student voice – Page 7 – Pernille Ripp

I was schooled in student privacy the first time I asked to take my students online. Protect, teach, and keep them safe were drilled into me as we connected and explored the online world. I thought I pretty much knew what I couldn’t share; all the sensitive or bad stuff, and thought I knew what I could share; all the good stuff. I thought all of my students wanted to share their blogs. That all of my students wanted their accomplishments made public. That when they did well they, of course, they wanted the world to know. After all, we are a culture driven by success stories.

Yet, year after year my thinking has been challenged. First by a 4th grader who told me she had no need for a certificate stapled to her math test as it made something private public. Then by a 5th grader that dared to ask why I assumed he would want his blog to be public. And finally, last year by a 7th grader who told me to tell the world that no one else had the right to know that she was on the honor roll.

Every time a student has challenged me, I have learned something. Every time they have stood up for their own privacy, I have been reminded of my own flippancy. Every time, I feel the urge to share all of the good I remember that I do not automatically have the right, that the students also have the right to say no, that that is not just something we leave up to parents.

So I speak for my students who challenged me to rethink my stance in privacy. I speak for those kids that asked me to think before I shared. Not just for the parents who said no, but for the kids that never said yes.

So before you publish that honor roll.

Before you make that blog public.

Before you move their clip to the positive zone or give them that point (“Ding!”) or hand them that award.

Before you tweet that picture, or print it, or email it, or share it with the world.

Before you use that student example (name redacted of course).

Before you share that great learning moment with the world.

Before you share what a kid has done. Even if it was amazing.

Please ask them if you may.

Please ask them if they would be alright with the whole world (potentially) seeing their thoughts, their work, their accomplishment.

Please ask them if they would like the attention that may come from it or if they would rather not be celebrated publicly.

And if they say no, respect it.

We assume that every kid wants to be praised in public.

We assume that every kid wants to be honored in public.

We assume that every kid wants to share their great grades in public.

But we don’t know every kid.

So ask them first.

Their answer may surprise you.

I know it certainly surprised me.

If you like what you read here, consider reading my book Passionate Learners – How to Engage and Empower Your Students. Also, if you are wondering where I will be in the coming year or would like to have me speak, please see this page.

being a teacher, student voice

What It’s Like to Live Online – A Student’s Perspective

February 3, 2016 Pernille Ripp

My students started blogging yesterday, all trying to use it as a platform to start conversations with others. I was blown away by many of their posts and thought I would share at least one. Philip’s below was one of my favorites. If you would like to see more, and they are pretty amazing, please go here.

Yes, hello. My name is Philip. However, now that we are communicating through online sources, you are to call me Pom, as that is what my friends have called me over the years online. I spend most of my time on the computer, and I enjoy playing video games. Now, you’re not safe at the moment. Allow me to explain what’s going on:

You have just fallen into a abyss, when you were exploring a mountain. This hole, led to the dimension known as “The Internet.” The Internet is a land that can only be monitored from a computer screen. It’s quite the mysterious place. Now, it is VERY important that you follow my lead. I have a bit to tell you .

Okay, so, The Internet has three main lands: Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome. It doesn’t really matter which main land you’re in, there’s just different kinds of cities in each main land. In Mozilla Firefox, lay the cities of Facebook, Pinterest, and the Property of the Dropbox Factory. In Internet Explorer, lay the cities of 4Chan, Reddit, and the lost city of MySpace. At last, we reach Google Chrome. Here, you will find the cities of Tumblr, Vine, and Instagram.

I have one final thing to tell you, and that is about each city.

Facebook: A typical suburb, with suburban mother, lots of school soccer teams, and more.

Pinterest: A cute town full of many sweet people, and artisans. All are welcome!

Drop Box Factory: A manufacturing business similar to Amazon, eBay, etc.

4Chan: A corrupt city. There are good parts, and VERY BAD PARTS. People say, that what is seen here, can not be unseen.

Reddit: The smartypants city that likes to vent and complain, but it’s a very fun city nonetheless. Check it out if you’re up for some debates.

MySpace: A destroyed city from ages ago, when people invaded. All the citizens left after Facebook had been opened. Now, shady people like to hang out there.

Tumblr: Very corrupt, very addicting, very nosy. The city is split into groups called “Fandoms,” where they are interested in other things. They often argue. Pinterest is a kind version is Tumblr.

Vine/Instagram: Two cities which I personally can’t stand, but fit in the same category. Lot’s of children, lot’s of people who don’t know what they are talking about for most of the time. However, Instagram is a good place for business, as that is where YouTube Inc. is located.

Now that you know what’s around here, you have to learn the lifestyle, but we will save that for another day….

aha moment, Be the change, being a student, being a teacher, being me, student voice

Enough with the Teacher Talk- Ideas for Getting More Student Talk

January 29, 2016 Pernille Ripp

“I wish you would talk less…”

The comment smacks me in the face over and over as I read my 6th hour students’ feedback for the semester.. At first, I think they must be forgetting how little I speak. How much work time I give them. How they clearly must be wrong, because I am the queen of not speaking much.

Yet, that very next day I realize that they are right. As I teach my 6th hour, the one right after lunch, I see how much longer I take to get directions. How much more information I give them. How my brain seems to work a little slower right after lunch and I am talking myself back into the lesson. At the expense of their time. At the expense of their attention span. And their eyes glaze over so I speak more to get them excited It’s a vicious cycle.

And I am not the only one speaking too much. As I do workshops on student engagement, I keep adding m0re and more research on teacher talk versus student talk. The research is startling; according to John Hattie teachers ask between 200 and 300 questions a day, whereas most students ask 2. 2...And those questions are typically clarification questions.

Teachers dominate classroom talk speaking anywhere between 60% to 75% of the time. That means in an average 45 minute English class, the teacher may lead the conversation an average of 27 to 33 minutes, leaving little time for most students to speak. And while I know I do not speak that much in any class, unless we are learning an entirely new concept, I also know that most of us think we speak a lot less than we actually do. And I also know that the more my students seem disengaged, the louder I speak.

So what can be done to limit teacher talk. To create an environment where students have a much bigger chance to discuss and explore? Where every child has a voice and someone to hear it?

Own your talking. Like I said, I thought I was quick to get to the point, apparently not. If we won’t acknowledge that we talk too much we won’t see an impetus for change. And if you are not sure, ask your students.

Set a timer. I generally allow myself 10 minutes to teach a concept leaving 25 minutes for the students to work and me to do one-to-one or small group instruction (25 minutes because we start with 10 minutes of independent reading). I thought I was pretty good at keeping it to 10 minutes but my surveys are telling me otherwise. Time to pull the timer out again.

Have students answer in a group. Too often, we rely on the call out question and answer, which is not the type of talk we should be trying to generate since it only allows one student to speak. I often have students give their answers in their table groups instead and then have them share out. I find that it opens up the classroom for much deeper discussions since many students become invested in the conversation, and it also means that students who may have been confused get a chance to try out some ideas or unscramble their thoughts. Turn and talk also works for this. Circulate instead and pick up on their answers that way.

Avoid the echo. The best advice I received my first year as a teacher was to stop echoing student answers back to them and yet, I still catch myself doing it every now and again. Our job is not to be the voice of the classroom, it is to give students a way to be the voice. So when a child gives an answer do not repeat it, if the class did not hear it then have them ask for it to be repeated.

Change your questions. No more call and response, instead have open-ended questions that will lead to a discussion. I know this, yet I forget at times, I will therefore be writing some big questions down on a post-it to remind me.

Just ask the question. Too often when we ask a question, it becomes a long rambling sentence filled with anecdotes and extra information. Yet this ends up confusing students more and we then have to repeat the question. So get to the point and then add afterwards for those students who need it.

Stop the unnecessary repetitions. How often do we teach to the students who do not get it rather than assume that most will? So rather than over-explain, state the instructions and then head over and check in with those students who may not have understood. Think of how often we explain more than necessary because we are worried that a few students may not get it while the others have? Stop explaining so much and teach instead to those that do need it.

Stop interrupting. How many read alouds have we interrupted to ask just one more question? How many times have students been in the zone working and we have borken their concentration to do a quick check-in. I think I do it because that looks like teaching to me; a busy teacher asking lots of questions. Find the right time to interrupt, enjoy your read aloud rather than constantly model what you are thinking. Limit it to the very best things so that students can reach a state of flow more often.

Be mentally ready after a break. The hour that told me I spoke the most is the one right after lunch, where my brain has had a nice break and I feel more relaxed. Yet, I often enter the classroom right when my students enter and then launch into class. Get your brain woken up by revisiting (mentally or on paper) your main points of instructions. Take a few minutes to wake yourself up so that you are back in teaching mode, because when we don’t we end up rambling.

Encourage student talk. By emphasizing the importance of students speaking up, asking questions, discussing and dissecting, we can create communities where all students are heard, where all voices are part of the learning. My amazing principal, Shannon Anderson, gave me the idea of giving each child two markers that they use when they want to speak. All students need to have used a marker in the group before they can use their second one. While I have not tried this yet, I want to try it for book club discussions to make sure all students feel they can speak and that not one voice dominates the conversations.

As little as we think we speak, I think it is vital to take the pulse of our classrooms every now and again. We would all like to think that our words are dripping wisdom, but how often do we ramble on when students are ready to work? So check yourself and your talk, ask your students, and then change your ways. I never want to be main voice of the classroom, none of us do, but it takes changing our deep-seated ways to truly change it. We can create classrooms filled with passionate learners but to do it, students have to have a voice.

being a student, being a teacher, being me, questions, student choice, Student dreams, student driven, student voice, Student-centered

A Most Important Question

January 15, 2016 Pernille Ripp

Asking my students to reflect, to give feedback, to set goals and try to peek into their minds has been a mission of mine for the last many years. The questions I ask change, but the purpose does not; to create a better educational experience for them. To create a classroom they actually want to be a part of. To find out how I can change so that I can be a better teacher.

For all of the questions I have asked, and it has been a lot so far, there is one that stands out. One that has given me the most significant answers. One that has led me to question myself and what I focus on in the classroom, day after day, student upon student.

And it is one of the simplest ones indeed.

What do you wish I would notice?

Tucked at the end of the survey, when they are already thinking, when they have already shared.

Some write nothing, some say I am noticing what I need to. But then there are the others, those whose answers always stop me, change me, and sometimes even keep me up at night.

I wish Mrs. Ripp would notice how hard I am trying.

I wish she would notice that I am funny.

I wish she would notice how tired I a.

How I need help.

How I don’t know what to say.

How shy I am.

And I am grateful for their answers, for their faith in me to now begin to notice so that I can be better. So that we can be better. So that school can be about them again, just the way it was meant to be.

aha moment, being a teacher, MIEExpert15, Personalized Learning, student choice, Student dreams, student driven, student voice, Student-centered

The Five Tenets of Personalized Learning

December 29, 2015December 29, 2015 Pernille Ripp

Cross-posted from the Corwin Connect Blog.

I did not know what I was doing when I decided to change the way I taught. I did not know that somewhere out in the education world there was already a term floating around for some of the ideas I had for change, a term that would capture so many of my ideas in one. It was not until a few years of blogging about the changes I had made that someone left a comment on my blog suggesting I learn more about personalizing learning because it seemed like that is what I was talking about. That day, as I googled the term I realized that in my endeavor to create passionate classroom, I had indeed been personalizing learning for all of my students. I was seeing them all as individuals and trying to cater our multi-faceted classroom to fit all of their needs; personalization at its core.

Yet, now when I see all of the discussion of personalized learning, I do not really recognize the term anymore. Over time the term has become associated with technology-laden, self-paced learning, preferably on a device, with little adult teaching and much more student autonomy. While I recognize the inherent good in those components, those are not the powerful aspects of personalized learning and I worry what will happen to those that attempt to personalize learning if they think this is all it is. Because personalizing a child’s learning is so much more than a device, or even a student figuring things out by themselves. Instead it is about knowing your students so well that you can help them navigate their learning journey. That your students have ample opportunity to find out how they learn best and then implement this knowledge as they master the curriculum we have to cover. It means that every child has voice in what they do and that the teacher knows their students well enough to help them grow.

When I wrote my book, Empowered Schools, Empowered Students, as well as Passionate Learners, I kept thinking about the type of environment that I would have thrived in as a child and that my own children would thrive in now. I kept coming back to a few tenets that used to be a part of personalized learning but seems to have gotten lost in the powerful PR campaign of Personalized Learning in 2015. Those tenets are so simple that we often forget to plan for them or even consider them as we craft our curriculum.

The five tenets of personalized learning:

Student Voice.

So much of what we do is about promoting the voice of our students and yet while we ask the world to listen to what our students have to say, we often forget to listen ourselves. Therefore, for any personalized learning journey to be successful, we must start to ask the tough questions. I ask my students what they dislike about school, what they dislike about the subject I teach. I ask them when they started disliking school and why. It is not just to have students feel validated in their emotions, it is so I can work with the demons they bring into our learning environment. If a child dislikes school because they feel powerless then I can combat that dislike by giving them power back. If a child dislikes school because they find it irrelevant well then that becomes my mission for change. If we do not ask our students the tough questions, and also figure out what part we play in their disengagement, then we cannot change it, we cannot personalize. So the true journey into personalized learning begins with getting to know your students really well and then acting on the information they tell you.

Student Choice.

Choice, of course, is a must in any type of class or curriculum, and yet choice to some means chaos or that every child is doing their own thing. Choice can vary depending on the day, on the task, on the curriculum to conquer. Choice does not mean that everything needs to be a free-for-all but instead that choice is always present throughout the day. Choice starts with choice in learning environment. It is time to stop dictating where students sit in the classroom. It is time to stop dictating that all student sit while learning. Choice involves how they learn something, so for some that may mean by listening to a lecture, by working with a partner, by using technology to uncover information. Students must be exposed to many ways of learning so they can discover how to navigate all of the ways, as well as determine how they learn best. Choice also becomes in how they show mastery. I always have a laid out path for students, as well as one where they build their own. Students needs change and so their show of mastery has to change as well. Finally, there must be choice in when they show mastery. Children learn at different rates and so we must find ways within our curriculum to allow for re-application of content if a child had not mastered a standard earlier. Yes, there can be deadlines and cut-off dates, but please allow a child to circle back to a previous standard if they have grown in it.

Student Planning.

This is one of the biggest things for me when I think of personalizing learning. We cannot plan our lessons in isolation anymore, at least, not all of the time. We can certainly be the gatekeepers of where we need to end up and we can also bring our ideas to the table, but at some point, please allow for students to plan with you. It is simple yet so powerful when we discuss our learning goals and then plan together how we will reach them. I have always been inspired by the ideas that my students have brought to the table, as well as been educated on how students learn best. You do not have to do it all of the time, but take the chance and ask students how they would like to cover something, I guarantee you will be surprised at just how much wherewithal the students will have as they work through this process with you, as well as the increased engagement and buy-in simply because they crafted part of the lesson.

Student Reflection.

When I moved to 7th grade, I remember feeling the rush of the curriculum constantly. With only 45 minutes to teach, and oh so much to cover, there was no way we would ever have time to reflect; yet, I discovered the true power of reflection on the days where my lessons were met with disdain. It is easy to dismiss an eye roll or a groan, but when a majority of a classroom participates in such displays, it is our cue to stop and ask why. So reflection became a natural tool for us in 7th grade as we personalized the curriculum that we had to cover. I had to find out how my students felt they were doing. I had to find out what their path forward would be, and that started with a journal and a prompt. Sometimes rather than a written reflection we would speak; as a group, in partnerships or one on one with me. The prompts did not change much throughout the years; how are you doing, what have you learned, what are you working on now? And yet as the conversations grew, so did their understanding of what they needed and where they had to grow. Personalization to me means that a child knows how they learn best and that is not something I can tell them. I can offer them hints and I can point out things they may have missed, but at some point during our very busy days, reflection has to be done so that students can decide their own path.

Student Action.

This final piece is one that gets a lot of attention it seems because this is where personalized learning becomes a thing of beauty; when our students start to change the world. When our students make, create, and have authentic purposes. Yet, student action, to me, is an inward piece as well. Yes, I want students who have a voice in the global education debate, that is why they blog, but I also want students who know how to advocate for themselves as human beings, and as learners. I want students who can successfully navigate tricky conversations and come out feeling like their voice was heard and respected. I want students who when they see a problem, do not just think about it, they do something about it. Whether that problem is a global one or a personal one. So involving students in action, setting up situations where they can see the impact they may have, guiding them through tough conversations, becomes part of personalized learning as well. I have realized that part of my job as a teacher is to help students discover the tools they already have to help them learn best, even if they are faced with an environment that allows for little personalization. I need to help them discover what they can do to make it better for themselves and for others. I need to help them see that their words have power as well as their actions.

So if you are starting on a journey of personalized learning, keep these tenets in mind. Sure, add on the technology but do not make it the focal point. That is not the point of personalizing, however, it can enhance it. Personalizing learning is the key to keeping students engaged and curious, but it also means that there is not one system to follow. Instead, spend the time to truly discover who your students are and help them find their path. Be the teacher that made a difference, not just because you cared about them, but because you taught them how they could be better learners. Our jobs have never been just about covering curriculum and personalizing learning reminds us of that.

If you are looking for a great book club to join to re-energize you in January, consider the Passionate Learners book club on Facebook. We kick off January 10th.

assessment, authentic learning, being a teacher, collaboration, No grades, student choice, Student dreams, student driven, student voice

Ready to Re-Ignite Your Passion? Join the Passionate Learners Book Club

December 9, 2015December 29, 2015 Pernille Ripp

With the bustle of December and all of the year-end blog posts starting to be released, the end of the year is fast approaching. But with that end also comes an inevitable beginning; a January that calls for re-invention, renewed commitment, and also the energy to try new things. I do so adore January for all of its passion and courage.

It is therefore that I am pretty excited to share that the first ever official book club for Passionate Learners – How to Engage and Empower Your Students will kick off on January 10th.

Join this private Facebook group for a casual and fun exploration of the book, find a community of your own that is trying some of the ideas, or have already implemented them into their classrooms. There will be reflective questions, helpful resources, as well as ideas shared in the hopes to make this January the best one yet.

In the book club we will discuss how to

Build a working relationship with your students based on mutual trust, respect, and appreciation.
Be attentive to your students’ needs and share ownership of the classroom with them.
Break out of the vicious cycle of punishment and reward to control student behaviour.
Use innovative and creative lesson plans to get your students to become more engaged and intellectually-invested learners, while still meeting your state standards.
Limit homework and abandon traditional grading so that your students can make the most of their learning experiences without unnecessary stress.

So if you are looking for a way to re-ignite your passion, to meet new amazing educators, and find great ideas for how to engage and empower your students, join this book club. There is no commitment once you join, pop in when you can and share when you want.

When: January 10th – February 7th

Where: Online via a private, closed Facebook group

Cost: Free

Click here to join the Passionate Learners book club on Facebook. You will receive a notification from Facebook once you have been added to the group and you can then start posting. Please contact me with any questions. You can get your print or e-book copy of Passionate Learners here.