Student Stories are Here!

     I'm a huge fan of ClassDojo and have been using it in my classroom off and on for years. I've even led PD with teachers in my school on how to use CD. The first 5 years of my teaching career were spent teaching a combination of 6th/7th/8th grade language arts and social studies. During that time, if I used CD, it was, unfortunately, inconsistent. I found it difficult to utilize in the jr high classroom, and I didn't always have the tools to implement it effectively.
     Last year, due to a restructuring of our district, the jr high moved into the high school building, and I was moved down to teach 4th grade as a result. I rediscovered CD again and found it to have so many new features that made using it so much easier. I was able to use it for the entire year, and my students and their parents loved it.
     After one year in 4th grade, the decision to departmentalize 4th-6th grade caused to me move, yet again, back to jr high! Even though I didn't have real success using CD in the past with jr high students, I'm not going to let that stop me this time. I've spent a ton of time planning how to make it effective. I've gotten so many ideas and pieces of advice from being a part of CD's Mentor Community on facebook, so I feel so prepared to start and end the year using CD as my tool for motivating positive behavior.
     This fall I am looking forward to using Student Stories in my classroom above and beyond anything else. CD has made it possible for teachers to help students create a digital portfolio that is instantly shared with parents. Last year I used Class Story to share incredible moments from my classroom with parents. I'm still able to do that, but I also get to share individual moments.
     Each class gets a QR code that students can scan on an iPad to be able to tag themselves in their pictures or videos.
     I plan to print several copies of the code for each class and display them around the room so they are in close proximity for all students. I have a set of 5 iPads to be used by my students, and this is a great use for them.

Students scan the code from the sign up screen on the ClassDojo app.

They can choose to upload a photo or a video.

They can tag themselves and whoever else is in the image/video or is responsible for the work in the image or video.

The teacher gets to approve all posts, so he/she can make sure that no posts are inappropriate or include the wrong students. 

Teachers can also post to students' stories from a computer. Right now it's only available to use and view on ios, but the great group behind ClassDojo is working to reach other platforms by September. I can't wait to see what kinds of things my students are going to share with their parents. Stay tuned for more ClassDojo posts in the future, as I'm sure I'll be discussing my positive triumphs throughout the year!

Plans for Articles of the Week in my Classroom

     Over the course of my teaching career (6 fantastical years), I have spent a mind-numbing amount of time on Pinterest. Not all of my pins are teaching related (85% of the dinners I cook are recipes that I found on Pinterest), but I have over 2,000 pins pertaining to education. I'll be the first to admit that many of the things that I have pinned are pipe dreams - ideas that will never come to fruition, but there are many gems that I have tried and advice that has been my saving grace.

     Every summer I go back through my Pinterest boards and look at my pins, so see if there's anything that I forgot about. I reflect on the year and see if I have anything pinned that will make the next year even better. Seriously, I need some CPDUs for my time spent on professional development via Pinterest.
     I came across this idea for a bulletin board for something called Article of the Week. I read the blog, clicked all the links, read some more, did some research, and stumbled upon the work of Dave Stuart Jr.. The knowledge that I've gained from reading the plethora of valuable advice on his website has been the most worthwhile research I've done this summer. He has provided so much background and insight into using an Article of the Week in the classroom. From links he's provided, I've traced the idea back to the beginning with Kelly Gallagher. After filling my head full of all the information that I could, I pulled the methods that were useful to be and came up with a plan to use Articles of the Week in my classroom.

WHO: 7th grade social studies classes
WHAT: Articles of the Week
WHEN: Handed out/discussed on Monday & turned in/discussed on Friday
WHERE: Articles will mainly come from two sites: Newsela and TweenTribune. The great thing about these sites is that they both provide articles with varying Lexile Levels. I was able to look at the MAP data from the students who will be in my class next year and the first thing that I noticed is that there is a very wide range of Lexile scores. I'm talking from beginning reader all the way to 1200L in the same grade. If I find an article that I think will work for my class, I can use either of the sites above to create article of the week assignments about the exact same topic but at different Lexile levels. Students will all be reading about the same topic, completing the same assignment, but the article that they read will be written at a level so that I can both challenge and support all learners in my classroom. Talk about differentiation at it's finest!

WHY: Like Kelly pointed out, students aren't always up-to-date on issues in the world around them. I can help bring an awareness of cultural and political issues, and at the same time work on CCSS in reading informational text and writing. When you add in Pop-Up Debates from Dave Stuart Jr, then you can encompass speaking and listening strands as well. When teaching jr. high language arts in the past, I found that I struggled with spoon-feeding reading complex texts to my students - talking through, explaining, and over simplifying concepts that they didn't get on the first take. Students need to learn to delve into complex text and wade though the murky waters on their own or with guided instruction. Due to my desire to use the article of the week assignment to help my students, I also extensively researched close reading and gained a better understanding of how to use it in my ELA classes, too. I want to prepare my students for the complex texts that they will encounter in high school/college/career, and there's no better time to start than now.
HOW: Students are to read/annotate the assigned article each week and write a 3 paragraph response using the questions provided or the student's own thoughts. I've modified the article of the week assignment to be less rigorous than what Kelly or Dave require in their classroom for a couple of reasons. 1) I teach jr. high, and they are high school teachers, so I had to adjust the writing requirements to reflect the age level. 2) After looking at the MAP scores (which I know are only one small piece of the puzzle), this assignment is going to be very rigorous for most of my students. I will of course model and guide them through several examples before turning them loose to practice independently. I plan to reteach and model using exemplars from the students' work using my ELMO.

Here's an example that I created using an article from Newsela that I will use when we start reading The Outsiders in ELA:

• Version 1 (710L)
• Version 2 (970L)

I can't wait to try this strategy with my students. I'm thoroughly excited about this new (to me) approach to addressing standard 7.RI.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Planbook

     Last summer, at a 2-week long math conference, I was introduced to the amazing world of online planbooks. Making the switch was all too easy!
     For the first 5 years of my teaching career I used the old paper and pencil planbook, and it was definitely frustrating. Communication is something that is sometimes lacking in my district and random assemblies or activities wouldn't be mentioned until just days before, or sometimes THE DAY of the event, causing all or some lessons to be thrown out the window. I'm a planner, a super Type-A personality, and I like for things to be neat and orderly, and I like to plan ahead. These are two parts of my personality that got frustrated with the lack of editing capabilities of a paper and pencil planbook. Arrows zip-zag everywhere across the pages when erasing and re-writing days of lesson plans just isn't an efficient way to spend my time.
     Enter the digital age. Now when I don't get to something, or an event unbeknownst to be pops up, I don't have to try to whip out the jumbo eraser for REALLY BIG mistakes and re-write everything. I click my mouse and bump the lesson to the next day, or I copy/paste the activity to the day that we will get it to. It's.That.Easy.

     That's probably the biggest perk of using an online planbook, but it's not the only one. This past year was my first non-tenure evaluation, and my first one being evaluated by the Charlotte-Danielson model. Also, due to budget restraints in my district, my superintendent is also principal of my building. While she is highly efficient at her job, she's a *smidge* intimidating. As part of my evaluation, I needed to bring a week's worth of lesson plans to the pre-evaluation meeting. I knew this part of my lesson would be easy. I even brought 2 weeks' lesson plans. Easy to print if needed, which I usually chose not to do (to save the trees) because it's just too easy to read the plans off of my computer's screen. My classes (or subjects) were color-coded so it's super easy to see the lessons for each subject at-a-glance for the whole week.

     Another thing that really set my lesson plans apart from others is the fact that I can attach the standards right to the day's lesson plans. The two weeks' plans that I handed my superintendent/principal contained every standard that I addressed in those two weeks - pretty impressive. The digital format also allows for attaching documents to the day's lessons, so if you're like me, you can project them onto the whiteboard and interact with them in your lesson quickly, without searching through the files on your computer the day of the lesson. You can also see all the standards that you've attached and when you taught them. Super handy!

     Since this is a digital program, you don't have to print copies of your planbook, or relinquish your book when they ask for a lesson check (we've only ever been asked to do this once, but it happens). You can add a key to allow anyone (parents, other teachers, students, administration) to easily see your plans. You can share a link with them as well to make access that much easier. 

     For $12/year you can simplify your lesson planning experience. I know that $12 seems a lot to some, but I never liked the planbook supplied by my district, and always bought my own, or attempted to make a template on Word, and staples the pages into the book supplied to me. The $12 all boils down to time. How much is your time worth because this site has saved me COUNTLESS hours. Sure it's a bit time-consuming to set up, and like many programs, there is a learning curve to get down before you can speed through the process. The best part is, next year (if I'm still teaching the same subjects/grade level) I can just go and pull lessons that I already put in there, tweak them as needed, and go. 

     Needless to say, my superintendent/principal was super impressed with my lessons and mentioned that she would eventually like to see everyone in my district go digital with their planbooks. I know several districts that do (that's how I learned of this amazing program in the 1st place). She even asked if I would be willing to run a PD to share my resource with the rest of the teaching staff. 

     So, what are you waiting for? Go and check it out already. There's a free one month trial. By the time that month was over, I was hooked and couldn't see myself going back to the paper and pencil way! www.planbook.com