Student Independence Archives - Ms. Natasha Theodora

msnatashatheodora Best Teaching Practice

Student Independence from Day One

The Big Goal

Student Independence

Student independence is key. In fact, my whole goal for my students is to be able to do whatever I teach them on their own. Without me. This independence applies to everything. I want them to connect mathematical ideas on their own. Those decoding skills I teach during conferring, I want them to do it once I walk away. I want them to know what to do when the fire alarm goes off. I want them to know what to do if they make a mistake or need to go to the bathroom. My goal for them is independence. I’m not going to be with them every step of the way. They need to be able to function without me.

Independence is a life skill. Employers don’t want employees who ask what to do every single step of the way. That’s obnoxious. They want employees who can complete tasks independently and ask for help when they need it. Independence is a crucial life skill, and we can begin teaching it when kids are young like first grade (and lower). I taught first, but I have also taught second and third, and I have successfully created independent learners in all three grade levels. Some years with more success than others. Here’s how I do it.

Fostering the Student Independent Spirit

Eventually, students leave our classrooms, and we want the skills they attained within the school to stay with them. To do this, we must create a culture of independence in our classroom and instill independence in each student. Developing student independence is not an easy task, and there are many struggles and bumps along the road. If we persevere as educators, we are creating a better future. Here are some of the ways I help foster the independent spirit in my elementary classroom.

Let them do it

If students can do it by themselves, they do it by themselves. There is no task that I do for my students if I know they can do it on their own. For example, sometimes tying your shoes is hard, but if you can do it, then you do it.

Create an Internal Dialogue

Asking questions back to students that they should already know the answer to- in a POLITE way. Not sassing a student when they ask to sharpen a pencil. Place a thought in their head and letting them solve the problem. If I hear, “Ms. Rice, can I sharpen my pencil?” I ask them, “What are the rules? Is now a time for pencil sharpening? How could you solve this problem?” I then see the wheels turning. They have been prompted to think of the classroom procedures and then decide for themselves.

Let’s be real, sometimes the wheels aren’t turning (we all have those days) and then I direct them to the place in the classroom where they can find the answer.

Don’t Answer Their Every Question

Yes, part of our role as teachers is to answer questions, but we don’t have to answer every single question. A few years ago, a few kids were gathered around our globe, and they were wondering why earthquakes exist. I could have just answered their questions right there, and then they would know. If I did that, they wouldn’t learn anything other than the information I share. Instead, if I ask questions back to them and lead them in the right direction, they might learn a few transferrable scientific or research skills. So I said, “Wow! That’s an excellent question. What do you think we could do to figure that out?” They were so excited! Kids ran off to see if we had books about earthquakes. Another group wanted to go to the library to search; some wanted to send an email to older kids to see if they knew. Next time they had a question, they knew what they could do to find the answer all on their own.

Connect Them

Let them lead each other. Kids learn best from each other anyway, so why not let them. What a better way to develop student independence? When a kid comes to me and asks about using quotations in stories, I can say, “You know what? Have you asked Tyler? He knows all about it.” Recently I did this with Seesaw. Some kids weren’t putting anything in folders, and some had everything in folders, and one recommended new folders to me when assignments didn’t seem to fit the ones given. I connected the folderless ones with the folder ones for about a month. Now everything is in folders, and I don’t have to worry about it at all. Connect them to each other.

Consider Your Environment

Think about how your classroom is set up? Is it student-friendly? Can your students access the supplies that they will need? Can the kids move easily around the room? Are the math manipulatives available? Are books accessible? Paper? Pencils?

Make your supplies available to the kids. In my classroom, all of our books are available in the classroom library. All of our math manipulatives are in an organizer that kids have access to all of the time. Kid supplies are available and are at a kid-friendly height.

How Do You Include Student Independence?

Independence is an essential life skill. One that if we work at it right away, students will improve daily and continue to grow even outside of the walls of our classrooms. If students can be independent in our hallways, they can be independent at Target, at the movie theater, or even while walking home from school. Transferable skills should be the main focus of our teaching. If it doesn’t transfer outside of our classrooms, what is the point?

How do you work to foster student independence in your classroom? I would love to hear from you in the comments below!

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Weekly Wisdom

All reading counts as reading. Graphic novels, audiobooks, poetry, wordless picture books, eBooks-all reading. No one kind of reading is better than the other.

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msnatashatheodora Best Teaching Practice

Changing Our Thinking: Allowing Productive Struggle

There are many practices from long ago that we need to rethink as teachers. This series looks to bring up those practices and offer alternate ideas that are more relevant in today’s classroom. Today we’re discussing allowing productive struggle.

What is Productive Struggle?

I’m going to tell the simplified story of how I learned to ride a bike. First I had a tricycle when I was young. I learned how to pedal and move it with the handles. I started to grow out of that tricycle and my younger brother could have used it so my parents got me a two-wheel bike with training wheels. Once I got the hang of riding it around with training wheels they made the training wheels uneven so I would tip a little back and forth as I rode. This helped me start to learn balance. One summer both of my cousins who were my age were not using training wheels and I decided that I no longer needed them. My dad took them off and I put on my helmet, determined to master riding a two-wheeler. My dad gave me directions and started running while holding on to the seat of the bike. I begged him not to let go but he did anyway. I moved forward a little and then fell to the ground. My dad came over and calmed me down and told me I needed to do something. I needed to steer or pedal it wouldn’t work if I didn’t do anything. So we tried again. My dad ran and let go of the bike and a steered a little and then fell to the ground. My dad again came over and helped me up. This time he wanted me to pedal. I wasn’t so sure about pedaling. That meant I would keep going and I might even go faster than I wanted to go. We tried again. This time I pedaled and steered and managed to go farther than before when I hit a rut in the ground and fell over. Again and again, my dad patiently helped me up and we tried again. Soon he wasn’t running over to me every time I fell. He was having me bring my bike back to him. Slowly I started to gain more and more independence. Finally, I could steer and pedal and not fall over for long periods of time. I was riding a two-wheeler. My dad allowed me to struggle forward. At no point did he take my bike away from me and do it for me. That wouldn’t have worked out and seems silly to actually think about.

Productive struggle is allowing students time to fail forward just like I had on my bike. Productive struggle is so important and too often as teachers we swoop and save instead of letting students fail forward.

Why Is Swooping A Problem?

Imagine a classroom where kids are learning about place value. A student builds the number 23 with five tens instead of two tens and five ones. The teacher looks at the child and says, “no remember twenty-three two tens and three ones.” The child then fixes their number and now they understand place value… uh… no. Now they got this one problem right but because they were basically told the answer.

A child is reading a book and they get stuck on the word like. The teacher says remember this is a silent e so the i says its name. L-i-k, like. The child mumbles along with the teacher and the teacher says, “good you got it!”

A writer is writing a story with no punctuation and the teacher comes over and adds punctuation with a pen to the child’s’ writing.

The examples can go on and on. So often when children make mistakes teachers fix the mistakes. The problem with doing that is that we are robbing children of learning moments. When I swoop in to solve all the problems a student could encounter how do they become stronger? What did they learn this time that will help them solve the next problem?

What to do Instead

For a long time, the role of the teacher was to help students fix mistakes. I’m not saying this isn’t the role anymore but the role is more of a facilitator of learning. If all of my students don’t understand a certain skill or strategy it isn’t my job to correct them so they no longer have mistakes. It is my job to help them recognize their mistakes and continue to fail forward unit they understand.

Let’s go back to the base-10 example. This happens quite frequently in the grade 1 classroom. This child doesn’t yet see 10s and ones. If they start counting by ones then they continue to count by ones. If they start counting by tens they continue to start counting by tens. They don’t yet see the longs and cubes as worth different values. What if, instead of correcting him I asked him a question that would push his thinking forward. What if I asked, “how much is this worth” holding up a long. He could count the individual squares and determine that it is 10. Then I could ask, “so how many do you have here?” He could count by ones or tens and determine that he had 50. After that I could ask, “now what can you do so that you have only 23?” I could then let him go back and try again. Maybe this time he grabs 5 cubes. Maybe he goes back and gets three tens and two ones. Even if he just groups his tens into a group of three and a group of three he has begun to fail forward or productively struggle. If he continues to productively struggle I allow it. Productive struggle is good and it is so important.

When a struggle becomes frustrating I would come in with some intentional teaching and modeling for the student. Then we could work together to solve a few problems then the student could try on their own. As long as a struggle is productive and the child is getting bit by bit more correct each time they’re wrong I should allow it. I’m allowing students to build understandings and develop a conceptual understanding on their own.

What I've Learned

It is really easy to swoop and save or to remove all obstacles from a child’s path but it just isn’t helpful to them. I work hard to allow productive struggle in all of my students. I still haven’t mastered it yet but I too continue to productively struggle forward as a teacher.

Let me know your thoughts and questions regarding productive struggle in the comments below! I would love to hear from you!

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Teacher Talk: Epic!

Time To Share Another Resource!

I’m all about sharing the resources that I use in my classroom. Today I am talking about one of my favorite apps and a serious life saver… Epic! You might have heard of this one as several teachers I know use it. Epic! is totally free to classroom teachers and is a great resource for all readers.

Epic! is a website & app that has so many books for every kind of reader. It has audiobooks and read to me books. It has fiction and nonfiction. It has popular series like Fluffy! and it has new series to love! Epic! engages my students in reading. I know that there are studies about the benefits of reading paper books and this by no means replaces my classroom library but compliments it so well.

Before we really dive in this post is in no way affiliated with Epic! I just love this resource and want to share!

Listen

The number 1 way I use Epic! in my classroom is as the listening center. Each week my students take time to listen to stories. Listening helps them hear a fluent model and lets them enjoy stories that are still a bit too challenging to read on their own. The kids LOVE listening center. They can’t wait to go to listening center. Partially because it is pretty fun to wear headphones but I also suspect it has something to do with the selection of Read to Me texts on Epic! There is a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction books. All the books are of a high quality and the reading on the audiobook is fluent! What more could you ask for?

We also listen to a story during snack each day. Partially because snack is sandwiched into our day when we can’t add any more time to it and partially to grow our love for books. When the story is on the kids are happily eating and not chit chatting. Chit chat during snack would be fun but we only have 10 minutes before we have to be somewhere else so we have a listening snack. I much prefer that to a silent snack.

Read

The kids can listen to books but they can also select books to read on their own. Again the selection of texts is quite high and very interesting to the students. I’ve used Epic! for several years now and can honestly say that I have never had a student who couldn’t find anything to read on the app. They always find something they love. When kids first log into their account they click on a few things they like and that helps Epic! recommend interesting books to each and every child.

Watch

There are also lots of videos on Epic! There are videos of different learning concept and then, then there are lego videos! Lego videos are a sure hit in grade 1. Sometimes during snack we watch a Lego video. In case you’ve never watched one of these they break down how to build different Lego stuff… I am not really a Lego expert. It is a great model for a how-to and they are super engaging.

No Levels... No Quizzes... Just Reading

One thing I absolutely love about Epic! is that it is simply just books. There are no levels and a child is never told, no they can’t read that book. There are quizzes after some of the books but my kids just think they are fun perks. They don’t automatically assume that we read to take quizzes. When there is a quiz they don’t have to take it but often do- a fun little surprise. This app helps to grow the love for books within my classroom. Often I hear students sharing recommendations with one another and our little community of readers keeps growing and growing.

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msnatashatheodora Oral Language

Changing Our Thinking: Economy of Language

There are many practices from long ago that we need to rethink as teachers. This series looks to bring up those practices and offer alternate ideas that are more relevant in today’s classroom. Today we’re discussing teachers using economy of language in the classroom.

Why We Talk

That seems like a very silly heading… why do teachers talk? Well, we talk because we need to say things to students. What sorts of things are teachers saying to students? The role of a teacher used to be primarily talking… talking as teaching. Teachers were viewed as the people who had the knowledge and students were viewed as the people who needed the knowledge. Classrooms were filled with teacher talk. In my head, I was just picturing a one-room schoolhouse with a teacher lecturing and having students repeat after her but even when I was in elementary school my teachers talked more than the students.

My teachers talked and I listened, followed directions, took notes, completed assignments and talked at specific times. My talking wasn’t considered a priority in the classroom. Students talking was often considered a distraction or a waste of time.

What's the Problem?

The person doing the talking is the person doing the learning. We are social beings and meaning is constructed through talk. Picture a young child around 3-4 all that child does is talk! Kids talk talk talk and as they talk they are making sense of the world around them. They’re figuring things out. People build meaning through talk.

Balanced literacy builds upon the child’s known and a child’s oral language is their known. When teachers are the only ones doing the talking or are the ones doing the majority of the talking children aren’t being given their own time to make meaning of what is happening in the classroom, of what they’re learning.

Whoever is doing the talking is the one doing the learning.

What to do Instead

Build in talk time. I build in time for conversations in every single period of every single day. Here is how I build it into my day.

Classroom Conversation- Each morning we have a conversation. We practice talking without raising hands. Together we set guidelines and we learn how to enter a conversation, how to encourage someone else to share in a conversation and how to end a conversation. These conversations are student-led and I do not speak during them.

Turn and Talks- When teaching something new offer up time for the students to turn and talk with one another. Listen in as the students share ideas with one another. You’ll quickly be able to hear misconceptions, building upon ideas, and questions they might have. Allowing them to talk through things that are being taught allows them to build their understanding of what is being taught.

Read Aloud- Gosh! Let them talk during read aloud. Let them interrupt and ask their questions. Allow time for them to wonder. Ask questions to get them thinking and beginning to comprehend. Let them build meaning together.

Class Leaders- Give them a voice outside of learning time. In my classroom students frequently make announcements to one another. These announcements are as simple as, “someone didn’t push in their chair. We all need to push in our chairs so the classroom is safe.” or “I just found a marker without a cap. We need to find it and then we need to make sure our caps are clicked.” Teachers often make these sort of announcements but why not allow your kids to make them. They should feel empowered and want to take ownership of their classroom.

Whispering In- During conversations, book clubs or even guided reading groups I often whisper to a student to share a question or idea instead of sharing in myself. This seems weird but it works. At first, when I was crawling around the edge of our conversation circle I felt so stupid. As I whispered in, “say why do you think Edward felt that way” during conversations and listening to kids parrot it out did not convince me I was doing what was best. BUT after a while, after coaching in with my quieter students and having them share what I was thinking they started sharing their own thoughts. As a conversation is going on I am listening in and I am also whispering a conversation with a student who might not chime in unless prompted. I am checking in on their learning and pushing them to share an idea. Any idea. When they are sharing an idea that isn’t their own they feel safer. If someone disagrees it is still ok. Whispering in has empowered my students who might just sit out to lean in.

What I've Learned

Limiting my teacher voice in the classroom didn’t happen overnight. Let me tell you that there are still days where I do the majority of talking in my classroom. Nobody is perfect but on those days I am more conscious of what I am doing. I am reminding myself that I need to hear my students’ voices more than my own. I am checking in on student voices that I don’t always hear and together we are building community and growing in knowledge through conversation.

How do you promote oral language and communication in your classroom? How do you ensure that students are talking and that you are listening? What questions do you have about limiting your teacher voice? Let me know in the comments below.