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Thursday, June 25, 2015

#LearnLAP Chap 4

Chapter 4 is about improvement focus vs. grade focus. It seems that so many parents and students are grade focused. They are so proud to have had straight A's all the way through school. So my question is, do they have straight A's because the work is too easy? I've often wondered about that. I want my classroom to be more improvement focused, but that is going to take some work.



Set the Expectation: "In our classroom, we have one rule: Be a good person."

I love this quote because students need peers, parents, and teachers to be examples of this as well. We are a Leader In Me Lighthouse School. So we have made many changes around our school in the last 3 years with the focus of becoming a better person. This is not just directed at students, but teachers and staff as well. I worked with my best friend and fellow teacher on a Random Acts of Kindness project at our school. Our classes did nice things for others and I loved seeing the changes in my classroom. We did things like writing nice notes to an adult in the building. Parents were happy to send in old note cards they had for us to do this. We wrote post it notes with positive words like: Great job or Super and posted them on the student work that was displayed in the hallways. We would have a set time and my class would make a loop through the entire building. Each student made 2-3 post it notes and they chose the work where they would leave the note. I always made them sign their name on the note. We also chose random teachers and covered his/her door with positive post it notes. 

Another thing that I really liked from Chapter 4 was the section about having students write reelections. If you know me at all, you know I had to create some super cute signs to post in my room for my students to use as a guide. I also started thinking about having students write in reflection journals. This is still an idea that I'm developing but if you use reflection journals I'd love to hear about how you use them and how often your students write in them! 















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