Maya McFadden Photo
Fractions on the mind, in Amanda Gonzalez's classroom.
After a full day of learning new vocabulary and all about fractions, taking “brain breaks,” and studying the American Revolution, Conte West Hills K‑8 students and staff concluded that strong relationships, engaging work, and one-on-one instruction are the keys to a successful school day.
That was the scene last Tuesday, as this reporter spent a full day at the 511 Chapel St. magnet school to observe four classroom lessons for first, fourth, and eighth graders.
The teachers in each classroom worked hard to find innovative ways to engage students in the academic material at hand.
That ranged from allowing a fourth-grader to define the word “exaggeration” by engaging in a NBA-style “flop” to encouraging first-graders to sound out the syllables of new vocabulary words slowly “like a turtle” to calling out eighth-grade students for praise for their attentiveness and consideration for others.
“Exaggeration" = Flopping; "Legendary" = Messi
Fourth-graders practice math on the i-Ready program.
The day began on the second floor, with fourth-grade teacher Amanda Gonzalez’s 9:45 a.m. class.
Gonzalez’s students’ morning began with a literacy lesson, as they worked in small groups or individually to learn their newest vocabulary words, like “legendary” and “exaggeration.”
One small group worked while sitting on the classroom rug with Gonzalez, while others worked on their Chromebooks and in their workbooks to practice their vocabulary and learn how to identify the central idea of a text.
As Gonzalez wrote the group’s responses on the room’s smart board, students also wrote the answers on their own worksheets.
Gonzalez walked the classroom, checking in with the student groups, reminding one table of four, “Don’t forget that text evidence.”
While working together on a workbook assignment, fourth grader June helped her classmate Leonel spell out words like “story.”
When fourth grader Xavier was asked to explain what “exaggeration” means, he gave examples like when athletes fall dramatically during games to draw a foul. He even went on to show a dramatic fall for his peers and Gonzalez.
When it came to the word “legendary,” a student named Aiden defined the word as, “When a character lives all the way to the dinosaurs.” Another student simply gave the example of “Messi,” the Argentine professional soccer player. Other examples of “legendary” included a gold Pokémon card.
“Why is Messi considered legendary?” Gonzalez asked. The students used words like “famous” and “talented” to describe him and define the word legendary.
After the Tuesday literacy lesson, the fourth-graders next shifted to a math lesson. They practiced their skills by identifying which pairs of fractions are greater, less than, or equal to. They also received a science lesson from Yale student tutors about states of matter.
Find The "Ch"
Chambers teaches the sound of "ch."
Parker dives into phonics.
Meanwhile, in a first-grade classroom on the first floor, Kimberly Parker’s students also worked in small groups practicing reading and phonics skills.
Veteran paraprofessional Claudine Wilkins-Chambers worked with one small group of four. As the students read aloud to Wilkins-Chambers, she asked them to identify “ch” words and sounds.
She gave them a minute to find five “ch” words throughout the book. The students read aloud words like “chick” and “chess.”
Parker worked with another group, taking their time to sound out the syllables for words like shock, skin, and dash. “Say it like a turtle,” Parker reminded them.
Other students gathered with partners to read books like “Corduroy” together or play phonics-based word games.
"I'm Here To Stay"
Eric Widmeyer and his eighth-grade students.
Widmeyer's sticker award system for students completing daily math lessons.
At around 11:40 a.m., over a dozen eighth graders filed into math teacher Eric Widmeyer’s classroom.
The group began Tuesday’s lesson with their daily 90-second log-in task. This involves Widmeyer giving his students a minute and 30 seconds to log into their Chromebooks and the day’s lesson to prepare to learn.
Widmeyer watched from his own computer, noting which students he could see actively logging in to receive extra points for their daily grade.
For Tuesday’s lesson, students worked on exponent rules. Widmeyer also worked with a small group of students to practice finding the areas of squares, rectangles, and triangles.
“We gotta use it to make sure we don’t lose it,” Widmeyer reminded his students.
Before students jumped into their independent practice for 13 minutes, they took a brief “brain break” to get some energy out before getting into the lesson. While some used the bathroom in that time or got jackets from their lockers, others played basketball with a hoop hanging on the classroom wall.
Each week Widmeyer gives up a prep period of his to pull each of his students for one-on-one support to meet the curriculum’s recommended 50 minutes of practice a week.
He also keeps a point system for student behavior so his students learn about public accountability.
As students returned from their brain break, Widmeyer called out, “I’m hiring for four jobs!” Which prompted several students’ hands to raise in the air to volunteer to help Widmeyer hand out markers, white boards, notebooks, and erasers.
For each problem Widmeyer posed to the class, students worked quickly on their white boards individually or with their small groups to then display their work and answers to Widmeyer at the front of the classroom.
Students continued to gain extra points for their participation and for helping their peers, while just a few lost a point or two for using personal technology.
He noted that student behavior has improved significantly in his class because of his focus on prioritizing acknowledging positive behavior from students.
Widmeyer noted that as a 20-year teaching veteran, he has learned that “if they [students] see you’re invested in them, they want to be invested in your class.” To engage his students, Widmeyer works outside the classroom by attending his students’ sports games or theater performances to show them each that he is invested in their success.
He also stays in contact with his students’ parents to share about their growth in his class rather than only reaching out to families if a negative experiences occurs.
Last year, Widmeyer taught the same students he has this year because there was a mid-year resignation of the school’s 7th grade math teacher. While the double duty stretched him thin, he said, it’s helped him this year because he’s shown the students that “I’m here to stay with you.”
"Relationships & Rigor"
Eighth-grade social studies teacher Dena Vaillancourt began her class Tuesday at around 12:40 p.m.
She too used a point system to recognize her students during class for helping out.
During class the students continued their unit on the American Revolution and the different perspectives of loyalists and patriots.
The students worked in small groups to complete a worksheet tasking them with identifying how patriots and loyalists felt about specific historical events like the Boston Tea Party and the Stamp Act.
As students worked, Vaillancourt showed a to-do list on the classroom’s board for students to refer to.
Conte principal Kenneasha Sloley told the Independent at the conclusion of Tuesday’s school day that the school’s staff takes pride in establishing positive and healthy relationships with students to “create an environment where parents want to send their kid.”
Through high expectations and educators meeting students where they are at, Sloley said, Conte’s mission is to “push relationships and rigor all at once.”
Thanks to its point systems, hands-on learning, frequent student-feedback surveys, and educator professional-learning opportunities, Sloley said Conte has seen significant growth in literacy levels. She said that growth has been recognized by the district’s middle school reading program, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), which plans to include Conte in a website feature in March.
She concluded by describing additional opportunities Conte offers its school community, like pep rallies and play-based learning. For four days a week, kindergarten teacher Jennifer Mandel organizes an “open play” period for her elementary students to have inter-curricular exposure to core lessons. And starting this week, Mandel’s kindergartners will begin learning Mandarin on Wednesdays.
