NC Teaching Standard #2 - Respect Diversity

Standard 2 gets me sometimes.  Maybe because we don't have a very diverse population, so I tend not to focus on making sure a variety of backgrounds are represented.  Here are the big ideas of Standard 2: Teachers Establish a Respectful Environment for a Diverse Population of Students.

• Teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults. 
• Teachers embrace diversity in the school community and the world. 
• Teachers treat students as individuals. 
• Teachers adapt their teaching for the benefit of students with special needs. 
• Teachers work collaboratively with the families and significant adults in the lives of their students. 

 Here are the things I used as artifacts:

• PEP and DEP paperwork - PEPs are for below level kids, DEPs are for kids identified as AIG.
• Conferences with parents
• Conference, phone calls, and email communication with a social worker for a student who was having difficulties outside of school
• Bullying prevention lessons
• "Eliminating Bias" workshop at the Raising Achievement and Closing the Gap conference
• Tuesday folders
• Classroom website/voice mail maintained

I understand the need for this standard - I did well in it, but I can definitely improve, especially in the area of family involvement.  I'm already working on how to "fix" that for the new year.  I'm also hoping that I can handle the "treat students as individuals" better/differently since I will be seeing all the 6th grade students.  In this standard it is both a blessing and a curse that I've taught some of these students before.  I need to focus on the positives, let go of prior bad experiences, and start fresh!

NC Teaching Standard #1 - Leadership

Standard 1 can be both easy and difficult to demonstrate.  It all depends on your school's culture.  If your administration makes it important to cultivate teacher leaders by encouraging in-house experts, then you are fortunate.  Here are the 5 big ideas in this standard:

• Teachers lead in the classroom.
• Teachers demonstrate leadership in the school.
• Teachers lead the teaching profession.
• Teachers advocate for schools and students.
• Teachers demonstrate high ethical standards.

 My school district put together a huge document with all sorts of ideas for artifacts.  Here are some examples of things I used to demonstrate my leadership.

• Data notebook
• CCAE/NCAE membership and acting as an Area Rep for the school
• Attendance at the One Voice Rally in Raleigh on May 3
• NCCAT attendance
• National Board Certification
• Created lesson plans when we went through a teacher transition
• Assisted the district in evaluating the new math adoption
• Procured $1,641 in materials for my classroom/school through Donor's Choose
• Participated in the district Share Fair on Feb. 17
• Participated in various activities with Discovery Education
• Did website testing for SpellingCity.com
• Completed a peer observation

I made pictures of some artifacts and others just got listed bullet form. I'll show you how I presented this information later this week.  I was able to present it to my administrators and explain things.  Overall, they were extremely impressed and pleased.

Come back tomorrow for Standard 2!

Random Late Night Idea

I need your help!  It is late, I'm fighting a headache, and I've had an idea.  I'm planning to implement the Daily 5 and CAFE next year.  I'm actually going to run a bit with the cafe` theme since I'm dealing with 6th graders.  I'd also like to incorporate a focus wall.  My question now is, how far do I carry the cafe/food theme?

My initial idea was to create a food that went with each genre - like Mystery Meatloaf.  However, I've got about 12 genres that I need to teach (or are involved in the 40 book challenge) and that might get tricky.

Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just incorporate the CAFE board (and thereby the food theme) into my focus wall.  Maybe generate a food for each section of the focus wall?  Here are some ideas I played with in Paint. Can you help? (The pics are as big as I can make them to fit the blog. If you click them, they'll be full size.)

My original idea

After adding CAFE to the focus wall

Shrank Vocab. and added PIE

Added meal courses for the "School Name" Cafe

I think this will help with the buy-in from my 6th graders.  I can tie it to eating - you can't eat just one type of food. So when we read, we have to pay attention to all parts, even things we might not enjoy (like spelling, vocab.)  Our school name begins with a C, so it goes well with "cafe."

I'm stopping myself here, even though I've still got ideas like...

• Instead of using words like "pasta" should I get more specific? Perhaps, "Spaghetti Structures" is better?
• Should I not bother? Just keep the plain and simple focus wall?

Help! Please offer your input! (I know I've got lots of new visitors out there - this is a chance to introduce yourself! Please?)

Resources I Use: Scoop It (@scoopit)

Today I'd like to share a site I used this spring.  After EOG testing, my students do a nutrition poster project. (Yes, it is a paper poster, don't judge us.)  I needed a better way to organize the sites they could use for research. (This was a HUGE disaster last year. I ended up sitting with each group as they researched.)  After poking around, I found

Here is a video from ScoopIt that describes what they allow you to do.



I installed their tool into my browser then just visited the sites I wanted students to be able to use.  A few clicks and the pages showed up in my Scoop It site for the project.  Super simple for me and for my students.

They don't offer embedding, but there are a few different gadgets and widgets you can put on your site.  If you are looking for a simple way to collect content for your students, I encourage you to check this out!

Random Reading Stuff

If you have read the Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, you'll love this.  She has an interest survey in her book that she has the kids complete at the beginning of the year.  Last year, I discovered the beauty of doing surveys with Google Docs.  So I put her survey in and can share the link with you.  You can view my document but you can't edit it.  You'll need to save it to your account - then you can edit it, publish it, have the kids complete it, and see how Google analyzes the results.  It is pretty slick.  Enjoy!

Reading Interests Google Doc Survey

I participated in the #Daily5 chat on Twitter last night! It was amazing - the first Twitter chat I've done.  I had a hard time keeping up.  Thankfully, the chat is posted in the archive on the Daily 5 wiki.  Here is a link to that, along with some of the other cool stuff I discovered during the chat last night.

• Daily 5CAFE Chat Wiki
• The Daily 5: Cafe - site run by a teacher with lots of good info
• Bouncy Balls - mouse or microphone activated bouncing balls.  Good for volume control in the classroom. (The louder it is, the crazier they bounce.)

 Last, I'll leave you with a link I discovered yesterday in some random web surfing.  It came from a LiveBinder all about the Daily 5.  I've already downloaded a bunch of good stuff. Check it out!

Teachers' D5 Share and Swap Stop - there is TONS of good info here, just check out the topics in the left sidebar

Enjoy! Maybe it is time for me to make a "Links" tab where I can put all the links like this so they aren't lost in the archives...

Do you have any resources that apply to doing Daily 5 and CAFE in the upper grades?