So this Friday concluded my first FULL week with my 9th graders, and it has been my most successful startup week yet (in my albeit short teaching career of going-on-three-years!). The kids DID laugh and giggle when I first introduced the Rules/ScoreBoard and Class/Yes....and still do sometimes if I use a silly voice for Class/Yes). But by now WBT really just feels like "the way we do things" in my class. It doesn't feel "gimmicky" (like it does at first to all of us, I think) to me or the kids. (I have 99% go-alongs, so that helps).

For example, at one point, I was introducing new vocabulary terms - "independent" versus"dependent" variables, and THEY actually called ME on the carpet for moving on before giving them gestures ("Mrs Molnar! Aren't you forgetting something? The GESTURES?") Now THAT's classroom culture for ya'!

Also, I had a different sort of "WBT Moment" when I was treated to an impromptu visit from former students. They were sent FROM CLASS by my Chemistry colleague across the hall, because she was reviewing the Scientific Method, and her kids (my students from last year, now sophomores) were doing the gestures I had taught them to help them remember! (And she wanted to know the "official" version of my gestures!)

Point is: THEY REMEMBERED A YEAR LATER

I began this journey last year, coming off a difficult first year of teaching, and I began using some WBT strategies last Fall. In the Spring, I continued building on those, and now, finally, after little over a year, it's beginning to feel natural. And I'm even doing a decent job of micro-lecturing (with lots of Teach-Okay's mixed in), though I could do better, I know.

My PowerPix wall is coming along nicely, like Chris Rekstad promised it would ("rolling off like a printing press," I believe was his quote), and I do a Teach/OK review of them every day as a warmup to the lesson.

Since I have relatively easy-to-manage classes, I'm trying to figure out how to move my go-alongs up to to Alphas....and what exactly class leadership should look like at the high school level...

Anyway, though I'm not quite in teacher heaven yet, I think I'm on my way!

- Jen

Big 10 finger woooo- with everything on it! One for teaching those "emotional power driven teens" and the other for making teacher heaven. I too have a group I am proud of we started the genius ladder and they jumped from blah, right up to spicy in less than the first part of the lesson. First graders speaking in complete sentences, getting ready for classes like yours.
Aren't we all grand for finding WBT!
Annette

You go, Annette! I would LOVE for all my ninth-graders to start high school speaking (and writing!) in complete sentences!!!! (At least your first graders haven't gotten into bad "texting-language" habits, yet!)

- Jen

Jen,
Thanks for sharing your success with WBT in HS. One of the questions we are often asked is, "WIll this work in the upper grades?" We always respond with a resounding, "Yes!", and with teachers like you sharing, the credability goes way up! Keep up the great work!
Deb

I'm a little confused on the genius ladder, are we suppose to teach all four concepts on the same day or build upon it each day?

The answer to that is it depends in what you are trying to do with it. In some instances I will use it to build a writing assignment and use them all in one day. In others I may use it over the course of several days to clarify ideas as they connect in class.