Organizing a Representative Classroom Library During a Global Pandemic

The classroom library is the staple of any elementary teacher's classroom. Making sure that students can access interesting texts at their level is an essential component of our pedagogical approach. We want students to improve their thinking and reading skills, but more importantly, we wish that they develop an intrinsic and deep love of reading.

Selecting and organizing the books is a fun and exciting task, but can be a bit overwhelming as there are many factors to consider. I am aware that these factors have been discussed at length by experts with more education and experience than I have. Nevertheless, I'm interested in sharing what was going through my head as I rebuilt my classroom library in preparation for heading back into the classroom this fall.

• REPRESENTATIVE: The books in our classroom's library should both reflect the perspectives and experiences of the students in my class AND give students the opportunity to learn about and from others' experiences and perspectives different from their own.
• ORGANIZATION: The collection should be organized in a way that makes using (finding books and checking them out & in) the library easy.
• SAFETY: There needs to be a system in place so that books can be borrowed and shared safely during this (hopefully) very unique time of COVID-19.

Windows and Mirrors

“Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection, we can see our own lives and experiences as part of a larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.” Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop

Dr. Bishop's words help remind me to include books in my library in which students can see themselves and also books that help them see the world from different perspectives. This is one way they can build empathy for others.

In recent years, I have finally woken up to the reality that my book collection lacks diverse characters, voices, authors and illustrators. Statistics show my collection is representative of all available children's literature. Luckily, publishers are taking note and the availability of books that are more representative of the children we teach is increasing.

To identify and purchase diverse books, We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) is a phenomenal resource. Specifically, I'd encourage you to check out:

• Their OurStory book-finding app (available through any browser or as an Android app)
• Walter Award winners and honoree
• Resources for Race, Equity, Anti-Racism, and Inclusion

"Classroom Library Organization Made Easy!"

In the past, I've organized my classroom library by level because I'm an advocate for helping students find books that are a good fit by their reading level. But I have realized recently that paying too much attention to a book's relatively arbitrary reading level is problematic for a variety of reasons.

For now, I'll stick to organizing my library like a book store, by topic, so kids can find what interests them easily. Helping students understand when a book is "just right" for them will have to be an important part to teaching them how to use the library at the beginning of the year.

Regardless of how I set it up, I knew that I wanted to utilize an app to catalog all my books, something I've never done before. After much Google searching and blog reading, I found that despite some flaws, Booksource Classroom is a fabulous app.

Pros:

• It is FREE!
• The app lets you scan books' barcodes as a way to add them quickly to your library
• The web interface has loads of features that help you audit your library (for diversity, for reading level, etc)
• Families and students can log-in independently to look at what books they have checked out and which books are available

Cons:

• The app and the web interface don't match. The app is good for adding, checking-in and checking-out books but other than those actions, you're better off sticking to the browser version.
• The app doesn't recognize about half of the barcodes that I scan. I wonder if this is because they're outdated? Are my books too old?! I've found a pretty easy work-around though: I look up the current ISBN on Amazon and then use that number to add the books on the web interface. Super slick!

Staying Safe

The pandemic has forced us to rethink the way we "do school" and interacting with our classroom library is no exception. Here are two changes I'm making to make sure my students and I continue to be safe:

• Online Browsing Only. Rather than allow students to physically go through the library in search of a book, I'll have them browse the online catalog through BookSource to find a book that interests them. That way, the only books they'll touch are the books they'll keep to read.
• Book Quarantining. The Preservation Administrators Discussion Group of the American Library Association (PADG) has shared that preliminary research suggests that the COVID-19 virus can only survive on paper/cardboard for 24 hours. To be safe, I'll set up a return system where books returned one day won't be checked back in for 3 days.

Personalized Labels

I had these stickers made at Label Value. The base price is $25 for a roll of 500. Discounts apply when you order multiple rolls. The greater the number of rolls, the greater the discount. I bought 2 and the price was knocked down to ~$20 / roll. Hopefully 1,000 labels is enough! Ha!

Favorite Books

As I scan and label books in my classroom library, I come across many books that I love dearly. 

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox is my favorite. 

Personalized Messages

As I open up the inside cover of my books to put on the labels pictured above, I find these personalized messages from people in my life who have gifted me these wonderful books. These messages are so dear to me.

"AJ" aka Aunt Judy

From 2011, when I first joined the third grade team at Kaposia Education Center.

Hidden Surprises

I know this might be an unpopular choice, but I've decided to recycle the dust jackets on the picture books that come with them. I feel like they'll end up getting damaged or lost anyway and I'd rather not deal with that. I only do this, however, if the artwork on the jacket is identical to the art on the front of the book. If that's not the case, I leave on the dust jacket.

As I was taking off this book's dust jacket the other day to see if the art below was an exact match, I discovered this hidden surprise that Yuyi Morales snuck in, and I was so tickled to have found it! Can you spot the difference?

Organizing a representative classroom library in the middle of a pandemic can be daunting, but it has been fun thinking about all the possibilities and putting it all together. It is a constant work in progress though and through continual reflection and hopefully some feedback on this post, I'll be able to continue to add to and improve upon this important staple of my pedagogical approach.

Using the PYP’s 7 Key Concepts to Talk about Race, Injustice and Change

NOTE: PYP Coordinator Melissa Powers and I collaboratively authored this post. In addition to being a PYP Coordinator in Arizona, United States, Melissa is a part of the IB Educator Network (IBEN), leading PYP workshops and participating in site visits. She and I first went through our initial IBEN training together. I am grateful for her partnership, her thoughtful perspective and her voice.

The International Baccalaureate’s (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) posits that “The Learning Community” is inclusive of everyone involved in the life of the school. Together, this community’s goal is to, “live peacefully together, prioritize people and their relationships, and assume shared responsibility for learning, health and well-being,” (A Community of Learners from PYP: From Principles into Practice > The Learning Community).

With the recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the hands of police officers, there is a sense of urgency from principled and caring elementary-school teachers to speak with their learning communities — their students — about issues of safety, race, justice, change and action.

As we engage with our immediate learning community, it is important to have a clear objective and structure. Successful teachers use thinking routines and discussion protocols so that conversations that center around seemingly controversial topics do not stray off course. As PYP teachers, we are empowered to take risks and should not be afraid to facilitate these discussions in our classrooms. 

Those who work in PYP schools can leverage the components of the PYP’s international framework to help structure spaces and opportunities for meaningful processing and reflective conversation. The PYP’s key concepts are seven powerful, broad and abstract organizing ideas that can frame conversations and drive learning. When PYP teachers identify topics and investigate them through the key concepts, students learn to be inquirers and think critically about big ideas. It is essential to explicitly teach critical thinking skills so that students learn how to think for themselves and not blindly emote. 

When teachers view the key concepts as a set of open-ended questions, they can more easily direct purposeful and manageable conversations (Concepts from PYP: From Principles into Practice > Learning and Teaching). Below, we have brainstormed key concept questions with the intention of provoking PYP teachers to think about how they will provide safe spaces and opportunities for their students to critically engage in meaningful conversations that lead to authentic and mindful action.

We sorted the questions by primary and intermediate, as the conversations that will take place in these two different settings will inevitably require different approaches, however we encourage teachers to use the questions that best fit the needs of their contexts; you know your students the best!

Think of the questions below as a start. We call to you, dear reader, to contribute questions that you'd want to ask your students. As you put forth ideas, we’ll update the collection below.

Form

• Primary
• What is racism?
• What is antiracism?
• What is a protest?
• Intermediate
• What is racial injustice?
• What is systemic racism?
• What does it mean to be an antiracist?
• What is a protest?
• What is implicit bias?
• What is prejudice?
• What is privilege?

Function

• Primary
• If someone does something wrong, how can they make it right?
• Intermediate
• How important is the study of racial injustice?

Causation

• Primary
• Why do people protest?
• Intermediate
• What effect do dehumanizing and devaluing black and brown people have?

Change

• Primary
• How can something unfair change into something fair?
• Intermediate
• What can young people do to promote change?
• How can you challenge any implicit biases you might have to make a change in your own beliefs and actions?

Connection

• Primary
• How are different people groups connected to each other?
• What sets us apart and makes us unique?
• Intermediate
• How is the US’s history of slavery and Jim Crow connected to current events?
• How are the seemingly separate incidents of violence against black and brown people connected?
• Are racism and prejudice the same thing? How are they different?

Perspective

• Primary
• What are the ways we can appreciate and celebrate others who don’t look like you / are different from you?
• Intermediate
• Why do we say “Black Lives Matter” and not “All Lives Matter”?
• What biases do you have about racial groups different from yours?

Responsibility

• Primary
• How can you show other people you care?
• How can you stand up for other people when wrong is being done to them?
• Intermediate
• What action can you take to fight racial injustice? Use the PYP’s 5 types of action to help frame your thinking: social justice, advocacy, social entrepreneurship, participation, lifestyle choices.
• How can you be a responsible inquirer and critical thinker? Why is it important?
• How can you show other people you care?
• How will you learn about racial groups that are different from yours?
• How can people examine their own privilege and use it to help?

For more information about facilitating challenging or difficult conversations, check out this resource from Common Sense Education: A best-of-the-best collection of resources for social justice- and equity-focused educators.

Approaches to Distance Learning: ATL in the time of COVID

The time is now

In addition to content that state and local municipalities deem "essential learning", it is fundamental that teachers guide students in developing universal skills that help them approach the learning in which they engage. Equipping students with these universal skills gives them “the ability to take on the responsibility to make informed, intelligent choices and decisions.” Although this idea of John Dewey was written over 100 years ago (ironically around the time of another pandemic), it continues to be just as relevant today.

Typically, I have thought about helping students develop these necessary skills so that someday far into the future, when they’ll need them, they’ll be ready to put these skills into practice. However, it is becoming increasingly more obvious everyday that we experience distance learning that the time that students need these skills is now.

The PYP ATLs

The International Bacchaeleature (IB) has identified five distinct categories of associated skills that help students become self-regulated learners. The IB refers to these collective skills as the Approaches to Learning. The Primary Years Programme (PYP) has identified skills and sub-skills under each of the five categorical umbrellas. The teachers with whom I work defined each of these skills in student-friendly language (to read more about how we did that, check out UPDATED* PYP Placemat).

ATL in the time of distance learning

As teachers, it is our responsibility to help students develop these lifelong learning skills not so that they can be successful adults someday, but so that they can be successful now. As students engage in distance learning, effective teachers ask:

Many of the ATL skills can be newly interpreted in the current context. Below are just a few examples of the ATL skills reinterpreted in this time of distance learning.

THINKING

Forming decisions: As I learn from home, how can I stay flexible and open-minded when making a choice or learning something new?

RESEARCH

Ethical use of media/information: How can I continue to be responsible, respectful and safe in a digital classroom?

COMMUNICATION

Speaking & Listening: During virtual video chats (like Google Meet and Zoom), how can I speak clearly to share and explain my ideas in many ways and listen respectfully and responsibly to others so I can understand?

SOCIAL

Interpersonal Relationships: How can I get along with and care for others in my home as we learn? How can I get along with my family members who are now my teachers? How can I get along with my siblings with whom I might be sharing a device?

SELF-MANAGEMENT

Organization and Perseverance: What’s my plan to complete all these challenging online tasks that I have to do today without giving up?

How can teachers support students in actively engaging in their own learning?

The PYP advocates for teachers to implicitly and explicitly help students develop these Approaches to Learning so that they can actively engage in their own distance learning.

Developing ATL skills implicitly

Teachers can implicitly embed ATL learning in the culture of the distance learning classroom. As they engage with learners in online platforms and synchronous and asynchronous learning, they can model the ATLs and use the language of these skills. They can highlight the use of ATL by the children in the class and characters in storybooks.

Developing ATL skills explicitly

Teachers can also explicitly teach the Approaches to Learning through inquiry by creating specific ATL goals with students and giving them the opportunity to reflect on their own progress towards these goals.

With personalized, actionable feedback (a highly effective strategy according to Hattie's research), teachers can support students’ development of these skills one-on-one. In the shift to distance learning, teachers have the opportunity to think and rethink the ways in which they provide feedback to learners. Digital tools that educators across the globe are now utilizing offer a variety of ways to give feedback that enhances the way feedback is given and received.

Further, successful teachers monitor their students’ development of these skills and when they notice particular skills that are lacking, design specific learning experiences that will help their students fill the gap (like these diverse challenges from Parita Parekh and the team at Toddle). 

A call to action

Although distance learning has some limitations and the way we “do school’ looks different, the philosophies at the core of our teaching and learning － like equipping students with universal skills that help them become self-regulated learners －remain the same. How are you implicitly and explicitly helping your students develop the Approaches to Distance Learning so that they become successful, self-regulated learners?

Lesson Planning in Distance Learning

Distance Learning Begins

On Sunday, March 15, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, closed public schools so that educators could plan for long-term plans for the continuity of education. We had approximately two weeks to completely revolutionize the way we teach and the way students learn.

Collaborative Backwards Planning As Usual

Although the way we "do school" certainly looks different, the philosophies at the core of our teaching and learning remain the same.

One of these approaches to teaching that hasn't changed is the way in which we collaboratively plan for instruction with the end in mind; first starting with the essential learning then planning for how students show successful mastery and then giving feedback framed in terms of those criteria.

Research for Better Teaching, Inc. published the graphic below that does a nice job of visually representing this chain.

retrieved from https://www.rbteach.com/products-resources/downloads/all on April 6, 2020.

Questions To Consider When Collaboratively Planning

1. Communicate Objectives

• What do we want students to understand (concepts), know (knowledge) or be able to do (skills)?
• These essential learnings can come from central ideas, lines of inquiry and state standards.
• These essential learnings can be communicated in many ways (not just as "I Can" statements). In a programme that values inquiry, questions can be an effective way to spark curiosity while communicating to students the learning target.

2. Select Performance or Product

• How will students demonstrate they understand, know or are able to do what we have identified as essential?
• How can we set up loose enough parameters that students' can still exercise their creativity and voice in how they choose to demonstrate proficiency?

3. Develop Criteria

• What does success look like?
• Our team should decide on loose enough criteria so that student responses can be varied, create and unique, yet specific enough to help us frame the feedback we give students.

4. Give Feedback

• Using the previously developed success criteria, communicate to students how they hit the mark or help them to understand what they're missing and how they can improve.

What does this look like in practice?

1. Communicate Objectives

• Conceptual understanding: Based on the current unit of inquiry's central idea, teachers want the students to understand that senses are used for exploring and staying safe.

2. Select Performance or Product

• Performance Assessment: Students will use their senses to explore during a spring nature walk and identify what they see, hear and smell.

3. Develop Criteria

• Does the student's response make sense for what you'd see, hear, and smell outside in Minnesota in springtime?
• Does the student include ideas similar to the ones in the read-aloud that was a part of this learning experience?

4. Give Feedback

• If a particular student's responses do not make sense or are not similar to the ones in the read-aloud, how can we provide corrective feedback that helps students to get closer to a more successful response?

Distance Learning's Unintended Positive Consequences

Although distance learning has some limitations, the format promises to enhance collaboration, personalization and the quality and the specificity of feedback we give to students.

Math Expressions Interactive Activities

In 2019-2020, my school first adopted the 2018 version of Math Expressions. Our rockstar teachers have been working hard to understand the different components of the program and how they all fit together to provide our students an exemplary math education.

One of the major elements of the program is Think Central, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's one-stop-shop for teaching and learning materials related to all their products, including Math Expressions. (Read more at Welcome to Think Central).

 

Many of our teachers have used Think Central and the Personal Math Trainer to varying degrees in the classroom, but now that we've entered into an unprecedented time of distance learning, our students stand to greatly benefit from the learning opportunities within Think Central.

Much of what's available in Think Central allows students to practice what they've already been taught, but the RTI Tier I and Tier II interactive activities walk students step-by-step through mathematical concepts, helping students understand each of the unit's big ideas. These activities are kid-friendly and all the instruction is narrated to students, as opposed to having them read text.

Teachers can use these interactive activities for instruction, instead of or in addition to creating original videos or slides.

The RTI Tier I and Tier II interactive activities are found in each grade level's Math Activity Center in RTI.

 

Leave a comment on this post if you have used these interactive activities. How's it going? How well do kids like it? Are they learning math?

Additionally, if you need any technical or pedagogical support using these resources, reach out. I'd love to help problem-solve with you!

Tech tips to preview and assign the Tier I & II interactive activities

Are you a visual learner? Watch the short video below that shows you how to preview and assign these interactivities in Think Central. Keep reading below to read the step-by-step instructions.

Log into Think Central

To preview the Tier I and Tier II interactive activities:

• Home
• From the carousel, select your grade level
• Math Activity Center, G# Teacher
• RTI
• Filter (on the left) by Unit & by Big Idea
• Click on any of the activities on the right.
• TIP: Each Big Idea has two interactive activities: 1 for Tier I and 1 for Tier II

To assign the Tier I and Tier II interactive activities:

• Home
• In the text box "Search for Resources", type the math unit you're teaching.
• Filter (on the left) by
• Grade Level
• Assignable (switch the toggle switch "on")
• Show additional filters > 
• Component > + More > Response to Intervention
• Media type > HTML
• Click the "Assign" button and fill in all the appropriate text boxes and hit "save".

School Visits as Professional Learning

The Primary Years Programme (PYP) of the International Baccalaureate (IB) is a comprehensive and complex program. All those in candidate and authorized schools participate in professional development that assists them in deepening their understanding of this international program. Being able to visit other PYP schools is a rich form of professional learning that all Pedagogical Leadership Teams should consider when building their five-year PYP action plans.

Last spring, I had the great fortune of visiting a couple of different PYP schools. These visits helped me better understand the diverse ways of implementing the PYP and gave me ideas that we potentially could use at my own school.

In March 2019, on a personal trip to Germany, I was able to visit the Berlin Cosmopolitan School. About a month later in April, I visited a couple of PYP schools just up the road from where I live in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, USA. During these visits, I was able to engage with other PYP professionals and see the PYP in action, giving me ideas of how we could further develop the PYP in my own school. See photos below from both of those visits.

Later in the school year, I took a team with me to visit schools implementing two math curricular resources we were looking to adopt. In addition to learning extensively about the resources on our own and having teachers try out the materials at our school, visiting schools where experienced teachers could demonstrate the resources' full potential was some of the best professional learning we experienced during our curriculum review process.

Whether you're in a PYP school or not, visiting schools both near and far allows you to see how others "do school". School visits must be an essential part of any school's professional learning plan.

The leaders at the Berlin Cosmopolitan School generously hosted us for several hours during a school day to show us around and allowed us to meet with teachers.

Berlin Cosmopolitan School's vision and mission signage stands out with the inclusion of students' artistic interpretations.

Berlin Cosmopolitan School's principal Mark Johnson told us that students walk a couple of blocks to this adventure playground that may seem a little bit more dangerous that a typical playground, but gives its students the opportunity to assess risk for themselves and shows them they can keep themselves safe.

The following photos show flexible seating in one of the classrooms at Stevenson Elementary in Fridley, Minnesota, USA. Students in Andrea Erichsrud's classroom have lots of seating options as they learn during the school day.

Thank you to Orlando Pola-Rivera, PYP Coordinator at the Berlin Cosmopolitan School in Berlin Germany for hosting me and letting me sit in on one of his collaborative team meetings. I also greatly appreciate Veronica Westerman, PYP Coordinator of Stevenson Elementary in Fridley, Minnesota, USA who not only hosted me during the visit but also sent me the pictures above when I neglected to take my own on the visit.

*UPDATED* PYP Placemat

Since the enhanced Primary Years Programme documentation was released in October 2018 (PYP: From principles into practice), I have been updating the PYP placemat I previously created for teachers and students at Kaposia Education Center, an IB World School to support their implementation of the PYP.

Some changes were easy to make. I took out reflection as a key concept. I removed the action cycle and replaced it with the five different forms of action articulated in the new documentation.

However, the back of the placemat proved more difficult to bring up-to-date. I was able to easily replace the new ATL sub-skills, but defining them in student-friendly language seemed like a difficult task to do alone. So, I waited until yesterday when I was able to work with the amazing Kaposia educators to create definitions of all the ATL sub-skills (and sub-sub-skills) that even our youngest learners will be able to understand.

The following is the product of our work together. My hope is that the teachers and students at Kaposia, along with others at authorized or candidate PYP schools, are able to use this PYP Placemat to help them more deeply implement the robust international Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate.

Click the images below to be linked to the PDF version of the placemat that can be printed and copied.