Managing a classroom is both an art and a science. I've found that the best way to manage a classroom is to set crystal clear expectations that define what success looks like for both yourself and your students, and then to measure the rate of success with incredible accuracy. When it is clear how to be successful, it makes it much more difficult to fail, whether behaviorally or academically.
Topic One: Our Zen Classroom
During our first week, we'll spend our time learning about learning (it's never too early for metacognition.) We'll learn about how we learn in general, how to come together as a classroom learning community, and clarify how both students and teachers place necessary, but different roles in the learning process. By the end of this week, students will have a good idea about how to succeed in 8th grade ELA.
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Lessons
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Materials
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Monday, 9/21/2020: The Beginning
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We start our school year out using this opening day Google Slides presentation. We'll identify roles in the classroom with a modified response card activity during which students point to themselves, the teacher, or hold up a fist for "everyone." Built into that slideshow, students will read testimonials from last year's students to share expectations from a student perspective. Teachers always prattle on about what they expect, but they are an inherently biased source about themselves. To eliminate this bias, on the last school day each year, I ask students to write down advice to next year's class of incoming 8th-grade students Then we do our first, modified close-read protocol using our opening year prose and opening year poems. That's right, already reading on day one!
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NextGen Learning Standards: 8R1, 8R3, 8R5, 8SL1, 8L4, 8L5
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Tuesday, 9/22/2020: Getting Gritty with It
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Today, students will transition from yesterday's Karpie-specific expectations to learning how to learn. We'll watch a selection of videos about grit and growth mindset - two of the most important factors to being successful as a student, and as we watch, we'll respond to a Google Form to annotate our learning. Students can choose any two of the four videos offered to watch and reflect upon, but no matter which videos they watch, they'll need to answer a Google Classroom question, and respond to two other classmates' responses.
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NextGen Learning Standards: 8R2, 8R3, 8R6, 8R7, 8W2, 8W6, 8L6
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Wednesday, 9/23/2020: I "Sort" of Understand Grit and Growth Mindset
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Today, students will engage with a new Google tool, Jamboard! They'll identify whether a statement or image reflects a fixed, or a growth mindset, by dragging it to one side of the screen or the other, and then demonstrate their knowledge by "translating" a final, fixed mindset statement into a more appropriate growth mindset through a Google question.
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NextGen Learning Standards: 8R4, 8R9, 8SL5, 8L5
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Thursday, 9/24/2020: Four Corner's Discussion
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For our first, formal discussion, we'll have students connect the two mindset videos they chose with their own lives. Students will walk to one of four corners of our classroom, and receive full credit for the day by explaining their reasoning in three, clear, spoken sentences. Shy students will be offered sentence stems to ease their engagement, and we'll all learn a lot about each other while becoming comfortable with the kinds of mindsets that are proven to help students succeed. Responses are welcome in both English and Español.
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NextGen Learning Standards: 8SL1, 8SL3, 8SL4, 8SL6
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Friday, 9/25/2020: Technology Tutorials
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With our "new normal" of distance learning until late October, it's going to be important to develop students' technology skills as much as it is to develop their reading and writing literacy skills. The tutorial we put together is a work in progress, spearheaded by my amazing colleague Ms. Meyers. We'll keep adding new resources as the year goes on, but each tutorial should teach students to use one of the software platforms we'll use this year.
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Additional, Zen Classroom Materials
Classroom Management RebootSometimes during the year, a class, or team, or one of my colleague's classes need a little reminder about how to successfully function in a classroom. When that special time comes, I utilize this classroom management reboot protocol to set things straight again.
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Restorative Justice FormThe form to the left is used when students get sent out of class. Removal from class doesn't do much good on its own. Sometimes, students prefer sleeping in ISS instead of working in class. To turn time outs into something productive, students engage with this form during their time out periods, and "earn" their way back into class with the successful completion of the form.
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