INNOVATION IN THE CLASSROOM

Welcome to the Teacher Leadership Series Blog!

This blog represents a new forum for teachers in DC who are interested in accelerating innovation in their classrooms.

The blog captures highlights from the latest Teacher Leadership panel and allows participants to add their ideas and ask each other questions.

We encourage you to read and post!

On February 27, 2008 over forty teachers and administrators came together at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School to discuss the topic of innovation in the classroom. What do strong teachers do to accelerate innovation in their classrooms? How do they ensure that the innovation leads to greater student learning?

The highlights are grouped in categories below. We encourage you to read the highlights and then add ideas of your own. What helps you innovate in productive ways?

Getting and Using Student Feedback

“I use exit tickets from the lesson before. Then I already know who knows and who doesn’t know what I taught the day before.”

“We moved the exit tickets from the end of the class, to the end of the lesson. Now they do it right after the lesson, they get to do their independent work if they have gotten the objective from the lesson.”

Observing Teachers and Yourself

“One of the best things to do is get into other people’s classrooms to see the best, the worst, and every practice in between.”

“I never do anything innovative. I only steal from other teachers.”

“Videotape yourself. That’s powerful.”

“I track what I’m doing in pacing my lesson. I get a post it note and put: 5, 10, 15, 20 on it. Then during the lesson I write what we were doing every 5 minutes. Am I being accurate in the pacing of my plan.”

Collaborative Planning

“Planning together helps. This is my mini-lesson that I wrote. What do you think? You make your plans open to feedback from your peers.”

“When I get into a rut. I do an interdisciplinary lesson plan. That twists my mind and twists theirs.”

Building Relationships with Students

“You have to ask yourself, ‘What is that student strong at? What do they do well?’ The reason that he understood “the Giver” is because most of “the Giver” has been framed in the context of relationships. He knows family relationships and how to take care of people. We have to ask, ‘What are they good at and how can we connect to that?’—and sometimes it is a stretch.”

“You have to take time to enjoy your students as people. I have to make sure they see that I’m having fun too. After establishing a routine, I will totally break it so that they never know what is going to come next.”

“What I love is the absurd. It might be standing on your desk, saying something in a cowboy voice. Whatever gets them going.”

“I like to sing. I have them beg for more work. They do a drumroll for me and then I reveal the page number. On the 100^th day of school I rapped a portion of our song. I expect a lot but give them opportunities to enjoy themselves.”