Hour of Code - Computer Science Week was approaching my first year as a principal in a new school for grades 3-5. I discovered that the students were not aware of "Hour of Code" yet. I worked diligently to organize a schedule and directions for what to do when they got to the computer lab. The students were quite fond of Mind Craft that year so I chose the mind craft coding game from code.org. The students arrived one class at a time to watch the mini video about web design and how to use blockly (a coding function that has JavaScript underneath). After viewing the video, they all went to their computers and began coding to make their character follow the directions needed to solve the puzzles. The students were great at it! Besides the students succeeding in coding and learning a new skill that can be applied to future jobs in computer programming, what made this a "favorite thing" was what happened after "Hour of Code". As I was walking in the halls, I was stopped on more than one occasion by more than one student for the same purpose. The students were thanking me for bringing them "Hour of Code". One of them told me that they went home and tried other coding games after they successfully completed the mind craft puzzle. Another one told me that they wanted to be a web designer when they grew up. I had made a difference in these students' lives and it felt amazing!
Digital Tool Teasers - Sharing digital tools to use in the classroom is a passion of mine. I love adding a tool to my faculty meetings for teachers to try out if they would like. I don't make it an expectation or mandatory by any means. It is more to simply add to their toolboxes of strategies. If they want to try it out, I make myself available to assist if needed. Different tools work for different classrooms and teachers. I always love seeing teachers get excited to try something new, especially when they end up loving it and taking it to the next level. I end up learning from them as a result. One of my "favorite things" was when I introduced Plickers to the teachers in the Middle School where I was an assistant principal. We didn't have 1:1 devices so the use of Plickers was very exciting to the teachers. This tool affords teachers the opportunity to create questions about a topic and the students hold up coded cards for the teachers to scan with one device like a cell phone. The data is collected instantaneously and the teacher has the information in their account. Students can also see the results of the data and understand why they may need to review a topic more. What made this a "favorite thing" is what happened after the teaser. I began getting emails from my teachers thanking me for introducing them to this tool. One teacher wrote how she used it in her reading class and the students began creating questions for each other on the topic. It became an even better way to see how the students were doing with the content. Excitement is a contagious feeling and one of my other favorite moments was working with a teacher, in the grades 3-5 building, who was excited to try out Google Classroom. He invited me in to Co-Teach in the classroom. I was able to teach the students alongside my excited teacher and we all learned various functions of Google Classroom together. Some functions the students were able to figure out and show us! It was incredible.
Reward Earned - In one of the third grade classrooms, students earn teacher bucks throughout the week for good behavior, great effort, or accomplishments. At the end of the week they go to the classroom store and use their earned teacher bucks for classroom incentives. Some cost more than others. Some students make the decision to save their bucks and not purchase something that week so that they can earn one of the pricier items. Why is this a "favorite thing"? One of the pricier items that a couple of students saved their earnings for was to be able to bring a book down to my office and read to me. I love any moment I can have with my students but these students passed up on homework passes or sitting in the teacher's chair to come read to me. It made my day to see their smiling faces as they read a book of their choice with me sitting next to them individually.
Book Club - As an administrator, you sometimes can lose those precious moments with the students that you may have had as a classroom teacher. I missed talking about books with my students. A friend of mine in my PLN is an assistant superintendent and she told me how she continued a book club she used to run in the middle school. She loved reading with the students so periodically, early in the morning, students would meet with her before school and they would talk about the book they chose to read as a group. I thought if she could still have book talks with students so can I. I read a few books appropriate for students' grade level and chose the book that I thought would work for our first book club. I wanted some input from teachers (and wanted an excuse to demonstrate another tool, Voxer) so I asked teachers if any had the desire to read a book with me over spring break. There were a few teachers who were interested so they created Voxer accounts and we read the book together over the break. We voxed each other as we reached various points of the story and unanimously agreed that it was a great book to read with the students in grades 4 and 5. I sent home the flier for students to sign up and purchased books for them. 20 students and I met in the school library before school and we talked about what was going on in the selected parts of the story as well as participated in activities such as a trivia game using Kahoot and adding our thoughts about the story on a Flipgrid. The students LOVED the book and great conversations happened as a result. Those Friday mornings were amazing and gave me a smile that lasted the entire day.
I love thinking about my favorite things, "When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad..." I smile and think about all of the wonderful things I get to experience as a building principal. It is such a rewarding job that I am lucky to have, even on a rainy day.
