being a teacher

Which Sales Person Are You?

Pernille Ripp
Yesterday as my husband and I were car shopping we had two very distinct experiences.  One sales guy, Paul, was relaxed, listened to us and whenever he didn’t have an answer to a question he told us who he would ask for the answer.  He followed through on our questions, made himself available, and seemed genuinely excited to work with us.  Another sales guy, Josh, was new, very eager, asked many questions but did not listen to the answers.  He repeated himself, kept asking us whether we wanted to upgrade and didn’t show us the product we wanted to look at.  He had the cheaper price, but also the cheaper pitch.

In the end, who do you think we went with?

As teachers we often are in such a hurry to make sure our students know everything they possibly can that we sometimes forget to listen.  We sometimes forget to admit we don’t know an answer.  We sometimes forget to take our time.  But we have to.  The experience of our students depend on us, so who do you want to be like?

being a teacher, punishment, technology

How Not to Integrate Technology

Pernille Ripp
After reading this wacky post “Encouraging Teachers to use Technology” I had to respond with a hearty congratulations!  After all, this article  highlights many of the things we so diligently try to avoid when introducing anything unknown to people; rewards, punishment, fear.  So let’s think about it for a moment; how could you make sure that no one wants to ever integrate technology:

  • Outdated equipment – with scrunched school budgets and schools falling into disrepair, this is a common culprit.  Who wants to use technology when the computer looks like an extra from the original 90210?  Well some people make do and even do great things but to get more people to truly integrate you may have to invest a little bit of money.
  • Listening sessions only on how to use it.  Teachers love to talk and boy when explaining technology and how cool it is, we can get rather winded.  How about letting people try it, after all, my 2 year old didn’t ask for a manual with my iPad, she simply pushed some buttons and now she is pretty adept and very eager.
  • Forcing people to use technology.  Nothing like a good punishment session if you don’t integrate technology.  I know how stubborn I am and even if something seems really amazing, if you tell me I have to put it in my classroom most of the time I will resent it.  Call me stupid but this resistance may be part of human nature.
  • Telling people how cool it is that this one teacher is using technology.  This is another variation on the forcing people to use it.  Sure that teacher may be doing some really cool things with it, but that doesn’t mean others need to.  In fact, I think the more you tell others about all the cool things, the more some people will resist.  It is all in the delivery of the message.
  • Not asking the people.  This happens all the time, there is extra money and someone smart spends it all on new technology without asking the people who are going to use it whether it is wanted or not.  Surprise, here’s another thing you didn’t want.  Often teachers would love more technology in their classroom, perhaps just not the same as what other people want.  I for one don’t particularly want a Smartboard but waive some iPads in front of me and I will be forever grateful.  Ask your recipients, give them ownership, and it will be much more welcomed.
So to not be to negative, here are my suggestions for how to encourage more technology use:
  • Lead the way through informal conversations.  I love tech and I spend a lot of time searching out new things for my students and yet I don’t tell a lot of people about it.  Why?  Because they may not be interested, however, if someone shows a little bit of interest, I will gladly show, talk, and teach them about it.  This way it is their choice to learn not me burdening them.
  • Give us time.  More tech means more time needed to investigate and play.  This year my school received 8 new Flip’s from the PTO and it wasn’t until we had time to play with them through a PD session that they started getting used.  Don’t just tell people about it, show them and let them do the doing.
  • Have your students be teachers.  My students are the best proof of good tech usage and they will gladly show you just how cool something is (vice versa they will tell me when something sucks).  They have turned into the best ambassadors for why teachers should integrate tech into their classroom and for that I am ever grateful.  Give them a voice and watch them find an audience.
  • Emphasize integration, not tech for tech’s sake.  I don’t have student computers in my classroom so that my students can type their papers on them, that is just an added benefit.  Rather these computers are our research stations, connection makers, and overall learning centrals.  We use them when it feels natural or when it is necessary, not because we have to, but because they fit into what we are doing.
What am I missing?  How does great tech integration get encouraged in your schools?
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.

being a teacher, global, students

We are just Facilitators

Pernille Ripp
Image borrowed from Dream Quotes

The science Olympiad is this Friday and each class is to make a banner for the opening parade. After much discussion my students settled on a zombie holding a Danish flag with the headline “Mrs. Ripp’s TerRippic Kids.” Cute, except as I lay awake last night, I realized that’s not them. Those words describe me, not our fantastic classroom. And while I appreciate the fact that my students came up with the idea, it just didnt fit. So today we opened it up again and I suggested Mrs. Ripp’s Globetrotters, the kids loved it and immediately concocted a design for it that included all of the students. My idea became theirs as they put their own spin on it and quickly excluded me from the process. It fit.

Globetrotting is what we have been doing this year, reaching out beyond our classroom walls and inviting the world in. From more than 600 blogs on our kidblog, to Skype, making videos for other classrooms, to just a general sense of being global students – that’s what we have done. I had the initial idea to become part of the bigger world but the kids made it their own. Without their enthusiasm and bountiful ideas, it would have been just another dead idea, another feeble attempt at being global.

So in the end I realize another important lesson this year; our classrooms aren’t about us, it’s about the students and the journey they are on, the places they will go in our care. We are just lucky enough to be part of the experience and to hopefully have some wisdom to pass on to them. Really in the end though, the identity of the classroom can only be shaped so much by a teacher, which I think great teachers realize. That they get to help shape the classroom but not be the focal points. The students are the souls of the classroom, we are just the facilitators.

being a teacher, blogging, choices

Don’t Look at Me – Why Blogging is Not for Self Promotion

Pernille Ripp
Perceptions abound when you come out as a blogger.  Particularly if you happen to blog about education like I do.   Some people embrace what you do and find it fascinating, while others shy away from you afraid that they somehow will end up in your blog.  Others just condemn, perhaps not to your face, but in conversations or comments, either way, perceptions about blogging and the people who do it are plenty.

Today, Lyn Hilt wrote an amazing piece regarding why she blogs as a principal.  If you haven’t read it you should, in fact, it is much better than this piece.  A comment in it though started my wheels spinning, Dwight Carter wrote,  “Excellent post and a wonderful defense of blogging as a reflective practice.”  That statement really struck me, “defense” indeed, how often do we defend the act of blogging itself, as if you are not supposed to reflect, or at the very least not in public?  This perception then of bloggers taking something private, the inner-workings of a classroom, and publicizing it can therefore not always be understood by others who do not blog.  In fact, often, it is viewed as a sheer act of self promotion.  And yet, I find that hard to believe being a blogger myself.  I don’t do it to promote what I do, in fact, if I had taken my mother’s advice I would have still made the changes in my classroom but kept my mouth shut about it.  Instead I chose to reflect openly and honestly abut my decision, my journey, my mistakes and my successes.   Put it all out there for others to judge, to inquire, and perhaps to inspire.

So I think it is time we stop tearing down others for decisions that they make that perhaps we do not understand.  I think it is time we view blogging as another way to reflect upon educational practices and not see it as a tool to get attention, or even a tool used for condemnation.  The bloggers I follow don’t set out to divide educators but rather start a conversation about what is happening in classrooms across the world.  Why this is not only viewed as an asset is hard to fathom.

So I guess I am done defending my blogging, instead I want to celebrate all that it has provided me with in the last year.   And I am also done negatively viewing those that don’t blog.  I know many exceptional teachers that reflect in other ways than blogging, who would never think to put their thoughts into cyberspace.  This does not make them bad teachers, perhaps just more private.  I also know some teachers who blog whose teaching style scares me a little, yet I applaud their effort in bringing it all out there.

So once again, we can be the change we want to see:  Blogging shouldn’t be the thing that divides educators, it should be viewed as yet another way educators work and reflect.  What makes one person stronger will in the end strengthen us all.  Isn’t that what we want; a strong group of educators?

being a teacher, control, projects, Student-centered

Hello Innovation Day!

Pernille Ripp
When I first started teaching 4th grade, I must admit, I underestimated my students.  I knew that they were capable, but did not realize just how creative, innovative, and eager for a challenge this age of students can be.  (In fact, I would argue that any student really fits that description if we provide them with the opportunity, but that’s another post).  So this year as I re-honed my philosophy and knew that I wanted to create more hands-on, student-led explorations throughout the year, I knew we had to end the year with something magical.  Some sort of project that would show me and my students just how far we have traveled in our road to become independent, creative, problem solvers and thinkers.  Hello Innovation Day!

Innovation Day is one of those projects I wish I had imagined, but instead that honor goes to many corporations before me (Google FedEx Day), in fact, I cannot even take credit for bringing it to a school setting, other teachers I follow on Twitter have already done it.  And yet this will be the first one for me, for my students, and I am more than thrilled.  The idea is simple and can be adapted to any setting.

On May 9th, my students get to work on whatever they choose.  The requirements are simple; they must learn something, they must produce something, and it has to be done in one day.  All year, I ask my students what they would like to learn about and although I have been able to incorporate many of those items into my teaching, there are some I have not gotten to – Irish Castles, Big Ben, and more about animals are some examples.    Here is their chance.  The preparation has been minimal, students had to fill out this sheet (which is created by Josh Stumpenhorst and minimally adapted by me) and they need to think about their product.  In class we have been discussing various ideas and students have sought me out to discuss process.  That’s it.

My job this day will be to document the learning through video and pictures, and also to be of assistance if needed.  The students are supplying most of the materials, and are doing all of the work.  Ideas being floated around are varied such as researching snowflake patters, building a t-rex model, or creating a paper zoo – whatever they can imagine and build.  And me?  Well as my students reminded me on Friday; we don’t really need you Mrs. Ripp.  Ad what a glorious thing that is to hear.