Important

When I started thinking about Personalized Learning last year I had no idea how amazing it was going to be.  Everyday I find myself thinking wow, this is incredible. In fact, I found myself with tears in my eyes last Friday afternoon in my classroom.  The tears came after a week where I had multiple kids not only meet their goals, but double their letter goals, Double!  I had kids come up to me asking if they could work on their goals not only during choice time, but also during their snack.  After a week when one child who came into kindergarten knowing just three sounds meet her goal of 12 then reset her goal for 20, because she wanted to work hard to “be advanced.”  She then worked so hard this week she met that goal and reset her goal to learn 30 letter sounds because she didn't want to stop at 26.  After a week when one child saw another child try to meet their goal and miss it by just one letter and the observing child came over, gave him a pat on the back and said, “keep working hard I know you can do it, I’m proud of you.”  The tears came after a Friday afternoon when Carrie excitedly came into my room because she couldn't wait to tell me about a child in her room who made HUGE gains and blew her goals away.  The tears came as I watched a 5-year-old come skipping over to a chair by me because he was so excited, yes excited, to take a test and show me what he could do.  He sat in the chair bouncing and smiling as he said every single lowercase letter and then proceeded to say every single letter sound including sh, ch, and th.  I could not help myself as I watched him because he was so unbelievable confident in himself, he knew the expectations, knew his goals, knew he had been working hard, and knew he could do it.  Then the tears escaped when I asked him to get his iPad so I could see his goal because, I was sure he had just crushed it.  He opened his iPad and I could not find the icon for the Slides App.  He said, “Miss Arnold it is important so I put it down here,” pointing at the tray on the bottom of the iPad screen.  Yup, that statement on top of a week full of affirmations that this is truly what my classroom needs sent a tear down my cheek.  This child’s recognition that his goals are, “important.”

WE ARE DOING MORE THAN JUST SURVIVING!!!

So, we are a month in and OMG we are all still alive! ;)  Just kidding! Seriously though, all drama aside, I was a little nervous...okay, EXTREMELY nervous to go into this school year with no behavior system.  I thought, "There is NO way!".

Alli and Carrie, fellow kindergarten teachers (#BEST-TEAM-EVER), tried to sell me on the idea and sent me blogs and other articles that were in support of eliminating behavior systems similar to the one we have used in the past.  I've been teaching kindergarten for eight years and for all of those eight years we've used a "Beehive" as our behavior system and tweaked it along the way.  For the past two years, our behavior system looked like this, all bees start in the beehive or on green at the beginning of each day and move up the rainbow to blue and purple if the student makes positive choices and down to yellow, orange, and red if making negative choices.  Before that, for the other six years, the rainbow stopped at green and the students making positive choices just stayed on green...day after day after day.  It was extremely difficult for me to redirect the students making negative choices, by only focusing on their negative behavior all day long.  I was giving them the attention they wanted and needed, but for all the wrong reasons.  On the flip side, it was even more difficult keeping the students who were making positive choices engaged and motivated to continue to make those good choices.  But why would they, they saw all of the attention the other students were getting.   That behavior system and philosophy sounds so completely absurd to me now looking back on it.  I can't imagine redirecting and acknowledging only negative behavior all day long... How draining.  So, the addition of the blue and purple seemed like a super fantastic idea.  Little did I know, that I wasn't focusing on the root of the problem.  It wasn't the kids making the positive choices or the kids making the negative choices.  It wasn't even the KIDS!!!!  IT WAS ME!!!!  ME?!  Yeah, I know!!  Shocker, huh?!

I would have never come to that conclusion if I wouldn't have read the blogs and articles that were shared with me.  After reading them, I was totally and completely SOLD on the idea...well, in theory.  It took 27 very long school days to re-program my brain and shift the way I think as a teacher.  Yes, a teacher and not just a teacher, but a good teacher.  Looking back, as it related to behavior, I don't think I was even being a teacher as much as I was just an OBSERVER.  Think about it.  I observed the behavior and then I moved a bee.  It didn't matter if it was positive or negative.  I provided them feedback with the bee being moved either in one direction or the other just by seeing or hearing about the behavior from other teachers and sometimes even from..."GASP"...their tattle tailing classmates!  No discussion really, just seeing and doing.  It was a crutch.  You get busy with the tasks at hand and the hustle and bustle of the day and it just becomes a reaction.  Move the bee and move on to the next thing.  The saddest part is, that at the end of the day when a child's bee was on orange or red or even blue or purple, not only could the student not remember why their bee was on that color, but neither could I.  How was I going to provide feedback to the parents?  How were the students going to learn from their mistakes or behavior to not continue to make those poor choices?  How and why would the good behavior continue and the poor behavior stop if I continued with this behavior system that provided extrinsic, meaningless recognition and feedback and most importantly, for those students who were consistently on orange and red, a public display of humiliation?

So with all of that being said, what am I doing now?  Well, I am explaining to them what the expectations are and what they look like, sound like, and feel like.  If I see positive behavior, I acknowledge it and provide immediate praise and feedback and discuss and describe it to the whole group.  I praise students individually with a hug, a high five, and/or use kind, caring, encouraging words to thank them for making such a good choice.  I use words like "Respectful", "Responsible", and "Safe".  I am trying to TEACH them that making good choices feels good and that feeling good about your choices is the best reward.  Better than any extrinsic reward that they could possibly get from me or anyone else.  I have also tried to shift away from redirecting behavior that is not impeding the learning of others.  I am more of a distraction to the other 21 students, who are engaged and listening, than that of the 1 students' behavior, if I continuously interrupt my own lesson to ask a student to sit on their pockets criss-cross-applesauce.  This is working for approximately 80% of the students in my classroom and supports the tiered Response to Intervention Model.

The other 15% of my class is responding to the 1-2-3 Magic Strategy in addition to the previously mentioned strategies.  In my classroom, this strategy sounds like, "(Student's name), the expectation is (what I would like them to do, but are currently not)." [Brief pause to see if they comply.] "That's 1."  [Brief pause to see if they comply.]  "That's 2."  [Brief pause to see if they comply.]  "(Student's name), if I say three (realistic immediate consequence)."  [Brief pause to see if they comply.]  "That's 3."  [Immediately enforce the consequence.]

For the other 5%, which is 1 student, I met with a team of teachers, students services staff, and the child's parent(s) to create a more individualized behavior plan for that student to be and feel successful in the classroom.

Now, after only 27 very short days of school and shifting my old way of thinking for the last eight years, I look ahead at the way I am currently addressing student behaviors and I can't imagine doing it any other way.  I refuse to be an "Observer".  I choose to be a TEACHER!!

Classroom Environment

On the journey to personalizing our classrooms a major change was our classroom environments.  I got a text from Carrie one day while she was attending a conference with Tiff.  She said they had heard a speaker talk about getting rid of desks and setting up a comfortable learning environment and both she and Tiff had been contemplating the same thing.  Well unbeknownst to her, I had just left IKEA with a rather large purchase of new items specifically for redesigning my classroom space.  That is one of the many amazing things about our Kindergarten team, we may go about things in a different way, but for the most part we are all on the same page.  Sometimes it is hard to jump on board with something new, i.e. personalized learning, but we all support each other and are always willing to try whatever it takes to meet the needs of our children.

One of the main reasons to change our classroom environments was to foster collaboration and creativity.  Our goal is for the children to take responsibility and ownership of their learning.  How can they do that confined to space that does not belong to them?  We designed our classrooms to feel more like a living room than a classroom.  I don't know about you, but at home I am rarely sitting up straight at the table not looking at anyone.  On the rare occasion that I am sitting at the table there is typically someone sitting across from me that I can talk to.  More often I am sitting on the couch, or laying on the floor while doing my work.  In order to create that same environment at school we first got rid of our seating arrangements with labeled spots and all of the children facing one direction.  The children have control over where they sit and when they sit there.  The tables are now a place for collaboration, the chairs face each other instead of all pointing at the teacher.  We brought in green plants and lamps to brighten the spaces.  Here are some images of each classroom space:

Alli's Classroom:
     I changed the paper on my bulletin boards to be a calmer color and left them blank, for the most part.  I want the children to feel the classroom is not my classroom, but our classroom.  The boards in my kitchen area will feature pictures of our class, their families, and their buddies.  This is where I also put my calendar.  I like the idea of having the calendar visible in the classroom but did not want to use that in addition to my SmartBoard calendar.  I created QR codes with links to our calendar songs such as days of the week, and months of the year in both English and Spanish.  One of the boards will be our word wall.  This year I used AR Flashcards as the letters.  Using this app the children can hover over a letter and an animal will pop up telling the letter and the animal with the same beginning sound.  I wanted to create numerous spaces for collaboration and also cozy reading areas.  Instead of my usual large bookshelf with numerous boxes full of books I added short bookshelves with fewer books.  Already in this first week I have had more children looking at books and I believe it is because they are easier to find and look more appealing presented this way.  One small change that has made a large impact is the blue basket of clipboards.  The children have the option of working wherever they would like and many times that means they need a clipboard to write on.  The blue basket has been a huge hit!  In the science center I used chalkboard contact paper on the table.  To begin the year I have just a few science materials out but even with few materials the center is always full of students exploring with what they have.

Carrie's Classroom:
I really wanted the kids to feel at home, feel happy, and feel motivated.  I decided to have my super crafty sister-in-law make some awesome posters of inspirational quotes...not because the kids can read them yet, but because I read them everyday to myself and the kids.  Who wouldn't be motivated and inspired after hearing how awesome you are everyday?

Tiff's Classroom:
Creating a calm and cozy atmosphere has been a gradual process for me.  I tried to get a little bit at a time due to cost, but ended up getting most of the lamps and the couches from family and friends that were just going to get rid of them or were just sitting in a basement being unused.  I also purchased the plants on sale at the end of the season which helped to keep the cost down as well.  We are very fortunate to have very large windows in our kindergarten classrooms which brings in a lot of natural light.  Each of rectangular tables in the room has a potted plant in the center.  I was originally very hesitant to do this because of the possibility of the them being a distraction and the potential mess if they were to get tipped over or the students digging in the dirt, but this has yet to be an issue.  When I brought the couches into the classroom, it was a very exciting day.  The students all sat and squeezed onto them and made comments like, "I feel like I'm at home!" and "It's like we are a big family!"  I was so excited to hear that they were feeling that way.  In that moment, it totally validated my reasons for changing the environment and made the time and money spent to change it so completely worth it!

O.M.G! Every student on task?!

Today was the first day that I let my kids "loose" with their PLP's (Personalized Learning Plans).  I had previously met with each child, individually, to set their goals.  I assessed them on counting, number recognition, shapes, alphabet recognition, letter sounds, and sight words.  From there, I helped them devise an appropriate goal for them to work on independently.  Since they are 5, it was more like me guiding (telling) them what their goal should be.  Then I put together their PLP's.  The kids know that these folders are for them.  They are their goals for learning.  In it, there are worksheets, word lists, letter recognition sheets, and QR codes.  I'm sure I will add to it as the year progresses :)
So today, I gave them their PLP's and told them to look through them and see what they noticed...well of course, they ALL noticed the QR codes, so I went with it.  I told them they could spend some time working on their goals and use the QR codes if they wanted to.  They all grabbed their iPads and this is what happened:  They worked hard, got excited, shared their goals with neighbors, and practiced skills THEY wanted to practice!  It didn't last too long, probably only 20 minutes or so, but I was thrilled!  Every child was on task and so interested in what they were doing!  It was a lot of work to get to this point, and I'm sure there will be many more struggles, let me be honest, but look at these pictures!