Ms. Heather's Stories

Of the many buzzwords with which we are inundated as teachers by far the best one -to me- is differentiation. Many of us do it daily as we try to meet the needs of the couple two, three handfuls of individuals who are counting on us, but just like everything else, getting started is the hardest part. Want to know how I do it…or try to? See below!

Teachers of young children knows the importance of the foundation we lay and how it affects students’ future school performance. Our efforts to improve outcomes for students must be aligned as early as possible, so we must consider the range of student ability and prepare to differentiate when planning instruction. As such, we must create continua that span the entire grade range included under the umbrella of “early childhood”; preschool-3rd grade. Students exist on a continuum of development, so how do teachers ensure lessons we teach reach every student? By planning activities and assessments that also exist on a continuum! You can create a continuum for anything you teach; all you need are a set of standards, a graphic organizer and a concept…

Get started!
1. Print this graphic organizer, or make your own based on your needs.
2. Dig in to the standards for your concept. Find the standard at each grade level.
3. Use the graphic organizer to arrange elements of the standard in order of complexity from high to low.
4. Plan tasks and assessments that address varying levels of understanding within the same standard or concept.

Continuum resources with grade level alignments:
Math: http://achievethecore.net/coherence-map/
ELA: The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades PreK-2, Second Edition: A Guide to Teaching, Second Edition (Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System)
Science: http://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/NGSS%20DCI%20Combined%2011.6.13.pdf

Download a PDF resource of this information here!

There are moments when I notice I’m learning something, where I know that something significant has been revealed to me. For teachers these are the “teachable” moments we’re always looking for with our students, that sweet spot between not knowing something and knowing it. For our students, the moment is “learnable” and little kids don’t always know when it’s happening. We want them to; it’s called meta-cognition -thinking about ones own thinking- but it’s a learned skill that even adults use infrequently. I remember a few of these meta moments from my young adult life quite vividly…

In college my whole crew went to the Homecoming semiformal every year and took an awesome group photo. When it came time to order prints, one of my besties called with a plan…she and I would split a package to save money. The problem with the plan was I had already chosen a package which included an 8×10 which the package she wanted did not. I declined her offer and she tried in vain to force me to go along with her plan, eventually snapping, “Why can’t you just go along with this?!?!”

What I learned in that moment -and she did not- was the fact that to her, the only right way was hers. She didn’t see that her plan didn’t involve any compromise on her part, only mine, that she got what she wanted and I didn’t, that it wouldn’t hurt her to find someone else to do this with and leave me alone. I decided 2 things that day: that I would try NOT to force my wants on others and I would notice when I was seeing something-learning something- for the first time. Have I kept that promise to myself? Well…

A few years later I was living with a gaggle of roommates in a rambling old house. It was “bee season,” those few weeks at the end of summer when bees are everywhere and we had been fighting them for days, narrowly missing stings any time we opened the door. We had just moved in and were getting the place together, when my roommate -another bestie- and I noticed a bee on the window. She looked at me. I looked at her. She took her shoe off. We looked at each other again and hesitated, knowing something was wrong with our plan…then she smashed the bee. And the window of course. In that moment -aside from gaining one of my favorite stories- I vowed I’d learned my lesson about ignoring my gut feelings. I had heard and said the words before, but I learned the lesson that day.

The next year I was debating getting a car wash with that same roommate. I told her I was on the fence because there was a chance of rain, and the past 3 times I lay down my hard-earned, (pitiful, five job holding, graduate student) five bucks for a wash, the car was rained on the same day and I was frustrated. I really hate for my car to be dirty…anyway…She quickly retorted, “Well, I don’t think (emphasis hers) the rain cleans my car, so I’m going.” What I was saying -that rain falling on my newly washed car frustrated me because it made the car DIRTY- was interpreted to mean the exact opposite, and this was an actual, in person conversation, way before the ether of social networks and text messages. Behold, one of the most important meta moments of my life. People are not in your head, and might not always hear you clearly because what they hear is filtered through their heads, their lives, their experience…and in this case, their loose grip on their sanity. I learned that anytime I think I’m being clear, I should assume at least one person is hearing something totally different from what I mean.

For many teachers, what this means is -after every lesson- be ready to take a deep breath, assess for understanding and prepare to reteach. For me it means teaching my young students how to tell me they understand, to explain their thinking, to help them know they are thinking and to then think about that. And that’s no mean feat for someone who allowed a friend to slam a shoe into a pane of glass.

Apparently I’m what’s known as a teacher leader. I’m not sure this is a welcome label. I enjoy leading a classroom of children -most of the time- but other adults? Other adults are not my thing, and yet I’m at the point in my career where I’m expected to be sage and share my wisdom with the masses. So I do it. I have a blog. I present at conferences. I create resources to help others (and myself) improve classroom practice. I give speeches (more on that in a later post…) I do all of this because after a while in the classroom it starts to feel like there’s something more, but you’re missing it.

For a while I thought about changing careers, leaving the classroom etcetera, but that was more about work conditions than the job itself. I was searching, but then I figured out my problem, and I found my voice.

A “fellow” AAFTP Fellow, Glen Gilderman and I had a long talk about this at our first Fellowship convening together, and he has built his leadership -his next level- around it. We called it The Teacher Plateau at the time…that space in your career where the learning curve levels out, the battle becomes less uphill and teachers fall off the horse and into administration. He’s looking for and advocating a way to avoid that trap, and it is leading FROM the classroom.

So now I do that, and I’m “busy” all the time. I have deadlines and projects to finish AND grades to calculate and lessons to plan EVERY day. But it’s okay (though I think my family would sometimes disagree) because it fills that void. Is this void unique to teachers or is it some kind of mid-career crisis that happens in every profession? I don’t know, and I hope I don’t have to find out, because that’s the thing…-unlike all of the corporate drones turned “educator” out here- I can’t think of another place I’d rather be than in the classroom.

So now, I’m on the “Teacher Voice” bandwagon, and I’m not a big fan of bandwagons, so more on that later too, but I’m glad the bandwagon is here, because even I when ask you not to make me, I LOVE to use my Teacher Voice.

It’s no secret in the education world that every teacher’s school year is likely to begin with several new top-down directives, some -or all- of which could directly contradict the previous year’s directives. The worst part is the way we’re all expected to embrace whatever it is and implement it immediately, as if we were all sitting around with no plans, no goals for our students and scads of time to learn yet another new way to…whatever. Buzzwords abound; collaborate, innovate, aligned, evidence. And we start using them. Sometimes we buy into it, incorporating morning meeting or small group rotations into our days. Sometimes we resist as I did with “inquiry” until I was forced to use it. I still find it creepy and off-putting in some situations, but hey…I need high scores on my evaluations don’t I? So how do we fight the power? How do we decide what’s best for us and our students? How do we keep our sanity in the face of the next education phenomenon…the new black? I’m not sure we do…

Today begins my journey as a teacher/blogger. It was supposed to begin last Tuesday. And the Tuesday before that, and the previous Tuesday. In fact, it was supposed to begin way back in 2014 when I came up with a long list of topics I wanted to discuss with other teachers on my -then embryonic- teacher site. I thought I’d have the time to match my ambitions. I thought I’d figure out how to publish op-eds and with those garner followers so I’d have people to discuss it all with…I thought wrong. I’ve had no time, but I’ve got to make some.

So now I have to plan, and adhere to the plan and follow through on the plan to build a community. I have decided on my “angle” and know where I’m going to focus my work in the classroom and as a “teacher leader”, and I have a forum, but I have to get people in here with me.

I need #TwitterTuesdays.

I discovered and implemented the #TwitterTuesdays idea a few years ago to showcase my students’ learning, and it was pretty cool. It focused me and my students on sharing our story, we took some great pictures, but it felt empty somehow…like we were showing off, not sharing. I have had to reevaluate #TwitterTuesdays’ place in my life.

Pictures of little kids doing stuff are eye-catching, and I need to catch eyes right now, so take a good look.

And look for me every Tuesday.