One Shift for 2019-2020

I've been meaning to write about this, and I'm glad this week's (week 6) prompt in the #8weeksofsummer blog challenge has this fitting question:

How are you planning to implement change next school year?

One of my larger changes to make next year is the "Question of the Day" (QoD). For the last few years, my QoD has looked like this, and has been near the front of the room by the door:

"When you eat dinner with your family, do you exude good manners?" - Yes, Sometimes, No.
One student added - "I don't eat with my family."
This was very telling, as I found out the boy who created the column ate by himself in his bedroom each night.

I reused the paper questions from year to year, and students also created their own questions (some of the best we had). My reason WHY for the QoD is in Shift This was originally for attendance and to provide a place for students to share their opinions. Not everyone answers, however, and I found that I loved hearing the chatter around the questions better than using it for attendance anyway. I loved seeing extra columns (such as the one above) that spoke volumes about the students and got me to head over and talk with those students further.

One shift I made last year was another board with more magnets with student names on them. That one looked like this, and was further in to the classroom (near the far wall):

My reason WHY for this SEL component is that the social-emotional status of my kids is not something else that I put on my plate - it IS the plate. Knowing how my students are doing will help me set the tone for the class. If they're not emotionally ready to learn, it doesn't matter what I do in that 80 minutes of my time with them. So... we talked about how to find where your magnet goes for when they walk in the room, and we started sharing ideas as to how they can self-regulate, depending on where they are in the quadrants. This is a simplified "mood meter," thanks to the ideas from Marc Brackett and his RULER approach.

WHY I'm shifting this aspect once again...
Not everyone was moving their names under the QoD, and it's a royal pain to set up each morning (I know, I know - it's not crazy bad, just enough to really get under my skin by the end of the year). It also has to be "multiple choice," and I'd love to ask students more open-ended questions. I want to move the SEL "mood meter" to the front of the room. I want that to be more prominent and I would like to take it more seriously. Also, I think I can ask more open-ended questions in a different fashion. My co-worker Karen next door would also like to have discussion questions at the start of every class. Therefore, we're going to use questions students created towards the end of last year, and the questions I've been using. I'll house them all on this document HERE, and we'll project a different one each day. (This document will always be under construction. It's kids' ideas, my favorites, and certain ones are day- or content-specific questions. I also have to be aware of the students in my room and make sure to not trigger any traumatic experiences. The questions I've used before are here.)

What I'll do...

1) Move the questions of the day to the projector - to start our day with students discussing the question with each other. After a month, I'll have them use something called a "conversation carousel" of sorts - Everyone gets a list of everyone's names. They cross out their own. They talk with everyone on the list before they talk with them again (there are columns so they can write the date next to the person's name). They can use this to discuss the QoD with lots of different people.

2) Move the SEL mood meter to the front of the room. Some students, I imagine, will not want to be public about this, and I want to respect their privacy. Thank goodness for Tara Mollo who I happened upon on Twitter - she uses cups and popsicle sticks for her students to share where they are on the "Zones of Regulation" scale. Thanks to Tara, I'm going to put colored cups (to correlate with the mood meter colors) below the grid so students can anonymously add their names there. I can then scoop them up and chat with those kids privately without anyone else knowing. I'll also provide coping strategies for students - we'll practice these together, and then students will have tools to use the rest of the year and in all of their classes. Here is a document of what my co-worker Yvette and I have tried so far.

This is my one small yet important shift for next year that I'm looking forward to trying. I think it could benefit all of us in the room, and it's something I know I can incorporate without added work on my part or the students' part.

What change(s) are YOU planning on implementing next year, and what are your reasons why? Feel free to comment below, or write your own blog post with an explanation and share that link in the comments! I'll share it with others, of course, so we can all learn from each other and keep the conversations going!