Jennifer: Relaxed Learning

With the chaos of the year behind me and the start of summer school complete, a surprising wave of relaxation has taken over. In preparation for summer school I had been nervously gathering materials and planning through my days, anxious about a new group of students whose skills and interests were foreign to me.

It has been a complete week, and so far it seems that all of my frantic bracing for the unknown was all for nothing. Summer school is such a breeze! I say that enthusiastically because up until this point summer school has always been difficult from the first day to the very last.

Last year I ran summer school much like I did my classroom. We had our daily schedule which we adhered to as much as possible, we had lots of academic tasks that needed to be finished in almost the same order that I had been completing them during the year, and because last year I actually did have the students I had during the school year, I was simply continuing on from where we left off.

Oh, and we played in the water sometimes.

I think it took a new class and a whole new environment to shake me out of my rigid ways to realize just how carefree school can feel while not actually being any less academic than the entire month of September.

The truth is that this summer I was completely unsure of where to pick up and where anyone had left off, and again I have students who span the range of skill sets. I knew our schedule would be riddled with activities such as computer lab, APE, and multiple snacks and wiggle breaks, so a cemented daily schedule was out of the question.

I used to be a camp counselor, and all I can remember clearly is the constant sense of “Dear Lord please help me keep these kids entertained and in a group for 45 minutes,” which I somehow pulled off, so I thought I’d try to treat summer school somewhat like camp.

I’ve been planning “periods,” which are 45 minutes long, and can be squeezed or split into any amount of time. It is working so well I think I am going to plan my year this way. Instead of seeing a line of “to-dos” in the morning, they just see three activities that we need to complete. Rather than label them “math” and “language arts” with a description of what we will be doing, I name the activity and give a preview of how fun it will be. It sounds so simple, I don’t know why I wasn’t doing it before.

I know we need to post our schedule for our administrators to see and so our students can practice following a schedule/telling time, but the more I look back the more I realize my students just shut down when they saw a block of text 3 feet tall by 2 feet wide every day.

My students this summer haven’t shut down yet when they see their three goals for the day, and they have completed more activities and learned/retained more new concepts in this past week than my last summer school class did in a month. Well, maybe not exactly that much, but my point is that because we are focusing on what the activity is rather than what concept it is reaching and where it falls in the middle of a huge schedule, we are getting through our activities much more successfully and the students are much happier learners.

I think this next year we’ll have two schedules: one for my students presented in a manner that energizes them, and one for everyone else presented in a manner to strictly inform. Wouldn’t it be nice if every day of the school year felt like summer?

Comments

[Megan]

Jennifer - I love your thinking!

[Bethany]

Jennifer,
I was so happy to see you comment on how we place a daily schedule some where in the classroom, because on my end of the year evaluation it was suggested that I display our daily schedule some were in the classroom. I was not doing that because I found that to me it was stressful to me to see such a set regiment for the day. I hate to feel rushed. If I feel like my students are not understanding something I really like to extend the time we are working on it. Therefor, I had chosen not to display a set schedule in the classroom. Also, if I feel under pressure of that schedule being displayed does it make my students feel the same way.
I see how this is all part of a less relaxed classroom. Unfortunalty on my end of the year evaluation it was "suggested" that I display it. I really like the idea of a more relaxed classroom setting. It is such an enjoyable way to teach.

[Lisa Dearing]

I enjoyed reading your blog for the reason that I too am teaching summer school this year. This is my fifth year teaching however I have not done summer school before. I was nervous about how my day should be put together considering many of the students I would be teaching are not from the regular classroom during the year. Like you I decided to set up the day including morning meetings just like my regular room and it seems to be working well! It also helps that out students still get to go to the pool and participate in adaptive phys ed. Nice to see others going through the same things as me!

Lisa

[Alex O'Such]

I really like the idea of mixing that in with your class when summer ends. It seems like a great idea to present the activity rather than the concept first. This way the students do not have the perception of this hard concept, but rather a more simple and fun activity, which explains the concept, so when it is introduced they already know a bit about it. I would find summer school nerv racking in the beginning as well. Struggling is the only way to get better, and your experience with this transition from the beginning of summer to the first couple weeks proved this. I enjoyed reading this blog

Alex