7 SMART Habitudes of Highly Effective Teachers

A few weeks ago I was asked to deliver the Keynote Address at a SMART Conference held in Lewisville, Texas. A group of 350 enthusiastic educators from the district converged on a local middle school for a day of SMART training with local trainers and SMART Texas Education Consultants.
Below is the gist of the keynote. If you'd like to add a SMART Habitude, please post a comment. Together we are SMARTer.

As we begin, let's take a few minutes to look at the bigger picture of effective teaching by using SMART Habitudes to describe best practices.

Number 7: Check for Updates Regularly
Set your automatic updates to run frequently - that includes settings for SMART products, too. Easy access for updates is located within the Notebook software toolbar under "Help."

Number 6: Learn Something New Everyday
One of my teacher friends from Amarillo says she learns a TAD more everyday. I thought she meant like how you eat an elephant, one bite at a time; but she said TAD stands for "Technology Achievement of the Day". We expect our students to keep learning, rightfully so, and we should, too. If you don't know something, just ask one of your kids. If you allow your students to teach you the technology, they will allow you to teach them the content. Sounds fair enough!

Number 5: Share Your Notebook Lessons with Others
Don't be afraid to share. Everybody starts at the beginning. Share your lessons room to room, school to school, on a district website, or globally on the SMART Exchange. There's a host of up-to-date, high quality Notebook lessons free for the downloading on the SMART Exchange. All you need to do is join. With another school year looming on the horizon, check in the Back to School Lesson Activity Archive folder. Not only will you find 36 lessons for elementary to high school students that you can download and modify, (meeting boards, games, activities, fun) you'll also find my submission, "Great Beginnings: A First Day of School Welcome" sitting in the #1 download spot with over 7,000 downloads last I checked.

Number 4: Create Notebook Lessons Before Class
Research bears this out that it's important to structure your lesson before class. You know that. Doing this has made me a better teacher because it forces me to plan out my opening, objectives, interactive activities, and assessment before turning on the light. Now I didn't say that I never winged a lesson, I just know that the lesson is much more effective for all learners if you plan for student success before class. That's just good teaching pedagogy.

Number 3: Improve Your Pedagogy
Stay current in your field. Study. Read. Learn. Attend professional development and apply your learning. SMART Boards are absolute magic in the hands of a good teacher. Learn all you can. Read good blogs. Teachers Love SMART Boards, written by Jim Hollis, is my favorite blog to read. Check it out. He also has an online training site, Teacher Online Training. I've completed most all of his unique lessons. You won't find his training anywhere else on the net! Then there are YouTube videos on SMART's channel. And last but certainly not least: Use the SMART Exchange and the SMART Technologies website to find hundreds of lessons resources and free training with the latest SMART products.

Number 2: Join a Users Group - Get Connected
Get connected in your school, district, region, any place where you can go to share and learn with other teachers. Respect your fellow learners. Everybody starts at the beginning.

Number 1: Step Away from the Board
Move over. Put your students on the stage. Coach them well and send them to the Board. Use your SMART Slate to get out of in front of your classroom. We all know that students learn best and remember more by doing it themselves, so let them. Play during your conference period or after school. Why should teachers have all the fun?

With Back to School just a few weeks away, I encourage you to consider applying these SMART Habitudes to your own best practices. "Step away from the Board" is a good one with which to begin. Your students will love you for it.

Passion

Only passion can keep a teacher from losing his/her sanity the last month of school. We're down to the last 22 days, but who's counting? The official countdown doesn't go on the wall until we reach 10 days. TAKS Tests in Texas will conclude by the end of this week. Seems that once the big tests are over, students think that school is also over. It is the passionate, fun-loving teacher who keeps students engaged and learning the last few weeks of school. Having access to adequate technology and a SMART Board keeps my students excited about school. The last month includes field trips, student projects, reflections, and many opportunities for fun. Once I have my students engaged, I begin to look for things to keep me busy. Every year I clean out another storage locker or two to make room for newer stuff or sift through teaching files and dump obsolete information. But by far the best thing I've found to do is to keep myself learning. This year James Hollis over at the Teachers Love SMART Boards blog extended an invitation to take his wonderful courses on Teacher Online Training. Not only are they fantastic, they're very well written, divided into manageable sections, super-engaging, and ready for you to apply in the classroom. Today I completed "Sharing Video Solutions over the Internet" and received 150 professional development minutes for the assignment. If you've not checked out these SMART courses, I urge you to subscribe today. If you'd like to see my first completed internet video solution, check out my latest blog, Math From Third. Jim Hollis has seen the future of education and I agree with him when he states, "The process of building an online library is the future of education at all levels. It is just one of the many valuable components to a student-centered learning environment that expands beyond the classroom."

I Can't Teach Without IT

Someone quoted me yesterday as having said I can't teach without my social network/PLN. My first reaction was to say no, but that I can't teach without my SMART Board. I can teach without my PLN, but having an active one makes my job so much easier. It's great to be able to connect to fellow educators who are there to offer support, help, and much-needed wit and wisdom to each other. My PLN keeps me on the cutting edge of my field, and in turn, I keep the kids on the edge of their seat.

Honestly, I really can't teach without my SMART Board. I tried unplugging one day last week. Not good. Although, when I have a substitute teacher, the same thing happens. Once I asked the class which they missed more - the SMART Board or me. Without hesitation, they replied the Board. And then they said, no, we miss you more. haha.

To turn back the clock 5 years transports me to an era of being the sage on the stage, trying to keep my students' focus with a dry erase board, overhead projector, and handmade centers. I've undergone a transformation since the day My First SMART Board arrived. I'm now the guide on the side, with the kids at the Board actively constructing their learning. I'm on the sidelines as their coach and cheerleader spotting their moves with my SMART Slate.

If you were a fly on the wall in my class, you'd see the Board at work when the kids arrive. SMART Notebook and SMART Ideas software are used in 90% of daily lessons. Ahhh, the power of Notebook. Whether you wish to create flashing text, disappearing ghosts, spinners, shrink and grow activities - the possiblities are endless. And that didn't include embedding flash files, You Tube videos, or Discovery Streaming segments to enhance the learning. Some days the Board goes home tired from overuse. Like today. Like me.

Classroom Cloning Challenge #2

Conquering the bimonthly iwb challenges ignites the spark that contributes to more engaging lesson activities for my students.. The current challenge is to use the infinite cloner tool to create engaging learning opportunities. It does just that and more.
As I assemble my thoughts for this post, many lessons come to mind. One of the ways I've used it the past two weeks in my third grade class has been to have students illustrate equal groups story problems using gallery clipart. For example, on the Notebook page, I inserted text: 3 groups of 4 and made 3 large circles with the shape maker. I inserted the first group of 4 objects in the first circle. Next the student was directed to turn on the infinite cloner and drag a group to each of the other 2 circles to complete the picture. The next student came to the Board and wrote the matching number sentence: 3 x 4 = 12. More pages were set up with other multiplication facts so that each learner had an opportunity to participate. Using pictures helps the multiplication concept come to life in the students' mind. Of course, they'd love to be able to do the same type pictures to create their own equal groups back at their desks. They have to satisfied with drawing their own sticks, circles and squares to create their picture. I plan to have students make their own presentation using Notebook software with the computers in my classroom in the near future when the larger facts (6,7,8,9s) are introduced.
Another math lesson found us reviewing "some and some more" and "some and some went away" type story problems. What better way to add a little fun to the lesson than to drag out some clip art and use the infinite cloner to set up the picture for solving. Much collaboration and many suggestions came from the students themselves as they directed their classmate at the SMART Board. They wanted each other to succeed. Once the picture is made, the matching number sentence was written on the page. After a bit, instead of cloning one object at a time, I showed the students how to group several at a time and then use the infinite cloner to create sets of 2,3,4, etc. They loved to skip count as a group as the student at the Board does the work. Here's where knowledge of the skip counting songs came in handy as they actively constructed their learning.
Last week the math lesson covered fact families. For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, it's simply creating 2 addition facts and 2 subtration facts from 3 different numbers. Before the lesson, I inserted a 3,4, and 7 and changed the font to 72 before turning on the infinite cloner. Students would then drag out each of the numbers and write in the proper signs on the Board. For example, they would have completed
3 + 4 = 7
4 + 3 = 7
7 - 3 = 4
7 - 4 = 3
Many other opportunities were provided using several different numbers so that several students could participate in the lesson either by themselves or with a partner. Using the infinite cloner in this manner reinforced the pattern by allowing them to use only the designated numbers. I plan to use the same strategy when we cover multiplication and division Fact Families after Thanksgiving.
When we created pictographs after this week's Math test, individual clip art was used to record responses. Students could then drag the correct number of pictures up to the table to record the responses. I used this same technique with creating a table activity in SMART's Back to School contest entry, Great Beginnings. Unfortunately, I didn't win the giveaway but I have the satisfaction of knowing my lesson activity has been downloaded nearly 3,000 times and hopefully has helped many teachers with the first day of school.
The infinite cloner was used over and over again and will continue to be a favorite of mine as math patterns are learned. I can't wait to figure out how to use it in the other subjects I teach each day. To everyone who is participating in the challenge, keep those ideas coming.