Book Review: Becoming the Educator They Need

click on image to go to Amazon.com

In light of everything that has been going on in the country lately, our assistant principal decided to host a book study using this book. Our school is made up about 49% Black students, 49% Latino students, and the other 2% a mixture of white and Asian.

My one big takeaway from this book.... RELATIONSHIPS MATTER!!

Robert Jackson speaks about his own experiences growing up as a Black boy and the struggles that he faced. He also became an educator and shares his experiences in dealing with Black and Latino students, especially the boys.

Here are some quotes from the book the resonated with me:

• "When educators take one look at some young men of color, they judge them based on the fact that they look like what they perceive offenders look like."
• "Appearance alone should not result in a young man being labeled 'not teachable'."
• "Your stereotypes and biases can be dream killers. If you choose to be open and accepting, you can become a dream restorer."
• "There is no perfect educator out there. Everyone has flaws. Having empathy will give you what it takes to turn any student around."
• "When you feel sorry for your students, your expectations of them are lowered."
• "You cannot teach those who you can't reach."
• "Educators lose opportunities for their students to see their human side when they walk around acting as though they don't make mistakes."

While I feel that one of my strengths as an educator is my relationship with my students, I always feel I have room to grow. This book allowed me to open my eyes to perspective of my Black and Latino students. They may act like they don't care, they may have days where they want to have their hood up all day, but as educators rather than focusing on the negative, we need to try to get to know them and understand why they feel this way or why acting a certain way, because 99% of the time there is something else going on in their life that we probably don't know about.

My first year of teaching in 2010, I had a Latino student who I struggled with all year. Just recently, he found me on social media and sent me a message just to say hi and let me know that he graduated from high school this year. Relationships matter. I never gave up on him and the fact that he reached out to me 10 years later means that he knows I cared.

If you teach Black or Latino students this is a quick, easy read that will have a lot of impact on your thoughts as an educator and how you can better serve these students.

One last quote from the book that really stuck with me...

"To educate the mind, you must first capture the heart."

How To Videos for Students (and Teachers)

With the uncertainty of whether we will be in school, out of school, or a hybrid version of both, I started to think about my students and what I would want them to be able to do on their own in the event we are learning from home again this fall. (honestly, these could be helpful in the building as well)

One thing that I realized, is that some students can navigate and figure out different apps and technology on their own, but there are some that need more support. I decided that I am going to put together some presentations that will allow students to watch videos about how to do something or navigate a specific application I want them to use. Since we are a Google county, I am starting with the basic Google apps.

First up is Google Slides and Google Docs!

Click on the image below to view the How To for Google Slides:

Click on the image below to view the How To for Google Docs:

These videos are also located on my website:

Amber Potter Google Site Student Resources Page

Do you have suggestions for other ideas to add to the presentations?? Leave me a comment below!

https://sites.google.com/view/amberpotter/home

Instagram: mrspotterstyle

Technology Spotlight: Pear Deck

logo from www.peardeck.com

I heard about Pear Deck as an add-on for Google Slides a few years ago at a conference I attended. I attempted to use it some, but never fully got into it.

Fast forward to March 2020 and hit with the realization that we would be teaching online for the near future and I knew that I needed something to help me out. Luckily, I received an email that our county decided to provide the premium version of Pear Deck for the teachers, so I decided to check it out again.

So what is Pear Deck? It is an add-on for Google Slides (or Powerpoint, we just happen to be a Google county). This add-on allows you to insert slides into your presentation that generate student engagement with a variety of interactive slides. I absolutely love that it is an add-on because I can easily create my presentations in Google Slides and add in the interactive slides where needed. 

There are 2 ways to use Pear Deck once you have your presentation created, you can enter Teacher-Paced mode or Student-Paced mode. Teacher-paced means that the teacher controls the slides and when to advance to the next one. This is great for in the classroom or during a Zoom/Google Meet teaching session. During distance learning, I always chose the student-paced mode which generates a link and allows the students to access the presentation on their own time.

A few of the ways that I used Pear Deck in my math lessons the past 2-3 months:

• use the Drawing Slide to have students plot points on a coordinate plane
• use the Text Slide to have students explain how to find the volume of a rectangular prism
• use the Drawing Slide to have students create a line plot with data
• use the Drawing Slide to match expressions to the word form

A new feature that they just launched in the past couple of weeks is the ability to leave feedback directly on the slides in Pear Deck. You can access this from your Teacher Dashboard and the students see it on their side of Pear Deck.

Here is a sample lesson from my 5th grade math class:

https://sharepeardeck.com/hq8k6p

Check out the presentation below to learn more about Pear Deck by clicking on the image:

Pear Deck also has many resources available on their website:

• The Orchard - templates
• Trainings - sign up for a variety of webinars
• Help Videos

You can earn badges for using Pear Deck. For example, you earn a badge after you have created your first session and even your 100th session! There are badges for types of questions used, using Pear Pop, and more. Check them out here: https://www.peardeck.com/achievements

Once you have become a Pear Deck pro, you can even apply to become an Inspearational Educator. More information about that program can be found here: https://www.peardeck.com/inspearational-educators

As the uncertainty of the fall looms, I would definitely check out this technology enhancement. As I said, it can be used for Google or Microsoft and definitely adds an engaging aspect to your lessons.

Guided Math Organization

As mentioned in my previous post about our new math curriculum, I did not get to use guided math groups as much this year as I would have liked. However, when I was cleaning out my Google Drive like I do every summer, I stumbled across this document and thought it was a must share, as it got me through math groups the previous school year.

I used this document to help me organize my small guided math groups. I would use one Google Slides presentation for each unit and just duplicate the pages as needed. In a typical unit I would try and pull small groups for each topic. For example, in our new curriculum for unit 1, I would have small groups for whole number multiplication and then small groups for whole number division. So I would use this one Slides presentation to plan out my centers for each topic.

The template on slide 1 is what I would post in the classroom (or project on the screen). It would provide details for each of the centers including what students should be doing at each one.

The templates on slides 2-6 are different rotation schedules and groups with/without icons.

The template on slides 7-8 is the small group lessons I would do for each group.

The template on slides 10-11 is how I collect my anecdotal notes.

Because this template is on Google Slides, my team would often collaborate and plan different portions of the lesson together. You can include hyperlinks to the different activities to eliminate keeping up with papers.

**Distance Learning tip:

Use this template to plan out differentiated activities for students to complete electronically. The math fluency, at your seat, and hands-on activities could be the same for all students, then make a copy of the first slide for each small group and change the activity in the teacher time section. You could even include a Google Meet or Zoom link with a specific date and time to meet with each small group.

Here is a completed example for you to see:

Click on image to download PDF. 

I removed the hyperlinks from my example so I don't have any copyright issues.

All icons are from the The Noun Project

To get a blank version of the template that you can use/edit yourself go to my Resources page or click on the button below.