Closing Circle (Open Sourcing My Classroom)

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Robert P.

Onto part two of my open source project: Closing Circle.

Closing Circle is the end of every day, where we sit back on the carpet in a circle and share our reflections on the day. First, I open the floor to what students liked in the day and why and they use the structure “I liked ___ today because _____.” Not hard and fast, but that’s the general response. Anyone who also liked that thing can say “Me too,” and gesture with their thumb toward themselves.

Only the child holding the ball can share and they choose the next person by tossing the ball underhand to someone with their hand up while saying their name. Once everyone has shared who wanted to, or it reaches five minutes, we move onto compliments, where you can compliment someone for something in the same way.

That’s how we end our day, but I’d like to add some conflict resolution to it and make other changes to make it a true completion to each school day.

Ideas? Advice? Things you’d do differently?

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Morning Meeting (Open Sourcing My Classroom)

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Robert P.

In my last post, I said I’m trying to open source my classroom. Today’s entry is my first attempt to seek your input on my classroom structures: Morning Meeting.

Before Morning Meeting we have breakfast in the classroom every day. It’s not how I’d like to open the day, but I think I’ve got it well managed. The kids come in before school to set up the breakfast on the tables and then a student collects the extra food mid-way during breakfast time. Finally, a student collects the garbage by carrying the can around the desks. I’m not sure how that could be improved, but if you have ideas, please share.

Morning Meeting is a four-part routine every morning after breakfast. Fifteen minutes after the school day starts, the computer plays the Morning Meeting song (Good Morning, Good Morning by The Beatles) and students are excused group by group to the rug, forming a circle.

1. Greeting: I sit down around the circle with the kids and the greeter begins to start the greeting by saying “Good morning, (kid’s name to the left)” and then “Good morning, (kid’s name to the right)”. Then the kid to the right follows the same pattern. I try to emphasize speaking so the other person can hear you, eye contact, and listening to others. After the greeting is over, all students find a square on the rug (on of those Lakeshore rugs with squares in five different colored rows) and face the calendar.

2. Today’s Date: First, I say the date and ask what day of the week it is (my second graders last year couldn’t tell the number of days in the week nor the names) and pick a student whose hand is raised. That student gets to put the day in the calendar, following the pattern that’s already on the calendar. Next, I say what day of the school year is, and I have a student come up, add a coin to the Days of School Money Chart (not its real name), lead the class in counting the coins, and see if any exchanges can be made. Then, we go through the current temperature, current weather, and number of students present, with a student assigned to each sharing and me recording it on our number line and weather chart. Complicated without the graphics, I know, so I’ll try to put that up once I get onto a laptop.

3. Song of the Month: I pick a student to lead us in the song by rolling the pointer along with the words while the computer plays the song softly. I keep a tally of how many times a students has led the class in order to be fair over the year.

4. Morning Message: I pick another student (same method) to track and read the first three sentences of the morning message, which is basically follows the format:

Good Morning, Magic Mathematicians!
Today is Monday, August 2, 2010.
Juan is first in line and Joanna is our greeting leader.

Then I lead the rest of the morning message, follow the same routine… I read the sentence while tracking with the pointer and then the class reads it the second time.

Finally, we go over the agenda for the day and answer any questions they have before the day starts.

I know, a lot of explanation of what we do in the first 35 minutes of the day, but it’s the routine we follow every day. Any tips, comments, or suggestions as to changes I can make?

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Open Sourcing My Classroom

Posted on July 29, 2010 by Robert P.

In the weeks since ISTE and the Stanford d.school teacher workshop, I’ve been reading Michael Lewis’s books Moneyball and The New New Thing. Moneyball looks at Billy Beane, the Oakland A’s, and getting the most out of every dollar spent. The New New Thing, on the other hand, follows Jim Clark as he looks for riches through the creation of the next up-and-coming thing. Jim Clark founded Netscape, as a way to browse the Internet. Microsoft quickly took over, as they could force Internet Explorer into every PC using Windows. No browser really picked up steam over IE until Firefox. No encyclopedia really picked up steam over Brittanica until Wikipedia. I’m simplifying it, but the point is: Open Source. The community contributes because they are contributing to a better product for themselves and others to use.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post: I want to open source my classroom. It’s radical, perhaps naive, but it’s my attempt to make myself a better teacher and make an even bigger impact on my students. I’m still in the initial phase of this idea, but basically, I want to share what I’ve done in my classroom and the results, and get input from the teaching community on the changes I can make and the results expected. I don’t plan to completely change my classroom, nor do I plan to implement every single idea thrown at me. I do plan to take effective practices into my classroom and use them to increase my impact on my students. While I plan to share data and numbers, they will be abstract enough to protect the privacy of my students, but specific enough to allow others to see the impact of the implemented practices.

If nothing else, I expect that this venture will lead me to question the structures in my classroom, focus on my effectiveness, and ensure that I take the time to consider the emotional and academic well-being of each of my students.

First up in my next post, our opening (Morning Meeting) and closing (Closing Circle) of every day.

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Reflections on ISTE 2010

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Robert P.

Well, it’s been more than a week since ISTE ended and it’s still strong in my mind. CUE 2010 was my first ed.tech conference and this was my first one working in the exhibit hall. While CUE was my first exposure to what an ed.tech conference is, ISTE was perhaps my first exposure to what an ed.tech conference can be.

First of all, thanks to Luidia for flying me out to be the “experienced teacher” in their booth. They were ever so kind in bringing me along, since I otherwise wouldn’t have known the excitement of ISTE. Second of all, my apologies to those who follow me on Twitter and were bombarded with eBeam tweets. I just wanted to show my appreciation for allowing me to take place in this whole thing.

I’ll definitely write soon with some of my favorite tools and the ways that I am planning on integrating all these great ideas into my classroom, but first I just wanted to reflect on the whole experience.

My experience was so-so on Monday, as I was just getting acclimated. But Tuesday was a wildly wonderful day, peaking at lunch with an unexpected chat with Larry Anderson (@nctplarry) and Bobby McGuire (whose wife leads @rockourworld). I learned more in that lunchtime discussion than in any of the sessions and then learned much more when I participated in the Birds Of A Feather: Web 2.0 discussion at the end of the day. It is truly wonderful to be able to exchange ideas rather than just sit and take in ideas, and my hope is to do more of the exchanging during ISTE 2011 and other future conferences.

I had no idea about the Blogger Cafe, where the tweet up was precisely (thanks to @LisaGreathouse of @simpleK12 for making me feel welcome even though most everyone was already gone), the ISTE mansion, or the fact that some of the people I follow on Twitter were also in attendance (@mbteach & @kylepace to name a couple) and had #edchat live! Perhaps a little bit because I didn’t do the research and also because I was registered as an exhibitor rather than a teacher, but I’m determined that ISTE 2011 will be a lot more of the collaborating and seeing people f2f… Who’s in?

Also, finally, Peter Reynolds (author of Ish and The Dot… @peterhreynolds) is incredible. I met him at CUE, where I shared my love for his books, and this time reconnected, said a great thank you for allowing my class to have a copy of Animation-ish, and he proceeded to adorn my badge with my own artistic character.

Thanks again to everyone who made ISTE (and my experience there) possible!

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