Issue 69: Nov 16, 2009 Connections Newsletter

Creating a Print-Rich Environment

Learning-Focused
Nov 16, 2009

Patricia Syner is a current middle school teacher providing us with great strategies she practices in her classroom

I was just starting my teaching career. I was substituting for a kindergarten class, and the teacher introduced me to a technique called "Read-the Room." I bought an assortment of magic wands and put them in a gaily-decorated coffee can aptly named, "Read the Room." The point was for a child to pick a wand, and go around the room and read everything they saw, which had been labeled.

Later, when I found myself teaching fifth-grade, I decided I wanted a classroom like that, only on a fifth-grade level. The other day when I mentioned creating a Print-Rich Environment in my room, my friend asked me curiously, what it was. I told her it was a method of carefully choosing your new vocabulary words and then reinforcing them with LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies like a "Wordsplash."

I put the new word in the middle of a chalkboard with a bit of tacky gum. We create a word web around it. We copy it into our journal, and then we put the word on our classroom door.

Environmental Print are the words we encounter every day. My husband went to get a bottle of shampoo from the bathroom, and he asked me why it had the word "Shampoo" circled. I remember the day I started my "Print-Rich Environment." I brought the bottle to class and left it where they could see it. Every child, the next day, it seemed, had went home and checked to see if their bottle said "Shampoo." Nobody missed it on the spelling test. There have been many words like this.

It is more than hanging a sign on the door that reads, "Happy Thanksgiving," although that helps, also. It is having a scavenger hunt where everyone brings in as many Thanksgiving ads as they can find, and sharing them, and posting them on a clothesline in the room.

When we introduced the word "Jubilant," I told them it meant very joyous. I was wearing a button on my jacket that looked like the Wal-Mart Happy face. The kids named it Julie, short for "Jubilant." We wrote "Jubilant" on it. Whenever I wear it, the children say, "I see you are in a "Jubilant" mood today. They tend to use the vocabulary more when it is reinforced.

The other day I was standing in the hall doing hall duty. I was holding a plastic orange. It was labeled "Artificial." The science teacher came down the hall. He was holding a "Lemon." It had a smiley face and the word "Lemon" written on it. He had been teaching his class about the acidic properties of lemon juice. We held up our fruit, did a "Fruit Salute," and grinned.

On my desk is a small bottle of coal. Where the price tag once was, is now a label reading "Souvenir." There is also pineapple. It sports a florist pick and reads: This pineapple is not "Artificial." It is edible. Is Print-rich-Environment old school? Perhaps. Does it still work? Definitely!

I recently received this note from a child in my room.

Dear Mrs. Syner,
Since you are an authority on things that are artificial,
Can you tell me if the souvenir I bought is authentic? I would be jubilant if it is real.
Your Student

Attached to the note was a Lincoln penny with Abraham Lincoln sitting down. He had underlined all our vocabulary words.

I brought in a letter from Nancy Reagan she once wrote to my class. I copied it and labeled it "Authentic Correspondence."  I then gave every child a copy. "Wow," said a little girl, "I have never had a piece of authentic correspondence like this".

A Print-Rich environment encompasses so much more than books. I bring magazines that contain articles indigenous to the area where we live. It is a rural area so we have Country Living, and Backyard Poultry, both, which contain articles I have written. On a shelf are books by me as well, like "The Magnificent Rainbow Butterfly Tree." One shelf has a stack of road maps and brochures on travel and local industries. A large photo album with shared Social Studies projects sits among newspapers and a stack of empty envelopes. Students can write correspondence for each other and leave it in the classroom mailbox. We use equity sticks to choose a "mailperson" to empty the box every so often. There are post-it notes and pencils in case you need to leave a note.

Our bulletinboard is also used for vocabulary word projects. One student drew two pumpkins. Underneath she wrote, "I have the dignity to call myself a pumpkin. Wait! I have an inspiration. I have the potential to be a jack-o-lantern."

We publish our own 5th grade newspaper with photographs, quotes, and examples of student's work. We do interviews for our paper. Each student made paper blue jeans to coincide with their Biographies of Levi Strauss. We have an interactive timeline and we label important events and add them to the clothesline timeline that stretches across the room. A tiny pair of blue jeans marks Levi Strauss' birthday. We read the labels on our own jeans to see who is wearing Levis. The next day half the class is wearing Levis. "Can we see who is wearing Levis again today?" they ask.

Somewhere is a stack of songbooks and cookbooks, which I was surprised to see the boys reading. I buy word search puzzles in identical sets of two so they can have races.

I created a classroom Portaportal (a book marking site) so the kids could hook up at home with the same internet activities we did at school. There was a vocabulary game where you defined new words and rice was donated to an underprivileged country. The kids complained because their parents were playing the game and not letting them play. This was a way to carry their "Print-Rich environment" home with them. We made lists of all the types of books we had at home. They were shocked at how long their lists were. I keep a phone book in our room just in case you want to create a name for a new character in a story you are writing.

You have no idea how much fun Thanksgiving can be in a "Print-Rich" classroom. I gather grocery ads for turkeys and serve them to the class on a turkey platter. We compare them to see which store has the best price per pound. Then they go home and tell their parents who has the best buy. An empty stuffing box is a whole other story. I give each group the box and have them double the recipe. We cut the box front up and make a jigsaw puzzle. We reassemble the puzzle. We write our own Thanksgiving stories while I read "Yang's First Thanksgiving" to them. I distribute copies of "Albuquerque is a Turkey." We read and sing and write our own songs.

I found that using LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies helped me create the classroom I always dreamed of. A Print-Rich Environmental Classroom is a place to reach the reader and writer within us all, so that even if we did not think we liked to read when we came, we know we do when we leave.

Patricia Syner teaches at Ansted Middle School in Fayette County, West Virginia.

Making Choices for Effective Feedback

Laurian Phillips
Nov 16, 2009

Assessment is about more than just grading a test. If we truly want to find out what errors students are making and what errors there are in understanding, we must use effective and appropriate feedback when assessing student work. Formative assessment gives both the teacher and the student information about how the students are thinking and what they are learning in relation to the essential question.

Feedback strategies can vary in four ways: timing, amount, mo de, and audience. You need to think about when to give feedback and how often it should be given. As to amount, you should be careful to limit the number of ideas to give feedback on at any one time and how much feedback to give on any one point. Feedback may be oral, written, or visual. Feedback may be given individually or whole group.

According to Brookhart, "The purpose of giving immediate or only slightly delayed feedback is to help students hear it and use it. It needs to come while they still think of the learning goal as a learning goal - that is, something they are still striving for, not something they already did. It especially needs to come while they still have some reason to work on the learning target. Feedback about a topic they won't have to deal with again all year will strike students as pointless."

Examples of good feedback timing include returning a test or assignment the next day, giving immediate oral responses to questions of fact or student misconceptions, and providing flashcards which give immediate right/wrong feedback for studying facts.

One of the hardest decisions to make is the amount of feedback to give to students. As teachers, we want to "fix" everything that we see that is wrong. However, the right amount of feedback will not overwhelm students.

Examples of good amounts of feedback include selecting two or three main points about a paper for comment, giving feedback on important learning targets, and commenting on at least as many strengths as weaknesses.

Feedback can be given orally, written, or by demonstration. Some assignments lend themselves better to one mode than another. For example, reviewing and writing comments on students' written work, observing and commenting as students do math problems in massed practice or in pairs, and demonstrating to a kindergartener how to hold a pencil correctly.

Examples of choosing the best mode include using written feedback for comments that students need to be able to save and look over, using oral feedback for students who don't read well or if there is more information than students would want to read, and demonstrating how to do something if the student needs to see how to do something or what something "looks like".

Feedback is best used when it has a strong sense of audience. Feedback about individual work is best given to individuals and likewise, providing feedback to the class or a group can save time if there are many in the class that have the same errors in thinking. Examples of good choice of audience include communicating with an individual, giving information specific to individual performances and giving group or class feedback when the same mini-lesson or re-teaching session is required for a number of students.

Feedback can be a powerful impetus for student learning. It must be effective, thoughtful and well planned. Before any feedback can be given, think about timing, amount, mode, and audience. If feedback is planned appropriately and delivered with a helpful message, students begin to understand errors in thinking.

Source: How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students Susan M. Brookhart ASCD 2008.

Students Want Teachers Who Care Enough to Have High Expectations

Denise Burson
Nov 16, 2009

When teachers expect their students to do really well, students are much more likely to participate in class and learning will take place. During a LEARNING-FOCUSED walkthrough, I interviewed 10 students and found this to be true. High Expectations for all students leads to academic success.

One student interviewed said, "The best part of school is having good teachers who care about our education. I got teachers that care about their jobs. They make sure we understand everything". When I asked him how he knows that these teachers care about their jobs, he replied, "Because all of my teachers post essential questions and they make sure we can answer the question. We either answer them on sticky notes or post them on the door or in our learning log book. This prepares us for the state test".

Students are not looking for easy teachers who let them slide by with minimal effort. Instead, students want teachers who care about student learning, hold high expectations for them, and provide the necessary support.

When teachers are clear about expectation and provide specific feedback about subsequent steps, they convey that every student can achieve and they do!