Technology Brings Reading Alive in the Classroom

Curling up with a good book takes on a new look in our elementary classrooms today. TumbleBooks are animated, talking picture books for kids. TumbleBooks are created by taking existing picture books, adding animation, sound, music and narration to produce an electronic picture book, which is read to you.

First graders at Linn-Grove Elementary spent time in their building computer lab, with classroom teacher Katie Schafer and one of the elementary Technology Integration Coaches, Karla Koenen. The TIC, (Technololgy Integration Coach) the building Instructional Strategist, Tiffany Kinzenbaw, and Mrs. Schafer met to plan out this lesson.

They spent some time planning together, brainstorming potential roadblocks, best ways to approach the desired end product, as well as made a picture cheat sheet with clues for students to utilize.


Finally the TIC and the classroom teacher co-taught students how to access TumbleBooks in the lab. As they launched their first attempt to access the website, it was an adventure. Some first graders have no experience with a mouse due to only using touch pads. Once the kinks were worked out what resulted was pure joy. Smiles, laughs, giggles, and wide eyes focused on the screen brought reading to life for room 1S. Mrs. Koenen will continue to support Mrs. Schafer through the transition of training students to use this technology independently in the classroom setting.

Bringing Current Events Alive in the Classroom

It’s going to be a fun year in Mrs. Goldberg and Mr. Moran’s 7th Grade Social Studies class at Oak Ridge Middle School.

It all started with an idea.  Mike Moran found a website (fantasygeopolitics.com) that he thought would help inspire students in his 7th grade Social Studies class to pay attention to global current events. The website was created by a teacher, who loved fantasy football.  He decided to incorporate that type of competition into his classes. He began a site to keep track of countries mentioned in the New York Times. Each student would draft a country and the competition would span over a determined period of time. Whoever had the most points would win. Mike saw the potential in this idea and pitched a modified version of this to his colleague Beth Goldberg.  Mike and Beth sat down with their Instructional Strategist (Nicole Redington) and Technology Integration Coach (CJ McDonald) to figure out how this could be implemented into their classroom in conjunction with the curriculum.

After a couple meetings and some negotiation, the teachers and their TIC came up with a plan and created their own website (linked to fantasygeopolitics.com). Mike, Beth and CJ created a trial league to see what the student experience would be like. Encouraged, they moved on with the project tailoring appropriately for the course. During a short series of meetings to collaborate, Beth and Mike diligently planned the modifications, timing and assignments while CJ advised and created a tutorial for students to use to help them navigate the site.

On September 4th, after being introduced to the project concept and getting “teams,” the students were given a class period to begin their research about potential “draft picks.”  Imagine a room full of 7th graders sifting through current world events, strategizing about which countries would be left over and fanatically trying to determine their best pick for the next day’s draft. The buzz in the air was that of excitement and engagement. Yes, excitement and engagement while exploring global current events…by 12 year olds.
On draft day all went well as students passionately picked their countries, prepared to follow the news anxiously hoping to gain points and win the class competition. Small projects will help enhance the learning by formalizing “Get to know your Country,” and “Advise the President,” presentations. At the end of the project they will have a summary assignment where students will present to others about the current events in their country. Maybe it will be a website,  or a presentation.  Regardless of the format, the students are hooked.

This chemistry happened because of a series of events.  To recreate this experiment you will need:  one teacher’s inspiration, another teacher’s willingness to take a chance, and the prudent lesson planning of a team.


This is just one example that demonstrates the potential of teacher leadership.  Our dedicated classroom teachers executed this event with the encouragement and help of our teacher leaders. With continued dedication, collaboration, and expertise of our teaching staff, it is going to be a fun and productive year at Linn Mar Community Schools.

Blown Away!

I have had the best week ever.  I am BLOWN AWAY by the students, staff, teacher leaders, and administrators at Linn-Mar Schools.

This week I had the opportunity to work in kindergarten, first grade, and third grade classrooms at several elementary schools in our school district.  While I taught Jolly Phonics, Journeys, Guided Reading, Daily 5, and Everyday Math, classroom teachers had an opportunity to give assessments to students, or leave their classroom and observe model teachers in action.  Model teachers are a key part of our Teacher Leadership Program at Linn-Mar.  There are twenty model teachers Pre K-12 that have been selected to keep an open-door policy and welcome staff in to observe their teaching.  As I visit more classrooms each week, I'm convinced we have hundreds of model teachers.  I'm so impressed with what I have seen.  I'm loving my new position, but after being in our amazing Linn-Mar classrooms, I'm over the moon with new ideas in management, classroom organization, room arrangement, transition phrases, catchy songs, and Whole Brain Teaching, I am looking forward to using these amazing ideas and strategies someday.

As I listen to stories of staff who have been visiting classrooms and observing teachers, and as I observe them myself, I am blown away by the teaching and management in these classrooms.  Why? We are only three weeks into the school year and I have witnessed some amazing routines in action. This tells me as an educator that our teachers are extremely organized, well-planned, and have spent plenty of hours in the off season to be ready for game day..... a.k.a the first day of school.  Thank you everyone for allowing us to come into your classroom and learn from you.  We have so much to offer each other.

I want to give a shout out to all the teachers who allowed me to observe and teach in their classrooms the past two weeks.  I also want to give a shout out to our State Legislature and Department of Education for the opportunity to implement Teacher Leaders in our School.  We have so much to learn from each other.  Thank you for allowing us to be better in our craft.

What does a Strategist do?

Meet our eleven fabulous strategists.  We have two at the high school, two at the middle school and seven for our elementary buildings. What is it exactly that these people do?

These talented individuals are front line support to teachers in buildings.
Their mission:  to improve classroom instruction and delivery of content and to influence student performance!
By utilizing teachers' planning and collaboration time, strategists look at student data and discuss with teachers ways to improve classroom management, knowledge of subject area, classroom instruction, and formative assessments.  Strategists will be consulting, collaborating, observing, and coaching teachers at various levels this school year.
Strategists may work with teachers one on one, or with a whole grade level on targeted areas.

Our Instructional Strategists will be covering a wide variety of curriculum areas and will partner with other teacher leader positions such as, model teachers, curriculum facilitators, Technology Integration Coaches, and building principals, as well as district teaching and learning staff.  Our strategists will be busy.

To contact one of our strategists use this list below:

Bowman Woods Elementary-Terri Streicher

Echo Hill Elementary-Laura Robertson

Indian Creek Elementary-Sara Hofer

Linn Grove Elementary-Tiffany Kinzenbaw

Novak Elementary-Kim Ophoff

Westfield Elementary-Kelly Kretschmar

Wilkins Elementary-Molly Dabroski

Excelsior Middle School-Steven Starkey

Oak Ridge Middle School-Nicole Redington

Linn-Mar High School-Sheri Crandall and Tina Oberbroeckling

Meet The Mentor Coaches

Remember your first day of work?

How did you feel?  

Stressed?  

Overwhelmed?

That is exactly how first and second year teachers feel coming fresh out of college.  In fact research shows that many new teachers leave the profession within the first five years.  An astonishing 50% of new teachers find other means of employment.  In an effort to help combat the obstacles and frustration that new teachers face, Linn-Mar now has three mentor coaches committed to helping beginning teachers handle classroom management, lesson planning, co-teaching, and curriculum needs. By providing guidance, goal setting, observation, and reflective conversations Mentors are working to help new teachers find success in the teaching profession.

Carol Kesl-Elementary Mentor Coach “The Teacher Leadership Plan will offer students and teachers alike, the support, explicit instruction and guidance to reach their highest potential both academically and professionally.”  Jennie Lorenzen-Middle School Mentor Coach "A key to achieving Linn-Mar’s vision and mission is to provide our students with quality teaching.  I’m excited for the opportunities the Teacher Leadership Program will provide for teachers. Through this program, teachers will learn from each other and gain knowledge and resources to enhance their teaching, so we can make a positive impact on student achievement at Linn-Mar.” Sue Atwater-High School Mentor Coach “As a mentor coach I am committed to the task of helping beginning teachers find success and gratification in the teaching profession. Through a well-planned mentor and induction program we will support and assist our new teachers in becoming highly effective educators. An effective teacher will provide a high quality education for our students.  Every student deserves to have a confident and well-prepared teacher in front of them everyday.  This program will help us reach that goal.”  It's only the first week of school, but these Mentor Coaches have attended new teacher training and orientation meetings with new staff, worked to help them set up classrooms, and focus on first day lesson planning.   Our Mentor Coaches have also been working with induction specialists, building based staff that help provide immediate support when the Mentor Coach is working with staff in another room or building.  The role of the induction specialist is to provide quick guidance on building procedures, daily questions, and basic information.  The Mentor Coach and the induction specialist work in tandem to ensure teachers are getting the support teachers need to meet the curriculum requirements of the district and state and to increase student achievement.  By impacting teaching, we know we will impact learning.

Technology In Action

Meet our Technology Integration Coaches

“I am excited to assist the Linn-Mar staff and students through the integration of technology into our classrooms. The Teacher Leader program gives me the opportunity  to have a direct impact on the instruction all of our students receive!” “The Teacher Leadership Plan will encourage greater collaboration amongst teams and across  grade levels by providing teachers the time and access to highly effective teacher colleagues. "

“I believe that having a Technology Integration Coach  will help encourage teachers to explore how technology  can impact student learning.  I am looking forward to  supporting teachers in their current classroom technology  use and challenging them to practice technological agility."

“Technology Integration Coaches will work  collaboratively with staff to increase student engagement  through technology and to incorporate expected technology skills  into teacher lesson plans. Business and Industry expect our  students to have a basic level of knowledge in the uses of technology to demonstrate creative thinking, develop  innovative products, to conduct research,  manage projects, solve problems, make informed  decisions, and apply digital tools to gather,  evaluate, and use information.  Technology Integration Coaches support the preparation of students as global citizens for an ever-changing world.”

School officially begins today for all teachers at Linn-Mar.  However, since August 6th,  our TICS-(Technology Integration Coaches) have been hard at work helping our teacher  leader staff learn how to navigate Office 365, set-up Surface pro tablets for the Teaching  and Learning Staff.  Our 42 new hires, and many veteran classroom teachers have also hit  the pavement early to begin work before students arrive. As always when many people are back at work, technology and network issues arise.  Our TICS have helped trouble shoot printing issues as well as walked teachers through  the transition from MACs to PCs.

Our Technology Coaches are helping to meet the basic needs of staff as they learn to embrace technology.  Once those needs are met, they will help coach staff in ways to utilize technology within teachers’ specific curricular area.

Launching Leadership at Linn-Mar

Linn-Mar Community Schools in Marion, Iowa is one of 39 school districts in the state to receive the Teacher Leadership and Compensation Grant.  It will provide $2.1 million in funding to implement Teacher Leadership Roles for 25% of our teaching staff.  This would equate to 116 positions.  At Linn-Mar we are unique in the fact that our staff has always been willing to step up to the plate.  With more than 200 applicants vying for these roles, we have currently created and filled 150 roles for teachers.  So in reality we have achieved finding leadership roles for 32% of our teaching staff.   Remarkable!

20 of these positions are full time release out of the classroom and the rest are in classroom positions.  Those in classroom positions will be served by teachers who remain teaching full time but use planning, and some re-lease time to  influence curriculum, instruction, PLC meetings, building initiatives and committees such as PBIS, MTSS, and technology.

Our instructional strategists, coaches, and in-classroom leaders will have the opportunity to influence teaching and performance in a way we have never embraced before.  We look forward to seeing our plan unfold and develop.