Promoting Creativity

Good afternoon, colleagues!

Teacher Toolkit posted an article on Thursday with 10 tips for promoting creativity. I loved what they had to say because it's essential for teachers to think "outside the box" to meet students where they "are right now." This is one of my current obsessions... I even blogged about it a few weeks ago! Because of my role as the technology specialist, I've been working on taking ideas and making them technologically realistic for my colleagues. That's what I'm going to do with this article as well!

How can you use technology to promote creativity?

1. Project-Based Learning and Genius Hour: I think these two go hand-in-hand. Utilizing the Google Suite would be very helpful here whether it's through collaboration and discussion, building a public website or blog, using e-mail to contact teachers or outside sources, storing and sharing information through Drive, designing presentations for data and other information... G Suite can make all the difference!
2. Create Opportunities for Creativity: Think about student choice and voice here! Adobe Spark Video is an easy way for students to be creative, but iMovie and Garageband are also great applications! Find a challenge or competition that students can join, whether it's for class or outside of the classroom. Have them share their work on their blog or through your professional Twitter. Have the students make connections outside the school that inspires them. 
3. Make Cultural Connections: Google Arts & Culture is a great way to bring art into the classroom. ARTE360 is a VR application where you can experience, first-hand, concerts, music, and artworks. Google Maps allows you to build a "tour map" of locations you "visited" to talk about the culture of the people in that location. 
4. Embrace Failure: Flipgrid is PERFECT for this! The reason why I would use Flipgrid is that it's video-based (instead of writing) and the students can see each others' videos. It's necessary, if your class is to embrace failure, that students can be both vulnerable and honest. The more students see others be exposed and authentic, the more open and candid they are willing to be. I think learning can be powerful when students learn from each other. They might listen to another student's failure and realize where they went wrong. Students can learn from someone else's mistakes! Students can also be the influencer for someone else!
5. Whole Brain: This requires you to create a lesson, or unit, that taps into working, declarative, and procedural memory. You want to chunk the information, provide context and connections, and design physical actions to accompany the learning. Explain Everything is useful for using the whole brain because students can explain the links, they are physically drawing and writing while creating a video, and they have to chunk their information into a precise presentation.
6. Create Time to Think: An application I would use here is Padlet. The online corkboard is an exceptional way for students to post questions, comments, images, or videos. Also, students can now leave comments on other students' post which is a great way for students to learn from each other. One thing I saw another teacher do was to leave the post layout as "free" so that students can move their post onto another post if there's a connection between them. It's an excellent way for students to see and design associations!
7. Teach Creativity: Start class every day with mindfulness (there are apps available on the internet) to set the creativity tone. Use Sketches for drawing and sketchnoting. Brainstorm (or do a project) as a class over Google Docs or Padlet. 
8. Celebrate with Pomp and Circumstance: Use social media platforms (Blogger, Instagram, Twitter, even Snapchat) to share what the kids are doing and what they are doing well. I use Instagram for my class to just post what the kids are doing. Recently a number of students have been asking about signing up for broadcasting next year. They're excited because they get to see the behind the scenes action, because they see the broadcast in class, and can catch up on missed broadcasts on YouTube. It makes my current students PROUD to be in broadcasting and proud of their accomplishments!

I hope some of these ideas are useful and inspiring! Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

Looking at a morale problem...

Good afternoon colleagues!  I'm posting this week about an issue (but not a problem) that I'm having in my new position... I've become a sounding board for others. I'm trying to help people sort out problems, both technological and personal. I enjoy being a sounding board and I'm shocked that people come to me for advice! But because morale is SO low at Skyview right now, the majority of these conversations are negative. It's hard to be positive when I'm surrounded by negativity.

So instead of focusing on the negativity, I'm going to provide advice. Is this a step towards positivity? Not sure, but here we go.

I have to start with what I see at Skyview that is causing low morale and poor climate.

1. At the end of the school day, we have an advisory period called REACH. These 30 minutes are meant to be used for interventions, catching up on school work, doing homework, or checking in with enrichment classes. This year, based on state requirements, we had to make a change. REACH time, on Monday and Wednesday, is now used for extra, pre-made lessons. The problem is that the students (and teachers) were not notified much before the school year beginning. This led to animosity from tired teachers and from students who rebelled at their lack of study hall.
2. We have too many programs going on at the same time, so it is hard to focus on what is essential. How do we mix Capturing Kids Hearts, Path2Empathy, and Marzano at the same time without overwhelming teachers and taking up precious class time? How do we also implement high-reliability math and reading strategies, new technology, and design digital portfolios?
3. We have a good administration team that is lacking in some critical areas: transparency,  visibility, and perspective. Part of this is out of their control as our middle school is hovering near 1200 students and we are in a "choice state." I see administration spending more time in customer service than in servicing the building. They are often not transparent with the staff in WHY we are doing something, they are not usually visible in the hallways or classrooms, and they do not have the greatest perspective in what's necessary for teachers (which trickles down to students). 
4. MEETINGS. We have meetings four of the five days of the week and have staff meetings once a month. Most of the time, it feels like we're having a meeting because we're supposed to have a meeting. It feels like forced collaboration which just does not work.

That's a lot. As a "lowly" teacher, there is not much I can do to change the climate of the whole school. I am trying, however, to change the view of using technology. My goal is to move my role from reactionary technology support to proactive technology support. I am doing this by providing technology support through the tech tips newsletter and by making screencasts for colleagues instead of requiring face-to-face meetings. I hate when my time is wasted and feel it is crucial for me to also not misuse my colleagues' time.

What advice do I have to give about these four problems?

• Problem #1 - new REACH lessons: I genuinely believe this problem with sort itself out over time. Teachers will know that this is a future expectation, and students will be less likely to rebel over time. It won't be helped that teachers are tired at the end of the day, but students won't push back. This will trickle up into the high school as well. This year is just an in-between,  learning year. I do think that the administration needs to survey the staff at the end of the year about how it can be improved. It's not going away, so how can it be better? 
• Problem #2 - too many programs: the unusual thing about all of these programs is that they work independently from each other. CKH is a way to build rapport with your students through greetings and dismissals and positive interactions. Path2Empathy are character building lessons that can be connected to content. I would encourage teams to split up the Path2Empathy activities so that each teacher only "loses" one day a year. And Marzano is a way to backward design your units and lessons. Is it a lot? Yes. Is it manageable? Yes. This may be another blog post for a different time, but I feel like teachers can spend time in their classrooms better and can actually prioritize their lessons differently to save time. 
• Problem #3 - administration: This is a sore spot for a lot of the staff, and I know I need to tread carefully here as I could be written up. The administration just needs to listen to the teachers and prioritize solutions. I thought they started to do this earlier in the year when they had us do the post-it activity. Teachers were asked to write down what to start doing, keep doing, and stop doing in the school. Most teachers went all in, and of the post-its that I saw, there were some great ideas. Administration took the post-its to our leadership team, and from what I heard, the conversations were contentious, and some administrators took the discussions personally. I've heard nothing about the post-its since. When situations like this arise, teachers feel like they're not being listened to. Most teachers don't want to complain... they want solutions! I would love to see this post-it conversation continue to show that administration is listening to the staff is that the building is moving forward. I also want to see admin in the classroom more often. I read a blog post from a principal who says that she blocks an hour of time (or more) a week. She marks it on her calendar as a meeting, and for that hour, she's in classrooms. If a parent stops by, the secretary can say that the principal is in a meeting and when the principal will be back in their office. By doing this, administration could have a good pulse of what's happening in the building and in individuals' classrooms. This helps with giving feedback, helps with evaluations, and also makes their presence known to students and staff. 
• Problem #4 - meetings: I'm not sure how to fix this issue. One thing that I've been asking for for years is a pre-made agenda. There has to be a way to replace forced collaboration with reasons for collaborating, but I don't know if I have answers for this. 

My last bit of advice is for the teachers themselves. When teachers have low morale, it leads to burnout, which then leads to teachers switching schools or leaving education altogether. How can you take care of yourself to prevent this? How can you change your attitude? I gave this advice to a colleague and friend the other day. Make a list of what's important to you. Rank everything from most to least important. My guess is that your job isn't what's most important to you, so don't spend all of your time working. I call this my "midnight rule." Like nothing good happens after midnight? Nothing good happens when you're at school past four. It can wait until tomorrow. 

Spend time doing what you love. I want to be healthy and I enjoy reading. For the past month I've been going to the gym and walking on a treadmill for an hour. It's not much, but I'm getting my 10,000 steps a day. I also take my Kindle and read while I walk. So far, I've read 16 books this year. 

Spend time with your family. Have a drink with your friends. Take a bubble bath. Purchase a subscription box. Take your dog for a walk. Light a candle and listen to music. Cheer on the US at the Olympics! Just do something for your. Take care of yourself. Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website

"Teach Like a Pirate" book review

Hello to a VERY snowy Saturday at a great coffee shop in Colorado Springs! I was definitely MIA last weekend as I got SLAMMED with a nasty cold. I didn't get the flu (thank goodness), but I did miss three days of school. I spent four days laid up in bed (minus watching the Super Bowl). It was definitely something... But I am well rested, back to getting to the gym, and am drinking some chai tea.

I decided to change it up this week and do my very first book review! I discussed with Mari, a fellow #sunchatblogger, about blogging what we're reading. She's jumped in and created a book-focused blog! I'm not entirely there yet but did want to blog about a book that we're studying for Skyview's mentoring group. (I'm a mentor for another teacher. Have I mentioned that? I still struggle with the fact that I'm helping a new teacher, even if it is the second year of me doing this.)

ANYWAY. We're reading Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. The book is split into three parts. The first part is called "Teach like a PIRATE" (passion, immersion, rapport, ask and analyze, transformation, enthusiasm). Even though he explained that PIRATE was an acronym on the first page, I didn't read closely enough to realize this acronym until I was 3/4th of the way through the book. I kept thinking, "What does this have to do with being a pirate?" Duh Rachel. Get 👏🏻 It 👏🏻Together 👏🏻!

We were tasked with reading the first part before our mentoring meeting this past Wednesday. We were given a handout with discussion questions. As an introvert, I was not very excited to do a full group discussion. I wanted to discuss the book with "my people" in the building because I can easily communicate and collaborate with these people. As our whole group conversation continued, I shut down. I'll admit that I acted like a baby because the conversation did not go as I believed it should. That's a "me" thing that I have to get over.

The meeting did push me to read the rest of the book ASAP. Part two provides "hooks" to engage your students in your classroom. If a teacher doesn't walk away with one, ONE idea to incorporate into their classroom then they have <begin blunt honesty> a fixed, instead of growth, mindset. I legitimately have no other answer than this <end blunt honesty>. Part three is about "building a better pirate" which is just a way to conclude the book by looking at next steps in the classroom.

So what are my thoughts on this book? I'm going to bullet point the list because it's how I think, collaborate, and function :)

• As an introvert, this book makes me uncomfortable (in a healthy way) as it pushes me to be more creative, innovative, and "out there" than I already am. I have to work on being more silly (I don't like looking stupid) and be more humor. On days when I'm crabby, I still need to put on a show. 
• Dave talks about bringing personal passion into your classroom. I started doing that the last two years through sharing good news. I often talked about my photography and shared my pictures with my students. A few asked for my Instagram handle which I gladly shared. This has spilled into my current position as a broadcasting teacher, and now I take pictures of my students working on the broadcasts (and a few of them have asked to post as well!)
• The six words: "It's easy for you. You're creative." BOOM! This spoke to me because I've heard people use these six words against me. Yes, I'm creative, but it's because I practice. It's because I'm not afraid to take risks and try something new. This section made me realize that I need to share more about my failures in the classroom. It's taken a lot of failure and mistakes to get where I am now. The last six years has not always been easy. Turns out I can "fake it until I make it." My colleagues are none the wiser, but they should be... 
• "If your students didn't have to be there, would you be teaching in an empty room?" When I taught history, I know that some students would show. Teaching broadcast, I've heard on the regular that students come to school for my class. If I ever go back to teaching history, I would really challenge myself to make my social studies class like my broadcasting class. 
• If you don't read the whole book, please check out part two, the "hooks" section. Dave covers thirty-two different thematic hooks with multiple ideas for each. This part is helpful for new teachers, to give them ideas, and for experienced teachers, to encourage them to refresh their curriculum. 

I am quite glad that I finished reading this book. It cemented a lot about what I've already done, and what I currently do, as a classroom teacher. It also pushed me to continue to grow and learn so that I can fulfill my promise that I made in my phone interview for Skyview nine years ago... "I am a good teacher, but someday, I'm going to be a great teacher. You want me on your staff."

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week :)

- Rachel

@historicalipad

My Teacherspayteachers website