Zach Diamond 0:03 Welcome to the Modern Classrooms Project podcast. Each week, we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other. So this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the Modern Classrooms Project podcast. Kate Gaskill 0:30 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 46 of the modern classrooms podcast. My name is Kate Gaskill, Director of Teaching and Learning here at the modern classrooms project. And in this episode, we'll be talking about one of my favorite topics, classroom design, and how we can set up our classroom in terms of the physical environment and the systems we build to enhance blended, self paced mastery based learning for our students. And this is a timely topic for a few reasons. As teachers start looking towards the new school year, we inevitably start thinking about the physical classroom environment. And it's also timely because many educators will be entering the school building for the first time in several months since March of 2020. After teaching all these months remotely, hundreds of modern classrooms teachers have never taught with the model in their physical classrooms. And we hear all the time about how many teachers are looking forward to doing this in person. So to talk about all of this and more, I am joined by new modern classroom full time team member and proud former high school science teacher Debbie Menard Debbie, welcome to the podcast. Debbie Menard 1:37 Hello, hello, super happy to be here. Thank you for having me. My life goal was to become Miss Frizzle that Kate Gaskill 1:49 I love that so much. Debbie Menard 1:50 It's like everything I did to like build my classroom culture really was what what Miss Frizzle do now I can't get a lizard. But like what would miss Brazil do? So instead, you know, I try to make it my own, I would wear an Einstein wig and a tie dyed lab coat, I'd sit on top of lab benches while teaching, I suck at art. I am not an artist, I even my stick figures kids make fun of. So my room decor was about 20% You know, teacher posters you would get at conferences, but 80% of the things that I would hang up was all work from my students throughout the years, you know, things that they would sketch and they would draw on they would create to help them reflect on their thinking about a particular lesson. And so I really made the classroom, their room. And my kids love coming back later to kind of, you know, point out to the freshmen like Yo, that's my poster, that's my artwork, use it to help you with this lesson. You know, we're sharing this space for the next 60 to 90 minutes. And I wanted my kids to feel just a modicum of good vibes when they enter the room that this is a space where you can come in and relax and feel okay to ask questions, even if you think they're ridiculous questions and to be okay to learn and make mistakes. And that was kind of like the the vibe that I tried to instill in my classroom space. What would Frizzell do? Kate Gaskill 3:17 It was always magnified to me the importance of this whenever I would have a district Professional Development Day. And I might need to do a, you know, a two hour professional development in one classroom. And then I might need to go to another classroom for a different portion of professional development. And I really I empathized with the kids more than I think I would have otherwise, because it's like you get to a place and it's like it's hard for me to see in here though either the lights are really bright, or the chairs are hard or I kind of I kind of started thinking through something similar in terms of, you know, if I feel comfortable in a space in it, I think that I'm going to be more open and more receptive to taking a risk to contributing and to really engaging in anything that's going to happen in this space. Debbie Menard 4:19 It was it was really interesting to see, just like the the tech skills that my students did come in with, at the beginning of the pandemic, I spent a lot of time teaching how to control fine control, cut and control paste. And like a lot of teachers so how do you how do you not notice you're always on your phone, but it is a different skill, you know, like, I'm on my phone crafting and creating videos, not, you know, learning how to use digital tools to be able to read an article and decipher content. So yeah, I think we would be fools not to leverage that skill. One of the biggest materials that I think about this is not necessarily for students, but I For teachers, as they're kind of crafting their classroom management, you know, we're going to have so many students who are on different paces in that lesson on that unit, I think is a clipboard with student names and where they are on the tracker. So that as you walk around, you kind of have that clipboard to check in on their progress and make yourself a little note, you know, the tracker is being shown up front, but having that clipboard right there, and then to kind of walk around a little check a little x is going to be really, really key and crucial. I think, at least I've used this in my classroom, to be able to quickly check in with students and spend a little longer with the students who need more of your time. Kate Gaskill 5:41 It's funny, because I posed this question to a few of the modern classroom mentors, and I thought it was interesting how I think I think I have six or seven. And I kept, you know, getting headphones, invest in headphones, headphones that won't break immediately. Think through your headphones storage as kind of an advice for supplies. And you know, I think yes, some of our students will bring their own headphones. But things to consider, of course, is that oftentimes our school laptops, or Chromebooks, or tablets, whatever we're using, but this might not be compatible with the student headphones without an adapter. And a lot of our students maybe have newer air pods that are only work through Bluetooth devices. And they might get a little frustrated, then if they say, Well, my headphones won't work, and we don't have other backup headphones. Debbie Menard 6:34 tech issues happen all the time, my school has lost Wi Fi once or twice. And I will always print out paper copies of digital resources for students, or for my students with IEPs, or five or fours who need to kind of write on paper before they submit the assignment on our school's LMS. So I actually did keep a file folder with paper digital copies. And my aspire to do, I used to have an iPad, iPod Touch, once again dating myself here. I would record read alouds because sometimes my my sped teacher would have to go to different meetings and say we record the read aloud of the paper copy and like put it in the file folder as well. So students can take it and put the headphones on and work on that paper copy. So yeah, Kate Gaskill 7:22 that is such a great idea. I love that one. But I also found that was so interesting was that some of my learners who, you know, school had been really hard and they had internalized, internalized a lot of feelings of failure. Perhaps they were students who receive special education services, perhaps they were just students who didn't feel successful in social studies. I found that for whatever reason, if I gave them the marker, the whiteboard marker and said, Well, why don't you do your mastery check here just write just write what you would write on the on the mastery check. But just writing on the whiteboard, some of that fear dissipated. And I was kind of able to get kids working and moving in ways that I was seeing just a little bit more work avoidance or shut down all because of a whiteboard. Debbie Menard 8:20 I know in my classroom, I kept all of my paperwork for the day that students may need at the door. So I had a long table by the door, the students can kind of crowd around and grab their papers for the day. And when students need to submit their work, I have two trays so they could submit their work in the I'm catching up tray, which was late work that you know, I would still grade for full credit and the due to day trade. So any assignment that was due that day, or maybe later on. And it was just a quick and easy way for students to be able to grab what they needed and submitted what they needed. And next to the folder where they picked up their papers, there was leftover papers where students can grab anything they might have lost from, you know, weeks prior. Another cool thing that I've seen is I've seen teachers kind of structure their classrooms, so they had a like a video station. And so there would be extra chargers would be over there. Headphones would be over there. And you know, so students can kind of sit there with their laptop and work on any video assignment. Mastery checks, we use Canvas as our LMS. So my students, we were a one to one school so they all had access to their own personal laptops. And so all of my while majority of my mastery checks were on campus. For me it was really great to have those mastery checks on campus because I put a code on all of the mastery check which then they would have to check in with me, before attempting the mastery check. I think one of the greatest routines a teacher can do around mastery check is incorporating some kind of check in before students do their first attempt. Kate Gaskill 10:21 I kept my mastery checks in a milk crate next to me for two reasons. One was that I could have a conversation with students before. And two was that I found that when I when I kept them out, that some students might like to say, kind of like preview the mastery check. And then say like, oh, I only need to know this, this, this. And this, this is going to, you know, obviously impact how I do the class practice or how I watch the instructional video. So I started getting higher quality work from students when I kept those private. Debbie Menard 10:57 In that, too, I've also seen some teachers dedicate a set, like time during the class period. So you know, we don't take mastery checks in the first 15 minutes of class, we're doing announcements, we're doing quick reviews, were kind of checking in with the tracker and seeing what we need to get done today versus this week. I mean, I think adding that structure in class of Hey, first 15 minutes, this is what we're doing. We're aligning ourselves for the day. Really, I mean, I you know, depends on your classroom culture, too. So you know, when you want to do mastery checks, but I think having that set dedicated time of when or when you cannot do mastery check is really going to help students with their time management, yes, and checking in with you as well. You know, I've worked in a school, I've worked in two different sets of schools, I've worked at one school that had, you know, dedicated science classroom labs, the space. And I've also worked in schools, where it was just a regular smuggler classroom that I was now crafting to become assigned space. And so that was the last classroom that I worked in. And you know, when your classroom is geared for 15 students, and you have 25, and they're all six foot five, you know, classroom space, and classroom features are going to be so important to allow students to be able to get to everything that they need to support them for the day, but also without distracting and disturbing every other student on the way to that resource. And so, you know, in my classroom, I tried to put everything towards the walls, you know, the the outer walls and the windows, you know, that space was always a clear shot to get to. And if possible, I tried to have two spaces with maybe the same specific materials, so that all of my students weren't crowding around the same table. I really love the idea of the take a break kit, because you also think about just what a school day entails. Right? Especially as the students are transitioning back, you're moving from room to room, and you're dealing with different adults, especially if you're six through 12. So, you know, Ms. Jenkins may have different classroom structures, then, you know, Mr. Thomas, and, you know, so now you're trying to remember all the things that you need to turn in for the day, you know, who does what in their classroom, sometimes, it can be overwhelming, and you need to take a quick five minute break, just to readjust and kind of clear your brain and start fresh. So I love the idea of the take a break kit, because it really can be overwhelmed, especially if it's the last period of the day, you're like I've had a long day. I just I can't Yep. One of the big things that I you know, I cannot stress enough is having that preschool year check in with whoever you're sharing a classroom with. And so April and I and Jenny and I, we would always meet during that teacher PD, we can talk about what are some big things we want in our classroom, you know, what do you want? What do I want? How are we going to store that? You know, what kind of things do we want to do when kids come in when kids leave? So how can we structure that so that we can both use this space together? Kate Gaskill 14:14 Debbie, thank youso much for joining me today. Debbie Menard 14:17 Thank you so much for having me. This has been a true joy just to chat about how we can create a space for students to transition back as we start to head towards the fall. Kate Gaskill 14:27 Yeah, yeah. Exciting days ahead. Thank you, also to you the listener. I'll be back next week. Thank you. Zach Diamond 14:39 Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode. And remember, you can learn more about our work at www.modernclassrooms.org. And you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at learn.modernclassrooms.org. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @moderclassproj. That's p r o. J. We are so appreciative of all you do for students in schools. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the Modern Classrooms Project podcast.