Tools of the Trade: Study Guide

When I began teaching one of the first “real world” moments came to me when I met with parents at conference time especially when the student had a “C” or worse in my class. I’d ask parents:

*Has your child been bringing home his/her textbook and reading a little each night?
*Has your child asked for your help regarding the unit vocabulary?
*Have you seen your child’s Social Studies folder?

Invariably the answers would be:

*I thought they couldn’t bring their book home, or…..textbook? What textbook?
*What vocabulary words? You mean his/her spelling words?
*What notebook? You mean his/her Trapper Keeper I picked up at Walmart?

At this point I’d bring out my copy of the state objectives for social studies and I would go over the items students were to master. As of last year our standards are now printed in our textbook so that makes it a bit easier to share with students and parents. Most parents are simply blown away by what their child must know at the fourth grade level....sometimes I am as well.

In Georgia, fourth and fifth graders complete the very same content they will see again in their high school American History course. Fourth graders journey from Native Americans prior to 1500 to 1860…just shy of the Civil War, and fifth graders continue by beginning with the Civil War and on through present day. It can be quite a daunting journey for students and their parents who are not used to the large amount of content, new vocabulary terms, and intricate details. For example, the new standards for third grade contain 10 main standards with 25 elements. The new fourth grade standards show 16 main standards with 42 very detailed elements. From third to fourth students are expected to take a skip, leap, and a very high jump in the amount of content the state of Georgia wishes to cram in little heads. You can view Georgia’s fourth grade standards here, and fifth grade standards here.

For the last several years Georgia Standards in all subject areas have been revamped and then slowly rolled out by subject matter. The 2008-2009 school year is the year Social Studies standards are being rolled out. Realistically there is nothing new for me and my fourth and fifth grade colleagues other than the stopping and starting points involving the Civil War (I have always taught the Civil War since I began teaching fourth grade). The other main difference with these “new” standards is a few things have been deleted or worded a bit different. For example, in the old standards I was to make sure students knew about the Native Americans groups in South America….Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas. Now that standard is gone, yet magically these native groups appear from the fog to become the nemesis of various Spanish conquistadors.

Getting back to my study guide I knew early on in my teaching that I had to provide something for parents to use as tool. I also needed a tool to help students get an overview regarding what we would be studying for the unit, and I found that the study guide could serve to help me as well. By providing the study guide I indicate I’m willing to help, willing to provide more information, and I’m there for parents. Once I’ve “taught” parents to look for the study guide many of the phone calls, notes in their child’s agenda book, and emails cease because the study guide has everything a student and parent needs in order to be successful with the content.

The image I’ve placed here with this post is a typical study guide for one of my units. If you click on it you will get a much larger image. I’m also reproducing the text for you below if you would like to cut and paste.

Over the years I’ve had to tweak my study guides depending upon vocabulary changes, a new textbook adoption, and even due to the lesson plan format requirements my school system metes out. This particular study guides goes along with the Learning Focused theories hawked by Max Thompson….notice I have an over-arching essential question for the entire unit and further down a set of key questions that also serve as the various lesson questions.

Essential Question: What was the Age of Exploration, and what effect did it have on the Americas?

Following the essential question are the standard elements for the particular topic. I think it is important for students and parents to know exactly what is expected. Students cannot hit a target unless they are shown where the target is. Reading through the standards I’m sure you understand that nine and ten year olds would not understand the language. This is why I generally spend the time following a unit test handing out the new study guides, and I go over it in depth with the kids. We find the verbs in each standard….describe, explain. We discuss various words in the standards such as reasons, obstacles, and accomplishments to determine if we know what they are and so on through each and every standard. Sometimes I have students write a clue word or words out to the side of each standard to job their memory. Here are the standards as they appear on my study guide:

Standards: Students should be able to:

*Describe the reasons for, obstacles to, and accomplishments of the Spanish, French, and English explorations including the explorations of Cabot, Balboa, Ponce de Leon, Columbus, Hudson, and Cartier.

*Describe examples of cooperation and conflict between Europeans and Native Americans

*Describe how the early explorers adapted, or failed to adapt to various physical environments in which they traveled.

*Explain how the physical geography of each colony helped determine economic activities practiced therein

*Describe opportunity costs and their relationship to decision making across time (such as decisions to send expeditions to the New World).

The next two sections of the study guide are fairly simple…..I provide students with a date for their unit test, and I provide the textbook pages. The page numbers help the parents out more than the students. Students cannot go home and say they forgot or more importantly cannot tell their parents I didn’t tell them. My rear end is covered because parents know I always give a study guide at the beginning of a unit…..come Hell or high water. Here are the test and textbook sections:

Final Unit Test: The unit test will be given on Wednesday, November 1st.

Textbook: This unit of study is presented in the following pages of our textbook: 84-119.

As I stated before the key questions serve as my lesson questions for the unit. This study guide indicates six questions so I have at least six lessons in the unit. This doesn’t mean my unit is six days. Lessons can last two, three, four, even a whole sometimes depending on the content. Sometimes I allow the content itself to drive the number of lessons or the lesson question. Sometimes our text does this. Notice the sixth question involving latitude and longitude. This is a skill students should know, and it happens to be a lesson included in our text so in this instance the text drove my decision to add the question/lesson. Notice how I explain a little about the key questions. Students should be able to answer these questions following a lesson. The purpose of the lessson is to find the answer to question. I begin the lesson by identifying the question, and I close the lesson by revisiting the question and we look at possible answers. Here are the key questions:

Key Questions: The following questions will help students review the information presented during the unit of study. Answers can be located in the textbook or class notes:
1. How did early European, African, and Asians trade?
2. What new technological advances led to the discovery of North and South America?
3. Who were the early explorers in North America and what did they discover?
4. What was the effect of continued exploration in North and South America?
5. What types of people lived in New Spain and what kinds of lives did they lead?
6. How can lines of latitude and longitude help us locate places on Earth?

The final section of the study guide is for vocabulary. Notice I have divided it by lesson and have seperated the words into columns. I also provide some hints regarding where definitions can be found. While many of these words are in the text I often have words that aren’t. Students have to resort to using their all important notebook which I teach is the most important tool they have for learning. When we go over the study guide I say each and every vocabulary word and then ask students to repeat them after me. This particular activity is usually fun as I try to use proper pronuciation of the Spanish and Portuguese names. We all usually resort to fits of giggles as the kids try to pronounce the names like I do. Some are really intently serious about it. Students usually ask to go over the names one more time.

Here is the vocabulary section (I only included the first column of words….you can refer to the image for the rest):

Vocabulary: You should be able to identify the following terms in multiple choice format. Students can locate the words in their textbook or class notes as we progress through the unit. Vocabulary flashcards for each word including definitions and illustrations are due on test day.

lesson 1
kingdom
Ghanacaravan
Mali
Mansa Musa
Songhai
merchant
Marco Polo
Kublai Khan
the Silk Road
Zheng He

Tools of the Trade: Lack of Progress Letter

We are already into week number three of the school year in my neck of the woods. The school year is divided into four nine-week semesters. Week number four, which is looming in front of me, is the magical time when midterm grades are entered and each student’s progress is analyzed.

While many students start the year off with a bang and do very well, many struggle with suddenly having three or four different teachers and having to learn to deal with taking notes, and actually using a textbook. Please remember though, I don’t teach based on the textbook. My students use it as just one of many tools to access content, and since they are nine and ten years old part of my efforts involve teaching them HOW to use a textbook, and to extend their skills with informational reading.

By this time students have completed our first unit of study….Native Americans….and have submitted their notebook for a grade. I usually take a few classwork grades, a project grade, a quiz or two, as well as homework checks. It’s a very busy four week period. If a student ends the first four weeks of a semester with a grade of 79 or below the follow slip is sent home for parental review. This notice reaches parents BEFORE the actual midterm is handed out.

Student Name:______
Date:______________
Native Americans Test Grade _______
Notebook Grade ______

Midterm Average _____

Dear ____________,

I’m sending you this note because I am concerned regarding your child’s performance on our unit test given this past Friday. The test had been announced for several days and had been listed on my board for students to record a reminder to study in their agendas. Students also had a review sheet with every question and answer for the test in their possession to study. Each unit begins with a study guide that has all the important information you might need as parent to help oversee your child’s study.

Students cannot simply listen to me in class and “get it”. They must work with the material on their own by completing the classwork and homework assignments, and by creating and turning in their Native American project. They must review their notes and reread sections of the text on their own to grasp the concepts. Many times during the week I have students write in their agendas “Review or study notes.” Please help me by checking the agenda daily and by asking your child to see their notebook. It would also be to your child’s benefit if they brought home their Social Studies text in order to reread material we have already read in class. This study time should take no longer than 15-20 minutes. It would help students a great deal in focusing more on the concepts we are studying. I appreciate your assistance.

Elementaryhistoryteacher

I print these out on half-sheets of paper and staple them into the child’s agenda and follow up with phone calls when necessary. For parents who have children with grades below 70 this midterm note from me is not the first time they have ever heard from me. I would have already contacted them during the second or third week of school to voice my concern.

It is ludicrous to believe that you can garner a parent’s support and partnership by remaining silent for four weeks, and then allow a midterm report to express that a student is having problems.

Another classroom management topic that is appropriate for this time of the year involves classroom procedures. You can read my past posting regarding my classroom syllabus here and here.

Looking Ahead-Building Parent Relationships

One more week to go and I simply can't continue living in the mire of the end of year festivities-----the increased off task behaviors, the struggle to keep everyone's attention, the increased disrespect, the fights...and that's just the teacher behavior. Ok kidding aside I'm tired of being negative. The finish line is looming ahead and I want to look forward to next year...a fresh start. I had an assignment from a course I'm taking to discuss ways I could build communication. As I completed my assignment I realized it could serve as a post so here goes....

This school year has been a challenge for me in several ways. I had a group of students who were somewhat immature in behavior and skill level. Seventy-five percent had barely passed our state mandated tests in third grade. Out of twenty-three students I had fourteen boisterous boys. Lessons were often interrupted by inappropriate behavior including what I term fluid speaking where things were said as they popped up in students’ minds and they did not employ the adage think before speak. At the beginning of the year I spent the majority of my Friday nights and Saturday mornings grading languages arts papers and carefully collating them into student groups. These packets were sent home with a cover sheet that served as a weekly newsletter for our class. My history students kept a notebook that contained their graded papers so a weekly packet was not necessary. Parents signed a slip I prepared at the bottom and returned it to me so I could have documentation that the papers had been received. By January I gave this laborious process up as I had endured lengthy notes from certain parents criticizing me for giving their child a zero for uncompleted homework or they questioned the method I employed to grade their child’s papers over, and over, and over. These same parents would break appointments with me for conferences where we could have discussed things face to face or they simply ignored my conference requests. Parents would also write notes in their child’s agenda book asking me questions about items I had addressed completely in the weekly newsletter. It was obvious few parents were reading the newsletter. I also served as team leader for the fourth grade team which resulted in an increase in paperwork and responsibility. I also served as our discipline committee chair and was a member of two other committees on my campus. Personally I have a busy family, a mother in a nursing home who requires a visit every other day so she will eat, and I have been exploring a writing career that you, dear reader, have been subjected to over, and over, and over.

For the past two years my thoughts about parents have become increasingly more negative as the numbers of my students with positive behaviors has decreased. If they don’t care to keep their appointments with me why should I care? If they are ok with sending their children to school inappropriately dressed and unclean why should I care? If they are ok with their child’s disrespect to an adult, bullying another child, or simply refusing to complete class work why should I care? If a parent feels they are doing their job by telling school personnel to let their child starve if the student forgets to bring the lunch he is required to make for himself each day why should I care?

I should care. I am the only link between the parent and their child’s academic future. I should care because during the time their child is in my class it is my job to do whatever it takes to get them to understand the high stakes involved in today’s educational journey for every student. I should care because I know what it is like to have a surprise sprung the night before a report card or when the report is brought home that my child is not doing as well as they could. I should care because I know as a parent what a struggle it is to work, take care of a home, and simply try to survive each week without the added burdens that schoolwork can be in some households. Quite simply I should care because I am the teacher.

For this reason I had already identified for myself that I needed to get over my fear of continuous confrontation when dealing with parents and welcome this opportunity to reflect on a course of action for the coming year.

Parents need to know the classroom policies regarding types of assignments including homework. They need to know about late assignments and extra credit. They need to know about make up work and projects. They need to know about needed supplies and notebook specifications. For the last six years I have produced for all of my classes a syllabus much like you receive in a high school or college course but pared down to meet the needs of a fourth grade class. This is usually given out the first day of school and the first homework assignment is to obtain a parent signature on the syllabus. Students keep the syllabus all year in their notebook so that it is handy for future reference. When students ask me a question during the year concerning something I know is on the syllabus I tell them, “I think I gave you that answer in your syllabus. Why don’t you look it up? If you have another question let me know.”

Another document that I prepare for parent as well as student use is something I lifted from Harry Wong. I give my students a study guide at the beginning of each unit. The study guide is one page containing all of the vocabulary words, the essential question for the unit as well as six to seven key questions. Information regarding the text pages we will use, the unit test date, project information, and extra credit information is also listed on the study guide. Not every parent utilizes it, not every student can keep up with it, but it does help a bit as one more piece of the information puzzle I need to provide for parents.

Since I haven’t felt as if I have had good parent contact this year, as well as the previous two years, I know that I must do a better job of contacting parents by phone and email. I have wonderful relationships with the parents who are in the building constantly. Most of these parents are volunteers or serve as a member of our excellent substitute teacher team. I feel as if I can speak with these parents honestly because they are aware of what happens in our building on a regular basis whereas parents who are not involved to that extent sometimes have an unrealistic view of what school is today. I know that these involved parents realize that if I criticize their child it is because I do have their best interests at heart and I am trying to help. I need to have that kind of relationship with all parents, not just the ones who are brave enough to come into the building on a regular basis.

Relationship building….that’s my mission. I think I already have some good pieces of the puzzle in place, however, I need to get over myself and call, call again, and call some more. Once I have my rosters in a few short weeks I need to call and introduce myself. I need to prepare some questions during my time off that well help me keep the conversation focused on their child and his or her needs as a student. What do you like best about your child? What is your child’s strengths? What discipline strategies do you follow at home? Who is at home when your child arrives? Who will be helping your child with his/her homework? I need to note previous low grades, previous low test scores, previous excessive absences or tardies and address them in a positive manner. I need to make myself available in this introductory phone call for questions the parent may have. Phone calls should continue through the first nine weeks and on into the year. Phone calls should not be made just when there is a problem. I believe that I could take my rosters and divide up the phone calling so that it would manageable for my busy schedule throughout each nine week period.

Another strategy to continue building and maintain good relationships all year long would be to continue with my weekly or bi-weekly newsletter. This could be sent home as before, but this time I could employ the students to help me with the collating. This would give the student more ownership of the packet of papers and they might be more willing to get it home when they should. I also would like to send the newsletter by email when possible and make it available on line. I want to develop a classroom blog where parents could see daily updates on what we are doing the classroom as well as pictures that could be uploaded for viewing. Student work could be posted and my writers could have their works published.

I believe that I have here a good framework for cementing good relationships with parents. The key is communication. I am sure that I will still have a few parents balk at my overtures for a good relationship, but many more can be brought on board by a simple phone call. I am the teacher, and there really is no excuse not to pursue relationships.