Baptized By Fire
“Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
It's a wrap! I have officially finished my first year of teaching. So much to share! So much to reflect on! So much still ahead of me!
I started the 2020–2021 school year teaching a second-grade Dual Immersion (DI) classroom at Gage Elementary School in the San Diego Unified School District. After seven weeks with my sweet, little gators, I found myself in a situation where I had to switch to a fifth-grade DI classroom at Clear View Elementary School in the Chula Vista Elementary School District. Little did I know, there was one more big change in store for me. After two quarters with my voyagers, I not only changed from distance learning to in-person instruction, but I also became a fifth-sixth-grade DI teacher, also at Clear View Elementary! I know. Let’s pause for a second to take a deep breath.
Having taught three different grade levels in two different schools and across two different school districts was overwhelming at times, but now I look back and I am so amazed and so grateful for all the learning and growing it allowed me to make. I was exposed to a lot more experiences in my first year than I ever imagined, and I honestly feel like I grew three teaching years in one. From the many California Common Core State Standards I studied, to the different grade-level report cards, to unique grade-level experiences such as sixth-grade promotion, to the many educational technology platforms used across districts, to all the families, students, teachers, and staff with whom I built meaningful relationships … Yep. My plate was full. But, at the same time, my teacher muscles worked out a great deal and became a lot stronger.
When reflecting on my first year, I tried to narrow down all my learning to three main areas of take-aways. This is what I came up with:
1. Student Relationships and Student Involvement
Student Relationships
From my teaching philosophy you all know that treating students with love, kindness, and respect, as well as fostering a strong sense of community in my classroom, are a priority for me. I had already experienced the importance of building meaningful relationships with my students as a student-teacher and had also witnessed the powerful and positive impact it has on their learning and social-emotional development. But this was so much more evident to me when I had to start my teaching career behind a screen during distance learning, when I became my fifth-graders’ third teacher within a quarter, and when I received a group of 14 sixth-graders during the last quarter of the school year. All those experiences lead me to make two important points. First, no situation should prevent an educator from making strong connections with their students. None. And, second, I strongly believe that the relationship between a student and their teacher is the foundation for everything else. When students feel loved, welcomed, and cared for, then, and only then, is when they will be ready and open to learn with and from you.
The pandemic forced us all to become a lot more creative, so I wanted to share one way in which I connected with my second-grade DI students and their families from the very beginning. I created a “Student Survival Kit,” which I included in the students’ very first school materials distribution as my way to make a strong and loving first impression. I was also present to distribute said school materials and was able to safely connect with parents and any student who was also present at the drive-through. Take a look at the cute and meaningful items I prepared for my students. My favorite one? The tiniest message in a bottle.
Student Involvement
Student involvement was another area that I found to be critical in student success. Students, of any age, need to be a part of their own education and growth. They don’t need to be told what to do at all times—they need a seat at the table. When you make students equal participants, conversations with them in which you would discuss areas for growth and individual short-term and long-term goals, become collaborations. This is so powerful! One-on-one conferences with students to assess them and establish goals do require you as an educator to plan ahead and invest time and effort, but the results are amazing. Not only academically, but this goes back to building meaningful relationships with students and showing them that you care. There is nothing like those one-on-one, private moments where you can connect with your students and get to know them as students and as the unique individuals that they are. Plus, think about it. It is not a lot different for adults. If you had to choose between being “bossed around” by your leader or mentor, or sitting down with them to connect, reflect, brainstorm, and create together, what would you rather do? Yep. That’s what I thought.
One way in which I implemented this in my Fifth grade DI classroom was by taking the following steps. My goal as a teacher was to see monthly growth in 100% of my students’ Reading Lexile levels in both English and Spanish on the reading program Achieve 3000 by establishing individual reading goals:
First, I conducted Running Records in both English and Spanish with each student to gather data on where they were as readers and to notice the types of miscues they were making. After every session, I guided conversations with students where I asked them a series of reflection questions, such as “How do you think you did?”, “What do you think you did well?”, “What do you think you could work on?”, and “What could you do to work on that?” In doing this, the students and I collaborated to create their individual reading goals. These reading goals were reading behaviors students would demonstrate and practice while reading to support them in becoming stronger readers. Some of my students’ reading goals included re-reading a word if they read it in chunks or syllables on the first try before moving on with the reading; stopping after every paragraph to think about what the paragraph was about; highlighting the main idea from each paragraph; taking notes as they read; reading the text twice, once focusing on decoding and twice focusing on meaning. It is worth mentioning that at this school, we were fostering a sense of leadership in our students and we, the teachers, embedded the 7 Habits from “Leader In Me” into our teaching. Habits 2 and 3 are “Begin with the End in Mind” and “Put First Things First”. Those habits played a very important role in reaching our goal as a class.
Once every student had their individual reading goals, I modified my Daily Schedule to create a 30-minute block that was dedicated to reading in small groups. Since I didn’t have time to meet with everyone every day, or to focus on both languages every day due to the limited Distance Learning schedule, I had to make some decisions. First, I decided I was going to work with one small, strategic group per day, so I went ahead and created Homogenous groups—that way, too, I could dive deep and focus on similar areas of growth per group and I made sure to get to every student at least once. Second, I decided I was going to focus on one language per week, that is we read in English one week and in Spanish the next, and so on. In my small groups, I had a reading standard to focus on (e.g., Main idea and Key details; Summarizing a story; Comprehension skills; Looking at context clues; Vocabulary development), but, at the same time, I expected every student to practice and demonstrate growth within their individual reading goal when they took a turn reading.
Another way in which I involved students was by having “Achieve Leaders''. Every morning, I displayed a graph that showed how our class performed on Achieve the day before and my Achieve leaders (two at a time) would help us read the graph to interpret our growth and motivate our class to reach our weekly goal. I also created a “Reading Accountability Block” on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings:
On Monday mornings: Students were sent to Breakout Rooms with a partner, and they reminded each other of their reading goals. A chart with everyone’s reading goals was provided to students which they could refer back to.
On Wednesday mornings: Students were sent to Breakout Rooms with a partner, and asked each other whether they had been focusing on and applying their reading goal when completing activities on Achieve.
On Friday mornings: Students were sent to Breakout Rooms with a partner, and they were asked to reflect on their week and analyze what went well and/or what could they do differently next week to ensure they are meeting their individual goals.
Lastly, on the first of every month, when students’ Lexile levels are updated on Achieve, I invested time and reached out to every student via the Teams’ chat and informed them of their current Lexile in both English and Spanish. I also reminded every student of what the end-of-year Lexile should be in the fifth grade (830L-1010L). I also included reflection questions that aimed to support students in adjusting their reading goals, if needed.
Throughout this whole process, students were 100% involved and the results were incredible, and I am happy to say that 100% of my students grew their Reading Lexile levels in both languages every month. I’ll let the following images speak for themselves porque una imagen dicen más que mil palabras.
2. Data-driven Decision-Making
During my time in the Credential Program at San Diego State University, I studied the importance of looking at student work and different data points to assess both students’ learning and mastery toward Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in order to make a series of decisions, such as selecting a small support group, advancing student knowledge, reteaching an entire lesson, reteaching a specific portion or strategy within a lesson, or moving on to a new lesson. During my student-teaching experience, cycles 1 and 2 of CalTPA, I had a chance to practice and get a little taste of what that would look like as a classroom teacher. But it was during my first year of teaching that I took all that learning and embraced it more than ever before. As you have already read in the section above, everything I did with students was based on data and assessments. This was the route I chose to ensure I was supporting my class and the individual needs of my students accordingly. Gathering student data, analyzing it, and using it to inform your decision-making process in the classroom on an ongoing basis is imperative.
3. Flexibility and Adaptability
Above all things, it has always been necessary to remain flexible and adaptable. This was true even before the pandemic, but I know you will all agree with me that the pandemic took this to yet another level. I won’t try to play “picture perfect” and pretend I didn’t lose my mind once or twice during this last year, but every time that happened, I knew I just needed to take a deep breath and re-focus. It is pretty incredible all that we as educators are capable of taking on and overcoming. And I wholeheartedly believe it is because of how much we love our students and how passionate we are about education. Caring and hearing the call to this profession is what keeps us going.
We are reaching the end of this blog, and I didn’t want to leave you all wondering what grade level I will be teaching next school year, and, also, at which school? So, here we go! One more change is ahead of Maestra Salinas! Ever since I was a student-teacher at Hedenkamp Elementary School, I dreamed of working there. Ideally, too, in a primary grade classroom. And, guess what!? The opportunity to apply for a DI position there presented itself, so I applied (because I was not going to let that opportunity pass by me!), and I was offered the position! Woohoo!
Second year of teaching, I am so ready for you!
