The Joy of Teaching

Six-year-old Sofia arrives at school with her parents. She opens the classroom door and guides them over to her desk. She gathers chairs so she and her parents can cluster together. Amidst the hum of several other students conferencing with their parents, she leads them through a multi-subject portfolio of her work. Sofia reads aloud an “I Can” standard before explaining each work sample. She answers her parents’ questions and demonstrates what she has learned.

My adventure with student-led conferences began about ten years ago. It began when two colleagues and I attended a conference focused on strategies for motivating students. We plunged in nervously, but it was so successful that we never returned to traditional conferences.

What are some benefits of student-led conferences?

• Students and parents are motivated and empowered by active participation.
• Parents become directly aware of grade-level expectancies and their child’s progress.
• Students have the opportunity to synthesize their learning, as well as analyze and drive their own progress—a great way to integrate Common Core methodology.

Getting started:

Custom design student-led conferences to work in your school setting. We decided upon scheduling one or two broad time windows for simultaneous conferences during our regular conference weeks. We estimated that conferences would last about 30 minutes each. We called it the Celebration of Learning.

Plan for the age of your students. We assisted students in putting together their portfolios. A corresponding standard translated into kid-friendly language was attached to each work sample. The week before conferences, we engaged our classes in role-playing practice. This included everything from how to welcome parents to conducting the conference.

Encourage parents not to bring siblings. We wanted parents to pay full attention to their student.

Be flexible. Most families attended the scheduled Celebration of Learning event. This freed up many time slots for anyone needing an alternative appointment.

Provide a list of questions parents can ask their child. Stapled on the back of the portfolios were a set of questions for parents to ask their child. Questions included: What are you really good at in school? What do you need to work on? Are you doing your best? If not, why? How can I help you at home with your schoolwork?

Make it fun! Students were excited to prepare their portfolios and take invitations home for the Celebration of Learning. After their conference, students took their portfolios and a tasty treat to share with their parents.

Back to Sofia’s conference…I hear Sofia ask her parents to help her read at night and log her minutes. She shakes her parents’ hands and thanks them for coming. I talk with Sofia’s family. They are excited to share their observations, acknowledge her progress, and discuss how they can work together at home. They leave together, excited for the next school day.

Marti Beeck started her career in education as a parent volunteer in her three children’s classrooms. Her teaching experience, including adult school, intervention, and the primary classroom, was inspired by her background in psychology and interest in brain-based learning. Marti currently works in the field of educational publishing as an editor.

A deck of playing cards provides an infinite amount of ways students can be moved around into collaborative groups to share their work or ideas. The notion that students need to get up and locate their group or partners helps stimulate motivation and engagement.

Incorporating kinesthetic techniques into learning environments is an underutilized strategy because it often requires additional time for students to transition between activities. Yet organizing students into groups ahead of time is simple and effective with a deck of playing cards.

One method of diversifying collaborative groupings and increasing engagement is through the use of playing cards. Sorting out the cards ahead of time can help build better types of groups, but a general mix of cards during a spontaneous discussion is just as suitable.

Here are a few ideas on configurations for collaborative discussions/groups:

1) RED & BLACK cards: This is an easy way of separating the class in half for larger group activities such as formulating teams for sports or debate. 

2) SPADES/DIAMONDS/CLOVERS/HEARTS: This is a great way to create groups of four for large groupings such as random station rotations. 

3) NUMBERED cards: Sorting students by the numbers on their cards is a quick way to put students in groups of four. This is an excellent way to formulate small discussion groups that are manageable and mixed. 

It is important that you always set expectations for behavior and a purpose for the collaboration before deploying your students to find their groups. Students will now look forward to discovering fresh ideas from a wider variety of partners during collaboration. Enjoy!

For more classroom ideas and free resources, subscribe to Evan-Moor’s education e-newsletter.

Contributing Writer:

Roger Nguyen is a curriculum coach in the Anaheim City School District, California. For over 10 years, he has taught grades 3–6 and combination classrooms, and has taught gifted and talented students.

Let me share a school open house idea that I have used for the past ten years that captivates the visitors and makes the evening enjoyable and stress-free for the teacher. The idea is called “The Historical Hero Video Project.”

What You Need:

• a phone, digital camera, or camcorder that takes short videos
• software that creates slides/movies (iMovie, iPhoto, Movie Maker, etc.)

First, my students do a biography poster project. They select a historical hero and do research on the Internet. They print a photo, create a timeline, and write why this person is a hero to them under the headline “My Hero.” This is mounted on colorful poster board.

What You Do:

• Then, students research a quotation by their hero and memorize it for later videotaping. I direct students to sites such as www.brainyquote.com. If they are unable to locate a quotation, I have students complete the sentence: I admire _________  because _________ .
• On videotaping day, I hang up butcher paper for a plain background and call students up individually to recite their quotation while the others complete independent reading or seat work. It truly goes quickly, especially if you have a rehearsal the day before. My students hold their posters while being filmed.
• Next, I upload the video clips on the computer. (Filming tips: a digital camera is easiest. Simply turn the camera on and off for each student to create separate clips. For camcorders: record the floor for a few seconds after each child is filmed! This creates separation between clips for easier editing.)

Create Your Open House Movie:

• Your film can be as simple as sliding the clips into a slideshow or as elaborate as creating a movie with music, an introduction, and titles. I always use iMovie, but Windows’ Movie Maker would work well, too!
• Music such as “Abraham, Martin and John” by Dion and “Hero” by Mariah Carey have added a wonderful touch to my movies.

Extra Fun Ideas!

• Have the students create invitations or posters for the “Open House Movie Premiere.”
• Have students dress as their historical hero for the open house.
• Give students a DVD copy at the end of the school year and/or post it on the classroom website.
• Adapt this idea for grade-level curricular topics and areas of study such as characters from literature or famous scientists.

So, roll out the red carpet and create an open house event that parents and students will remember!

For more classroom ideas and free resources, subscribe to Evan-Moor’s education e-newsletter.

What are your favorite school open house ideas? Do you have an open-house tradition that you would like to share with our readers? Leave a comment!

Contributing Writer

Alice Evans is a forty-year veteran National Board Certified elementary classroom teacher and is a published author. She recently retired from the San Diego Unified School District.

“Thing 1” and “Thing 2” read Dr. Seuss stories at a local school

“Hug your books! You don’t want them to get wet,” advised the librarian as the children lined up to return to their classroom. The children did hug their books, but not only to protect them from the rain. They hug their books every time they get new ones. These are books they have chosen themselves and can keep as their very own: books from Reading Is Fundamental (RIF).

Since its founding in 1966, Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) has distributed more than 410 million books to 39 million underserved children. The mission of RIF is to work with children, parents, and community members to make reading fun. As a writer of educational materials for children in grades K through 6, I am one of those community members and I welcome the opportunity to interact with students and teachers who benefit from my work.

In that spirit, I love visiting a school in Seaside and reading to children in grades K, 1, and 2 on behalf of RIF. Beforehand, the teacher specifies whether she wants a reading in English or in Spanish. (In Spanish, RIF is known as Semillitas de aprendizaje—Seeds of Learning.) In either language, I have so much fun with the children. They make me laugh and think, and I return to work feeling energized.

My most recent visit was scheduled for the Friday just before Read Across America Week and Dr. Seuss’s birthday, so the coordinator of the volunteers asked if we might dress the part. It was short notice, but I remembered a blue hat I had crocheted for my teenage son to wear to football games. It was perfect, so I responded:

I have a fun hat.

It’s furry and blue.

I think I may go

As Thing 1 or Thing 2.

When I arrived at Room 15 (grade 1), a little boy recognized me immediately: “Hey! I know who you are! You’re the helper from Cat in the Hat!”

Several others had never heard of Thing 1, but I assured them that, not to worry, they would soon find out, and I started my reading of The Cat in the Hat. It was a lively reading and the children were full of questions and comments. One girl wondered why the children in the story had to sit, sit, sit, sit. Didn’t they have a television? Another boy shook his head and said he did not like this one little bit either.

At the end of the story, when the mother comes home, the children and I had this interesting discussion which, if I had planned, would not have turned out so perfectly. I glanced over at the teacher and she was beaming with pride. I would have been, too!

S1:    Mrs. Lopez, why do we only see the mother’s feet and not her face?

GL:   That’s a great question. Why do you all suppose the author did that?”

(Hands shoot up.)

S2:   I think the illustrator only knew how to draw children’s faces. When he started drawing the mother, he thought, ‘Boy, that’s an ugly face. I think I’ll draw a door in front of it.’

S3:   Or maybe it’s because the talking cat and talking fish, and Thing 1 and Thing 2… those things are all pretend. They’re fantasy. The mother is real. So the author did not want the mother to be in the fantasy.

S4:   Maybe the author is saving the mother’s face for the next book he writes.

GL: These are all great answers. You’re so smart and you’ve left me thinking. Now I must go, and I leave you with this:

Farewell, dear children.

It’s always such fun.

I’ll see you again.

Good-bye from Thing 1!

Contributing Writer

Guadalupe Lopez has taught K–5 Spanish and adult ESL. She has been a PreK–12 materials developer for over 25 years, and is currently senior writer at Evan-Moor.