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Warren Elementary School – Innovative Education in Vermont
The days of hosting public exhibitions and showcases in the school gymnasium appear to be over. For now.
Some schools and educators, however, have been very clever at hosting socially distanced and virtual exhibitions of student work and learning, despite the pandemic.
Why provide an audience for student work?
We know that student engagement and motivation increase when educators design an authentic audience for their work. When students create work that can be of service to the world, or they share work with people who produce valuable critiques? That motivates students. It gives them the incentive to develop quality products.
Ron Berger produced a useful Hierarchy of Audience that boils down to this: the more authentic an audience is, the higher the student engagement. For instance, families are a more motivating audience than teachers. The school community is a more motivating audience than families. Once the public outside the school gets involved, the stakes are higher.
Think of it as upping the ante for presenting.
Now the challenge is: how can we continue to provide authentic audience during the pandemic?
Here are 10 ways to provide socially distanced authentic audiences for student learning.
1. The virtual conference
Yep: Zoom rooms.
At the Middle Grades Institute this summer, educators selected from a schedule of workshop events and attended those workshops in a dedicated breakout room. This takes some organization and logistical planning, but the feedback from attendees indicated it was a huge success.
2. The Livestream
Platforms such as Facebook Live and YouTube allow users to livestream an event. In some cases, participants can ask questions or provide comments in a live feed. Presenters can choose to answer these as they come in, or let attendees know whether there will be follow-up after the event. These events can also be recorded, and included in a student’s PLP.
This past summer, two students in Essex VT, set up Facebook livestream concert to showcase their classical music performances. The two had been performing in person at libraries around Vermont. When the pandemic hit, they learned how to host and publicize those same performances in a way that brought them to the same public, authentic audience.
3. Embrace Flipgrid!
At Williston Central School, in Williston VT, teachers used Flipgrid in order to host a “virtual open house” Flipgrid is a platform where users can record videos to share with a select audience (videos are password-protected). The audience can then respond with their own videos. Through this platform, students were able to connect and engage with parents and other community members for feedback.
4. Get outside and stretch
A useful strategy for social distancing is getting and staying outside — away from other people. As such, we’re seeing a huge rise in the popularity of Story Walks. A Story Walk is a trail along which an organization installs plaques on sticks, like you have in state and national parks.
Students at Lamoille Union Middle School, in Hyde Park VT, constructed a story walk along the Lamoille River trail. Each plaque showcased a student group’s historical research, along with a QR code linked to a short student-produced video.
Right now, many libraries are constructing Story Walks, and would love to feature student work to share with the community. Get out, stretch your legs and learn!
5. Get your audience outside!
Middlebury opera educator Sarah Cullins runs the Youth Opera Workshop, in Middlebury VT. The Youth Opera Workshop provides opportunities for students to learn and perform opera for appreciative Vermonters — who are usually an older demographic.
Once the pandemic hit, heading out to nursing homes would have been a disaster. So instead, Cullins worked with elder care homes and public utilities to bring the appreciative audience out onto large green spaces. They were able to remain socially distanced while students presented their performance pieces in public exhibitions.
5. Make headlines in your local paper
One unexpected aspect of the pandemic is that subscriptions to local papers have gotten a hefty boost. People are more interested than ever in local information. And a lot of them read that paper online. And that can be a boon for students.
Local papers live for community-submitted items. Contact your local paper and pitch a student series of op-eds, or articles. That’s taking the audience for the learning out beyond the teacher, beyond the families, and out into the community.
Looking for critical feedback? The online publishing of local papers provides a robust platform for engagement with community members. Lay down ground rules for commenting (for community members) and work with your students to decide what their policy on responding to comments will be. For an extra boost, encourage students to send the link to their articles to experts in the field they’re studying. We’re all looking for a little extra connection right now.
6. Get your video out there online
While we’re all staying home to flatten the curve, we all still love a good video. Embrace video as a way for students to record themselves in the location of their choice and get it online. The link can be public and shared through school social media or unlisted and just shared with families.
At Mt. Abraham Union High School, in Bristol VT, students did just that to perform a rendition of Vermont’s state song, “These Green Mountains”. They wanted public feedback, so they reached out to the local community access television station in Middlebury as a way to build their audience.
Mt Anthony’s choral ensemble did something similar (video) and a big takeaway from both of those videos can be found in the comments. The comment sections to these two videos are filled with love and appreciation. They are from real people. They are positive and supportive.
7. Go big with your videos at the drive-in
During the pandemic, drive-ins are making a comeback. They let families get out of their houses and go the movies while still socially distancing (flatten the curve!). But The Warren School, in Warren VT, took it one step further when it came to their graduating sixth graders. The students traditionally prepare a reflection of their learning on video to share at the school exhibition. In order to keep that tradition going, the school worked with local drive-in The Big Pic to arrange a community showing of the student-made video. The Warren sixth graders’ authentic audience turned out in droves, and tuned in on their car radios.
You can do this.
Whatever you do, don’t give up on creating authentic audiences for student work. It may take some creativity and innovation and learning a new tool, but the technology and resources are out there. More than ever, students need to feel like their work matters to more than themselves and their teacher.
A couple of weeks ago, we had the chance to take part in a collaboration between the Vermont Agency of Education and Vermont Public Radio (VPR), celebrating the strange and wonderful ways this year’s graduation differs from those in years past. What do graduations look like in the time of COVID-19? The hourlong program featured students and educators from around the state, performing music, giving speeches and simply musing on the ways in which the class of 2020 made. It. Work.
So as an excerpt, and leading us towards the end of the podcast’s fourth season, here’s the piece we produced for the show. We spoke with students, educators and families from two schools who approached graduation very differently: The Warren School, in Warren VT, and Poultney Elementary School, down in Poultney VT.
The Warren School, in Warren VT, opted to host their sixth-grade graduation at a drive-in in Waitsfield, called The Big Picture, known locally as “The Big Pic”. Warren School librarian Heidi Ringer says she got the idea from an NPR story, then called up principal Tom Drake with the suggestion.
Heidi Ringer, librarian at The Warren School.
Heidi Ringer: So about a month or so ago, on NPR, they had said something about a school in New York that was doing a drive-in graduation. And then I was scrolling through Instagram that same night. There was a headline from The Valley Reporter that said The Big Pic was doing drive-in. And so I emailed Tom Drake, our principal, and asked Tom: “Drive-in at The Big Pic for graduation?”
He wrote back that he thought I was kidding.
And then he said he realized that was a great idea.
So then one day some of the graduation team met at The Big Picture parking lot and kind of, you know, mapped it all out. We visualized: “Okay. If they’re going to drive this way, then they’re going to enter this way. And then they’ll exit this way. And where are we getting the cakes? Nobody in town makes cupcakes, they only make mini-cakes. And how big are mini cakes? And are they too big? How many people are going to be in a car? Can we fit more than four mini cakes in a box?”
You know, it was crazy details, but it all worked.
So it took probably three, four weeks of planning and thinking about it. Walking through and visualizing it and just being willing to be flexible and just say:
“Okay, so what are we going to do for the kids here?”
The planning team remixed a Warren graduation tradition — the graduation essay — by having students record their favorite memory of The Warren School in Voice Memo and send it to the teachers, then the teachers put it all together into one long (48-minute) movie.
Heidi: Ringer: So in the past, Warren school’s graduation has been the same thing forever and ever. The kids write an essay. So the first paragraph is how long you’ve been at The Warren School. Second paragraph is what are two memories of the school that you have? And what’s the big global idea that you learned from those. And then the thank you. So we’ve always done that. They usually sing a song or something like that. And because we’re in a rural place, some of these kids haven’t seen each other, you know, we see each other on the screens, but that’s it.
The town of Warren is about five miles from Waitsfield, so all the families met in their cars at the school and drove in convoy over to The Big Pic with a fire truck escort (one of the Warren teachers is a volunteer firefighter). At the drive-in, the teachers showed the students’ movie up on the big screens, piping the audio into everyone’s car speakers.
Susan Hennessey’s ex-husband had a megaphone at Barre we borrowed. We got the megaphone and Tom Drake brought a ladder and stood on the ladder and did the welcome through the megaphone. Then the kids all got their certificates, and the teachers ran to their cars to give them to them, and cheered and did all that. By the, it was dark. So we watched the movie. And then at the end of the movie, I had gone to North Star Fireworks and got huge sparklers. And so the teachers made like, the honor guard kind of thing. We lined the road and then the cars exited that way, with all kinds of beeping and cheering.
They went through the sparklers… and that was it.
That was graduation.
For Heidi Ringer and the rest of the Warren School teachers, all the planning, the Zoom meetings, sourcing mini-cakes and sparklers (and reminding everyone to bring a lighter), was worth it for one simple reason.
Heidi Ringer:It’s all about the kids. I think that’s the biggie to remember. That it’s about them. So sometimes you just have to let go of things. This is a different time. It’s not going to be the same. It’s not going to be what it might’ve been if you were standing right next to them. So it’s, it’s kind of… let go. It’s all about the kids.
Eliza Krotinger is one of those graduating Warren School students. What did she and her mom, Nicole, think of the unusual celebration?
Eliza Krotinger, left, and her mom, Nicole Krotinger.
Eliza Krotinger: Yeah, it was… think it was much better than the regular one. We should do this one more often because the formal one… it just seemed very different. And I liked this one much more. The most memorable part was hearing all the speeches. Even though we didn’t get to see everyone, we could all like, hear each other in some way. And the speeches were all so different and like… I remembered memories I forgot about. Yeah.
Nicole Krotinger: It was just special to see all the teachers and do you know, we hadn’t seen each other in so long, so that was really special. And yeah, the, the speeches were wonderful. The kids put a lot of time and energy into the speeches and you can really, you could really tell because their personalities came through through the pictures and what they had to say about themselves.I think this year, that for some reason the students, their speeches were more unique. Like a lot of years you’ll go and it’ll be, they’ll, they’ll all talk about the same memories. I don’t know if that’s because they’re all in the same classroom talking to each other and this time they were separated out more. Um, so they each had more unique memories this time, which was nice.
Amelia Brooks also graduated from The Warren School, and attended the graduation with her mom, Marie.
Marie Schmukal, left, and her daughter, Amelia Brooks.
Amelia Brooks: I really liked the sparkler sendoff at the end. Because you got to see all of the teachers and it was really fun to see all of them.
Marie Schmukal: I was amazed at how many of the traditions they were able to keep, even though we were all in our cars, in a parking lot. I really appreciated the effort and thought that the teachers put into maintaining those traditions.
For educators like Heidi Ringer, blending old traditions and new, while a little more effort, is entirely worth it for the students and families they’ve known, in some cases for nine full years.
Heidi Ringer: These kids have been together, for good or for the bad,since most of them were three, four, five years old. They’ve been at The Warren school for *nine years* and suddenly they’re going to a new place.
Meanwhile, down in Poultney VT, Poultney Elementary School opted for sticking closer to home for their graduation, by organizing a car parade through town, and then having each family drive through the school bus circle, one by one. As each family drove, the graduating student got out and walked along next to the car. And Poultney’s teachers and administrators cheered their final journey, waving and hollering — in a socially distanced way. They were joined in cheering by students from Poultney’s local high school — who all themselves happened to be alumni of the elementary school.
The three-member Poultney 5th and 6th grade teaching team — Maureen Kahill Brown, Tia Hewes and Keith Harrington — all brought different strengths to pulling off this event under challenging circumstances.
Maureen Kahill Brown: My name is Maureen Kahill Brown. I live in Poultney. And I’ve been in Poultney teaching, for 27 years.
We all started about eight weeks ago planning. And, uh, one of my roommates from college is a science teacher out on Long Island, and they had done something similar. And Kristin Caligiuri, our principal, requested that we do a drive-through. So we kind of searched the country for what other schools were doing. And we tried to pull the best of what we could learn from them, in order to make it a reality for our students.
Every day we met virtually at 11 o’clock and we started tossing around ideas and kind of hammering it out. And the three of us all have different strengths.
We did create a class Facebook page, a parent helped us out with that, but not all our parents check that. Not all of our parents check their email and not all of our parents check their phones. So it became a challenge to remember which parents did what to try and get them the information, um, that they needed.
Tia was the first teacher you met as you entered the town. She came to help kind of guide them through the path. (It reminded me of a driver’s ed course, to be honest with you.) And she collected Chromebooks from them and any other things that they had, maybe some musical instruments, and welcomed them and celebrated them. It kind of got that moment because we really haven’t seen students in quite some time.
Then the next person they would drive up to is Keith, who was at the podium with the microphone. So he got that moment with them, and then I was directing the traffic and taking pictures and making sure they got their diploma.
And one of the students said,
‘You know, Ms. Kahill, this is so strange.’
And I was like, ‘What’s so strange?’
‘Well, you’re not buffering or jerking out. You’re alive, you’re in person.’
And I said, ‘Yes, because my wifi is typically quite weak when you put 33 kids on it.’
So that was kind of one of those shocker moments for me. I was like: That’s right. They haven’t seen me live since March.
And my hair is a whole lot longer and for whatever reason, a lot grayer than it ever was before.
The teachers also put together a photo booth for the occasion, staffed by a local professional photographer who also is an alumna of Poultney Elementary School. But because of social distancing, teachers weren’t able to stand with their students for the photos. So, secretly, the teachers all ordered lifesize cardboard cutouts of themselves, which they placed in the photo booths.
The cardboard cutouts were so convincing that, well, they led to a few confusing moments.
Maureen Kahill Brown: Traditionally parents and children like to get photos with us. And we didn’t know what we could do because we had to wear masks, and we just didn’t want their pictures to have masks in it. So another parent who’s very talented with photography, Tracy Simons, we made her promise to keep a secret. She took our pictures and we had lifesize cut outs made. And we put them in the photo booth.
It was hysterical. The day we were setting up, we put the three of us in the photo booth and we ran inside to get something. And I guess the head of maintenance, Rich, drove by just, you know, to check in with us. And he waved at the three cutouts. He didn’t realize that it wasn’t us.
Poultney Elementary School pulled together a graduation ceremony that was just as much about the parents and the alumni as it was the graduating sixth graders. They kind of wanted a ceremony that celebrated how small and close-knit Poultney is, and how many parents stick around and send their own kids through the same schools they themselves attended. This year, 21% of the parents of Poultney Elementary School graduates once attended the school themselves.
Maureen Kahill Brown: Many of the former students that were parents came through. One was teary-eyed and said that she was so grateful that we had taken the time to do the in-person moment because, she just wanted her child to experience what she had. And so gosh, for an old teacher that made me quite happy that she appreciated it.
My other most favorite part was to see how parents took the time to decorate the cars with such amazing signs, and decorations, and balloons, and streamers. And at one point a parent said, “Go ahead, hit the button on the trunk.”
And out came balloons! They popped out and there was a big sign that said, you know,
“Thank you teachers, we appreciate you.” So that was just amazing. We were really quite fortunate with the amazing parents we had helping and supporting us as we went through, uh, this journey with them.
We felt they deserved it.
Everyone, um, has certainly been affected by COVID in many different ways. And everyone can tell you where they lost out. My own son graduated college this year — or, well, he has his diploma, you know. The ceremony didn’t occur. And so I guess I understand how those parents may have been feeling. In our world we held a graduation ceremony here at the house for my son. He said it was probably better than the real one, a lot shorter way more comfortable. Um, so he was, he was thrilled that we did that. We kind of surprised him with that. So I guess that’s kind of where we all were coming from. We were just thinking, you know, if it was our children, what would we want?
What do the students and their parents think of all this? Here’s Ashley Converse, mom to graduating sixth grader Collea Mullholland, and herself an alum of Poultney Elementary.
Graduating 6th grader Collea Mullholland, and her mom, Ashley Converse.
Ashley Converse: I remember her telling me when her friends in sixth grade graduated last year, everybody cried basically for a few days. Right. Everybody was together, everybody to the end of the last day of school. For some reason, everybody was crying and we don’t know why. And all the sixth graders were like, Oh no, is that going to happen with this this year? But apparently not because they wasn’t quite same.
It’s a small, um, it’s a small close knit community and we all kind of raise each other’s kids.
Pam Chellis is mom to graduating 6th grader Will Hathaway.
Pam Chellis: It would have been nice to have the whole class together, but man, those teachers did a heck of a job. They couldn’t ask for better teachers and staff that they are probably the most amazing people. And with all this COVID stuff, they have been right there for the kids, even though they haven’t been in the classrooms, they can call on those teachers at any given time.
And Marissa Boudreau’s daughter Gabby also graduated from Poultney Elementary this year. Gabby is the second of Marissa’s six kids to do so. And while the family only moved here from Massachusetts four years ago, Marissa appreciates Poultney’s strong, close-knit community.
The heart of which is their schools. And teachers like Maureen Kahill Brown.
Marissa Boudreau:I thought the ceremony was awesome. The teachers were good. And um, today we actually did a parade. The teachers went around town and so we were able to like wave from, you know, wave to them and stuff. And so that was fun.
I just really like, have to praise all of her teachers because we live in such a smaller town and the teacher’s just, just so good about communication, you know, if your kid needs extra help or if your kid is doing great or, or whatever, they’re right there, you know, whether it’s a phone call or an email. I mean, it’s just the, the closeness of the community here is just fantastic. And I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome for her and for everyone else.
It’s kind of like that’s saying, you know, it takes a village. And so our school is that village and they will help us.
Graduating 6th grader Marissa Boudreau, left, and her mom, Gabby.
The 21st Century Classroom is a podcast of the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education at the University of Vermont. Special thanks for this episode go to all the students and families who spoke with us for the piece, as well as educators Heidi Ringer, Maureen Kahill Brown, Tia Hewes, and Keith Harrington. Extra special thanks to Kari Anderson at VPR, as well as Sigrid Olson and Greg Young at the Vermont Agency of Education. This episode was produced by series producer Audrey Homan.
Collaboration is not just fun for students, it’s also a crucial skill they will need to be successful in life. Yet with our need to stay home these days, students are desperately missing the social connections a classroom provides, and many are seeking other channels to maintain these connections.
We know our students thrive when they can connect socially with each other. Yet we are all still figuring out how to help them work together safely, effectively, and most of all in a way that meets their needs for fun.
Good news! Properly scaffolded, we can continue to foster opportunities for our students to connect and create meaningful work together.
#BetterTogether: Padlet & Flipgrid
Heidi Ringer, a 6th-grade teacher at Warren Elementary, searched for ways to support student collaboration in this remote learning environment. She chose to invite students into a collaborative Padlet board. And, planned intentionally to start with something familiar to introduce them to the tool.
Learning how to use Padlet
“Students created a One Pager as a culminating activity for their independent reading book. They posted the One Pager and then students commented on their work. This was the first attempt at commenting as a way to collaborate. Students are learning to use the same guidelines they use for peer conference in writing. It was a great way to present students’ work and gather comments. Finally, they are reflecting on the kind of feedback they received and what that told them about their work.”
The importance of scaffolding collaboration
Next, Heidi launched a Discussion Questions Padlet. Students had four questions about the class novel and jotted down an idea for each question. Later, they used their notes in actual virtual discussions.
Tips for peer feedback
Often students need help knowing how to comment effectively on others’ work in shared spaces. Here are some prompts from Kathy King-Dickman from her post Mini-lessons that Support Effective Bookclubs:
Using Center for the Collaborative Classroom prompts “I agree with______ because…., I disagree with _____ because…, or I agree, but I would like to add….”
Questioning another’s ideas or thinking: use prompts such as “Why are you thinking…, Can you explain why you think…, Where in the novel did you find that…?”
Taking it to the next level with Padlet: Literature Circles & Project Planning
Finally, now that her students have experienced collaborating via Padlet, Heidi is planning Padlet-based Literature Circle Discussions. This collaborative discussion process, with the very clear roles and tasks, can take place asynchronously, especially when students have had experience using the tool. Lee Araoz’s Lightning Thief padlet will give you a good idea of Literature Circle Roles in practice.
Another great way to use Padlet for asynchronous collaboration is project planning. Rachelle Dene Poth shares this idea:
“Taking all of these themes into consideration, I decided that one student in Spanish IV would be the ‘Team leader,’ and their ‘mission’ would be finding a job and moving to a Spanish speaking country. They had to create a collaborative space, could be using Padlet or Google Slides or another format, and share it with the their ‘team.’ Team leaders had to write a list of requirements to their “Travel Agent,” “Community Specialist” and “Realtor” (students from Spanish I, II, and III) to let them know their travel needs and preferences for moving abroad. The team members would use this information to plan the travel, a tour of the new neighborhood, and find a house.” Tips and Tools to Encourage Classroom Participation
Asynchronous video exchanges for collaborative remote learning with Flipgrid
We’ve written about Flipgrid before and are big fans because of the way it creates a virtual video-driven discussion space. Consider the asynchronous possibilities for your students; they can video record their responses to a prompt and then engage in a threaded video commenting stream.
An easy entry point to scaffold a Flipgrid experience for students is to ask a fairly straightforward question and give students a short time span in which to answer. Here’s an example of the folks at Tarrant Institute sharing one quick idea for a back-to-school get-to-know-you activity.
Courtney Elliot, a teacher at Proctor Elementary, starts her daily communications with her students making good use of Flipgrid for asynchronous collaboration. This week’s prompt: Tell us about a book you are reading!
In addition, Courtney uses Flipgrid video responses for Number Talks. Students post an answer to a math question and then respond to each other, just like they did when together in their classroom. Check out how she does it here.
Kick it up a notch
Once students are familiar with the post and response routine in Flipgrid, you can bump up the level of collaboration. Just like how Literature Circles can be run using Padlet, Flipgrid also provides a similar collaborative space. Lee Araoz describes in her post how to set up Flipgrid for Literature Circles. The prompt: state your name, your book title & chapter, the name of the Literature Circle job you are discussing, and what you did. Simple as that. But so powerful when students can see and hear each other from a distance as they collaboratively share.
Matthew Frattali, a middle school teacher who advocates for using Flipgrid with students to teach the Sustainable Development Goals advises “Asynchronous video is training wheels for synchronous video, which in turn is training wheels for video production and citizen journalism.” Think of the possibilities!
Updates to Flipgrid now include the ability for educators and learners to record their screen right inside a Flipgrid video post. That’s right!
Now it’s your turn:
How are you facilitating student-to-student collaboration in a virtual environment?
Bonus material
Finally, don’t forget that Morning Meeting is a powerful way for students to connect socially – with you and each other – during these days apart. Just like Courtney, you could run Morning Meeting asynchronously using Flipgrid. This post has some great ideas for connecting with each other, and you may even want to consider doing a morning meeting with your housemates as well!
However you go about it, let’s keep maintaining those connections that sustain us!
Morning meetings are the norm in many K-6 and K-8 schools in Vermont. They’re a great way to empower students to find their voices and build community. Now here are five ways to organize and structure morning meetings to build transferable and socio-emotional skills (and build those strong relationships that matter so much!):
Sounds corny, and tons of middle school students will groan loudly, but it works. Different seats promote students getting to know each other, expanding friendships and connections, and supporting cross-gender friendships. Yes, cross-gender friendships, 7th graders! They are doable!
True, it’s not giving students choice, but at the beginning of the year we’ve all got these butterflies about new schools, new grades, new… people. Yipes!
So let’s help everyone out at the beginning with some structure.
I used to put out popsicle sticks each morning with student names around the circle for this purpose, particularly at the beginning of the year. This also helped reduce any arguments about who gets which cushion, couch seat, or beanbag! I decide! *muahahahaha* Plus: you can support flexible seating by giving students the choice to stand, sit, flop or yoga pose it out.
2. “What’s up in the world?”
There is so much happening in our world, especially lately. It is complicated, stressful, and unnerving — especially for students. And especially for those students who might feel unsafe or targeted. Or those who have heard bits and pieces of what is happening, but are unsure what is true and why it’s all happening. Heck, half the time all this unsettling news makes *me* wonder the exact same thing.
And that is where the weekly practice of a morning meeting agenda of What’s Up in the World? can help.
Once a week in our morning meeting, we would pose that question on the whiteboard. Students would sign up for topics they wished to discuss.
In each meeting, one student would take on the role of “fact-checker”. When we weren’t sure of the details, we would check a few trusted sources to find out the facts. We didn’t assume, or discuss without reviewing the facts when we could find them. Another student would be a “definer” and look up words that folks didn’t know and read the definitions out to the class.
While discussing world events, I would keep the conversation on track and developmentally appropriate, by steering away from the close details and images of violent events. Sometimes I had to jump in and reframe or refocus, or ask a question. We relied on our norms for the class that we created together to help guide us. But what happened regularly was that students were hungry for a space to discuss world events in a safe and supported way. These conversations changed minds. Expanded perspectives. And provided a place to digest and begin to understand the world.
Need norms? Proctor School’s Courtney Elliott for the win:
I wonder how many potential misconceptions, half-truths, and partially baked biases and stereotypes about world events we uncovered in these weekly sessions. This work felt vital and important.
3. The State of the Class
Right around the time of the state of the union address one year, my students and I joked about the state of our class and giving a speech about it. And then we had an idea. What if we check in on the state of the class each week?
You know, when students say something like: another student has taken my charging cord! Or: my jacket is buried under everyone’s snow stuff! Or: I don’t like the way our class behaved with the music substitute teacher. We had to solve these problems together.
So, we added a weekly agenda item called the state of the class.
Anyone could bring an issue up about how the class was treating each other or functioning, and we would all problem solve and come up with a plan together. That way everyone was accountable to everyone else and we had time to develop solutions that everyone was in support of.
The state of the class centered in students and the their perceptions of problems and solutions, giving students a model for democracy, citizenship and action.
I’ve seen Warren Elementary School, in Warren VT, do this very powerfully, in a way that centers listening, and relationship-building, in their “Town Meetings”. When one student brought up a current need, and explained its impact on him, you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone in the room was invested in that student’s need. And THAT, people, THAT is the room we want.
4. Learning the morning message
Another way to promote learning and growth in morning meeting is: The Message. You can either have students find the errors in a morning message, or have a chart or table to review a recent skill lesson or concept that the class has learned. Often, this was formative information for me. I could tell when a class struggled to summarize a text, a math problem, or concept. Morning messages were instant feedback on emotional states, current topics, and the daily life of the class.
This is an activity for a few weeks in, but you can begin with a word puzzle on the board, a phrase in a foreign language, a rebus, or a poem made of song titles. Be creative and goofy, and your students will follow.
For schools focusing on socio-emotional learning competencies, morning messages can be a great way to explore these very concepts. Students can respond to prompt on the white board or digitally, and then read and discuss responses during morning meeting.
At the middle and high school school level, many schools are using the Circle of Power and Respect. These meetings follow a different format but have many similarities to morning meetings, and can be huge for building community.
5. Now shift it to a student-led space
Finally — this is going to take a hot minute, so maybe toss it on the to-do list — we all know where we want this work to lead. Once students learn the parts of morning meeting (greeting, agenda, sharing, game/activity) and know how to do each one in an inclusive way, they then can begin leading morning meetings. This was after lots of modeling and practice. (Think: late fall. Build those morning meeting muscles!)
Each week, we had two students lead the morning meeting. We rotated all students through this role and gave everyone a chance to lead. For some, this was hard. They might have never had a chance to lead a group, and this gave them practice and support grow their communication, citizenship, listening and leading skills. As the teacher I would support students to participate in this role, sometimes giving sentence stems or tips to students who might have needed it. This was a safe space to practice student voice and leadership for all students.
How do you structure morning meetings to empower students?
We’ve seen a ton of lovely photos from morning meeting already this year, shared on instagram or twitter, but still: we want to hear from YOU. What are your favorite go-to activities for getting morning meeting off on the right foot?
Elizabeth Tarno asked her students for feedback about their math class at the end of 5th grade. Then she did something incredible: she completely redesigned her classroom to address what students asked for.
Elizabeth teaches both 5th and 6th grade math (and science) at the Warren Elementary School. She spent her summer working to rethink her approach through the lens of personalization.
The result? She turned her 6th grade math class into a self-paced course that came to be known as “Choose Your Own Adventure Math Class.” Students worked individually or in partners, used printed or digital materials, and took assessments only when they decided they were ready. They even created their own homework.
Elizabeth listened, she personalized, and her students responded positively. By the end of the initial experiment, Elizabeth had thoughts on how to improve this new approach. But she was clear about one thing: “I’m not going back.”
Town Meeting Day is a Vermont tradition: once a year, everyone in towns across the state pack into the town hall and talk face-to-face about the issues affecting their community.
But Warren Elementary School, in Warren VT, holds Town Meetings on a weekly basis, using the tradition to cultivate citizenship and community.
In my experience as a teacher and administrator, I noticed a pattern to goal-setting in my school and classroom. We would do some good goal-setting at the beginning of the year and then at some point during the dark depths of winter I would realize that I was too overwhelmed or embarrassed to try to resurrect them.
There were some notable instances when goals were powerful for students, though.
In those cases I saw the potential of goals to cultivate so many important things in my students: self-direction, a sense of efficacy, and a connection to schooling, to name a few.
The term Generation Z refers to teens and pre-teens born after 1995 and was officially launched in 2014 as part of a marketing presentation. The salient characteristic of their generation is its apparent fondness love of and comfort with new technology.
So, in order to find out more about Generation Z, we asked middle school students about theirs and their families’ relationship with technology. And found no easy generalizations.
And what does this all have to do with that pesky “digital natives” conversation?
Much like being friends on social media, physical proximity has little to do connecting people with other people. Google Hangouts has successfully made communication between individuals or groups and accessing information a bit easier and some may save they even have shrunk the world.
In my experience as a teacher and administrator, I noticed a pattern to goal-setting in my school and classroom. We would do some good goal-setting at the beginning of the year and then at some point during the dark depths of winter I would realize that I was too overwhelmed or embarrassed to try to resurrect them.
