Retaining Learning and Supply Organization [episode 126]

Emily  0:38

Hey there, thanks for joining us today. In today’s episode, we’re answering your teaching questions and sharing a teacher approved tip for end of year surprise and delight.

Heidi  0:49

We start our episodes with a morning message just like we used to do it morning meeting in our classrooms. This week’s morning message is what’s the funniest thing a student has said to you? And we had some great responses.

Emily  1:01

Amy who was recovering from an eye injury had a student say “You still got that zombie eye?”

Heidi  1:08

When a student can’t read Shelly promised to teach him like the good teacher she is. But that did not encourage the student who told her “But you’re old and you’re going to die.”

Emily  1:20

Not before I teach you to read, come on. We got two kindergarten gems from Jenny. After a fall wind storm blew off all of the leaves on the playground trees. a kindergartener told her “Miss D your trees are all naked.” And when she was giving another student an alphabet assessment they did okay naming their letters until they got to T or as the kindergartner put it “That’s the cross that Jesus died on.”

Heidi  1:43

But what sound does it make? Just this week, Karen had a second grader asked if she got new eyebrows. I guess that’s the downfall when you get them tinted.

Emily  1:54

Yep, my kids have that same reaction. Donna was using her six foot two husband socks in her first grade class. And apparently her students were very impressed because one asked “Is your husband a clown?”

Heidi  2:10

When Tammy was teaching fourth grade, she had a student who wasn’t feeling well because he thought he had homeostasis.

Emily  2:16

That’s a rough one. Mandy had a sweet first grader asked how she got those crinkles around her eyes. I like that one.

Heidi  2:25

Another one from this week. Elise had a student from a very comfortable home come up to her with the saddest face and say, “I got some bad news about my mom. She’s got poverty.” And when she asked for clarification, the student told her “Dad says she can’t buy all the things she wants to buy anymore.” I feel for that woman.

Emily  2:47

Shannon said that during their unit on knights and castles, a fourth grade boy was struggling to fit the backpacks in the cabinet. She asked what was wrong and he loudly said “The feudal system has failed us” and threw the backpacks down.

Heidi  2:58

Well, he’s not wrong. Jeannie had this classic from a student “Gee, you’re getting white hair.” To which she replied, “Thanks, Keith, I got them from you.”

Emily  3:05

True story. We’d love to have you join the conversation over in our teacher approved Facebook group.

Emily  3:16

We’re excited today to be sharing our second teacher Q&A episode.

Heidi  3:22

We have been asking listeners to share their headaches, their hassles, and anything that use a teacher approved solution. And we really appreciate everyone taking the time to reach out. Not only did that help us plan our podcast, but it helps other teachers too,

Emily  3:37

Right. you know, if something is giving one teacher a headache, it’s probably a problem for a lot of teachers. So hopefully we can share some suggestions that will lighten everyone’s burden a little bit.

Heidi  3:48

To start off with we have two similar questions. Sarah asks, How do I make students remember what we taught them? And Lisa asks, How can I help my students retain what they learn?

Emily  4:01

I think most teachers feel like this as we get to the end of the school year. We’ve taught them so much, but it seems like they remember so little so little.

Heidi  4:09

The key to overcoming this forgetting problem is to understand how memory works. We do not claim to be brain experts or brainologists, if you will.

Emily  4:20

Yeah, I think that’s the official term.

Heidi  4:23

But we are very dedicated to designing products that are actually helping kids learn. So this is a topic that we have researched quite a bit, and we even taught a conference session on it.

Emily  4:34

We won’t give you the hour long session here. But here are the highlights. To know something means you can call it into your mind when it’s needed. That is largely the work of your memory. We have two kinds of memory working memory that’s sometimes called short term memory and long term memory.

Heidi  4:54

One way to think of this is to imagine that knowledge is money. You need some money at hand to get through the day. So you know you took a few bills in your wallet. This is like your working memory, it’s just what you need to have on hand.

Heidi  5:08

Long term memory is like the bank vault where the rest of your money is kept. It’s just not practical to walk around with huge sums of cash. So you put it where you can get it, but it does take some work to access it.

Emily  5:20

Everything on your mind right now is in your working memory, it’s quick to get to you don’t have to work too hard to reach it. The name of your sixth grade best friend’s little brother in your long term memory, I just had to stop for a second Yeah, got it. It might take some digging to transfer that from long term to working memory, but you can get it. The

Heidi  5:40

The properties of a parallelogram are in your students long term memory. That’s because it’s actually very easy to deposit information into our memory vaults. It’s getting information back out. That is the tricky part. And the solution to that is the solution to most things. And that is to practice. The more we practice recalling information from our long term memory, the more efficient our brains get at grabbing that information at the right moment.

Emily  5:44

So instead of reviewing or just going over information, we want students retrieving. Now your favorite review activities can work as retrieval practice, but only if your students aren’t referencing their notes or textbooks, because that defeats the purpose.

Heidi  6:27

I recently saw a video on Instagram of a teacher sharing how she does this fun test review game where the kids are in groups and they can use their notes to help with their responses. And I kind of screamed at my phone for a little bit. That’s not how I was like, Oh, you’re making this harder than it has to be. You should only turn to your notes if you absolutely can’t come up with an answer. Struggling to recall something now actually makes it easier to recall that thing in the future.

Emily  6:58

Besides playing note free review games spiral review is another great way to implement retrieval practice. You may also want to consider using exit tickets or frequent low stakes quizzes.

Heidi  7:10

And by low stakes we mean quick and not graded. We’re talking about a five question quiz for the sole purpose of recalling tricky information. The key to making this meaningful though, is to discuss the answers as a class. That way students know what they got right and what they still need to practice.

Emily  7:29

We could go on all day about retrieval practice. And really we could and we probably have, but hopefully that gives Sarah and Lisa some good ideas. And hopefully you got some helpful takeaways too. If you want to get more ideas for retrieval practice, check out episodes three and five of this podcast where we go all in on brains and retrieval practice. It’s actually interesting guys, trust me.

Heidi  7:55

And related to that question, we have this one from Becky who asks, How can I spiral math concepts with a curriculum that doesn’t have a built in?

Heidi  8:04

And I get how frustrating that can be. But some of the retrieval practice ideas we just mentioned could work well here. You could easily tack on a spiral review exit to each lesson. So if your lesson today was on graphing, you could give students an exit ticket with questions about last week’s lesson on fractions. Any topic that you’ve already covered is fair game for spiral review.

Emily  8:28

And you can also add a spiral review warm up to your math block. Again, choose a topic from a previous unit to start your math lessons each day.

Heidi  8:38

Of course, we love our morning work. Spiral review can happen at any point of the day. Just because we call it morning work doesn’t mean that you can’t add it to your math time, or really any point in the day where it’s convenient.

Emily  8:50

And if you send homework, spiral review homework is probably more effective than sending homework on a topic students are still learning about. And we do have Spiral Review Homework that aligns with our morning work for grades first, second, and third.

Heidi  9:06

And centers are also a great place to add more review. If you have math centers, make sure that you are often revisiting past concepts to help with that retrieval practice.

Emily  9:16

It is annoying when your curriculum doesn’t support what you know is best for students. But with some creativity, you can claim little pockets of time to do what you need to do. So let us know how that goes Becky.

Heidi  9:28

All right. On to our next question. This comes from Jill, how do I incorporate vocabulary instruction into a workshop schedule? And I can’t tell you how excited I am to answer this question, Jill. Vocabulary is one of those things that we love to talk about probably maybe right at there with spiral review. Yet somehow we do not have any podcast episodes about this.

Heidi  9:48

Oh, what is wrong with us?

Heidi  9:51

So let’s take a look at how to implement vocabulary into your schedule.

Emily  9:56

One of the things that SOR has brought to light is the important role that vocabulary plays in comprehension. If students have an adequate vocabulary, they can comprehend text on a higher level than they can read independently.

Heidi  10:09

Vocabulary is so important to reading development. So we’ve got to make it a priority in our instruction. So no big deal, right? We’ll just add an extra 20 minutes to the school day so we can fit it all in.

Emily  10:21

Yeah, if only. So how do we magically make more space and an already overcrowded daily schedule? The answer to that is that we drop something. Jill specifically asks how to fit vocabulary into a workshop model. So let me share what I did.

Emily  10:38

The first thing I did was to switch from doing small groups five days a week to four days a week, I use that fifth day for all the extras I needed to do. It was either Mondays or Fridays depending on what worked best that year. That’s when we did spelling tests, made our chunk spelling lists, had phonics small groups. And I introduced the new vocabulary words and tested students on the old ones.

Heidi  11:01

We call our vocabulary routine, our jargon journal, because it’s catchy and fun to say. Friday mornings, I would introduce our four words for the week, we discuss them and we read a book that use those four words in context. And then the kids filled out a foldable graphic organizer for the words included into their notebooks, aka their jargon journal.

Heidi  11:23

And that’s all I did for vocabulary instruction on those days. And then when students visited the Writing Center each day during our normal center time, the first task they had was to choose a word card to journal about.

Emily  11:38

We have little practice cards for each of our vocabulary words. It’s just a quarter of a sheet of paper with some questions, the students answer the questions included into their notebooks. I’m not having to do anything to teach vocabulary during the week, but the kids have a routine for working with a word each day. At the end of the week, we reviewed our words and took a quiz.

Heidi  11:59

We have a year’s worth of jargon journal units, if you want some already done for you lessons. But if you want to plan your own vocabulary program, the key to making it manageable is to standardize the routine, and make it a set part of your schedule. So you are not having to make a bunch of decisions each week.

Emily  12:19

And we also make sure to include vocabulary in our morning work. Each grade level has a vocab word of the week that students practice in several different ways. And every fifth day includes a review of words from previous week. So we’re getting that retrieval practice in.

Heidi  12:35

There’s so much more we could say about vocabulary. If that is a topic that you’re interested in hearing more about, please reach out to let us know. We want to make the episodes that you are interested in listening to so let us know what you want to hear.

Emily  12:50

Okay, on to our next question. This is from Mimi, who would like some suggestions to motivate students to keep their supplies organized.

Heidi  12:59

Well my response to this is probably not what Mimi wants to hear. But the truth is that you can’t motivate students to keep their supplies organized. Students don’t care about keeping these organized because they don’t feel like it benefits them. And I just don’t think there is a way to intrinsically motivate children to be neater.

Heidi  13:19

So if we can’t intrinsically motivate them, we have to extrinsically motivate them. And there are two ways to handle this. The first way is to increase the positive or negative consequences. So you can reward them if they keep their stuff organized and give a negative consequence if they don’t.

Emily  13:36

Maybe you could introduce a desk fairy who at random times, rewards kids who have clean desks and lets kids with messy desks know they have to use their computer time to straighten up. That’s a totally valid way to help students manage their supplies.

Heidi  13:51

But that is also one more thing that you as a busy, tired teacher have to stay on top of. Which brings us to option two. Instead of bribing kids to manage their supplies, could you just remove the supplies? Then there is much less to manage for everyone.

Emily  14:08

Probably the only thing that kids need unrestricted access to is pencils. Beyond that, if a supplier is causing a problem, it doesn’t need to be kept in their desks. You might have to get creative with storage but crayons, scissors folders and notebooks don’t have to be stored in students desks. You can just get them out when they’re needed.

Heidi  14:27

We’ve talked about this before, but Emily and I turned our students desks around so nothing could be stored inside. It was just a management battle that we did not want to fight. Instead, each student had a pencil box that sat at the top of their desks and held crayons, scissors and glue. If those boxes were causing a distraction, they could easily be moved to the counter.

Emily  14:50

And before that I had a caddy for each table that held all the supplies. All of the workbooks and notebooks and folders were stored in plastic drawers. One child from each day would get out the needed drawer, bring it to the desks and return it when finished. I did have to sacrifice a lot of counter space for this method. But to me it was worth it to not have to manage students supplies in their desks.

Heidi  15:14

Hopefully that gives you some ideas Mimi for how you can cut down on the school supply hassle.

Heidi  15:19

And I think we have time for one more question. So let’s do these two similar questions. Paulina asks, What are unique positive ways to reinforce on task behavior? And Sarah asks, what are some easy low cost management systems that will be motivating to students?

Emily  15:35

Nothing like saving the questions with the largest responses for the end. Good thing we have several episodes you can revisit. If you want more details, episodes 101, 102, 103, 104 would all be great to revisit.

Heidi  15:50

Plus, you might want to check out episode 106. It’s all about managing behavior in December. But all of our suggestions for surviving to winter break still apply to surviving to the end of the school year.

Heidi  16:02

But to summarize everything we mentioned in those episodes, your behavior plan needs to account for those times of year when your regular management isn’t robust enough to counteract all of the novelty that is pouring in. And with the prospect of summer break on the horizon, your class is basically swimming in a novelty swimming pool.

Emily  16:23

Of course, we counterbalance novelty by increasing structure. And we can increase structure two ways. We either make it painful to goof off, or we make it beneficial to stay on task.

Heidi  16:35

I prefer the second way, it’s much easier to give a reward instead of a punishment. But we have to use rewards strategically if we want them to be strong enough to add to the classroom structure and shape student behavior.

Emily  16:49

So how do you use reward strategically? We’ve got five key features of a strategic reward system that will help you find a plan that works.

Heidi  16:58

And lucky you you have already done the fifth one. The last feature is you want to reward program you can eventually phase out. Since we’re at the end of the school year, the calendar is going to phase that out for you. So hey, there’s one thing off your list.

Emily  17:14

But here are the four features you want to consider. First, you want a reward system that is motivating for the kids. If your kids aren’t motivated by earning a sticker, then you don’t want to keep using stickers as rewards. The payoff for following rules needs to be more appealing than the fun of goofing off.

Heidi  17:32

Second, we want a system that has a visual component. Kids are more motivated if they can see how close they are to earning their reward.

Emily  17:41

Third, you want a system that lets kids lose something as well as earn it. Think of a reward chart where students are earning the letters in glow in the dark for a glow in the dark party. If they’re on task, you add a letter to the board. But if your class is getting a little chaotic, all you have to do is start walking toward the reward chart. And they will start telling each other to shape up because they don’t want to lose any of their hard earned letters.

Heidi  18:04

And I love when that happens because I am not the one nagging them to behave, they’re pushing each other to be better. And I am just following through with the consequences of their choices and not being the bad guy.

Emily  18:17

And that brings us to the fourth feature of a strategic reward system. You want it to be class wide. An individual reward system like a punch card is good for your rule follower students. They’re meeting expectations, so they’re getting rewarded quicker. But that doesn’t do as much to shape class wide behavior as a whole group or team reward does.

Heidi  18:38

And with team or maybe table rewards, you do get that boost from kids monitoring each other’s behavior. But it also introduces the element of competition. And that can be good or it can be bad.

Emily  18:52

Right. Competition can be motivating for kids. But it can also raise the energy at a time when you’re trying to keep the energy under control.

Heidi  18:59

Plus, with competition, you run the risk of some kids giving up because they feel like they can’t catch up. So it’s kind of a fine line to walk. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use competition to add structure to your classroom. It just means you need to be aware of the ways that it might be sabotaging your efforts.

Emily  19:18

Any reward system that meets these goals is going to do a lot to increase the structure in your classroom at a time when you need all the support you can get. And really go back to episodes 103 and 104 for more details on how to get the most out of a reward system.

Heidi  19:35

If you have a teacher approved solution for any of our listeners, we would love it if you shared it with us in the Facebook group.

Heidi  19:41

And thank you so much to everyone who submitted a question for us. We want to be putting out the content that matters to you. And the easiest way to do that is to let us know what you want to hear about. So you can email us or leave us a message on Facebook and we will do our best to offer a teacher approved solution for your teaching headaches.

Emily  20:01

Now let’s talk about this week’s teacher approved tip. Each week we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week’s teacher approved tip is add surprise and delight to boost morale. Tell us about this, Heidi.

Heidi  20:16

Well, if you are feeling drained and your classes come down with a case of spring fever, add something fun and unexpected to your day. Surprise and delight isn’t a reward that your kids earn. It’s just something nice that you do to show that your students matter to you. Not only does this nurture your class community, but it’s the sort of thing that makes it fun to be a teacher.

Heidi  20:38

So we are issuing you a challenge. This week plan a surprise and delight activity for your students. The key to making this work is to actually schedule it, write it in your plan book so you don’t forget, and then come share what you did with our Facebook group. We would love to hear all of the details, and maybe share some surprise and delight with you.

Emily  20:59

And if you need an idea, why not try a mystery time. When students arrive in the morning have a time written on the board. But no matter how much they plead, don’t explain what it means. You can even add a cryptic riddle like the tide turns at 2:22. Then when that time arrives, announced the fun surprise.

Heidi  21:20

And this prize could be anything that your class thinks is entertaining, a dance party extra recess pool noodle drumming, a directed drawing video a storytime with the principal, letting the kids put their deaths anywhere they want in the classroom for the rest of the day. Learning a magic trick on the calculator, really the sky is the limit.

Heidi  21:39

Just make sure that whatever you choose isn’t adding more work for you. And also make sure that you are choosing an activity that won’t get your class so riled up that you can’t settle them down again. It doesn’t have to be wild to be fun.

Emily  21:53

So plan some surprise and delight this week. And don’t forget to come tell us how it goes.

Heidi  21:59

To wrap oup the show we’re sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily  22:05

Well, first, I’m issuing an extra credit semi retraction. So many moons ago, I gave extra credit to my beloved Stanley water tumbler. And I’m saying it to send my retraction because it’s still a very good water bottle that keeps your drink very cold.

Emily  22:23

But I have to be honest and transparent with you all that that is now no longer my favorite cup. My new insulated cup love is the Hydrojug Traveler. Now it looks very similar to a Stanley and it basically has all the same features of Stanley, but it has a couple of improved features. And most importantly, the Hydrojug has a flip straw that can be folded down into the lid. So it’s truly leakproof if you’re carrying it around, or if it falls over.

Emily  22:53

And that is especially helpful since I knock mine off my table or my nightstand or my desk several times a week maybe several times a day my kids are like rolling their eyes about it all the time. So now I always have to remember to actually flip the straws down is the only thing I do at night though for sure do that and that has saved me a lot of midnight unintentional showers or puddles. Hydrojug Traveler, all the things of a Stanley but better and I actually think it’s cheaper too.

Heidi  23:24

Oh hey, that’s a win. Does it come in fun colors?

Emily  23:27

It does. It doesn’t have like his Stanley’s like crazy. Now they have so many colors. It doesn’t have as many of those. And I feel like they sell out a lot of the Hydrojug now.

Heidi  23:36

Oh, everyone’s switching?

Emily  23:38

I’ve just been buying black because blacks fine with me. I don’t care, so. What are you giving extra credit to Heidi?

Heidi  23:45

My extra credit goes to you, Emily. And not for your Hydrojug. Yeah. So I have a ceiling fan in my bedroom that I really can’t use because it makes an annoying clicking sound. And do not think I have gone gently into the good night of this stupid fan. I have tried all the things to fix it but nothing has helped.

Heidi  24:04

So I’ve just resigned myself to kicking off the covers at night because I’m hot. And then Emily tells me that she bought a floor fan for her room and I realized that just because one fan is useless doesn’t mean that there are no other fans in the world that I could purchase.

Emily  24:19

Amazing.

Heidi  24:20

I don’t know why that just seems like so impossible. Like I have the ceiling fan. I can’t use the ceiling fan. So this is my life now for years for years. And then extra extra credit for Emily because you then ordered me the one you got and had it delivered right to my house so I don’t have to put in any work. So Thank you Emily for saving my sleep especially now that it’s getting so warm at night.

Emily  24:41

Well you did still have to assemble it so you can give yourself a partial extra credit too.

Heidi  24:47

It was hard. It was hard but I survived. Now it was I just had to snap the bass together and put the plugin I know I told you it was easy. Okay, it did take some figuring out to get this little plastic pieces to snap together and I think that’s what we call a first world problem.

Emily  25:02

I’m familiar with those.

Heidi  25:05

That’s it for today’s episode. Thanks again to everyone who sent in a question. And don’t forget our challenge to boost morale was some surprise and delight this week.