This month our featured teacher is Maisa Lebbie! Ms. Lebbie teaches 8th Grade US History at Deady Middle School.
One practice that makes Ms. Lebbie such an effective teacher is providing ample opportunities for discussions around content taught in class. Ms. Lebbie uses QSSSA to provide structure for these academic conversations (more on that strategy here). Ms. Lebbie says, "providing sentence stems to my students gives them the tools they need to have conversations that are structured and purposeful. These structured conversations create a way for students to communicate clearly and accurately, which builds confidence to have future conversations in and out of the classroom, especially for ELL students."
When in her class, I had the opportunity to sit down with a small group of her students. When I asked them if they liked US History, the response was a resounding, "yes!" I prompted them to elaborate, and one student told me it was simply Ms. Lebbie's "creativity." Another said, "It's not just her teaching up there all the time... we get to work on fun projects!"
The students may see the class work as fun, but it is rigorous, too. Today, students analyzed the Northern States' perspective on slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War, and then wrote an editorial on the topic for an abolitionist newspaper (using the notes they created in their interactive notebooks.)
One practice that makes Ms. Lebbie such an effective teacher is providing ample opportunities for discussions around content taught in class. Ms. Lebbie uses QSSSA to provide structure for these academic conversations (more on that strategy here). Ms. Lebbie says, "providing sentence stems to my students gives them the tools they need to have conversations that are structured and purposeful. These structured conversations create a way for students to communicate clearly and accurately, which builds confidence to have future conversations in and out of the classroom, especially for ELL students."
When in her class, I had the opportunity to sit down with a small group of her students. When I asked them if they liked US History, the response was a resounding, "yes!" I prompted them to elaborate, and one student told me it was simply Ms. Lebbie's "creativity." Another said, "It's not just her teaching up there all the time... we get to work on fun projects!"
The students may see the class work as fun, but it is rigorous, too. Today, students analyzed the Northern States' perspective on slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War, and then wrote an editorial on the topic for an abolitionist newspaper (using the notes they created in their interactive notebooks.)
Ms. Lebbie also promotes high expectations for her students (IP Rubric I-7), which is clear from the moment you step foot in her classroom. Pictured to the left are the words the students recite at the beginning of every class period. Ms. Lebbie encourages the "work hard, get smart" attitude by posting class data and rewarding effort and hard work.
Thank you Ms. Lebbie for your hard work and commitment to your students!