially if you are the 10th person in the classroom to paint them because the previous colours didn’t suit anyone’s decor!

Once you have established what your health and safety guidelines are, you can start to think about what is going on the walls. Ask yourself a few questions before you put something up there.

1. How will this help the students? While a Word Wall CAN help students, if you slap it all up before school starts and casually refer to it from time to time, it is not a useful tool and it is just wallpaper. Make sure you teach to it. Make it with the class and do it organically!

2. Is this something we need up for more than just today? If you only need it for the immediate future, don’t make a whole board of it. If you want to show off student work, I find the hallway is the best place for this type of thing. It gets more “traffic” from other teachers/students/parents, and it isn’t a distraction to learning. If you do need it for more than just today, you may want to ask a few more questions before you decide where to put it!

3. Do I need to put it all up right away and on my own? As teachers, we hate to look or feel like we aren’t organized, prepared, and ready to go! I recall as a young teacher, putting up bulletin boards before the first day of school. Yes, sometimes I taught to them, but generally they were just wallpaper. Many of us are guilty of putting up the whole word wall kit the day we get it! It just looks so pretty when it is done! Put it up gradually, and with the class! This will make it a more meaningful teaching tool. As teachers, we like everything to look complete and not “in progress” – but having the word wall with just 3-4 words up in September is what your students need!

4. Am I done with this? If you aren’t using it anymore, and the kids aren’t, take a picture of it and take it down! The more “stuff” you have on your walls, the harder it is for students to find what they are looking for. If you don’t need it anymore, take it down!

5. Are the kids using this? Even when you read the research, do the work, cut, past, laminate, and put up a beautiful board, the kids may not respond to it and it may not be useful to them. If you put up a board for math showing single digit addition strategies to start off the year, if they have all mastered it by December, they probably aren’t using it anymore. We have a tendency to keep things up in lieu of blank space to avoid looking like we aren’t accomplishing anything as a class! If they aren’t using it, take it down, or teach to it more, modify it, model how to use it. If after teaching to it more, they still aren’t using it – TAKE IT DOWN!!

There are thousands of blog posts and pinterest boards dedicated to amazing bulletin board ideas. Before you put one up, make sure it is actually something you need, that will get used, and that you install it in such a way that the students know how to access it.

There are great blog posts about what to do with your bulletin boards when you are done. My personal favourite is to snap a picture and create a bulletin board binder. That way, if there is still one of two children in the class that still need that bulletin board, they can go to the binder and look at it all year long! It will also serve as a nice reminder of how they looked if you end up needing to recreate it another year!

April 11, 2015 Alison.Board Assessment, Differentiated Instruction, Inquiry

Assessment for Inquiry Projects

Teachers are encouraged to use inquiry in all subject areas. Using inquiry is not necessarily a set of steps to follow or instruct, but an approach to guide student learning. It usually results in greater engagement and can easily be differentiated to individuals and groups. What is often the biggest challenge for teachers is the assessment piece.

Here are a few ways to support your assessment:

determine check-ins with students as they complete specific stages of the process, such as planning, research/recording observations, interpreting and communicating (use rubrics for these stages as provided in curriculum document – Continuum for Scientific Inquiry)
use mini-lessons to teach skills and content to the whole class that support the Inquiry subject area
use whole-class discussions or small group discussions to make observations about student knowledge and understanding (this also builds knowledge among the larger group)
provide access to a computer for each group or a notebook to record their questions and plans and stay accountable. Communicate with them to further their thinking and provide next steps (Google Docs works well for this)
Keep observations sheets handy to make notes and take photos
Inquiry work provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the learning skills
Provide students with a checklist to ensure specific learning, such as “Show impact on environment” or “Determine best solution for power generation at our school” – when assessing effectiveness of final task/project that students may present in a variety of ways (poster, video, website, etc.)

There are some great project based learning guidelines and assessment tips/strategies on the website http://www.edutopia.org/ or follow edutopia on Twitter.

March 31, 2015March 31, 2015 Tammy Axt Assessment, Differentiated Instruction, General

How to Run a Recorder Karate Program

A very common program that is run by many junior music teachers is called Recorder Karate. The program is a series of songs that the kids learn on the recorder that get progressively more difficult. After each song that they have completed correctly, they receive a “karate belt” with a corresponding colour.

Recorder Karate is a program that encourages student growth and allows for a highly differentiated music class. Every student is working at their own level and receiving consistent, specific feedback about their progress. You can buy the program online through Music K-8.

The program looks like this in my classroom:

5 minutes- Warm-up/hand out recorders (either a student or I lead a quick warm-up)

10 minutes- Sight reading/song practice (we work together on difficult spots within the songs)

20 minute- Independent practice and testing of students

5 minutes- Sharing/clean-up ( I invite anyone who wants to share to come to the front and be a shining star)

After running this program for a few years, I have learned from some of the mistakes that I have made. I hope some of these ideas will help you with your recorder karate program.

I have learned:

Never start the program without taking a period to do an activity on building community. When I first starting doing the program, I used to dive right in as I felt that I had such limited time with the students. However, during the program, inevitably someone received a belt before someone else and another student struggled to get through the first song. I learned that if we took the time to do activities that talked about “put-ups” instead of put-downs, this encouraged positive language and the class was less competitive. Now most students will high five each other every time someone passes, no matter what level they are at.
Feedback needs to be quick and easy for students to understand. I used to give elaborate feedback to students on pages and pages of paper and I realized that all that writing took up too much class time. Also, the students never read it and it was not helpful in moving the students forward. Now I have a simple chart that they refer to regularly and I can see at a moment’s notice where the student is having trouble. Also, I want to get through at least ten students in a period. This requires my assessment to be quick, specific and to the point. (I have attached the template that I use for my assessment tracking.)
There is only one of me in the room. I have learned to accept the fact that I see my students for 40 minutes and I cannot help everyone every period. I have learned to stress to the class that we are a big recorder learning team and we need to work together. Sometimes I assign people to help others, and other times I do a mini lesson with one group while another group is being led by another student. What I have seen is that for students, sometimes helping another student to improve solidifies their own learning.
Recorder karate is great to run with one grade while you are prepping your other classes for performances or concerts. Once Recorder Karate is up and running, there is very little preparation for each period. This can be SO helpful when preparing concerts, choirs and all the other performances your students will do throughout the year.

Overall, my students have had a lot of success with recorder karate and it is a program that I would recommend to junior music teachers.

Karate Belts and Scores sheet

March 23, 2015 Lisa.Taylor Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Homework

Homework – how much is too much?

Some teachers don’t give any homework, some give lots! There are lots of schools of thought on homework and if it is necessary, if it is valuable, if it serves a purpose, etc. I have had classes that had weekly homework for the whole year, and I have had classes that didn’t get homework once. It all depends on the group and what they need. I find homework is just as much for the parents as it is for the students, sometimes more for the parents! I follow a few important rules when I send homework home:

1. Never send home a new skill or concept that has not already been taught in class. Quickly explaining it in 2 minutes while you hand it out doesn’t count either – make sure the homework is a review of a skill that has already been taught and worked on in class – otherwise you are sending home an exercise in frustration!

2. Never send home something you want to use as an assessment. You can never truly know if it was done independently, nor can you be sure that it is a true reflection of the child’s ability.

3. Never penalize a child for not getting their homework completed – often it is not their fault. They have things going on after school that keep them busy (sports, clubs, etc.) or they are with a sibling or sitter for a while after school and when they do see their parents, that time is too precious to be used working on skills that they have already mastered.

4. When in doubt, send home reading!! This is universal – you know their ability, you have taught them to read the pictures, so even if the words are a struggle, there are other options.

5. Never send something home for the sake of sending something home. Have a purpose in mind. When you get something ready to send home, before you make copies or hand it out, ask yourself, what am I trying to accomplish with this? If it is not helping you to accomplish your goal, don’t send it home. Homework for the sake of homework is frustrating, especially as the parent at home struggling with your child to get it done!!

When you establish a homework routine, make sure it is that – a routine. If you are going to have homework coming home regularly, be consistent with it. Don’t send things home randomly and expect parents will just know what to do. I often rely on my child to go through her backpack to find things for me, and if she doesn’t come across her homework (or more likely, ignores it), and we don’t see it until we are packing bags for the next day of school in the morning, as a parent, I feel so blindsided. If I know something is coming home, I can make time for it and be ready for it. If something is coming home randomly, make a big deal of it – make note of it in the newsletter, staple a reminder bracelet around my kid’s arm so I know to look for it, or send an email reminder to parents so they know something is coming.

If you differentiate in class, you need to do the same for homework. If you have a child working on an IEP in class and they need extra help with counting to 100 for example, you could be sending home lots of extra counting to 100 activities. You don’t need to send those home to the rest of the class if they have that skill mastered though. If the rest of the class is working on counting to 1000, don’t bother sending those activities home with your student that is on the IEP if they are not ready for that, as it is not part of their IEP goal, and it will again just be an exercise in frustration for that family.

I would often send home words of the week. No spelling test at the end of that week, just words to work on. We would have a word family to work on that week (primary). We would build our new word family on Friday afternoon for the following week and then each student would pick their words to work on and get their list approved by me from our words we created. So if we were doing -ig words, some of the lower kids might have pig, wig, dig, on their list, but some of the stronger kids might go for ignite, enigma, etc. on their list. At the beginning of the year I sent home a tic-tac-toe board that was laminated. In each of the 9 squares there was a different activity (i.e., make your words out of magazine letters, rainbow spell your words, have a family member make your words into a word search and then solve it, etc.). Each week they had to get 3 in a row. They would mark them with a marker and wipe it clean each Friday. This was great as many of them could be done in the car, while parents were making dinner, etc. They were quick easy tasks that were meaningful, and relevant, and the words the kids were choosing were at a level that was relevant to them. It is impossible to make a spelling list that serves all students in your class. This method helps to give your kids more ownership and responsibility over their words. It was always a successful system!

In the end, you need to make sure you are predictable and consistent, you are serving a purpose, and that you are giving them something meaningful that they need to work on. When in doubt, have a reading challenge!

February 6, 2015February 7, 2015 Lisa.Taylor Assessment, Communication Tools, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, General, Planning, Report Cards

Updating the IEP

With the end of Term 1, comes the IEP review and update process. While the intention is that the IEP is regularly reviewed and updated, many IEPs lay stagnant all term and are dusted off at reporting time to be updated. Teachers are excellent at setting goals, supporting goals, working with children to achieve goals, and even revising and modifying goals along the way. We often slip up in the record keeping portion of the process. How many times have we called the parent of a student on an IEP to talk about how they are doing, what they can be working on at home to support progress, etc., and not logged it in the IEP contact record? I often forgot to include that until it was IEP review time and then I would grab my communication binder and update. It is so important to keep the IEP up-to-date always. If you set a goal for a student to be able to count up to 50 and notice that they can count to 60, that goal needs to be changed on the IEP immediately! The whole point of the IEP is to have goals that are attainable, but not too easy. The hope is that we will push the student beyond their current ability level to extend their knowledge, hopefully closing the gap between where they are currently working, and the level their class is working at.

When recording communication, goals, assessments, accommodations, etc. on the IEP, I find it helpful to include as much detail as possible. Many IEP engines have drop-down menus, check boxes, etc. This might not always provide you with everything you need to paint an accurate picture of the student. Don’t be afraid to use the “other” box and explain. If you are doing something that is “outside of the box” for a student and it is working, document it!

We like to think that those students will be at our school forever and so will we, but that is not always the case. Unfortunately, families move, teachers move, people get ill, things happen. If you are suddenly not able to be at school, it is important that those records are up-to-date. Last year, I became ill and was quite abruptly sent home from work to await surgery. I was given next to no notice that I was not going to be at work, and the duration was undetermined. In the time that I was gone, two of my students moved. Had I not had their records up-to-date, I would have had to come in off of my sick leave (which might have jeopardized my leave) to collect up my data to update their records. Keeping things thorough and detailed also means your colleagues who have the student in the future know what things have been done for the student, what works, where the strengths are, etc., without having to track down previous teachers. With Lay-Offs, School Surplus, Transfers, etc., the staff in a school can change pretty rapidly. That document might be he only thing left in the school that really knows a student by the end of the staffing process in a given year.

There are lots of sites that will help with writing goals, scaffolding to ensure goals are progressing toward a larger goal, etc. It is often easy to get the IEP completed once you sit down and get to work. It is feeling the urgency and the importance that the document holds that really motivates a teacher to keep the IEP updated on paper, not just in their daily planning.

January 4, 2015 Alison.Board Assessment, Classroom Management, Differentiated Instruction, Integration, Planning, Report Cards, Use of Technology

Starting Over

January can feel like September. It is an opportunity to initiate new routines and expectations or inject something new into your current program. For many teachers, the last weeks of school in December before the break is challenging. Students are excited about the anticipated break; programs are interrupted with practices for concerts and special assemblies; and teachers are hanging on as they maintain or try to maintain a normal environment.

With the much needed break, students and teachers return to school refreshed. Many will not admit it, but look forward to the return of a regular routine. Take this opportunity to get your students quickly involved in new learning that may have been hard to tackle in December. There are at least three weeks of school before the cut-off for term one reporting. Assigning projects the first week back will focus the students directly, and provide you with assessments needed at the end of January.

Over the holidays, I have prepared an outline for the Biodiversity Infographic that I will be assigning my Grade 6 students the first week back. It will provide assessment both in Science and Media Literacy. I have also been considering an autobiography or biography project for my class. I am still working on the outline but I am thinking about a booklet that will include entries in writing and art. To differentiate to all levels for both projects, I will provide graphic organizers, allow choice of topics, and encourage students to create their works in print or with technology.

Take something that has inspired you over the holidays, (travel, nature, art, movies) and find a way to bring that interest to the classroom. It is surprising the connections you will make to the curriculum and the enthusiasm that you will share with your students.

December 28, 2014January 2, 2015 Beverly Papove Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, General

Looking Forward to January

While I am enjoying a holiday from the classroom, from time to time, occasional reminders creep into my thoughts that we will shortly be back at work with only a few weeks before the end of the first term. To quiet these reminders, I think about a few of the activities which I am looking forward to and which I will be able to comment on in my reports.

One activity all my grade 3 students are excited about is producing a puppet show of Robert Munch’s “The Snowsuit”. Before the holidays, students brought in old socks so that they can create sock puppets to be used in the play. The first week back at school in January, my students will be busy at work creating their puppets and props while learning their lines for the puppet show. The holidays can be a stressful time and after 2 weeks of a disruption in routine, many students (and teachers) have a hard time switching back to school mode. With some management and support, a collaborative activity which is student centred, like a puppet show or a play, gives students independence and structure and can be a nice way to begin the New Year. It is also a good alternative to seatwork right after the holidays.

Something else I put in my plans for the first weeks back at school is to be outside everyday with my class. With a little preplanning, I make sure I take my students outside for math – building and measuring snowmen and monitoring temperature changes; social studies – snowshoeing around the school yard imagining we are visiting Wendat, Anishinaabe and settler communities; science – observing plants in winter; language arts – using the 5 senses to describe a winter day; and phys. ed. – playing in the snow after a fresh snowfall. A letter home to inform parents that we will be going outside on a regular basis helps to have students come to school prepared with proper gear or a change of clothing in case they get wet. To guarantee accessibility, however, the school always has a collection of extra gear students can use if they are missing something warm and dry to wear.

It’s not always easy to look forward to heading back to school after the holidays. Drama and outdoor activities are perfect for January because they help with getting back into the groove and break up the daily routine with a little something different.

December 7, 2014 Alison.Board Assessment, Classroom Layouts, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Math, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth, Resources

Teaching Math

I have always considered myself more of an “English Language” teacher. So, when I moved into the junior and intermediate classroom, I felt less confident in my abilities to teach math. When planning for the year, I surveyed some other junior/intermediate teachers for recommended resources. And when planning for the classroom environment, I made sure to have a corner dedicated to math, which includes a gallery wall, manipulatives, math dictionary and texts as well as tools like calculators.

Although I was given a set of textbooks, I don’t plan or teach from the textbooks. I print the curriculum expectations specific to the grade for each strand, and use them as my guide in planning the units. Then I refer to some other resources for ideas in activities that involve group work or problem solving. Some of favourites to support my math program are:

Introduction to Reasoning and Proof, Grades 6-8: The Math Process Standards Series, by Denisse R. Thompson and Karren Shultz-Ferrell
Nelson’s Ontario Numeracy Assessment Package
Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics, by Marian Small

By referring to these resources, I am able to understand the concepts that need to be taught and how to differentiate using broader questions for the range of math learners in my classroom. I enjoy providing mini-lessons on strategies to support the students as well as encouraging them to share their strategies with me and the rest of the class. Our math class has become engaging and interactive, not repetitive and boring as I had feared.

We use a gallery wall to display group answers to problems. This has become an invaluable way to quickly assess understanding. Students are given the opportunity to view the gallery, see how others have solved the problem, respond with their own ideas or suggestions and acquire new learning. A week of math classes includes a range of instructional strategies, independent work, paired and group work. One of our common “go to” questions is “Does this make sense?” We are aiming for understanding rather than rote learning of facts and steps (as I learned in elementary school). So, I am enjoying learning with my students as I discover new ways to approach and solve math problems.

December 7, 2014 Alison.Board Assessment, Classroom Management, Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning About Your Students, Planning

From Teacher Directed to Student Directed Learning

As a new teacher or a teacher with many years experience, you hear about the importance of planning for student-directed learning in the classroom. Keeping this approach in mind as you plan in all subject areas benefits student learning and also benefits the teacher. Benefits include:

Engaged students – most students want the opportunity to talk as they learn, not just listen. When made to only listen, they look for distractions and classroom management issues often arise. If students are provided time to collaborate on a topic that interests them, they are engaged in the process and positive learning outcomes are the result.
Student interest – this leads to the content. Provide students with choice and select topics within the curriculum expectations that are of interest to your group of students. Students will demonstrate more initiative and take more responsibility for their own learning if they have choice of relevant topics. For example, in my grade 6/7 class, I modelled writing a monologue from the perspective of a character. Then, the students were all provided with a rubric to create their own dramatic monologue based on a character of their choice from a book from their choice.
Differentiated instruction – allowing choice of topic or type of presentation/project differentiates for the range of learners. Again, as an example from the monologue assignment, struggling readers selected books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, while others selected more challenging texts like Journey to Jo’burg. Similarly, students will select an option for a project on what they are comfortable with (creating a slideshow vs. a video). By allowing students choice, you are more inclusive, not lowering your expectations for those who can surpass them, or challenging your lower level students to frustration. And as a result, the students who select the more accessible choice, often learn from the students who are demonstrating success with a more challenging topic or type of presentation.
Assessment – student-directed learning allows time for ongoing assessment. I have spoken to teachers who plan detailed lessons and present to the class in a lecture style format with little time for collaboration or independent research. These teachers lament that student’s aren’t “listening” enough. They also wait until the end of unit to assess students with a paper/pencil task. By facilitating students in a more self-directed approach, teachers can support student where they are at with resources and mini-lessons for those who need it. Why provide the same lesson to the whole class if they do not all need it? When students are working in small groups or pairs, or even independently, the teacher is provided the time to interact with students, find out where they are in their understanding and provide the necessary support (assessment for learning).

Student-directed learning isn’t students learning on their own. It is more like students learning within a framework set up by the teacher, and supported by the teacher. It benefits all those involved!

December 2, 2014December 2, 2014 Shawna Rothgeb-Bird Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, General, Math, Use of Technology

Why I Love Teaching “Unusual” Things

I have a bit of a reputation for being a quirky teacher. My students can often be found in the hallways at school, engaged in some strange new whim that I have managed to tie into the curriculum in some way. There just isn’t enough room in a traditional classroom for my students to really get into their work without feeling cramped or overwhelmed by the proximity of other sutdents.

Up until this year, my classroom was located on the second floor of the school, surrounded by other hard-working classes with students who were much quieter and more studious than my boisterous, exuberant class. I think I know why I was moved to the bottom floor this year, and I can sum it up in one word: ukulele. I’ve talked about teaching ukulele before – about how it benefited me tremendously, because I never have to teach dance any more.

What I didn’t really talk about was how the ukuleles – and other unusual undertakings like them – benefit my students.

First, let me tell you a little bit about some of the more unusual or exciting projects my students have worked on over the last few years:

– Melted crayon art: Using hair dryers, hot glue guns, bristol board, and a lot of patience, my Grade 5s explored physical changes of matter by using wax crayons to create works of art for our annual art show.

– Original musical compositions: Using online musical notation software, my Grade 5s composed original pieces of music to accompany short stories they wrote for French Writing. The following year, I had my Grade 5s use the same software to create pieces of music that represented different fractions. One activity, multiple curriculum connections!

– Board games: In Mathematics, my Grade 4s and 5s created their own versions of the popular board game “Carcassonne” to explore fractions and probability.

– Quilts: For our art show last year, my Grade 4s and 5s designed and created small quilts using sewing machines and donated fabric. The quilts were auctioned off and the proceeds were donated to charity. This project was a part of both our Mathematics and Visual Arts programs.

– Dream homes: I have had Grade 4s and 5s design their “dream home” using a set of parameters (specific area and perimeter, specific rooms they must include, etc.).

– Weblogs: As part of my Language Arts curriculum, I have had my Grade 4s and 5s create personal weblogs (password protected) where they responded to writing prompts, wrote about their lives, and read and responded to peers’ posts.

It has been a phenomenal experience teaching my students to do these things. Some of them are REALLY fun, some of them are REALLY hard, but they have all been beneficial. These projects have allowed my students to explore the curriculum in ways that they wouldn’t have imagined on their own.

You’ll notice that a lot of them have to do with Mathematics – and that’s been a conscious focus on my part. When I ask my students at the beginning of the year what their favourite and least favourite subjects are, the majority of my students list Math as one of their least favourite subject. I try to change that by having them look at Math in a different way. A lot of my students don’t realize, at the beginning of the year, that Math is an integral part of music and graphic design. It’s exciting to watch them discover fractions and patterns in a musical composition, or figure out ratios to make different colours in visual art, or carefully and painstakingly measure out quilt squares to ensure that they will fit within the design they have envisioned. These activities help my students see that Mathematics has more to do with everyday life than just adding up numbers or memorizing multiplication facts. They see why Math is important to learn and how they might actually use it in the future. It is made less abstract by being placed in a real world context.

The blogs, on the other hand, give my students a purpose for their writing that goes beyond “writing in a notebook that only my teacher will see.” Their voices as writers change when they are writing for their peers instead of their teacher. It’s exciting to watch them interact in their second (or third, or fourth…) language through the comments on their weblogs. It’s also a way for them to make connections with other students that they might never have spoken to or sought out before. I have watched new friendships form in our protected online sphere, then watched as those students brought that friendship into the real life classroom. By having them write for one another instead of me, I find that my students are more willing to take risks with their writing and worry less about getting it “perfect.” They have fun. They talk about things they wouldn’t have talked about before. They enjoy writing.

These projects take a lot of forethought and preparation. They are not small undertakings by any means, nor are they particularly easy. There is a learning curve with these kinds of things, and not all students will enjoy all of these activities. It’s worth doing things a little outside the traditional realm of teaching, though. I’ve never seen some of my students laugh as much as they do when they’re making up a ridiculous song on the ukulele about smelly feet. I also never imagined that a group of very athletic, very boyish boys would take quilt design and sewing quite as seriously as some of my students did last year.

The best part, though, is seeing every student in my class find something to be proud of. Sometimes it’s the fact that they got up and performed a song in front of the class, other times it’s the new skill they learned, other times it’s that they actually knew HTML before I taught students how to make weblogs and they were able to jump in and help other students learn. It is really exciting and rewarding to see my students engaged in these activities and taking charge of their learning.

Even if I’m a giant disruption to my colleagues when I take over the foyer of the school with six sewing machines (and 50 students) every Monday morning for two months straight… or when my 25+ students are scattered through the halls of the schools plucking away at the strings of their (mostly out of tune) ukuleles… or when we blow a breaker on one side of the school with all our hair dryers so none of the hallway outlets work.

I am that teacher. My students are those students.

We have a LOT of fun learning.