This is my first year teaching middle school. I spent 9 years of my career on the beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland teaching high school. In the past 4 months of my career I have learned just as much about myself as a teacher as any new teacher learns about him or herself in their first year. Reflective practitioner. That term resonates with me. I can remember the great Arlene White from my methods class ensuring we knew as students the power of reflective practices. I cannot count the hours I spent writing reflective journals and annotating my lesson plans ensuring I knew what worked and what didn't. I remember the days things went really well and then days when things didn't- I still have those days each week. We would be simply immortal if we didn't. Each year, or in my case this year, each semester, you get new students. The chance to open the minds of young people to thought, provoke them to inquire, and motivate them to connect to the content, the curriculum, and the world. We cannot do this unless we know who our students are. Taking time to get to know kids is how we learn how to engage them. Connecting with my kids this year I have done a few really fun activities that have taught me about my kids while engaging them in technology and content. On the first day of class this semester I did an activity called, "Let's TACO 'bout it" and it focused on the statement: I am learning a language so that I can..." Students had the opportunity to share with the class their reasons for enrollment in Spanish. Collectively, the student voice screamed, "So I can SPEAK to other people!" I also learned that many of my students have relatives that speak Spanish even though they personally do not. I learned that many students want take Spanish because they want credit, they want to go to college, they want to be more likely to obtain a job, they want to try something new." My favorite reasons are the more personal ones, "My mom still lives in Guatemala, I'm here with my Aunt. I want to be able to talk to my mom and understand her." "I go on mission trips with my church and I really want to be able to talk to the people I am trying to help." The "Taco 'bout it" activity lead to a really great conversation about languages and cultures in general, understanding, patience and tolerance. Even at a middle school age, kids are dying to talk about issues that are important to them, but they need a safe and supportive venue in which to express such thoughts. I highly recommend this activity as an icebreaker or warm-up in the beginning of the year/class to truly get to know why students are in your class and what they want from it. It helps us as teachers tailor our lessons to help students see connection and purpose in the coursework. The taco template I used I found online and placed into a Word Document which can be foundhere. On the second day of class, my students completed a warm-up exercise called, "I wanna be jalapeño business." I pushed a GoogleForm to my GoogleClassroom webpage and had students complete and submit the form. I reviewed these forms and learned about my students, what they like, what they like about school, what they want to do with their future- the typical-ish getting to know you survey. GoogleForms produces a great spreadsheet that was easy to reference. When my students returned to my classroom I was able to say, "I know that Sarah and Matt love music- let's listen to this song and see if we can identify cognates!" That small phrase just indicating that I read the form results and that I cared about what they like, showed those students I care about who they are and what they like and that I want to make sure that this class incorporates their learning style. Every now and then I throw their names and their likes in to purpose the lesson plan so they are reminded how important each of them and their individuality is to me. The GF can be found here: Jalapeño Business I follow the Creative Language Classroom, an amazing resource for the proficiency based communicative classroom. I love their ideas and enthusiasm for language that keeps what is most important to me as a teacher (and based on my student's answers to the "Taco 'bout it" activity")-communicating. The idea of taking an online quiz is new to pretty much no one. The Internet is flooded with "Which celebrity are you most like?" "Who will you marry?" outcome type quizzes. After reading the blog post about a quiz that students will actually like, I was eager to try this activity. I am one of those people that when I set my mind to something I obsess over it. If it is something I am really passionate about I go for it with all my might. How could I use this outcome quiz idea to get to know more about my students while also reviewing last year's material and checking their comprehension and ability to identify cognates? Enter this QZZR I spent about 3 hours making. With ideas from previous textbooks regarding colors and personalities as well as a bit of personality quiz research on the Internet, I created a quiz that reviewed material taught in the first half of Spanish 1, asking students to answer specific questions about themselves, jobs, activities, preferences, seasons, etc. This linked the students to a color (we reviewed colors in class prior to taking this quiz) and then gave a description of their personality based on the color they arrived at by answering the questions. Students then screenshot the color they received that represented their personality and they had to create a poster that showcased with what they agreed and disagreed in the explanation of their personality by illustrating it. The statistics of the quiz on my homepage allowed me to see the quantities of my students who correlated to specific colors. Black was more artistic, green was more naturalistic, blue was athletic- bodily kinesthetic, so on and so forth. This gave me the opportunity to review my student's previously learned material and see what they needed more help with, it allowed me to learn additional information about each one of them, it allowed me to check their reading comprehension skills, it gave me the opportunity to incorporate technology, art, and language all rolled into one. I loved the conversations that ensued. Some students were not satisfied with their outcomes and wanted to take it again and again. As a teacher, that is a very rewarding feeling. The quiz took a bit of time to make, and only on average a minute to take for the kids, but the activity overall and conversations were invaluable.
When we incorporate our students' passions and interests in our lessons, we are much more likely to create environments that are thriving and where kids want to be. Understanding who those young people are is CRITICAL.
Share with me how you get to know your students and how you incorporate content into the experience of learning the learners! :)
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Author14th year Spanish teacher Archives
June 2020
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