At the end of each school year I gather some information from kids. I want to know the following...
--How many books did you read?
--What are two things you liked from Social Studies/Literacy this year?
--What is one thing you would change in Social Studies/Literacy in the future?
--What were your top 3 books?
I've sat on the surveys for about a week, giving myself this first week away from school and kids. Since I was getting an oil change this morning I figured I should compile their information. Below is some of that data, and some quick thoughts. I'll have more in depth reflection later. This looks at information from my three groups, or "rotations." In particular we will focus on books today...
Books, Books, Books!
First rotation total books read, and average: 794 books, 36/student
Second rotation total books read, and average: 372 books, 23/student
Third rotation total books read, and average: 1408* books, 50*/student
Total books read, and average: 2,574 books, 39/student
*One student is a voracious reader, and read 300 books... total does not include his 300.
Quick thought 1: My second group has students that are pulled. If those students are excluded, the rotation average is close to 30 and is in line with the other groups. The first and third groups have a few students that are voracious readers (80+ books). If you were to find the median it would be close to 25 in each of the first 2 groups, and 35 in the last group.
Quick thought 2: The 20 Book Challenge worked well in motivating kids to read, and read a lot. Reluctant readers were over 20 (by and large), and those who loved to read were pushing themselves to read more and with variety.
Top 15 Books
1. Hunger Games
2. The Lightning Thief
3. Swindle
4. Harry Potter (a few appeared, I lumped them together)
5. The Last Apprentice
6. Mockingjay
7. The Lemonade War
8. Catching Fire
9. The Name of This Book is Secret
10. Rules
11. Maximum Ride
12. Gregor the Overlander
13. 39 Clues
14. The Last Olympian
15. Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat
Honorable Mention:
-A Mango Shaped Space
-Popularity Papers #1
-Al Capone Does My Shirts
-Strange Case of Origami Yoda
-How to Steal a Dog
-Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
Quick thought 1: The Hunger Games as a whole were a big hit, which is a huge testament to older siblings reading the books as well as the release of the movie. I did very little pushing of the series because of the complex nature of the books. Most get them on some level, some get them on a more complex level (dystopia, control of the state, etc).
Quick thought 2: Kids love reading books in a series, or by the same author. Books by Gordon Korman were all over the feedback, and they were always popular in the classroom. Rick Riordan, Christopher Paolini, and Suzanne Collins were also popular authors.
Quick thought 3: Kids want to read more complex books. If someone suggests books they will read them. Book talks, book clubs, and book reviews all contributed to kids finding a variety of books. It also helps to suggest a wide range of books in the 20 Book Challenge, as well as purchasing a good range of books for your classroom. Over 90% of the money I spend goes to my library. Well worth the expense.
Showing posts with label end of year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label end of year. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Friday, June 24, 2011
That's a Wrap
Yesterday was my last day in the classroom for the 2010-11 school year. We finished with kids on Wednesday, I got myself checked out, and then returned yesterday to clean out files before summer. It feels nice to be done, and to have a break from school (plus sleeping in until 7:30 or 8 instead of 5:45 is great!). This is my post-year reflection, and thoughts moving forward.
What went well?
The year as a whole was a success. I certainly felt more comfortable with the resources I was using, and with the pace that I was teaching at. As much as teaching is about data, it is also a social science where feeling and perception are important. On that end, it went well. Particular units/topics/pieces of instruction went over well. Studying the colonies and American Revolution were great, and our end of year CBA where students chose topics to investigate (deforestation, bike laws, video game violence) were all well received. My integration of technology into those areas likely helped those areas along, as we utilized netbooks for research and assessment (PowerPoint, PhotoStory, Publisher, etc).
I also felt like I did was far more effective with novel study. I used a wider variety of novel study books, all of which I'd read. I tailored my questioning to the books (as opposed to generic questioning), and focused on inferential/analysis questions. Kids were having really good discussions with their peers about books, which certainly made me very happy. I also felt like my classroom library lent itself to high quality reading. I bought a ton of books, and pushed them out to the kids. They responded by reading them (happily), and recommending them to their peers. This was a huge part of the 20 Book Challenge too. I'd say over 75% of the kids met the 20 book threshold, which I am happy with.
What could have been better?
At the start of the year I'd really wanted to integrate writing with social studies. In particular, I wanted to use the Units of Study throughout my social studies work. I abandoned that relatively quickly, largely because of the amount of time needed to make a piece of writing happen. Instead of having a few pieces of smaller writing to start with, I jumped into something a bit longer. That became a time vacuum, and I needed to move forward. It is something I want to continue but will investigate ways to better integrate it.
More discussion, particularly around analysis and inferential questioning. I did quite a bit with that this year. I'd still like to do more. I also want to better track my data using excel and pivot tables- more frequent, less invasive, natural harvest of data. I mean exit slip, short reading response types of things. I can do better.
What is ahead?
Lots of summer reading. Currently I am reading Chasing Vermeer, and have started the Golden Compass, and the Graveyard Book. I have about 20 books on my shelf. I also want to read Guiding Readers and Writers, but likely won't crack that open until mid July.
What went well?
The year as a whole was a success. I certainly felt more comfortable with the resources I was using, and with the pace that I was teaching at. As much as teaching is about data, it is also a social science where feeling and perception are important. On that end, it went well. Particular units/topics/pieces of instruction went over well. Studying the colonies and American Revolution were great, and our end of year CBA where students chose topics to investigate (deforestation, bike laws, video game violence) were all well received. My integration of technology into those areas likely helped those areas along, as we utilized netbooks for research and assessment (PowerPoint, PhotoStory, Publisher, etc).
I also felt like I did was far more effective with novel study. I used a wider variety of novel study books, all of which I'd read. I tailored my questioning to the books (as opposed to generic questioning), and focused on inferential/analysis questions. Kids were having really good discussions with their peers about books, which certainly made me very happy. I also felt like my classroom library lent itself to high quality reading. I bought a ton of books, and pushed them out to the kids. They responded by reading them (happily), and recommending them to their peers. This was a huge part of the 20 Book Challenge too. I'd say over 75% of the kids met the 20 book threshold, which I am happy with.
What could have been better?
At the start of the year I'd really wanted to integrate writing with social studies. In particular, I wanted to use the Units of Study throughout my social studies work. I abandoned that relatively quickly, largely because of the amount of time needed to make a piece of writing happen. Instead of having a few pieces of smaller writing to start with, I jumped into something a bit longer. That became a time vacuum, and I needed to move forward. It is something I want to continue but will investigate ways to better integrate it.
More discussion, particularly around analysis and inferential questioning. I did quite a bit with that this year. I'd still like to do more. I also want to better track my data using excel and pivot tables- more frequent, less invasive, natural harvest of data. I mean exit slip, short reading response types of things. I can do better.
What is ahead?
Lots of summer reading. Currently I am reading Chasing Vermeer, and have started the Golden Compass, and the Graveyard Book. I have about 20 books on my shelf. I also want to read Guiding Readers and Writers, but likely won't crack that open until mid July.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Bittersweet Symphony
School ended today. I will admit that I was running on fumes as we reached the finish line. Scoring the social studies CBA (classroom based assessments), reading assessments, and writing assessments left me drained. 65 assessments each, give or take a few, making for a huge strain on the brain. Add to that a field trip, whole school talent show, and end of year party and you've got a very tired teacher.
I was sad to see the kiddos go. Some of our kids from last year visited us again, and were sad to be leaving. Our kids this year were a good group also, and were sad to go (but excited for summer!). We were sad to see them go. But onward to summer. I have a few things to accomplish, and below is a tentative list....
I was sad to see the kiddos go. Some of our kids from last year visited us again, and were sad to be leaving. Our kids this year were a good group also, and were sad to go (but excited for summer!). We were sad to see them go. But onward to summer. I have a few things to accomplish, and below is a tentative list....
- Clean my computer files- tomorrow!
- Clean all my paper files- tomorrow!
- Do some room re-arranging- tomorrow... or in August.
- Reflect on the school year- tomorrow or Friday (wrap it up! Blog about it tomorrow)
- Do some professional reading (Guiding Reading and Writers by Fountas and Pinnell is high on my list, as is going through the Writer's Workshop books, and Reader's Workshop books)... mid/late July!
- Read 2+ kids books a week... reviews to come. Only way to stay current!
Tomorrow I'll put a wrap on the year by going through some of the kids' reflections. From there it is time to relax and not think about school for a bit!
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Angling Towards the Finish
We're 2.5 weeks out from the finish of the school year. There is quite a bit to accomplish in the coming weeks: 2 sets of assessments, pushed back this late because of state testing; a field trip; a grade level party; grades and comments! This week is going to be tough!
The first order of business is going to be scoring the CBAs. I have scored 11 of the 13 I've received, and plan to finish the other 2 shortly. I'll get the other 52 tomorrow, which means I'll need to budget my time wisely. The upside is that I need to administer the Spring Writing Assessment, which will take 2 days (why two days- I need to have all the kids participate, and I see them for an hour per day... so 2 days!). During those times I'll score CBAs, hopefully getting through all of them by Thursday (13 per day, although likely 5-6 on Monday and 15 per day the other three days).
After the CBA commenting and scoring comes the writing assessment grading. That will take place Friday and over the weekend. The major difficultly in that is the amount of time it takes to read and thoughtfully comment. Checking the writing against the rubric is fairly easy after you've gotten into a groove of 3 or 4. But writing comments is a bear, largely because commenting needs to be specific and useful to the writer. Good job and needs work are too vague to really make an impression. I'll admit that part of me is conflicted because the kids often look at the score and disregard the comments, but that is for an entirely different post.
The last thing I "need" to do is get back to reading kids books. Kid lit is fantastic, and was a huge focus for 3/4 of the year. But I'm more than a little tired. Reading kids books, while enjoyable, reminds me of what I need to do for my kids. That is great... but a little exhausting in June.
Two and a half weeks. Lots of to do. I definitely need to make time count.
The first order of business is going to be scoring the CBAs. I have scored 11 of the 13 I've received, and plan to finish the other 2 shortly. I'll get the other 52 tomorrow, which means I'll need to budget my time wisely. The upside is that I need to administer the Spring Writing Assessment, which will take 2 days (why two days- I need to have all the kids participate, and I see them for an hour per day... so 2 days!). During those times I'll score CBAs, hopefully getting through all of them by Thursday (13 per day, although likely 5-6 on Monday and 15 per day the other three days).
After the CBA commenting and scoring comes the writing assessment grading. That will take place Friday and over the weekend. The major difficultly in that is the amount of time it takes to read and thoughtfully comment. Checking the writing against the rubric is fairly easy after you've gotten into a groove of 3 or 4. But writing comments is a bear, largely because commenting needs to be specific and useful to the writer. Good job and needs work are too vague to really make an impression. I'll admit that part of me is conflicted because the kids often look at the score and disregard the comments, but that is for an entirely different post.
The last thing I "need" to do is get back to reading kids books. Kid lit is fantastic, and was a huge focus for 3/4 of the year. But I'm more than a little tired. Reading kids books, while enjoyable, reminds me of what I need to do for my kids. That is great... but a little exhausting in June.
Two and a half weeks. Lots of to do. I definitely need to make time count.
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