When kids come to school, they expect us to be their constant. Be so consistent that when the Students and Teachers take risks, it's a safe space.
This came out of the culture session, which was the first session I attended. You never know what direction the session is going to go in at an EdCamp. I thought that we would be talking about how to establish a culture in a school or in a classroom, but we talked about so much more than that. This takeaway came out of a conversation thread that centered around trying flexible seating. We were discussing how some classes in a day could handle the flexible seating and maintain composure, and some classes seem to struggle with it. I liked that this thought came from that conversation, because I want to be part of a building where teachers take risks and encourage their students to take risks. But I never considered how consistency would play a major part in being able to be successful in taking risks. Talk about a new wrinkle for the brain...this makes me want to seek, develop, and highlight the consistency that I help to provide (and want to provide!) to teachers.
When the campus leadership models culture for teachers, teachers model the culture for students.
This made me think of the Golden Rule, but education-style. This takeaway also came from the culture session.
When students blog, their interests will be revealed to the teacher! Then, the teacher can take the student interests and create more meaningful and relevant lessons that include student interests.
I'm going to be completely transparent...this is NOT a takeaway I expected to gather during the blogging session! I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I was so happy to have this angle on blogging exposed to me! Using blogs to discover student interests...what a fantastic idea!
Giving students an opportunity to blog can add to your revising and editing game.
Um, hello! I think EVERY ELA teacher would LOVE to have a way for students to be interested in revising and editing. I'm a big human and I don't even love revising and editing--if you read my blog posts, I think that's very clear. I know we're always looking for a way to the tiny humans to get fired up to revise and edit!
Try a visual timer with students who are struggling with controlling their emotions and behavior when they're in particular settings that are difficult for them to call on their coping strategies.
This was from the restorative discipline session. I really liked this because I know of a student with whom I can immediately go back to my campus and try this strategy. YES!
Want to start restorative practices? Step 1: care about the students. Step 2: offer authentic choices.
I'm happy to say that this is the tweet that gained the most traction out of the entire day! I LOVE that this is what bubbled up out of the restorative practice discussion. Restorative practices are waaaay more than caring about students and offering authentic choices. I mean...way more. But what the adults in our building started every interaction and redirection with something that convinced the students that we cared about them and then offered them authentic alternatives to what they were doing that needs to change? WHAT IF we did more than say, "I care about you," but we took two minutes during recess to talk to students about anything other than academics and behavior? WHAT IF that spoke volumes to our students, built trust and relationships, and dividends spilled into our teaching?
WHAT. IF.