School-Wide responsive classroom initiative
at e.t. Wyman
Led by Art Teacher Elizabeth Fortier, Principal Ron Celio and LMS Tara Castro, E.T. Wyman began taking steps to begin a school-wide social emotional initiative.
Training the teachers
During the summer of 2019, a group of 6 teachers (Tera Brady, Tara Castro, Sheryl Costa, Wendy Hopkins, Geri Lewis, and Sue LaRose) participated in 4 days of a workshop that gave training in Responsive Classroom. Those teachers brought back what they learned to the whole faculty and began by modeling a morning meeting at the first faculty meeting of the 2019-2020 school year.
A core group of teachers signed on to the school-wide initiative and meet monthly after school to discuss themes, student journal entries and grade level blogs.
K - Donna Walsh, Lauren Duquette, Geri Lewis, Ashleigh Nyblom
1st - Kim Brennan, Jen Carlone, Michaela Comella
2nd - Sharon Miller, Linda Corley, Crystal Dasilva
3rd - Liz Fortier, Sue LaRose, Joshua Petersen, Kaitlin Riley
4th - Mary Steinkamp, Wendy Hopkins
5th - Tara Castro, Tera Brady
To date, 37 E.T. Wyman teachers and support staff have SeeSaw accounts.
A core group of teachers signed on to the school-wide initiative and meet monthly after school to discuss themes, student journal entries and grade level blogs.
K - Donna Walsh, Lauren Duquette, Geri Lewis, Ashleigh Nyblom
1st - Kim Brennan, Jen Carlone, Michaela Comella
2nd - Sharon Miller, Linda Corley, Crystal Dasilva
3rd - Liz Fortier, Sue LaRose, Joshua Petersen, Kaitlin Riley
4th - Mary Steinkamp, Wendy Hopkins
5th - Tara Castro, Tera Brady
To date, 37 E.T. Wyman teachers and support staff have SeeSaw accounts.
History and beginning the process
At the end of the 2018-19 school year Elizabeth Fortier approached Ron Celio with the idea to do monthly challenges to students. Her idea was to try to cultivate a kinder more inclusive community at E.T. Wyman. Mr. Celio felt that technology could play a part in making this initiative a success, so he asked the school library media specialist to find a technology that could help streamline the process and engage parents.
SeeSaw, which is a digital portfolio that parents can connect to, was determined to be the perfect tool. It allowed for student choice, it is easy for even the youngest students to use, and it encouraged parent communication and participation. Teachers voluntarily received after school training in using SeeSaw from Tara Castro and at the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, the first student challenge was kicked off at a school wide assembly led by Elizabeth Fortier.
For the first initiative, students would learn how to use SeeSaw during library classes and be given opportunities to add entries to their online journals.
SeeSaw, which is a digital portfolio that parents can connect to, was determined to be the perfect tool. It allowed for student choice, it is easy for even the youngest students to use, and it encouraged parent communication and participation. Teachers voluntarily received after school training in using SeeSaw from Tara Castro and at the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, the first student challenge was kicked off at a school wide assembly led by Elizabeth Fortier.
For the first initiative, students would learn how to use SeeSaw during library classes and be given opportunities to add entries to their online journals.
Engaging students
At the kickoff of our first challenge, Be Kind, students learned of the incentives built into the initiative.
- A model classroom was chosen from a hat to act as school leaders for the duration of the Be Kind challenge. A frame was placed outside that classroom to signify their designation as a role model classroom.
- Another classroom was chosen to help create the next monthly presentation. This would include working with the classroom teacher and the library media specialist to create green screen video examples of the challenge (Be Thankful) in action.
- Students were notified that parents and teachers would view and comment on their journal entries, giving them encouragement and feedback for meeting the challenge.
- Students were given choice. They could create videos, type, draw online or on paper, upload slide presentations or documents, record original songs or poems, or combine any of the above. The only requirement was that they upload an act of kindness that they had truly engaged in.
- Students were informed that grade level blogs would showcase examples of the Be Kind journal entries. The blogs would take their entries and make them public on the Internet.
- Teachers are supplied with paper incentives to hand out to students as they "catch" them meeting a monthly challenge.
Thank you to Mrs. Sandra Brown our Music Instructor at E.T. Wyman! She worked with the students on a song and accompanying hand motions that Mrs. Steinkamp's class used in their presentation of the Giving challenge for the December kickoff.
The songs have been such a big hit, that Mrs. Brown has continued to prepare a song each month with the class that is presenting.
The songs have been such a big hit, that Mrs. Brown has continued to prepare a song each month with the class that is presenting.
Including parents
Ron Celio included information on the school-wide initiative in his Open House meeting with parents. Tara Castro addressed the first PTA meeting and gave parents the opportunity to ask questions and comment on the initiative.
Initial SeeSaw letters were sent home from the library to each parent with instructions on how to connect to private student journals. Monthly follow up emails were sent from the library to all guardians with Aspen email addresses notifying parents that student entries were available through SeeSaw, encouraging parents to like and comment on student entries, and updating parents with links to monthly presentations. In January another round of paper copies were sent out to families who had not yet connected to student accounts. To date 206 parents have connected to their childrens' accounts.
Each month we invited parent volunteers who came in to library classes and were videotaped with the students.
Our thanks to:
Mrs. Lisa Valentine - October
Mrs. Andre Bassuet - November
Mrs. Kristin Koopman-DiPrete and Mrs. Jessica Hemond - January
Mrs. Melanie Makin and Ms Sam Grabelle - February
Reese Weaver - April
Many of Mrs. Carlone's families did videos from their homes - May
Many of the Kindergarten students' families did videos from their homes - June
Going Public
Below are the links to the grade level blogs, showcasing monthly student entries.
Kindergarten
First Grade
Second Grade
Third Grade
Fourth Grade
Fifth Grade
Kindergarten
First Grade
Second Grade
Third Grade
Fourth Grade
Fifth Grade
Analytics
As the SeeSaw administrator for SeeSaw, Tara Castro connected monthly analytics here to track engagement. We have 206 parents connected to their children's accounts.
At the end of the year, the committee conducted teacher, parent and student surveys to help determine if our school-wide initiative helped improve the culture at E.T.Wyman.
At the end of the year, the committee conducted teacher, parent and student surveys to help determine if our school-wide initiative helped improve the culture at E.T.Wyman.
sept 27 - Oct 27
Oct 27 - Nov 27
Nov 27 - Dec 27
Dec 27 - Jan 27
Jan 27 - Feb 27
Feb 27 - Mar 27
Mar 27 - Apr 27
Apr 27 - May 27
Update: Covid19 shut down the state of RI and March 13th marked our last day in school. Wyman moved much of the K-2 curriculum into Seesaw. We were fortunate to already have parents connected and students familiar with the platform. You will notice the posts pretty much doubled in our statistics for the time period from the month before.
Future plans
At monthly faculty meetings, Tara Castro and other trained teachers continued to share information with the group on components of culturally responsive teaching and gave examples of strategies that can be used in Responsive classrooms.
We continued our monthly challenges to students and found ways to continuously reinforce the themes school wide. The links embedded below connect to the monthly Slide Decks we share at our kickoff assemblies, which became virtual in April.
We continued our monthly challenges to students and found ways to continuously reinforce the themes school wide. The links embedded below connect to the monthly Slide Decks we share at our kickoff assemblies, which became virtual in April.
- Sept/Oct- Kindness
- Nov - Thankfulness
- Dec - Giving
- Jan - Perseverance
- Feb - Tolerance
- Mar - Patience
- Apr - Responsibility
- May - Cooperation
- Jun - Celebration
Survey Results
At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, we surveyed parents, students and teachers. The results were overwhelmingly positive. Was Wyman a kinder school? 90.4% of students responded Agree or Strongly Agree to the statement, "The responsive classroom challenges are helping to make E.T. Wyman a friendlier school."
We will use the rest of the results from our surveys to help us determine how to move forward with this social emotional approach to teaching in the Fall.
We will use the rest of the results from our surveys to help us determine how to move forward with this social emotional approach to teaching in the Fall.