New Ideas, New Tools, New Year!

I am very thankful for the experience I have had the last few weeks! I have had the pleasure of learning some amazing stuff with a pretty great group of girls! I think one of my favorite activities from this course was sharing all of our ideas on the 2 Padlets!

As we all know and have experienced...there is SO MUCH out there for us to use. Due to this, we forget about some of the amazing resources we come across. The Padlet idea was truly awesome. All of our ideas in one location with descriptions of how we would use them in our classrooms!

• I loved the BioCube idea that was shared and tend to share that with my teachers next year.
• MindMapping is an incredible idea and one that I didn’t use much with my teachers last year. Next year will be different. I can already see students that would benefit from using this and even some teachers too!
• I also forgot about the Florida Center for Reading and all of the wonderful resources they have to offer for FREE! There are center ideas for K-5 grade-levels!

I also think the Ancient Civilization Unit that Lauren and I created for our 6th graders is pretty incredible. Technology has so much to offer and Lauren and I were able to work on this together while not being “physically” together. We used Google Docs and Hangout to help put this unit together this summer. We will be able to share this with our students as well!  Both of us are looking forward to creating more like this one in Fall.

Next year will be a great one! I have already started planning how I will introduce some of the new tools I learned about in this class. I would like to send out a “tech tool/idea” each month to my staff. I will share how they can use the tool and/or ideas in the classroom to enhance the curriculum and to increase student engagement within their class. I will do this through meetings and the use of screencasts.

Here’s to hoping for a successful year of sharing and learning together!

Cool Extension and Assessments!

Currently I am taking a course through St. Francis University called “Engaging e-Learning”. The idea behind this course is to create lessons that are engaging and provide some sort of online engagement. We are working to build an online community within our classrooms that has both traditional and blended learning opportunities for our students.

One of the reason’s I have enjoyed this class is because we are building on a unit we have already created. All of the assignments have been connected to one idea and not done in isolation. As stated in the syllabus we have created some things and then had to go back and adjust those because they weren’t exactly what we wanted for the unit, but that has made this unit so much better.

I also love the fact that our teacher provides us with “tech tips” for the week. There is so much out there and I tend to forget some of the great things. With that said, it is a nice reminder that there are great resources out there!

I have been blessed to work with a lot of amazing teachers in the past 4 years! Teachers that have a growth mindset and love to challenge themselves and push themselves out of their comfort zone knowing that I will be there each step of the way to encourage them through laughter or tears! :)

Some of them have become very good friends and that is definitely the best part. My relationship with a certain 5th-grade teacher is no exception. We have worked over the past 2 years to create a pretty awesome Ancient Civilization Unit where the students are in charge of their own learning. Students are able to choose the civilization they want to learn about and then use the resources we have created and gathered to help them with their research. In the end, the students need to share what they have learned. We provide them with a rubric/expectations, but how they choose to share their knowledge is up to them. You can find the assessment here.

We decided that note taking was a skill we wanted to focus on during this unit. With that said, I created a screencast that shows the students how to use the Chrome Extension Read&Write (click here for the screencast). This extension will allow students to simplify the site they are on and then highlight main ideas using 4 different colors. When they are done highlighting students can collect the highlights and they will open in a new Google Doc. It is here that students can begin to formulate their own sentences describing what they had learned. Warning: This is a paid feature.

We are still working as a district to see if we are able to purchase the paid version of Read&Write. There are so many other features that I feel will help out students with the paid version, but the free version is worth checking out as well. Click here for info on Read&Write.

Better Late Than Never!

All about me...Nicole Ring!

My name is Nicole Ring. I am married to my amazingly patient and loving husband, Justin. Together we have raised  2 incredibly crazy, fun-loving, athletic, smart and funny boys ages 6 and 8 years old. Our youngest started Kindergarten this year and our oldest is in Second grade.  

While attending North Central College, I attained my undergrad in Elementary Education and my masters in Curriculum and Instruction. 

Currently, I am an  Instructional Coach for Downers Grove School District 58. I have been working in the education field for 16 years, 4 of which have been spent in my current role as Instructional Coach. In my first 4 years of teaching, I taught 4th grade and the rest were spent teaching 1st grade! We are a 1:1 iPad District and we will be adding 1:1 Chromebooks to the Middle Schools next year. 

My job as an Instructional Coach is to work as a colleague alongside classroom teachers to support student learning and growth. I support teachers in the development and implementation of instructional strategies in all content areas and support effective planning, instruction, and assessment for learning. 

This site is intended to help me reflect on my current practices as a coach and to provide other coaches with thoughts and ideas they can use with their colleagues.

Here is the link to my St. Francis ePortofolio that we have been working on!

Are Primary Students Capable of Research?

“Can my primary students actually conduct research and write a paragraph on their findings?”

“Where do I (as a teacher) even begin?”  

“How do I guide my students?”

“Will they really be able to do this on their own?  

I was asked all of these questions when I met with a LRC teacher a couple weeks ago. She wanted to have the 1st grade students research an animal of their choice.  The project would require them conduct actual research, take notes and then write a paragraph that included a topic sentence and a wrap-up sentence.

My response...???... “YES! Of course they can.”

Let me start by saying, this teacher has wonderful ideas, welcomes collaboration and is always looking for opportunities to improve the classroom experience for her students.  For this particular project, as her Instructional Coach, we planned and discussed multiple instructional strategies that would work best for her various groups of students.  From there, we started planning her lesson using the Gradual Release Model: “I Do, We Do, You Do”.

1. She modeled what the students were going to be asked to do: How to get to PebbleGo, select an animal, listen to the information, and how to choose a fact from what she heard/read. She wrote down a fact on a similar graphic organizer the students were going to use.
2. In the “We Do” stage we all listened to the “Food” section of the book. Then we chose facts from the food section (shared as a whole group) and she wrote them down on the graphic organizer.
3. The kids were asked to chose their own animal and write down a fact for each section of the book on their graphic organizer (You Do.) The students loved using PebbleGo to help them research. Several of them listened and read about other animals when they were done!

The following week we used the same model to show the students how they would use their facts to create a paragraph about their animal. We emphasized that their topic sentence had to have the name of their animal so their audience would know what they were reading about. Then the students turned their facts into a complete sentence and wrote a paragraph about their animal. They concluded with a fun fact about their animal. They were so proud of their writing and illustration…(of course) so were we!

Next year, we are planning to have the students type their story and record it in Book Creator. They will have the option to use the photographs provided or create their own. Some of the students have chosen to put their story into Book Creator already!

Interesting Read: Rapid Release of Responsibility-This model is focused on putting “You Do” FIRST then “We Do, I Do”

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A new year and a "New Job!

The start of the 2013-2014 school year will bring some changes to my life. I have decided to step out of my own classroom and step into about 36 different classrooms as an Instructional Coach! 

I have a mixed emotions about this change as I think anyone would! Right!?! Teaching kids, watching them grow, and having my "own" little community (25 little ones) within my classroom walls is something I knew I wanted to do since I was about 6. This year, my classroom community will consist of about 200+ little ones across all grade-levels and colleagues from 3 different schools!

So, I have been self-reflecting a lot this summer. How do I want next year to pan out? What is my schedule going to be like? Will the teachers open up to me and "love" me like my kids do! 

 This is a new world for me and I am a little scared! It's not like I am going to be talking and teaching 6 years olds anymore! Lets face it 6 year olds love just about anything a goofy teacher does! My focus this year is going to be on collaborating and helping the TEACHERS and of course the kids! A little scary if you ask me! 

I want this blog to be a place where we can learn from each other. A place where we feel safe sharing and talking about what lessons went great and the lessons that well....need some work! :) 

I am now an Instructional Coach who will strive to:

www.nfschools.net -


I hope you will stick with me on this new journey and please share my blog! I am adding a pic below of a Daily 5 menu I created using while my 1st graders were 1:1 this past year. If you want more info please just email me! I will send you a copy! Happy Sunday!

St.Patty's Day Freebie!

Good Morning,
 I have not been good with posting, but I wanted to share something I made for my little kiddos to complete this week in celebration of St. Patrick's Day! I came across the cute shamrocks and backgrounds while searching on TPT. They are done by Megan over at I Teach. What's your superpower? Thanks so much Megan! :)

Hope you can use it! Happy Sunday Funday everyone! :)