2015 is quickly coming to an end, and yesterday, I noticed that Faige Meller — a retired educator and important part of my PLN — already selected her one word goal for 2016. This got me thinking about mine. Last year, my goal was to get uncomfortable, and as I indicated in this July reflection post, I spent a lot of time doing just that. In July, I started thinking about a new goal for the upcoming school year based on my change in grade (going back to Kindergarten) and teaching environment (sharing the classroom with a partner). I thought that it was time to focus on listening. Listening is definitely a big topic, and in my July post, I thought of many questions connected to listening for me to consider for the upcoming school year. 

The Listening Questions From My July Blog Post

Sue Dunlop, one of our Board’s superintendents and an important part of my PLN, commented on my last post, and her final question makes me wonder now if maybe she knew something that I didn’t at the time.

There’s definitely a lot that we can focus on when it comes to listening, and I know that I need to work on all of the areas in my questions. By creating such a broad topic though, I really wonder if I’ve improved in any of the areas since September. There are times that I’m a better listener than others, but I still think that I interject too frequently, don’t take the time to truly understand various viewpoints, and forget about the importance of wait time. And so, as a new year approaches, Sue has me looking back at my answer to her question.

My updated word for 2015 is hearing. I’m going to focus on “active listening.” To do this, I need to …

• focus on the person talking.
• rephrase what the person says before adding my own thoughts.
• ask questions instead of just interjecting with opinions.
• let some things “happen” and see how they go. Then reflect together and see what we can do next.
• not be the first one to offer an opinion or solution: stand back, watch, wait, and listen.

What other ideas would you add to this list? I hope that others will also share their one word goals for 2016, and their reflections on their 2015 goals. How do you plan on meeting your new goal? I would love to know!

Aviva

I’ve worked, and continue to work, with some incredible phys-ed teachers over the years. On the last day of school, I had a discussion with one of them that still has me thinking. I was sitting beside Cindy Merritt at lunch time, when she showed me this incredible card that she received from one of her students.

This is what teaching #pe is all about! #perseverance #growthmindset #reflecting pic.twitter.com/7iHoAhJO10

— Cindy Merritt (@HPEMerritt) December 18, 2015

What I loved about this card was that this student recognized that sometimes phys-ed is tough, but with time and practice, it becomes easier … and it’s worth investing the time. While just one student wrote this card, I think that many others would have shared similar sentiments. Over the past 15 years, I’ve taught every grade from JK-Grade 6 in some capacity, and I’m always impressed with the number of students that love their time in the gym. Some students are really strong athletes, and others are not, but they’re usually all eager to go, willing to try, and don’t look for opportunities to sit out. That says something to me. When I was in school, the opposite was often true.

Yes, there were always strong athletes, but those that struggled (and I was one of them) wanted nothing to do with phys-ed. With my visual spatial difficulties, games like volleyball, basketball, and baseball were a tremendous struggle. I certainly never got picked for a team, and I couldn’t blame anyone. Why would I want to be physically active if I was only going to meet with failure?

Times have changed though. This movement to Teaching Games For Understanding is allowing students to develop the fundamental skills and strategies to meet with success. Teachers like Cindy are showing students the value in being physically active, and as I see in our students, they’re not only eager to get to the gym to learn, but they look for movement opportunities all day long.

When I see this change, I wonder about other subject areas.

• How do we get all students to embrace the struggle in all subject areas?
• How could we increase student success in all subject areas?
• What might the short-term and long-term impact be if students start to see subjects in terms of what they can do versus what they can’t?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these questions. Who knew that a lunchtime conversation would give me so much to think about?

Aviva

In our classroom, we have a beautiful window. It’s quite large and lets in lots of light. The only problem is that it’s up high, and our students aren’t that tall. On Twitter and Instagram, I’ve seen many photographs and videos of “wonder windows,” and the amazing learning that can happen as students look outside. Our students can’t see outside though. When the year started, we didn’t do anything with this window, and then one day at the beginning of November, we noticed students moving chairs over to the window to look outside. What?! Standing on chairs? This must be unsafe. While I initially repeatedly asked students not to climb on the chairs, I then started listening to their conversations. They were talking about their observations. They were making connections. They were asking questions. Learning was happening thanks to this window, and we couldn’t continue to let the height of it stop this learning. As a result, I went to Home Depot and bought two of these stools.

Stools From Home Depot

Students could now safely look out the window. For about a month, this is what they did. Even recently, they’ve occasionally taken an interest in doing so (e.g., when the bus arrives at the end of the day). But overall, the window now isn’t as popular as it was at first.

In the last couple of weeks, we added a provocation on the window ledge to try and bring students back to the window. Many of our children love to build, so we put some wood pieces on the ledge, in addition to some soft blocks and cars. We thought that if students went up high to build, they might also talk about what they see through the window or this might even inspire their creations … and this worked. Oral language and vocabulary skills continued to develop. But then one day, students did something with the stools that I didn’t expect: they moved them.

Recently, a group of students have started to move the stools into the middle of the carpet, and set up an obstacle course. They’ve added two small step stools into the mix. They usually set up the course similarly, but sometimes they change things around (e.g., the other day, they added in two small foam blocks to stand on first before moving on to the other stools). I’ll admit that at first, I got the students to move the stools back. This wasn’t the purpose of them. This had to be unsafe. But then I started to see the potential in what the students were doing in …

• developing gross motor skills.
• measurement and counting skills.
• learning about the use and safety in different equipment.
• dramatic/role play (as they often direct each other to jump off the stool acting like various animals).
• self-regulation.
• personal and social development (particularly related to responsibility and even collaboration, as students tended to collaborate in order to create the course).

One Example Of This Obstacle Course

Now I’ve decided to keep a closer watch when the students are using the stools in this way, but not say, “no,” to the use.

I share this story because of some other happenings from last week. My partner created a couple of different activities for students — one related to math and one related to language — and left them out one day to see what the children would do. Within a few minutes, all of the materials were dumped, mixed with other ones, and used in various ways: none even remotely related to the intended use. We collected the activities and talked later about them. While we thought that maybe the students weren’t ready for them yet or maybe they needed to be modelled with a small group first, now I’m starting to wonder, is it okay that the items were used in different ways? Do students create uses for items based on what they need and/or are ready for, and will these uses change as skills/abilities change? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t model other uses. Who’s to say though that our intended use is the best option for all students? What do you think? Maybe this is just another case of getting comfortable with letting students “jump off stools.”

Aviva