Old vs. New

A new management plan for a permanent teacher who goes

“mobile.”

Welcome to my school!

Cherokee Trail High School

Home of the Cougars

Aurora, CO

A bit about our academics…

We are the newest school to the Cherry Creek Public School System, opening in 2003.

We are the second school in the district to offer the International Baccalaureate program, as well as AP courses.

We offer the AVID program, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination.*

About our Kids

We are a pretty big school! This year, our numbers will grow to approximately 1,700. We’ll eventually reach capacity at 2,600.

Our demographics are: 69% White 12% Hispanic 12% African American 6.% Asian

More about our kids

In our early years, we have boasted a few state titles (Baseball, Track, Swimming to name a few) and numerous Top-5 performances in the state.

If you ask them, most of them would say that the teachers care about them and their success, and most students can name at least one adult in the building (all of our different classifications ranging from teachers to admin to security to classified employees were mentioned) who they feel connected to.*

A bit about our growth… Our building is huge. But it’s not big enough. We only have 13

science classrooms for 1,700 kids. Last year, each room was full for five of our own personal class

periods. We had our own space to mess up, clean up and organize any way we wanted.

To cover our growth, we had to hire 4 new teachers. Rather than make the new teachers become “cart teachers”, we

all decide (as they do in other schools in district because everyone shares rooms at other schools) to share every room equally. We will now each be teaching out of two, or possibly even three or four different rooms for each of our class periods.

My Reaction to the news:

Where is MY connection if I don’t have a home?

So much of my room is permanent, and if I’m teaching the same subject in two rooms, this raises many questions as to how I will handle “living” in two places at once – with more than one person.

Questions Like…

I have an agenda that goes on the board with the daily schedule, assignments due, homework, and other important announcements*. The board is no longer “mine” when I share. How will I disseminate information to students?

I have a QOD*. (Question of the Day) My room has a string of lights that highlight the QOD over my whiteboard when students walk in the door to remind them to get started quietly on it. During that time, I take attendance, monitor student progress, and check homework. If I don’t have a right to whiteboard space any longer, how will my students complete their warmups, especially when the printing budget is so tight?

What about the seating arrangement? What if I share a room with a “cooperative groups” person? I try that every year and end up going to rows or separate desks. I get too frustrated with the socialization that takes place in cooperative groups. But neither am I a fan of straight rows. I’m more of a “U” person, or paired desks person with a few cooperative group desks for the students who can (or need to) work in groups.

What about my materials? How will I transport overheads, lecture notes, handouts, textbooks, worksheets, gradebook, and general classroom items in order to be prepared to teach? What if I forget something? And let’s not even go there on transporting laboratory equipment!!

What about seating charts, tardy binders, missing work or late work extra copies, hand in baskets, and candies for surprise treats?

How will I return homework assignments to students?

Where will I put examples of student work in my classroom?

What will I do with my Mindtrap game? (A riddle game that I sometimes play with students as a reward or if there is extra time at the end of a lesson?) My Sudoku books?

A lot is about to change in my ordered, procedural, pristine little academic life…

There is no “Cart-Teacher” Manual out there.

So I must get creative.

I’ve started at the start.

My Whiteboard Space.

Here is what my whiteboard looked like last year.

Today is Monday, September 1st, 2007. Thank you to period 2A for cleaning up the lab equipment so nicely!TEST ON THU/FRI FOR ICSP CLASSES.

How I can manage my whiteboard space

The best solution I could find was a big chart-paper pad. I can write my full agenda on the chart paper, and rest it up on the countertop space in the classroom.

Why I Chose This

This is kind of a neat idea. In doing this, it takes care of some supply management issues, too.

Each pad has 40 pages. That’s enough for one semester – a reasonably cheap fix. (With class test days, etc, I can write “TEST” on the board to save some page space, and even use the back sides. Markers are 40 cents at Wal-Mart.

Why I chose this… This also eliminates another problem of mine – absent work

binders. Typically, I have a binder where I write assignments, etc in for students to look up missing assignments when they are absent.

Two problems – It’s another thing I would have to “mobilize”. And, I never used it last year anyway! I hated re-writing everything down again.

If I have the chart paper, it’s a record of what we’ve done – now I only have to write it once, and kids can access the old chart paper pages if they are absent.

I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t have to haul around the chart paper – if I teach each subject in only one room, it won’t have to move.

On to warm-ups…

This really wasn’t a difficult fix. I just have to make some compromises.

I really loved my lights. The kids loved the lights. But carting those around and hanging them up again in every room I teach in? I think I have better uses of my time.

I considered purchasing another set, but that doesn’t solve the problem of traveling to two different rooms to write the same question on the board (I tried that once and it didn’t work. I’m not fooling anybody.)

Warm-ups

Since I’m networked with my own personal folder in each computer I boot up, I have the option of putting my warm-ups on a power point slide and projecting them up onto the whiteboard in each room I that I teach.

I chose to do this because it will also give me a record of the warm-ups I use. They won’t disappear with the eraser, and I can use them again in the future.

I’m going to miss my lights…

Seating Arrangements As I mentioned before, I’m a semi-circular or rows-

type person. As a science teacher, there are too many ways for a group of students to misbehave dangerously (getting into chemicals, handling sharp objects, etc) for them to work in collaborative groups. They do work in lab groups when we conduct labs, so they do get the interactions that they crave with one another in a highly-controlled environment.

Research shows that “organizing desks so that only two or three students could interact led to higher on-task behavior, less off-task movement, and less loud talking” (Burden, 95).

Classroom Environment I’ve visited another school to see the classrooms

and how the teachers handle decorating the rooms that they share. Their solution to sharing rooms and decorations? They don’t decorate. The walls are bare, and the classrooms are sterile.

“In reviewing environmental attractiveness, Weinstein and Mignano (1993) noted that students who were in classrooms that they found attractive had a tendency to be more persistent on tasks, had better attendance and sense of group cohesiveness, and participated actively in class discussions” (Burden 91).

Seating Arrangement and Classroom Environment Solutions

I’m not okay with bare walls. I can’t teach like that. And an uncomfortable leader will only ensure an uncomfortable set of minds in the classroom.

I know one of the people with whom I am sharing a room. Both the Earth Science and Honors Earth Science classes will be taught in the same room.

Earth and Honors Earth Room Solutions We’ve sat down together in the

room we will be teaching in and compiled our posters.

We decided what we will do is use posters appropriate to subject study, and change the posters with each “sphere” of the earth (biosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere).

Each of us will take turns changing out the posters. All leftover posters will be donated to new teachers who may not have anything to hang anywhere.

Seating Arrangements

Nickie and I (my “roommate”) differ a bit on the way we like to organize our rooms.

Nickie likes to use collaborative groups.

I like to use collaborative groups when appropriate for the nature of the lesson.

Seating Arrangements We don’t differ too much here, so

we decided to use a trick I read in Teacher Tools for Success.

We’ll use the U-Shaped arrangement on most days in the room.

We will use masking tape to mark on the floor a collaborative seating arrangement.

When it’s appropriate to use a collaborative arrangement, the students will move the desks so that the feet of the tables rest on the pieces of masking tape! They will then return the desks to the U-Shaped arrangement at the end of the period so that there are no surprises for the next teacher who comes in the classroom.

It’s a Good Thing Nickie and I went to school together and are such good friends!!

What about other classrooms? There is a simple solution for teaching in another room. The other science course I teach is ICSP – Integrated Core

Science Prep. It’s an integrated class for all freshmen and sophomores at CT.

We often give our new teachers a couple of sections of ICSP, and give a “vet” teacher (this year, it’s me) the responsibility of helping those teachers plan and execute lessons, etc.

Armed with the knowledge on room arrangements from Classroom Management and Discipline, I think I can provide a good case for working in rows for the new teachers.*

It’s a compromise (I don’t particularly enjoy rows, either – they’re too “stiff”) but a good one that will support our new people.

Materials Management At first, this one put me at quite a loss. I wasn’t sure how to handle overheads, notes, homework

assignments, access to textbooks and workbooks (especially if I have to teach the same subject in two rooms – there’s a chance ICSP will be “stationed” in two different rooms shared by a large number of people. I teach 3 sections of ICSP, so this is a possibility.)

Materials Managment So I started with what could be “permanent” in each room.

Seating Charts should be permanent. Each room arrangement is different, but each arrangement is also permanent. Leaving a binder that all teachers can access for each class period with appropriate seating charts serves two purposes: it keeps a record of who sat where in other classes if there is graffiti or damage to a desk, and it also saves the teacher from carting around a seating chart with different arrangements for each class period to all rooms we teach in.

Tardy folders should be permanent. I use the “sign in” method mentioned in the CHAMPS book. I have a binder with student names and dates for them to list tardies and mark whether they are excused or unexcused. Again, each teacher can make use of a “room” tardy binder, rather than carting their personal binders around to each room in which they teach.

Candies and goodies can stay in the rooms in which I teach. We just have to be really good about hiding them.

I’ll put my Mindtrap game in a cupboard in the classroom that needs it the most. I won’t know which class that is until I meet them all, but I can move it around as I see fit.

Materials Management Now I have to deal with the materials the cannot stay in the room

because it will interfere with other teachers work space, or it will jeopardize the integrity of the classroom (teachers editions, test answers, etc).

Materials that must move with me are: Handouts and worksheets Teacher’s Edition workbooks and teacher notes Overhead printouts Stamps for homework completion and stamp pads Gradebook Hand in baskets Return-pile baskets

Materials Management

My only solution to this issue…

Materials Management

Looks like life will have to go from this…

Materials Management

To this…

While what I’ve suggested won’t solve ALL of the problems of teaching and managing materials…

It’s at least got me thinking about getting a bit organized so I don’t drive my co-workers mad!!

Resources Albert, Linda. Cooperative Discipline. Circle Pines:

American Guidance Service, 1989. v-165. Burden, Paul R. Classroom Management and

Discipline. New York: Wiley, 1999. v-378. Fay, Jim, and David Funk. Teaching with Love and

Logic. Golden: The Love and Logic P, 1995. iii-399. Jones, Vern, and Louise Jones. Comprehensive

Classroom Management. Boston: Pearson, 2007. Sprick, Randy, Mickey Garrison, and Lisa M.

Howard. CHAMPs a Proactive and Positive Approach to Classroom Management. Eugene: Pacific Northwest. 1-478.