It is the first full day of school. In my first class of the day, 31 seventh graders are staring at me and wondering what my social studies class is about. There is both fear and excitement in their faces. They have no idea what to expect from my class, but they are hoping that they will enjoy it.
My first words to my new students are “Welcome to seventh-grade social studies. Let me tell you about your first assignment.”
Many teachers spend a few days to a few weeks getting to know their students and preparing them for the school year. This includes such things as going over rules and routines, getting-to-know-you activities, and various pre-assessments. I have never felt comfortable doing these types of things, although this information is essential for a productive and successful school year.
Community by Jumping In
A few years ago, I decided to try simply jumping into an assignment. My goal was to get to know my students and create teachable moments while they were working. I have stuck with this process because it worked for me and my style of teaching: I was able to obtain all the information I needed and teach expectations while my students were learning how to learn in my class.
I started by creating an assignment that would require my students to work together—a basic inquiry-like research project.
I divided my students by table groups, four students at each table. I assigned each group an Early American civilization as their topic: Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, Inuit, Eastern Native Americans, Western Native Americans, and Native Americans in the area of the Mississippi.
The assignment was to work together to gather specific information about the assigned culture and create a Google Slides (or PowerPoint) presentation. I gave the groups some structure by giving them a list of what to include. Below is a partial list of required information:
-
What present-day states or countries did these people live in?
-
What type of government did they have?
-
What did they eat?
-
What religion did they practice?
-
What were some of their beliefs?
-
What types of education did these people have?
The list had about 20 items on it, and students were allowed to add as many as five ideas to the list.
As my students are 1:1 for tech, with each having their own Chromebook, they quickly realized that they had to organize themselves and decide how they were going to attack the assignment. I required all the students in the table group to know all the information, so after they learned a little about their ancient people, they found that they needed to become teachers and teach the rest of their group.
I reflected on these questions as I observed:
-
How do my students interact with others?
-
Which students take the lead?
-
Which students take a quiet back seat?
-
What are each student’s tech abilities when it comes to using the Chromebook?
-
What do my students know about the use of good or bad websites?
-
Which of my students are good with time management and which ones struggle?
While my students were working, I quietly walked around, listening. I pulled up a chair behind students and learned from them. I was in the moment. I do not take notes while I am observing because I don’t want to miss anything. I want to be fully present with the process. I wait until later in the day and make basic reflections about what I learned during each class. As the project progressed, I was able to put names to the students and their personalities.
After I allowed my students some time to work and figure some things out on their own, I created a custom-made minilesson and took a little time to deliver it. I also took some time to talk about positive and not-so-positive behaviors I had noticed, custom-creating the information for this group of learners based on what I had learned.
Topics of discussion in my minilesson varied. This is a brief list of what I taught and spoke of to one of the classes:
-
Some tips on working together
-
Some ideas about bringing in the quiet kids
-
Polite ways of asking those who were doing all the talking for a turn
-
How to notice a high-quality website
-
Where things that they might need during the lesson were kept (supplies)
-
How to make a slide valuable to the learner
It was back-to-work time for the students. I conferred with the groups, giving basic guidance to each one based on their needs. I listened to their conversation and watched their work habits. I got to truly know the learning methods of my class and of each student.
Extending the Learning Through Week 1
As days progressed (I gave them three days for this part of the assignment), I continued the routine of allowing my students to work, making observations, making guided corrections in the moment, and stopping the class for minilessons.
By the end of this part of the assignment, I knew a lot about my students. It might have taken me a month to get to this point with them if I’d been doing things in my old, getting-to-know-you manner. I was even able to have a good handle on the names of 171 students from my six classes.
Now that I felt like my students were getting comfortable working in my class, I wanted to take things a step further. The next step of the assignment was the presentation stage. Each group was given 15 minutes to present and teach another group about the civilization they had learned about. The learners would take notes and ask questions of their teaching peers. I did this until each table group learned about each of the assigned civilizations.
Again, I was monitoring my students and learning the following kinds of information about them:
-
Which student(s) step up and do the teaching and which shy away from it?
-
What are my students’ note-taking processes?
-
Time management
-
Which students tend to talk when together?
-
Which students tend to stay away from each other?
-
What level of questions are my students capable of asking?
-
General presentation skills
I added one more part to this assignment. I had my students take their notes, choose a favorite civilization from among those they had learned about, and write about it. They were not allowed to write about the one they had researched and taught about.
This gave me just a little more information about my new students. I learned about the following:
-
My students’ ability to write
-
My students’ learning in general
-
Which of my students were very detail oriented
-
Which students were generally disengaged from schoolwork
-
How my students did in a learning environment like mine
They learned how to learn and be a student in my class. They learned about the level of my expectations academically and behaviorally. My students learned about me, and they also learned about themselves.
Now, after less than two weeks, my students were experienced learners in my class and ready for the rest of the school year. I believe there is no better way to get to know my students than to assess them formatively while they are doing real work during the opening weeks of the new school year.
