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Phase: Ideate Missions: PD That’s Immediately Relevant

Teacher's Word Wall

When observing students, also note great teacher language, such as "the u has a kickstand" and start our own "word wall" for teachers.

Photo of Julie Abrams Faude
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I am the LS Psychologist and I tend to write down language used by teachers that pops for me. I tuck it away in my brain and pull it out when I think it might be useful for another teacher. Today I heard one teacher use the "U has a kickstand" mnemonic  and I promptly told another teacher this idea as it totally fit for the problem she was describing. The original teacher over heard me and asked her peer "does your student also mix up U and N?" The student does,  and she offered a great idea to keep them straight. I wonder if I could start a word wall for teachers on a bulletin board outside of my office which we could all add to? That way, students see that teachers cooperate and that teachers are life-long learners. Maybe those techniques would stick a bit more when when students see how much we appreciate teachers use of creative problem solving techniques. 

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Photo of Michael Schurr
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HI Julie,

Thank you for the post! I love this idea. In fact, I had a similar idea in an earlier challenge we ran around rituals and routines of innovation. A big component of your post that I quite like is making it visible for students. A public display of teachers sharing ideas can indeed be very powerful.

Your post has me wondering, what's next? How do we take word walls and iterate on them? Clearly, teachers need to be more creative with how they share information and learn from one and other. Is there a way to start small, say with the word wall idea, and grow it based off of themes that emerge on the wall. For example, maybe a majority of what is shared is around classroom management phrases. Could the next step be a group, website, forum, etc., specifically targeted at classroom management? I'm just brainstorming, but the core idea is how do we grow your idea? How do we make it scaleable?

If you are interested in seeing the evolution of an idea, feel free to check out what my colleague, Richard Brehl, and I worked together to flesh out a similar idea.

https://teachersguild.org/challenge/how-might-we-create-rituals-and-routines-that-establish-a-culture-of-innovation-in-our-classrooms-and-schools/favorites/opportunity-or-challenge-board

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Photo of Margaret Powers
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Yes, and how might we help teachers take ownership in the creation and use of the wall? And could students help too? Could they share things that teachers said that really helped them?

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