Wide Open Spaces

Space is the Third Teacher. We think about it at all times! I have moved classrooms 4 times in my last 6 years at my current school. I have become master at moving furniture but haven’t been able to settle into a space and make it my own. We have an issue at our school where nothing is allowed to hang from the ceiling, everything needs to be 3 feet from the ceiling, and fireproof. It is very difficult to find items that are fireproof in this country! I have searched and find some items, but they are always so expensive. Viewing the space videos and doing some moonshot thinking, space can be changed. My students are in a small space and sometimes don’t have enough room to do a project because they always have to be at the table. I’m not using all the space, there is a floor or the comfortable pillows in the reading corner. Overall, space can either hurt the way you teach because you don’t have enough of it or help the way you teach because you are able to be more creative and inspirational within it. As a teacher of primary students, I am looking forward to reading more about the way that different teachers have set up their learning spaces and how to change mine to help with my own teaching. The way I move around the room and the way that Kindergarteners interact with each other, helps with setting up a room.

I have a typical Primary (Kindergarten) Classroom setup. My room is very colorful and Disney Themed. The space is student-centered. The students have chosen where items need to be stored so that they have easy access. I have 2 large tables in my room so that students are able to collaborate with one another. I have 2 Kidney shape tables so that students are able to meet with a teacher when completing projects or writing assignments. Our computer station is located on tables that have moveable heights to raise or lower depending on the student's’ height or if they wish to stand to complete an assignment. Due to the lack of windows, we have painted on a tree that we change the leaves, flowers,etc on per season. My classroom is the smaller one in the school. My class size is capped at 22, but we have had an overflow of students so I currently have 28 in my classroom. My classroom doesn’t have any windows and is located in the resource hallway. My classroom recently received ‘real’ walls. Since we only have a few outlets and intranet plugs on one side of the classroom, most of our electronics are placed on the right side of the room. We are also unable to place ‘real’ furniture into our classroom because everything has to be fireproof and 3 feet from the ceiling.

We do not have windows in our classroom, so I spoke with my principal this past week and I was allowed to paint a window! Take a look below- our students were so excited and asked about a way to change the seasons inside of it. That will be my goal, how to change the weather inside the window so it’s like the other classrooms.

One big change that I want to make for next year, since we only have 15 days left of the school year is the way that I display items in my room. I want my students to be inspired and creative. I will be making a display on the wall where each student has their own hangar and they can display pictures, letters, drawings, anything they want to share with the other students so we can create a tighter community. Going along with the wall display, I have a lot of posters on the wall that are not age appropriate because the students are unable to read them. I want to design posters with the students to display in the classroom based on something they enjoy. Each year of students is different so it would change from year to year and the students were see themselves as the designers and owners of the classroom.

After reading all the articles and focusing on what my classroom looks like now and how I would like the feel of it to be next year, I came up with 3 goals. The goals are listed here in this document.

Overall, I wanted to let everyone know that they should really take a step back and focus on how they move through the room and how the students want to conduct themselves within it. Get a focus group of friends together, have them walk through your space and come up with a plan of how to change it.

You've got WIDE OPEN SPACES...the world (classroom) is yours to change!

Testing..Testing..1-2-3

The bar has been raised in Today's Kindergarten.  I was the Kindergarten Class of 1993 and I remember being tested on my colors and letters. I LOVED being chosen to go to the back of the classroom and get the Letter Person for the Week. I sat at the rainbow table beside a boy named Brian and girl named Kayla and drew pictures. ( I received all those items back my Senior Year of High School). Kindergarten was a time for laughter, coloring, fun, imagination and exploration. It was time to be a kid.  Today's Kindergarten, in the year 2016 is a lot like First or Second Grade with the developmentally inappropriate curriculum, testing and only 30 minutes a day to BE a kid.

During my research this week for our EdTechTeam, INC Online Teacher Leader Cohort, I learned like assessing can be joyful and fun. I know, I know- you're probably thinking right now that I drank some weird Kool-Aid or got brainwashed, but I learned different ways and techniques to assess my students without giving a multiple choice, fill in the bubble, circle your best answer test!

Have you heard of Kahoot? EdPuzzle? Digital Exit Cards? Quizzizz? Quia? of and so much more. This Digital Formative Assessment or maybe even Summative Assessment Tools will allow you to create or even use another teachers assessment ( why reinvent the wheel if you can find something you need) to give to your students using computers. It will allow you to see real time data, learn what needs to be re-taught, who need your class needs enrichment or remediation. I fell in love with Kahoot and made about 4 different 'games' to assess my students' learning. The best part about it- they asked for more! I have a student in my class that suffers from testing anxiety ( I know, a 5 year old suffers from something they should never have to worry about, but the system is broken) and he was able to take the assessment without having to take multiple breaks ( these companies are working on fixing the broken system, one step at a time).

My students were given this Kahoot Game based on Shapes in the Real World. Currently our curriculum has the students naming shapes based on just the math manipulatives. When we move on to teaching with the shapes and looking at patterns in nature, our students get confused. They are unable to look a pattern in nature because they cannot find a shape in nature. I designed this Kahoot Game to allow the students to focus on shapes they see everyday, shapes are around us all the time.

As a cohort member, we were invited to attend a HOA (Hangout On Air) with the founder of JoeZoo. I had never heard of the company before attending the HOA, but was very surprised to learn that it was an Add- On for Google Forms. I have used a few Add-Ons before after attending GAFE Summits, but this was one that wasn't on my radar. Many of the Add-Ons are geared towards Secondary Educators and it lacks a primary feel, however I as able to use this App to design a rubric for my class. I was easily able to download, sign in, and create a rubric using their step by step process. If you have students that write papers or turn in assignments using Google Docs, you can use the add-on to grade the paper and send the student feedback. Take a look at the rubric and try out the Add-On yourself.

Digital Assessments, as you have seen from above, can come in all different ways. An example of a Google Form Assessment is here. I used Flubaroo for my Google Form Add-on. I had never used this Add-On before because I do not give my students assessments on the computer. This one is very user friendly and I was easily able to see which students had difficulty with the vowel sounds. I was able to go back and reteach as well as realign my reading groups.

Overall, my experience using Digital Assessments and the Digital Tools to design them allowed me to focus on teaching the students rather than testing to a test. My students were able to have fun, I was able to collect data and quickly see where I needed to go with the next lesson. My last activity that I tried in my class was a Digital Exit Card/Ticket. The students were in computer lab and we had just completed a math lesson on positional words. The students had to illustrate a positional word using KidPix or Inspiration. Here are the results of that assignment.  I recommend telling the students that they cannot use the items in your example because I saw a lot of repeat picture items similar to my own drawing. The students enjoyed it, I was able to collect data and no one knew it was a 'test'.

As teachers, if we are able to make learning fun and not teach to the test, we will be able to get back circa 1993 and how a kid can be a kid. Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum, Digital Tools, and a little bit of good ole fashion fun.