No Paper Needed Teacher Observation Form for FREE!

A lot of school districts use a triplicate form for teacher observations, or they pay very good money to a company to do the observations online.  Like most districts, we do not have the dollars to pay for an online observation form but want to move to paperless.  We now have a solution.  We use Google Forms with Google Drive.

Administrators will now have an option to take a laptop pr tablet into a classroom and complete a teacher observation.  There are three large advantages to this.

1. The administrator completing the observation does not have to fill out paperwork later about what he or she remembered in the classroom.
2. The observation data is stored in a Google Form spreadsheet that can be sorted and filtered to analyze data, powerful data.
3. Our process goes one step further.  Upon submission of the observation an email of the data is email to the teacher being observed and administrators (principal, assistant principals, curriculum coach) in the building. 

Below is a video on how to create one for your school.

Solve Your Communication Problem with Parents and Students

Teachers and Administrators,

It is halfway through the school year, and it is time again for report cards to go out.  Inevitably you will have a parent or two come see you and ask why her son has such a low grade.  The parent doesn't understand the grade because her child states there is never any work to do in your classroom even though you regularly give homework, quizzes, and tests.  How will you improve your communication with the parent?  I have the perfect solution, and it is called Remind 101.

Remind 101 is exactly what its name states; it is a reminder service.  Texts messages go from you the teacher to the students and parents.  You are probably saying something sarcastic like, "Great, I will have parents' and students' phone numbers, they will have mine, and worse they will be replying to me all night.  No thank you!!."  Remind 101 does not allow any of this which is one of the reasons I recommend the service.  Here is a list of reasons to use it.

1) It is FREE!!!

2) It is an opt-in program.  You create groups, get unique codes for each group, and share with parents and students to sign up.

2) Remind parents and students of upcoming tests, quizzes, etc.  It has a schedule feature so you can post your comments and have them sent at a later time.

3) It is a reminder feature so it is one-way traffic.  You text them, but they can't reply to you.

3) No phone numbers are shared.  They do not see your number, and you do not see their number.  You do see user names in case you need to delete a user.

4) Let students and parents know that standard message rates apply so they should only use the service if they have an unlimited plan because you plan on communicating with them a lot!!

5) There is an app for that.  Both iPhone and Android has an app you can use.

Social Media and Professionalism

My Human Resources department asked me to speak with induction teachers(first-year) and their mentors about social media and professionalism at their monthly meeting.

First, I am a huge advocate of using social media in our classrooms for many reasons.  However, I also want educators to use it responsibly.  Social media in the schools has many benefits including better communication with stakeholders, professional learning networks, a 21st century skill, and teaching students how to interact appropriate online and being good digital citizens including modelling that for them.

I get very irritated when people question the use of social media in the classroom because students do not use it correctly, their grammar is poor, or they will say something inappropriate.  In reality, all these "bad" things will happen, but as educators we have the opportunity to turn these instances into learning experiences. 

I do understand the need for privacy and security for the students in the classrooms and the differences for each level of schooling (elementary, middle, & high) plus the level of comfort the teacher has.  But, I believe the benefits out weigh the risks.

One of the most important lessons I can give to teachers is to understand your district's policy on the use of social media.  Many, like mine, have clauses if what you post personally effects the school environment, you can be disciplined up to and including termination.

Below I've embedded the Prezi I shared with teachers.

Students Blogging - Improve Student Writing and Learning

Student blogging is a powerful tool to improve student writing and learning by sharing their writing with a larger audience.  Recently, I became a huge fan of KidBlog.  KidBlog is a student blogging site where teachers create classrooms.  The site is FREE!! and the teacher has many privacy controls in settings.  The teacher can have the privacy settings locked down tightly or the student blogs open to the world.

Below is a presentation about student blogging.

Integrating Technology in the Classrooms Requires Support

A colleague reminded me of a quote in a meeting today, and I remembered hearing it before.  I had read it in a blog and set about to find it online.  The quote from the blog’s title, posted by Megan Thienel reads in part:  “School should not be a place where young people come to watch older people work.”

It’s not much different than the way we viewed a classroom 5, 10 or even 20 years ago, however, the tools available have changed that landscape.   The technology available is expansive.  However, teachers are stretched already with their duties and responsibilities, and don’t always have the time to explore the technology tools available. 

Our goal as Technology Coaches for the Georgetown County School District has been to assist teachers by giving them tools to engage students to collaborate, communicate, take responsibility for and take charge of…their learning. 

We feel like we have helped to make a paradigm shift from “Show me a cool piece of technology to use in my class.”  To “Here’s what I’m doing now…let’s find some piece of technology we can use to enhance that lesson.”

There truly needs to be a plan for “sustained” professional development.  Our district and its leadership have taken the initiative by making Professional Learning Time a priority.  Each school in the District has a Curriculum Coach.  This Coach is an advocate for the teachers and for learning, and works to drive success.  There are District Level Coaches for all of the Common Core areas.  Training has been ramped up to make the Common Core transition smooth and effective.  Each month teachers from every school come together after school at the District Office for about an hour and a half of concentrated and meaningful professional sharing and learning.  There are also three District Technology Coaches provided…one for elementary, one for middle schools and one for high schools.  These Tech Coaches travel on a regular and rotating basis to each school to do model lessons, share tools, and assist with instructional planning using Web 2.0 Tools.

In an attempt to help teachers utilize Web 2.0 tools in the classrooms, here are some of the tools that we have shared so far in our roles as Technology Coaches:

www.KidBlog.com :  A discussion forum for students.  This is a very engaging activity for reading and writing.

www.Weebly.com :  Intuitive Web Page design and publishing.

www.Knovio.com :  an exciting way to “jazz” up Power Point presentations with video and audio.

www.GradeCam.com :  A program to grade multiple choice questions almost instantly by using your computer’s web Camera or doc Camera.

www.Socrative.com :  An online live assessment tool for use with multiple devices.

www.Symbaloo.com :  A tool for organizing web sites and resources in a fun and creative way.

www.Diigo.com :  An online organizational and bookmarking tool with access from anywhere.

www.Prezi.com :  A presentation Tool that gives a “flow” to any students project and research presentation.

www.Voki.com :  An online Avatar tool to make a creative presentation. 

http://fur.ly :  A tool to organize web sites for classroom research that is smooth and saves time.

We are appreciative of the support from our Board, the Superintendent and the Instructional Department Directors.  I hope you can utilize some of the tools above in your classrooms to engage students…after all:  “School should not be a place where young people come to watch older people work.” 

Writing Online: Students Feeling Excited About School

I recently received the following email from a high school English Arts teacher:

Tracy, one of our teachers, has Brandon – she said that he loves doing the blog; it’s the first thing he’s been excited about all year, and it’s been a positive influence in his behavior in other classes.  He comes into my class any time he has free time to work on it, as well. He really is enjoying this! 

So now you want to know what the powerful strategy was, right?  What has made this student so excited, positive, and involved?  It is the opportunity to write online.  In the teacher’s class, we started using Kidblog to give students this opportunity to write for a larger audience in addition to the teacher writing for the teacher only.  In the student’s blog posts, students can currently view each other’s posts and soon will be able to respond to each other’s posts.  The teacher, administrators, and parents (guests) may comment on student posts.

One of my fears having students write online was that struggling writers would be embarrassed to have others review their writing, but Brandon has squashed that fear.  I originally believed poor writers would shut down at the possibility of their writing being viewed by countless others.

As mentioned above, the vehicle we are using to have our students write online is Kidblog.  Kidblog is a free service that allows teacher to create classrooms with students.  Teachers assign usernames and passwords plus control who is able to view blog posts and comment.  There are many additional features in the teacher’s dashboard.  Best of all, it is CIPA compliant with students under 13 needing a parent permission letter signed.

Happy Blogging!!

Thoughts on Classroom Discipline

Improve the quality of the environment in which you reside, and everyone will want to be a part of it. 

Why do we teach?  To make a positive difference; to be a positive role model; to serve young people; to make an impact on the next generation.  All admirable reasons, yet the “discipline factor” and inappropriate student behavior often interrupts our teaching.  Well here is my next question.  What are we doing to change the unwanted behaviors into expected behaviors?  Many studies, books and workshops have been done over the years to deal with extinguishing unwanted behaviors…still we deal with this issue.

I don’t pretend to have the answers for all of the problems facing us in the schools today, and I certainly recognize that students are different from even 5, 10 or 20 years ago, yet we still have to take the initiative to address this issue head-on.  I believe we can positively influence the environment where students and teachers work, and we can change the behaviors into those that are conducive to learning.  With that, I will share some from my experiences and hope they are beneficial for you. 

First, if you haven’t read the book FISH! by Stephen C. Lundin, I highly recommend it.  It is motivational and will give you some insight into improving morale and productivity. 

As instructional facilitators, we have dreams, visions and pictures in our minds of what we want our classes to look like and how we want them to function.  It’s like standing behind a golf ball on the tee, and in your mind’s eye, seeing where you want the ball to be after the shot you have upcoming.  You picture where you want the ball to go.  I always do this on the golf course, but unfortunately, my swing doesn’t always get me the desired results.  That’s where we as golfers…and teachers…monitor and adjust to the circumstances.

There is no change without ideas and truths, but ideas and truths come wrapped up in people.  Setting the expectations and feeling tone in your classroom and your building…among yourselves and with students and parents…is where we begin to overcome obstacles to win.  Students and faculty alike need to believe in the school’s mission.  They want the feeling of belonging to something that is going somewhere. They want to become better and seek to do so, and need to be recognized for their work efforts.

Whether it is a program or the school’s own philosophy, I believe it is important to connect the following three things to create and maintain a more consistent approach to improving morale and lessening the unwanted behaviors that impede instruction.

1.       Have Staff Buy-In
2.       Student Inclusion = Ownership = Desired Response
3.       Establish School Wide Guidelines for Success.  (Focus on the positive and state them in positive
        terms)

I understand and completely support discipline policies of a school district. I also understand the need for rules and regulations.  But consider this:  if we can create an environment where good work is recognized (for both staff and students), where opinions and questions are welcomed, where we teach with multiple modalities in mind, where we use differentiated strategies within a classroom, where we engage students, and when we make everyone in the building a valuable “cog in the wheel”…we can head off many of the problems that we have to address after the fact.

Technology is where the students of today are…and where we as teachers need to be to be able to move forward.  No, technology doesn’t replace a good teacher.  We all know that the number one factor for a successful classroom is the efficacy of the teacher.   If technology can help you be more effective, and put you in the same game with the students, don’t you have a better chance to influence how the game will turn out?

Find a path to greatness by relentlessly pursuing the most brutal facts – the tracking and positive changing of data.  Maintain a faith that not only will you survive, but you will prevail.  Remember that perseverance beats optimism every time.  And that a willingness to reach outside of our comfort zone, may just be the pathway to engaging student in the learning and behaviors we want.