My Classroom is a Hive!

Oh how we talk!  When I was in school, the classroom was quiet.  In fact, the first sign of good teaching was a silent classroom where only the teacher talked. If a question was asked, and you had the answer, raising your hand was the way to go. The only person anyone wanted to share anything with was the teacher.  But, oh have times changed!  Thankfully!

My classroom can be compared to a hive.  All that buzz is the sound of bees working hard.  My room has that productive buzz.  Are there side conversations? Yes, but the same or less than in traditional classrooms.

When students enter the room, they are greeting each other and me. We say the pledge of allegiance and discuss the announcements. The warm up is often similar to the math activity I have discussed frequently called Math Bowling. My teams are working hard together to come up with the equations in a little friendly competition.  Imagine- excitement about mathematics! We learn our new material while choral reading significant notes, discussing content with team members, reading sentence frames aloud while substituting vocabulary and other relevant information.  We think, pair share, and write until the information makes sense enough so we can verbally explain it as well as write it! We celebrate the use of tier 2 vocabulary by hitting the "Easy Button".  The information is shared amongst students and they are no longer looking to the teacher to demonstrate their understanding but rather each other.  Hands do not fly in the air because why tell the teacher the answer when everyone knows she already knows this stuff.  Instead, they are eager to share with their team.  When a student does not understand, they look to their teammates for clarification.  If I should try to intervene, I often hear something like "I will show him Mrs. Taylor."  Wow, my job is now about finding clever ways to present material and then just monitoring the buzz.  But, I am not the queen bee! The students are all the leaders of the hive.  We also talk about what we have learned each day and we talk on Edmodo about our learning and for further clarification.  Rarely, are the posts directed to me for help but for the class.  I love my kids actively learning...I love the buzz!