“Steal” Teachers Ideas to Showcase Them
Bathroom Blog:
Are you a new Instructional Coach or are thinking about becoming one? Wondering where to start with the teachers? I would suggest showcasing teachers’ talents. I mean how often do teachers get recognized for the great things they do everyday in their classrooms? Create a blog (both digital and a bathroom blog) and an Instructional Coach Facebook page to post classroom happenings to showcase teachers. Yes, I said bathroom blog:) I bought a foam board that is used for presentations (similar to a poster board) at my local Wal-Mart. I also purchased a yard of fun fabric and some spray glue that I used to attach the fabric to the foam board. I then found some glitter stickers that I used for the title of my blog. I chose to just call it Bathroom Blog! I then bought some silver push pins that I used for the boarder of the blog. They double as pins to use when I place my findings on the blog. I came up with the bathroom blog as I was thinking about blogs in general. Blogs differ from Facebook because they don’t give automatic updates. I was also thinking about those teachers who are not necessarily tech savvy and how BORING our bathrooms were. I thought it would be fun and convenient at the same time. Everyone potties throughout the day, it’s part of our human functions. Why not give those teachers some amazing classroom findings as well as researched based strategies to read while they go?
A “stolen” idea: A 1st Grade Teacher Setting Up Sight Word Candyland
Classroom Visits:
The culture and morale in our elementary building was fairly low. Teachers are overworked, don’t have time to really dig deep into anything and are facing multiple stressors on a daily basis with little to no recognition. So, my second goal was to help build the teachers up. We have really good teachers who really care about the students. They do good things each and every day that go above and beyond their teaching responsibilities, just because they are good teachers. I did this with the intent of conducting a classroom visit (NOT OBSERVATION) with each elementary teacher. Please stay far away from the word OBSERVATION! It gives the assumption that you are there to evaluate, which you are not! Classroom visit is much less threatening to teachers. Conduct classroom visits on a regular basis and eventually it will become a normal thing in the classrooms. Teachers may be nervous with the first few visits, but it will be a culture change so hang in there. If they can see that you are there to support and not judge, trust will be built and the culture will change. In conducting classroom visits I found ssssssooooooo many amazing ideas that I wish I would have known about when I was in the classroom. I just had to share with other teachers.
This idea was “stolen” from a 4th grade teacher. She had her kids create a visual with each one of the 50 states that they were learning about. This is a visual from the state of Alaska. This eskimo was displayed on the students’ lockers.
Showcase Teachers:
I wanted to showcase the talents in our elementary buildings as well as build trust and build relationships with showcasing our teachers’ talents. I decided to “steal” teaching ideas. When I say “steal” I mean find at least one takeaway (strategy, organizational idea, classroom management strategy….) from each classroom to showcase on my blog and school Facebook page. I came up with that idea from seeing the AMAZING things that were happening in the classrooms. Ok, so I didn’t really steal the ideas. I asked the teachers for permission to use these “stolen ideas”. As a 3rd grade teacher, there were so many times that I walked into one of my colleague’s classrooms at the end of the day to coordinate my pacing and found things that were amazing. At the time I thought to myself, “why didn’t I think of that?” and “why didn’t you share this with me, it’s awesome”? My goal was to share the AWESOMENESS that I found in each classroom to the other teachers by showcasing their ideas. They were instructed to “steal” the ideas that were shared. However, I wanted to expand on this thinking. I knew that time (or the lack there of) was an issue for most teachers, so, I also created a bathroom blog. I made bulletin boards with the the title Bathroom Blog and placed them in the bathrooms. Our bathrooms were pretty boring, I mean, have you ever been in a bathroom that wasn’t? I placed them directly in front of the toilet in the women’s bathroom and behind the toilet in the men’s bathroom. This way the teachers didn’t have to take extra time to look online to find the strategies. All “stolen” strategies and ideas were right there for all to see. I had a great response to this. The teachers thought it was pretty clever and LOVED it. I try and change the strategies every Friday to keep things fresh. I make sure to add the pictures and descriptions along with the recognition of where the strategy came from along with any graphic organizers they may need to fully implement the strategy on their own.
I also posted my own ideas on the bathroom blog to share with others. This is a picture of my own child using a glow in the dark reading finger to practice his reading. Simple, but a HUGE motivator. I used these Halloween witches fingers with my 3rd graders as well. They kept one in their reading box to use during read to self time. You can grab 24 fingers for $5.29 here (great price).
