Learn Like a Pirate!

I absolutely love summer! It gives me time to reflect, learn and act. Over the summer, I always fit in workshops/conferences and reading my highly anticipated stack of books. I learned via Twitter that @PaulSolarz has a wealth of knowledge which he generously shares. I was so excited when I heard he had written a book, no more 140 character limit! Paul Solarz's book Learn Like a Pirate pushed me to think about the way I run my classroom, taught me a few tricks, and now I am committed to create some change.

 I consider my classroom already to be student driven, but Paul's book has some practical suggestions that I can easily implement to iron out some of the bumps I run into.  Here are some changes I am creating in my classroom this year:

• Give Me Fives: What a wonderful way to empower students to step in and take the reins. I typically ask students to step forward to share with the class. By being the sole person to make these calls, I'm positive I am missing learning opportunities that everyone would benefit from, including me! I plan to introduce give me five at the beginning of school along with the rest of my rituals. I have a feeling it is going to be liberating and up the ante of our learning community.

• Post Daily Schedule: I tried this out a few times last year but was not consistent. I aim this year to stick with it. I feel this small change will help with my class activity transitions, which don't always run as smoothly as I wish. When I am in a workshop/conference, I too like to know the agenda.  I owe this piece to my students.

• Pulling Popsicle Sticks for Partnerships/Groupings: Grouping students is one area of my job, I don't enjoy.  I love the popsicle stick idea for grouping on the fly. As Paul states in his book, "Random partnerships help build strong student relationships amongst everyone in the room."

• Good versus Bossy Leadership: Students regularly collaborate in my classroom. Year after year, I run into a few students that hijack a group's efforts. The teacher-student discussion is a total balancing act, because I don't want to discourage the students from leading. Paul suggests in these instances to pull the student aside and ask them if their behavior is displaying good leadership skills or has crossed over into bossiness.  As teachers, we need to nudge the kids to lead with kindness by making them aware of their tone. I plan to front load the discussion when I present the collaborative group expectations, but will not miss out on the opportunity to provide feedback along the way!

• Student Reflection: The last couple of years I have gotten better by factoring in time for students to reflect on their learning. E-portfolios have been a great platform to record reflections. At times, I have overthought the process of guiding the students in this process. I have learned that you are better off by providing students with some guiding questions. Paul has great go-to questions to prompt deeper thinking during and after the learning process that I am totally stealing!

• Describe what happened or what you did during the lesson.
• To explain your learning experience provide: 

strengths and weaknesses

successes and setbacks 

hard and easy

• What did you learn due to the experience?
• What can you do to improve your learning? How will you extend your learning past what is expected?

There's much more in the book to check out including some active learning ideas, resources and 21st century skills. The book has QR codes that link up to Paul's website which is full of examples of student work, a great source for inspiration. Off to the next book in my reading stack, summer is near the end for me!