Transcript: The Heart of Learning: Shifting Engagement Practices for Middle School Success
Rebeca Cerna:
Hello and welcome. We’re going to be starting shortly. Hello and welcome. Welcome to the Heart of Learning: Shifting Engagement Practices for Middle School Success. We’re excited to have three educators today who will be highlighting engagement practices in middle school classrooms. So as you’re settling in, feel free to share in the chat where you’re joining us from. And my name is Rebeca Cerna. I’m a senior director of Safe and Supportive Schools and Communities at WestEd, and I’m joining you from Orange County, California. I want to start off with some virtual platform Zoom notes for us. So for audio help and captions, Alex is our Zoom host, Alex Briar. So send her a direct chat if you have questions or if you need captions, you can find the CC icon in the Zoom toolbar. You can also select a view full transcript to open up the transcript in the side panel.
Just everyone will be muted and the video is off. You are invited to engage in the chat. If you haven’t already, feel free to share in the chat where you’re joining from. And we are recording this session and it will be posted on CDE’s California Safe and Supportive Schools website. So this webinar is hosted by the California Stronger Connections Technical Assistance Center. It’s an initiative of the California Department of Education, and it’s led by WestEd. And we provide technical assistance to school districts and spaces that support safe and healthy and supportive learning environments. And we’re going to be launching a brief poll to get your feedback on other topics that might be of interest for you or your school districts or your agencies. So if you can answer this brief poll, this will help us plan future sessions that we’re hosting.
And as part of today’s session, I mentioned that we have three middle school educators joining us, and we want to acknowledge TEACH Plus for helping us connect with these amazing middle school educators. Sorry, I had to move the poll. Today we’re going to be highlighting what engagement looks like in middle schools. Our panelists will be sharing how they help students find connections to others and to the learning and highlight ways to reengage students who may have faced challenges. We also have slides from today’s session on our Padlet. We’re going to be sharing the Padlet in the chat as well, or you can scan the QR code. So feel free to do that at any point during today’s session, but there’s no need to necessarily go to the Padlet at this time. So slides are there if you need them.
And now I want to introduce Timothy Ojetunde. He’s a school climate associate from WestEd. He’s going to be providing some grounding content. He’s going to be serving as our panel moderator. Timothy supports local school, county, and state education agencies in improving educational outcomes. And he brings expertise in school, climate and culture, data use, restorative practices and trauma-informed practices. Tim holds over a decade of knowledge and experience across multiple sectors and spaces through his previous role as a teacher, as an advisor, a school climate specialist, and a school administrator. And so with that, I’m going to pass it to Tim so he can take us to the next section while I give him side control.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Perfect. Thank you so much, Rebecca. And I’m coming to you all from the Los Angeles area, specifically Torrance, California. All right. So let’s dive in. Let’s talk about what does the research and the data say. So we know that the bottom line for educators is that engagement isn’t just a reflection of successful or success in school, excuse me, but really a contributor to it. And this comes from some research done around student engagement from McREL. And one of the things that they specifically call out that I think is very interesting, and we’re going to dive deeper into that with our three panelists, is this idea that student engagement with school really not only creates more accomplished learners, but physically and mentally healthier people. And that’s really ultimately what we really want to do is setting up students for success in academics, but also in all areas of their life as well.
So if we’re really kind of diving into it, let’s get a firm understanding of what we mean when we talk about student engagement. Student engagement is behavioral, emotional, and cognitive, and we are hoping to move away from this perception that compliance equals engagement. It’s not just sitting down and receiving information and just being quiet and just listening and learning that way. Also, engagement matters because it affects academic achievement, social-emotional wellbeing, motivation, and attendance. And also student engagement matters for middle school students specifically because the transition to middle school is especially stressful and belonging and academic mindsets really do matter, especially when it comes to supporting historically marginalized youth in schools. So this is just some helpful context to ground us as we dive into this and engage with our panelists today.
I want to give you all some statewide data here. So we know that the focus is on middle school, but we have some data just to give us a little bit of a larger picture. We have seventh, ninth, and 11th grade here. And this first indicators around school connectedness. And this is from over millions of student respondents across the state of California. And if you look at this, when it comes to students feeling connected at school, and you can see on the right side, what are the different questions that students were asked to give us this connectedness indicator? You’ll see that it hovers around that 57, 56% of students who feel like they are connected to school. So while that might be a great percentage, depending on where you were in the previous years or where we want to get to, you kind of look at that trend date and see, if we go back to 2016, we have higher percentages of students feeling connected, and that has decreased over time.
While we’re kind of on an upward trend coming back since the pandemic years, still not necessarily maybe where we want it to be. Also, we have academic motivation as well. And academic motivation, you kind of see also has taken a dip. And for middle school students, specifically our seventh grade students who are being highlighted here, right at 65% of students who feel academically motivated. And you can see what are the types of questions that students were asked when it comes to that indicator. So things like, “I’m always trying to do better in my schoolwork. I try hard to make sure that I’m good at our schoolwork, so on and so forth.” And then the second to last data point that I want to share is this idea of relationships. And we know that relationships are extremely important. We know that there’s a lot of research that confirms this.
And when we talk about this relationships here, we’re talking about students who feel like they have at least one caring adult, excuse me, relationship at their school site. And as you can see for fifth grade, we are at just 59%. So while we’re at that as a percentage, which maybe can appear high, we also have to think about the other side of that. And then we also have 41% of seventh grade students specifically across the state who don’t feel like they have at least one caring adult relationship with that person that they can go to, which is something that we really want to address and something that we want to call up, hence this webinar today. And then the last data point is around support for learning and the three indicators that build in this are caring adults relationships, high expectations, and meaningful participation.
As you look at this one as well, you see seventh grade actually a little higher when compared to ninth grade and 11th grade, respectively at that 31%. So this is just some helpful data to help ground us and give us some context. So with that, let’s hear from our experts for today, and I’m going to do some quick introductions. So starting off with Thomas Courtney, who is a 25-year teacher, former San Diego Unified District Teacher of the Year and San Diego State University Guide Teacher of the Year. He currently teaches sixth grade humanities, English language arts, and English language development at Millennial Tech Middle School, a public Title I school in Southeast San Diego. Let’s welcome Thomas. And really quickly, just can you briefly share with us just what is your favorite thing about teaching middle school in 30 seconds or less?
Thomas Courtney:
The middle school lingo. Done. Skibidi, Riz, Bussin, six seven, sorry. I love it all.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Perfect. Perfect. Thank you for sharing and welcome. All right. Our next panelist and expert today is Anaité Letona, excuse me, who is a 23, 24 Teach Plus California Policy Fellow and currently works in special education as a program specialist. She has worked in middle school resource programs and provided intensive reading instruction for students with IEPs at Harvard Park Middle School in Pleasanton, California, and has also spent nine years working at the elementary level in a self-contained special day class. Anaité focuses on helping students who have IEPs be seen in their classroom content and pedagogy, advocates for and supports inclusive spaces for all learners and teachers reading foundational skills to build student access to their academic journey. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here. And also same question for you. Just what is your favorite thing about teaching and working in the middle school space?
Anaité Letona:
My favorite thing is they get my jokes. Elementary students don’t get your jokes. When I moved to middle school, all of a sudden people laughed or they were laughing at me. Either way was fine. They were engaged with what I was saying.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Perfect. I love it. That’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. All right. And last but not least, we have Jamey Olney who is a committed and dedicated teacher. Her teaching assignment includes serving as an ELA and ELD teacher and Norman N. Glick Middle School, where she is a passionate supporter of the academic, emotional and social needs of the students and families that she works with. Jamey works collaboratively with a team of educators, students, and community leaders to build capacity and enhance the lives of the students and families within the communities of East Modesto and Empire. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. Perfect. And then same thing for you. What’s your favorite thing about teaching middle school?
Jamey Olney:
My favorite thing is just the stage, the awkward, silly, goofy stage that they’re at. I didn’t like it so much with my daughter, but the students, they’re fun. And I think it’s attracts like situation because I feel awkward, silly, and goofy most of the time myself. And I love that in addition to those wonderful qualities that they’re starting to see beyond themselves and care about the world. Most of the time.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Perfect. Awesome. I love it. Yes, you’re right. Thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate it. Okay. So let’s just dive into this conversation that we want to have this afternoon. So I’m going to start off with a question, and this question is for all of you. So this is for all of our panelists today. So when thinking about student engagement in middle school, what are the signs that students are curious, motivated, or actively involved in your classroom? And anyone can start us off.
Anaité Letona:
I’ll go ahead and start it if that’s okay. I feel like what I see a lot when I know kids are involved, they’re asking questions, they walk into other classes and they’re still talking about the topic in the class they just left. They’re engaged in the work and want to know more about it, how to do better, or can I do this instead? That’s when you know they’re in it and they’re looking to expand their learning and really understand and move forward with a project or assignment or a conversation.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Awesome. Thank you. I love the practicality of they’re talking about it as they go to the next class. Thank you. Yeah, next person.
Jamey Olney:
Yeah, I concur with everything that is just been said. I actually asked my seventh grade class who I was with about 20 minutes ago, what they thought. I always like to get directly from the students, what do you find engaging? And they said exactly the same thing that I just heard or we just heard is they love projects. They love being in partners. They love working in groups because as we know, middle school students are very social and I teach eighth and seventh grade, so we’re working on US history and eighth grade. And I love when they do projects because it’s a time where I’m not policing, I’m not driving them. The students are really taking the lead, they’re asking questions, they’re asking for feedback. And that’s just my teacher moment, my ray of sunshine is when they come into the classroom and they actually ask if they’re working on the project today. So it’s really students are driving the process and they’re excited. They want to come in and they want to get right to work.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Oh, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing, Jamey. I like that idea. You named it like not policing, but let students driving it. I love it. Yeah, Thomas.
Thomas Courtney:
Yeah. I love both answers as well. Concur fully. Two things. Number one is I’m always looking for smiles, and I know that sounds a little trite, a little cliche, but kids at middle school should be walking in your door excited to be here. And I confess that there are times where I, because I’m an old elementary school teacher where I wonder if this is something that can keep going all the time, but I really do feel like that is the standard. If the kids are excited to be here, I always tell my daughter of a 15-year-old and she’ll go, “Dad, did the kids annoy you today?” And I’ll say, “Yeah, they really annoyed me.” And that’s how it should be. They should be pestering me and begging me and finding out when we’re going to do this and when we’re going to do that.
And I know that our job is also curriculum specialists to understand curriculum in that, but it is also our job to be curriculum developers in terms of our students. And I’m always thinking about this word transfer. I can’t tell you how many spaces I’ve been in where I’ve heard somebody talk at the end of a lesson. I’ve been a guide teacher for a long time and about trying to transfer the important things that came about at a lesson. And I think that when the students are engaged and highly motivated, they’re begging you for opportunities to transfer that. And I’d like to impress finally about why it’s so important for us to have things like newspaper clubs and for us to do things with the students afterwards because that is what they want. They’re at that age. Like Jamey was saying, they’re so curious and all that stuff and they want to go out and impact the world. And so I think that allowing them to have that keeps them engaged and then it’s a vicious radical cycle.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Perfect. Yeah. Thank you all for sharing. And I love the commonality and the through line between your responses that kind of built on one another. And I think that speaks to the importance of the different components of what we talk about when we mean student engagement. So this next question I’m really excited to ask, and this is for Anaité. Middle schoolers are famous for asking, why do I have to learn this? How do you help students see the purpose in what they’re learning? And can you share maybe a story of re-engaging a student who was maybe not invested in a class or lesson and how did you help turn that around?
Anaité Letona:
Yes, thank you for that. So it reminds me, I had a student, so I taught a self-contained math class. So it’s a separate setting math class, and it was eighth grade math. And the students used to walk in and they’d walk in saying, “Are we learning math again, Mrs. Letona?” With their head back, I go, “Oh, I had to come back again.” I really tried to answer the first part, I really tried to make that why. My answer to that was, yes, we get the opportunity again to learn again what we review what we did yesterday to talk about what we’re doing today and to really think about how does that impact us? Let’s get into it. And so I tried to make the lessons based in something that was relevant to them because seventh graders, well, eighth graders that I had, they were really looking for, “But how does this matter to me? And where is this going to take me? And I’m never going to use this algebra again in my life.”
And so I spent a lot of time making the problems, the work relevant. So they had project work that was relevant to solving problems that were in the real world that were impacting them. And they could either develop that on their own, develop a question and then research it and solve it mathematically. Or I had a host of ideas that I could give them and they could participate in solving one of those also. One of the students in particular, he’s such a bright student, but he didn’t see his own brightness. He didn’t see that in himself. And every time we would work on a new idea, especially, he would just say, “I’m just not good at math. I’m just not good at math as his own. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
And I kept working at him and giving him opportunities to be successful in little ways, and then we celebrated those little ways. I also really worked to develop, and I like what Thomas said about being curriculum developers because I had curriculum, but I really need to make sure that that curriculum was what he needed it to be. And that was my job to do. So we worked through the year, I really made sure that he was seen in the classroom every day, that he had a space, that he had a voice, that if he wasn’t feeling like he got something or it didn’t make sense to him, that the class was a secure place for him to ask those questions. And I could do that in a smaller environment, much easier, although I also saw it in bigger classrooms I was in.
And then I worked on giving him the supports he needed to reach his highest level and reach understanding so that he could move forward. And that was developing that curriculum, making sure he had access, making sure he had the tools, making sure he knew where the resources were, and then making it relevant to him. By the end of the year, he ended that class with a B, which was for him shocking. And he would say, “Well, Mrs. Letona, this is special ed, that’s why.” And I kept telling him, “We pace with other classes. You just passed an eighth grade math class with a B plus. Absolutely. Congratulate yourself.” And he did feel better at the end. I think it’s a journey for some kids, but for him, that made a difference. Being in that class made a difference and he had to see himself as a learner.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. And you set that idea of relevant to students and we have to know our students and have relationships with them to know what is relevant to them, right? Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Tom, give us just what is one concrete strategy that you would use or that you would give a first year teacher or a veteran teacher?
Thomas Courtney:
Yeah, I love this question because although I’ve been teaching a long time, I was a first year middle school teacher just three years ago. And one of the things, one of the tricks that I brought up from elementary school that seemed to really stick with me was my focus wall and sorry, extra credit, and also the portfolio. So the focus wall just really helped me to connect with the students. I went from 30 to 120, and I think sometimes the number of students can really overwhelm middle school teachers. How do I get all of my classes, even when I’m having a headache in period three or something like that? Having that focus wall and redirecting students to that to see the examples is really critical. I don’t know what it is right now. Maybe it’s a pandemic carryover, but students really need to see examples of what it is that you want, concrete examples.
And I do that with focus wall. And then the portfolio helps me in terms of grading. If you lose a student because they think they can’t catch up, that’s going to happen. And so on the other hand, you want to make sure that you impress upon students the need to get it done. So you’re in this very strange gray area. And for me, portfolios help that because they keep everybody on pace. We’re always pushing it. But on the other hand, everybody is always welcome to come in here at homework club or at lunch and catch up on things that are still lurking. That way, I’m never losing anybody. The last thing I’d ever want, and I know everybody else feels the same way about this in middle school, especially when you’re just starting off, is you don’t want to shut any students down because that will drive the whole class down. You want to lift everybody up. So for me, focus wall and portfolios, and I put links in the Padlet too, some things that I wrote about that in case anybody would like to see how I do it.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Perfect. Thank you, Thomas. I love that idea. Students always know that they have a chance to improve and to do better, right? And if the hope is lost, then why even continue or stay engaged? Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. All right. So this next question, I’m going to go to Jamey and I can then go back to you, Thomas. But, Jamey, start us off. We know that a sense of belonging is foundational to engagement, especially in middle school grades. So what are the ways that you intentionally build community so students feel seen and valued?
Jamey Olney:
Yeah, community is vital. That’s the first and last and throughout the year that I focus on with my students. So my teaching context is I teach refugee immigrant and asylum seeking students. So currently my classes have five languages this year in seven countries. So you think about middle schoolers already trying to determine their identity and find their way, and then they have this additional lift of learning the language, learning the culture. It’s very much, I love my classroom, my classrooms, my classes, I call it the United Nations. And at the same time, it presents some pretty unique challenges. So what I noticed was happening this year at the beginning of the year is that students were forming these ethnic enclaves, and then it progressed to, it became like tribal warfare. At first it was adding a peace and comfort safety measure, but then there was really like division.
And then it kind of came to a head when a student asked me, “How do you say FU in Persian?” And that’s not some type of language that we want students to be engaging in. So we have some international incidents, I call them, where we actually had, I had to call a ceasefire and we had some peace talks. And so I racked my brain. Every class is different, but this year has been especially challenging. I think it’s just getting more diverse and it’s a blessing and it’s a challenge at the same time. So I did an activity with them where they opened up Google Earth on their laptops and they shared with someone from a different country, a different culture and a different language their hometown. And just seeing their hometowns going through the streets and talking about their schools, their faces just lit up and they were so excited. And then my eyes really opened when one of my students, Abid, who’s from Afghanistan, he was really hesitant at first. He’s like, “I don’t want to share where I’m from because I’ll think I’m a terrorist.”
And how the current political rhetoric and media really affects their view of how others view them. And so that was eye-opening too. Sometimes I think they’re afraid to even share those parts of themselves that would create belonging and community, but that really helped. That really broke the ice where they could just, we’re all coming from somewhere and we can share our hometowns. And then every year I have students write a struggle story. So something they’ve struggled in school or life and they share all kinds of stories. It could be learning how to ride a bike to, I’m having to help raise my little brother and sister after school. So through those activities, my students, they really learn how we respect everyone’s differences, but we also have many commonalities that we’re not even aware of and it builds empathy among the students. So that in class we do those types of activities where we celebrate how we’re different.
And then we also learn how we’re the same and how we’re more alike than we’re different. And then I love, Thomas, when you’re talking about the extracurricular, because I really feel like that’s a chance for students to connect in a way that they wouldn’t be able to in the classroom. So lots of foods, I feel like it’s a great unifier. So we have an international Friendsgiving every year and it’s just amazing. And the students bring food from all over the world and they get to sample it. And then service learning, I’m a huge fan of service learning. So I take students to different places. One place we go is once a month, we go to the Modesto Gospel Mission and we serve meals. They’re serving mills to teens and tweens, and sometimes those students are even students in our school community, it’s like when they’re part of something bigger than themselves, I feel like that creates bonds that you can’t break.
It’s like language doesn’t matter, culture doesn’t matter, that they really find the humanity. Our humanity, we all have the same needs and it really opens our eyes to just their fellow man, I guess, or their fellow woman and connecting with each other even beyond what city they’re from or what country they’re from. So I do a lot with connecting what we’re learning in the classroom to experiences outside the school and into the community so they can really see that we’re all from different places, but we have a common purpose and we can form community, like building bridges. Building bridges is really important to me because I think if the students can learn to build bridges within the school, then they’re going to graduate from our schools and they’re going to build bridges as adults. And it’s going to have a ripple effect beyond our schools and into our communities.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. And I love that idea of in order to increase and create this sense of belonging, you’re highlighting and celebrating everyone’s differences and the fact that we all have things that make us who we are and that in itself is something that we all have in common and using that to create that sense of belonging and that idea of bridges is just really cool to hear how you weave all of that together. So yeah, thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Thomas, to you as well, same question, just with that idea of sense of belonging. Yeah.
Thomas Courtney:
Yeah. First off, before I forget, I want to give a shout-out to somebody from Darnell right in San Diego because I lived right around the corner from there. And your parking lot is where I taught my daughter how to ride her bike during the pandemic. So sorry about that. Anyway, number one, the first thing I would do if I was a principal is I would give every single teacher a big jug of licorice and I would say, “Let me know when you need another.” And I can’t tell you how simple that is in middle school. They’re always hungry. Every middle schooler is always hungry. And you walk over and, I have different student teachers things in the classroom, I say, “Watch what happens when you give this young person a piece of licorice just for coming in.” There’s a thank you that happens, a please, there’s an acceptance and exchange back and forth and something as small as that, it just changes things. It lets them know, “Hey, here’s a piece of liquor.”
And they’ll look at you like, “Like, why are you giving me one?” “Because I want you to have one,” and say it like that. Number two, and this was a carryover from maybe elementary school, but I used to go out and play soccer with my class every lunch. I’d have these classes that were crazy about soccer. And I would notice that there was this huge change with many of those students when they would come in after lunch with me. And it was just a very different vibe. And I’m in the classroom and I could say, “You scored today at lunch.” And I started to realize a couple things when I would go out to play with students is they saw that you saw they shined, especially the students who need you to see that. They need to know that you see neat things about them. And you can see that when you go and play with students. And I know for many people that’s not their jam at middle school, but I’ll tell you, I go out three times a week.
I spend my lunch, I get some exercise, I play soccer or basketball with many of my students. I was just playing volleyball today at lunch with a bunch of young ladies and a bunch of young gentlemen. And we had a blast. And when they came back in the class, we were laughing. It’s little things like that that build community. And finally, I think every teacher should connect something to their classroom. One of my favorite books that I recommend is called Readicide by Kelly Gallagher. It’s published by Heinemann, but I think there should be a book that’s called Aventicide or something like that where we just don’t seem to have the events that we should be having at school. Dusty stages should not exist. There should not be libraries that don’t have, drop the watermelon from the roof parties because the kids read enough. Principals should be dying their hair. There should be talent shows. Those are the things that connect kids and families to the school.
And if you don’t do those, I really feel like you’re missing. And I always struggle with the word extracurricular because to me, that is curricular. That’s curricular. So when Mr. Courtney wants you to read and I’d use accelerated reader here, that’s the way that I catch students. On Monday, we’re going ice skating. On Friday, on the last day, we’re going to have kickball versus the staff. That sounds like a lot. It was actually easy to arrange. And I’ll have many, many, many families and students there. And I can tell you right now that every one of those families that comes and joins me and talks with us and has a good time, every one of those students is going to come back into our classrooms with a whole different kind of vibe. Maybe it’s not going to change everything, but it really is going to change something between us. So got to have those events on campus and try to be a part of scheduling them whenever you can. And I know it’s tough. I know it’s hard to do.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And I love the emphasis and focus on what are the things that we’re doing also outside of the class as well. And it not being extracurricular, but those things happening outside of the class also impact the classroom as well. So I love that. So thank you for kind of naming that. And makes me think back to my time as an administrator. I love your example of dying the principal’s hair. If I had hair, I’d be all on it. But that was long gone by the time I got to being an administrator. But maybe the beard, maybe the beard, if I ever need a cause for that.
Okay, cool. Thank you. Let’s keep this going. Okay. So this next question, I’m going to start with Anaité, and then I’m going to hop over to Jamey. So considering your backgrounds with various learner groups, and you both have kind of alluded to it a little bit, how do you intentionally design for engagement for diverse learners? When you have lots of different students from different backgrounds, how do you design to engage all different diverse learners, given that there are a lot of different backgrounds? Yeah.
Anaité Letona:
Yes. So in my world, I run and pay attention to their IEPs. Usually they come to me with established IEPs in middle school, although we did have some initials, meaning students who were just made eligible for an IEP. So with that IEP comes an amazing amount of history on that student. And if they’ve had an IEP since elementary school or when they started kindergarten, we have a rich background. So our psychologists spend a lot of time getting family histories, family health histories, parent backgrounds, student backgrounds, teacher reports throughout the grade level. So one of the first things I always do at the beginning of the year is I read their IEPs and I read their reports. I reread where they were each year that they were assessed and how that impacted them. And then I look at their background and see if there are consistencies or inconsistencies.
So I look at their QM files, see what I’m missing in there that’s not present in any of their assessment reports. So that’s one of the first things I do to get to know the learners who are coming to me. And then whenever I get new learners into the room, because that gives me an understanding of where they’ve been. And I think with students with disabilities in particular, it’s important to know that because you see patterns that are based in maybe escape behavior because we miss them, like Thomas was saying earlier, because the class is moving so fast that we lost them in the shuffle and there wasn’t a way for them to catch up, but they can catch up. The capacity is there. So I look for those patterns. I look for how their parents interact. I look for what their family structure is.
So I try and understand their background and the impact from their disability in their school experiences because it tells us a lot, tells me a lot about how to proceed next in my construction of my classroom and whatever content I’m supporting them in. I really draw from their strength base, what were they really good at and what do they say they’re really good at? Because I think IEPs tend to focus on where their challenges lie and our goals should really focus on moving them forward. So I look at what is that strength that I’m working towards and how do I leverage that to support where they might be weak or it might be a challenge? So that’s another reason I really spend a lot of time with that information. And then I talk to teachers. Once they’re in my classroom, I spend a lot of time teaching, or excuse me, talking with the students one-to-one, small group.
I used to have groups of kids eat in my classroom for lunchtime or for passing periods. Those were amazing times to get to know backgrounds. Kids say the funniest things all the time when you’re one-on-one, sharing a bag of Doritos with them. And I had food. I also had open access to anything in my classroom. If they needed a piece of paper or a pencil, it’s never behind locked doors. So they felt like they could come in there and get what they needed for any class, not just a class I was in. So that was intentional so that they would respond. That effective filter for them, for me, had decreased already. They had a certain level of trust. So I did that a lot also. In terms of the content, I worked hard to provide access points for every learner in the room. So I might be teaching linear functions, and that was my teaching point. I did not stray for that. Everybody had to reach that content level, but I had access points for learners to get there.
And that helps students feel like they’re seen. And if those weren’t enough, they had the voice to say, “None of this is working for me, Mrs. Letona, how can I change it?” And they did and they would because that was the culture that I created or at least helped to create because they had a lot to do with being vulnerable enough to let me do that. I always had multiple means of delivery. So if I was giving a lesson, I tried rarely to do the Sage on the stage. I really made it, here are my teaching points. And then I do a quick group teach and then move them into either their individual spaces or their group spaces. All of us working on different things, we come together as to group again. So they had independent time and they had group time. I had sentence STEMs for math. I had vocabulary walls for ELA and math.
All of those things intentionally designed to support visual learners, oral learners. Learners who might need another opportunity to listen to see the information. So multiple means of expression when they were giving me assignments, portfolios are a fantastic way for students with disabilities to access because it might be that our traditional way of submitting a paper or submitting a math assignment doesn’t work for that student. So I did a lot of engagement opportunities, games, gamifying some things, core concepts and practicing them over and over again really helped. So there was a lot of that intentionally built in. And sometimes it was whole class, sometimes it was student to student. And then we had prizes because middle school students love prizes and they were generally food. Although I had some crazy things because my class was a special ed class.
I had a lot of sensory-based things and I was always surprised, but never surprised at how quickly I was refilling my sensory bin because the students were taking them and they were there for them to take, but it always shocked me how quickly they went, but that was part of what they really enjoyed and needed in other classes. So they’d pull it out of their backpack or have the little things on their computers. So that was how I intentionally designed for the instruction and maintained the instruction and made sure that the students had checkpoints along the way. I also used a lot of equity-based grading so that their grade wasn’t defeating them and that they had access always to improve. So multiple opportunities. There was never a point where I said, “You’re done. You can’t take that test anymore.” If they were willing to take the test again or willing to turn in the assignment again or willing to try it again, then my door was always open.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Wow, perfect. Thank you so much for sharing. I was taking notes. I’m taking notes while all of you are sharing and there’s so many great nuggets in there. A couple things that stood out for me when you first started talking, really about getting data by looking at the individualized plans, by talking to other teachers, by talking to students. Data doesn’t just have to be numbers. It could be street data as well. It could be that qualitative data as well, because that makes it a little easier to build that support for all students when you know all students and you know what all students need.
And then you mentioned something about access points for everyone, everyone could access the lesson at some point, but you emphasize, but you’re not lowering the standard, you’re not lowering the rigor. They still need to reach it, but you’re going to provide different scaffolds and supports to help students get there so they can reach that standard. So I love that. And yeah, same thing for you, Jamey. You talked about the diversity in your classroom. How do you work to make sure that all different students from diverse backgrounds remain engaged?
Jamey Olney:
Yeah. Well, I’ll give you an example. In my current eighth grade ELD history class, so we’re studying the American Revolution and the top of my list would be grouping strategies. So my students, I have students who are learning the Roman alphabet who are not literate in their home language. They’re coming from refugee camp, sometimes years and years of refugee camps, but was unsafe for them to go to school in their home country, along with long-term English learners who were born and raised here and conversationally speak English, but are there just because they’re getting their reading and their writing up to grade level or above grade level. So it’s like keeping them all with you at the same time is like, I love how you said it’s like those access points. So we do a variety. So we do whole group. Every student’s getting the standard.
Technology has been a great help. It’s getting better and better all the time with not only different reading levels, but different languages as well. So when we do the whole group, I enter first that they all have access. So when I’m introducing a new concept, they have access, whether it’s through Diffit, Google Translate, Subtitles Now, it’s amazing PowerPoint. I can do live captions and it’s got 43 different languages book widgets. So they always have access both through language as well as their current reading level. Again, keeping in mind that we’re trying to reach the same standard, the eighth grade standard through different ways. And then strategic partnering. So I do all kinds of partnering. I do partnering based on their English proficiency level. Sometimes I paired my long-term English learners who have spoken English most of their lives along with my newcomers.
I use students, I try to pair students from different cultures and different languages because it kind of forces them to speak English to each other and I love it. So not only are they learning English together, but then they’re teaching each other their language and their culture. And so I always say, “Wow, you’re going to all be multilingual when you get out of here. You may be bilingual now that you’re going to …” And they’re so proud of themselves. My students from Syria, they’re like, “I’m learning Spanish too. I know so many Spanish words.” And they’re the good words. They’re not just the four letter words. So it’s exciting. So yeah, I’d say the grouping and the partnering and then just using the tools to make sure they have access. I think the access is access to the core curriculum through their English proficiency, their home language, as well as their reading level.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. I love that idea of just targeted groups and being intentional with how you’re grouping students and what students you’re putting together, allowing students strengths to support one another and using that as a foundation to help students be able to navigate different things that are going on in the classroom. That makes so much sense. I love that. Okay. This next question that I have is actually for all of you, especially with this coming down to the end of the semester or this leading into winter break, sometimes people are aghast, they’re tired, they’re stressed. So I’m curious, keeping students engaged also takes a lot of energy from teachers. So what keeps you all engaged and inspired, especially when the work may feel hard or difficult? And this is for all of you, so whoever wants to start us off, if you already have your thoughts together, you can kick us off here.
Jamey Olney:
I’ll go. I’m just trying not to take, because my amazing colleagues has many good ideas, so cut me off.
Timothy Ojetunde:
You’re good. You’re good.
Jamey Olney:
So I thought about my top three. So I think one is focus on my locus of control. The challenges that students bring us can be overwhelming. And I always think, what’s that one small thing? It could be, I love the piece of licorice example. That’s so awesome. It’s such a small thing, but it can be such a big thing for a student. I do silly things. I always give a fist pump or they have a special handshake they do with me. But I do greeting outside the door. And I remember this was a few years ago. It’s awesome because I get to loop with my students for two years, but she was sharing in eighth grade, unbeknownst to me, she had been in an abusive home environment. Mom just got out of prison and it was not a good home situation.
And she said at one point in seventh grade that she was feeling suicidal and she’s like, I noticed, she’s like, “Your class gave me hope.” And I just chills all over me. And I’m like, “Well, what did I do?” She’s like, “Because every day you’re always happy.” And I guess I’m good at faking it some days. She’s like, “You’re always happy. You’d always greet me with a smile and a fist pump.” And that gave me hope and that gave me the oomph or whatever I needed to keep going. And it was just like, I didn’t even think … It’s just a silly smile on a fist pump, but just that sense of responsibility like, “Okay, they say teachers can be life changers.” But we can be lifesavers. We can be lifesavers and we’re not even aware of it. That licorice or that fist pump or smile could be the difference between life or death with some of our children. So I try to just think about even if it’s a smile or a fist pump, that can make the difference.
You never know what difference that’s going to make for a student. Secondly, I keep in touch with my former students. So I love giving my students a future story. So when they come back, my students, I have students that are division one athletes now and some of my pro soccer players and a little girl who came from India didn’t speak all year long and now she’s at Cal Berkeley studying to be a corporate attorney. So Instagram, when I see them on social media, it’s just like I’m getting chills right now. It’s amazing. And I love bringing them into my classroom as guest speakers and watching them speak life into my students because I’m like mom, I mom them or whatever, but I’m old and middle-aged white woman in front, may or may not have things in common with them, but when they see people that look like them, talk like them, come in the same community and they’re doing these amazing things, that gives them hope and it gives me hope because we never know seventh graders, eighth graders, what their potential is.
It’s limitless. And then I think the third thing is just keeping an attitude of gratitude, being grateful again for the little things. I just think about my life in education, I’ve been afforded so many amazing opportunities because of teaching and through education. And just this opportunity right here, it’s so cool to be able to share the stories of my students. And I wish some of them were here and could share their own stories, but it’s really exciting to be able to be a voice. And I’m just so grateful to be in this position, to hear their stories and to learn about their families. It’s enriched my life so much. It’s not really about like, “Oh, I’m doing this for them or that.” I feel like they do more for me than I do for them. They have enriched my life, the life of my families. I feel like my students have made me a better person. So I’m very grateful to have been able to spend most of my life now in education.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I love that idea of students coming back and they can see other students who have been in their seats as well. So I love that. Thomas, I see you’re off mute. You want to go next?
Thomas Courtney:
Yeah, please. I surf, and I know not everybody can surf. It sucks for you because it’s the best thing ever. I’m married to an archeologist, and when my wife would come home at the end of the day, she’d be around machines all day long, couldn’t talk to anybody, couldn’t wait to tell me everything. And I was like, “If I have to answer one more question from another human on this planet, I’m going to explode.” And so I recommend that an hour, I call it the hour of debrief. And the more I talk with people, the more I realize some folks find it, whether it’s just a commute. I remember somebody was like, “Oh, you have a commute.” I was like, “Yeah, I got to commute.” But you got to have that hour where you’re just not getting questions and find that in your evening somehow.
And then the second thing that I recommend, and I keep calling this term self-PD. Oh, look, the lights are off on me. I keep calling it self-PD because you have to put yourself in spaces at a certain point where you are able to advocate for things. Because I think over the years, what will wear you down the most is when you feel like you can’t do right by kids. And so if you don’t put yourself in those spaces where you feel like you can do something, contribute beyond the site, I think eventually it will wear you down. And then the third thing that I always tell people is there’s not very much a good news sometimes about teaching. It can feel like that, whether that is how it is or it feels like it, that’s how it’s going to feel. I field phone calls all the time from former student teachers.
And the number one thing that brings tears to our eyes is when they don’t think they’re doing a good job for their kids. They love their kids, they want to do a good job. And so I always recommend find somebody at your site who is a veteran, who’s happy, who still loves teaching, who breathes life into that, and knows and is grounded about why they’re doing good work, not the disgruntled person, the person who loves it still, and they will let you know, they will remind you of your purpose and let you know how amazing you are so that you don’t lose sight of that because that’s what’s going to put you over the edge. So do that and surf.
Timothy Ojetunde:
I love it. Surf and then find that person, right? Find that person that you could surround yourself with to keep that positivity going. Perfect. I love that. Yes, Anaité.
Anaité Letona:
Yeah, I don’t surf. I barely swim, but I do go to bed early every day and everyone makes fun of me, my family makes fun of me, but I need that. I need that recovery time because like Thomas, I cannot go home and answer any more questions. But when my kids were young, I did have to do that. And my husband also is a chatty Kathy, but I can put up with it, not put up with it, but I can move through it after work, but then I just need to power down. And I might be in bed reading my book or doing a puzzle, but then I’m pretty much asleep by 9:00, 9:30 at the latest. And that helps me get up at 5:00 AM and regroup and be ready for the day because I am an early riser. So I do my morning routine before everyone wakes up and that takes care of me because I need that time to be able to regroup.
This job is really difficult. And in the roles that we are in, oftentimes we’re working with our students who are facing their most challenging times, and it’s really hard not to take that in. It’s really hard not to feel that. It’s really hard not to want to do something about that. So making sure that I have the space to give them for that and be able to support them throughout is important to me. I also feel like what both Jamey and Thomas have said around perspective, you have to understand the work you’re in. And I think those of us who really see that are able to continue to move forward in the work rather than sit back and just say, “I’ve done all I can do.” And at a certain point, that is always true, but there’s also more somewhere somehow.
And when you’re in it and you have the space to do that, you can keep seeing those opportunities, making sure that you’re aligning yourself with people who see those opportunities with you because the biggest strain on you is someone who only sees that negative or the systems that are only draining from you. And that could be admin systems, that could be entire school districts. It just depends on where you are. So you have to acknowledge that too and be ready to make changes that you need to make because students exist everywhere. And that was a hard thing for me to learn was that I am replaceable. Someone’s going to come by and do my job, but if I can’t do my job the way I know it needs to be done, servicing students, always prioritizing what’s right for students, then it’s time for me to move on because I can’t do that and that’s not okay. So that’s what keeps me going and what keeps me moving.
Timothy Ojetunde:
Wow. I am in awe of each and every one of you and all that you do. I think that was the perfect kind of question to wrap up our time today. And I’m just feeling so inspired and motivated by everything that you all do and everything that you all shared today. I just want to take a quick second just to thank you all for sharing your expertise, your wisdom, for being vulnerable and open with people who you don’t know over Zoom after a long day. So just thank you so much for your commitment to this work and all that you do. And I really appreciate it. And in our last five minutes, I’m going to pass it back to Rebecca to close us out, but thank you all so much again for everything.
Rebeca Cerna:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all, Jamey, Thomas, Anaité, and Tim, that was fabulous. I was taking notes as well and thinking of some of the things that you mentioned aside from the tub of licorice and how food is so central, like looking at smiles, celebrating the little things, talking with students, having access to materials, not just for the ones in your class, but for other classes, that events are curricular. So there were so many great nuggets of information like Tim mentioned. We want to just also highlight that we’re going to invite those of you who attended to a Zoom office hour on December 16th. It’s from 1:00 to 2:00.
And if anyone wants to join us to continue the conversation of engaging students, feel free to hop in at any time during that hour. It’s very informal and we’re happy to answer any questions or provide supports that you might need. As part of this work, we’re going to launch a quick feedback poll. We need to provide feedback to the California Department of Education. So if you could just take a moment to fill out this feedback poll, we would appreciate it and we use it to help inform our future work. So as you’re filling that out, we want to mention, and we’ll put this in the … it’s in the Padlet and we’ll also put it in the chat. We have a series of wellness mini sessions, which kind of ties into the last question that Tim was mentioning about self-care.
We have these monthly mini wellness sessions or 20 minutes. Our next one is on January 14th. They’re 20 minutes. We have the Orange County Department of Education who is going to be leading our January session. We have two other partners lined up also for February and March. One of them is also UCLA who’s going to be leading one of those sessions. So feel free to explore and register for those opportunities as well. And we just want to thank you. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions related to topics around safe and supportive learning environments. Our email is [email protected]. It’s also on the Padlet, and thank you for joining us and have a good evening.
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