Warm-Ups... REALLY?!

Am I the only one that leaves warm-ups as a complete after thought? Sometimes I seriously feel like the worst teacher... I have this amazing lesson planned, but do I REALLY have to figure out a warm-up too? Can't they just be all ready to go when the bell rings?!

Ha...

Tuesday Warm-Up

As a teacher of the beloved 9th graders, I can tell you that warm-ups are an absolute MUST in my classroom -- both for my students and for my own sanity. They give students something to do while I deal with the miscellaenous start of class chaos (attendance, absent students, new students, etc. etc. etc.) but I never want a warm-up to feel useless to the students.

This year, I'm taking a tip from an elementary teacher and trying spiraling review for warm-ups. If you are an elementary school teacher, this is something you have likely heard of. For younger students, major concepts like addition and subtracted are constantly reviewed throughout the entire year, not just during that particular unit. I am taking a similar approach in my classroom this year, particularly with my Biology students who will need to take an End of Course test in May.

Friday Warm-Up

The first week of Biology focused on the characteristics of life - we did all sorts of activities to reinforce this concept, but that doesn't necessarily mean they all mastered it. This week we are moving on to food chains and energy pyramids, but I want to reinforce concepts from last week. The warm-ups this week all revolve around the characteristics of life, although in various ways. I try to introduce variety, technology, and creativity whenever possible to really try stretch their brains and ensure they aren't just spitting back definitions, but actually understanding. Here's what our warmups look like this week:

Monday -- Poll Everywhere Q&A (This option is great, as students can both type in answers AND vote for other answers they like or dislike)

Wednesday Warm-Up

Tuesday -- Reviewing Unit Learning Objectives (This is the warm-up every day of the first unit)
Wednesday -- a #CheckYourSelfie quick slip that is turned in and immediately reviewed (quickly) by me
Thursday -- Vocabulary Review
Friday -- BioGram (our class version of instagram drawings) summary of concepts

Each day is different, yet on the same topic. Below are some of the templates and layouts I like to use for quick formative checks -- especially as warm-ups!

Don't ignore the warm-ups! They are a great part of a routine and provide SUCH a great time to reteach and reassess major concepts that all students may not have been able to master.

Incentive Scratch-off Cards!!

I am a huge advocate for rewarding positive behavior, but I don't want to spend the money on maintaining a "goodie box" of candy, pencils, erasers, etc. all year long! I would much rather reward students with something fun and class oriented. I have given out homework passes before, and those work well, but this year I'm trying something new -- Incentive Scratch-Off Cards!

First, I made each of my cards using Microsoft Word. I could have made them prettier, fancier, and more colorful, but I'm a fan of simplicity sometimes! I managed to fit 18 on a page and printed them on white cardstock. I chose incentives that I can use for any of my classes -- since I teach two different grades and courses. I chose +5 pts on a Quiz, Vocabulary Pass, Classwork Pass, and Lab Pass. The best part is you can totally customize the options for your classroom, regardless of grade level! You could make rewards for treats like computer/iPad time, choosing their seat or group, front of the line, etc. So many options!

I cut out each of the cards using my handy dandy little paper trimmer (what would I do without that thing, seriously...). I then covered the reward portion with scotch tape. I could only find the satin gift-wrapping type, but experiment and see if other types work! You could also use clear contact paper or packing tape. Notice I only covered the portion with the reward, not the top heading section.

Next I had to mix a very specific concoction (insert sarcasm) of dishsoap and acrylic paint - I tried to use about 1 part dishsoap to 2 parts paint. I'm not sure it matters, but I used Palmolive original green dishsoap. I used boring grey paint, but you could really use any color! Mix them together, but not too vigorously or it makes a lot of bubbles.

Paint over the taped section of the incentive cards. Only the paint on the tape will scratch off. Don't worry if it doesn't cover perfectly with one coat! I didn't want to spend the time making them into perfect little designs, but you certainly could! Give them a few minutes between coats and keep adding coats until you can no longer read the words. It took me three coats.

Let them dry completely and try one out! How awesome is this? I think my kids are totally going to love them -- and I didn't need to buy any special supplies!

I plan on giving them out as rewards for winning games, staying on task on those particularly difficult days, or doing something awesome in class. I really want to make sure these are rewards for ALL my kids, not just my "A" students!

Let me know if you are going to try this out too! Endless possibilities for all grade levels!

Customizing My Erin Condren Teacher Planner for High School

UPDATE: This blog post outlines the older layout for Erin Condren Teacher Planners! I will be writing a new post soon about their updated version - it includes almost all of the customization described below, so I still highly recommend it! 

If you are interested in purchasing your own Erin Condren Teacher Planner, use this link and get $10 off your first purchase! 

The video below includes an updated walkthrough of the planner and how I use it for secondary science!

This post is a long time coming, so bear with me as I give you all the details! I finally finished customizing my Erin Condren Teacher Planner for the 16-17 school year. I ordered it in May so I knew that I would have time to customize it and use it over the summer. I could not be more thrilled!

I loved this planner as soon as I saw it, but realized that some of the sections were really geared toward elementary teachers or teachers with a small number of students. I began searching for blog posts about customizing the teacher planner and I found TONS of amazing posts about how elementary school teachers customize it for their needs, a few about how middle school teachers use it, but very few about using the planner for High School. Us high school teachers need fun planners too! I consider myself a relatively creative person, so I decided to tackle this challenge: Customizing an Erin Condren Teacher Planner for High School!

So much of the planner is already perfect. Some of the things I did not customize are the monthly layouts and notes sections. There is a tab for each month, a two page monthly spread, and three notes pages for each month. Perfect! I already made use of some of the notes pages at a recent PD session!

The sections I don't find useful for high school are the attendance section, grid paper, checklist section, and Birthday section. Luckily, I have an amazing idea for each of these! The video below has a quick overview of the changes I have made!

All the customization was done with washi tape, stickers (some included with the planner), double sided tape, and regular paper from my printer.

We don't celebrate birthdays in class, or we'd be celebrating all the time, so I decided to change the class birthdays section into a long-term To-Do list and an area to keep track of books to read, items to order, and ideas for the future. It will slowly fill up during the year and will be a great place to look back to in May when we are wrapping up. The stickers on this page are from the back of the teacher planner! I may end up ditching the two-toned look and just put straight washi across. I haven't decided yet.

The attendance section isn't very useful for me, because we take electronic attendance. I use the electronic attendance constantly, so I don't want to make a paper version. I decided to change my attendance section into an Email/Contact Log for parent contact. Although I keep copies of all the emails I send, they get filed away into a folder. Parent emails can be obscure and it gets easy to lose track of the dates you emailed and whether the parent responded. The attendance log already has a column for check marks -- perfect for checking whether a parent responded. There are also columns for name, date, and reason for contact. 

The grid section seems pretty useful for me, especially for seating charts and data tracking. For me, we change seating charts all the time and my classroom is an odd shape due to science benches. It didn't seem feasible for me to use the section that way. I have around 150 students, and about 10 students who enter or leave throughout the year. Our data tracking is already online, so I am going to stick to that. I decided to use the grid section for a Behavior Log and Intervention tracker. As the adage goes, 20% of your kids cause 80% of your problems, so for each class, I usually only have a handful of trouble makers. I plan on using the grid area to track their "bad" days and what we tried to do to fix it. If I end up meeting with the parent or counselor later, I have a quick place to look back and reference what has occurred in our classroom. Luckily, the grid pages are decorated but not labeled, so no customizing needed!

I love the layout of the lesson planning pages -- the days are horizontal and the preps are vertical. I love that each day is a different color and there is plenty of space for me to write without having to miniaturize my handwriting. There is room for seven preps, but most high school teachers don't have that many. I have two and a half preps -- Chemistry, Biology, and an ESOL section of Biology. I call the ESOL section a half prep since we are covering the same material and will be doing some of the same activities, but some of the plans will be modified. I didn't need seven sections for lesson plans, but I wanted to use up all the space that was provided. I thought about what other types of things I normally write in my planner throughout the year -- meetings, conferences, To-Do List, Reminders -- and knew there had to be a way to incorporate all of that. This was my solution!

I used thin solid colored washi tape to create four different sections. Two of the sections are two columns wide. This is where I plan on putting my lessons for Biology and Chemistry, since those are my main preps. The first page has three columns total, so I will use the first column for Biology and the single column for ESOL Biology. The second page has four columns total. The first two are for Chemistry. The last two columns are for To-Do lists and Meetings. I am super excited to start using this section. I love being able to have everything I need for the day in one spot.

The checklist section is basically a gradebook -- which is grade for elementary teachers who only have thirty kids. It doesn't seem big enough to keep track of grades for all 150 students I see for the entire year. I decided to use this section to record assessment data. By the time we take our first tests, most of the schedule changes are complete and my rosters are more stable. At the semester change, I may have a few students switch, but most of them stay the same. I plan on tracking mastery data for standards and assessment scores. I am keeping a row at the bottom to track averages. This is going to be super handy when I am sitting in an IT meeting and trying to remember what student tests looked like. It also allows me to record their raw score and curved score for interims, EOCs, and other curved tests we give.

So far, I could not be more ecstatic about this purchase! I will be using my planner during the summer for summer school, meetings, conferences... but I will keep you all updated if I make any other changes once the school year begins!

Update: Two weeks into the school year - AND I'M IN LOVE! I have kept everything the same minus a few additional stickers and washi scattered around. The best purchase -- Highly recommend high school folks!

If you are interested in purchasing your own Erin Condren Teacher Planner, use this link and get $10 off your first purchase! 

Blog Challenge: Day 16

If you had one superpower to use in the classroom, what would it be and how would it help?

I would, without a doubt, want the ability to read student's minds. There is so much going on in their little teenage brains and some of them aren't great at communicating yet and don't know how to effectively let an adult know. Wouldn't it be amazing to read a kid's mind and know why they are grumpy?

For my "trouble" kids -- and I use this word lightly, because I don't think they have bad intentions! -- it would be so helpful to know what their true motivation is. Is it something at home? Are they trying to hide a secret? Some kids don't open up easily, and it would be so great to have this information to try and help them cope with whatever life is dealing them.

For my shy kids, I would love to know what's going on their heads that they aren't brave enough to say. I have some pretty energetic classes, and I know my shy kids feel like they get lost in the bustle of class sometimes. Being able to read their mind can help me to support them so they know that I do care for them, even if they aren't the ones getting my constant attention.

If superpowers were real, it would be career-changing to be able to read minds. Do they know the material? Read minds. Are they actually engaged? Read minds. Are they having a bad day? Read minds.

SO MANY POSSIBILITIES.

What superpower would you choose?

Blog Challenge: Day 15

Name three strengths you have as an educator. 

This is hard. Not because I think I'm the best at everything (I'm not) and not because I think I suck at everything (no professional should feel this way), but because it's hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I think I'm good at and what makes me succeed at my job.

#1: I love these kids. 

You can't be a teacher and hate kids. If you do, you need to find another profession. Regardless of age, the students are literally the entire reason you are in the building with the job of teaching them how to grow, learn about life, and one day graduate. It's a pretty darn important job.

Of course, there are tons of kids that drive me crazy. There are kids that exhaust me every single day and that I could complain about for far to long. But for every one of those kids is another kid who adores you, loves your class, and wants to confide in you. Sometimes its really hard to tell what a kid thinks of you, so I try to make sure every kid feels recognized and important in my class. You never know what will turn their day around. At the same time, I never know what a kid is going to do to turn MY day around.

I feel like I am genuinely invested not just in them learning science, but in them growing up and becoming little adults. I think it is one of the things that my students appreciate about me and its one of the things I love most about my job.

#2: I get crazy ideas.

I am the crazy person that will be taking a shower and get an awesome idea for a new lab and I will jump out and quickly write it down so I don't forget (this actually happens, my husband can vouch for it). Unlike most teachers, I love the planning and creating part of my job. I am rarely satisfied with using something from someone else. I always want to make sure that what we are doing in class is easy for my students to understand and meaningful. I completely love coming up with new "lightbulb" moments for my kids in class. Sure, not every single idea is like this and sometimes I get ideas for things that I never even get to use, but I feel like my creativity and planning is one of my best attributes as an educator.

#3: I speak up 

Staff meetings and instructional team meetings can be so frustrating sometimes. Some people want to rush through everything so they can go home and the meeting feels forced and unproductive. Other people want to give a million anecdotes and pull the whole meeting off-topic. It can be frustrating for sure. I'm a pretty laid back person, so I usually sit and quietly take notes, but when there is something I feel really strongly about, I definitely speak up.

This is especially true for areas I feel passionate about, particularly science literacy and writing. I volunteer and provide ideas for classroom literacy as often as I can because I feel its extremely important. In the two short years I have been at my current school, I have been able to create a niche for myself that the administration is definitely noticing. I am becoming the go-to person for questions about science writing and I absolutely love it. It is always nice to feel necessary, especially in a huge school like mine, but it is even more rewarding to feel necessary to something you feel so strongly about. That never would have happened if I had never spoken up and made my thoughts known from the very beginning.

Blog Challenge: Day 14

What is feedback for learning, and how well do you give it to students?

This is an area I struggle with FOR SURE! In an ideal world, my classroom would operate more like a series of conversations than a sequence of events. I try my very best to communicate with students in a relaxed way to help them understand and to explain, re-explain, and explain again. I have realized that talking doesn't work for all students! My auditory kids do great, but they needed other ways to show their learning.

Enter: Interactive Notebooks

Notebooks give us visuals to add to our conversations. We do puzzles and sorting to help the kinesthetic learners. How in the world do you give all those different kinds of kids feedback?

I typically grade notebooks on test days; however, I try to create several "check-ins" throughout the unit to see where the students are at. Sometime the check-in is sort of impromptu and I will check their notebook before they pack up to leave. Other times, I check them after school without them knowing, leaving notes, stars, and stickers for them in their notebook. For check-ins I usually just look at whether they are keeping up and will check an assignment from that day, like a short writing prompt.

For example, when we were about half-way through our Evolution unit, I gave them a diagram that had an example of natural selection with rabbits and foxes. It had pictures, but very little explanation. We had some time left at the end of the day, so students had about 15-20 minutes to write at least six sentences in response to "How is natural selection related to the diagram?". Simple. Almost no planning on my part. They could look through their notes and review what we had talked about so far. It took me very little time to read their 6 sentences, and I wasn't reading them for grammar perfection or for completeness. I just read them to see if they were grasping the major concepts. Did they mention the slower rabbits dying but the faster ones surviving? Did they say that the faster ones could reproduce? Did they say that they could pass on the gene to be faster? Kids who did a good job found underlines for the awesome sentences and stickers showing them they did a great job. Kids who gave me limited answers found comments like "Why? How? Define?" We talked about it in class the next day and they could revise their answer.

Of course I use tests and quizzes to provide more formal feedback, but I feel like that by the time we get to a test, they (and I) are ready to move on. There has to be little bits of feedback along the way. I'm working on being better at providing that feedback in multiple ways -- written and verbal.

Suggestions always welcome! What types of formative assessment do you use?

Blog Challenge: Day 13

Name the top edtech tools that you use on a consistent basis in the classroom, and rank them in terms of their perceived (by you) effectiveness.

As much as I love integrating technology into my classroom, it is one thing I find extremely difficult to stay consistent with week in and week out. I feel myself getting bored with certain tools. If I'm getting bored I know my kids are certainly bored! There have been a lot of tools I have used briefly (EdPuzzle, Class Dojo, Edmodo...) but I have not used those on a consistent basis. I'm only going to list tools that I use regularly and that my students are currently familiar with.

SmartNotebook

I am fortunate enough to have a SMART board in my room and I use it on a daily basis. The Smart Notebook software in particular, is fabulous for our interactive notebooking. My students and I are now in a routine: If I write, you write. Your page should look like my page. I set up my Smart Notebook page to look identical to their notebook page -- I place pictures and diagrams where they should go and approximate their size. When I write notes, students can easily see and place their notes accordingly. My favorite part is that I can easily save it as a PDF (Print to PDF to be exact) and post it to my webpage. I date all the documents so students can easily find anything they missed from a day they are absent. It is an absolutely wonderful tool for interactive notebooks!

Effectiveness rank: 10/10!

Document Camera

If the Smart Notebook has one downside, it's how difficult it is to color diagrams. Color coding text is simple, but coloring diagrams becomes difficult. I have tried using the pens, highlighters, and there are just so many problems with getting colors to look correct. It became frustrating to both me and my kids. This year I was able to get a document camera through a grant from our PTSA. The document is very simple -- it plugs into a USB on my computer and I can project the picture from my computer onto the board. It is so helpful to use the document camera when coloring as students can much more easily see where and what I am coloring. It's also great for showing directions for foldables or more complicated gluing in our notebook.

Our district also utilizes GradeCam (which I will discuss in a moment) but the document camera works hand in hand with GradeCam that makes grading tests and quizzes cinch!

Effectiveness rank: 8/10 -- sometimes the picture is too dark or fuzzy, but it gets the job done!

GradeCam

Our district utilizes online tracking for all our common assessment data. A new tool they introduced is GradeCam. It allows us to print "bubble" sheets for tests and quizzes and grade them instantly with our LadyBug document cameras! It's so fantastic and such a time saver! Although I don't use this option often, since I don't often give multiple choice assessments, it makes grading 150+ tests so much easier. It also has fantastic data aggregation options that are extremely helpful when we meet as an instructional team. I highly recommend using GradeCam if you can!

Effectiveness rank: 10/10!

D2L / Class Website

Our district uses D2L as our class website platform, and I utilize on a daily basis. It is all customized with our calendar, notebook pages, resource links, study guide answer keys... it is simply a must in this day and age. My kids know what I will say if I hear What did we do yesterday? CHECK THE WEBSITE! It really cuts back on the paper shuffling and helps teach my ninth graders responsibility.

Effectiveness rank: 10/10!

CamScanner

The last edtech tool I want to mention is CamScanner. It's a free app for your phone. It typically has a subscription, but if you're a teacher you can get it for free! It allows you to utilize your camera as a scanner (hence CamScanner... haha...) and you can scan everything from single page documents, to packets, to pictures and diagrams. Once you take a picture of it, you can edit it to the correct size and color and then you have so many options for how to share it. My personal favorite is to upload it directly to your Google Drive. It uploads very fast so you can get your document quickly.

My favorite thing to use this for is answer keys. I like to post answer keys for my students when they have a study guide, so they can check their answers and work at home. For chemistry when we have a lot of math problems, it is very time consuming to type the answers and much easier to do them on paper. I fill out the answer key, CamScan it, upload it to Google Drive and then I can post it on the class website, print it out, or email it to another teacher. So handy and useful for so many things.

Effectiveness rank: 10/10!


What are your favorite edtech tools? What is the next thing I need to try?

Blog Challenge: Day 12

How do you envision your teaching changing over the next five years?

In the next couple of years, my goal is to eventually teach all Biology courses and really specialize and hone my strategies for that course. In this coming year, I am going to be teaching a section of all English Language Learners (ELLs) for Biology and I am hoping to focus on developing strategies I can use not only with that class but with my other courses also. 

This year was the first year I used interactive notebooks and I am hoping to perfect those in the coming years. I think it provides so many opportunities for students to interact with the material and really evaluate and think about their learning. 

I am in a constant battle to become more organized, so hopefully over the next five years I can find organizational ideas that help me keep all of my student supplies and teacher supplies organized. 

In terms of teaching, I hope that over the next five years (and further than that) I can come up with ways to keep students engaged with the material. There are portions of every unit that I find are hard for students to stay focused. I also want to continue to add variety in my classroom, where every day isn't the same. Over the next five years, I want to really work on integrating technology into each unit as well as engaging labs, group work, vocabulary work, and writing. 

This is a huge task, but over the next five years hopefully I'm able to take some baby steps to creating units that use a variety of strategies and create meaningful experiences for students. I feel like right now a few units are great and a few units are not. 

As an educator, I hope to take on more of a leadership role for our Biology instructional team. It's an area I'm very passionate about and I would love to facilitate meaningful collaboration with my other colleagues because I feel like that would really improve my teaching in the classroom. 

Blog Challenge: Day 11

What's your favorite part of the school day and why?

This school year, I chose to teach extended day -- meaning instead of having 5 classes, 1 lunch/homeroom, and 1 planning period, I have 6 classes and no planning period. To make my day more chaotic, what would normally be my lunch/homeroom period is instead spent in the computer lab helping with credit recovery. My school day is busy, fast paced, and does not give me time to plan during the day. 

My favorite part of the day is the first 45 minutes to hour that I am at school. I arrive literally when the doors unlock and spend the first portion of my morning planning. Because I don't have a planning period during the day, I have to get all of my planning and prep done before the school day starts. At the beginning of the day, there are no lines for the copy machines, there are no distractions, and I can get so much done in that short period of time. I can make my copies, put together labs, and finish any other last minute planning. When that is all finished, I feel ready to take on the day. 

Other teachers think I'm crazy for arriving so early, but I find that is really the time when I can get the most done. The end of the school day has too many distractions, and frankly, I am too worn out to be truly productive at that time. In the morning, I have my coffee in hand and am ready to tackle the day. 

It's not my favorite part because it is my most enjoyable, but its my favorite part because it is the most essential and is the part of my day that allows the rest of the day to run smoothly. 

Blog Challenge: Day 10

Share Five Random Facts About Yourself

1. I have traveled to four different continents. 
2. I like Twinkies best when they are frozen. 
3. My favorite authors are David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs.
4. Our cats are named after our World of Warcraft characters (Kata and Lora)
5. I find baking and cooking to be relaxing after a long day. 

Share Four Things From Your Bucket List

1. Travel to the other three continents. 
2. See the northern lights.
3. Go skydiving
4. Own a dog

Share Three Things That You Hope For This Year, as a "Person" or an Educator

1. Eat More Veggies
2. Drink More Water
3. Not Be Afraid to Say "No"

Share Two Things That Have Made You Laugh or Cry as an Educator

1. Cry -- One of my students who had a rough home life became pregnant, soon after homeless, and ended up leaving school and running away. I have no idea where she is or how she is doing.
2. Laugh -- While dissecting pigs at the end of the year, one of my mischievous troublemaker students looked at his group extremely seriously and said "I think I found its butthole."

Share One Thing You Wish More People Knew About You

1. I'm introverted, and sometimes when I say no, its just because I've been around people too long and need time to recharge and relax. 

Blog Challenge: Day 9

Write about one of your biggest accomplishments in your teaching that no one knows about (or may not care). 

If you read some of my previous posts, you may know that I worked on curriculum during my first years teaching at an alternative school near Detroit. The curriculum was online based and required a lot of hands-on teaching to get teachers to be able to use the tool efficiently. 

One of our biggest challenges initially was with the online platform, since we had no formal training in it and the department in charge of the platform was not communicative with us as a staff. By the end of the first year, we had identified it as the biggest headache we had dealt with throughout the year. 

I have always been a technology-minded person. I play video games in my free time, I have a husband who builds computers and we talk a lot about technology together. I tasked myself with being the link between the technology department and our school, with hopes of things running more smoothly. I met with the technology department head during the summer, had some crash course training, and was put in charge of editing and transferring our curriculum for the next year. It was a huge undertaking and I was excited to be a part of it. 

I spent hours working on our Biology and Chemistry courses to ensure they would work as a template and model for the next year, a model the other teachers could use for their courses. I transferred every single course in our school to our website for students to have access. I helped my other coworkers with issues they were having in their specific courses and continued to provide support throughout the school year. I worked with our whole staff to help solve some of the big issues from the previous year.

It was a ton of work and it was work I was not necessarily trained to do. Many of the issues were ones I needed to research and resolve on my own, but it was all work I enjoyed doing and I learned so much about not only curriculum design but also about technology integration within classrooms. 

By the end of the year, I was awarded Teacher of the Year for our building -- an award many colleagues did not seem surprised by, but it didn't really explain why. I felt like I had done a great job with my teaching job and with my students, but I knew that a portion of why I was awarded TOTY was because of all my technology work with the staff. 

That was the last year I worked in Michigan, and it was so difficult to say goodbye to the staff after having the feeling that we had traveled through the trenches together. I still have the award on my desk today and I look at it often and remember how well we worked together and how much energy I put into ensuring every educator in the building had the technology support they needed.

Blog Challenge: Day 8

What's in your desk drawer and what can you infer from those contents?

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how clean my desk was at the beginning of the year? 

Needless to say, its April now, and it doesn't look anything like that. It's currently buried under papers that need to be filed or graded or handed back or copied... how in the world can one desk collect so many papers? 

I honestly don't use my desk drawer much, so I'll include the things (non-paper things) that are also on my desk. 

• Laptop + Accessories (a necessity)
• Writing Utensils -- my personal pencils, highlighters, pens, sharpies -- that are for my use and not for students. 
• Post its of every size and color imaginable (the best way to remind myself of things)
• Planner with Lesson Plans (my organizational lifeline)
• Coffee mug (again -- a necessity)
• Fake Flowers and Picture Frame with quotes (These make my desk feel more personal)
• Breath Mints (for after the previously mentioned coffee)
• Lip Balm
• USB drives -- who knows where they actually come from, I rarely use them!
• Paper clips, binder clips, and other miscellaneous school supplies

I feel like this is a pretty standard list. Keep in mind all that stuff is buried under the piles of papers. I always start the year with my greatest intention of staying organized and neat, but throughout the craziness of the year, that gets put at the wayside in favor of a few more minutes of grading or a moment or two to catch my breath. I spend very little time at my desk during class, but it is where I spend the majority of my time before and after school. It is where I keep my necessities for the day -- mainly my planner, my laptop, and my coffee. I'm pretty sure I could get by without the rest. 

What are your school necessities?

Blog Challenge: Day 7

I know, I know... I skipped day 6, but I didn't like the prompt, so we're skipping ahead to day 7! Let's just call it the 29 Day Blogging Challenge, okay?

Who was or is your most inspirational colleague, and why?

I could probably write a literal book on this question. I have worked with so many wonderful educators in the past several years.

I can honestly say that I would not have the job I have today or do the work I do today if it wasn't for the first teaching job I had while I was in Michigan. The school I worked at was an alternative school situated in a suburban district that bordered Detroit. The school was located on 8 Mile Road, if that gives you a better idea. 

We had a tiny staff -- a total of 12 teachers the first year, I believe. We started the school from nothing and worked together to come up with procedures, expectations, rules, schedules... It was a true learning experience from start to finish. As a staff, we were incredibly close. We had weekly staff meetings where most of us were not afraid to share our opinions and argue with each other. We all had the same goal: Help these students graduate. 

There were two staff members that I grew particularly close to -- our program director, Renee, and our school administrator, Kerri. 

The first year I was there was also my first year of teaching. I met Renee at a job fair and interviewed soon after. I was excited and had no idea what I was getting into. We had staff development at the beginning of the year to get to know the other teachers we were working with and help plan and set up this new school. Renee had clear expectations from the beginning and tried to instill in us the desire and passion to teach students that don't necessarily want to be taught. 

Renee helped me to realize how important it is to build relationships with students and to help them through whatever they are going through. Even as a program director, she built special relationships with certain students. I learned to be flexible to student needs -- not every student fits the same mold. Some students need alone time to work, other students need to focus on one thing at a time. She taught me to listen to their needs and to accommodate the best I could. 

Kerri was the driving force behind the program during its second year. Together, Kerri and I worked on curriculum and scheduling. Together, we made a great team and were able to simplify and streamline a lot of the issues from the first year. From Kerri, I learned how to truly collaborate with another educator. We had completely different fields of expertise and brought different strengths to the table, but we worked incredibly well together despite that. She taught me the need for structure and firmness with students, while still building strong relationships with them. 

Both of these educators focused on students and on creating a program and curriculum that would focus on students first. They both inspired me to have a student-focused mind when planning my lessons and making decisions. 

Blog Challenge: Day 5

Post a picture of your classroom, and describe what you see -- and what you don't see that you'd like to

Here it is. My classroom. My second home. It's a chemistry classroom -- meaning its long and narrow with lab benches on either side. During the summer, they pack lots and lots of desks in the back of the room. I end up moving them to create more space in the back to move around. Unfortunately, the narrowness of the space doesn't allow for much creativity with desk placement -- although I'm open to suggestions if you have any!

One of my goals for next year is to be much more intentional about my word walls. The upper cabinets on the wall are going to have most of my vocabulary words (plus pictures). Seeing as I have two different courses to do vocabulary with, I may have to figure out another plan, but that's what my plan is right now.

One of my favorite parts of my classroom is my Wall of Awesome. This picture is from the beginning of the year, when the wall was empty, but it is currently FULL of student names. Whenever students get an "A" on a test, they get to write their name on a post-it and glue it to the wall. It's right in the front of class so students see it every day as a reminder to be awesome!

This area of my room is going to get a revamp this coming year. This year, half of the wall was dedicated to posting grades for students after big assessments. I'm going to skip this next year since all the grades are posted online and I want students to get into the habit of logging in to the class website anyways! The other half of the bulletin board was for binder organization. Since I am going to be doing notebooks in all my classes next year, this isn't needed! I am thinking of replacing that side with a word wall, or a helpful reference wall, or anchor charts, or something... I'm not sure yet! Ideas are welcome! 

The front entrance of my room used to have these awesome folders for students to "rank their week" on Fridays with their warm-up papers. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep this or not -- should they still turn in papers instead of gluing them in their notebook? Perhaps use it only for exit slips on specific days? I'm not sure, but chances are it will not look this way next year. 

Things I'm keeping for next year: Wall of Awesome, Seating Arrangement (unless I have another great idea), Exit slip folders (maybe)

Things I'm going to change for next year: Word Wall placement, back bulletin board

I would love to see if you have any great ideas! I am open to suggestions!

Blog Challenge: Day 4

What do you love most about teaching?

It is so hard to lose this focus when it is April and you're anticipating End of Course tests and finals and you are crossing your fingers just hoping -- praying -- that all your hard work pays off and your students do well. You're stressed, your kids are stressed, and you cannot wait for summer to come so you can maybe have one day when you don't have to think about teaching. 

This is how I feel right now. It's the end of spring break and I'm anxiously planning for the week to come and thinking ahead to all of the review strategies I could possibly use as we approach finals. It's stressful, but would I want another job? Absolutely not. 

What I love most about teaching is the kids. The kids are the reason I wake up at 5 am and rush to work, being sure to get there extra early so I have time to plan before they arrive. When they get to school, some come into my room to interrupt my planning with last minute questions before their test or to eat breakfast in my room to get away from the craziness of the hallway. Some come in to finish a test or make-up a quiz. I am surrounded by students before the day even begins, and I absolutely would not change a thing. 

I have worked with a lot of different students who have gone through the struggles of bullying, anxiety, pregnancy, violence, homelessness, abuse... Every student has their own set of circumstances they are dealing with. It can be easy to dismiss some as having it "easier" than others, but in their eyes, they feel like they are struggling. As a teacher, I try to acknowledge and guide them through whatever they are dealing with. Sometimes this is talking to counselors and parents, and other times its just being someone for them to vent to. 

Many people think as a teacher, my job is to teach -- which is true. A lot of my energy goes towards creating resources and planning and replanning lessons. I truly enjoy that part of my job. I love the reward of having created something and seeing it help my students understand content. The other part of my job is about my kids. They need to learn, and in order to learn, they need to be able to focus and feel safe within my classroom. 

I truly believe that every student needs a teacher in the building that they feel like cares for them, as a person, and will be there for them when they are having a bad day. For students who want to come and vent to me, I try to have an open door and make the time for them because I know that if they feel comfortable with me and are able to feel supported by me, they will be able to focus and learn in my classroom. 

What do I love about teaching? The kids. The reason I teach is for the kids. 

Blog Challenge: Day 3

Discuss one "observation" area that you would like to improve on for your teacher evaluation. 

I was able to get some great feedback this year, especially in the area of Classroom Instruction. One great piece of feedback I got this year on my evaluation was how I called on specific students and had them explain their answer, even if they were wrong. 

Since I read that feedback, I have been much more attentive to whether I do this during class. On some days, especially when I am frustrated, I find myself relying on choral responses which really don't tell me about what specific students think. If I call on students randomly, I find that some of them shut down or get very nervous, which are not feelings I want to stir up in my classroom. 

The area of classroom instruction is very broad and includes both day-to-day strategies as well as year-long routines. One of my goals (as I previously wrote about) is to establish a more defined routine in my classroom. I think this will help both myself and my students. 

The goal of classroom instruction is to have students learn and understand material. I want to be more meaningful in my planning and ensure that every activity we do has a clear purpose and goal. Of all the evaluation areas, I think that classroom instruction is the one that impacts students the most and is going to be my biggest area of focus this year. 

Blog Challenge: Day 2

Write about one piece of technology that you would like to try this year, and why. 

I am always one to hop on a new tech tool. I love finding and integrating new technology. One thing I would like to better integrate into my class next year is Google Docs. 

I have personally used it for years to help organize my files and create graphics, but I haven't integrated a lot of the collaboration components into my work. Since I will be the main organizational force for our instructional team, I want to really work on how to best utilize the collaboration tools. 

One thing I have already worked on, is creating our instructional calendar in Google Calendar. From there, I can easily share it with my other colleagues, edit it as needed, and even embed it onto my class website. 

My next goal is to have all our common assessments, study guides, and labs on Google Drive to be able to share them with each other. We have limited storage in our email and our school share drive is not accessible at home. With Google Drive we can all access it from wherever we are. 

I also want to use Google Forms in my classroom to have students take polls and give feedback -- especially when we try a new project. I often have students vote for their favorite project and this would be a great, easy way to do that. 

What new tech tools are you excited to try? 

Start of DNA Unit for INB

A typical unit for different teachers can vary a lot. As some of you may know, the notebooking for my class does not follow the popular left side-right side or input-output, as discussed in my previous post. Instead, we focus on creating a reference tool for students, like a personalized textbook.

To give you an example, I wanted to share some of my DNA resources with you!

First, we start with DNA structure and function. I use this organizer to do "notes" with my students. We also color code the parts of the nucleotide (sugar - red, phosphate - purple) and each different base gets its own color that corresponds to a lab we do later (A - Green, C - Pink, G - Yellow, T - Orange). We are all about color coding and carry macromolecule color coding all the way through the school year!

Below the structure and function organizer you can see the top of our DNA organization flipbook. We cut and glue it together as we discuss it as a class and we watch a video afterward about how DNA is organized (portion of this video from TedEd).

Our first lab is a candy DNA lab. This is maybe a little different than ones you have seen before. Students first string together their backbones (Cheerio phosphates and Twizzler sugars) and then add their nucleotides following our color coding rules from before. Students can even twist it into a double helix shape after. They really love this lab and it helps reinforce the structure of both the backbone and the nucleotides. Students answer questions on the lab in their notebook.

Hopefully this gives you some ideas for how to start your DNA unit!

I wanted to share some of my resources with you all! You can get copies of them by clicking the links below. 

Intro. DNA Structure and Function

DNA Organization Flip Book

Types of RNA Diagram

Blog Challenge: Day 1

I came across this Reflective Teaching 30 Day Blog Challenge. Originally it was for September 2014, but as this school year starts to wind down, I thought it would also be appropriate to start it now! I will be following the prompts listed at the following site:

Reflective Teaching: A 30 Day Blogging Challenge

Write your goals for the school year. 

I have already started thinking about the next school year (which seems insane to some, I know). I am a person that feels relaxed when I can plan, so reflecting and thinking about the school year when it is fresh in my mind helps me to do that. 

Here are some of my goals for the coming school year. 

Be more attentive to student (freshmen) need for structure. 

I would love to be able to sit and have discussions and conversations about content with students, but he reality is that my 14 year old freshmen are just not at that point yet. They are trying to navigate high school for the first time and trying to figure out the new social atmosphere. I find that my classroom works best with structure and I want to be more attentive and meaningful about providing that structure for my students. 

My plan is to have a more specific routine for the class. This started great last year, but as I made some instructional changes, this fell by the wayside. I also want to be more mindful about giving time limits and deadlines. I find my students do a great job of staying on task when there is a timer on the board and I want to remember to do that more often. I am going to be more attentive to their need for specific instructions and expectations for assignments. 

Be more organized and reduce the paper. 

As much as I love being planned and organized, after a few weeks my desk is buried in papers and a complete mess. I am going to be much more mindful about only keeping what is completely necessary and recycling the rest. 

Plan Thoughtfully for Chemistry Notebooks

This past year I started notebooking with Biology and I absolutely love it. My goal for this coming year is to also notebook with my Chemistry class. I want to focus on planning thoughtful and meaningful activities and instruction for Chemistry since I feel like those were my weakest classes this year. 

What are your goals for the coming school year? 

Interactive Notebook Setup

Interactive notebooks can be setup lots of different ways. This is what works for me in my classroom, but you may find something else that works for you. INB's are wonderful because you can customize them to fit your classroom and content!

I strongly recommend using composition notebooks. I have had students use spiral notebooks and they just do not hold up as well -- covers fall off, pages get torn. Composition notebooks are much sturdier as long as students don't rip out any pages.

On the inside cover I have students glue their Plickers code and create a pocket for holding their homework and other papers if they don't finish in class. Plickers is an awesome quick assessment tool, you should check out the link if you haven't heard of it before!

To create a pocket, have students fold over one corner of the front page, then glue around the edges. This type of pocket has worked great for us and is the perfect size to fit a sheet of paper folded in half (such as homework papers).

Then, I have students flip their notebooks over so they are looking at the back cover. They count 10-12  pages from the back for their glossary section. Students glue down a mini-post it to make a tab so they can easily find the page. These are not the sturdiest tabs, but they are easy, available, and get the job done. I have students add a few drops of glue to the sticky area to make it more permanent. You can also create tabs in Excel and print them on cardstock. I have started doing this most recently and the tabs are much sturdier.

Click here for a free downloadable version of the tabs I use for Biology!

The back portion of their notebook is for their "glossary" section. I create a Quizlet vocabulary list for each section and print a list of the vocabulary for their glossary section. The list also has a URL for the Quizlet list for easy studying.

Checkout my post on Printing Tips for INBs for ideas on how to easily print the pages to fit!

I also have students make a reference section by counting five pages before their glossary section. They also add a tab for references. I have found this so handy to include this year. We glued in a copy of the syllabus, a lab equipment reference, graphing references, and will continue to add reference pages as we go. It's a great, subtle way to give struggling students some extra support with some science basics so they can focus on the content.

When students are finished with that portion, I have them start numbering their pages. This takes a while and is a good filler for students who finish early and you are waiting for others in class. On the day we set up notebooks, numbering their pages is their homework if they don't finish. Page numbers allow for easy reference for both me and my students and allows them to complete their table of contents easily.

If you're interested in learning more about how I implement interactive notebooks, check out my other blog posts under the "Interactive Notebooks" label!

Introduction to Interactive Notebooks

Interactive Notebooks are one of the newest and most talked about teaching strategies right now. There are so many ideas and opinions it gets easy to get lost and not know where to start. I want to share with you why I decided to start notebooking, how I setup notebooks, and how they work in my classroom.

I wanted to start notebooking during my first year of teaching. I had heard so much about the Left Side-Right Side or Input-Output setup and wanted to try it out. My problem was that I was left figuring it out, on my own, during my first year. It was far too overwhelming and became too confusing for me and for my students to be effective. Only a few months into the school year and I scrapped the notebooks and went back to traditional fill-in-the-blank notes and handouts.

The lightbulb moment for me came when I met one of our new science hires at school. She had been doing notebooks for four years and had already experienced many of the growing pains that I had gone through. Almost immediately, I started asking questions to figure out how she made it work. She described notebooks in a way that made sense for me:

It's like students are creating their own version of a textbook. 

Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that students fill the pages with paragraphs and paragraphs of text, but it does mean that they are a reference tool for students and hold all the information students will need to be successful in a unit.

Why did I start notebooking?

1. Organization: As a teacher of freshmen, there is a constant battle to help students stay organized. Notebooking helps keep them organized because we do all of the organization together in class.
2. Accountability: It keeps them accountable because I ask them to go back and continue to review and reference past content. Because notebooks are kept in my classroom, I can page through notebooks at any time and remind students who are falling behind. 
3. Ownership: Students take pride and ownership of creating something that is theirs. There are lots of students who stay on task to make sure they have time at the end of class to color things just right or make their headings colorful. When students take ownership of their work, they try their very best to make sure they are doing everything correct. 
4. Brain Breaks: Notebooking allows me to build in automatic brain breaks that I often forget about otherwise. Teenagers have short attention span. Giving them a few minutes to cut and glue gives them time to refocus and get back on track when they need to. 

What does a typical unit look like?

We take some notes -- although they are simplified and shortened -- and glue down diagrams, graphs, and pictures to help the notes make sense. We color code diagrams and paragraphs. We make foldables to use as study tools. We do labs with data tables, graphs, and conclusions. We write paragraphs. We do science.

The variety within the notebook helps keep students engaged. No two pages are the same and no two days in class are the same.

I am able to use many of the same activities I have always used, I just modify them for notebooks -- usually shortening up the procedure, or printing them in a smaller format to fit into the notebook.

What does a typical day in class look like?

• Students have 2 minutes at the beginning of class to collect supplies (usually glue, scissors, colored pencils), take their seat, and answer the warm up question. 
• Take notes for 5 minutes and analyze a diagram. 
• Discuss diagram and examples while students are cutting/pasting the diagram into their notebook. 
• Give directions for activity, and students find a partner and get to work. 
• Students have the rest of class to finish activity and notebook work. 
• Early finishers can work on coloring, vocabulary, or past assignments. 

We stay busy and we stay engaged with material, but we are moving and interacting. My classroom is not the type where you only sit and listen.

How are notebooks setup in my class?

This is something truly individual to each teacher. I have done a walk through of my notebook set up in this separate post.

Interactive Notebook Setup

How are notebooks graded?

This can vary widely from teacher to teacher. I grade each assignment in their notebook as individual assignments -- even dividing them into classwork/lab/homework grades depending on the activity. I typically grade notebooks at the end of each unit (about every 4 weeks) and I am able to grade them almost 100% at school on test days. I am no longer drowning in a pile of grading!

Hopefully this gives you some confidence and information to help you decide if notebook is right for your classroom.