Ms. Kornowski's Classroom

As teachers we are pirates and we steal, borrow, and beg for other teachers ideas.  I was inspired by Mr. Matera at a recent edcamp with an activity he did with his students in which he asked them to provide adjectives that describe his classroom.  He then compiled all of them into a Wordle.  (Check out wordle.net)  I asked students in a Google Form toward the end of the year:  "Choose 5 adjectives that best describe Ms. Kornowski's classroom."  The result is the image above.

It surprised me that the #1 word to show up was FUN.  This surprises me because we're all about getting down to business in my classroom.  My goal each year is to provide a safe and nurturing learning environment. I encourage you to do this activity toward the end of the year with your students.

In a recent #tlap we were asked in Q1 to answer which 5 words we would want students to use to describe their time our our class?  My initial 5 words were:  


I was encouraged to see the overlap that exists between the words that I picked and the ones that my students had chosen.  This is helpful to me in preparing to set the ground work for next year's learning environment.  :)

GPS Challenge #SummerLS Words:  FUN, SAFE, INSPIRING, INVITING, LIFE CHANGING

Comments

  1. Denise KrebsJuly 3, 2014 at 4:52 AM

    Andrea,
    What a testimony to you and your beautiful Korntastic learning environment! I love this post. Great idea. Thanks for sharing.

    Denise

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let them Lead -- From Learners to Leaders in Makerspace Vision and Design

Image
This is the beginning of a series of a few blog entries on KMIT Summer Academy Boot Camp. KMIT is our "Kettle Moraine Innovation Team" (learner tech team). In an effort to train our learners prior to next school year we ran a Boot Camp for learners in grades 5-9 (for 6 weeks, 2 hours/day) to learn the ropes of what KMIT is, be challenged to exercise leadership and good customer service, create videos, design websites, and create the vision for our KMMS Makerspace. This is another instances in which learners became co-creators of a learning experience. Whether you currently have a makerspace, are looking to start a makerspace, or are looking to add greater learner ownership to your makerspace, this blog might be worth a read! Last summer at Ledyen's 1:1 Teaching and Learning Symposium, a participant from PA shared that learners created the vision for their makerspace within their school. I immediately thought this was genius. Why are we as adults creating the spac...
Read more

Persistence...The Missing Link?

Image
This semester I have been participating in a teacher led micro-credential on classroom discussions.  As part of the discussion process, students were asked to reflect on two objectives of the discussion:  perseverance/ persistence and active listening. A few things emerged from this activity.  First off, students struggled to fill this out with enough detail so that their responses could be understood.  It appeared that they had rushed their responses. As a result I handed it back to students and asked for more detail. As I was doing some research on Costa & Kallick's Habits of Mind, I came across a resource that suggested having students outline and define what it means to demonstrate perseverance/persistence.  We are responsible for working on (4) of the habits of mind as part of our 100 day plans and I wanted to be more intentional about teaching them. The soft skills are as, if not more important, than the content that we are responsible for teac...
Read more

"No Man Is An Island" What It Means to Be A Connected Educator

Image
"No man is an island, we can be found No man is an island, let your guard down Please don’t try to fight me, I am for you We’re not meant to live this life alone." --Tenth Avenue North When I hear these lyrics from one of my favorite songs, I am quickly reminded about how fortunate and blessed I am to be a connected educator.  Participating and growing with my PLN has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career and has opened the door to some incredible opportunities.  I don't know what I'd do without all of the personal and professional support that I find by participating in a strong PLN.  Becoming a connected educator has unquestionably shaped my career as an educator, helped me to build confidence, and has helped me to become the person that I am today. In our day to day journey there are days that many of us feel like we're on islands.  Sometimes people disagree with what we're doing and cannons get sho...
Read more