Episode Topic: The DIS Team has a roundtable discussion on the Rock Your School Initiative by Get Your Teach On.

Introduction: Hope King tells the origination story during the 2021 Rock Your School Rally

Once upon a time my mom and I were driving to the local trash dump, and on the way there we were getting ready for our national Get Your Teach on Conference and Chris was on the phone. We were talking. . . we were like, 'We should have everybody at one time, on one day come together and do something really amazing'--not that educators don't do things that are amazing everyday, but let's highlight, let's bring it the forefront, let's show who educators are and what they're about. I don't even know how it happened, but all of a sudden we were like, 'It's going to be Rock Your School'. The first year we had over 10,000 people participate, and then last year we had over 50,000 people participate, and it has just grown every single year.

Wade King: Yeah, it's pretty much organically morphed into something that we didn't even expect to happen. Right now this year of 2020-2021 we have realized how isolated we can really feel--teaching virtually, hybrid, whatever it is. In the past, if you were a teacher who was trying to go all-out in your school, trying to go above and beyond, trying to create moments, sometimes those teachers felt the same way that a lot of teachers do now--isolated, tired, worn-down. This day has turned into a day where everybody around the world is united as a family. With internet, with social media, we’ve become best friends with people all over the place and that's what This community Is all about; that's what the Get Your Teach On community is about; that’s what Rock Your School is about. It's just about doing something different that makes you Excited as the teacher but also inspires your students to want to be lifelong learners.

Introduction: The DIS team introduces the topic of the episode

Despite this year being our most challenging yet as educators, we’ve learned the true importance of community and lifting each other up. That’s why in February, we want to come together to create and celebrate education. We believe now is the right time to Rock Your School.

Educators from around the world are invited to participate by creating an outside-the-box educational experience designed to engage their students and bring learning to life in their classrooms, whether in-person or virtually. It doesn’t have to be big! It doesn’t have to be small! It’s about YOU, your students, and a community of educators celebrating the little things!

Today the DIS team discusses ways you can Rock your School, or even just your classroom. From a simple Google Slides theming to a complete room transformation...it’s time to ROCK! Who’s ready?!

Introductions: Who is on the Anderson School District 5 Digital Integration Specialist Team?

• Danae Acker serves T.L. Hanna and Westside High Schools

• Ashley Pursley serves Glenview Middle

• Melissa Looney serves AIT, C.F. Reames, Special Ed, and Whitehall Elementary

• Erin Darnell serves Centerville, Midway, West Market, and the Early Learning Preschools

• Anna Baldwin is the Director of E-Learning and Integration

• Sheri Richey serves McLees and Homeland Park Elementary Schools

• Mel Hahn serves Robert Anderson Middle School

• Paige Mitchell serves Concord, Nevitt Forest, and North Pointe Elementary Schools

• Alicia Madison serves Calhoun Academy, New Prospect, and South Fant Elementary Schools

• Adam Cobb serves Varennes Elementary and Southwood Academy of the Arts

• Beth Brannon serves McCants Middle School

Rock Your School at Robert Anderson Middle School: What was the vision and how did you do it?

Rock Your School is actually teachers using the box ideas for an educational experience. It doesn't have to be expensive or fancy but the number one rule is that it has to be captivating and engaging. So RAMS set out on a journey to Rock Your School and for a couple of years we did themes. Themes are a great great way for the whole entire school to be involved. We did a Hollywood theme and it allowed us to celebrate the entire student body, so as students walked-in we were their paparazzi, and it got students excited and engaged from the moment they stepped off the bus or out of their car and walked through the doors of the school. It was so important for our admin to buy-in so we all dressed up as old Hollywood stars, we became part of the paparazzi team, and we were really present and visible for the students.

We did another theme that I liked a lot because it was easy for teachers to use and that was a game theme. It allowed teachers to gamify their classrooms. Whenever you can pick a theme and be engaged from the top down all throughout the school it's great, but just grab a partner, grab a teacher you love to teach with, grab your neighbor, or the whole entire grade level and plan a captivating and engaging lesson.

Last year at Glenview, we gave our students the opportunity to pick the theme. Think about putting out a Google Form and letting your students choose the theme. This year rock your school is not just one day; it's actually a whole week so you can do activities throughout the week or you can just do one day. This year is a little bit different because we seen teachers who may feel like they've lost a sense of joy for educating and our students are missing out on things. One of the things that they’re missing out on the most is the connection element, the collaboration with each other. What do students and teachers really need right now? Is it reconnecting with each other? Could that be your theme?

This year, due to COVID, Rock Your School has to be re-imagined. We still have to find the joy not only in our students but also in what we teach. Hope and Wade King, the founders and creators of this Rock Your School movement through Get Your Teach On, said in their rally to let this week be the prize in our pain. We’ve been going through a lot of stress, but now is the time to get back to the roots of why we got into education.

Rock Your *Virtual* School

I hear you mentioning that this year has to be different; we have had to be creative and we’ve had to step outside of our comfort zone.One of the ways a lot of teachers have stepped out of their comfort zones Is by going virtual or hybrid. You may be sitting here thinking I can't rock my school because I'm virtual; yeah I can wear a silly hat but I want to do more. We have two experts who have spent a lot of time over at the Virtual Academy and would like to share some ideas that they have.

Our virtual teachers have done an amazing job at making the best of the unknown. The teachers quickly figured everything out and were able to make their classes their own. Now incorporating an opportunity to celebrate learning in their virtual environment is something that can be easily done. Going along with the theme of characters, maybe you could have a character day where each student picks their own book and dresses up as that character. They can show up in the Google Meet to summarize the book they chose and explain why they chose it. It’s something that happens in face-to-face elementary schools but can also be transformed in the virtual environment as well. Knowing that you are going to host different Google Meets throughout the day, think about incorporating different themed music for students to dance to until it’s time to get started. All of the ideas that you may have in a face-to-face scenario could easily be applied to virtual. It all comes down to communication; if the teacher is excited and they start showing it a couple of days prior to the event, then they will see the students rise to the occasion as well.

In the virtual environment, our classroom is that Google Slides presentation. Change the theme up using Slides Mania.

I am going to talk about celebrating kids using the buttons control and “b”. Go to the Chrome Web Store and download the virtual confetti extension. Now, when you hit control “b” on your keyboard, virtual confetti will shoot out from the sides of your computer screen. It gets me so excited to celebrate! It boils back to a past episode when we spoke to Mr. Galloway from Glenview Middle School. He spoke to the idea that it’s all about relationships with students, knowing your students and knowing how to connect with them. We’ve seen this at the Virtual Academy. Sometimes building relationships is a lot easier if you’re face-to-face. It’s a lot tougher virtually, but there are ways you can rock their experience. You can have them do a scavenger hunt for general household items that would support your lesson. Using something that’s personal will help them connect with you.

You could also reach out to a teacher who is face-to-face with students and connect your virtual students to those face-to-face students. They can talk about their different experiences with teaching and learning.

Reimagine

There's no doubt that this week has to be reimagined within your classroom a little bit. When we are trying to get administrator buy-in for this experience, one of the first questions they will want to know is how are you going to follow COVID guidelines and keep it safe for our students. How can we rock our schools, classrooms, or even one lesson amongst COVID?

It’s important to remember not to compare yourself to others who may have previous experience with it. You may see them at a high level, planning a total room transformation, but you may not be there yet. The key is to just do something different that’s not normally part of your routine. It doesn’t have to be a high-tech lesson. You can use low technology like having a spinner wheel and when it lands on something (like stinky feet) you have to do it for a certain amount of time. Remember that there are different levels of rocking, and it’s okay to just dip your toe in the experience or if you’re more comfortable, it’s okay to dive into the deep end.

Erin, what is stinky feet? It’s when students get to take off their shoes and learn with just their socks on. Typically, I have an extra pair of clean socks in case a student didn’t wear socks that day. It’s incredible how much kids want to take their shoes off when they are at school. Sitting on top of the desk (on their stage) is a whole new perspective for students. Sitting under the desk (in their cave) provides a level of comfort for them. It’s really about switching routines to give students opportunities to change their environment and change their perspective. Here, you’re giving opportunities for flexible seating within those COVID guidelines.

Collaborate and Take Risks

A lot of times when teachers want to go outside the box, we do it in a silo and forget we have neighbors and teacher buddies at other schools and in other districts. Don’t forget to collaborate with them. Even if you have a friend in another district, do a mystery Skype with a class. One-up yourself. If you did read alouds last year, level up by dressing up and read the book as a character, or even invite your students to read the book to the class. Think about what you are already doing and just take it a little bit further with your lesson. These suggestions work for virtual and face-to-face environments.

It’s important to take a moment before you begin to plan these moments and assess where you are. If you’re not a gamified teacher; you're not using Kahoot, then that is your rock your school, but if you’ve been doing Kahoot for ages, try something new. You can use a new program like Quizlet Live or turn your Kahoot into a whole game show experience. Decide where you want to begin and how far you want to take it.

When you decide to put yourself out there, sometimes we have to be okay with failing forward. Your kids' reactions are going to be the measuring stick for that day. You will see how excited they are; you will feel their energy when they arrive. It’s also important to bounce your ideas off of the experts in your building. They will help stretch you out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself. When you do something to level up, sometimes the challenge not only like how you think about classroom management or the activity, it pushes you outside of your comfort zone. Sometimes we need someone to bounce our ideas off of to see if it is truly outside of our comfort zone. It could be something simple like flexible seating or it could be something like a scavenger hunt or student challenges.

Speaking of getting outside of your comfort zone, we want the students to see us stretching ourselves because we want them to do the same thing in our classrooms. When students see us take a risk to find a passion or engage in the lesson better, it will encourage them to take the same risk.

We want our kids to take chances; we ask them to be willing to try something and possibly fail, and we have to be willing, ourselves, to model that. When you can look at them and say, ‘I’m not going to ask you to do something that I wouldn’t be willing to do,’ it’s great! Turn those Ls into lessons. Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of it.

Lesson Ideas

Immigration Day: turn classrooms into Ellis Island. Find experts to bring in to the lesson and make those connections.

Cross-curricular Connections: Alicia said she was teaching geometry and three-dimensional shapes and asked what I was teaching in social studies. We decided to integrate geometry into a Great Depression lesson. Students had an opportunity to create their own living spaces outside called a Shanty Town. They created their own three-dimensional boxes, and they had to find the volume. This is bringing in math standards, the real-world experience of empathy, and tying it to those social studies standards. We brought in the fire department who made us a nice, warn fire. We cooked food on the first, and it was just a special time. Those are the experiences that our kids remembered. Those lessons live on forever. *Disclaimer* Consider the social-emotional needs of your students. If a learning experience like this will trigger a trauma, consider reframing the lesson.

Alicia mentioned starting with your content. What can you do to enhance the content that you already teach. What are some lessons you've seen teachers do that starts with the learning goal?

Artic Animals Lesson: The kindergarten teachers asked me to figure out a way students could research different artic animals. We want students to begin to work on independence within some guidelines and parameters. We created a template that we could use for all five of the artic animals we were studying. One the template, the students choose (incorporating the independent skill of choice) the artic animal they want to learn about, and it takes them to a new slide. On that slide, they can hear about the animal, read about it (by collections based on their reading level), watch the animal, and visit a site tour to learn about the animal. They are learning about how they can research in different ways in a controlled environment.

Penguin Animal Lesson: First graders were learning about Emperor Penguins, so we decided to integrate a lesson with the Ozobots. Students learned how to code the Ozobot (straight, left, right) to take their mama penguin (the Ozobot) from the baby into the sea to get food. They had to code the mama penguin to pick up fish while avoiding all the predators in the sea and bring the food back to her baby. Watching these students problem solve was so cool because you gave them the basics, but you give them the opportunity to make mistakes. One way to level up your lessons for Rock Your School is to use the tech tools we have in the Innovation Learning Labs.

Mystery Song Review: Katie Mullins from the Rock Your School rally had an excellent idea for spicing up review by deciphering a mystery song. She said it's all about the energy you bring to it. She actually took on the persona of Susie Rockstar and dressed up for the lesson. Use a typical multiple choice review, but instead of abc answer choices, the answers correspond with notes on a piano & these notes form a song! You can use the Makey Makeys from the Innovation Learning Lab to create a piano. Makey Makey has an piano app so students can actually play the notes of the song. To make it less challenging for her students, she played a snippet of the song options so students would know what they are listening for. You could also keep it more challenging by playing the snippets. The songs she used were "Old Town Road," "Let It Go," "Me," and "High Hopes." Once students figure out what their song is, you can take the lesson to the next level of rigor by challenging them to come up with their own review questions to their own mystery song.

If you are wondering what a Makey Makey or Ozobot is, those items can be found in your media center. Get with your media specialist and DIS for help.

If those ideas are a stretch for you, you can still incorporate music. When I was teaching typing, I used Justin Timberlake's "Bringing Sexy Back" and rewrote the lyrics to bringing typing back. It was just something a little different and extra to bring into typing. Take your favorite song and rewrite it.

Bringing happy back and exuding joy can be your way to rock your school!

Virtual Field Trips

Bring in virtual field trips to rock your school. You can pull content from Youtube, museums--the Smithsonian is offering free virtual tours, you can use Nearpod, just help kids experience what they are missing out in the real world.

One resource to use is wideopenschools.org from Common Sense Media. Other resources include Google Arts and Culture with their 360 videos, 360cities.net, and explore.org. On February 18th, the NASA website will have live footage at 2pm of the Mars Rover landing.

Leadership

Admin can rock our schools, and we invite our friends at the district office to come to the schools to help rock some classrooms.

What can those of us who are outside of the classroom do to help teachers implement these learning experiences? Be supportive of teachers and their ideas. Be there to give them a pat-on-the-back to say what a great job they are doing. Show gratitude for what they are doing and the time they are putting into sharing the content with their students in new and innovative ways. If we want teachers to do these things we need to show them how much we do appreciate them knowing they are going the extra mile to make their content engaging for their students. Be present in the hallways and inside classrooms just to see what's going on and provide that support.

Final Thoughts

This circles back to getting teachers to get excited about their WHY. The WHY is those students sitting in their classrooms; the WHY is making the educational experience the best, most engaging thing we can do on a daily basis. We know we're tired, but revisit your WHY; it will reenergize you.