40 Weeks in 4th Grade: Week 4

This week started and ended in very different places. On Monday I was feeling like I was hit by a truck as my body responded to the COVID and flu vaccines I got the day before. By Friday, I was riding high as my students blew past a goal I set for them this week.

Day 13

Cursive

To ensure students are getting the help they need, I pulled a small group this morning for additional guidance and practice with their cursive handwriting.

After complaining last week that cursive is hard to teach/support whole class, this week I’m breaking students into small groups. Some will practice previously learned letters while others move on to learning new letters. We’ll see how it goes!

Amplify CKLA

In today’s Amplify CKLA lesson, we revisited finding text evidence to support character traits.

Then we learned about the cause & effect text structure. We thought about examples from the first story we read “The Good Lie”, then we worked in pairs to find examples in our current story (the opening of Condoleezza Rice’s memoir).

I’m continuing to try out using timers to keep me on track with my Amplify CKLA lessons. I did pretty good with the first activity we did. I think we ran just a couple of minutes over.

After identifying examples of the cause & effect text structure in our reading, we attempted to write a short personal narrative using the same text structure. First, the students brainstormed stories about a time someone changed them. Then they planned & started writing.

I was not as successful keeping to my timer on this second activity in today’s Amplify CKLA lesson. I created my own models of all the steps of the writing process to help scaffold students. It meant they didn’t get to finish writing their paragraphs. That’ll have to be tomorrow!

Math

Teaching math sucked today. The biggest problem is that I felt like death warmed over because I got my flu shot and COVID booster yesterday. Another big reason has to do with the amount of content packed into this one math lesson. I will definitely be planning this differently for next year!

So, Lesson 1 in iReady Mathematics Classroom is called “Understand Place Value” and it even has two reasonable sounding learning targets. However, here’s everything my students had to learn:

1. All the place values in the thousands period
2. Writing 4-, 5-, and 6-digit numbers in standard form.
3. Writing multi-digit numbers in word form.
4. Identifying the value of a given digit
5. Writing multi-digit numbers in expanded form.
6. Representing multi-digit numbers in different ways. For example, 25,049 is also 250 hundreds + 4 tens + 9 ones, or 2,504 tens + 9 ones, or 25,049 ones.
7. The x10 relationship between place values.
8. Using the language “10 times as many” to describe relationships between particular digits.

Whew! And that’s all in ONE lesson. Keep in mind these students have only worked with numbers up to 999 before now. It’s supposed to take 3 days, but the topics are all just scattershot thrown in everyday. There’s no chunking or dedicated time to practicing just one of those things at a time.

I don’t feel like my class finished the third day of this lesson comfortable or confident in any one of the many skills in this lesson. This was not an auspicious start to a new year of math learning. (Feeling like I have the flu didn’t help!)

As an aside, someone on Mastodon asked me how I would plan this lesson differently in the future. Great question! When I do this again next year, here’s the flow I imagine I will follow:

• Day 1: Introduce BIG numbers with some sort of provocation, including reading and writing them in standard form and word form. (Technically, you don’t need to dive into individual place value to read and write these numbers, so I’d hold off on that.)
• Day 2: Extend the patterns of 10 ones –> 1 ten and 10 tens –> 1 hundred into the thousands period showing that the pattern repeats over and over. Then we’d practice writing numbers in a place value chart, naming the places that individual digits are in, and identifying the values of those digits based on their place. The culmination of this would be writing these numbers in expanded form.
• Day 3: I’d love to have a day to practice and consolidate all of this. Unfortunately, if I wanted to cover everything in the existing lesson, I’d have to spend time on day 3 on the “10 times as many” relationship. (Personally, I would prefer to save that for when we actually study multiplicative comparisons in a later lesson. It feels shoehorned in here. The language of “_ times as many” needs some work for students to make sense of it.)

The one topic I probably won’t include next year is representing numbers in different ways, such as 25,049 as 250 hundreds + 4 tens + 9 ones. That feels like a nice to know, but not a need to know particularly since there is no easy way to build a model to show students what’s happening. It’s just too big.

Day 14

Amplify CKLA

This morning, students finished writing their personal narrative paragraph using the cause and effect text structure. Then I had them underline the sentence(s) telling the cause in red and the sentence(s) telling the effect in blue.

Afterward, they read their story to a partner up to the point of sharing the cause. (The color coding they did helped them identify where they needed to stop reading.) Their partner then had to predict the effect.

One thing I appreciate in this first unit of Amplify CKLA is that my students are getting an opportunity to write a new paragraph every single lesson. At least I think that’s a good thing. It all feels like it’s moving really fast, but it is definitely helping build up their stamina for all the writing to come throughout the year. Rather than focus on quality, I’m really going hard on praising them for having pen to paper during the time I’m giving them to write. My hope is that quality will come over time with the many writing opportunities they’ll have across the school year.

After wrapping up our lesson on cause and effect, we moved into a new lesson that’s going to focus on sensory details. In the first activity, students practice summarizing a text. First, I asked for a volunteer to act out any actions they heard as I read a few paragraphs from “How to Eat a Guava.”

The rest of the class then identified the actions and recorded them.

Since our goal is a summary, we took all the actions and put them in order on a timeline.

I didn’t want to shortchange the next part, so we’ll do that tomorrow: Students will choose four actions we identified today and illustrate them to make a comic strip summary of the text we read. I look forward to seeing the finished results! I’m definitely happy for the opportunity to draw to add some variety to all the paragraph writing we’ve been doing.

Science

Today we finished a lesson we started last week where we continued investigating the question, “What is a system?” After observing a cherry pitter, making a simple electrical system, reading a book about different systems, and practicing identifying parts of a system, we were finally ready to tackle the guiding question. Here was my favorite response from a student: “A system is multiple parts working as one.”

I hated that I had to leave this lesson hanging for a few days before we got to do the wrap up today, but I’m glad I didn’t just skip it and move on. It was really important as the culmination of everything we did to develop an answer to our investigation question.

Now that we have a clearer understanding of what a system is, we’re beginning to explore electrical systems and specifically what electrical energy is used for. We’re going to use a digital simulation to help us explore our new investigation question.

I almost ran out of time before lunch though! The students were going to revolt if they didn’t get to try out the simulation I had just told them about. Good thing they were able to grab their computers quickly so they could explore for 5 minutes! Tomorrow we’ll spend more time exploring the simulation and talking about what they can do in it.

Math

Thankfully I’m feeling MUCH better today after my flu and COVID vaccines, and the quality of today’s math lesson was also markedly improved.

Instead of moving forward with the next lesson where we start comparing big numbers, I decided to give my students time to practice and consolidate some understandings today.

For example, when we talked about writing/saying a number in word form, I specifically called out the number of times you say the word “thousand.” (Once.)

Then I walked over to the place value chart and specifically called out the names of all the places and how the word “thousand” is written multiple times. (Thousands period, hundred thousands, ten thousands, thousands) I said I had a suspicion a lot of them were adding “thousand” after every other word because of what they were seeing on the place value chart. They agreed.

I went back over to the white board where I’d written “_____ thousand, _____” and said, “When we write or say a number in word form, we say the word ‘thousand’ one time. How many times do we say ‘thousand’?” And they replied, “One time.” I asked the question and they chorally repeated the answer a couple more times, and then we wrote a number in word form.

I got some peace of mind when I remembered that my class last year also struggled with all these place value skills they had to learn all at once. My strategy last year was to move on but to continue providing short practice opportunities, and they eventually got it.

Feeling like I got hit by a truck from my flu and COVID shots just really got me worked up yesterday. I’m glad I feel better today and have a clearer head about it.

Day 15

Amplify CKLA

Using the timeline of events we created yesterday from “How to Eat a Guava”, students chose four events and made a comic strip summarizing the story.

I loved these so much! The little attentions to detail were so delightful to see. There were thought bubbles, a tear, dashed lines showing what she was looking at, and a frown.

To top it off, I feel like I’m finally finding a good pace with Amplify CKLA. I’m getting about half a lesson done each day. I’ll take completing a lesson in 2 days instead of the 4 it was taking. At this rate, I’ll get through twice as much curriculum as I was going to get through!

Our next Amplify CKLA lesson is all about sensory details. For the first activity, students worked in pairs to read the first four paragraphs of “How to Eat a Guava” and gathered examples of sensory details for sight, touch, and taste.

I feel like the students are adjusting to Amplify CKLA. It demands a lot from them, and they’re rising to the occasion! (Don’t get me wrong. The work is still hard for a lot of them. Many of them have a lot of room for growth with regard to their writing, but in terms of participating and making an effort, they are rocking it!)

Science

We dove back into the digital simulation in science today to try and figure out which of the available devices has electrical energy as an input.

This was a challenging task. Halfway through, I could tell many of them were struggling because they had no idea what they were looking for. I loaded up the sim on my computer, and called them back together so we could study one example together. That helped focus them, and focus my feedback, for the rest of the time they explored.

Math

The past few nights, my students have been engaging in “sticky” practice at home to help make their math knowledge “stickier” in long-term memory. Today they took a “sticky” quiz in class to check their understanding of the skills they’ve been practicing.

We had just graded last night’s homework, so I left it on the board as a set of worked examples in case anyone needed help. Several students said, “I don’t know how to draw a picture for division.” I was able to say, “Here’s a great example that can help you.”

As we talked about today’s learning target in math, we revisited the meaning of “multi” and gave examples of multi-digit numbers.

It’s all these extra little things that I add that probably lead to me running short on time all the time, but they feel worth it.

My students were on fire when we moved into our warm up, the Same and Different routine.

I need to remember I want to color code similarities in one color and differences in another when I do this routine to help differentiate them for my students.

After making sense of this problem together, I asked students what they thought the answer was. Then they did a turn & talk with their partner before sharing out. They already know so much about how to use place value to compare numbers!

I like that the first session in any given lesson in iReady Mathematics Classroom only asks students to do just a few problems on the new topic. I was able to put some review questions from the place value lesson we just finished on the back of their practice page.

Day 16

Amplify CKLA

In today’s Amplify CKLA lesson, we started preparing to write a paragraph using sensory details. We warmed up by working together to generate sensory details about our classroom.

Then we launched into the first step of the writer’s process: brainstorming! Students were asked to brainstorm memories about food.

I find that these lessons assume my students are ready and raring to go with writing, and that’s… not the case. I don’t want to slow the lessons down too much, but I do want to scaffold more. So what I’ve been doing the same writing tasks as them to create models of each step of the process so they can see what finished work might look like before they get started. I feel like it’s lowered the anxiety a bit.

After brainstorming food memories, each student chose one food and wrote sensory details about it. They got excited when I told them we were going to play a game with their sensory details. When they were done, I used Milling to Music to get them up and moving. When they music stopped, they had to find a partner and read their sensory details. Their partner had to guess what food they were describing. They had so much fun!

When we were done, we debriefed:

Me: “What food did you guess?”

S: “I guessed it was broccoli.”

Me: “What sensory detail made you think he was writing about broccoli?”

S: “He said it looked like a tree.”

Me: “I love that!”

Math

As we checked our homework today, we used place value cards to verify the value of each digit as we rewrote a number from standard form into expanded form. Great opportunity to reinforce placeholder zeroes!

I got these cards to use this school year, but I’ve been so busy I failed to make use of them during the place value lesson where they would have been most beneficial! Thankfully place value is already showing up in our spiral review homework so they’re coming in handy now!

For today’s warm up, I asked, “Which one doesn’t belong?”

“D, because all the other numbers are 1,038, but that one isn’t. It’s 1,308.”

“I think D doesn’t belong either because the 3 is in the hundred place, but in the other numbers it’s in the tens place.”

We’re only on Day 16, and they’re getting so good at sharing their thinking with more and more sophistication. Can’t wait to see where they go from here!

Part of making sense of the math problem in today’s math lesson was wondering, “What questions could we ask about this situation?” I loved hearing all the different responses!

I was about to move on after a student shared, “Which one is less?” when, thankfully, a student tentatively raised his hand and said, “Couldn’t they also ask how many there are altogether?” Yes!

It’s important to know that we can often ask *multiple* questions about the *same* situation.

Today’s math problem was a great teaching opportunity about paying attention to what the question is asking. It could have asked for greater or fewer. It could have asked for a number, a comparison statement, or just words. We’re learning to pay close attention!

I didn’t emphasize this nearly enough last year.

I want my students to get immediate feedback when they’re practicing new skills. Today they checked their own work using an answer key after they finished page 1. That way they could identify any gaps in understanding before tackling page 2.

I sat at the back table with the answer keys to help answer questions as they tried grading their own work. It was a great opportunity to see how they were doing and to give personalized feedback in the moment.

Day 17

A Milestone!

Today we celebrated a HUGE milestone. Every day students earn points for following expectations and answering questions. This week I challenged them to reach 1,000 points by Friday, and they blew past our goal. I was so proud to celebrate their accomplishment!

I’m proud of myself, too! This is a new behavior management system for me. I worried I wouldn’t be able to remember to give out points while trying to teach at the same time. It’s taking practice, but I love that I have a quantitative measure showing just how much I’ve been praising my students. While I tend to give out between 70 and 100 points a day, I’ve only had to give out up to 5 strikes in a day.

Cursive

We’re nearing the end of learning the lowercase cursive letters. Today we learned the little loop group. I’m so proud of the time my students have put into practicing in class and at home. I can tell it’s paying off!

Once I get past the lower case letters, I feel like the hard part is done. The bulk of what we write are lower case letters. If all goes well, I’ll have taught them all by the end of next week!

Amplify CKLA

After reading just a portion of the text previously, today we read and discussed the entire essay “How to Eat a Guava.” Afterward, students worked in pairs to answer questions about the text.

This lesson was interesting because we’d read a paragraph, and then there were a few comprehension questions to ask. Rinse and repeat through most of the story. It wasn’t until after we moved on that I realized we never really talked about *why* she might have written this story. It’s a beautiful story, and I want my students to understand the “why” behind the story a little more.

Team Building Day

Today was Team Building Day at Iroquois! This is an annual tradition that happens early every school year. The purpose is to launch our CARE (Cooperation-Appreciation-Respect-Excellence) program in school and to have a lot of fun.

Yesterday I gave everyone a large index card. They had to write their name in the middle and then surround it with six names of students they’d like to be on a team with. I promised they would be on a team with at least *one* of the names on their card.

To find out their teams this morning, we did an activity called Barnyard Babble. Once students found out who was on their team, they had to make up a team name and team handshake.

Our first team building activity today was called Two Hands on a Pencil. Students worked in partners to draw a picture. The catch is that they couldn’t talk, and they *both* had to be holding the pencil while drawing.

This is one of my favorite activities! I love debriefing afterward. I love to hear their ideas about how they decided what to draw. Usually one partner takes on more of a leader role and the other willingly follows. Great opportunity to talk about compromise.

Our second team building activity today was the paper chain challenge. I was so impressed how close in length all of the finished paper chains were. Last year I had one team whose chain ended up being maybe a foot long? It was great to see that every team had so much success this year. They all did a great job!

Our final team building activity this afternoon was hand ping pong. Students worked in pairs to try to hit a ping pong ball on their desks as many times in a row as possible before it fell off or stopped moving. Such a fun Friday afternoon!

Silly and good fun.

40 Weeks in 4th Grade: Week 3

This week was dominated by a slew of computerized beginning-of-year diagnostics my students had to take, but we still managed to squeeze in some learning around the endless testing sessions.

Day 8

We made these name signs on Day 1, but I didn’t get a chance to hang them up right away. I call this activity “Me in Pictures.” Students had to write their name and include at least 5 pictures that represent them. (A couple of students weren’t comfortable with drawing so I let them use words instead.)

This complements the other getting to know you activity we did, “Me in Numbers.” Last year I did a third activity “Me in Words” where students wrote an acrostic poem about themselves, but I didn’t have time to do it (yet) this year.

Cursive

Today we practiced writing the counter-clock cursive letters on our mini white boards.

I’m also starting to send home cursive practice for homework. I got the idea from a colleague in Texas. She pointed out cursive is something that most families can and would help with. Caregivers may be able to provide more one-on-one support than I’m able to provide in a class full of students.

Science

Today was almost all about beginning of year assessments, but I did manage to squeeze in some science! The kids needed the mental break, not to mention they LOVED building a simple electrical system.

I love that my students are experiencing the concept of systems in a wide variety of ways. First they observed a mystery system (a cherry pitter) and described the parts and their functions. Then we read about a variety of systems in a book. We read about bikes as well as home plumbing, heating, and electrical systems. Now today they built simple electrical systems using hands-on materials. Afterward they made and labeled diagrams of their systems. I put their diagrams under the document camera so we could compare and learn from one another.

Day 9

Math

My students are continuing to practice rounding to the nearest hundred. This was last night’s homework.

I used it as an opportunity to reinforce the importance of the halfway point. One of the students said, “If it’s more, then you know to go up. If it’s less, then you know to go down.”

When we talked about rounding 150, a student said, “In 3rd grade we learned to round down when it was halfway.”

Thankfully a student had asked about exactly halfway the other day, so I said, “Tala, you asked a great question about exactly halfway. What did we find out people decided we would do every time it’s exactly halfway?”

Tala replied, “We round up.”

On a side note, my students worked on an aimsWeb diagnostic today on the computer that was a bunch of questions that looked like this:

0 50 200

They had to decide if the number in the middle (50) is closer to the number on the left (0), closer to the number on the right (200), or exactly halfway between the two.

As I sat down with students to ensure they understood the directions, I can’t tell you how many confidently told me 50 is exactly halfway between 0 and 200. I also had several students misunderstand the directions. They thought they were supposed to round the middle number to the number on the left or right.

Yikes! But also, really good data!

Building a Positive Classroom Environment

This year students earn points for following directions, answering questions, and generally doing what’s expected. I’ve created a board to keep track of how we’re doing across time and to acknowledge our top earners daily and weekly. They were on fire today!

I find points MUCH easier to remember and hand out than raffle tickets like I’ve done in the past. I have paper copies of my seating chart in front of me, and I write tallies under students’ names on the chart. Makes it so easy to manage! The class loves to hear our daily total, and it helps bring us together as a team as we try to outdo ourselves everyday. I also like that the number represents the number of times I’ve told students in my class they’re doing the right thing. They are definitely hearing waaaay more positive comments than negative comments from me.

Laptop Storage

So far, so good with the laptop management system I’m trying out! None of the wires have slipped out and onto the floor. The only problem I’ve had is that each rack is composed of two smaller racks joined together. They come apart easily so I need to look into zip tying them together to stop that from happening.

Please keep working.

Please keep working.

Please keep working.

Day 10

Morning Meeting

I’ve found it fascinating learning how the brain works, particularly with regard to learning, so I’m trying to pass that on to my students.

During morning meeting I’m teaching them about memory. Today, we revisited working memory (which I introduced a few days ago) and I introduced long-term memory. For working memory, I’m sharing that it’s our workspace (thinking space), but it’s small like the top of a desk. It’s easy to fill up and easy for things to fall off of it.

However, if we think about things, we can move them into long-term memory, which is advantageous because it’s more like a library with near-unlimited storage.

We have a few more bits to bring in to finish our simple model, but my hope is that we can refer to it throughout the year.

Cursive

Today we started learning some of the kite-string cursive letters. We also started talking about connecting letters. Connecting a “j” to an “i” is pretty straight-forward, but connecting an “i” to a “g” requires some explanation and practice.

Teaching a fine-motor skill like cursive handwriting simultaneously to a room full of students feels less than ideal. There are so many ways they can practice incorrectly, and I don’t have enough sets of eyes to watch them closely enough to catch it, much less give feedback.

This isn’t to say I’m not *trying* to monitor and give feedback. Just that whole-group doesn’t seem like an ideal way of teaching this particular skill.

Science

My students have been working so hard on all of their beginning of the year assessments, but we really needed a break today. For the last 45 minutes, we continued the science lesson we started the other day about exploring systems.

Burnout

There are so many assessments! (iReady Reading, iReady Math, aimsWeb+ screeners for reading and math, and a spelling screener) Our testing window runs the first 12 days of school, but I didn’t have all my students laptops at school and organized in my room until Day 7, so I couldn’t start the assessments until this week. Unfortunately, I thought the testing window ended on Day 17, not Day 12. What I was going to stretch across 10 school days is now getting crammed into the 5 days of this week. The week where 5 students were out sick on Monday and 2 were still out yesterday. <insert sad trombone sound>

Even after 3 days, I still have a bunch of kids who aren’t done with some of the aimsWeb+ screeners, but we are taking a full on break from computer-based testing tomorrow. It felt like torture today.

Here’s hoping the data proves useful at least!

Day 11

Morning Meeting

Today we finished the anchor chart I made about our brains and memory, based on a model from Daniel Willingham’s book “Why Don’t Students Like School?” I hope to refer to it throughout the year to help provide the why behind things we do in class.

For example, today we specifically talked about long-term memory and how we can still forget things, but if we practice them, the memories become “stickier” and harder to forget.

Cursive

Cursive practice continues. We used our mini white boards to practice the first batch of kite-string letters, and then I introduced the second bath of kite-string letters.

I love using the mini white boards for cursive practice because the students tend to write larger, which makes it easier to scan and see any issues that need addressing. The tradeoff is that there are no lines to help guide students around letter size, but all in all it worked well today.

Amplify CKLA

Amplify CKLA felt like trudging through molasses last week. After posting on a Facebook group, I got the same advice over and over that I should use timers, so I tried it today! For the first activity, things went well. Students met in small groups to share “good friend” stories. After each story, they thought about a trait that describes the friend and evidence from the story to back it up.

The second activity felt super rushed. In 20 minutes, I had to introduce a writing activity (writing a paragraph about the most important trait of a good friend) and then give the students enough time to actually write the paragraph. The strange thing is that there’s no real built-in discussion of the paragraph. You’re supposed to call on a few students to share a bit about their writing, but then the lesson is over. Which was fine because I ran out of time anyway.

The third activity was a joke. It was supposed to take 35 minutes, and in that time I got through the first 10 minutes of the lesson plan. It doesn’t help that I spent a good 10 minutes just introducing the vocabulary words from the lesson, which isn’t technically part of the lesson plan. There’s a sentence *before* the lesson plan that *suggests* you can introduce the vocabulary words if you want to.

Pacing in year 1 with this curriculum is rough!

Math

Today we kicked off our first math unit: Place Value, Comparison, Addition, and Subtraction. We started by reviewing a knowledge organizer of important concepts and vocabulary students (should have) learned in 3rd grade. I loved seeing them referencing the vocabulary words during our lesson!

I learned about knowledge organizers this summer as a tool to encapsulate all the prerequisite learning students should have prior to a unit. The goal is that students can use it to refresh their memories. But also if they never learned something in the first place, this provides them a resource right in their hands.

At the start of today’s math lesson, students participated in the Same and Different routine for the first time. They made great observations!

“The first digit is always 3.”

“The number of 0s is different.”

“They all have 3 of something, but not the same thing.”

We’re only on Day 11, but I’m loving that the students are already starting to warm up to sharing their math thinking.

To engage students in learning about BIG numbers, we analyzed this tweet from Mr. Beast. Even though they couldn’t read many of the numbers yet, they could tell they were getting bigger because the numbers were getting longer; they have more and more digits. (I told them this will not always necessarily be true, but it works with their current understanding of numbers.)

I couldn’t have asked for a more timely tweet to use in my place value math lesson. Even though it’s essentially just a list of numbers, it’s a list of numbers related to Mr. Beast, and that’s all that mattered! 😂

Other moments from today’s math lesson:

• Observing and comparing physical models of 1 one, 1 ten, 1 hundred, 1 thousand, and 1 ten thousand

• Articulating base ten relationships

• Reading and writing big numbers in standard, word, and expanded form

Whew! This first place value lesson in iReady Mathematics Classroom sure packed in a lot! I’m so glad that this was just day 1 of 3 on place value. My students need a lot more practice with all the moving parts here.

Day 12

Cursive

This morning we focused on how to connect cursive letters before students practiced on their own. Some letters connect together naturally like “c” and “i” while others require a little extra like “a” and “c” or “i” and “d”.

Now that I’ve seen them practicing for a few days, I’m going to try pulling them in small groups next week to give them some targeted support. Now I’ll be able to slow down the group that is having a hard time with letter formation and press forward with students who are ready to move on.

Building Reading Fluency

For the past four days, students have been practicing building their reading fluency with a poem called “The Arrow and the Song”. Today when I asked for volunteers to show off their fluent reading in front of the class, so many hands shot up! So proud of them!

It was also a learning experience for me. Last week I launched this homework with a fable that was nearly 4 times as long as the poem. It was definitely the right decision to switch to a poem at this point in the school year. We’re going to build up to longer reading selections.

After students showed off their fluent reading, they answered a few questions about the poem. Today I shared success criteria to help students know what quality work looks like when they respond to questions about their reading. I loved walking around seeing students taking that little bit of extra care as they worked.

I’ll be honest I’m new to success criteria. We talked about it in faculty meeting last year, and I’m finally ready to give it a go. 😂

Math

We warmed up before today’s math lesson answering the question, “Which one doesn’t belong?” This isn’t the way I would have personally designed this task. I would have preferred four options where you can justify why any one of them doesn’t belong with the other three. I didn’t have time to make a new task though, so I went with the one that came in our curriculum materials. I’m happy it still sparked some good conversation before we dove into our lesson.

We launched today’s math lesson using our mini white boards to practice writing multi-digit numbers in standard form.

I love using mini white boards to formatively assess my entire class all at once. Why ask one student to answer a question when you can get an answer from every single student at the same time?

I’m especially happy that I was able to purchase pouches so each student can keep their white board, marker, and eraser all in their desk. Last year was messy and time consuming getting materials handed out.

I also played around with varying the numbers slightly, too. I challenged my students to change as little as possible on their boards to make the new number.

Later in the lesson, I made a point of emphasizing placeholder zeros as we practiced writing multi-digit numbers in expanded form. It’s important to recognize what a critical role those zeros play in making sure we are reading and writing numbers correctly.

As an aside, our first place value lesson yesterday was so overwhelming. It was throwing new terms and ideas at the students left and right. I was worried today’s lesson was going to be just as cognitively overwhelming, so I decided to chunk it instead. First we practiced writing numbers in standard form, then in reading numbers in word form, then determining the value of specific digits, and finally writing numbers in expanded form. It went really well!

I did find one thing really interesting (and admittedly a little frustrating). When I taught them to read numbers that include something in the thousands period, I told them to just read it as a 1-, 2-, or 3-digit number just like they’ve been doing since 2nd and 3rd grade. The only difference is that you add the word thousand at the end. We practiced it a bunch, and yet without fail I’d call on a student and they’d say something like “Eight hundred thousand forty-two thousand, seven hundred fifty-nine.” I think they’re noticing that the place value names use the word thousand a lot:

• Hundred thousand
• Ten thousand
• Thousands

So they feel like they have to say the word thousand a lot when they’re reading the number. I think I’m going to put up a scaffold to support them next week that looks like this:

__________ thousand, __________

We’ll talk about how you should only hear yourself saying or you should only find yourself writing the word thousand one time only, right before the comma.

We’ll get there!

40 Weeks in 4th Grade: Weeks 1 and 2

Last year I got in the habit of tweeting out about my classroom at least once each day. This year, I’m going to take a stab at blogging about my classroom at least once each week. Here goes with Weeks 1 and 2 (which was our first 7 days of school):

Day 1

The 2023-24 school year is officially underway! I had a great first day with my 4th graders. They got to meet new friends and play games. A big focus of the day was beginning to establish a safe, productive, and calm learning environment.

Day 2

We continued to learn and practice routines and procedures to set us up for success to have a safe and productive year of learning.

We also spent time sharing about ourselves. Each student made a “bumper sticker” with their name on it and at least 5 pictures that represent them. Afterward, we did a routine called Milling to Music so students could share their bumper stickers with one another. The first song that popped in my head was Daft Punk’s “Technologic.” My students were perplexed as it played. 😂

Day 3

Reading Fluency Homework

Since our school day is so short, I’m sending home a little homework this year because we just can’t do it all within the confines of the school day.

One of the assignments students will get each week is a short reading selection that they’ll practice reading and rereading 1-2 times each day throughout the week. At the end of the week, volunteers will read the selection out loud to show off their fluent reading.

To help prepare the students, we watched a short video and discussed the question, “What is reading fluency?” We settled on the definition that it’s “reading quickly, clearly, and easily.” We talked about how being able to read fluently frees up our brainpower to focus on the meaning of the words and sentences.

Amplify CKLA

My school district is implementing a new literacy program this year called Amplify CKLA. I’m excited to give it a go, but it’s already proving to be a LOT for my students. The first lesson was *supposed* to take 90 minutes, and I got through the first 35 minutes of the lesson plan on this day.

While it went slowly, the lesson actually went well. The unit is all about personal narratives. In this lesson we brainstormed school memories that were exciting, scary, surprising, or funny. Then we talked about the parts of a paragraph. Before asking students to write their own paragraphs, we wrote one together about something we all experienced together – the first day of school. Finally, students tried their hand at writing their own paragraph telling about their school memory.

Me in Numbers

My class is continuing to get to know one another. Today we did an activity called “Me in Numbers.” First I shared numbers that are important in my life (number of pets, number of people in my family, etc.) Then I asked students to come up with four numbers that are important in their lives. Afterward, we did the Milling to Music activity again so they could share their important numbers with their classmates.

(As an aside, when we got to the slide that shows the three people in my family – me, my husband, and my daughter – one of my students perked up and said, “Wait… You have a husband?” I said, “Yes, I do.” He replied, “But he’s a boy!” I definitely rocked his world a bit. 😂)

Day 4

Arrival Routine

Getting my students to do our full morning routine was surprisingly difficult last year, particularly getting them to record their lunch choice on the sheet that was on my back table EVERY SINGLE MORNING OF THE YEAR!

I get it. There’s a lot they have to do in the morning, but I know if they practice it correctly it will eventually become a habit. One way I’m trying to support them this year, particularly since I have students learning English as a new language, is by changing the directions from text to pictures. I feel like it increases the likelihood that they’ll actually look at the board as they’re getting ready in the morning. A big benefit is that instead of having to say anything I can just look at a child and point at one of the pictures as I give them a very intent stare. 😂

Amplify CKLA

So today I attempted to finish lesson 1 of our unit on Personal Narratives, and I failed again.

We spent the entire time on an activity all about defining what a personal narrative is. It started by having the students share what they think of when they hear the words “personal” and “narrative” separately. Then we analyzed a formal definition of “personal narrative” that was WAAAAY over many of their heads.

We broke it down. First we talked about the meanings of the words “fiction” and “nonfiction.” Then we talked about the prefix “non” and analyzed other words with that prefix. Next we defined the term “first person” and looked back at our last two read alouds. One was written in first person and the other was written in third person (totally on accident, but I’ll take it!). Then we talked about how the author had to have been there when the story happened. We finally put this all together, but then we broke it apart into three criteria that help us know if a text is a personal narrative.

To check their understanding, we used the three criteria to determine if three types of text were personal narratives.

Whew! And according to the lesson plan, all this should have taken (checks notes) 15 minutes. 😂

Math

Finally! Some math!

Our new math curriculum, iReady Mathematics Classroom, opens with a lesson that reviews rounding to the nearest hundred. It’s not what I would have picked for a first lesson, but I went with it!

At the start of the lesson, I did a prerequisite check to make sure they had the skills necessary to be successful with rounding. They aced the first three skills, but the fourth one – identifying between which two hundreds a number is located – stumped them. I had slides ready to go, so we jumped into practicing that skill before getting back to rounding.

I used this lesson to introduce my students to studying worked examples. They studied my solution to rounding 236 to the nearest hundred. Then they talked about it with their partner and together as a class. Finally, we worked on a model explanation together.

Afterward, we worked through a few more examples together that I intentionally designed using what I’ve learned about Variation Theory:
* Round 236
* Round 436
* Round 486
I made the mistake of not drawing their attention to looking for similarities/differences between the problems (getting the year up and running is cognitively demanding for me, too!), but I thankfully remembered to make a point of it the next day.

Day 5

The Bane of My Existence

One of the banes of my existence last school year was cable management. I have to store all of the students’ laptops in my classroom along with their chargers. Sadly, the counter that runs the length of one side of my room has 0 outlets anywhere nearby, so all of my laptops were on the ground last year and the charging cables were often a tangled mess.

This year I gave up a table and made it my laptop table. Now they’re off the floor! I also bought new storage racks that are raised slightly off the ground. All of the charging cables are threaded under the racks so that students only ever pull on the end that plugs into their laptops. I added binder clips to the cable so that it can’t accidentally slip under the rack and onto the floor.

Fingers crossed this system works!

Classroom Expectations

Last year was my first year in the classroom after 13 years of designing math curriculum and working at the district level. While I learned a TON about *teaching* in those 13 years, I was sorely out of practice with the “crowd control” aspects of managing a classroom. It was a rough year.

Fast forward to this year, and I’ve got a lot of procedures and routines already planned out. I’m teaching them to my students and giving them opportunities to practice.

Today, for example, they did some retrieval practice around our classroom expectations. Students had a chance to fill in the blanks on their own using a word bank. Then we went over the answers together.

All in all this year is off to a smooth start. (Knock on ALL the wood.)

Amplify CKLA

Today I FINALLY finished lesson 1 of our Personal Narratives unit. This lesson was supposed to take 1 day and it took me 3. D’oh!

Today students worked in pairs to practice inferring as they read a six-word memory. Afterward, we shared out our inferences and I reinforced the idea that as readers we are constantly making inferences to fill gaps the writer has left us.

The original directions for this activity were for the students to read a bunch of six-word memories on their own. I think it worked out much better to put them on strips and give each pair one memory to discuss. In our group discussion, everyone ended up hearing all the memories.

After reading these six-word memories, my students were challenged to write their own! First, we wrote one together using our class memory paragraph. Then students tried writing one on their own. Finally, volunteers shared their finished memories.

My favorite: Paper dropped. Teacher leaned. Ripped pants.

So proud of their hard work!

Math

We wrapped up today with a new game where students got to practice doubling single-digit numbers. Simple, but fun!

Last year I brought in doubling as a strategy to help with multiplication facts, and it was meh. This year we’re just practicing doubling because it’s fun, and *eventually* we’ll make some explicit connections to multiplication.

I should clarify it was “meh” because my students didn’t arrive in 4th grade looking for new multiplication strategies. Many of them learned to skip count in 3rd, and they’d gotten quick at it, so that was their ingrained, go-to strategy. It was difficult/impossible to change that.

Day 6

Our First Substitute

Today I had to attend a half day training in the afternoon, so I had to have a sub.

It’s a bit early in the year for being out of the classroom, so I took time during our morning meeting to have students talk about what a guest is and brainstorm how we should treat guests. Then I let them know we would be having a guest teacher in our room today.

They wanted to say “substitute” but I told them that calling her a guest teacher is a great way of reminding us how we should treat her when she’s here. I’m not sure whether it made a difference, but I’m glad I tried it out.

Cursive

I started teaching cursive for the first time in many, many years. It’s part of our new literacy curriculum, Amplify CKLA. I’m making an effort to teach it now so I don’t find myself skipping it by accident. It doesn’t help that it’s not part of the core lesson sequence. They put the materials in Unit 1 and say, “Here you go! Figure out when you’re going to do it.” Thankfully many of the students are motivated to learn cursive (at least at the outset).

Math

Today my students analyzed a worked example where I added together two 3-digit numbers using the partial sums strategy (something our new curriculum thought should be review for them).

I blew their minds!

I get the sense that they only know how to do the standard US algorithm. So when I started writing the partial sums, one under the other, they were befuddled! They couldn’t fathom why I had just written three numbers below the problem.

I focused our conversation on the points where I added placeholder zeroes. (I didn’t call them that yet.) When I added 3 + 8, I wrote 11, and then I paused. I looked thoughtful, and then I wrote the 0 in the ones place. I did the same after adding 1 + 2. I paused and then wrote 0s in the tens and ones places. They had no idea why I did that! We really needed to talk it through.

It was an enlightening day. I don’t think they’ve ever had to think and talk about place value like this before. I can’t wait to see how much better they are by the end of our first unit which is all about place value!

Day 7

Cursive

After yesterday’s introductory lesson, we dove into learning how to write our first batch of cursive letters. I was feeling a bit of a time crunch, so I don’t think I did my best job introducing how to write them. On Monday I think we’ll revisit this same batch of letters instead of moving on to a new batch.

Amplify CKLA

I’m moving at a glacial pace through our new literacy curriculum, Amplify CKLA, but at least I’m moving in the right direction!

Today we revisited the story “The Good Lie” and I asked them for words that describe the character Lily. They were quick to generate some very apt words. Then we talked about how all of these words are character traits that describe Lily (as opposed to physical traits).

I asked the students how they knew to say these words. “Was there a list somewhere in the story that I missed?”

“No, I just saw how she acted in the story, and I knew she was kind.”

This led us to talking about how authors can choose to *show* us or *tell* us how a character is. Students worked in pairs to choose one of the traits they’d come up with, and then they went hunting in the text for evidence proving the trait applies to Lily. For 7 days into the school year, they did a great job!

(In case you’re wondering this is the second of four activities that make up Lesson 2 of our first unit. At this rate, this one lesson is going to take me four days, and it’s only “supposed” to take one.)

Teaching Math With Examples – Year 1

After 13 years away, one of the reasons I was so eager to have my own classroom again is because I wanted to try out ALL THE THINGS I learned about while I wasn’t a classroom teacher. Just as eyes can be bigger than stomachs, my ambitions are often bigger than the hours I have in a day.

Returning to my own classroom turned out to be hectic to say the least. Surprising to no one, I have not gotten to try out all the things, at least not yet, but I did make it a point to try out at least one of the things I’d learned about: teaching math with worked examples.

After reading Michael Pershan’s book Teaching Math With Examples, I knew I wanted to give this pedagogical practice a try. It was a little scary taking it on by myself, but I dove in head first, and I’m proud of myself for keeping at it across the school year.

If you’re unfamiliar with worked examples, here’s a quick definition from Michael’s book:

“Worked examples are completed solutions that we ask students to study and learn from.”

That makes it sound pretty simple, but it’s not enough to put worked examples in front of students and assume they’ll learn anything useful. Students need to engage deeply with them as well:

“Asking students to analyze a solution, explain important details, and apply the solution to a new problem can help students learn from examples.”

How this is all put into practice can vary widely. My goal with this post is to share a variety of instances where I taught with worked examples across this past school year. Throughout the post, you’ll see shifts in how I plan and implement them. It was definitely a lot of learning as I went. I’m by no means an expert after one year, but I do feel confident now as I prepare to teach with examples in the upcoming school year.

Day 20: My First Try

For my first attempt, I used a pre-made worked example from the Math Expressions curriculum and attempted to facilitate it in the research-informed ways that Michael shares about in his book.

You’ll notice this first attempt includes a mix of things. There are two strips I cut out from a Math Expressions worksheet and two index cards I made myself. As each part was needed, I put it under a document camera that projected onto a white board at the front of the room.

I started with the index card at the top that shows 5,879 + 6,754. I said something like:

“Today we’re going to try something new. I’m going to show you a solution to this problem, and you’re going to think deeply about the solution. Carefully analyze each step and think about what this person was doing and why. Think about what makes sense to you. Even more important, think about the parts that don’t make sense to you. We’re going to think silently so everyone can focus on making sense of the solution.”

Once the students were ready, I placed the worked example (the strip of paper that says Step 1, Step 2, etc.) under the document camera and then closed my mouth. After students had a minute or two to silently analyze the worked example, I got their attention and said:

“Ok, now what I want you to do is take turns with a partner explaining what’s happening at each step. If you’re not sure, let your partner know and see if you can figure it out together.”

As students explained the steps to one another, I circulated and listened in on their conversations. When it appeared some partnerships were close to wrapping up their conversations, I added the second index card and said:

“When you and your partner finish discussing the steps to this solution, go ahead and answer these follow up questions together.”

The purpose of these questions is to focus students’ attention on key aspects of the solution. In this case, I wanted them to be thinking deeply about how this solution used and recorded regrouping.

When pairs were done talking, we came back together as a class. I called on volunteers to walk us through the steps of the solution. I used this as an opportunity to clarify any questions students had. Finally, I gave students a chance to practice with a few problems of their own which are on the bottom strip of paper I cut from the worksheet.

For my first attempt, this went pretty well, all things considered. The students silently studied the worked example, and they were willing to share their thoughts with their partners. I quickly found, however, that I wasn’t a fan of using the document camera for presenting these pieces. It was too fiddly, especially because I had to keep zooming in and out to make sure they could see the steps of the solution clearly and then also be able to see the follow up questions I wanted them to discuss. I also didn’t like the static nature of the worked example, particularly for a first introduction to a skill.

Day 25: Bringing Examples to Life

A few days later, I decided to try creating my worked examples in Powerpoint. I specifically wanted to make use of animations to show the actions within and across steps. It was time consuming to create, but I felt happier with the potential for this method of presenting a worked example.

One benefit of Powerpoint was that I could easily “rewind” the example. I had my students watch the steps of this example once. When we got to steps that I knew might be confusing, I paused a little longer before clicking to reveal the next animation.

After some think time, I reloaded the slide and clicked through the animations again so my students could analyze it a second time. Since I know regrouping is a tricky part of the standard US subtraction algorithm, I repeated the directions of making sure they were not only focusing on what does make sense but also on what doesn’t make sense.

When the students were finished discussing the steps in pairs, we came back together as a class to talk through the steps together. I rewound the slide a third time. At this point I was able to pause at key moments and clarify what was happening before continuing to step through the animations.

As I said, creating this animated example was time consuming, but it felt a lot more powerful than the static example I used for my first attempt. However, you’ll see later on that I gave up animating examples altogether because I just couldn’t make the time.

In addition to using Powerpoint to animate, I also started creating practice assignments that utilized a form of worked examples called faded examples. In faded examples, students are given a set of worked out problems, but with some steps missing that the students must complete. As the students work through the problems, they are responsible for remembering and completing more and more of the steps on their own.

If you look at the problem at the top of this page, the regrouping is already done for the students, so all they have to do is subtract in each column. In the middle problem, I already crossed out two digits to show that regrouping needed to occur, but students had to notate the regrouping themselves. In the third problem, students had to recognize where to regroup and then do the regrouping on their own.

Day 29: Getting Comfortable

Days like this encouraged me because I could tell that my students were getting comfortable talking about the math they were analyzing.

After analyzing Step 2, I asked, “What do you think this person did next?”

A student replied, “I think the person regrouped 1 hundred as 10 tens.”

“Why would they need to do that?”

“Because there are only 2 tens and you’re trying to take away 4 tens.”

Day 48: Moving on to Multiplication

After using worked examples with multi-digit subtraction, I continued on into multiplication. After a few days of studying examples with correct solutions, I surprised my students by asking them to analyze a worked example that included a mistake. It’s something you don’t want to overuse, but it changes things up and gets the students noticing in a different way.

Before presenting the solution I put the mistake symbol at the top of the screen so it was clear this solution would not be correct. I said, “In today’s solution there is a mistake. I want you to see if you can figure out when it happens. Don’t say anything though! Just hold it in your head and be ready to share it with your partner.”

As soon as 18 appeared as the product of 3 x 6,000, the students started vibrating trying to hold in their noticing of the mistake. By the time I got done presenting the steps, they were ready to explode! When I told them to start sharing with their partner, they were so excited to explain what the mistake was!

Throughout my time using worked examples, I continued to play around with faded examples, too. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t keeping the scaffolding for too long. Students needed to be able to get to a point where they were setting up problems completely on their own. On this two-sided worksheet, that happens in the final two problems.

Day 54: Partial Product Puzzles

I got an idea from Michael Pershan and Kristin Gray to have students create their own faded examples. We called them Partial Product Puzzles. They turned out to be a great way for students to get extra practice with multi-digit multiplication. The clear sleeves and dry erase markers meant the puzzles could be reused again and again!

Day 75: Multi-Digit Division

In case you haven’t noticed by now, I found worked examples lend themselves really well to teaching computation. At this point, our class had been learning how to use multiplication to divide multi-digit dividends by a single-digit divisor. Here students worked in pairs to solve some faded examples. It was wonderful to see their confidence and skills growing. I created answer keys for each assignment so students could immediately grade their own work. It was important to me that they get instant feedback. They could either try to figure out the mistake on their own or ask for help from me or a classmate.

Day 78: Responsive Teaching

Using worked examples is a great way to observe students working in the moment. After studying a worked example, I normally only gave a few problems for them to try on their own. As they were working, I was able to circulate and check in to see who was getting it and who was not.

While we were studying division of multi-digit numbers, I noticed many students forgetting to regroup while subtracting. This made sense considering a great deal of their attention was focused on using multiplication to get as close as possible to the dividend. I created this worked example that included a mistake involving a lack of regrouping.

My students quickly identified the mistake. I even heard one student exclaim, “I know what it is! I’ve done this so many times!” After discussing the mistake, we worked together to solve it correctly on the right side of the board.

You’ll notice that at this point in the year I’m not using the computer anymore. I started working out the problems live on the white board. This was much less time intensive for me to create, particularly for division problems, and I could still “rewind” pretty easily by erasing and re-writing steps.

A key aspect of presenting my worked examples to students was using a technique I learned from Craig Barton called Silent Teacher, where I am completely silent while working out the problem. The purpose behind this is to avoid interfering with my students’ attention as they observe the solution. If they’re trying to interpret what they’re seeing, thinking to themselves what does and doesn’t make sense, AND trying to listen to me all at the same time, it’s overwhelming!

Since I wasn’t talking, I did rely more on gestures to help draw students’ attention while I worked out the problem. I might tap my head to show I was thinking of something, or I might point at specific numbers before showing a calculation.

Day 79: Absence

I sat with a student who had been out for a few days and she did a beautiful job explaining the steps to this problem and why each one was made.

Because the way we studied worked examples was very consistent, the students knew what was expected of them when we talked about a worked example, whether it was whole class or one-on-one, as in this case. They learned to pay attention to steps, make sense of them, and talk through what they thought was happening and why. I held them accountable for more than just knowing how to do a procedure.

Day 81: Heavy Lifting

While we studied this worked example, I asked, “Why did I use 2 x 4,000?”

A student replied, “Because 8,000 is close. If you had used 2 x 5,000, it would have gone over.”

Later I asked, “Why is there a remainder?”

“Because there’s 1 left and you can’t make a group of 2 out of it.”

While it may appear that I’m just directly teaching procedures, examples like this show just how much I’m putting on the students to analyze and explain what’s going on. They do the heavy lifting. My role is to clarify and reinforce.

Day 83: Small Groups

After analyzing exit tickets to identify common errors students were making recently, I pulled small groups to address them. In each group, we studied a worked example that included the exact mistake those students were making.

In this first worked example, the mistake was saying the quotient had a remainder of 5. Students realized there was enough left over to make 1 more group of 4.

In this second worked example, the mistake was saying 4 x 200 is 8,000. Students realized it needed to be 4 x 2,000 since we were aiming for the thousands.

After identifying and discussing the mistake, the students practiced a few problems independently on mini white boards.

Day 128: Fractions!

After we finished studying multi-digit division, we moved into topics where I felt less comfortable teaching with worked examples. I took a bit of a break from using them until we got into fraction computation.

In this example, students learned how to decompose a fraction equal to 1 into two smaller parts.

After studying and discussing the worked example, students tried it on their own.

When we reflected on the learning target at the end of the lesson, they were on fire rattling off a multitude of ways to decompose the fraction 10/10!

Day 151: Adapting a New Curriculum

This spring I piloted a new curriculum, iReady Mathematics Classroom. Every lesson opens with a problem that students are expected to solve on their own. The idea is nice, but there is not enough time allocated within a lesson to give students sufficient time to make sense of the problem, solve it, talk with a partner, AND have a robust conversation around multiple, carefully-sequenced strategies.

Instead, I found that it was pretty easy to turn these problems into worked examples, and that happened to fit within the time constraints of the lesson much better. In this particular lesson, I was able to share two worked examples of adding fractions with denominators of 10 and 100.

Next Steps

As I prepare for a new school year, worked examples are going to be front and center in my math instruction. I found the consistent structure saved me a lot of planning time. It also helped my students know exactly what was expected of them every time we studied an example. The challenge this year will be branching out and trying them in lessons that don’t involve computation. I doubt worked examples will work for everything I have to teach in math, but I would like to push the boundaries a bit.

I also want to work on progressions across days. I don’t have unlimited time to teach every concept, so I need to think through how to plan my worked examples more carefully along a progression over the number of days I have to teach that concept. I also need to plan how I’m going to remove scaffolds so students get to a point where they can work independently.

I need to plan more carefully how my worked examples fit into the gradual release model. I think my efforts last year put too much on my students too quickly. My idea for next year, after listening to some more experienced educators in podcasts, is to organize my teaching like this:

• “I do” – I model a carefully chosen worked example. Despite the name, students are still very much actively engaged in analyzing and making sense of the example.
• “We do” – We do 1-2 worked examples together that only slightly vary from the first example. I’ll probably use mini white boards here so students can all be trying out the steps as we work through the solution together. This will allow me to formatively assess as they hold up their white boards. I didn’t do this step last year. We studied one example together, and then I immediately expected students to start practicing on their own. This led to confusion, and I think it also led to me needing additional instructional days beyond what I’d planned to get students to a place where they were comfortable working independently.
• “You do” – Students will have a chance to solve a few problems completely on their own, but we’ll still be together as a group so I can check for understanding as they go, probably with mini white boards again.
• Practice – Students will continue in pairs or independently to solve even more problems to practice what they’ve learned. I’ll use what I learned from checking for understanding to determine who might need to meet with me in a small group or who I might need to check in with while they practice. While I had the “you do” step last year, I didn’t follow it up with a separate practice phase. I misunderstood and thought the “you do” was practice. It technically is, but it’s not nearly enough.

And then there’s giving students opportunities to problem solve and apply these skills in a variety of contexts. While I might be teaching my students how to use the standard US subtraction algorithm, I also want them to understand when and how to use subtraction to solve a variety of problems.

Worked examples are a way to ensure every student has a toolbox of strategies they can draw upon when solving a problem, but building the toolbox is not sufficient. Students also need many opportunities to try out the tools to see how they can be used and to see when they aren’t particularly useful.

When you always feel pressed for time, it is a challenge balancing these two important goals of instruction: teaching foundational skills while also giving students time to apply them in a wide variety of problems. I doubt I’ll have the answers by the end of next school year, but I’m going to keep at it. I look forward to sharing what I’ve learned after year 2 of teaching math with worked examples. If you’d like to follow my efforts in real time, I recommend following me on Twitter @MrBushart where I’ll share out daily photos and reflections from my classroom once the new school year begins.

A Hungry Mind

I love podcasts.

Recently I listened to episode #2 of the Education Research Reading Room (ERRR). During the episode, their guest Stephen Dinham was asked,

“What is your information diet? What are some key sources of information you suggest we tap into?”

As soon as I heard it, I was struck by that phrase: information diet. Even as it continued to resonate in my mind, I was struck again soon after by this comment from one of the educators who was part of the podcast:

“The more you know, the more you see…As your expertise builds, you’ll see more and you’ll learn more… It’s kind of like a leap of faith or a journey into the unknown; you just get started. You really don’t know where you’re going, and you don’t know where you’re going to end up. But everything you encounter along the way will add value and will help you see and understand better. There is no formula for it. It’s what Scott Barry Kaufman calls “a hungry mind.” The best thing you can have is a hungry mind.”

Another provocative phrase: a hungry mind!

Both of these phrases strongly resonate with me, particularly with regard to how ravenously I consume information about teaching and learning. I feel like I can’t get enough. There’s just so much to learn!

This led me to want to write this post for two reasons. The first is that the pedagogical moves I tried out last school year (my first year of teaching in 13 years) and what I’m planning to try out this year (things like worked examples and spaced practice) are specifically influenced by what I’ve been learning about over the past couple of years.

And secondly, I don’t want to keep it all to myself! I love sharing what I’m learning about, particularly if it might help or inspire someone else. At my old job, I used to share interesting articles, blog posts, videos, etc. that I came across on Twitter. I haven’t shared like that in a while – several years in fact! – so I thought, why not recap what I’m reading and listening to these days? If your mind is as ravenous as mine, there will be plenty to sink your teeth into. However, if your appetite is a little more measured, don’t feel like you need to read or listen to it all. Choose one thing that really piques your curiosity and dive in! To help you out, I’ve made some suggestions of particular podcast episodes to check out to save you some time.

Before talking about what I’m learning “these days,” I need to back up a bit because one book in particular set me on a path that heavily influenced my learning for the past few years.

Back in 2020 or 2021, somebody on Twitter (I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Michael Pershan) mentioned/recommended Craig Barton’s book How I Wish I’d Taught Maths: Lessons Learned from Research, Conversations with Experts, and 12 Years of Mistakes.

It happened to be on sale, so I picked it up, and I’m so glad I did! It was a fascinating read, particularly as it introduced me to numerous cognitive science findings that I hadn’t learned before, such as the crucial role of attention in learning and the limits of working memory, to name a few. While I was lightly introduced to cognitive learning theory during my Master’s degree program in 2004-2006, the bulk of my coursework explored constructivist territory. The context of the book may be mathematics (secondary mathematics at that), but the research the book shares and the implications for instruction span subject areas.

Wanting to learn more, I sought out Craig Barton’s podcast, The Mr. Barton Maths Podcast. Little did I know what I was getting into there. His podcast episodes are epic! Episodes easily last over an hour and can even go as long as 2-3 hours! It sounds wild, but what I love is that he and his guests really dive into the nuts and bolts of the topics they’re talking about. Craig is taking notes, making sense of what he’s hearing in real time, asking questions, and even pushing back as he’s talking to his guests.

If you’re interested in trying out his podcast, here are a few episodes that particularly fascinated me when I first started listening. I’m linking to them below, in case you want to listen to them through a web browser. You can just as easily find these episodes in your favorite podcast app.

• Episode #087 Tom Sherrington: Rosenshine’s Principles in Action (the web page player unfortunately is linked to play Episode #086, so you’ll want to seek this episode out in a podcast app)
• Episode #134 Ollie Lovell: Cognitive Load Theory in Action
• Episode #138 Michael Pershan: Teaching with worked examples: part 1
• Episode #139 Michael Pershan: Teaching with worked examples: part 2

If you’re intimidated by long podcast episodes, you’re not alone. I was, too. My secret is that I don’t listen to them all at once. In fact, I rarely listen for more than 20-30 minutes at a time. Podcasts, for me, are a fantastic way of enriching mundane tasks like doing dishes, driving to work, or getting ready in the morning. When I know I’m queuing up a good episode, it gets me excited to do even the most boring of chores. Sure, it means one episode often spans multiple listening sessions, but as the saying goes, “Slow and steady wins the race.”

In 2022, Craig Barton launched a second podcast, Tips for Teachers. I really like the format of this one! Not only are the episodes shorter – less than an hour usually – but they also maintain a regular structure. For each episode, Craig invites an educator to share their top five tips for teachers. To make the podcast as user friendly as possible, Craig includes time stamps of each of the tips so you can navigate directly to a tip of interest so you aren’t required to listen to the entire episode. And if that weren’t enough, he also records videos of each tip and posts them to YouTube so they can be easily watched by you, shared with colleagues, or used during professional learning.

Not sure where to start? Craig recently released a set of mini-episodes called Tips for Teachers Top 5s. Each episode is less than 10 minutes and includes Craig summarizing his top 5 tips he’s collected around a particular aspect of teaching:

• Paired Discussion
• Mini-whiteboards
• Checking for understanding
• Silent teacher
• The Do Now

These are a great intro, but I much prefer the full-length episodes where you can hear from the wide variety of educators he’s invited to share their tips. Rather than recommend any one episode, I recommend perusing the Tips for Teachers web page. Craig lists each guest along with their five tips. If you find a tip or a set of tips that piques your curiosity, then that’s where you should begin!

While rereading this post makes me come across as a Craig Barton fanboy, he really is prolific in his sharing of what he’s learning with the rest of us in education. I’ve learned a ton from him and his guests, and I appreciate all of the ideas and numerous educators he’s introduced me to.

Now that I’ve covered the Craig Barton ecosystem of education books and podcasts, let’s look at another book that has influenced my work lately.

Last summer, I picked up Michael Pershan’s book, Teaching Math With Examples. Where Craig Barton’s book was epic and far reaching in scope, Michael’s is a smaller and more focused affair. Michael knows his audience: teachers. He brings together a wealth of experience reading educational research and teaching with worked examples in a way that makes it accessible, conversational, and practical.

If you’re unfamiliar with worked examples, here is a very brief description of how they can be used in class:

1. Students analyze a correct or incorrect solution to a problem.
2. Students explain the thinking of the person who solved the problem.
3. Students solve problems that are similar to the example.

I also tweeted out a thread as I read the book, which gives highlights of each chapter:

Starting my next book, Teaching With Examples from @mpershan. If the Preface and Introduction are any indication, I'm going to enjoy reading this book and learn a lot about worked examples to boot! pic.twitter.com/EjHplebsFW

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) April 29, 2022

While I recommend reading Michael’s book, you might also want to check out the two Mr. Barton Maths Podcast episodes I linked earlier in this post where Michael talks to Ollie Lovell and Craig Barton about this pedagogical practice. These episodes are what nudged me to finally pick up Michael’s book. I was excited to try out worked examples this past school year. I haven’t written a blog post about it yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one pops up on here within the next few weeks.

Speaking of a podcast nudging me to buy a book, I also picked up Ollie Lovell’s book, Tools for Teachers: How to teach, lead, and learn like the world’s best educators.

I’ve been slowly reading it this summer. I’ve particularly appreciated the chapters on behavior management, motivation, and relationships & regulation. Here are a few takeaways that resonated with me:

• The purpose of rules is to preserve the rights of all those in our school community. To put in place boundaries to ensure that these rights are protected at all times. (Chapter 2)
• Motivation helps direct our attention. Our attention determines what goes into short-term memory. When we think about and interact with information in short-term memory that information can be learned. (Chapter 3)
• Stable relationships are the foundation for self-regulation. (Chapter 4)

Ollie Lovell also hosts the ERRR podcast which I mentioned at the start of this post. In each episode, he chats with an education researcher. I just started listening to this podcast, so I can’t make any episode recommendations. You’re in luck though, because on the podcast webpage he lists the top 5 most downloaded episodes. Here they are for your convenience:

1. ERRR #060. Anita Archer on Explicit Instruction
2. ERRR #057. Harry Fletcher-Wood on Habits of Success
3. ERRR #059. Naomi Fisher on Self-directed Education
4. ERRR #056. Sammy Kempner on Teaching with Group Work, Accountability, and Chants
5. ERRR #064. Paul Spenceley on Formative Assessment

These episodes are likely a great place to start. I personally started at the beginning, which has been fascinating as I’m learning quite a bit about the context of education in Australia, or at least the context as it was 6 years ago when the podcast began.

But that’s not all! I’ve also been binging all of the Amplify podcasts over the past few months:

• Science of Reading
• Math Teacher Lounge
• Science Connections

For the first two seasons, Science Connections focused on conversations with a wide variety of scientists and science teachers. Season 3 has a more unifying theme, “Science as the Underdog.” If you’re pressed for time, I would recommend starting there.

Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer are the hosts of the Math Teacher Lounge. They have a great dynamic and the podcast is worth listening to for that alone. For the past two seasons, they’ve been focusing on one unifying topic each season. Season 4 is all about discovering the joy of math and Season 5 is all about math anxiety. With the wealth of guests they invite into the lounge, listeners get to see these topics from a wide variety of angles.

If tackling an entire season is intimidating, you’re in luck. Season 5 Episode 6 is a reflection episode where Bethany and Dan share their takeaways. It reminds me of a clip show episode from an 80s sitcom because you get to hear snippets of interviews from the other episodes in the season as well as Bethany and Dan’s thoughts as the season concludes. I also recommend Season 5 Episode 3: Cultivating a joy of learning with Sesame Workshop. It was fascinating to get a behind-the-scenes peak into the careful planning that goes into developing the educational content of a show like Sesame Street.

I was eager to dive into the Science of Reading podcast because the phrase “science of reading” has been EVERYWHERE since I got back into the classroom. For the 13 years I was out of the classroom, I focused on mathematics, so I’ve been feeling like I have a LOT to catch up on!

I’ve listened to seasons 1 and 2 so far, and I’m a couple of episodes into season 3.

One of my favorite episodes is Season 1 Episode 4: The importance of fluency instruction with Tim Rasinksi. In my school district we shuffle around all of our 4th graders every other day for 45 minutes of reading intervention. The group I was given had the vague label “low comp” and little direction on what to work on with them. After listening to this episode, I made fluency practice the focus of our work together using specific ideas I learned in the episode.

Day 150: In RtI today, we used repeated readings to build fluency as we listened to a poem read aloud, read it aloud together, and read it aloud some more in pairs. Finally, students had a chance to perform the poem in front of the class. pic.twitter.com/aOfJLziQ2e

— Bushart's Brilliant Bunch (@MrBushart) May 9, 2023

Another one of my favorite episodes was Season 1 Episode 21: The symbiotic relationship between literacy and science with Jacquey Barber. This episode was fascinating because it spoke directly to what many educators, myself included, have probably witnessed and/or experienced: schools cutting science and social studies time in favor of more reading instruction.

I also appreciated this episode because my district uses Amplify Science, and while they never explicitly talk about the program in the podcast episode, I was able to see how everything she talked about related to how Amplify Science is structured. It was really helpful for gaining a better understanding of the program and the “why” behind its design.

Finally, I enjoyed Season 3 Episode 1: Deconstructing the Rope: An Introduction with Dr. Jane Oakhill. Dr. Oakhill makes some provocative comments in the podcast:

“Having background knowledge is not enough to guarantee comprehension. It needs to be rapidly accessed and applied to the comprehension task. Background knowledge is obviously helpful for text comprehension, but the picture is quite a lot more complicated than that.”

These comments stood out to me because I feel like all I hear these days is the need for knowledge-building curricula. I don’t think Dr. Oakhill is dismissing background knowledge or saying these curricula aren’t necessary, but I appreciate her acknowledging that reading comprehension is more complex than just building students’ background knowledge. It’s not a silver bullet.

Another comment she made right at the end of the podcast also jumped out at me:

“I think many teachers don’t feel comfortable with this conclusion. Learning to read with good comprehension doesn’t necessarily need to involve huge amounts of reading [by the students]. The importance is those oral language skills and talk about text language.”

This was in reference to the importance of reading aloud to students because the language of books is not the same as spoken language. It’s more sophisticated. Rather than waiting for students to be able to decode these texts, we must develop their language comprehension skills, and what this means is we are simultaneously developing their reading comprehension skills even though they aren’t decoding the words for themselves.

The final education podcast I have in rotation these days is the recently-launched Knowledge Matters Podcast. I’m not terribly familiar with the Knowledge Matters campaign, but I started following them on Twitter in my efforts to tune in to current conversations around literacy instruction. This first season is hosted by Natalie Wexler, author of The Knowledge Gap and vocal advocate for the role of background knowledge in developing students’ reading comprehension. Whereas Dr. Oakhill shares about the complexity of teaching reading comprehension, I sometimes get the feeling that Natalie Wexler is a little more narrow in her views. That said, I do enjoy the podcast, particularly hearing from the wide variety of educators interviewed about their experiences shifting to a knowledge-building literacy curriculum. This is of particular interest to me since my district just adopted Amplify CKLA, and I’ll be using it for the first time this fall.

Whew! That was a lot. Putting it all together at one time was a daunting task, but thankfully listening to all these podcasts is just a matter of queuing up the next batch of episodes and slowly working my way through them.

In terms of takeaways and applying what I’ve learned, sometimes I try something right after I hear about it, such as making fluency practice a priority in my reading intervention block after listening to Tim Rasinski on the Science of Reading podcast. Other times it takes more planning, like my summer project creating a scope and sequence to review math concepts across the school year and developing all the associated practice activities. One of my mantras is continuous improvement. Even though I tried out teaching with worked examples last school year, I’m going to focus on that again this school year. I’ll hopefully blog about last year’s experiences with that soon to help me reflect before thinking ahead to next year.

If you have any recommendations for the next podcast I should check out, please share it in the comments!

Spin, Spin, Spin

Probably my most often used metaphor for teaching is plate spinning, an act where a performer spins objects like plates and bowls at the top of poles without letting them come crashing down to the floor. The only way to succeed is to frantically run back and forth between the poles, giving each one a good spin to keep the plate going.

If you’ve never seen plate spinning in action, it’s worth a look. Here’s a minute and a half clip:

It’s captivating, but it also looks exhausting! The performer has to remain vigilant, keeping an eye here, there, and everywhere to avoid disaster. At least the act is only going to last a few minutes at most.

Now imagine being a teacher who has to keep all of your metaphorical plates spinning lesson by lesson, day by day, across an entire school year!

Teachers actually have multiple sets of plates to keep spinning. I’m going to focus on just one in this post, the set of plates representing all the content I teach. In 4th grade math, for example, my set of plates includes:

• place value
• comparing whole numbers
• rounding whole numbers
• adding whole numbers
• subtracting whole numbers
• multiplicative comparison
• multiples and factors
• prime and composite numbers
• number and shape patterns
• multi-step word problems
• multiplying by one- and two-digit numbers
• dividing three- and four-digit numbers
• perimeter and area

• equivalent fractions
• comparing fractions
• adding and subtracting fractions
• adding and subtracting mixed numbers
• multiplying fractions by whole numbers
• fractions as tenths and hundredths
• relating decimals and fractions
• comparing decimals
• problems about time, money, length, volume, mass, and weight
• points, lines, rays, and angles
• measuring angles
• classifying two-dimensional figures
• symmetry

Every concept I teach sets a new plate spinning, but I’m not allowed to focus on just adding more plates. It’s imperative that I run back and forth keeping all the previous plates spinning. While human brains are notoriously good at learning, they are also notoriously good at forgetting. And when students forget the content they put so much effort into learning (and I put so much effort into teaching), it’s like all the plates come crashing down.

Early in my career, I was overwhelmed and had no idea how I could possibly stay on top of it all. Thankfully I’ve learned a lot in the years since about how the brain works and strategies for helping students remember previously learned content. However, since this past school year felt like my first year of teaching all over again (which you can read all about here) you can imagine why this idea of plate spinning and its potential for catastrophe has been on my mind.

Last school year, amidst everything else I was attempting to learn and implement, I attempted to bring in regular spiral review into math. I created short assignments, about 2-3 per week, that allowed students to practice previously-learned skills. Here are two examples:

When I first introduced these assignments to my students, I put a lot of effort into explaining to them that forgetting is a completely normal thing that brains do, and these assignments were a chance to help them find out what they do and don’t remember. I also talked about how revisiting content you’ve started to forget can actually help strengthen your memory so that in the future you’ll start to forget less and less.

After the class completed each assignment, they would get out a colored pencil and they would grade their own work while we went over the answers together. I emphasized that it was important for them to learn what they got right and what they got wrong. If they got it wrong, that should send a message to their brain that they need to pay close attention so they can try to learn from the mistake and get better at that skill. Sometimes I would even ask students to share a problem they got wrong and either why they think they got it wrong or something they learned to avoid getting a problem like that wrong in the future. Once they were finished grading the assignment, I would collect it and review them to look for common mistakes or issues to help me plan for small group instruction.

What I loved about these assignments is that they were low stakes. The students weren’t stressed about them at all because they knew it was just practice to help them remember what they learned before. They also knew that the grading was for their benefit to help them figure out what they did or didn’t know.

What I didn’t love about these assignments is that I had to make all of them by hand, and as the year continued, I found myself making them less and less because I was just too busy and tired to keep up. On the sporadic occasions I did make them, I felt like I was accomplishing nothing because reviewing a few concepts out of the many that I’d taught felt like a drop in the bucket. It felt haphazard. Things really came to a head as the state test approached. Because I hadn’t been regularly or systematically reviewing previously-learned concepts and skills, I felt like I had way too many plates in the air and no time to get them all spinning again.

Looking back, there had been real momentum early in the year when my students did these spiral review assignments regularly. I could see them getting confident in the skills they were reviewing, and I was able to gather lots of useful data to help me figure out who needed to review exactly which topics.

I know retrieval practice is important, but I also know it needs to be well planned. So this summer, one of the two big projects I’m undertaking is creating all of my review activities up front so I don’t find myself in a situation again where I’ve burned out and stop making them.

A key part of this project is creating a scope and sequence to ensure I’m reviewing concepts regularly across the year. My goal is to space out a concept a little more each time so that students have to try to remember it for just that little bit longer than the last time it was reviewed.

Before I share my spacing plan, it’s important to note what I mean by “lesson.” Our district just adopted iReady Classroom Mathematics which defines lesson a little bit differently than what I’m used to. Every “lesson” is really a topic that includes 3-5 days of instruction on that topic. For example, Lesson 1 in 4th grade is “Understand Place Value.” It includes 3 days of instruction.

It was a little confusing at first, but it’s important to share because when I say “In the eighteenth lesson after it was first taught” I don’t mean 18 days later. It’s many more days than that!

I’ll use place value (the topic of lesson 1) to show how the review of that topic is spaced out across the year.

Spacing Interval Between Review Opportunities	Example Topic: Place Value
In the lesson immediately after it was first taught	0 school days since first instruction
In 3rd lesson after it was first taught	6 school days since first instruction
In 6th lesson after it was first taught	24 school days since first instruction
In 12th lesson after it was first taught	54 school days since first instruction
In 18th lesson after it was first taught	84 school days since first instruction

Is this the optimal amount of time between review opportunities? I have no idea. From everything I’ve read, the specific amount of time between review opportunities is less important than having a schedule that ensures multiple opportunities for review. As I just heard on a podcast recently, we not only need a scope and sequence for learning, but also a scope and sequence for reviewing.

If you’re nerdy and want to see the spiral review scope and sequence I’ve planned out for next year, here’s a link to a spreadsheet where you can browse it at your leisure.

Optimal or not, by the time my students get to the state test in May, I know that they will have had many opportunities to revisit each and every concept in the math curriculum before having to demonstrate their knowledge on a high stakes exam. It may not guarantee success, but it sure does set them up for success better than the haphazard way I was doing it last year.

Once I had the scope and sequence created, I began to tackle creating all of the assignments. Since each lesson is 3-5 days long, it means I’m creating 3-5 review activities for every lesson. Each review activity has 5 questions. To save time, I’m trying to avoid creating items from scratch. As much as possible, I’m using or modifying problems from our adopted curriculum as well as released state test items. When a topic is first being reviewed, I’m trying to keep it focused on the skill, but later review opportunities tend to involve deeper thinking using the skill.

Here are two of the review activities I created to use during Lesson 6.

The topics under review in this lesson are:

• subtracting
• rounding
• 3rd grade word problems involving multiplication and division
• 3rd grade understanding of area, and
• 3rd grade understanding of fractions.

Early in the school year, there aren’t enough new 4th grade topics to review, so as an added bonus I found I was able to systematically schedule review of many 3rd grade concepts so that students wouldn’t have to wait until well into the second semester to see topics like fractions and geometry again.

You may have noticed that the assignments are titled “Homework.” Because of our short school day, which you can read all about here, I’m off loading spiral review as a homework activity. My plan is to have students complete them at home, but we’ll still grade them together in class like I did with my students last year.

At the end of each lesson (remember, think 3-5 days of instruction), I’ve created a review quiz that students will do in class. This gives me the chance to see what they can do on their own. It will look exactly like one of the homework assignments and still be low stakes, but the results will be more valid than anything they’ve completed at home with who knows what kind of help.

Since the review activities within a given lesson stay on the same 5 topics, my hope is that by the time the students get to the review quiz, they will feel even more confident and they’ll be able to answer all or almost all of the questions correctly.

This is a big project, but it has the potential to reap big rewards for my students. I saw a glimmer of the power of regular review when I was able to do it consistently early in the school year last year, and I’m motivated to get this set up for next school year. I still have many plates to keep spinning, but this structured approach will allow me to keep at least some of them spinning in a way that is much less frantic and prone to disaster.

A Question of Time

Claustrophobic is the word I used to described teaching this past year, and it all comes down to instructional time, or the lack thereof.

When I taught in Texas, I didn’t realize how…expansive our school day was. School started at 7:45am and went until 2:45pm. That’s a 7-hour day. Then you take away 45 minutes for Specials everyday, 30 minutes for lunch, and 15 minutes for recess, and I was left with roughly 5.5 hours of daily instructional time with my students.

Contrast that with my new school in New York where the school day is 8:30am to 2:30pm. That’s only a 6-hour day. Then you take away 45 minutes for Specials, 30 minutes for lunch, and 15 minutes for recess, and I’m left with only 4.5 hours of daily instructional time with my students.

Oh, but wait! Two out of every six days, I have double specials, which means I lose an additional 45 minutes of instruction on those days, meaning I only get 3.75 hours of instruction. (I will admit the additional planning time is luxurious, but it comes at a price.)

Oh, but wait! Three out of every six days, I lose an additional 45 minutes of first instruction so we can rearrange all the students across the grade level for Reading Intervention.

Here’s how much time I had for first instruction on each day of a typical six-day cycle this year:

• A Day – 3.75 hours (-0.75 hour for intervention)
• B Day – 4.5 hours
• C Day – 3 hours (-0.75 hour for intervention, -0.75 hour for second Specials)
• D Day – 3.75 hours (-0.75 hour for second Specials)
• E Day – 3.75 hours (-0.75 hour for intervention)
• S Day – 4.5 hours

Across six days, that adds up to a lot of “missed” instructional time. (I say “missed” compared to the amount of time I’m used to having available.)

Hours of Instruction in TX (over 6 days)	Hours of Instruction in NY (over 6 days)
33 hours	23.25 hours

That’s a difference of over 9 hours (or 2 full school days) every 6 days!

Here’s how that adds up over the school year:

Hours of Instruction in TX (over 180 days)	Hours of Instruction in NY (over 180 days)
990 hours	697.5 hours

That’s a difference of over 290 hours (or 65 full school days) across one school year!

I don’t share all of this to condemn what my current school district is doing. Students here appear to be getting educated and graduating ready for college. I share it instead to help you understand why teaching felt so claustrophobic this year. This was a shocking change for me! I’m used to having so much more time with students. I felt boxed in all the time, and the box was so small there wasn’t enough room to fit in all the things I wanted (needed!) to be doing with my students.

I feel like I reconfigured my daily schedule over and over and over this year, trying to make it all fit. I would get something workable, only to be faced with a new scheduling challenge.

For example, one of my students had an IEP. A few weeks into the school year, I was told he would be leaving my room for 45 minutes everyday for Resource Room. Legally, it’s not okay for him to miss first instruction, so I had to problem solve what to do during those 45 minutes everyday. I ended up turning it into a flexible work time where the rest of my class would do independent reading, book clubs, small groups, and independent practice. Don’t get me wrong, these are all good things to do. However, in an already-cramped schedule that already included 45-minutes of reading intervention every other day, it made my remaining instructional time feel even more tight.

Shortly afterward, we had meetings to discuss students needing intervention. At this meeting, I found out one of my students was required to be pulled out for 45 minutes every other day for Tier 3 reading intervention, and three other students were required to be pulled out for 45 minutes every few days for Tier 3 math intervention. And of course it wasn’t possible for these interventions to occur at the same time as my student who was already leaving to go to Resource Room.

I distinctly remember the pressure I felt during this meeting bubbling over. I wasn’t rude to the interventionists, but I definitely gave them an earful of my scheduling frustrations. Yet again, I had to get creative with my daily schedule. The walls continued to close in in my metaphorical box of instructional time during the school day.

Even just writing about it, I can feel that pressure again. Despite my numerous creative scheduling changes, I never found a solution that allowed me to “fit it all in.” It really took a toll on me mentally.

I let it all out one day in February or March in a meeting with my mentor. That’s when she gave me the sage advice that I need to focus on controlling what is within my power. I can’t change the length of the school day. I can just try to do my best within the time that I have. That didn’t fix the problem, but it did give me a perspective for living with it in a healthier way than I had been up to that point.

One thing that had really been stressing me out was morning meeting. When I asked Twitter for advice about how to manage a shorter school day, one of the recurring comments was, “I’ll let other things go, but I don’t skip morning meeting!”

I had in fact started skipping morning meeting. I tried doing it in the morning. I tried moving it to after specials. I tried it as a closing meeting. No matter what, it never quite worked out, and it always felt like it was taking away too much time from my small pool of instructional minutes.

Thankfully this spring I had a conversation with another teacher down the hall who gave me a great idea. One day I was chatting with Meg about my ongoing scheduling concerns, and she shared how she does morning meeting every single day. It’s a non-negotiable. What’s also non-negotiable is that it ends at 8:45am no matter what. This means that some mornings she has more time to do an activity with the class, and on other mornings where announcements go long or something comes up, they just do a quick greeting to start the day off as a community. That felt doable. And it was! I started implementing it in my own classroom the last few weeks of school, and it worked out really well.

Something else that will help me with managing my schedule next year will be procedures, routines, and transitions. I know how important they are to a smooth-running classroom, but I found it really difficult to come up with them when I didn’t know how the school day was going to go and how the components of the curriculum were going to work. It’s like driving through fog, like I mentioned in my last post. Being constantly unsure of where I was going, how in the world could I come up with procedures and routines to help me and my students navigate our time together?

What ended up happening is that I made up routines and procedures on the fly, and it was messy. It’s no fun having your students get used to doing things one way, because I didn’t know better, and then have to try and get them to do things in a different way. Oh but wait, now I’ve realized this third way will be even better, and they should learn yet another new way. Messy.

Now that I’m able to reflect back on my classroom, the curriculum, and a year of experience, it’s a lot easier to imagine and plan for routines, procedures, and transitions. Perhaps I’ll write a separate post about what I’ve come up with so far. I definitely want to start the year with as many in place as possible so I can teach them clearly and students have plenty of opportunities to practice them.

The final thing to consider, the thing that caused me the most stress last year, is my instructional time. I have to accept that I just don’t have the time to do everything I want to within the school day. All I can do is teach the hell out of what I do have time to teach.

Here’s how my time across subjects looks for next year, along with the curriculum we’re using. Keep in mind that is the optimal schedule that includes 0 minutes of transition time.

• ELA – 90 minutes per day (Amplify CKLA)
• Humanities – 30 minutes, 4 out of every 6 days (homegrown units tying ELA standards to Social Studies content)
• Math – 90 minutes per day (iReady Mathematics Classroom)
• Science – 45 minutes, 3 out of every 6 days (Amplify Science)
• Reading Intervention – 45 minutes, 3 out of every 6 days (???)
• Morning Meeting – 15 minutes per day

Teaching Amplify Science in 45-minute blocks is tough. The lessons are planned for 60 minutes and easily run longer than that most lessons. We have a total of 88 Amplify Science lessons across all four of their units and essentially 90 blocks of science instruction across the school year since I’ll be teaching it every other day. I’m going to have to get creative figuring out what I can cut and/or streamline to ensure students learn content from all four units.

Having 90 minutes for math feels great. Our curriculum seems to think that daily lessons should only take about 60 minutes. I wasn’t born yesterday though. I’m sure lessons will run longer than what the curriculum says. Not to mention I can easily use any additional minutes to ensure students have sufficient time to practice and for me to provide small group support.

The daily 90 minutes for CKLA is what the publisher recommends. I’m on board with that, but irritated after reviewing their curriculum materials. Those 90 minutes only constitute their core instruction. On top of this, Amplify also provides materials for cursive handwriting and independent reading (including conferring and reading response, not just the reading itself!). Both of these components are expected to take place outside of the 90 minutes of daily instruction. Guess who doesn’t have additional time outside of those 90 minutes?

I did find a way to at least introduce cursive. Our school doesn’t start the 45 minutes of Reading Intervention every other day until October, so for the first month or so I’m going to use that 45 minutes every other day to focus on typing and handwriting. I’m including typing because it’s a useful skill and also because at the end of the year my students will be taking their state assessment on the computer, and the ELA test in particular requires a LOT of typing.

I’m not sure where independent reading is going to fit. I’m guessing that might just be homework. I’m not a fan of homework, but when the school day is so short, I’m utilizing it next year to off load tasks I have a hard time fitting into the school day. My plans for homework next year include:

• Independent reading (15-20 minutes)
• Reading fluency practice (3-5 minutes)
• Math fact fluency practice (3-5 minutes)
• Math spiral review (5 problems a day, 15-20 minutes)

So those are my thoughts on instructional time, and the lack thereof. I’m not kidding when I say that last year felt claustrophobic. Now that I’ve got a year at this school under my belt, and wise words to live by from my mentor, I’m going into the upcoming year thinking of practical ways I can utilize my time. If I start to feel the pressure again, I’m just going to remind myself that I can’t control the amount of time I have, but I can control what I do within that time.

Back in the Saddle

Last September, I started my 22nd year in education and what felt like my 1st year of teaching.

From 2001 to 2009, I taught across the elementary grades, with a multi-year stint in 4th grade. But in 2009, I transitioned away from teaching in my own classroom. For the next 13 years, I served in two roles: The first was at a company designing digital math curriculum. The second was at a school district as an elementary curriculum coordinator.

When I moved from Texas to New York in 2021, I decided I wanted to teach in my own classroom again. I learned SO MUCH designing curriculum and supporting over 1,000 elementary teachers, and I was eager to put what I’d learned into practice. Little did I know the tension and stress that would create for me this past school year.

Throughout the school year, whenever anyone would ask how it was going, I would tell them that before the ink had even dried on my offer letter, it was like someone had turned a fire hose on my face that never diminishes in intensity, much less ever turns off. Despite all my previous years in the classroom, time and memory had dulled the sheer intensity of being a teacher.

Don’t get me wrong, I was plenty busy during the 13 years I worked outside of teaching, but it was not the same at all. Stopping to chat with a co-worker was no problem. Going out to lunch to celebrate a birthday was fine. Ducking out in the middle of the afternoon to run a few errands wasn’t an issue. Leaving the office at 4:30pm and not thinking about work again until the next morning was the norm. There was always tomorrow to get work done.

Not so as a teacher. As soon as the school year begins, before it begins even, it feels like you’re racing the clock, frantically managing all the things you want to do (and have to do!) with limitless demands on your time. I don’t remember where I heard this recently, but it’s a job where you go to bed every night thinking about other people’s children. It takes a toll.

I share all of this less for the benefit of those of you currently in the classroom (you already know) and more for the benefit of anyone who has been away from the classroom for even just a few years. It really is easy to forget how intense it feels to be a teacher. Hence the reason this year felt like being a first year teacher all over again.

Which brings me back to the tension I mentioned earlier. In the midst of figuring out new curriculums, new standards, new procedures, new school, new students, new EVERYTHING, I also had over 20 years of experience informing my mental model about what it means to be a *good* teacher. Giving myself grace wasn’t enough. Failing to live up to my own expectations time and time again was brutal.

It comes back to the fire hose analogy I gave earlier. This isn’t a job that affords teachers the time to stop, reflect, and problem solve. Too many things are always demanding your time. Thankfully I didn’t give up. I took every opportunity I could to reflect and make changes, but it always felt rushed and unclear if I was making the right choice. It didn’t help that it was my first year at this school, so I didn’t really know the terrain of a school year here, so to speak. I told my colleagues that making my way through the year felt like driving through a fog. I could only ever see a few inches in front of my face.

It was a tough school year. I can’t hide that. But I made it through, and I’m proud of myself for that! I wanted to blog at various points during the school year, but my feelings were fairly raw and I honestly didn’t have the energy. My goal this summer is to write a few blog posts to reflect on some key aspects of last year and think ahead to what I’ll be doing differently next year.

Before I go, I do want to share some highlights from last year. Despite everything I needed to get off my chest in this post, there was a lot that went well and a lot I’m thankful for. For starters, I challenged myself to tweet out at least one picture from my classroom everyday, and I did it!

Day 1: Our brilliant bunch shared all the different ways they counted to find the total of a collection of dots. We learned we don't all see the same thing the same way, and we can learn from our different perspectives. pic.twitter.com/tRQGkXshSm

— Bushart's Brilliant Bunch (@MrBushart) September 7, 2022

I have learned so much over the years from others who have opened windows into their classrooms via Twitter and I wanted to pay it forward. Not only did I succeed in posting everyday, but I was often able to post multiple pictures on many days.

Day 179: And that's a wrap! Desks and lockers are empty. Students counted down the final 60 seconds and then took off for a well-deserved summer break. Good-bye to my brilliant bunch! I wish them all the best as their learning journey continues in 5th grade! pic.twitter.com/DsbJLoCuUh

— Bushart's Brilliant Bunch (@MrBushart) June 21, 2023

As an unexpected and added bonus, this actually made preparing for my annual review super easy! I had two professional goals for the year, one about teaching with worked examples and one about using our new Humanities curriculum. I was able to scroll through my Twitter timeline and pull out artifacts to show how I worked toward both goals across the year. When it came time to meet with my principal, it was really rewarding to go through the Powerpoint I made with all my evidence.

Another highlight is my colleagues at my new campus. Since I was new to the district, I was assigned a mentor. Nadine met with me every week throughout the school year. She was such a great help, particularly since I didn’t know what I didn’t know about working there. She was a good listener as well, particularly when I vented about my frustrations. She gave me great advice about focusing on the things that are within my control. That got me through a particularly rough patch mid-year.

The other teachers on my team were awesome as well. Jen next door was always looking out for me whether it was sharing materials or checking in to see if I was okay. Huge kudos to her for the time she wrote my sub plans when I got so sick in October all I could do was stare at a wall. Megan down the hall was always willing to listen and share ideas. Having Danielle and Kristi to chat with at lunch gave me the mental break I needed in the middle of the day.

Someone not at my campus who also helped me get through the year was Jenna Laib. (You should follow her on Twitter @JennaLaib.) She was willing to lend an ear numerous times throughout the school year. After all the years we’ve been colleagues on Twitter, we still haven’t even met in person, which is wild. I do look forward to an in-person conversation one of these days!

And of course what would teaching be without the kids? Kids can be so delightful. I love the sheer variety of things we got to do together this year. I was continually inspired by their creativity and their clever ideas.

Day 42: Ended math on an exciting note today with an Esti-Mystery by @SteveWyborney. We started by sharing too low, too high, and just right estimates. Then we analyzed clues one at a time to revise our estimates. When the final answer was revealed, the room burst into cheers. 🥰 pic.twitter.com/VEtWF1ImE2

— Bushart's Brilliant Bunch (@MrBushart) November 4, 2022

Yesterday I played the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" because we'd read about it in a book about the Underground Railroad. It's repetitive, so partway through a few students spontaneously started singing along. Then most of the class joined in. It was delightful. 🥰

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) March 31, 2023

Day 122: "Why do you think the illustrator put 2 candles on the title page?"

S1: "To remind us that this is in the past when they didn't have electricity."

S2: "Because it's about TWO friends so there are two candles."

S3: "Because they're like 2 lights that people followed." pic.twitter.com/JM8zINSpoB

— Bushart's Brilliant Bunch (@MrBushart) March 22, 2023

Day 99: Our Mondrian-inspired mathematical art gallery. While everyone technically had the same assignment, I love seeing the variety in the finished pieces. pic.twitter.com/J0FIuYITVX

— Bushart's Brilliant Bunch (@MrBushart) February 10, 2023

Year 22 / Year 1 is in the books. Here’s to the new school year coming up in September!

Hello again!

Hello! Long time, no see! It’s hard to believe it’s been a year and a half since I last published a blog post. To get everyone caught up, I left my job as a Curriculum Coordinator in January 2021. If you’re interested, you can read my accomplishments and reflections about the years I served as a district leader in these two posts:

Six and a Half Years: Part 1

Six and a Half Years: Part 2

I left that position so that my husband, daughter, and I could move cross country from Austin, Texas to Rochester, New York to be closer to family. I wasn’t certified to teach in New York right away, so I spent the 2021-22 school year getting certified, substitute teaching, and enjoying living in a place with four distinct seasons.

1) Getting certified in New York (and what a drawn out process that was!)

I have good news and bad news

Bad news – Getting all of my supporting documentation in my NY TEACH account so I can transfer my certification is PAINFULLY slow

Good news – While I wait, I'll begin substitute teaching in a local district any day now.

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) September 18, 2021

Boo. My application to transfer my teaching certification from Texas to NY was denied. They want me to have been a classroom teacher in 3 of the past 5 years. Serving as a district elementary curriculum coordinator doesn't count. pic.twitter.com/ED5ne6Jonk

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) December 6, 2021

It was stressful when I first took my certification exams in Texas in 2001 and it's still stressful taking them in my 21st year as an educator. Mostly because the exams ask questions in such idiosyncratic ways. I spent most of my time learning how the questions are structured.

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) March 15, 2022

Whew! After weeks of waiting, I just found out I passed all of my NY teacher certification exams. Yay! 🎉

To top it off, the edTPA requirement is no longer required starting April 27, so I can go ahead and submit my paperwork to *finally* get my NY certification! pic.twitter.com/82qM8YJxXq

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) April 14, 2022

2) Substitute teaching in our local school district, and

Enjoyed subbing in 3rd grade at Briarwood this afternoon. I was so happy when an activity ended early because it meant we got to play a round of one of my favorite math games: Number Boxes! The class was excited they beat me. 😊 https://t.co/NSWgcBuAcF pic.twitter.com/MQvYUmlNxe

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) October 25, 2021

Looks like I'm in for an exciting day of subbing in 2nd grade at @helendaleschool! pic.twitter.com/f0OhHG3buX

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) October 29, 2021

Spending the day subbing for a teaching assistant at Southlawn Elementary. In addition to helping in classrooms, I also helped out in the cafeteria. It's loud, but it's nice to see the kids hanging out being kids. pic.twitter.com/IQrm5aPHy6

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) November 2, 2021

Today I'm subbing in 3rd grade, and I made sure to wear my newest math shirt for #MathShirtFriday! @Debpeart1 pic.twitter.com/Km9kItCb1b

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) December 10, 2021

Ending my day subbing in Kindergarten with cooperative play centers. The gingerbread playdough smells amazing! pic.twitter.com/vMHLoDyW3k

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) December 13, 2021

Subbing for the Music teacher today. This is my first time subbing for a Specials teacher. Wish me luck! pic.twitter.com/NyCM2Rk4qe

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) December 16, 2021

Got a special treat subbing at Southlawn Elementary today. The class I was in this morning performed two readers theatre plays, Red Riding Hood and The Little Red Hen. pic.twitter.com/ZeJRnbFIeM

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) April 1, 2022

Spent a wonderful day subbing in 2nd grade at Brookview Elementary! We read a picture book about Ramadan, discussed the theme in a story about two sisters, and practiced telling time to the nearest five minutes. pic.twitter.com/KkBzvuJqcj

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) April 6, 2022

Subbing in 2nd grade today and I was asked to review a comparison word problem with the students. Used it as an opportunity to quickly put together a numberless word problem so we could talk about the meaning of more/fewer in problems. #ElemMathChat #NumberlessWP pic.twitter.com/taye3KbDJY

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) April 8, 2022

Today I'm subbing in a K-1 special education classroom. I took the student I was working with on a hunt for rectangles around the school. We identified lots of examples and non-examples. #ElemMathChat pic.twitter.com/LEV7t6Zb7p

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) April 11, 2022

Subbing in the library today. Got to read from The Fighting Ground by Avi to a 4th grade class. No plans left for the next class though, so I scrambled! I found out they had completed a unit on coding, so we compared and contrasted two biographies of Ada Lovelace. Whew! pic.twitter.com/SWVjz3Jdpu

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) April 28, 2022

Day 1 of my long-term sub position: I greeted students this morning at both campuses, learned more about what I'll be doing over the next few weeks, walked many classrooms, and said goodbye to students at both schools. Don't let the clouds fool you; it was sunny and hot today! pic.twitter.com/af4yFxJk0E

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) May 31, 2022

One of the perks of my long-term sub job is that I get to check in on the baby ducks everyday pic.twitter.com/rBnt62jbqh

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) June 1, 2022

3 ) Enjoying four distinct seasons for the first time in decades.

Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary to my mother- and father-in-law! After stuffing myself with pizza and cheesecake, I took a nap and then went out for a walk in this beautiful weather. I ❤️ that we moved to New York. pic.twitter.com/gU7R3zF3Wm

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) May 8, 2021

While lilacs were the headliner today, Highland Park was all around beautiful! pic.twitter.com/DTbY61zofH

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) May 15, 2021

For Father's Day we drove to a nearby park for lunch and to enjoy this beautiful weather. 🥰 pic.twitter.com/xMrllvTP9Y

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) June 20, 2021

Admiring the beautiful fall colors on my drive to work today pic.twitter.com/u5T0cXbjtQ

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) November 9, 2021

Beautiful morning walking in to school pic.twitter.com/3wKVtp8zt7

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) December 8, 2021

We went for a snowy walk this morning. There's something very calming about walking through the trees as the snow is falling. It makes everything feel quieter. pic.twitter.com/pTYhruUAV6

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) December 27, 2021

What a beautiful day for a family walk at Durand Eastman Park. We saw geese, ducks, and even a swan. Spring is in the air! pic.twitter.com/Pqul0zPL8L

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) April 17, 2022

We took advantage of today's beautiful weather to go for a hike in a nearby park. pic.twitter.com/ky0UkcXDpA

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) June 4, 2022

Based on the number of cars at the park, everyone had the same idea today. It was a beautiful fall afternoon to get outside for a walk. pic.twitter.com/ul0x3UjFwW

— Brian Bushart 🏳️‍🌈 (@bstockus) October 22, 2022

In August 2022, I got hired to be a 4th grade classroom teacher at a school in my town. It was a roller coaster ride of a school year since it was my first time back in my own classroom since 2009. While I’m on summer break, it seems like a good time to reflect on last school year and also look ahead to next year. Keep an eye out for new posts in the coming days and weeks!

Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education: Chapters 5-13

Table of Contents for this Blog Series

• Preparing to Read
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapters 5-13 (Current Post)

Way back in… (checks calendar)… August 2021, I started reading Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education by Alexis Shevrin Venet. Simultaneously, I also tried out new techniques for engaging with professional reading to maximize my learning. Looking back at my previous posts while reading the book, I’m really happy with the depth of my engagement. I’ve got detailed summaries of the first four chapters along with personal connections and wonderings I made along the way.

However, this turned out to not be a sustainable process. In October 2021 I started substitute teaching and that ate up a lot of my time. (In a good way. I’ve been happy to help out at schools in my community knowing how desperately substitutes are needed.) I didn’t even touch the book again until a week or so ago. I really wanted to finish it, but at the same time I knew I couldn’t devote the same amount of time to reading and blogging about each chapter. I made a decision to split the difference. I continued reading the book, but I opted to capture only brief summaries of the remaining chapters, which are all collected in this final post. It’s not as rich of an experience, but I have managed to finish this inspiring book (Yay!), and I still have an artifact I can come back to in the future as I implement what I’ve learned from the reading.

Chapter 5: Four Proactive Priorities for Decision Making

We need to make equity-centered, trauma-informed education core to our decision making, not an add-on. Four priorities for decision making (not in any particular order):

• Predictability – Does our decision make things predictable? Is the decision itself predictable? While we don’t want to be so rigid that we’re inflexible, we do want to aim for predictability to provide a sense of safety and calm for our students, particularly those who have been harmed by trauma.
• Flexibility – Does this decision include flexibility? “The key is to identify what’s truly important and let go of how tightly we hold on to how and when students get there.” (p. 75) Being flexible can look like being unfair to some, which is why we need to create a “shared value that fairness isn’t as important as supporting one another with what we each need.” (p. 76)
• Empowerment – Does our decision foster empowerment? Does it include students’ voices and opinions? Are we attempting to control our students or are we attempting to give them control as much as we can?
• Connection – Does the decision foster connection? We know that traumatized children benefit from anything that increases the number and quality of a child’s relationships. We can and should make decisions that help build relationships with teachers, other students, support staff within the school, families, and community members/resources.

Shift 2: Rethink Your Role as an Educator

Chapter 6: Build Relationships Rooted in Equity

Relationships are important, but it’s important to know that relationships have the potential to heal and harm.

Teachers need to do everything we can to avoid having a savior mentality. This assumes that the students are broken and need fixing, rather than looking at how systems may need fixing to better support and prevent trauma.

Shift from savior mentality to unconditional positive regard, a mindset that focuses on the inherent skills, capacities, and values of every student.

We need to avoid having a deficit mindset about our students. This leads to inequities. Instead, we need to affirm our students’ values, interests, and strengths.

Chapter 7: Cultivate Unconditional Positive Regard

Unconditional positive regard means accepting students for who they are, not what they do. It means showing students kindness and respect unconditionally. Students do not need to earn our kindness and respect by achieving good grades or arriving to class on time. When I first read this chapter, I immediately thought of Islah Tauheed’s (Link) blog post “Empathy as a Radical Act” (Link). She doesn’t use the phrase in her post, but it is a beautiful example nonetheless.

Sustaining unconditional positive regard can be challenging because relationship building can be slow. It’s important to look for and celebrate the incremental changes and not to give up hope. It can be helpful to have a coach or at least someone to talk to to help keep you grounded, offer advice, and help you see small signs of growth that might be challenging to notice since you’re in the thick of it.

Chapter 8: Make Connections, Respect Boundaries

While building relationships is critical, it’s also just as important that we set boundaries so that we don’t find ourselves getting too involved or taking on a savior mentality. “Becoming a savior or a martyr not only is a recipe for burnout but also does a disservice to our students.” (p. 119)

Three principles to help create healthy boundaries are:

1. Don’t be a trauma detective – We do not need to know all the details of our students’ trauma in order to support them in a trauma-informed way. Focus on what the student needs, not on what they are experiencing.
2. Don’t be the only one – “Children need many more relationships in their lives than just one trusted teacher.” (p. 113)
3. Be a connection maker – Teachers should serve “as a bridge to other caring adults and resources.” (p. 115) Teacher can help foster relationships among students, help students build connections with their communities in and out of school, and connect students to the right people and resources for support.

Shift 3: Move From Mindset to Systems Change

Change cannot only happen at the classroom level. We also need to consider the systems of schools, in particular policies and procedures that have the potential to help or harm students.

Chapter 9: Support Teacher Wellness

If we want teachers to support students in an equity-centered, trauma-informed way, then we need to ensure that we are also supporting teacher wellness to avoid and/or mitigate burnout and secondary trauma.

Leaders need to create a culture of care within their schools, and it needs to come first, not as an extra. This has to go beyond words. Instead we need concrete actions like frequent conversations with staff and students to find out how they’re doing and what they need, and taking the time to create a culture with shared values. “Care for all humans in your school should be the driving force behind decision making.” (p. 129)

Two ways to create a culture of care are:

1. Helping the helpers: Leaders need to help their staff care for themselves. One way to do this is to provide opportunities for them to slow down and reflect rather than charging ahead piling on stress and trauma.
2. Reflective supervision: This is “an ongoing, relationship-focused time set aside for the goal of supporting teachers.” (p. 133) These regular, authentic conversations can help increase teacher retention.

We need to go beyond surface level, cutesy wellness acts like donuts, chair massages, and yoga breaks. Rather, what educators need to support long-term wellness is:

• Time: Specifically look at time used for meetings. What times of the year should you avoid meetings because these are the toughest times for teachers? When can a meeting be an email instead?
• Money: All staff deserve fair pay and efforts should be made to ensure all staff in schools having a living wage that allows them to meet their own needs before being expected to meet the needs of all the students in their care.
• Support: Find out what your staff needs. Check in frequently to find out what changes might be needed to ensure everyone is heard and their needs are met.
• Autonomy: Don’t micromanage. Teachers need to the autonomy and agency to exercise their professional judgment and the resources to continually grow.

Chapter 10: Foster Professional Growth

Teachers face “initiative fatigue” as a result of competing priorities from themselves, their administration, the school district, and the state. Rather than view equity-centered trauma-informed education as yet another initiative, leaders need to commit to it and “live this commitment in everything [they] do.” (p. 140)

Leaders need to create shared values around equity-centered trauma-informed education. This can be done through hiring – how do we ensure we hire staff who align with our values? – and through coaching – how can we support the professional growth of our staff in alignment with our shared values?

One way to fight initiative fatigue is to make equity-centered trauma-informed education central to the school’s mission. If this is done then any professional learning should be chosen and implemented in alignment with this mission.

Leaders should also model their own learning. “School leaders need to be lead learners of equity literacy and trauma-informed practice.” (p. 143) Leaders need to affirm the identities of their staff and also be willing to admit when they do not have the background knowledge to support a staff member.

Leaders need to support those staff members “brave enough to speak truth to power.” (p. 145) They must “value feedback and welcome the leadership of teachers who push for equity and justice, even – especially – when that makes us uncomfortable.” (p. 145)

Chapter 11: Work Toward Policy Change

“One of the other essential roles of a school leader in advancing equity is to root out the status quo in its favorite hideout: school policy.” (p. 147)

Start by analyzing “any and all” (p. 148) current policies with an equity- and trauma-informed lens to determine what your current system values. An overarching question to ask during this work is, “Does this support a culture of care or a culture of compliance?” (p. 150) Be sure to include a variety of stakeholders in this work – students, teachers, administrators, parents, other family members or caregivers, and community members. The chapter includes an excellent policy review tool with reflection questions that can guide this work.

“Policies do not need to be harsh to be clear.” (p. 150)

Work within your sphere of influence and work to grow that sphere.

In addition to analyzing current policies, also imagine new policies. What could be put in place to better support students?

The chapter talks a lot about the school handbook and how this is one way schools can communicate policies and values. However if we want to ensure we are taking a “universal approach, implemented proactively,” (p. 153) we shouldn’t rely solely on school handbooks. Nor should we wait for students and families to ask for support. For example, schools should find a variety of ways to proactively share information on topics such as:

• The process for referrals to mental health support within or outside of school
• Teacher-student boundaries
• Basic needs and accessing support for them at school

“This is not easy work, and a lot of the work of systems change is outside of a teacher’s control.” (p. 154) But, again, teachers and school leaders should work within their sphere of influence and then work to grow that sphere. Rather than wait for policy change, teachers should consider creative forms of noncompliance with policies that run counter to values centered on equity and trauma-informed care. There are risks involved, and each person has to decide how much risk they can task, but know that when we do nothing we are “no threat to inequity” (Gorski, 2018).

Shift 4: Change the World From Inside Your Classroom

Teachers don’t need to be therapists, nor are they trained to perform this role. Rather, they are one part of a “web of support,” (p. 158) and what teachers, specifically, can do for students is teach them, “building on their strengths, skills, and interests.” (p. 158) Teachers’ sphere of influence may be the classroom, and that may sound limiting, but with the power to teach hundreds and hundreds of kids, teachers can empower those students to go out and change the world while they’re in the classroom or later in their lives.

Chapter 12: Examine the Curriculum, Disrupt Harmful Narratives

“Don’t tell students you believe they can climb the mountain. Climb it next to them and then point back and say, ‘Look, we climbed the mountain.'” (p. 161)

Children may blame themselves for their trauma, not realizing that children are never to blame for the trauma they endure. We can’t support children by telling them empty phrases like, “You matter!” Rather, “we have to create opportunities for work that actually does matter.” (p. 162)

Teachers should employ critical pedagogy, teaching practices that foster social consciousness and justice. (p. 162) In our classrooms “social justice is a driving force, not an ‘extra.’ Individual lessons that address social issues need to take place in the overall context of a classroom where students engage in real conversations about identify, race, and equality.” (p. 162)

Three considerations when using critical pedagogy:

1. Building critical consciousness – Help students understand the structural factors that impact us as individuals in order to disrupt false narratives such as the US being a meritocracy
2. Disrupting harmful narratives – “The messages we learn in childhood can shape how we interact with the world for the rest of our lives.” (p. 167) Importantly, small comments add up. We should help students unpack and understand their visible and hidden identities. We should also help them understand the realities of history. All of this should be done with a focus on emotional safety so as not to traumatize or re-traumatize students.
3. Navigating the complex issues of oppression – Oppression isn’t only historical, we should be addressing “what happens in the world around us and help students make meaning of it.” (p. 173) “…student concerns and fears will not disappear if adults ignore them.” (p. 173) In fact, there can be a healing power to discussing issues of oppression. In particular we need to ensure we “highlight stories of resilience, healing, and action alongside discussions of trauma.” (p. 174) We also need to strive for balance so that we aren’t overwhelming or bombarding our students, remembering that the classroom can also be a place of respite and shared joy.

Chapter 13: Get To Work: Activism and Action as Healing

While schools can be a place of harm for students, they can also be a place of healing. To reiterate what’s been said before, this does not mean that teachers need to become therapists. It is not the role of a teacher to help students work through their trauma. Rather, “a healing environment is one in which students are validated, affirmed, and cared for, one in which students feel a sense of agency and the ability to make positive changes in the world.” (p. 180)

Teachers can co-create classroom communities where students feel like they belong and their voices are heard. Teachers can also design learning experiences that empower students. These can be long-term projects designed to address an issue in the community, but they can also be smaller experiences such as teaching students how to locate the contact information for their elected representatives. The important thing is that teachers are doing this work collaboratively alongside their students.

It’s important to know that while we can empower students through activism, it doesn’t mean we can ignore our role as teacher activists. If we know changes are needed in our schools, we should advocate for change to prevent further harm, not wait for students to take up the cause.

“In equity-centered trauma-informed schools, we acknowledge and witness the harm, trauma, and pain of our world. We create classrooms where students and teachers can be fully human: affected by trauma but not defined by it, hurting but also learning, struggling but also growing and already whole. And we create sites of possibility. We tell our students, We believe you can change the world. Let’s work on it together.” (pp. 185-186)

Conclusion

“Ending trauma is an exercise in loving the question, not seeking the answers.” (p. 189)

“There are no one-size-fits-all strategies, and there should not be any one-size-fits-all models for schools. The needs of each community are different, and our dreams for education in our communities should reflect that.” (p. 190)

“Fighting for equity often means endless uncomfortable conversations with colleagues as we interrogate the biased philosophies underpinning curriculum choices or school policy.” (p. 191)

Taking a stand means taking risks. Decide the level of risk you can stand, and then take it.

“To be trauma-informed is to be committed to the end of the conditions that cause trauma.” (p. 192) (Conditions in and out of school)

“…we need to work on the big issues of injustice while also doing the immediate work in our classrooms.” (p. 192)

“Hope isn’t just wishing that things can be better but daring to work toward making things better, even in the face of an uncertain future.” (p. 193)

“There is a teaching I return to often, from the Jewish scholarly text the Talmud: ‘It is not up to you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.’…Knowing that we can’t or won’t do it all shouldn’t stop us from beginning.” (p. 193)

Get started.

Takeaways

This book covers a lot of ground – as evidenced across this lengthy blog post series! – but here are three of my takeaways:

1. Equity-centered trauma-informed education is a lens, not a checklist of actions. While schools can cause harm and trauma, the book shows us how schools also have the potential to prevent and heal from harm. This lens should be at the center of decisions made at all levels within the school system, not just within individual classrooms. Our aim is to provide universal support because we never know who is experiencing trauma. Rather than focusing on issues of fairness, we should focus on ensuring all students have access to and are receiving what they need.
2. Teachers are not therapists, nor should they feel like they need to be therapists. It is not necessary (or appropriate) to know each individual student’s trauma. Rather, we need to assume that every one of our students is experiencing life and that may include trauma. Our role is to be one of many supports available to them through the relationships we build in our classroom, the lessons we teach, and the resources we provide or direct them to. Our students need to know we stand alongside them.
3. Get started. We can’t keep waiting for someone else to take the first step. We can’t keep waiting until we feel like we’ve learned “enough” before we act. It’s not all on the shoulders of any one of us to fix every problem. We each have control over some things, so we each need to start making decisions that are equity-centered and trauma-informed in the areas we have control over. Then we can grow our spheres of influence over time.

Thank you to Alex Shevrin Venet for this wonderful and inspiring book! I look forward to continuing to refine my lens, standing alongside students, and working to change systems to both prevent and respond to harm in our schools.