In today’s post, Steph and Jess discuss chapters 6-14 of The EduProtocol Field Guide. We are not quite halfway through this book and it has already proven itself to be a game-changer - a book that will be well-used and well-loved throughout the school year to come and beyond!
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Steph:
Seriously, if you are looking for some inspiration and practical classroom solutions- pick this book up! This book is a toolbox filler and idea creator!
Chapters 6-11 outline “Smart Starts” - great ideas to help build culture in your room at the beginning of the school year, and activities that can be continued throughout the year to continue building and solidifying the culture in your classroom or school. In our last post, I shared the awesome “Frayer a Classmate” Smart Start, which is explained in more detail in Chapter 8. Another great Smart Start idea I will be implementing next year is based on the edcamp session first created by Dan Callahan called “Things that Suck” (p. 56). Instead, Marlena created “Things that Rock” - a great activity to show kids how much they have in common with their classmates. I can see this creating some GREAT discussions in the first days of school for my high school students!
Overall, I really appreciated the Smart Start chapters for 2 main reasons:
1) The ideas are practical, easy to implement and explained in enough detail that teachers will have confidence in their implementation.
2) Jon and Marlena include the Culture Goals, Academic Goals and Teacher Big Ideas for each activity. These make implementation and justification to my principals even easier!
1) The ideas are practical, easy to implement and explained in enough detail that teachers will have confidence in their implementation.
2) Jon and Marlena include the Culture Goals, Academic Goals and Teacher Big Ideas for each activity. These make implementation and justification to my principals even easier!
Chapters 13 and 14 provide great reasoning behind the EduProtocols that will be explained later in the book and are a call to all teachers to reflect on their practice and think about what students need most from school.
As teachers, we must do everything we can to prepare students for THEIR futures and understand what their futures will really look like. In what profession is completing a worksheet a valuable skill? We all know that it is not - and it won’t be. Chapter 14 digs into the all important 4 C’s: Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity. I plan to use this organizer in my lesson plans next year to challenge myself and make sure I am truly preparing my students for their future.
As I am planning for next year, I have decided my students will be publishing their learning to their own websites and this chapter solidified the idea even more. Providing my students with an authentic audience has so many more possibilities! Jon and Marlena, of course, use this chapter to not only explain the 4C’s but to give teachers concrete examples of lessons and activities that encompass the 4C’s at different levels and for different contents. This is so valuable to me - just like my students I need to see examples!
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Jess:
Next year, I will be the only returning third grade teacher. I will have two new teammates and I can not wait to share this book with them. I want to implement basically every idea I have read so far in my curriculum.
Last post we talked about the Frayer model and when I sat down with our reading specialist I was showing her this book. We are making vocabulary notebooks for the kids for next year using the Frayer model. I can’t wait to use the “Frayer a classmate” to introduce the students to the graphic organizer they will be using daily with their vocabulary.
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The book mentions the 4 C’s multiple times; Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration. I feel like I need to make a super cool poster to hang in my room next year with the 4 C’s on it. The 4 C’s are like my new best friends!
I will also be using the Smart Start: Things That Rock next year. Genius! This is a great way to get to know your kids the first few days and also share some laughs, while building your classroom culture and community.
As you know if you have read previous blog posts, I am a huge fan of #tlap that classroom (shout out to Dave Burgess). The book talks about searching for party games, icebreakers, team building activities that one can use in the classroom. Make learning fun for the kids!
I can’t put this book down and just keep highlighting, writing off to the side, starring, and writing in my notebook ideas from the book that I can’t wait to implement next year in my classroom. Yes, I have already started thinking and planning for next school year. Don’t worry when school is over in 7.5 days (I mean who is counting?) I will take a little break. Or at least do my professional development reading by the pool.
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In our next post, we will share some of our favorite #EduProtocols from the book. Stay tuned… we already know they are going to be AH-MAZING!
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