Category: Student-centered

being a teacher, smartboards, Student-centered

The Sheer Genius of SmartBoards

Pernille Ripp
Image taken from here

I am not a believer in SmartBoards, there I said it.  Sure, they are a nice tech tool to have but honestly, for that amount of money, I could think of about a thousand other things I would rather have in my classroom.  In fact, Bill Ferriter at the Tempered Radical agrees with me, which partly prompted this post.  And yet, I have to applaud what the makers of SmartBoards have done to our school districts.  Think about it, a smart board.  So if you have it then you must be smart for making the investment and if you don’t, well, then you are not.

Sometimes it is all in a name.  After all, that is why companies spend money trying to come up with the best marketing they can.  So when someone came up with the name SmartBoard you know high fives went around the room.  How about the Interactive Whiteboard?  Teachers love to speak of how interactive their SmartBoards really are.  And where does that notion come from? Their name.  I do nto for one minute believe that soemone went up to that board and thought indepedently of how interactive they are for students, maybe for the teacher, but not for others.  It really should just be called a touch and response board but that just doesn’t seem to have the same kind of connotation.  So when you call something interactive well, then, think of how much easier you can sell it.

So really who is the board interactive for?  The teacher who gets to touch it as the lesson moves on or the selected student who gets to come up and move a word around.  Ooooh, now that is engaged learning.  I don’t dismiss interactive whiteboards as classroom tools altogether but I do dismiss the notion that they are the ticket to reform our classrooms, to re-engage our learners, and teach our children.  Instead they lead themselves to more “sage on the stage” type of teaching where the teacher is in control of all of the learning and the students just get to participate.  That is not what school should be.  So laud your interactive whiteboards as much as you want, but keep in mind just how they were sold to you.  I think it is time we see them for they really are; tools, not solutions, not magic pills, just another tool and one that comes with a steep pricetag and a much too deep learning curve.  This should not be the future of our classrooms. 

alfie kohn, exploration, Passion, questions, Student-centered

School: The Killer of Curiosity

Pernille Ripp
“What is that?”  “Where does this go?”  “Can I do this?”  All questions overheard during my school’s recent kindergarten visitation day.  There they were: fresh, eager, curious, asking questions about everything; where does this go, what does this do?  I marvel at their spirit.  And then I think of later years of students, despondent, going through the motions, routine focused and mostly okay, but not asking all of the questions.  Where did the questions go?

As teachers we do not set out to kill the joy of learning, at least , not anyone I know does.  We state in our missions that we want to change students’ lives, motivate them, inspire them, and keep them eager to learn.  And yet our mission seems to be at odds with our school system.  Classrooms are set up all facing the teacher so that the “sage on the stage” can be the center of attention.  The whole day is rigidly structured so that subjects do not overlap, routines are taught and mastered and hardly ever broken.  Punishment goes hand in hand with rewards and grades become the ultimate reward in the end.  An A will always be better than a B no matter what the teacher says.  We divide our students into winners and losers and hope they all have a nice journey through school. And then we wonder why students lose interest, lose relevance.  By the time we get to high school, the eyes are on the prize; graduation, where they will break free of the rigidity of school  Students count down until summer vacation so that they can be free.  Free.

As Alfie Kohn has stated, “School is not an institution of learning, it is an institution of listening and memorization.” (Said in in a LeanBlog Podcast 2/24/09).   And this I believe is killing our school system.  Test-obsessed and score driven, we no longer let children develop their curiosity to provide them with a real stake in learning.  We no longer offer them choice because we have too much curriculum to cover.  Our homework is not set up for meaningful exploration but rather to teach time management and study skills.  Time management?   Like our over-scheduled students need more time management?  When students fail to hand in their homework we assume that it is either because they are too lazy or because they didn’t feel like it.  We do not assume that perhaps it was uninteresting, irrelevant or perhaps even too hard or meaningless.  We almost always assume we know best.  And even if we know within our hearts that the piece of homework assigned probably wasn’t all that engaging, we assign it anyway, because we have to assign something and we were forced to do inane homework when we went to school so why should our students be exempt.  But the system is broken, we know it, and we have to change it.

There are exceptions, of course, thankfully.  There are pockets of teachers and schools that are taking a different approach. That are actively combating this curiosity-killing school system.  Those that let their students explore, those that weigh their options, assign meaningful homework, that question their practices rather than go with the status quo.  They provide inspiration for some and shudders for other.  Perhaps they are just too different for some to even recognize them as schools.  Yet they are part of the answer.  We must bring back exploration, we must give teachers time to fully engage their students.  We must spark teachers’ curiosity as well so that we all can love learning again.  They say that curiosity killed the cat, let’s not have the lack of curiosity kill our schools.

authentic learning, being a teacher, creativity, Innovation Day, Student-centered

4th Grade do Innovation Day

Pernille Ripp
Once again my students astounded me.  Given the opportunity for a full day to just create and inovate, they showed me that if we truly trust our students, they will be able to manage their time, create an exciting product, and have fun while doing it.  On Monday we did our very first Innovation Day, an idea being integrated in other schools around the globe but originating from companies who call it FedEx Day.

The idea is simple: the students get to pick a project to work on for a full day and it has to be done within that day.  the requirements were minimal:  They have to learn something, they have to produce something, and they have to be able to present it the following day.  We decided as a class too that it would be best if no more than 2 students worked together.

Two weeks prior to the day students were given a brainstorming sheet, supplied by Josh Stumpenhorst and modified for 4th grade.  Immediately the excitement grew.  “A whole day where we get to decide?  That’s not what you do in school!”  Some students knew right away what they wanted to study such as Aidan and Erik who were keen to build and research a Celtic castle due to their heritage.  Other students changed their minds almost overcome with the idea that they could do anything they wanted to.  After some conversation even the most excited were able to choose.  They had to outline their process more detailed as the day grew closer and we spoke of how they would proceed Monday morning, finally,  they were ready.

Monday morning I was as excited as my students: would they be able to pull it off? Watching them walking super fast down the hallway told me they were as anxious to get started as I was.  Indeed, right after announcements we jumped into it.  The room quickly erupted in noise and paper, which can be seen right away in our video.  I stepped out of the way and let them work.  As the teacher, the hardest bit of this day was to truly get out of their way!  Instead of me solving problems, they were solving their own, using all of the resources that we have discussed throughout the year.  It was incredible to watch them work together and other own.  Throughout the day students would show me their progress, parents would pop in as well as other teachers.  I live tweeted the event and even some videos.  The kids were so into it they asked to skip recess and lunch.  As the clock wound down and students started mellowing out; I knew that this was a must do event!

So what did we learn, well, students created:

  • A huge cardboard model of Big Ben
  • A painting of the Golden Gate Bridge
  • Scrapbooks from kindergarten to 4th grade
  • Snowflakes and their patterns
  • A Celtic Fortress
  • A board Game called Advance
  • A dream house out of Lego’
  • A model of the Washington Monument
  • A model of the The Pentagon
  • A model of the The Capitol
  • A T-Rex
  • A commercial for Fleels (flats that can be converted into high heels)
  • A model of D-Day
  • A model of Apollo 11
  • A clay model of Big Ben
  • Glogsters on favorite basketball players
  • A paper zoo
  • And many research papers

And what did I learn?

  • That staying out of the way is a great thing.
  • That trusting your students to create will result in magical things happening.
  • That students will use the resources they are taught to use.
  • That innovation and creativity is alive and thriving, the problem solving that occurred in my room that day was just incredible.
  • And that some students do need help when picking a project to ensure it is enough for the whole day, although that was remedied by adding research components to it.

As the year comes to a close and these incredible 4th graders look more and more like 5th graders, I am thankful that we had this opportunity to learn together.  The students showed me how much they are capable of, how much learning can transform them, and how school should indeed be fun.

My students made a video trying to convince other teachers to do Innovation Day, I think they say it best.

being a teacher, change, inspiration, motivation, Student-centered

Some Thoughts on Motivation

Pernille Ripp



Honestly, this post has to start with a disclaimer.  I have only been teaching for a little over 3 years in a middle-class school at an elementary level.  Because of this I have had few run-ins with highly unmotivated students, as well as older students.  And yet, unmotivated students surround us, they show up in our schools at an alarming pace and already at the elementary level we struggle to reignite the fire.  So perhaps an elementary perspective is not so awful after all.


“Mrs. Ripp, this is so boring.”  That sentiment greets me on semi-regular basis from one child.  Most days he is passionate, funny, and involved, that is, if he likes what we happen to be during.  Today is no different, he has been involved, engaged, and eager most of the day but now the fatigue has set in and the writing prompt just does not want to get done.  This is a regular occurrence throughout America, passionate students that are mostly motivated at all times but sometimes hit slumps.  This post is not about them.


Instead, this post is about those kids that put their head on their desks, that groan when we give directions, that could not care less about threats, rewards, punishment or motivating pep talks.  Those are the kids we all meet; the truly unmotivated.  Those students that do not see the relevance, the importance, or even the wisdom behind school.  Those students that feel that this is just a temporary illness, something to be waited out for real life to begin.  And yes, we have them even at the elementary level.


The other night, I shared on Twitter, “I always wonder if having unmotivated students just mean that what I am teaching is unmotivating, I think it does.”  Lo and behold a man I admire greatly, Tom Whitby, was kind enough to engage me in my train of thoughts.  As we discussed, my own thoughts became much clearer:


Motivation is linked to the teacher whether we we believe it should be or not.


If a student fails, the teacher is most often the first to be blamed before any outside factions are investigated.  


We have the most control over what happens within our classroom.


As part of this discussion, Tom Perran offered up this article discussing how teachers only have control over 10 of 16 motivating factors.  And yet as teachers we do have to own up to our part in motivation.  Last year, when I sat through another round of book report presentations I yawned often, stretched to stay awake, got droopy eyelids, and yet admonished the students for getting restless and unfocused  Hmm, that doesn’t seem right.


As teachers, part of our job is to provide engaging lessons, but it is this definition of engaging that seems to mess us up.  I used to think that by engaging it meant me lecturing for a while and then giving the students work time, as long as I kept the questions coming, the students were engaged, right?  For some reason most of the time my results were less than stellar.  I also used to think that as long as I provided some sort of choice then the students would find their motivation.  And while our more self-reliant students did because they already have a sense of duty instilled by the teacher, some students didn’t.  Enter in punishment and rewards.  If a student didn’t turn in their work then recess was taken away, and if that didn’t work then a 0 was given.  Ooh a failing grade.  They even got their name on the board and were not offered a chance to enter the weekly drawing for the monthly pizza party, confused?  So was I.


The problem with punishment and reward though is that it often only motivates in the short term.  A student knows that as long as they hand something in, even if it is awful, then that counts as a finished product.  As a teacher, I often lost sleep over what to do with these students.  they seemed already by 4th grade to hate school, finding it a punishment for childhood, and worst of all, they knew how to work the system.  So what to do?  Again, I realized that the problem wasn’t the students, it was the curriculum and how I taught it, so really it was me.  See, I am the biggest in school motivator there is.  While I may not be the one that decides what to teach, I most certainly am the one that decided HOW to teach it.  And if I thought that lecturing (which even put me to sleep in college) was going to capture the imaginations of 9 year olds then I was an idiot. 


So after almost a year of changing things up, this is what I have realized as far as motivation:

  • Choice matters.  When students choose not just what they will do for a project but also what they would like to learn about within a perimeter, you get buy-in.  This continues to be one of the most exciting simple realizations I have come across.
  • Motivation is contagious.  When one student gets excited and has an opportunity to share that enthusiasm, it catches.  My students get to blog about projects, we have huddles where we share and we are a bit louder than we used to be.  But guess what?  Those loud noises are usually students super excited about something.
  • Eliminate punishment and rewards.  This short-term motivator seemed more harmful than helpful to me.  This year we have class parties when we feel we want one, I have lunch with all my students several times a month because they ask me to, and no one is excluded from anything.  When homework doesn’t get done, I ask them how they plan to fix it, most students choose to do it at recess.  Fine by me, they are free to go if they choose.
  • Be excited yourself.  The fastest way for kids to lose interest is if you are bored.  I realized that I hated some of the things and taught and how I taught them (goodbye grammar packets), so something had to change.  Now my students joke about how I almost always introduce something new with “I am so excited to do this…”
  • Look at outside factors.  Some students have a lot more on their plate than we could ever realize.  Ask questions, get to know your students, and be a listening ear.  When my husband lost his job, it was hard for me to be excited about things as well because I was too busy worrying.
  • Control what you can.  We will never be able to control what our students go home to but we sure can control what happens in the room.  All the teachers I know choose to create a caring environment where all students feel safe.  This alone means students let their guards down and feel it is okay to work hard and have fun.
Loss of motivation doesn’t just happen overnight, I believe all students start out motivated and then life gets in the way.  At some point during their school years they start to hate school feeling it is stagnant and irrelevant.  I therefore do everything in my power to ensure that students leave my classroom still liking school, perhaps a small goal, but an incredible important one.  If they like to be in your room, then it is up to you to figure out how to keep them engaged.

being a teacher, change, Passion, questions, Student-centered

Would You Like Being a Student in Your Own Classroom?

Pernille Ripp
It was a simple question really, “Would I like being a student in my own classroom?” that stopped me in my tracks.  Last year when the students had left, the chairs had been put up, and the exhaustion hit, I realized that no, this was not the type of classroom I would have wanted to learn in.  And so began a quest of soul-searching, revising, and rethinking, in order for myself not to become a statistic; another new teacher who quits.

I don’t know where I went wrong.  After all, in college, teachers loved my lesson plans and raved about my ability to connect with students.  I graduated with a big heart and a big head.  I was going to save the world.  And yet, something didn’t click.  In social studies last year I remember scolding my poor students because they were obviously uninterested.  I kept telling them that this was important and they better listen, thinking that yelling at them would make them snap to attention.  Or the student who once again didn’t do his homework, he got an earful as well because that would show him.  Oh how off track I was.

It really hit home when I read a parent magazine last summer in which a question was posed, “My child dreads going back to school, what should I do?”  The answer?  “Remind them that they will see their friends and how much fun they will have during recess, art and music class.”  Recess?  Art?  Music?  What about writing, reading, math?  What about the majority of the time?  Would they be glassy-eyed robots just waiting for the next bubble of fun outside of my room?  I had to change.

So I looked inward, reflected, and realized that i had it all wrong.  School wasn’t about me, or about the knowledge I was going to impart on my students.  Instead it is about them, the students  Those eager kids that show up ready to learn if you let them.  So I had to get out of the way while still acting as a guide.  I have written many posts about my transformation and how much it has affected me as a person and as a teacher.  Most importantly though it is through this transformation of my own ego that real change has happened.  Now I look around my classroom and I celebrate.  There is the girl who was too shy to even look at me busting out of her shell as she acts in a fractured fairy tale.  There is the boy who barely could add two numbers nailing most math concepts.  Or the shy and kind boy, who’s biggest wish now is to be on more committees so he can decide things.  That is what it is all about.  My students are ready for 5th grade, they are ready to leave me with their new knowledge, their energy, their inquisitiveness.  I got out of the way and it worked.  Now when I ask my kids what is the best thing about school they tell me it is all the learning, the projects, the work.  Not recess, not the parties, not their friends, that is just extra.  And what a victory that is.

So I will continue to change and adjust.  I will continue to ask myself whether I would like to be my own student.  It was not a pretty realization back then and it wont ever be but it was a necessary one.  Now I am proud to say that yes, I would love to be a student in my own room, and not because of the teacher, but because of the opportunities to learn.  Would you?

being a teacher, change, Student-centered, testing

Yes, I Test My Students – As Long as its Worthwhile

Pernille Ripp
Image found here

I have tests in my room… there I said it.  This reward-disliking, limited homework, freethinking teacher actually dares to test her students.  To some this is surprising, to others borderline offensive, and yet to me it makes perfect sense.  See, I believe it is all in what you do with the test.

I used to give tests just so I had a grade to end home and record in my grade-book.  The test was always the final product, the destination of our learning journey.  If a student failed the test or did poorly, it was not my fault, but rather that of the student obviously having poor study skills.  My second year teaching I realized that maybe it wasn’t the student but instead my teaching that was the real cause of their poor test results, and finally this year I realized that it was all me, and even more so, that I actually had power of the format of the tests and what answers they provided.  So this year I took the power away from the tests and gave it back to my students.

Tests in my room take many forms.  There are the dreaded WKCE tests, our state’s standardized testing which take up a whole week of our time in October.  That week is tough for me because this represents the type of tests that I immensely dislike.  Tests that offer no chance for redoing, learning, or even results to be worked with.  We take them, lock them up, send them off and then get results in March – yes, at least 4 months later.  They also test on curriculum that we haven’t even had a chance to teach yet in 4th grade, so we try to cram that into our poor students just so they can regurgitate it when needed, which often they can’t.  Those tests don’t make for any deep mastery, they don’t create appreciation of the world for the students, or even provide them with real learning opportunity.  It’s a take and forget test, that just happens to decide funding for my district.  Sure we try to make it fun with singing, bubble gum and other projects, but still they are something to be lived through and forgotten about, sorry.  Those tests deserve all of the bad publicity they get.

There are valuable tests though, such as the pre-test and post-test I give in math.  Some people may scoff at the notion of pre-testing students on curriculum they have yet to be taught but experience has taught me that done the right way, this is incredibly valuable for the teacher and for the student.  It simply is all a matter of how it is presented to the students.  We discuss how this pre-test is a way for me to guide my teaching, that anything they don’t get they leave blank, and to not spend a lot of time on it.  If they get something, great, if they don’t, great.  Either way it helps me teach them better.  There have been units when a student or two has mastered everything before it has even been taught, knowing that information gave me a chance to offer enrichment rather than the same material.  Those pre-tests let me know when students lack background knowledge or when the whole class is ready for harder concepts.  Those pre-tests also give my students a chance to see what is to come and some even comment on how excited they are to learn something.  These pre-tests are the same as the post-tests, which means I can compare their growth.  How did they do, where are the holes, what did I miss?  I always make it a point to show the students their growth from to pre to post; they often can’t believe how much they have learned.  Those tests inform and push me harder.

Then there are the tests that naturally evolve.  In science rather than a test on the structures of life, my students made an incredible crayfish documentary.  They chose to research and document all of the knowledge they had garnered with the world, rather than put pencil to paper, and became real experts in the doing.  If I ever need proof that they learned something, I just have to watch the 6 minute video.  Or how about in social studies when we learned about Native Americans for the 3rd time in their short school career.  Rather than a formal test, I told them to research whatever they wanted as long as it had to do with Native Americans in WI.  The result: corn bread, models, posters, and time lines were some of the chosen projects.  We don’t do spelling tests but rather test each other when we cannot spell a word.  We don’t do grammar tests but instead create grammar hunts throughout the school.  We don’t do tests that seem purposeless, but rather embrace those that give us something and disregard those that don’t.  We discuss as a classroom how we would like to show off our learning and we find ways that suit all students.  That doesn’t mean we never test, it just means they become more meaningful to us.  As an example my students asked me to test their knowledge in social studies about pioneers because they were unsure of what they needed to remember, so I did.  Tests don’t have to be rigid.

Which brings me to my final discovery in my classroom; tests are not the end.  In my room, they are another step in our journey and only a tool used to figure out where our holes are.  So once a test has been given, it is given back for correction.  Students may use their books, their brains, each other, whatever they can to solve a problem.  Often the mistakes are careless, soemtimes not, but almost always they are fixed and the right knowledge emerges.  Tests are not meant to be the end all for me, they are meant to inform, so when I let my students work with them again I am living that philosophy.  Students know that they get a second chance, because let’s face it, sometimes a question is misread or life is distracting, yet they still try their hardest the first time.

So I return to the point of tests; are they to inform our instruction or to provide us with grades?  I choose the latter every time.  Inform me please, make  me a better teacher, help my students learn more, and don’t ever stop us from enjoying the adventure that is school.