Video Success!

After my struggles trying to record a lesson using Microsoft Teams on Wednesday, I am very happy to report that things went much better the following day using Zoom.

I was able to record a 10 minute introductory video for students and families.  This is pretty much the talk I would normally give at Open House.

I also made a video of the lesson for the first day of school, which teaches students how to ask and answer "What's your name?"

After a busy but wonderful weekend helping a friend drive her son to his first year of college, I'm back home with 2 more days of prep before school starts on Wednesday.

Notebooks: BCE and CE

BCE (Before COVID-Era): 

In previous years I have given my students guided notes handouts which are hole punched for them to keep in a German binder.

I love my guided notes, but about 25% of my students refuse to organize their notes in a binder and just stuff them into a folder or their backpacks.  It drives me crazy!

I also worry that giving them this much structure may be doing them a disservice in the long run as it doesn't help them develop the ability to take and organize notes on their own.

Handouts don't work well under the current circumstances anyway, whether we're remote or in person, so this is giving me the opportunity to try something new that's actually pretty old school.  

CE (COVID-Era): 

I'm going low-tech and keeping it simple this year.  Students need a standard spiral or composition notebook.

Since so much is going to be digital this year, I think having a paper notebook will be a nice change of pace.  

I have all German 1 classes this year, which means I have a lot of 9th graders, so I'll need to be intentional in teaching how to organize and take good notes.

On the second day of class, students will set up their notebooks

and then they'll make a graphic organizer to record their first German phrases.

Stay tuned to hear how things go with notebooks this year!

First Teacher Day

Today was originally supposed to be students' first day of school, but that was pushed back a week, and it's now it's the first of 5 teacher professional development and work days.

Successes:

• I recorded a very short video clip introducing myself for an introductory video that my school is putting together for students.  

• I participated in our school faculty meeting on Microsoft Teams and was then able to organize a separate meeting on the fly with two colleagues on Teams.

Not yet:

• After multiple tries, I cannot get my microphone to work within Microsoft Teams when trying to record a lesson and share my screen.  Grrrrrr!  Super frustrating.  It works fine when I am meeting with people and share my screen, but once I start recording, my microphone cuts out.  I may give up on Teams for recording a lesson and try Zoom.

Oktoberfest 2019

After last year's exhausting Oktoberfest, I wasn't sure I'd want to attempt another one, but with my new half-time schedule and wisdom gained from last year's failures, I thought I might just give it one more try.

This year, my colleague and I were able to schedule things so that we could both be at the Oktoberfest, and two teachers are definitely better than one!

We started planning earlier and more students volunteered to bring in food.  My colleague also emphasized to the students that they should only take a small serving until everyone had been served, and there was enough for everyone.

This year I pre-made dough for Lebkuchenherzen, which we rolled, cut out, and baked during the Fest.  

Our Success period (intervention/enrichment time) is only 40 minutes long, so not all of the students' cookies were baked and cooled by the end of the period, but I was able to stay and finish up and students picked up their cookies later on the way to lunch.  They were delicious!

Most students had time to do their own dishes, though there was still quite a lot of cleanup to do afterwards.  My colleague had a class right afterwards, but I was done for the day and could enjoy some peace and quiet and dish washing.

Overall, it was a big improvement over last year and a good experience for students.  It's still super tiring for teachers, and the 40 minute Success period really isn't long enough for what we wanted to do.  Maybe we'll need to scale it back for next year and/or use some class time for part of it, but I'm glad we tried again.

A New Look for the New Year

For the past 6 years I've had desks in my classroom arranged in table groups of 4, like this:

It's worked quite well for me, though there were always a few spots where students had their backs partially to the front board.  This year when I came back after summer break, the desks were in rows after being taken out and put back in for floor waxing.  So, I decided to try out a new arrangement.

The idea is to have everyone arranged in more of a U-shape, facing the center of the room.  I did this during my first two years of teaching in my math classes, but I haven't used it since.

I've made a few modifications since the above picture was taken.  The desks are now in pairs of 2 within the U-shapes, so students have a convenient partner for quick speaking exercises.  There is one group of 3 tables for my classes which have an odd number of students.  Here's what I think I've settled on:

I'm using Name Tents again this year to learn students' names and mix them up with different partners at the beginning of the year, so that has made it easy to tweak things a bit as I go.  

So far, I am quite happy with it.  Students took their first quiz this week, and I didn't move desks for that.  I reminded them to focus on their own work, and the questions are in a different order for each student, so I don't think there was much of a problem with wandering eyes.  So far, so good!

Oktoberfest 2018 - A Mixed Review

My German 2 classes have been studying Oktoberfest the past few weeks.  It fits in wonderfully with our first two units about Feste and Kleidung and out first Landeskunde region of Bayern.

So, after the success of our Apfelstreuselkuchen baking, I decided to schedule a tutorial to celebrate Oktoberfest on October 5.  

My review of how it went is certainly influenced by the fact that it was the Friday before our 4 day October break, and everyone (including me) was tired and ready for a break.  

Added to that, our building was short 9 subs, so I was called in at the last minute to sub during my prep period.  For an introvert like me who desperately needs to sit alone in a quiet room and not talk to anyone for a while after celebrating Oktoberfest with 41 students, this was rough.  

It seems unfair that when we're short on subs the day before a vacation, the teachers who are in the building trying to do some teaching with wound-up students are required to do even more than normal.  This doesn't happen in other schools in my district, so in my opinion, this is a leadership/administrative issue, and I'll leave it at that.

So, keeping in mind the circumstances, here's the review.

The good:

• 41 students signed up for the tutorial.  I got to meet some of the German students who are in my colleague's classes.

• 3 of my students who are in band came up with the idea all on their own to play for our Fest, got permission to take their instruments out of the band room, and played for their appreciative peers.

• I brought in frozen pretzels that needed to be baked in the oven for about 10 minutes, and 3 hard-working students took over that job and completed it like pros.

The bad:

• Of the 41 students who came, only 1 (who was also in the band) brought food in addition to me.  I am really big on doing things with my students, not for them, and this felt like I was doing most of the work.

• Students weren't especially good about making sure everyone got served before going back for seconds.  They acted more like hangry teenagers and less like the thoughful young people I know they are capable of being.

• We were rushed for time, so I wasn't able to have students wash their own dishes.  That meant most of the cleanup was left to me, but I had to cover another class.  I did eventually get to it and actually enjoyed being alone with the dishes (an introvert's oasis!), but this is again not really ideal for helping to develop thoughtful, appreciative young adults.

The future:  

I'm not sure about doing something like this again.  Parts were fun and students enjoyed it, but it was too tiring for me on a very tiring day.  Maybe we'll do it during class time so that I have more control about who is there and there is a limit on numbers.  We'll see.  Right now I need a long weekend with my family, crochet, Call the Midwife, and rest.

Off and Running

(Me and my amazing colleague from Bloomington HS South.  

My younger son will be in her class this year!) 

Phew!  The first 2 weeks of school are in the books.  Here are the highlights:

• Name Tents were a definite thumbs up.  They have allowed me to change student groups daily until I find an arrangement I'm happy with.  Plus, it's easier to adapt to the nearly daily (sometimes hourly!) changes of student schedules.  I do need to adjust the folding lines a little bit so that they fold flat more easily.  And I want to change the back of the German 2 tents to include haben and sein and "Wie waren deine Ferien?" rather than "Wie geht's?"  Next year...

• German 1 has learned the alphabet, definite, and indefinite articles.  I did definite and indefinite articles in one day rather than two, and it seemed to be fine:

  
 

• My homeroom loves oatmeal.  It started when they kept asking to go to the vending machines for snacks.  We talked about how hard it is to make it until the last lunch period at 12:55 when you eat breakfast at 6:00.  I mentioned that I kept instant oatmeal in the department office and offered them some.  I had one person take me up on the offer the first day, and several on Friday.  The only requirement is that they wash their own dishes, which they have happily done.  Peaches and cream is most popular.  I think bonding over oatmeal works better for me than the more traditional ice breakers.

• The $100 I spent last year buying my own document camera, Ziggi, was money well spent.  No more running around the first week, begging anyone who will listen to connect my desktop computer to AirServer.  It would be great if schools provided resources we need to do our best teaching, but since mine doesn't, I'm glad I could get it myself.

• German 2 is a delight!  They are off to a great start, reviewing nouns, plurals, and present tense verbs while learning vocabulary about celebrations and festivals.  We've started the conversational past and watched Tiba's Geburtstag.

• I started off on day one with the bathroom flowchart.  That one item may single-handedly save my sanity this year (ok, that and A LOT of yoga and running).

I hope your year has gotten off to a good start, too!  Remember:

Jeopardy Rocks

I tried a new online game this week with my German 4 students.  We had been off of school for a week of Thanksgiving break and unfortunately they were due for a unit test that we hadn't been able to get in before break.  So, they needed to do a lot of review, in a fun way if possible

One of my colleagues (Danke, Giselle!) shared this web site with me.  It's called Jeopardy Rocks and is free, though you do have to create an account.  

Once you do, you can create your own Jeopardy game for 1 to 4 teams.  You create the categories, questions, and answers, so it's completely customize-able.  

I decided to try it for the first time in German 4, where I only have 13 (very cooperative) students so that I could see how it worked and work out any bugs.  

Only one team can get credit for a correct answer, and rather than making it a race where I would have to judge who raised their hand first, we took turns among our 3 teams choosing the category and dollar amount.  The team that chose the questions got the first opportunity to answer a question.  If they got it right, they got the points.  If not, they lost the points and the next team had a chance to steal.  This gave everyone a chance to answer questions and encouraged teams to discuss and focus on correct answers rather than just being fast.

My students loved it!  It took quite a while to get through all of the questions, but I think it was a good review.  I'm not sure how well it would work in my German 1 classes of 32 students, but I may try it for finals review with my German 2 classes of 25 students.

Back from Fall Break

We're back from a week of fall break.  It was great to have such a long break, but after a whole week off, I can definitely tell that my students' German skills have gotten rusty.  Maybe a four day weekend would give everyone a break without quite so much learning loss.  The calendar for the next three years is being discussed right now in my district, so we'll find out soon if that's what the district decides to go to.

But I digress...

Really the only way to start back on a Monday after a long break is with a foldable.  Two foldables would be even better, right?

So, here are two foldables for Interrogatives (Question Words) in German 1.  The first one is a 6 petal foldable for our first 6 question words:

We wrote the English meaning of the question words on the undersides of the petals and the word order for questions in the center.

We put the German question words on the other sides of the petals:

That was probably enough for one day, and in retrospect, I think I would split this topic into two days.  But we forged bravely ahead with a three petal round foldable for the three different words for "where":

Finally, we talked about the word for "which," which changes depending on the gender of the noun after it.  By this time, students' eyes were definitely starting to glaze over, so I will definitely save that for a separate lesson next year.

Overall, though, my students did a great job with Interrogatives on the first day after break.

Meet them Where They Are

I have three sections of German 1 this year.  Last year I only taught German 2 and German 3, and it's nice to have students who are just starting German again.  It's fun watching them figure out how logical German is - that ein Bleistift - a "lead-writing-utensil" is a pencil.  The flip side is that I hear "die" pronounced like die in English (long i), rather than like dee (long e) as it is in German, over and over and over again.

All 3 of my sections of German 1 are full - with 30 to 32 students in each.  They're all a mixture of 9th, 10th, and 11th graders.  And all 3 have more boys than girls - a ratio of about 2 to 1.  Which makes me wonder - where are all the girls?  French?  Spanish?  I'm not sure...

But that's where the similarities end.  The first two sections are pretty challenging.  There are a wide variety of students - some are socially and academically where I'd hope for high school students to be.  But both sections also have a significant number of students who don't yet have the skills they need to be successful.  

This is a first year language class, so I'm not talking about a lack of German knowledge.  I'm not even talking about weak English language skills.  This is more a lack of school success skills.  Students who sit for 20 minutes and don't take notes with the rest of the class because they don't have a pencil, even though extra writing utensils are available in the room.  Students who are absent and don't make an effort to get caught up, even though I give them a paper with everything they missed:

Students who call out "I don't get it!" loudly as soon as they can't do something, rather than reading the directions, trying a bit more, looking at their notes, or asking a tablemate.  You get the picture.

It reminds me a lot of my first year of teaching when I had a very squirrely section of 9th grade algebra, and my wonderful mentor teacher advised me that it's sometimes just as much about teaching social skills as it is about teaching math skills.  Meeting them where they are and helping them get to where they need to be.

So, after those two classes, I start wondering what it is that I'm doing wrong, what I should do differently, etc.  

Then I teach my period 5 class.  And everything goes perfectly.  They listen to instructions.  And follow them.  They participate, try, and help one another.  They have all mastered logging in to their online textbook by now (the 6th week of school).  And they are mastering the material, as you can see by the number of students in just this section who got an A on the last quiz:

There are still some weak students, but there are enough strong students that they set the tone.  The weaker students (sometimes) follow their example.  

It's fascinating to me just how different these classes are, even though on paper they are indistinguishable.  

So, now I'm thinking about how to help the two weaker classes learn both German and academic success skills.  I pondered this a lot on my run last weekend.

One thing I've noticed: I normally have my students seated in table groups of 4 so that they can work together and practice speaking with each other:

When I'm giving an assessment, I move the desks into rows.  I noticed that on those days period 3 and period 4 did much better.  They were more focused and listened better to my teaching and my instructions.  So, I decided to keep the desks in rows for those two classes for a while.  

For period 3 it has already made a huge difference.  Period 4 is still a work in progress.  It's not ideal - the groups are much better for sharing materials and speaking activities.  But I think it's what they need, for now.  As we progress and students are more clear on my expectations, we'll try groups again.  For now, though, I'm meeting them where they are, and working to help them grow to where they need to be.  Stay tuned...

Tischdienst

Tischdienst is one of the little things that makes my classroom run a lot more smoothly and which I will definitely continue next year.

On most days I have my students' desks arranged in table groups of 4.  (I do move the desks into rows for tests and quizzes.  If the desks are in rows on a day when there isn't a quiz or test, students start to panic when they enter the room, thinking there is a pop quiz or that they forgot about a test.) Each group of 4 desks is called a table (Tisch), and I have 9 Tische in my classroom.  

I found out pretty quickly last year that it can be chaotic and time-consuming to have 30+ students all trying to pick up materials like iPads or scissors and glue at the same time.  So, I started asking one person from each table group to get materials for that table.  That worked better, but I found some groups were always making the 9th graders get the supplies or were doing "nose goes" (last person to touch his/her nose has to do it) and one student was always the last one.  I wanted to spread out the work a little more evenly, so I came up with the idea of Tischdienst - table duty.

Each day I write on the board which spot (Platz) has Tischdienst for that day.  Then, whenever the table needs something, that person is responsible for getting up and getting it.  I assign my students to iPads based on where they are seated, too, so that also makes things simpler and more efficient.  For example, Tisch 1 has iPads #1-4, Tisch 2 has #5-8, and so on.  Then, if some of the iPads aren't put away correctly at the end of class, I know who was responsible for them. Usually Platz 1 has Tischdienst on Mondays, Platz 2 on Tuesdays, Platz 3 on Wednesdays, Platz 4 on Thursdays, and Friday is a wild card, though since we're on an A/B block schedule, I usually make it Platz 4 again.

As I learned from the amazing elementary school teachers I worked with a few years ago, the time spent teaching the students how the Tischdienst system works is well worth it because the classroom runs smoothly the rest of the year.  

[The owl graphic on the Tischdienst sign comes from MyCuteGraphics.com.]

  

Tschüss iPads!

Since our students will all receive a tablet computer next school year, we are saying good-bye to our iPads in a few days.  They will be going to the middle and elementary schools, which have had iPads for a few years but aren't quite 1-1 yet.

We got our iPad carts about a year and a half ago.  We have had two carts for the eight world languages teachers to share, so we don't have them all the time, but I was usually able to get them most days that I wanted to use them.  

The most useful app on them was definitely Quizlet.  A lot of mastering another language is learning the vocabulary, and there's really no good way to do that other than just to practice.  The Learn mode in Quizlet, which prompts students in English and asks them to type in the word in German, is an effective way to do this.  When they get a word wrong, it shows them the correct spelling, and then they type it in again, which helps them commit the correct spelling to memory.

I also used the iPads for Kahoot, which most of the students love.  It's a fun way to do a quick 10-15 minute review.

I tried going paperless on a few assignments using Google Docs.  When students had a writing assignment, they typed their final draft on the iPad and submitted it to me digitally.  This worked quite well, and I plan to use it more in future years.  

I love the website LearningApps.org but the activities I created sometimes didn't work smoothly on the iPads.  I'm hopeful that this will work better next year on the laptops.

German INBs

The end of the school year seems like a good time to reflect on things I did this year that worked and things that didn't... and make plans for next year.

I absolutely love some of the interactive notebooks I've seen other teachers create with their classes.  Last year I tested the waters a bit by making some foldables with my students, which went well.  

I had students glue or tape the foldables into their German binders, which also contained notes, vocabulary, and homework.  It was a good system but used a lot of paper, and binders are pretty bulky.

This year I decided to jump in with both feet and make the switch from binders to composition books.  Some of my students never got around to putting pages in their binder rings, and I do a lot of guided notes, so I thought having students glue pages into composition notebooks would solve this problem and use less paper.

When I say I jumped in with both feet, I probably should say I dove in headfirst into deep water because the plan was for students to have two notebooks, one for notes and homework and one for vocabulary, and EVERYTHING would go in to those two notebooks.

It did not go well.

I don't think the ideas were bad, but it was just way too much to implement all at once.  Here's how the notes looked.  

I definitely underestimated the amount of time it would take me to reformat everything I had created last year to a new size.  Plus, I started teaching German 3 for the first time this year, so I had a lot of prep to do for that as well.  

The vocabulary notebooks were good, but students were always asking which notebook to put which things in, which drove me batty.

Trying to put homework in the composition books was just too much gluing.

After a few weeks, I threw in the towel and went back to binders.  It went much better.

Students have sections in their binder for notes, vocabulary, and homework, but it's all in one binder.  

The lesson I learned was an essential one, especially for beginning teachers: Don't try to do everything all at once.  Baby steps.    

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