T-TAP: A Collaborative Learning Structure

So my fellow teach peeps, here’s a teaching strategy that you can easily pick up and use at any time throughout the school day! This collaborative learning structure, if used correctly, meets a variety of level 5 lesson requirements according to the TEAM evaluation rubric (Tennessee’s teacher evaluation system) such as; Motivating Students, Activities and Materials, Questioning, Academic Feedback, Grouping of Students, Lesson Structure & Pacing, Thinking, and Problem Solving.

Quick Break Down:

T- Teacher

T- Teams

A- Alone

P- Partners

Here is how to use T-TAP in your classroom quickly, easily, and effectively in five steps:

1. Find enough space in your classroom for teams to easily collaborate with one another. My kiddos use rugs in the floor with clipboards, but I’ve seen kids use small group tables or clusters of desks.

2. Create mixed ability teams of 5-6 students (max). Go over teamwork expectations and norms. Read more about creating and using teams here.

3. Within those teams, assign “shoulder or turn-n-teach” partners that are also mixed ability. During this activity, students will rotate through working with their whole team, their partners, and independent work.

4. Find an activity that has several different questions or steps. I love to use math tasks or higher order practice pages with this T-TAP strategy. However, it would also work with any worksheet or multi-step assignment! 

5. Start the activity. Make sure that you are up circulating, encouraging and rewarding good choices, taking formative notes, and helping teams use good team-talk. (My class has learned accountable talk and other academic conversation stems.)

The first question or section is done by the TEACHER (T) while students watch quietly and learn expectations. This is when I give directions and explain how I want the problems solved. I go over teamwork norms and expectations before each T-TAP activity! 

The second part or question is completed in TEAMS (T). I tell my students that it is easy to tell someone the answer, it’s hard to teach them HOW to get the answer! Our whole class is comprised of teachers! (Hint: Sometimes I even GIVE them the solution… they have to find and write down HOW TO GET THERE!) Click this link to watch our class working in TEAMS.

Next, Students will complete a question all ALONE (A). In my classroom, students turn around backwards away from teammates on their rugs and work on the questions quietly. Click this link to watch our class working ALONE.

After everyone is done with their independent question, they turn and check their answers with their PARTNERS (P) and discuss how they solved it. Click this link to watch our class working in PARTNERS. 

Most of the time, after partner checks, I do a quick classroom formative to see how many partners agreed/disagreed with one another's answers. 

** In one activity, we may rotate through T-TAP several times. I have also been known to do different combinations (depending on the activity); Team-Alone-Partner, Team-Team-Alone-Partner, Partner-Alone-Teacher-Team, etc. You can also end on the "alone" segment and use that question for a classroom quick-check/ formative assessment. 

We go through this cycle over and over in a relatively fast-paced way. The kids LOVE it when I say that we are going to be doing T-TAP! I’ve heard teachers sometimes say that they hate worksheets or that we worksheet our children to death. However, I firmly believe that students need paper and pencil practice every now and then in order to apply their learning. T-TAP is the perfect way to make a practice page fun, engaging, and effective! T-TAP puts the students in charge of the teaching and learning, and it fosters a culture of collaboration and teamwork between students!

Teamwork: Mischief Managed

When my kiddos work in teams, something magical happens in my classroom. No, really, not even being a sappy blogger full of hyperboles! I LOVE getting my students into teams to work on an assignment or task. 

Most teachers, including myself, spend the bulk of their instructional day working with small groups of students that are mixed homogenously during center work time. This is a GREAT instructional strategy, especially for differentiating lessons. However, I would like to emphasis the need for more TEAMWORK time in our school day!

Below are five easy ways to start and use teams in your classrooms:

1. Create teams of 4-6 children that are of mixed abilities (and personalities—not exactly data driven but we teachers do have brains in our heads!). After teams are created, I let my children work together to come up with a team name. The teams in my classroom are Minion, Odd Squad, Alabama, and Kevin. Yes, I have a team called Kevin. No, I did not provide input into team naming. I do know some teachers that name their teams first and then have a big ceremony, sorting kiddos into their places (much like in Harry Potter).

2. Teach and PRACTICE accountable talk or age appropriate academic conversation stems. Read more here and here. I can not emphasis the word PRACTICE enough… PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! I also suggest practicing them content free first. For example, engage students in conversations about something relevant to them; social media, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, frozen waffles, etc.

3. I also assign turn-n-teach partners within my teams. We do a team-based activity called “T-TAP” that I will blog more about later. Essentially, we rotate within a lesson between solving problems in teams, solving problems alone, and then discussing the solved problem with a partner. Just trust me… Assign partners within your teams!

4. Create a space for teams to work together. I have a flexible seating style classroom that you can read more about HERE. So, it is a little easier for us to move into teams since we have the space to do so. We use Target bathrugs for our teamwork time. They simply grab a rug and a clipboard, then get in a circle on the floor with their teams. I have also seen teachers have clusters of desks in their rooms for group or teamwork. Whatever works for you, your kids, and your classroom, just make sure you have a spot! I also would suggest using the same routine to get into teams over and over so that it cuts down on confusion and transition time!

5. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL READ ON THIS BLOGPOST ABOUT TEAMWORK. (OBVIOUSLY, BECAUSE IT’S TYPED IN ALL CAPS!)

***** WHEN STUDENTS START WORKING IN TEAMS, REWARD OFTEN, LOUDLY, AND SPECIFICALLY! For example, “Chloe I love how you used accountable talk to disagree with Nolan.” Or “Wow! I love how team Alabama is working together to teach each other how to solve that problem!”

My classroom behavior management system that you can read more about HERE uses pom-poms for positive praise. Each time I say a student’s name during team time, they know they automatically get a pom-pom! I AM ALSO UP WALKING AROUND THE ROOM CONSTANTLY! I have a clipboard in my hand to take formative notes, and performance notes that I share with the students and use to drive instruction. 

*You can read more about the differences between my classroom groups and teams HERE.

Click on the links to see videos of my scholars working in teams!

https://goo.gl/photos/uMk7QsAAaf2ezDF28

https://goo.gl/photos/Am1HjAoAkbM1PxgU6

There's a First Time For Everything

There truly is a first time for everything. I never dreamed I'd have something to write a blog post about, but I also never thought I'd have a classroom with no desks. First things first, my teacher BFF Mrs. Lauren is an amazing, inspiring teacher and friend, who somehow has enough time in the day to be an impressively great teacher and mom, then write blog posts on the side. You go girl! This is Lauren's blog and for some reason she thinks I can write blog posts too, so here I am to share my flexible seating switch.

My name is Lana Currence and I teach second grade at a low income school in Tennessee. Our students deal with things many of us would never dream of. They are the main reason I decided to make the switch to flexible seating. I felt that my kids deserved a place to come to that made them feel clean, comfortable, safe, loved, and happy. Sadly, I don't believe that all of them are able to experience that at home. Another reason that I made the switch is because it is real world experience for them. They are developing the ability to make choices about their own learning. They are taking responsibility for how well they are working in class. They are daily deciding if they are in a spot that they work well in. The silliest thing is that before, I wasn't even using their desks. I do small group teaching all day long. The only time they were at their desks was for independent work or while we were watching a video. I figured since we were hardly using them, I could certainly stand to get rid of them. To help myself make the switch, I researched and read multiple blogs including Top Dog Teaching and Lucky Little Learners. If you are thinking about the switch, they are fantastic blogs to look at. Top Dog Teaching gave me a lot of inspiration and Lucky Little Learners gave me a lot of know how with her Q&A post. 

This is what flexible seating looks like in my classroom. I have two crate seat tables with six crate seats at each table. The crates are milk crates that my husband and I built seats for with a little wood, fabric, foam, and a staple gun. 

This is our SPED teacher Ms. Carrie that helps in my inclusion classroom. She's wonderful!

Then, I have the wobble disc table with six wobble seats at it. The wobble discs came from Amazon for about 15 dollars each.

I have a rug with one Big Joe bean bag that has six possible clip boards at it. The rug and Big Joe bean bags were ordered off of Amazon.

I have a reading center with two black reading chairs and two big joe bean bag chairs. I have six clip boards at this center as well. The black chairs were a gift and the others came from Amazon.



















I also have two desks available in my room if a student needs the structure of a desk, or if they choose a desk. 

In all, that makes 32 possible seats in my classroom. I only have 18 students this year, so they all have ample opportunity to choose a spot to sit without fighting over one certain spot. I think that having exponentially more seating options than students is one of the keys to making flexible seating work. 

Their community supplies are in a carrier in each center. You can see them in some of the above photos. Each carrier has Expo markers, pom pom erasers, pencils, crayons, glue, and scissors. Their books and workbooks are on a shelf in the back of the room. I thought that my kids might miss having their own space to work and keep things, but they don't miss it at all and my room is so much neater and cleaner. NO MORE messy desks for the win!

To pass out papers, I have a paper sorter. In the afternoons, they grab their papers out of the sorter, then get their backpack and color their behavior calendar for the month that matches our behavior clip chart. 


To manage behavior I use this anchor chart and clip chart. The anchor chart makes students responsible for their own behavior and learning. Giving my students no warning and simply moving them from seats was the most effective behavior management tool I have used. It works so well because they absolutely do not want to be moved from their seat of choice. I also use the clip chart from teacherspayteachers to reward great students and to give students warnings if they are continually making poor choices. They get a prize from my prize jar if they get on pink and a pink jewel goes on their clip. If they get on pink six times, they get to go on my hall of fame forever. I love the clip chart because it is wonderful tool for positive behavior management. 

We work in small groups throughout the day. In the morning reading time, we go through four fifteen-minute rotations where I teach the reading skill in my group, and Ms. Carrie teaches phonics in her group. Independent groups are read to self/iPads and listen to reading on the computer. Read to self/iPad group is one where students will do one or the other every other day. Then, we have rotation for our special area classes like PE. When they come back, we have four more fifteen-minute rotations. I teach language at my table, they practice word work for phonics, then they do listen to reading, read to someone, read to self, or iPads for their independent groups. When we are finished, we have about 30 minutes to play a review game for the things that we have learned so far in the day. It could be a reading skill, phonics lesson, or a language skill that we cover during this time. We also like to take a brain break right before we go to lunch.

When we come back from lunch, we have four more fifteen-minute rotations for math. I teach the math skill. I have an assistant that spirals a math skill or reinforces my skill with a game. The independent groups play games with cards or dice, do IXL, Starfall, or other math games on the computer, or iPads. After groups, I do a fifteen-minute review lesson over what we have covered in at my table. Usually it is a game that we play for review and then do a quick check. Here are some photos of group work time: 

You may be wondering, "How in the world does this woman test her students with no desks?" I'm glad you asked! The students spread out in a place that is good for them and put up a divider that I have from laminated paper and test. Here are some photos of what in the world that looks like: 

So why go through all this trouble? The number one reason is that the kids LOVE it. I mean REALLY love it, ya'll. They tell me every day they want Mrs. Lana to move up to third grade with them. They are comfortable. Our classroom is their safe-haven and home. While I haven't seen seismic shifts in behavior or earth-shattering raises in grades, I have seen a wealth of other positive effects. I have seen jittery children with and without ADHD find a place that they can comfortably work. I have seen children take responsibility for their behavior. I have seen certain students become more serious about their learning. I have seen children that were shielded or guarded begin to express their individuality and learn more about themselves. I have seen students make good choices over and over again. I have seen students enforce the very rules that I have set about our classroom because they want to protect it. These students are not only learning standards, they are learning life skills. My classroom is helping me foster independence, responsibility, and individuality. 

Education grows and adapts every year. Our classrooms need to grow and adapt with education. Most of all, they need to grow and adapt with our students. 

- Mrs. Lana 

Hurdles and Huddles: The Inclusive Classroom

As mentioned in my last post, there are three things that must be effective in order to adequately support students with exceptionalities in today's education world; a strong inclusive classroom, parental involvement, and community support. Below are a few strategies that are sure to strengthen the three and increase the success of a student with disabilities in todays inclusive education environment.

1. Communication must be strong between parents, the general education teacher, and the special education teacher. At least once per week, the special education teacher and general education teacher must discuss the progress of the student and plan lessons or strategies for the upcoming week. This can be done quickly in the hallway between classes, or formally at a scheduled time each week. Shared planning makes this much easier. However, this is not the case with most special education inclusion teachers as they serve multiple grade levels of students. Communication to parents is equally as important as communication between teachers. Research has proven that strong parental support is strongly correlated with educational outcomes for all students! BOTH THE GENERAL EDUCATION TEACHER AND THE SPECIAL EDUCATION HAVE A DUTY TO KEEP PARENTS INFORMED CONCERNING PROGRESS. Special education teachers must go the extra mile to give parents opportunities to attend meetings, inform them of their rights, and make educational decisions regarding their child. It is also important to make sure that parents are receiving both positive and negative communication from the school. A quick note or phone call about how well their child has done can go a long way to improving the relationship with a parent and the educational system!

2. One thing that is often overlooked when discussing student success is the importance of community involvement. Parents should be well aware of resources within their community that can assist in supporting them raise a child with special needs. Do your students' parents know about local counseling agencies, support groups, therapy programs or services, etc? Does your school system partner with such agencies? What if, once per year, the school system hosted a parent outreach night? Parents of students with disabilities come together one night per year to attend short sessions (taught by LEA special education teachers or personnel) on things such as home behavior support, increasing literacy skills, or how to advocate for their child. They could sign up for parent support groups and meet system special education personnel. Community agencies can set up booths that detail their services so that parents are well aware of the opportunities for support locally. Such nights do three things; increase parent involvement, increase community support, and increase the potential for success for a student with a disability!
Here is one of my most favorite websites for parents of a student with special needs; www.understood.org. This website gives information regarding advocacy, school system support, and articles with information on various topics concerning students with disabilities.

3. Inclusion support in the general education classroom must be taken seriously, and regarded as a top priority for school administration and personnel. Unfortunately, special education services can sometimes can take a back burner to other happenings within a school. However, it is imperative that this student support service is provided and regarded with equal or greater care than even the regular education classroom. A strong special education program is essential for both students with disabilities and for typical students. It fosters a climate of both student equality and diversity; both of which are imperative lessons to students entering today's society. I have only one suggestion (outside of strong communication that has already been mentioned) for special education teachers that will help make the inclusion setting a successful environment for all involved.
Be an ACTIVE participate in the planning of inclusion lessons AND the teaching of inclusion lessons. Gone are the days of the "glorified assistant" that wanders around the room while the general education teacher provides the brunt of the teaching. There are many ways to coteach lessons with a general education teacher. You can read more about those here. Below is an easy diagram to also help understand the various types of coteaching. My personal favorite is to divide students into homogeneous groups (grouped by ability). The special education teacher teaches one group, the general education teacher teaches another, and other groups are located in independent centers. Lessons are differentiated as students rotate every so often between centers and teachers. This type allows for small group teaching, which can be the most effective for students with exceptionalities, and it allows both teachers to be ACTIVE participants in the lessons. Creating a coteaching structure that works for both the teachers and the needs of the students can sometimes take time, but the potential outcomes far outweigh the heavy lifting on the front end!

As you can tell, it takes a lot to make sure that educational outcomes are high for students with disabilities in any setting, especially in the inclusive environment. However, as educators, we must make sure that we are ensuring the success of ALL students, no matter what it takes! Please feel free to comment below how your school or system provides inclusion services. I would love to hear what works or doesn't work for others! The best way we can learn is from one another!

Hurdles and Huddles: Students with Disabilities

I still hear stories from veteran teachers that talk about the methods of teaching students with exceptionalities "back in the day". Students with special needs went from no education, to a limited education separated from their peers, to the modern movement of an all inclusive general education environment. While there are still some students whose least restrictive environment is located in a separate classroom, most students in public education have been mainstreamed in order to receive an appropriate public education experience.

While all the talk of inclusive classrooms create images of rainbows, sunshine, and unity; the education world still has leaps yet to conquer in order to secure the highest degree of education for all. 

The biggest hurdle; figuring out how to increase communication and effectiveness of all stakeholders involved in a Student with Disability's (SWD) education. Who are the stakeholders that impact a child's education? To name a few: the child, parents, teachers, school leaders, support personnel, student peers, community members and businesses. While we are discussing rainbows, sunshine, and unity, imagine this: all stakeholders huddled up in a circle, arms around each other's shoulders (much like a team huddle before a big game). The child is also in the huddle leading the others surrounding in a chant that inspires and motivates all. Now cut back to reality. The reality is that not all parents come to scheduled meetings. The reality is that not all teachers have the knowledge or the drive to create an inclusive classroom. The reality is that not all community businesses wish to support their local education agencies. The reality is that not all SWD are willing to put forth the effort to succeed. How can we do better? How can we huddle up in order to move forward? My next blog post will be focused on increasing the effectiveness of three things; an inclusive classroom, parental involvement, and community support. 

If you are a stakeholder in a SWD's education, please complete this survey to help me with my next post on the inclusion classroom. 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LWH7KQV

Pom-Poms for Cheerleaders: Classroom Management

 

Behavior Management may be one of the single most important pieces to building a successful classroom environment. Being an inclusion teacher for many years provided me with a first hand view of various behavior support strategies; from clip charts to classic token economies. Honestly, there are many effective ways to support good behavior within the classroom! My favorite behavior systems, including my own, incorporate both immediate reward and immediate consequence. 

Introducing the "Pom Pom" reward system! 

Kids recieve a pom-pom for positive behavior and choices. They lose pom-poms for poor choices. Kids place their pom-pom balls in a clear cup. When the cup is filled, they recieve an award! 

You can see our cup chart to left. It's a shoe organizer from Walmart with clear plastic cups in each pocket! 

Reasons I love my behavior system:

1. Emphasis on the positive. I reward children ten times more than I take away. With a simple clip chart or color card system, you can only award so many times before they have reached their max. Kids in my room can fill their cups over and over throughout the day to recieve their reward (treasure box). 

2. The pom-pom bucket (pictured above) can be carried around the room, down the halls, assemblies, etc. This allows me to continuously monitor and award great choices. Kids simply put the pom-pom in their pocket until we get back to the room! 

3. You can throw them at children without any danger of injury. Haha! I love to pepper children with review questions during transitions or a quick five minutes, quickly tossing them a pom-pom for paying attention or participation! 

4. Research shows that immediate reward or consequence is one of the best ways to manage classroom behavior. Student are tangibly receiving something or tangibly taking something away. 

5. I love to give pom-poms to cheerleaders! To foster an energic and encouraging classroom environment, I love to heavily reward kiddos for cheering one another on! (Read my other post about Awesome Losers). 

The shoe organizer is from Walmart and the pom-poms were bought at Hobby Lobby; easy, cheap, EFFECTIVE! 

May I take your order?

Before entering into the realms of third grade general education, I was a special education inclusion teacher for grades K-5. While I participated in many different models of co-teaching, the main part of my day was spent teaching a small group in various general education classrooms. Most teachers would have 3-5 centers in their room running; one center would have the regular education teacher working on a standard and the other would have me working on something different (skills or spiral reteaching). Students would rotate at specific intervals through each center.

One question that I have heard posed on various occasions is this; "How can I effectively run centers without additional adults in the room to help?"

Ironically, the third grade classroom that I am now teaching is not the inclusion classroom, even though our students are heterogeneously mixed between homerooms. This means that I still have low students (Tier 3 RTI students) that need small group attention and remediation, but without the inclusion support of special education personnel. 

How do I address the need for small group attention without the convenience of additional help?

I use Menu Boards! 

Below are the top five reasons to use Menus for small group work, especially when there is not additional help for center time. 

1. Student Choice  You can read more about the impact of student choice on motivation here. Learning Menus allow students to choose from a list of pre-selected, pre-taught choices in order to accomplish a set learning goal. 

2. Accountability Most of my Menu options have an accountability piece (something written down or turned in). I do not grade Menu work. However, I do check it occasionally and reward students that follow directions and work hard! This helps me to make sure that students are not simply hanging out, drawing pictures, or writing random information; they are actually learning!

3. Independent Center Menu boards allow teachers to have an additional center where students are learning without the help of an additional person.

4. Planning Once Menus are set up and students are trained on how to use them; there is very minimal prep work! At my Word Work Menu, I change spelling words once per week. At my Vocabulary center, I change academic vocabulary once per week. Lastly, I give one multiplication test per week so that students can move to the next level of times tables for my Multiplication Menu (from 2s to 3s, etc).

I will emphasize that students must be explicitly taught how to perform each task on the Menu correctly. I have seen first hand teachers that quickly throw a new center activity at students, only creating more chaos and confusion than learning experiences! 

5. Routine I feel that routine is highly important to effective learning centers. Having the same expectations for center work each day minimizes confusion and time lost teaching new expectations or procedures. My students would know without me in the room how to do Menu work, because it is a consistent routine! They sit down, choose a Menu option, and do that option the entire length of the 15 minute center rotation. A SUB COULD RUN GROUPS IN MY ROOM BECAUSE IT IS ALWAYS CONSISTENT! 

6. Multiple Intelligences I tried to make sure that each Menu covers two or more of the Multiple Intelligences. Using multiple intelligences to plan lessons or do center work increases the chances of my students being bought into their learning, and therefore, the chances of them learning the material! 

Below are pictures of my Menus and the Menu centers. Menu work can be adapted according to the age of your students and with your end learning goal in mind! For early elementary students, it may be a good idea to pair each Menu option with a picture of the expectation. Older students can handle more Menu options and higher expectations for Menu work.