misscalcul8

Complain Less, Learn More

2012-01-19T10:58:00.001-06:00

We just finished perpendicular bisectors and I found an activity in my book. It involved a map, three fire stations, and a house. Students had to fold and cut and such to form the perpendicular bisectors and to decide which fire station was the closest to the house.

I had given them very detailed instructions (see here) but I was fully expecting to hear the complaining, whining, and annoying comments such as "I quit, I don't know what we're doing, I don't even know what you're talking about, What do we do now, I don't know what to do next".

I just prefaced the activity with a little speech about how I would not be responding to any of those comments. I told them if they needed help, I would be glad to help them but they could only ask me a specific question, no whining allowed.

And...it worked. Students were cutting, drawing, folding, but most importantly, following directions. The classroom environment was much more peaceful and I realized yet another reason why that class drains me. The negative energy is just too exhausting. I should have made this rule from the very beginning. It's such an obvious thing to say but it's just another example of how I fail to communicate my expectations, and end up upset when they are not met.

I also modified a perpendicular activity from @crstn85. My plan was that after doing the first activity, they would know how to do the second activity with less instruction. We didn't get to it but I really like the idea of measuring and converting between centimeters and miles. Maybe I will use that one instead next year.

Baby steps.

Contingency Contract

2012-01-16T11:00:00.001-06:00

On our midterm exam for our methods grad class, one of our questions asked us to design a contingency contract. You may have heard of these in college or in the business world. Basically, they are behavior contracts.

You list the requirements. Student agrees to the requirements they will do. You spell out the reward/privilege/grade/outcome. Discuss. Agree. Sign.

I'm pretty sure I experienced some of these during college. The instructor would list the assignments for the semester, how many points each one was worth, and then how many points needed to get an A, B, C, etc. Ironically, I don't remember any discussion...

At the time that I was designing mine, I couldn't figure out how to make it work for assignments. I guess it's easier in college when you meet less than daily and require bigger assignments. But there's no way I want to list all of the homework assignments, quizzes, and tests for an entire semester. So instead, I wrote mine based on how to earn daily participation points. I currently don't do this. Actually, I've never given participation points. But since classroom management is my downfall, this might be a good way to clearly spell out my expectations and not feel bad for enforcing the consequences.

I wasn't too familiar with the idea before this assignment so I thought I'd share my contigency contract with you. Maybe you don't need it but you could always use it as a template.

Choice Board

2012-01-16T00:46:00.004-06:00

Earlier in the semester in our methods grad course, we had an assignment to create a choice board for our content area. We had recently discussed diversity and multiple intelligences and this assignment was a type of assessment over those topics.

A choice board is a visual display of optional products the students can complete in order for you to assess their learning. The products that are displayed on the choice board represent a variety of multiple intelligences.

There are two ways to design the board. (1) All products assess the same standard / content, and students choose one to complete. (2) Product options assess different standards / content, and students choose more than one to complete (i.e., one from each standard).

I chose the first option because it was the easiest.

Here were our instructions:

Create a Choice Board relating to content you teach in your class.
Choice Boards must be visually appealing – easy to read, neat, larger than a piece of paper (poster board or display board would work well.
If assessment relates to one standard / content, you must have at least five product options; If multiple product options are displayed related to multiple standards / content, you must have at least three product options per standard.
Each product option relating to the same standard must address a different multiple intelligence.
Any information students need to complete the products needs to be though through and included either on the Choice Board, or as a supplemental handout (which could be laid by the board).
You will bring the finished Choice Board to class and explain the standard(s) and choices with your classmates.

At the time of the assignment I had just finished teaching parallel lines and transversals. My first year of teaching I had found an assignment where students had to draw their own city and place specific locations (library, school, park, etc) at specific angle pairs (corresponding to, at alternate interiors, etc). I took that idea and branched out from there to create product descriptions for other multiple intelligences.

The high school teachers decided actual poster/display board was a little elementary for us so I decided to make a clickable PowerPoint.

Here are the seven slides in case you just want to see. Ok, because I want you to look.

Here is the link if you want to use it.

If you do use it, please come back and share what happened!

Lee Jenkins

2012-01-14T14:45:00.000-06:00

We had a teacher's institute with Lee Jenkins, From L to J Consulting. It was really good and I don't even know how to blog about all of it yet so I'm just going to post some good quotes for now.

The best way to do more in less time is to build a team.

Keep digging until you find the root cause.

The number one requirement of leaders is to create more leaders.

Data requires trends, not one or two data points.

Management means meeting individual needs; leadership means meeting common needs of the individual's.

A poorly designed skeleton cannot hold anything.

Ask why at least five times until you find out why.

Students are held accountable for short term memory but we're held accountable for their long term memory.

In this country, we don't know the difference between grade inflation and success.

The job of leaders is to remove barriers.

Great leaders offer hope and help. Poor leaders offer hoops and hype.

If barriers aren't removed, people give up or move on.

Kids who don't understand math are not seeing the pattern. Without the pattern, they just try to memorize rules.

It is not the responsibility of educators to motivate students but to determine what is causing them to lose their motivation and stop such practices.

Fair is every kid meeting the same standard, but not always the same method.

Better systems equal better results.

Celebrate does not mean reward.

People need a point for there head and a picture for their heart.

Geometry Sort

2012-01-13T02:08:00.000-06:00

I personally love sorting. There is just something about putting things where they belong. Neatly.

But it's also a great teaching tool. I have to give all credit to my instructional coach because I never would have thought of this on my own.

I'm supposed to be teaching a unit on triangles: isosceles triangle theorem, triangle sum, inequality, altitude, median, midsegment, and bisectors. I haven't taught all of them before so I didn't have much to go on. I searched all my usual places and couldn't find much either.

As luck would have it, I happened on this pdf and on page 4 and a lesson was born.

I copied the cards on hot pink card stock, cut them out, and put them in an envelope. Students worked together in pairs, one envelope per pair.

The only instruction I gave them was to sort them into piles. I was extremely unhelpful and would not answer any questions except to say "Do whatever you think." I gave them about three minutes, walking around to see and hear what they were thinking.

Then I asked them how many piles they had. They answered with 3, 4, or 5. I told them they should have exactly 5 piles. So they sifted through their piles and resorted.

Again, I'm offering no assistance.

Next I passed out their notes for the day. At the top there were 5 empty boxes with labels. I asked them to match their piles to the labels and place them in each box.

Again, not a word.

I then held up one card to the doc camera and asked what they labeled it. We went through each of the piles and from the feedback I was getting, it seemed that every group got them right.

We had good discussion about how they sorted, why they picked that label, what did the markings mean, how was each pile different, and so on. I had them move the piles and then draw the diagram into each box. Collect the envelopes, and continue on with our notes.

I love this because it was a lot more meaningful than me saying, "This is a median. Draw it." It always takes more time than you would expect but the students are so engaged. It's a low risk, non threatening way to get every student involved, prompt good discussions, and definitely kick up the higher order thinking. Anyone can sort. From there, you can take the activity anywhere you want to go.

Every time I do a sorting activity, I just smile so big inside because the kids think they are getting away with not doing math, without noticing that I'm the one getting away with not doing math.

I think this is a strategy I need to hit on more often because it helps me remember why I chose to teach math in the first place and lowers my frustration with the whole when will we ever use this issue.

Plus a little hot pink never hurt anybody.

Feedback Journal Week #2

2012-01-10T22:42:00.003-06:00

I started class by asking the students to pretend they were the teacher and to give each journal example an A, B, C, D. When they agreed on an answer, I asked them to tell me what improvements were needed in order to get an A.

The examples were all written and made up by me but in every class they tried to pick which student the writing belonged to. Some students even admitted to writing them which was ironic and hilarious.

I showed them the medium one, then the terrible one, then the excellent one.

I was surprised at how many graded the excellent one a C for writing too much. Oh no, not a complete sentence! Or some said an A because the writing was pretty but too much to read. Wow. For the majority though, they graded them B, D, A. I asked them what pushed the B to an A and eventually got to 'restating the question in their answer'.

I made a list of qualities on the board as they talked and they named everything I wanted them to name.

Then I delivered the blow: "Now that I know you can point all of these things out and now that you know what an excellent journal response looks like, this is what I expect from you". There were a few groans but only one person saw where I was going before I got there. The trade off was that I would no longer make them write out the question as long as they restated the question in their answer.

Then they got their journals and first took the time to respond to my comments or questions from last week. I put up the new journal prompt and we talked about how their response should start.

I've read 20 out of 44 and so far every one has restated the question. The answers have still been very short, one to two sentences but we are making progress. I thought that everyone would love to tell me what they think but I guess when it's combined with such a chore as writing, the novelty wears off. I'm hoping that by commenting and being consistent that I will begin to draw them out.

One student asked me why don't I ask them questions to get to know them better. The look of vulnerability made me want to cry. I would love to do that but I don't know how to do that on an academic level and not have it lead into places I don't necessarily want to travel. We recently had an assembly with Erin Gruwell, the teacher of the Freedom Writers, and that really sparked my interest in the journals. Her message is to 'write what needs to be written' but I'm not ready to go there. Yet.

I have gotten some interesting responses to the journal prompt so far. The majority said they are responsible, the minority said both, and one person said it is the teacher's job to entertain and keep the students awake or 9 times out of 10 the student would not learn.

I'm satisfied with the progress we're making right now.

Still making my heart happy.

Along with my newly organized bookshelves of course.

Exit Slips

2012-01-08T21:13:00.002-06:00

I mentioned before that I was going to try @approx_normal's index card idea for bell ringers and exit slip. And I have been trying but I don't know how successful I've been.

First of all, I waste paper. Before, I made full page bell ringers for every student. My new ones are index card size with four per page. But I keep forgetting that and printing 24 copies when I should only make 6. Plus, on Friday, some of the pages were missing the question or the diagram and some were perfectly fine. And I always cut them crooked and mess them up. So I just made a big mess. I need left-handed scissors!

Second, I can't find the right questions to ask for the exit slip. The bell ringer is easy- either review something old or intro something new. I've been doing a good job of stopping and giving students time to complete the exit slip although it's still hard to judge how much time is needed. Sometimes I give too much and sometimes not enough. I'm dealing with the issue of two types of students: 1. The students who comes right into class and attempts to do the bell ringer and the exit slip. 2. The student who does the bell ringer side only and turns it in.

Third, I don't know what the heck to do with them. So far I've asked them more than one question so I couldn't really group them for data purposes because they would get different parts right or wrong and not the whole thing. I tried to sort them by which smiley face they picked but even then, what do I do next? I just have no idea what to do with data. You'd think this would come naturally to a math teacher...

Here are some of the exit slip questions I tried and the answers I got.

Write everything you know about midsegments.

A lot!
More than can fit in this space
EVERYTHING
The middle line of a triangle.
The middle of a line.
Most of them were blank

Write a one sentence summary of today's lesson.

It was easy.
Ok I guess.
HARD!
It was fine.

Why is this method better?

It's quicker.
IDK.
Shorter.

Which form is the easiest to graph and why?

This one because it's the one I know how to do.
This one because I forgot the other ones.
Vertex form.

What was the ‘main idea’ of today’s lesson?

IDK
To find solutions.
How many solutions a system has.

So obviously we need to discuss writing complete sentences and answering the question. Of course I'm not taking a grade on this but I just can't them to grasp the importance of actually doing it. I explained that I am using these to tell me how many people understood the lesson so that I can go over it again or move on. But still, a lot of blanks. Almost everyone will do the bell ringer but not the exit slip and I don't know why. I don't pass out homework until after they turn it in so it's not that they are trying to get it done. I have to assume that they don't know the answer to the question and then where does that leave me?

I have not been happy with the results because I haven't felt like I got any actual results.

This week I am trying:

Restate the goal of today's lesson in your own words. (We have an 'I can' statement at the beginning of their notes. Well, sometimes we do. Working on that.)

Did you understand today's lesson? Smiley Straight Face Frown

What math did you learn today? (Thanks to @crstn85)

If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what else to try. I wanted the bell ringer to be a problem and the exit slip more of a reflection written in words but I may have to do a bit of both.

I'm trying.

How Many Solutions?

2012-01-08T19:48:00.001-06:00

Before Christmas Break I started solving systems of substitution. We had just finished finding solutions of systems and solving systems by graphing. I introduced substitution by doing index card substitution. The students dutifully followed along but I don't think they had any idea what was going on. I was absent the next two days and left them a worksheet with two examples worked out and instructions for the two students who seemed to understand to help everyone. I came back and it was our School Spirit Assembly. The next week we studied and took finals. Fast forward to this week, starting back to school. Time to pick up where we left off.

I started on Monday with what I thought was a really great lesson. I made a graphic organizer type thing with arrows and each box had instructions. I did this because in the past, I realized my work on the board was so messy and scattered that theirs probably looked the same. They were all over the place. I couldn't even figure out what the common errors were because so many people were doing weird things. I was frustrated because they were so needy- expecting me to spoon feed them every little direction. They would just sit there, staring into the distance. When I asked what there question was, it was "I don't know where to start." It was hard for me to not be sarcastic when pointing out, "How about step 1?" But let's chalk that up to first day back.

Second day. We go over the homework and a number of students decided to not even try. So frustrating. I tried to do a 'speed dating' activity so that they could practice solving. By the time we did the warm up and went over their homework, they didn't even get their own problem done that they were supposed to be the expert on. And I'm not kidding. Three out of ten students got their problem finished so they just traded cards with each other and worked the new problem.

Day three. Starting to feel nervous at the lack of understanding. We move on, kind of, to finding how many solutions a system has. I love this lesson. I did it last year and my student's hearing impaired teacher complimented me on how well I break things down and attach it to a visual. I made some minor tweaks and did it again this year. I like to introduce how to solve systems first so that it's easier to understand why we are finding solutions and why there can be more than one.

Success. I really felt like my students were catching on. The next day almost everyone did their homework and said it was either easy or medium. No one said it was hard! I had them get up and check their answers and everyone did well. So proud!

I don't know if the students just got better as the week went on or if my little pep talk about putting forth effort inspired them or if this lesson just really ties it together in their minds, but I ended the week on a positive note and feeling positive about their understanding. This week it's on to word problems and elimination.

Feedback Journal Week #1

2012-01-02T20:27:00.001-06:00

I started class with this slide:

It was very interesting to just see how many could follow directions.

No one really batted an eye about doing this, just about having to write out the question. I realized that will be a great incentive to restating the question in their first sentence. If I can train them to do that, then they won't have to write out the question.

One student did say, "Oh man, she's taking us back to English!" (Same kid who didn't understand our unit on logic either)

I've split it up so that I read 9 tonight, 10 tomorrow, 12 Wednesday, and 12 Thursday.

So far I've just written a sentence or two in response, but these questions are pretty straightforward. I then made an empty box where I would like them to answer.

I think what I am most excited about is planning the future questions to come. I'd like to lead them to the thought that their hard work and effort make a bigger difference on their grade than natural ability.

These are the questions I'm thinking of for the coming weeks:

Who is responsible for making sure you learn: you or the teacher?
Should homework be required? Why or why not?
If homework was not graded in any class, would you still do it? Why or why not?
How do you know when you're learned something really well?

I'm hoping this will lead to, if you are responsible for your learning and homework matters, shouldn't you do it no matter what?

That's as far as I've really thought it out.

I love learning about learning and I would really like to just have these deep conversations about teaching and learning with them. This is about the closest I think I can get. For now. I'm hoping to slowly increase the amount of writing in our notes and homework as well to lead them to the thought that writing improves their thinking and ability to do math.

I did have some students who just answered with a yes or no. Most of them wrote sentences but I've only seen one so far who has restated the question. I plan to model a good, decent, and bad example next week and have them brainstorm what makes a good answer.

I'm a bit worried that some students just won't do it. But I'm hoping that they will think of it like talking about themselves, and everybody loves doing that. If they continue to write one word answers or not respond at all, I hope to guilt trip them by writing comments like "I expect more from you" or "I respect your opinion enough to ask for it, could you please respect me enough to answer?" I don't think I want to put a grade on this so I hope that I don't end up in that position. Should I give a participation/homework grade?

Am I headed in the right direction?

I hope so...it's such a 'neat' idea.

New Year Rezzies

2012-01-01T00:01:00.004-06:00

What I Would Like To Happen:

Get skinnier
Get prettier
Get married
Get rich
Get smarter

What Will Happen:

I will turn 26 (I prefer even numbers)
I will end my third year teaching and start my fourth
I will pay off my third and final credit card
~~I will meet Erin Gruwell~~
I will be halfway through grad school

What Might Happen:

I might blog once a week instead of going blog crazy in December 2012.
I might remember that no one is a finished product and have more patience.
I might plan for success instead of planning to try every new idea ever.
I might write more positive letters home to parents.
I might buy a house.

Student Feedback Journal

2011-12-29T16:54:00.000-06:00

I want to try something new. I'm not sure what the outcome will be or what it should look like, so I will attempt to flesh it out here.

First I am in love with this easy-to-manage idea for warm ups and exit slips from @approx_normal. So I plan on trying that.

But I'm thinking of incorporating a student feedback journal into that warm-up time once a week.

I'm imagining a journal where students self-reflect on their learning behaviors throughout the week and then I comment back with feedback- strategies to try, habits I notice, things to avoid, common mistakes, etc. At this point, I'm leaning strictly toward self-reflection, not mathematical work. The index cards will give me the feedback I need. I'd like this journal to give them the feedback they need.

I'm thinking I would do that on Mondays and that would give me the rest of the week and the weekend to respond to each student.

So on our first Monday back, I'm thinking about asking them to reflect on the final exam. I like the questions from crstn85's Test Correction's post:

How did you study for this test?
Did you feel prepared before you took the test?
Did you feel you were doing well while you were taking the test?
Are you happy with the grade you earned?

I'm imagining I will get responses like:
"You can't study for a math test."
"Why study when you let us use index cards?"
"My grade sucks."
"I thought I would do good until I got to #1."
"This test was nothing like what we do in class."

I'm imagining I will respond like this:
"I need to teach you how to study for a math test."
"Index cards are a reminder, but they can't remind you if you never learned in the first place. How could we use index cards better?"
"What could you do next time to improve your grade?"
"What made you feel confident before the test? What made you lose confidence?"
"If this doesn't look like what we did in class, what do we need to change?"

And so will begin a lovely give and take of communication. Right? Yeah, right.

I think the first time I will let them write freely. The second time, I hope to help them clean up their writing a bit. I plan to do this by answering the same questions they are answering, at the same time, from a teacher's perspective. Then the next week, I will put mine on the doc camera and have them compare their responses to mine. Hopefully, they will point out things like writing complete sentences, using capital letters and appropriate grammar, restating the question, not using text speak, etc. Then I can give feedback on their responses as well as to how their responses are written.

I really want the purpose of these journals to be twofold: 1. For them to self-reflect on their habits so that I can hold them accountable and eventually they can hold themselves accountable. 2. To give myself an easy opportunity to give attention and feedback to EVERY student.

Obviously, self-reflection is a big part of why we tweet and blog. Obviously, I don't need to lecture you on the merits of self-reflection, study habits, and writing. Eventually, I'd like this to lead to math portfolios. But first, I need to spend more time researching that idea, deciding what I want those to be, and ultimately, creating one myself. My fairy godteachers @druinok and @approx_normal helped me to realize that I need to go through the experience myself before putting my students through that experience. It needs to be meaningful and have purpose. I also have a tendency to rush in to things, give up too quickly, and try to take on the world all at once. See, self-reflection + teacher feedback = better behavior.

If you noticed, I did a lot of 'imagining' and 'thinking' in this post. And now here's your chance to bring me back to reality.

Comment below.

10 Ways to Compare and Contrast

2011-12-27T17:36:00.001-06:00

So I am totally copying and pasting this entire article from another site. I really like it and want to remember it and so this is the easiest way to find it. Who's blog am I more obsessed about that my own? Exactly.

Comparing and contrasting is a higher level thinking skill important across the curriculum. We compare and contrast characters in a story, word choice in writing, equations in math (think < > =, not to mention word problems ), different hypothesis in science, how holidays are celebrated in different cultures, etc. That is probably why comparing and contrasting shows up multiple times in the Common Core Standards. Here are some ideas for comparing and contrasting in your class.

Venn Diagrams. In addition to using them on paper, you can make big ones on the floor with hula hoops and have kids use labeled index cards or Post Its to fill in the variables.
Analogies are great because you can use different criteria and then talk about which criteria was used. For example the analogy: Mountain: Hill : : River : Stream is defined by size while: December : Christmas : : February : Valentine's Day is defined by time. Here is a free Analogy Worksheet.
Similes and Metaphors Like Analogies, students can identify what the criteria is for the comparison. Similes may be easier for younger students because the words "like" and "as" pretty much tell you what the criteria is, while you often have to work a little harder with a metaphor.
Would You Rather Questions present a forced choice between two more or less equal options, which can lead to some terrific discussions. Read more about using Would You Rather Questions with your students here.
Class Polls, Bar Graphs, and Glyphs Good way compare and contrast student's experiences, opinions, traits etc.
Foldables can be used in so many ways for comparing and contrasting! Here are instructions on how to make some of the most common foldables.
Rating and Ranking There are so many ways to use this. Students can use numbers to rank brainstormed ideas. They can use a rating scale to evaluate their own work, peer presentations, the usefulness of a particular lesson etc.
Comparisons over Time Everyone loves to see improvement. Having students complete a variety of tasks at the start of the year and then doing the same ones at the end is a wonderful way to compare then and now. Do this on a smaller scale with a pretest and post test for any unit of study.
T Charts Simple, basic, effective and applicable to so many things. You can put a variable on each side of the chart (eg "Conductor" and "Insulator") or you could put the words "Same" and "Different" on each side and put a the things to be compared at the top (eg: "Mammals" and "Reptiles").
Written Essay No one should leave school without being able to write a solid, well-organized compare and contrast essay, complete with examples from life or literature. They will need these skills for the essay portion of the SAT.

Do you have a tool that has been particularly valuable? Please share!

Ch 3 Literacy Strategies for Improving Mathematics Instruction

2011-12-27T00:44:00.002-06:00

I do these more for myself than anyone else, but here, I am quoting the most useful parts of this ASCD book (click links to read online for free). Basically, I'm editing out the boring. You're welcome.

I'm also just doing a couple of chapters at a time because it's kind of dry and I never know how much time I will have to read. So consider it a series if you like.

Literacy Strategies for Improving Mathematics Instruction

Joan M. Kenney

Chapter 3. Writing in the Mathematics Classroom

So the question becomes: If students have been taught the material and haven't learned or retained it, what can we as professionals do to change the scenario?

Writing [in this way] slows down and focuses my thinking; I am able to hear each word in my head and see it on paper. It is like a mindful meditation during which I shut out the rest of the world and am totally engaged in the process.

Another benefit of writing is that it allow the page to become a holding place for our thoughts until we can build upon them. We can revisit our written thoughts as often as needed and thus revise our thinking. Although I start with an overall plan when I write, I do not know where the ideas and words will take me until the process of writing drags them out of me- much as many artists do not know where a picture is going until the paint touches the canvas.

Mathematics is beginning to be viewed less as a series of arithmetic calculations than as "the science of order, patterns, structure, and logical relationships" (Devlin, 2000).

As Zinsser stresses in his book Writing to Learn (1989), it is important that all students be involved in the mathematics classroom. Twenty-five students cannot all speak at the same

time, but they can all write at the same time, and writing encourages them to become engaged in their learning.

Written explanations in mathematics are about what is being done and why it works. The type of thinking involved in justifying a strategy or explaining an answer is quite different from that needed to merely solve an equation. The process of writing about a mathematics problems will itself often lead to a solution.

Once students have done some initial writing about a problem, they can share their strategies in small groups. In attempting to solve the problem, the students will have additional opportunities for writing.

If students begin the problem on their own, they are starting from their own mathematical way of thinking. Bringing their written solutions to the small group helps students investigate mathematics more deeply.

Students need to untangle what is in their own minds first, get it on paper, and then share their thinking with others. (Love this statement with all my heart!) This ensures that there will be a range of responses to each question.

To quote Stigler and Hiebert (1999):

When this type of learning experience is used, the range of individual differences will be revealed. Individual differences are beneficial for the class because they produce a wide range of ideas and solution methods that provide the material for students' discussion and reflection. The variety of alternative methods allows students to compare them and construct connections among them. It is believed that all students benefit from the variety of ideas generated by their peers. (p. 94)

In order for mathematics writing to be effective, the following guidelines must be observed:

The problem must be appropriate for the students who are going to be writing about it.
The students must know how to use blocks, diagrams, pictures, or grids to work out their solutions before writing about them.
The students must have confidence in their ability to respond to the problem as individuals. They must think of themselves as successful mathematics learners.
The students must feel comfortable sharing their answers without fear of being ridiculed. This means that the teacher and other students have to accept all responses as worthy of discussion.
The problem must be discussed with the whole class, and all strategies must be reported.

Other writing-to-learn strategies include journal keeping, creating problems similar to the one being solved, and directed expository writing.

In other words, teachers should use writing to engage students in mathematics thinking at the outset of a lesson and continue asking them to put their thinking in writing throughout the lesson to refine their thinking.

As the NCTM (2000) notes,

...Allowing students to grapple with their ideas and develop their own informal means of expressing them can be an effective way to foster engagement and ownership. (p. 63)

By recording their thinking about mathematics problems, students help explain the solutions- and the process of arriving at a solutions helps to develop the solution. Writing clarifies what it is the problems are asking. In order to justify their solutions, student writers are forced to think through, and find the meaning in, their responses.

Student writing helps teachers determine the type of learning that is occurring, informs them as to whether or not the students understand the lesson objectives, and reveals the level of understanding behind the students' algorithmic computations.

When Will We Ever Use This?

2011-12-26T22:24:00.004-06:00

If you read my post IDK How to Learn This, you probably realized that I'm behind in the game as always. If you didn't read it, here's a summary: I don't know how math relates to real life.

After catching up on seven months of unread blogs, I find that Dan Meyer has already blogged about this. In depth. Multiple times.

In a way better visual of what I'm feeling, he posts about the popular infographic poster and why it never works.

In his Public Relations post, I loved this featured comment from Kathy Sierra:

"But another approach — since you used the word “enjoy” — is to simply consider math as an opportunity for puzzle-solving in interesting ways. After all, there is virtually NOTHING “personally relevant” in many of the games and pursuits people find so compelling, like, for example, Sudoku. Even chess. Or Angry Birds. Whether math is useful/relevant RIGHT NOW is a worthy and challenging goal."

And to quote an article he linked to by Samuel Otten:

"I too believe in the value of building on students’ experiences, but rather than look for experience in the form of mathematical content appearing in their everyday lives, I look for experience in the form of mathematical thought processes—such as classifying, identifying patterns, and generalizing—and, most important, a desire to solve problems and make sense of the world."

I then took to Twitter with my complaints and lonely fit of rage. No one's responses were satisfying my need for a 'real-life' answer and so I sullenly accepted their responses with a doubtful 'I guess'. And then...IN SWOOPS...the calming voice of reason, aka @jackieb. She questioned me on why I first chose to teach math.

The short answer is that everything else seemed boring. The long answer is that my best subject was English but I couldn't bear the idea of teaching grammar and listening to students stuttering through reading aloud for the remainder of my days. I suck at science and history. Art was fun but I didn't have much skill to back it up. So that left me with math. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I like organizing and ordering things, figuring out puzzles, observing patterns, solving problems, and in general, making things work better. Plus, math is interactive; I would always be doing something.

When I said this to Jackie (in <140 characters) she calmly responded with:

Those sound like great "likes" for your students to like too. They may never "use" Alg2, but they'll use problem solving. Can you try to develop that sense of wanting to try to figure things out in your students?

Oh, Jackie. You make it all sound so simple.

Something else she said struck a chord with me after my post on raising expectations:

I can't always relate things to real life. In precalc I tell them that I don't know if they'll ever use this, but that I don't know what they'll be doing in 10 years. I then tell them I don't want them to not have choices open to them because they can't do math. Then we talk about the value of learning just for the sake of learning, the challenge of being able to solve tough problems,task perseverance, ... , then they get tired of me talking so much, so we get back to solving problems.

How can I expect my students to be better if I don't give them the tools to do it with? I am subconsciously (or consciously I suppose) saying, "You won't ever need these skills because I don't believe you can ever become an engineer, mathematician, programmer, etc." I'm doing the exact opposite of what I intend. Not that that's ever happened to you of course.

So now I am thinking...how can I lead my content, my class, my lessons around the fact that everyone loves a puzzle/pattern/mystery? How can I lead with what I enjoy so that my joy spills over into my students and their thinking and their actions?

Is there a pattern (very punny!) I can create so that our daily math experiences revolve around figuring out a pattern, solving a problem, mastering a puzzle?

Can I train students to think of life in terms of:

What do I know?
What pattern do I see?
What do I predict happens next?
How will changing the pattern affect the ending?
Can I change the pattern to create a different ending?
What patterns can I create to achieve the ending I want?

Hey, that kind of sounds like we're reading a story. Or avoiding bad relationships. Or being a better friend. Or breaking a bad habit.

And that sounds a lot more like real life than using systems of equations to decide which cell phone plan is better.

That's a puzzle I can solve.

Here is a start.

Ch 1-2 Literacy Strategies for Improving Mathematics Instruction

2011-12-26T17:23:00.001-06:00

Literacy Strategies for Improving Mathematics Instruction

Joan M. Kenney

Chapter 1: Mathematics as Language

*An ESL student thought of 'whole' numbers as 'hole' numbers, as in how many holes a number add. He thought 6 and 10 were odd numbers because they each only have one hole. He didn't know if 3 was even or odd because it could be considered as having two holes or two half holes which would make one whole hole. He knew the definition of even or odd but misunderstood 'whole'.

Younger students can be quit mystified by the fact that changing the orientation of a symbol- for example, an equal sign (=) from horizontal to vertical- can completely change its meaning.

Vocabulary can be confusing because the words mean different things in mathematics and nonmathematics contexts, because two diferent words sound the same, or because more than one word is used to describe the same concept.

Symbols may be confusing either because they look alike (e.g., the division ad square root symbols) or because different representations may be used to describe the same process.

Graphic representations may be confusing because of formatting variations or because the graphics are not consistently read in the same decision.

Chapter 2: Reading in the Mathematics Classroom

One strategy we arrived at is for teachers to model their thinking out loud as they read and figure out what a problem is asking them to do. Other strategies include dialoguing with students about any difficulties they may have in understanding a problem and asking different students to share their understanding.

James Bullock (1994) defines mathematics as a form of language invented by humans to discuss abstract concepts of numbers and space.

The meaning that readers draw will depend largely on their prior knowledge of the information and on the kinds of thinking they do after they read the text (Draper, 2002): Can they synthesize the information? Can they decide what information is important? Can they draw inferences from what they've read?

In English there are many small words, such as pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions, that make a big difference in student understanding of mathematics problems. For example:

The words of and off cause a lot of confusion in solving percentage problems, as the percent of something is quite distinct from the percent off something.
The word a can mean “any” in mathematics. When asking students to “show that a number divisible by 6 is even,” we aren't asking for a specific example, but for the students to show that all numbers divisible by 6 have to be even.
When we take the area “of” a triangle, we mean what the students think of as “inside” the triangle.
The square (second power) “of” the hypotenuse gives the same numerical value as the area of the square that can be constructed “on” the hypotenuse.

In her book Yellow Brick Roads (2003), Janet Allen suggests that teachers need to ask themselves the following critical questions about a text:

What is the major concept?
How can I help students connect this concept to their lives?
Are there key concepts or specialized vocabulary that needs to be introduced because students could not get meaning from the context?
How could we use the pictures, charts, and graphs to predict or anticipate content?
What supplemental materials do I need to provide to support reading?

If we are really trying to help students read and understand for themselves, we must ask them questions instead of explicitly telling them what the text means: “What information do you have that might help you answer this question?” “Does the fact that this is a ‘follow-up’ help us to decipher the question?”

As the reading progresses, the teacher should ask process questions that she wants the students to ask themselves in the future. They may be asked to predict what the reading will be about simply by reading the title of the piece (if there is one, such as a graph or story problem). Next the students should make two columns on a piece of paper, one headed “What I Predict” and the other headed “What I Know.” Once the students have silently read each section of the piece, they should fill out each column accordingly. At this point, the teacher should ask students questions such as the following:

What would you be doing in that situation?
Does this make sense?
What does the picture/graph/chart tell you?
How does the title connect to what we're reading?
Why are these words in capital letters?
Why is there extra white space here?
What does that word mean in this context?

Figure 2.4 shows a simple example of a possible guided reading for a lesson from an algebra text. The text would be unveiled one paragraph (or equation) at a time rather than given to the students as one continuous passage.

Figure 2.4. Guided Reading Example

TEXT	POSSIBLE QUESTIONS
Solving Systems Using Substitution	1. What does the title tell you?
Problem
From a car wash, a service club made $109 that was divided between the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts. There were twice as many girls as boys, so the decision was made to give the girls twice as much money. How much did each group receive?	2. Before you read further, how would you translate this story problem into equations?
Solution
Translate each condition into an equation. Suppose the Boy Scouts receive B dollars and the Girl Scouts receive G dollars. We number the equations in the system for reference.	3. What do they mean here by “condition”?
The sum of the amounts is $109. (1) B + G = 109 Girls get twice as much as boys. (2) G = 2B	4. Did you come up with two equations in answer to question 2 above? Are the equations here the same as yours? If not, how are they different? Can you see a way to substitute?
Since G = 2B in equation (2), you can substitute 2B for G in equation (1).
B + 2B = 109 3B = 109 B = 36 1/3	5. How did they arrive at this equation? 6. Do you see how it follows? 7. Does it make sense? How did they get this?
To find G, substitute 36 1/3 for B in either equation. We use equation (2).	8. Do this, then we'll read the next part.
G = 2B = 2 × 36 1/3 = 72 2/3
So the solution is (B, G) = (36 1/3, 72 2/3). The Boy Scouts will receive $36.33, and the Girl Scouts will get $72.67.	9. Did you get the same result?
Check
Are both conditions satisfied?	10. What conditions do they mean here?
Will the groups receive a total of $109? Yes, $36.33 + $72.67 = $109. Will the boys get twice as much as the girls? Yes, it is as close as possible.	11. How would you show this? Where did they get this equation?
Note: Text in the left column above is adapted from University of Chicago School Mathematics Project: Algebra (p. 536), by J. McConnell et al., 1990, Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman.

Students are helped not by having their reading and interpreting done for them, but rather by being asked questions when they don't understand the text. The goal is for students to internalize these questions and use them on their own.

*Paraphrased

Factoring ax^2 + bx + c

2011-12-24T23:57:00.000-06:00

After reading Amy's post about airplane factoring, I decided to share the way I teach factoring.

I start out by teaching how to pull out the GCF, how to factor by grouping, then how to factor x^2 + bx + c using the diamond or the x-factor method. Those kind of have to be taught before this method. But it works.

I used the same problems she did so that you can compare the different methods.

The original problem

Multiply the first and last numbers. This answer, -12, is the top of the x.

The bottom of the x is the coefficient of x, in this case -1.

The sides of the x are two numbers that multiply to equal -12 and add to equal -1.

The students have a LOT of practice with the x-factor so they find that its -4 and 3.

Now they rewrite the problem, replacing the -x with a -4x + 3x.

Draw in our parentheses and now we have factoring by grouping, which students are also very familiar with.

Pull the GCF of each binomial out in front (in green).

Write what's left in parentheses (in pink).

Final answer: Write the common binomial first (in pink).

Write what's left behind. (in green).

Ta-da!

You've just been x-factored!

Another example for comparison.

Semester Review

2011-12-24T20:30:00.005-06:00

This is a review of my semester so far to help me focus on things I need to change and for me to evaluate our progress by the end of the year. So if you don't want to be bored to tears, go ahead and click around somewhere else.

Achievement Period- The best thing we've started doing is going down to the elementary once a week and working with the students one-on-one during their guided reading time. The teachers adore it, the kids get individual attention, I don't have to do anything, and my students feel like rock stars. I think it unifies them and boosts their confidence in their own ability. We were doing Silent Reading on Tuesdays which fell to the wayside but I will definitely be bringing that back. I need to devote one day to Career Cruising, even if I do think it's useless. That takes up three days a week. I'm planning on doing that on Fridays and having students print out a current event off the Internet so we can discuss that on Monday. Plus we talk about our weekends on Mondays so that will pretty much take up the whole period. That leaves me with Wednesday. I need to find some good character ed activities. Otherwise it will end up being study hall which means chaos.
ACT Test Prep- I started the year with the lowest of the lows and it was miserable. They desperately needed differentiated instruction that I just could not get. My management skills, as always, were terrible. The class is supposed to be a refresher but you can't refresh what they've never learned. Then we rotated and I got the high of the highs. It was lovely. I haven't taught top students in forever. They care about their scores, they try, they explain, they work together, they listen, they know things. They still don't bring pencils and they too roll their eyes and sigh heavily but hey, they're teenagers. It's like a natural reaction. Our routine is to practice problems, the next day take a short test, the third day go over test results and commonly missed problems, the next day is Silent Reading, and the last day is a study hall. My instructional coach had all the materials made from last year so I basically make copies and answer key and then let them loose. I have one more week with them and then we rotate to the middle or what we call bubble kids. The plan was that I would have them closest to the actual test date because math is our downfall and maybe we could push a few into the meets category. I will hate to lose these top students but anything is better than the lows. I felt terrible every day because I knew I was not doing them any justice whatsoever. Nobody needs a daily reminder of their failure.
Algebra II- My favorite class of all! I've gotten some really good resources from another teacher but having only 5 students takes the cake, I love, love, love it. The class runs itself and they do all of the work. I make the bell ringer with five problems and each student is responsible for doing one on the board and explaining to the class. We do a lot of board work or just them working together and I roll around in my rolly chair and help. They have totally blown me away with their reasoning and critical thinking and plus, they are really entertaining.
Plan- The last few weeks of the semester I started getting to school about 30 minutes earlier and getting all of my copies made for the day and my classroom setup. It started me off in a much better mood and also freed up my plan period to accomplish other things. I'm super proud of that.
Algebra I- I think Algebra II has stolen my love away from Algebra I. I think the class is just a weird mix and since they are freshman, I still think they haven't really got used to me. It's kind of a weird, stiff environment. My other students have had me now for two or three years in a row and so they are waaaay different around me. My pacing guide has really helped this year. Last year I got totally bogged down in linear equations for months and this year, I didn't. I'm proud of that. About half of the class stays with me, and the other half just...show up at random moments. lol I have an extra moody girl, a sneaky girl, a girl that works at a snail's pace, and a boy who thinks its cool to not try and fail. Those are the ones that I'm never sure what's going on in their minds. I have three who are really solid and basically keep the class going. It's a class of 10 which is a good number but...it's just not nearly as fun as it was. I don't even know what to say about it.
Algebra II- My other Algebra II class of 4 students. They aren't academically where my third hour class is and I have some problems with attendance, but the class is run the same way. It's great because these four students easily slipped through the cracks in previous years and now they cannot escape my individual attention. Cackle, cackle.
Geometry- The bane of my existence. It's strange because any thing I read or hear about, when I think about implementing it, it's in this class. My instructional coach bet me that this would end up being my favorite class since it's my biggest, 25. She was wrong. It's definitely been the one that's made me grow and stretch the most but I still detest it. My management skills are to blame once again. The thing that's worked the best, which doesn't mean it has worked, is giving them another homework problem every time they get too loud. I don't like punishing the whole class like that but then the quiet students are more likely to shush everyone. I have the most success when I play our review pong game. They love it and they do work together. They get a little loud but nothing compared to how they act during regular class. I moved them into pairs and I think that has helped because it creates much more space in the class but students still have someone they can talk to. I've gotten to teacher-centered again and need to start doing more student-centered activities. I also need to quit being a baby and just write people up but I just doubt that's going to happen.
Geometry Lab- This class is a waste of time. No one can tell me what I'm supposed to be doing and there is no curriculum. Basically, it is a class of sophomore Geometry students who did not meet on their Explore tests as Freshman. So we call it Geo Lab but students are supposed to be doing something to increase their test scores. Except nobody can tell me what that is. What I've started most recently is breaking them into groups of three. One group works with me on whiteboards learning a new skill. A second group works independently on their bids as part of their Real World Math projects. A third group works on the computers on ALEKS, which they absolutely hate. I'm thinking of using Khan Academy to replace ALEKS but I just detest those darn videos so much. I don't think he should stutter and I just don't think he explains it in the best way. But unless I decide to make my own (which I will eventually, just probably not this year) I guess I will have to suck it up and deal with it.

Extracurriculars- We did Homecoming in December this year so it will be really nice to not have to worry about that in January. Our boys basketball team is awesome this year so I am really enjoying going to their games. I've been presenting almost every month at our school improvement days about technology so I am loving that. It has opened the doors for me to talk to and work with other teachers and help send resources their way. I have spent the last couple years intimidated by others because so many teachers were my teachers. I never wanted to be the new teacher who acted better than everyone and like they knew everything so I really took a backseat. But now I am coming out of my shell! I just love more opportunities to teach! I've also been making our monthly agendas so now they are pretty and that makes my heart happy. We've done peer observations which have been really interesting and I love to have other teachers come and watch me. Our cohort is taking a teaching methods course right now in our graduate program. I have not been impressed with our classes so far. I suppose its because I read so much and blog and twitter but....I haven't learned anything yet. I've already known everything we've talked about and actually done most of it in my classroom. I also feel like there is major grade inflation here. Some teachers seemingly give A's to everyone which doesn't inspire me to try very hard. The only class that was new for me was on observation techniques, but I don't see getting to use them unless I actually become a coach or something. I still need to videotape myself and try the techniques. I officially am not in survival mode any longer. I am no longer panicked and feeling clueless. The amount of preps is tough but I haven't died yet. I'm feeling pretty solid. I'm done with my evaluations for the year and they went well so that's a relief. I noticed that I've migrated back to more teacher-centered and so that's a goal to work on this semester, along with my many ponderings. Also, I stood up for myself in a situation where I felt I was being treated unfairly. And that made me happy.

And that's a wrap.

Gr8 Expectations

2011-12-24T12:16:00.001-06:00

In a lot of things I've been reading recently, the topics of high expectations and self-fulfilling prophecy have shown up a lot. It's really had me thinking. What are my expectations for my students? Honestly...I don't think I've communicated any expectations at all. Except maybe to bring a pencil every day.

How do we express high expectations? How do we express expectations at all? What expectations have I expressed without knowing it? When I think about it, I imagine a grandiose speech at the beginning of the year where a teacher says what they expect. The end. How do you go about raising the bar and holding them accountable to higher standards? How do you hold them to it?

I had to write about this for my midterm in my graduate teaching methods class. First I had to tell of a personal account with a teacher and self-fulfilling prophecy. It was the hardest question on the entire test for me. I couldn't think of one single example, good or bad. I couldn't remember a teacher every saying anything that affected me that way. Then we had to write three action steps for raising expectations in our own classroom. I had to google it because I sure didn't know how! This is what I came up with:

One action step I could take to raise my expectations would be to implement the participation points contract mentioned in question number six. This would be a great way to clearly define my expectations for student behavior in my classroom. By having students read, check mark, and sign, they are agreeing to a higher level of behavior.

A second action step I could take would be modeling. I am thinking of implementing math portfolios in my classroom next year. What that means is that a student would be responsible for writing a skill description, creating an example and working it out, and explaining the problem solving process for the essential skills in any given unit. I would have to model for students an excellent, average, and unsatisfactory example so that students know my expectations are higher than just scribbling down a sentence.

My third action step would be to hold students accountable by consistently providing detailed feedback. Whether on homework, tests, classroom participation, or on portfolio assignments, by giving students detailed feedback on their progress, I am letting them know where they are and where I expect them to be. I’m also communicating to them that they cannot just slip by unnoticed and that they are expected to improve. Along with that, I am providing direct instruction to support and assist them with improving.

Am I totally off the mark here? The main thing I found during my googling followed along the themes of modeling. If I expect more out of them, then I have to clearly model what I expect. But clearly modeling expectations doesn't necessarily mean they are high expectations. I guess what I'm truly asking is, what are high expectations? What should I expect out of my students? And then, how do I express that?

I suppose modeling behaviors, exemplar assignments, and using rubrics to grade are ways of clearly defining what is expected. But how do you hold them to it? What do you do if they are not performing according to your expectations? I imagine a stern face, arms crossed, deep voice: "I expect better out of you." But that can't be it. It has to be more than just talk, right? Right?

How can I have great expectations when I don't know what great is or how to express it?

Things I Am Pondering

2011-12-24T02:54:00.011-06:00

Math Portfolios

Student Feedback

Test Deconstruction

Cumulative Unit Tests

Minute to Win It Centers

My Favorite No

Student Feedback Notebook- A year-long dialogue between me and each student in a special notebook. Could: address academic, behavior, personal concerns, document progress, suggestions for improvement, highlight misconceptions, maintain meaningful relationships between me and each student, or just be really cool.

Interactive Notebooks

Graphic Organizers

I shouldn't "write people off" or (sub)consciously treat them in a certain way because of something I know about them or heard about them because .... they are not finished products.

Show them, don't tell them. Actions speak louder than words.

Nothing static can every fully address change.

IDK How to Learn This

2011-12-23T17:38:00.000-06:00

Over my break so far, I've read some great books: The End of Molasses Classes by Ron Clark, The Excellent 11 by Ron Clark, and Teach With Your Heart by Erin Gruwell.

Now I know that these are out of the ordinary teachers. The books made me laugh, cry, and get angry. Parts of them inspired me, parts of them made me want to quit. But what bothered me the most was...I couldn't relate.

I loved reading about how Erin Gruwell used pop culture to engage students in reading and writing. I loved how Ron Clark took his students on life changing field trips that related to what they were studying in history. But how does this apply to teaching math?

I can never think of ways to incorporate new ideas into what I teach. I can read something on the Internet, find a new iPad app, hear something at a conference, and immediately think of how it would work beautifully in English or Social Studies. I never know how to make things work for math.

I don't know how to relate math to real life. It doesn't relate. They will never use this stuff in real life. I sure don't. How will learning systems of equations help them deal with their problems at home? How will graphing parabolas help them avoid drama? How will using the distance formula help them face their fears and overcome obstacles and become amazing people? How can math be life changing?

I know I sound like one of my own whiny students, but I can't help it. These are emotions that I face time and again. I am not inspired by math, why should they be? Am I teaching the wrong subject?

How is it that I put in all this time and feel like I am killing myself and yet still only accomplishing a fraction of what other teachers are doing? We can't even use experience as an excuse. Erin Gruwell started doing crazy things even in her student teaching.

I'm not having a pity party or saying I suck. I'm saying that mentally, I cannot wrap my head around bringing math to life, relating it to the world, planning field trips around math, or making it inspiring.

I don't know how to be that person.

That frustrates me because I feel like I can't learn. And not being able to learn just upsets me to the very core of my being. I am a professional learner! I may suck at things but I can always learn how to be better. And now, I can't.

I don't know how to learn this.

Final(ly)

2011-12-22T22:30:00.000-06:00

I haven't blogged in so long I've almost forgotten how. I had all kinds of ideas I wanted to blog and no time to do it in- now the situation is reversed. I'm going to blog my most recent calamity in hopes that that will jog my memory...

I wrote really good final exams.

I worked really hard and am really proud of what I accomplished.

Then the students took them.

Uh-oh.

In the past two years, I wrote terrible finals. Things we never really talked about, missing graphs and diagrams, questions with no answers, etc. It was bad. I cried.

This year, they cried. Okay, only one actually cried.

I created the tests. Then I broke the material up into three different days of review in order to cover everything. We did worksheets, whole class reviews, group game reviews, working one problem at a time, and so on. After each concept we've learned, we stop and write an index card on how to do it and an example problem. The students were allowed to use these index cards on the final.

Each test was 35 questions. 30 multiple choice, 5 open-ended, and all of them required thinking. It took the majority of the students the entire hour and twenty minutes to finish. It was hard and they told me about it. But only one person said they felt like it was things we had never done before. That's a huge improvement for me personally. The grades were not very good. About half failed. Out of all of my classes I had one A. One. Wow. I think I surprised even myself. I felt compassion for them but not guilt like in previous years.

But in a lot of cases, I felt like the grade truly represented their knowledge And in some it clearly didn't.

I honestly feel like the content of the tests was within their reach. They're just not used to stretchig.

This single event has taught me the importance of backward design more than everything I have read, heard, and discussed with others. I'm all excited to plan my unit tests ahead of time during the next semester. I know I should have done this from the beginning so I don't need a lecture on that.

My dilemma is, what do I do with the students' grades? Do I let them stand in hopes that students will take things more seriously and try harder? Do I cushion them because my unit tests didn't line up with the final exam and that's my fault? Do I give them a chance to make corrections when it is supposed to be a summary of everything they've learned? Do I just get over feeling bad when it's only the first semester and I let them use index cards as well? Will I get in trouble when my principal sees such terrible grades?

I need help from all you final exam fairies.

P.S. I started teaching things in December that I was teaching last year in February. I beat myself by two months. That is the power of a pacing guide people!

Quiet Mouse Experiment

2011-10-20T10:21:00.001-05:00

I've had a lot of problems with students constantly talking in my Geometry class. I have 25 students and it's just not a good combination. I've tried lecturing and guilt tripping them about respect. I've tried holding them late after class. My most recent strategy was to add a homework problem every time they get loud. For example, if I wanted them to do 8 problems, I'd make a worksheet of 16 and write an 8 on the board. If they get loud, I walk over to the board, cross out the 8, and write a 9. I like it because it's nonverbal and doesn't interrupt the class. Also, they can't argue with it. If I start walking near the board, they try to quiet everyone down. It's helped some but it hasn't changed the fact that they don't respect me and ignore what I say.

So I decided to experiment. I've wanted to do this since my first year of teaching but was never sure I could pull it off. I did not talk. I went through the entire class without speaking. It was so fun!

I stood at the door and talked to students as they came in. When class started, I started the timer for 4 minutes to signal students to work on the bell ringer. When students called me over to ask questions, I spoke to them individually. From then on, I didn't speak. When the timer went off, I worked out the problems on the board so students could check their work. Normally I would explain the problem and call on students to tell me what to write. This time I wrote in silence and they magically did the same.

Our lesson was on the midpoint formula. I had a worksheet and corresponding PowerPoint but in a tragic turn of events, the worksheet pictures were different from the PowerPoint. Oh no! So instead of the worksheet, I held up a blank piece of paper. They got the hint and got out paper. I showed a horizontal line on the coordinate plane and the PowerPoint asked, How could we find the midpoint? A couple students figured out that we could just count the squares and then take half of that. The next picture showed a slanted line so that their method no longer worked. I pointed at the endpoints of the line and they gave me the coordinates. Then I showed them the formula and they told me what to write. We went through several problems that way. I pointed to students when they needed to write. When they asked questions, I redirected it back to the class and other students explained. I walked around to monitor their progress.

I was amazed at my own ability to communicate without speaking.

Some students were really angry at me. Which I still haven't figured out. Some were very helpful interpreters. There were two students who I don't think have truly understood anything we've done all year that were completely engaged, did their homework, and actually enjoyed class.

I asked them three questions at the end of class as an exit slip.

Did you learn better or worse?
What was the point of this experiment?
Did you have any questions that were not answered?

The responses to number one were 8 better, 6 worse, 5 the same, 2 no answer.

The responses to number 3 were 13 no, 5 yes, 3 no answer.

The response to number 2 were incredibly valuable. Here are some of their comments:

-To make us do more work
-To see if we an learn without you talking
-Learn to be quiet
-To see if it would help us learn
-To have our friends try and teach us
-To see if we could learn without your help
-To show you can teach and we can learn without talking. It's about paying attention and reading directions. Making us think more.
-I learnt better today somewhat because it was us learning.
-To learn in a different way

The next day I showed them the results and put up the following quote:

"If students could learn math by just listening, teachers would have been replaced by tape recorders a long time ago."

I asked them what this meant. They commented that you need to do more than hear it, you need to see it and actually do it.

Then I asked them how I could talk less so that they could learn more. Some of their suggestions were that I talk 2 days a week and not talk 3 days a week, not talk until they asked me a question, and only talk 5 times a period.

I haven't really decided what I'm going to do but I have been really noticing how much unnecessary talking I do and I hope I'm doing a good job of cutting it out.

My biggest takeaway from this experiment is that my students do not listen to what I say. As soon as I start talking, they tune out. They know I will repeat it or that it does not matter. This is a part of my issue with respect but I haven't figured out how to master that yet.

By not talking, I forced them to watch me and pay attention. I forced them to listen to each other, not talk over each other, and try to understand on their own.

I forced myself to communicate only what matters.

I think I made them think.

Shh. Don't say a word.

Todd Whitaker- What Great Teachers Do Differently

2011-10-07T23:42:00.001-05:00

Today was our regional teacher's institute and our speaker was Todd Whitaker, author of What Great Teachers Do Differently. I read the book a couple years ago and posted the main points.

He was a great speaker: funny, interacted with the audience, easy to understand.

Here are my main takeaways:

Negative people have no power. We give power to them. Pouters pout and whiners whine because it works. Who is not on any committee, doesn't do any extra curricular activities, has the easiest load, and the smallest classes? The people who complain. It is easier to avoid, ignore, or give in then to face them head on and deal with it. But pouters will pout and whiners will whine until it doesn't work anymore.
Treat everyone as if they're good. Good people deserve it and crummy people can't stand it. The example he gave is when you are in a grocery store and see a parent freaking out and yelling at their kid. The parent is not uncomfortable. We are. We have a problem with the behavior but the child has the bigger problem. Our normal reaction would be to ignore or go down a different aisle. He said, what if we went up to the parent and (treating them as if they are good) asked them a normal question, like where is the coffee? For a moment, it shifts the situation. Will the parent yell at you? Maybe. But you already knew they were an idiot the moment you walked down the aisle. Don't let troublemakers, whiners, and pouters be invisible.
What's great about teaching is that it matters. What's hard about teaching is that it matters every day. Ten days out of ten we should never yell, never argue, and never use sarcasm. Ten days out of ten we should treat students with respect and dignity because we never know which day it's going to make a difference for them.
What great teachers do differently is know how they come across.

Literacy in the Math Classroom: Journal Prompts

2011-10-03T11:37:00.000-05:00

Our big push for the year is literacy across the curriculum.

I'm excited about two new ideas I'm trying.

First of all, I have a first hour achievement period which is comparable to a homeroom or advisory. We've done a lot of different things. We watch Channel One news and have discussions, we have a silent reading day each week, we have regular study halls, etc etc. This year we got a bunch of new posters that line the hallway entrance. They are the ones with black borders that focus on a character trait like honesty, integrity and so on. Each student had to pick a quote. Then they had to find a picture on the Internet that went along with the quote. They had to write a one page reflection on why they chose this quote, how it relates to their life, and how their picture describes the quote. I didn't give them a due date, they just worked until they were done and then took turns presenting to the class. Then I had students vote on the best paper, best presentation, and funniest presentation. This sparked the idea to have students write and present more and more until we get to a point where students can self-assess and asses each other using a rubric. I'll be interested to see how the quality of what they create changes during the process.

I found these super amazeball notebooks at Wal-Mart. They are black and white and covered with designs and you can doodle on them and design them however you want. Slightly reminiscent of comic books. They come in a pack of 3 and cost $1. My students love them!

The part they don't know is that they only have 56 pages of paper. Ok, well they can read, so they do know that. But what they don't suspect is that once we run out of paper, I want to transition them to blogging. :) But how can I do that when I don't have enough computers. Enter Project iPad. I've decided that right now while we have the grant is the prime time to start a 1:1 iPad program at our school. So I've neatly tied that into our literacy project by having the students research and write papers in support of the idea, complete with main evidence, supporting arguments, and so on. The students are greatly intrigued. We started by doing a bubble/web/concept map graphic organizer on benefits of an iPad. Monday we are going to list the potential downfalls. Our literacy coach came in and talked to them about public speaking and gave them a graphic organizer that outlines a speech. We are going to use our webs to prioritize what should go in our outline and build our paper around that. I'm trying to get other teachers and classes involved so that every student has a say in it. How powerful will that be? And I'm hoping that the administration won't be able to deny every single student who has researched, written, and presented a well-thought out argument.

I also planned to do a lot of creative writing prompts to hopefully hook them into writing, thinking outside the box, and better expressing themselves. I found two great sites for prompts: creativewritingprompts.com and http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/ I went through the first site and picked the ones I liked best and made a pretty PowerPoint to use in my classroom. I like the second website too because it adds the visual piece. I will definitely be adding to this but it is a fantastic way to start.

My second idea takes place in my eighth hour class. The class is a supplemental Geometry class for students who did not meet or exceed in their standardized test scores. There is no real curriculum and no one can tell me what I should be doing. So far, I've been doing a mixture of extra help with geometry, reviewing stuff from the end of algebra, and teaching new stuff that I didn't quite get to in algebra. I bought the same amazeball notebooks for them too but their writing prompts will be focused on math instead of creative writing. Earlier I had posted a list of algebra writing prompts and now I am slowly transitioning that into another pretty Powerpoint. My thinking is to start class with journal time because my next door neighbor English teacher does that with them already. In all my other classes, I start off with a bell ringer. But by eighth hour, I'm usually tired and winging it. This is definitely a better solution. I think it is also a healthy break for the students who have me two hours in a row. It gives them a chance to be quiet, think, write, and discuss. My thinking is that the writing prompt will drive the material we learn/practice/review that day. Eventually, I want to have stations that students rotate through (that's another post entirely) so I'm wondering if it would work to have a writing station, board work station, and online (ALEKS) station. It would give students about 15 minutes per station. More on that later.

Some students have me for first and eighth hour and have my next door neighbor for English so that is at least 3 times a day that they will be writing and ultimately engaging in critical thinking. I'm excited about the prospects!

Oh, you probably want to know how I'm going to grade. For now, I think I will just be giving participation points. Friday I had everyone read their answers out loud. I may glance at them weekly to make sure they are actually writing and not just spouting off at the mouth. In the future, I hope to have students self-assess or assess each other. Our literacy team came up with a fantastic rubric but in my opinion, it is too much for my students' short journal writings. Seems way more appropriate for papers, not necessarily a paragraph or so. But then that just means me and my students will have to create our own. More team work and collaboration.

Yaayyyyyyy.

Naming Basic Geometry Terms Pt II

2011-10-02T15:12:00.000-05:00

I previously posted about my students coming up with the idea to do a hands-on geometry activity with pipe cleaners, fuzzy balls, construction paper, and letters to review points, lines planes, and such. Each student had their own packet. They used a piece of construction paper for their plane.

This Powerpoint was posted up front, which gave them directions on something to create. This relied heavily on their ability to read and understand the terms and labels posted. See example.

PowerPoint slide:

Arrangement:

As they arranged, I walked around and checked students' work but I did choose to create a mock example on the following Powerpoint slide. This way, if I did overlook some students, they were still able to self-assess and gauge their own understanding. This also created good opportunities for students to tell how they did it differently and discuss different ways of getting the right answer.

I thought this was a worthwhile activity and I would like to do more things like this, I'm not sure how much I believe in learning styles, but I do believe in connecting ideas with students in as many ways as possible.

As I mentioned before, what I am most proud of is that my students came up with the idea, put the supplies together, participated, and then as a class we reflected and discussed the results. This has been the best and most realistic example of team work and collaboration that we have accomplished yet.

Yay.

Highlighters for Dummies

2011-09-16T10:58:00.001-05:00

Our big push this year is literacy across the curriculum. We've put together a literacy team, of course, with the hope that it will be teacher led. Our plan is to devote some of our SIP monthly meeting time to teaching a new strategy and giving teachers time to discuss and reflect. I don't know if this is as common in your school but in our school, we never sit back and talk about if things work or how to improve them. Basically, if it didn't work the first time, we give up and think of another idea. Also, when individual teachers go to conferences, we never give them the opportunity to share what they learned with the rest of the faculty. We are missing out. So I am really hoping that self-reflection is a big part of this.

I am not on the literacy team but my graduate practicum is based on re-designing professional development so it makes sense that I am working hand in hand with the literacy team. So the team developed a definition and I created a poster.

We previously had a short meeting where all teachers brainstormed ways to integrate literacy into their content areas. And thus, another poster.

We have also started doing peer observations which has been fun. I noticed that a lot of middle school teachers model highlighting in their classrooms which is something we don't do in the high school. So I started thinking, how could I use highlighting in my classroom? I think it would be a great literacy strategy that would be easy to integrate into every content area. We do a lot of examples and some definitions. I make everything so it is very possible for my students to highlight since I don't use textbooks. But how could we do it so that it is beneficial?

I brainstormed with my students and they said I could tell them the important things that will be on the test. So I turned that around and thought that it could be a good summary of the lesson. Students tell me what is important and then highlight. But that brought up the question of, how do you study for a math test? I don't really know because I never studied either. I review with students in class so I don't know how they would go about studying on their own. We are currently using index concept cards to summarize a concept. Students suggested a way to review would be for me to give them problems and using their cards, tell me which concept it goes with. Another teacher suggested that I give them a list of terms/examples at the beginning of the unit and we could highlight in different colors. Then as we go along, we could highlight with different colors in our notes so that students know what each term/example refers to. But to me, we could do that without highlighting. For example, I could just say 'Refer to Example 1". I don't want to highlight for the sake of highlighting, but I do think it could be a valuable skill for students to learn and carry with them.

How do you teach students to study for math? How do you summarize your lessons? How could highlighting be effectively used in a math classroom?

Class Reflection

2011-09-12T16:05:00.000-05:00

My instructional coach is a lover of the jigsaw cooperative learning structure. I've used it a few times but I have not yet reached the stage of lover. I tried it for the first time in my class of 25 anddddddd.....it didn't go so well. I had them line up from smallest shoe size to largest without talking. Then I counted them into groups of four. I ended up with six different groups which totally threw me off. I only had four problems prepared. What I did was create a worksheet of eight problems, four different types. One was worked out as a reference example. Their task was to complete one problem and teach it to their group. I just totally messed up the logistics.

I don't want to explain all that, I want to focus on the reflection I had with my class after that. I asked them what they thought about the activity and they did a GREAT job of raising their hands and listening to each other speak. Their comments were that the activity took too much time due to all the moving back and forth between groups. They also said there were too many people trying to talk and explain at the same time. It ended up being loud, noisy, and crazy. Also some of them said they like to get right to work instead of wasting time moving around and explaining. They preferred working in pairs to groups. I told them we could compromise on working in pairs if we worked in some way where students are explaining to each other since that is the most beneficial part. They came up with the idea to have pairs pair up and explain to each other. I'm okay with that idea.

I later talked to my instructional coach and we figured out how I screwed everything up. So I will try jigsaw again at some point. But I really liked the fact that my last two blog posts have been positive, real-life example of problem-solving and collaboration. I hope that I am improving their ability to reflect and self-assess. I hope. I feel like we are working together as a team for the good of all. Aww, fuzzy butterflies and bear hugs. Now, how can I do a better job and do it in every class?

Something I need to reflect on I suppose.

Naming Basic Geometry Terms

2011-09-11T21:26:00.000-05:00

My first unit in Geometry was about basic definitions: plane, line, segment, point, ray, coplanar, collinear, noncollinear, parallel, perpendicular, etc. From there we classified angles and did the Angle Addition Postulate, complete with algebra and variables on both sides. Next we discussed angle pair relationships: vertical, linear pair, adjacent, complementary, and supplementary. Again with the algebra, solving equations, and variables on both sides. So now we are reviewing and ready to test over Unit 1. I gave my students a review packet to work on with a partner. They are really struggling with the naming and labeling piece. They actually asked me if they could have a test of only solving for angle measurements with lots of algebra.

When we first went over basic terms, we wrote definitions, drew a picture, and wrote how to label. We did practice problems, homework, and bell ringers. They are still struggling. From what I can see, the confusing thing is when you can name the same thing in two different ways. For example, a line can be named with one lowercase letter or two capital letters. A plane can be named with one floating letter that isn't a point or with three points that lie on the plane.

Ooh, an idea just hit me! What if I compare it to names? The lowercase letter is like a nickname and the two capital letters are a first and last name representing the first and last point of the line. Is this something that makes sense and is likely to help?

We were scheduled to test on Monday but I could tell my students were not feeling good about that. I was truly frustrated with myself because I couldn't think of any other way to teach them what seems to be so simple in my head. I sat down and brainstormed with my 8th hour Geo lab students about what we could do.

They came up with the idea that we needed to do something hands-on where students could see, touch, feel, and actually move things around to get a better understanding. I sent three students to the computers to look for any helpful ideas. The rest of us scoured my room for supplies and the students then created packets of the following supplies for each student:

We will use a sheet of construction paper for a plane. The arrows are to form a line. I bought fuzzy balls to use as points and to create line segments or rays. We gave letters so that we could label.

Now my problem is, I don't know what to do with this. Should I give them a list of things to create? Should I post it on the SMART board so I can check each student's progress as we go? What kind of things do I need to tell them to create in order to practice naming and labeling?

My students on the computer found this 5 minute tutorial video that they thought did a good job of going step-by-step through each term. They also found this video of a geometry rap.

So my plan is to do a bell ringer with maybe a diagram and the answers scrambled so that they have to do matching, maybe? That might help them connect the right way to label. Then discuss the nickname idea I mentioned earlier. Next show the two videos. After that comes the putting things together...but what am I going to tell them to do?

I need some suggestions please!

The Textbook Debacle

2011-09-08T10:25:00.001-05:00

On my last post about being overworked and needing to use the textbook, Kate Nowak linked me to a PCMI presentation on using a scaffold to make textbooks more usable. I contacted the presenter, Marcelle Good and with her permission, wanted to share her perspective (emphasis mine).

Me: My students don't use textbooks at all because I basically create my own. I make daily worksheets using problems, scenarios, and diagrams from the book but I *try* to scaffold or ask questions in a way that starts with what they know how to do and leads into the new material.

Marcelle: My students don't use textbooks, either, but this year I was introduced to a really good textbook from which I based many of my lessons. It saved me a lot of time and I'm looking forward to doing more of it this year.

I had an aha moment in working with Leslie Hamburger, who is a consultant with WestEd and is their "Quality Teaching of English Learners" math expert. Their philosophy on scaffolding is the idea that a scaffold is something you use repeatedly, students internalize, and then they are able to do the work without the scaffold.

So, for example, the best scaffold in my classroom are my "Sentence Starters for Accountable Talk." At the beginning of the year, I'll have students in small groups with a list of sentence starters (I agree with...I also think.../ I respectfully disagree with..../I had a different idea.../I'm not sure what this means, but I think it might be about.../etc.) that they are required to use. At first, this is awkward and weird, but my students are learning English and I find that even native speakers tend to struggle with academic conversation. The next step is those Sentence Starters are on the table. By December, they're in poster form on the wall. When students say something in a really great way, I highlight it and often add what they say to the poster ("I'm not sure what this means, but..." came from a great student moment in trying to figure stuff out). By the end of the year, in classroom discussions (in my room and also in their other classes), students had internalized the language and were able to have an academic conversation. Students don't sound scripted anymore, and they'll take this manner of speaking with them to future classes. So, that's a scaffold - model, apprenticeship, independence.

Thinking about that as my basis for a scaffold, I moved to thinking about how to get students to read a text. As you pointed out, guiding questions are really important ways to get at a text, so this may be splitting hairs, but I started to think about chunking the text and finding a prompt that could work for everything. So, in the powerpoint you saw, I think I included, the "Summarize, draw a picture, or ask a question about the text" prompt. That's something that I used every time I took something from a textbook. What was nice about it, is that by May, students had internalized how to do that (I didn't start using the textbook until February, and I was still experimenting with how to use it, so I wasn't ever able to move away from the prompt). But the idea would be that that would be the prompt starting in the beginning of the year, then we'd move to boxes with no prompt, then I'd ideally be able to give them a text with a wide enough margin at the side that they could read a text and make notes about it.

None of this is super innovative, but there was something really powerful that happened for me when I separated the idea of a worksheet that I create from scratch with good guiding questions to move students forward (which students obviously need) from the idea of scaffolding a lesson.

The text/worksheet/activity is one thing, and the scaffolding is something else. It's the repeatable protocol or prompt or idea that students are familiar with that will help guide them through a challenging lesson. When I go back to thinking about Vygotsky, the purpose of scaffolding thinking was to move a student to a place where they would be a more independent problem solver, or an apprenticeship. I want to think about what students can internalize and use without me and make sure I'm building that into my lessons, with the hope that at some point, when they're in a new class or setting and they see a challenging mathematical text or hear a challenging idea, they'll have a whole bunch of tools to figure it out. The stuff that relies on my asking them really good questions to help them move forward is important, but thinking about how to move them to a place where they internalize a way that they can generate their own questions, or find some way to look at the math and start to activate prior knowledge on their own is where they become more independent.

So, in math, accessing prior knowledge is super important and is something you do in your lessons. Good math students and mathematicians somehow get really good at it, and find a way to do this on their own. They look at an unfamiliar problem or topic, and immediately start going through their mental database of math that they know and make connections that can help them understand the new topic. It's amazing. So, the question is, how do you get students to go from accessing prior knowledge because you prompt them, to looking at something and being able to access the appropriate prior knowledge on their own? And I think the idea is what is the next step? How can math teachers be explicit: I am asking you about this stuff because you already know it and it's going to help you! To, a more, "What is it that you know that will help you with this?" to students automatically doing that. And the scaffold is the repeatable, internalizable thing that gets them there, and the first step of that scaffold is just asking them the question that will make them think about it, but maybe with something that makes clear to them that what you're doing is trying to activate their prior knowledge so that the teaching part that you're doing and the reasoning behind it is clear to the students so they can get there on their own someday. So, a rudimentary example would be on every worksheet with a new topic, there's a heading that says, "Activate Prior Knowledge" and there's a box where you ask general questions to guide students to what they already know that can help them, and in the beginning, you answer those questions as a class or as a small group. Then you take away pieces of it, so at the end of the year, you just have a heading and some empty space that students start brainstorming in. They'll still get stuck, they'll still need your good questions, but it means you have to spend less time making worksheets (this was my main goal), and the students are taking over a little bit more of the cognitive load.

Again, this could be splitting hairs, but I really struggle with trying to make teaching sustainable, and to get back to the textbook idea, it was great to find a good book that asked those good guiding questions for me, so that I could spend my time thinking more about the habits of mind and the practices I wanted my students to have. I still write a lot of my own stuff, but my goal in the next few years is to have a textbook take care of the What so that I can just think about the How.

---

I loved hearing her perspective and I had never thought of creating a general, scaffold box. I always recreate the way the textbook presents the information because I think it sucks. So I don't think that I could use the scaffold box and still just used the textbook. But, Marcelle is using the CME Project textbook which is apparently amazing compared to anything I've ever seen.

What was really a highlight for me is that no matter how good I am at questioning, that is not helping them to be independent thinkers and problem solvers. They might be thinking better while they're with me but they aren't learning how to think on their own.

I still hate my textbooks. They are confusing. But is it a valuable skill that I'm causing my students to miss out on? I'm still not totally sure but I still know I won't be using the textbook. I guess next step would be to check out the CME Project and try to integrate more parts of the book along with the scaffold box.

Anyone else familiar with the CME Project?

Ode to Math

2011-09-02T11:21:00.000-05:00

Dear Math,
You are so frustrating. How can there be a million different concepts bundled up inside of you? How can you be so complex to assess? How can you be so difficult to remediate? How are you so completely interwoven that one tiny piece can make or break you? Why do students hate you so much? Why are you so easily forgotten? Why are you easy to understand and simultaneously hard to explain? Why is there so much of you shoved into 4 years that just aren't your size? Why are the parts of you that are so important the same parts that are rarely used? Why do I know how to use you in ways that mean nothing to my every day life? Why are parts of you so interesting and seemingly useless? Why is it okay for people to hate you and be scared of you?

Why are you making my life so difficult?

Year Three, Week One

2011-08-24T23:39:00.000-05:00

So I didn't post all summer and I also didn't read any posts. I never thought I would be one of *those* teachers. But life happens. I spent the first month of summer in grad school which I wanted to post more about but didn't. So far, I'm not super impressed with grad school. I've taken three classes and not learned a whole whole lot but we did learn a lot about observation techniques, clinical supervision, and Flanders. I may post on that more in the future but don't hold your breath. I spent the next month of summer moving back into our house after the flood and FEMA and remodeling.

Anyway, I'm teaching Algebra II for the first time this year so I'm really just posting so I can share my first lesson. I spent the last few weeks of summer creating really solid pacing guides that I felt put me off to a positive start. I feel confident that I know what my kids need and I've paced it out to be able to give it to them. So yay for me.

But I'm also teaching Algebra I, Geometry, Geometry lab, Test Prep, and an advisory period. So last night when it took me two hours to create a lesson for Algebra II and it was 10:!6 before I even started for Algebra I and Geometry, I knew it was going to be a long year.

I was tired and cranky today and in tears by fourth hour. Exciting, I know. And I don't mean misty-eyed, I mean full on stuttering through my tears, red nose, voice cracking.

I'm killing myself to create bell ringers, notes, and homework every day for at least three classes. How do you use the textbook to teach? My teacher bestie thinks I am hurting the kids and that I need to put responsibility on them. I think that I am redesigning what the book does in a way that is scaffolded for students to do on their own and hopefully be better thinkers. I don't know if I'm doing harm or good.

But enough complaining before we all get a little misty-eyed.

So here's some goodies that hopefully someone else can enjoy!

Solving Linear Inequalities with Absolute Value, Homework (Algebra II)

Foundations of Geometry PPT, Notes

Draw and Label Basic Geometry Terms

Teacher Preparation

2011-08-08T18:20:00.000-05:00

I have been getting some information and participating in surveys for NCTQ, the National Council on Teacher Quality. They are trying to get information about teacher education programs which is something I know is near and dear to all of our hearts. I really was unsatisfied with my teacher education program so this is something kind of personal for me as well.

Anyway, they've put together a survey and are asking for teacher responses. You will be entered to win a $25 Amazon card, which they award 2 of a day. The survey took me about 10 minutes so I think it was well worth it.

So here is the link. Now go get yourself $25!

Independent Learning

2011-05-23T13:22:00.000-05:00

How do you teach your students to be learn without you? How will they learn when you aren't there to create a Powerpoint, a handout, a screencast, a Jing tutorial, a Youtube video, etc? Do you explicitly name and teach these skills or are they implied?

I've been researching some literacy strategies for technical reading, reading textbooks, and so on (which I will probably blog about later) and I'm realizing that we need to be more intent on teaching specific learning and comprehension skills.

This was all sparked by our conversation about the use of textbooks, which I'm still reading, asking, listening, and learning about.

What I've come away with so far is that I need to teach my students how to learn and how they learn so that they know what to do in any context, whether that be college, trade school, work, parenthood, marriage, etc.

That is 21st century learning.

The Purpose of Textbooks. Convince Me.

2011-05-20T11:43:00.002-05:00

I was having a discussion with my colleague about teaching in general and we ended up discussing textbooks. She suggested that next year I use the book for Algebra 2 because it is closer to college level mathematics and students need to be prepared for that.

Then I spoke with a teacher that works with the hearing impaired who has been in my class at least one day a week throughout the year. Her opinion was that the worksheets and activities we do equal to or surpass the work found in textbooks. She said that the notes we do in class are fit more to student needs and add visual context rather than the canned curriculum of a textbook.

Both teachers have far more experience than me and both agree that there should be a balance, no all or nothing.

I think I don't know how to use a textbook.

As a teacher, I use the book as a problem bank, a guide for sequencing lessons, and in geometry I steal the diagrams and drawings because an artist, I am not.

For my students, we really only used the book to look up definitions or formulas in class.

Am I hurting my students by not using the textbook?

How am I supposed to use the textbook for their benefit? What is the difference in them taking notes from a book or notes from a Powerpoint or notes from a discussion? Is it not still reading, writing, and listening?

Am I supposed to have them just take notes and teach themselves from the book? I'm not saying there is no value in textbooks, I'm saying I haven't found a values that's worth using them for.

I enjoy creating lessons. It puts me in the mindset of a student and helps me think through possible questions and confusion that students may encounter. I use the book and my standards at the beginning of the year to create a pacing guide and priority standards to tell me what to teach. Then I search the Internet, blogs, and Twitter for ideas on 'how' to teach those concepts. Honestly, I don't see how a textbook can add to the rich resources I'm currently using. I don't know how using a textbook will improve my teaching or my students' learning.

So convince me. Why and how should I use a textbook?

What I'm Doing Right

2011-05-10T23:47:00.000-05:00

Today was our first day back after nine days out due to flooding. Our school was used a shelter during this time. About 75-80% of our county was affected by the flooding. There's over an estimated $25 million in damages. I polled my students today and 90% spent the nine days sandbagging somewhere in the community. That’s powerful.

In the process, my own home was flooded. We only had about one foot and luckily it did not ruin any electrical outlets and all our appliances work. We are currently moving everything out and will have to redo floors and carpet, repair sheet rock up at least half of the walls, bleach out things to kill the mold, and replace our kitchen cabinets. Lovely.

Some of my students had anywhere from inches to 5 feet of water in their house. Students were literally boating around town because that was easier to do than drive. So today was a pretty much chill day where we gave students time to vent, talk, socialize, etc. But enough of that, they drove me crazy by the end of the day!

But rather than do lesson plans, I felt like blogging instead. I have lost any desire to create lesson plans or basically do anything. I hope this doesn’t last into summer but I can’t even focus on school or think about teaching or…anything. Blech.

To encourage myself, I thought I would post a list of things I feel like I’ve learned or areas I’ve grown in over my second year of teaching. I love lists.

• Concept Attainment: Giving examples and nonexamples which forces students to find a pattern or rule.
• Sorting: Having students sort things without giving them any parameters to sort by which forces them to notice subtle characteristics, similarities, and differences.
• Scaffolded Investigations: Thanks to Mimi, I’ve learned to make activities more independent so that (hopefully) students are thinking more and making connections based on what they already know.
• Bell Ringers: A great way to get class started, get students into a routine, review old material, and introduce new material.
• Cooperative Learning: While I still am not good at assigning specific roles and holding students accountable, I did learn some new structures. I used teams A LOT and I really think at the very least I created a collaborative/cooperative environment for learning. Students were much more independent from me and dependent on each other compared to last year.
• Explaining: I did a better job in my questioning of forcing students to think through what they did and explain why/how. Not that I’m doing a great job, but better than I was.
• Confrontations: I did a slightly better job this year of pulling students to the side and talking to them or just knowing when to drop it and deal with it at a later time. There were many times I should have and didn’t, but I’ve made progress.
• Structure: By being consistent with my bell ringers and assigning homework, my students knew what to expect. I also used my timer a lot to make sure I gave appropriate wait time and to help keep students on task and managing time well.
• Entering Grades: I kept grades updated almost daily so that I wasn’t overwhelmed at the end of the quarter like last year.
• Constructive Criticism: I tried a lot of new ideas and suggestions from my coach, even when I was skeptical.
• Final Exam Writing: I didn’t cry this year! Or curve. I even had a performance event. Ooh!
• Bell to Bell: I have taught bell to bell all year looooooooooong. Yeah baby! I did that like one time last year.
• Confidence: I have it.

Did anyone else notice how many times I used the word ‘forces’? Hm.

April Showers

2011-04-28T22:52:00.001-05:00

If April showers bring May flowers then my yard will be a freakin garden shrine.

Before Sandbagging

After Sandbagging Day 1

After Sandbagging Day 2

We've literally lost entire towns.

And the rivers aren't supposed to crest until Sunday.

And there's a 60% chance of rain.

Multiplying Binomials

2011-04-28T00:21:00.002-05:00

Last year I taught the Box method and quickly explained the Foil method. My students really took to the Box method and just went at it. I think they actually enjoyed it.

I've recently talked to my students about flipping the classroom next year and they really love the idea of it. I wanted to try it out but couldn't figure out how to convert Jing .swf files to a file that I could burn to a dvd or even play on any type of player. I can almost always count on the Internet to view the .swf file but because of all the tornadic flood weather, you just never know. So instead of a cool screencast and voiceover, I just made PowerPoints. I figured the students would have to think harder without me explaining and there's nothing wrong with that. Besides, I love a good PowerPoint.

Here's the setup. I split my classes up into 3 teams. Each team was sent to view a PowerPoint about multiplying monomials but every team would be viewing a different method.

Box Method

Break Up Out of Jail

FOIL Face

Each student was given the same handout to act as guided notes. They would be taking notes on two examples and trying a third example on their own. Every team was completing the same three examples. After everyone in their group was finished taking notes and could fully explain their method, we reconvened as a whole. Each group came to the front and presented their method. They wrote it out on the SMARTboard and explained each step of the process. The rest of the class were watching at this time and not taking notes. Once they were done and students had no further questions, the entire class, even the presenting team, completed a new example on the back of their sheet. This way every student was presented with 3 different methods and practiced each one. From here on out, students can pick whichever method they prefer.

My students really liked the way this lesson was set up. They rated the methods from easiest to hardest as: Box, Break Up Out of Jail. and FOIL Face.

For those of you who are wondering about my title, my students were taught in middle school to remember the distributive property as 'breaking out of jail'. The number on the outside of the parentheses is the jailer and he has to go in to each individual member to break them out of jail. Building on that theme, I called it 'breaking up' out of jail to help symbolize breaking up the first binomial before breaking out using the distributive property.

Here are the resources:

Box Method PowerPoint
Break Up Out of Jail PowerPoint
FOIL Face PowerPoint
Multiplying Binomials Guided Notes

Please download the PowerPoints to see the full effects of the color coordination and animation. No cheezy transitions, I promise!

SBG Guilt

2011-04-25T03:11:00.000-05:00

For those of you involved with my twitter conversations, you know my students were really struggling with subtracting polynomials. Out of 36 students I had to pull out about 10 of them to work with individually.

It took me a while to figure out their misconception.

Say the problem looks like this (3x - 8 + 2x) - (4x - 3 + 6x).

I taught them to change the sign in the middle and flip every sign behind it.

Here's what they would do: (3x - 8 + 2x) + (-4x + -3 + 6x).

In middle school they were taught to change every minus sign to plus a negative. When I told them to flip the sign, they would, but they added in the negative which doesn't flip the operation. And even though I stressed every sign about a million times, they would always politely skip over the plus signs. There were other errors too but this was the most common misunderstanding.

With those 10 kids, I pulled them out individually and tried to explain and re-explain what to do and why (I just now realized I should have said to flip the operation instead of flip the sign). Later I realized it was even more confusing because it looks like they are changing the minus sign in the middle to plus a negative. Egad!

Too late I asked the other math teacher what I should have done and he suggested just practicing lots of problems like -(7x - 2 + 4x) so students can really see over and over how the negative sign is distributed.

Anyway, to get to the point of this post...I pulled students out and we went over their mistakes on the quiz. Then I gave them new problems to practice. Then I give them a new quiz. Quite a few students got a 100 on their retest. Some needed to do it three times instead of two but still got the 100. Now I feel guilty. I feel like it's cheating. I feel like I should have pulled out every single students who didn't get a 100 instead of just the ones who did terrible. Shouldn't every student have the opportunity to make a 100? I don't know. It's kind of like forced sbg. I took away their initiative to improve and forced them to 'want' to do better. I practiced with them and we conversed and we identified misconceptions. All the perks of sbg, right?

So why do I feel so guilty?

On my assessments for each method of systems of equations my classes did really well. But maybe we had just practiced enough times that they had the process memorized. How do I know that they truly learned? I guess that just means I need better assessments. How do you assess understanding other than having them show by doing or show by explanation?

I am afraid now that my administration might look at the grades and assume that I am not doing my job or not doing anything for my students to all have high grades. Does that mean I need to make my assessments harder so that more students will fail? Will I feel less guilty if my grade distribution looks more like the 'normal' bell curve?

Depth of Knowledge

2011-04-23T01:15:00.000-05:00

One of my real stumbling blocks this year throughout all of our school improvement, leadership team, instructional team, student support team, and graduate class meetings has been "What do I teach?" Anytime I look through textbooks or online for resources, I find different ways of presenting the same concept. But hey that's differentiation and multiple intelligence styles and so on and so forth, right? What is messing me up is wondering if my students could solve any problem thrown at them pertaining to a specific concept I've taught.

For example, I felt like a did a good job of teaching systems of equations. We did graphing on the calculator, we did word problems, the whole kit and kaboodle. As I was creating the test, I found a problem where one of the equations had a variable on both sides, some like 2x = 45-5y. We had done many examples but not one with variables on both sides. Oh, but we solve regular equations like that all the time, right? So I put it on there. I had a ton of questions on that one. Some said it was infinite and some said no solution and some canceled out the variables altogether. Not everyone got it wrong but fewer knew how to handle it than I would have liked.

I know I've posted before on increasing students' critical thinking skills and I guess I can attribute some of this to that issue but my real question is "How do I teach to mastery so that students can apply the concept anywhere?" This is probably an obvious question to most or even the definition of teaching to some. But for me, it's my latest realization. Of course I'm always thinking about test scores but truly, how do we ever know what depth to teach to? Our district has a chronic problem of repeating material over and over without ever going any deeper. We're currently trying to align things to Common Core as well as K-12. But no matter what list of standards we look at, I could probably say I teach all those things. The problem is, have I taught them to the same depth of understanding that the ACT is assessing? The obvious thing is to look at the ACT but even then, I'm not sure how much that can help. If a bunch of students get a question right, they throw it out. If a bunch of students get a question wrong, they throw it out. It's impossible to know exactly what will be on the test and what it will look like.

Does the answer lie in assessment, critical thinking, more practice, or better teaching? Do my students need harder problems and more time to think things through? How can I ever be sure that they can apply the concept in new situations that we have not practiced together? Is that an okay expectation to have? Isn't that the definition of math or of learning- using what you know to figure out something you didn't previously know?

I feel frustrated sometimes because even if we had the perfectly aligned harmonious pacing guide, how would we be sure that each teacher is teaching to mastery so that students can reapply the concept in new situations throughout their mathematical career?

For example, addition. Students learn addition and it carries them through many new situations. We throw in variables, exponents, square roots, absolute value, and even imaginary numbers. But for the most part, do students ever not know how to add, even in new situations? Is it due to the fact that they've been adding for years and years? Is it the fact that no matter the situation, adding itself never changes? How can that work for other concepts?

How can my students become so comfortable with a tool that they can figure out how to use it in any situation?

Card Sort

2011-04-22T01:53:00.000-05:00

We are in the middle of our polynomial unit and I decided now would be an appropriate time to teach exponent rules. I had prepared a concept attainment for the exponent rules before I talked to my coach. She suggested that we stray away from teaching 'rules' and rather teach the concept behind it. So basically, I only taught the concept of multiplying the coefficients and adding the exponents. When it came to the power to a power rule, we literally expanded it out and then multiplied coefficients and added the exponent. The more that we practiced the concept and writing them out, the more students figured out the shortcut of taking the coefficient to the power and then just multiplying the exponents.

I was skeptical of this method at first until I realized that it was a better way to scaffold the lesson. Present one concept at a time, that will build on prior knowledge. Practice it until it becomes second nature and they will naturally look for a shortcut. We humans are mighty efficient like that.

I taught one concept but we were really practicing three rules: power to a power, product to a power, and the distributive property. My coach is a big fan of sorting. I made a set of 18 cards, 3 groups of 6 that represented each rule.

Product to a Power

Distributive Property

Power to a Power

These are index cards (my favorite!) cut in half by the way. So each group had the same cards and they were all mixed up of course. The students were instructed to spread them all out and then begin sorting into piles.

I did not give any parameters to sort by. In every class, without fail, my top students' team quickly sorted them by color. I then charged them with the question, "If I am asking you to sort them, do you think I would have color coded them for you?"

If teams were really struggling, I told them they should have 3 piles. A lot of teams sorted them by sets of parentheses which works for the power to a power group but not the other two. Every single group mistook two of the distributive property cards because they were written backwards compared to every other one in the group.

See above. (4x + 7)(-2x) and (2x - 5)(-4x) look different and so students put them into the product to a power group. I guided them to look inside the parentheses and see what's happening. From there they realize the distributive property means there will be addition and subtraction.

Once students had them correctly sorted, they distributed the cards evenly among themselves (some from each group) and then solved them. Depending on quickly the group got done, students could rotate cards and work more problems.

Each card had a letter on the back. Students wrote the letter next to their solution so that we could check the answers.

Students tried to sort by alphabetical order but that only created one big group. :) They also tried to sort by what 'looked' easy, medium, hard or problems that looked short, medium, or long. Also some tried to group based on how many negatives or positives in the problem and even how many exponents existed.

Checking answers was super simple.

My whole goal was for them to know when to use each rule/shortcut/property. By asking students to sort, we are kicking it up a notch higher in Bloom's Taxonomy or DoK and hopefully making them think. The more I am less helpful, the more opportunity for students to construct their own meaning.

2011-2012 Class Schedule

2011-03-27T21:08:00.000-05:00

1st- 10th Grade Social Development
2nd- 11th Grade Test Prep (ACT)
3rd- 8th Grade Algebra I
4th- Plan
5th- Algebra 1
6th- Geometry Lab
7th- Geometry
8th- Algebra Lab

I'm super pumped about this schedule!

Social Development is basically advisory or what I like to call 'mothering'. That's my heart. I would rather do that all day every day if I could! The plan for that is on Monday- Character Education, Tuesday- Sustained Silent Reading for everyone (including the teacher!), Wednesday- Test Prep, Thursday- Study Hall, Friday- Team Building/Service Projects. How fun is that?

The test prep for 11th grade is broken up among four of us: math, reading, english, science. So we will have a group of kids for 4-5 weeks and then they will rotate to a different content area. I am in love with this because it's not that much of an extra prep, kind of a mini prep. The plan is that Monday through Wednesday is test prep (not sure what that will consist of yet) then Thursday is a study hall and Friday again with the team building and service projects.

The Algebra and Geometry labs will probably be the hardest thing for me to deal with. Our instructional team is starting to plan assessments together and after that we want to move on to planning the curriculum/activities for those lab classes. We know for sure we want to incorporate probability, statistics, and measurement since those are the first things to get cut out of the normal curriculum. My heart for this class is to meet with students individually and work on skills they haven't mastered yet. We also would like to use ALEKS (or I'm leaning toward TenMarks) or some computer program a couple days of week for students to work on at their own pace. I think the first thing to do is plan a routine like we have for the social development and test prep classes. That way students and teachers know what to expect on a daily/weekly basis. And makes planning a lot simpler.

Other changes to our schedule is that the school day is extended from 3:06 to 3:20. Teachers had to stay until 3:20 anyway so now we can leave as soon as the bell rings.

In the morning, we have to be here by 7:45 and class starts at 8:03. The new schedule gives us team meeting time (vertical, instructional, student support, leadership, etc) from 7:45 to 8:15 every day. As far as teachers are concerned, we have to be there the same amount of time. We went from seven to eight periods so I'm sure some teachers have extra preps and are not happy about that! But, so far, I haven't heard any complaints.

Our lunch period is now common between middle school and high school. Remember, smallllll school. While that may cause some issues, it opens up more options for middle school students to take as 'exploratory' classes.

Another change is that all juniors/seniors will have gym first hour and all freshmen/sophomores will have gym second hour. We're kind of going on a fitness initiative. More aerobics and such because research shows that getting those endorphins pumping helps students think better. The FACS teacher will be pulling students during their gym time to create individual nutrition plans as well.

All in all, I have to say I am surprised and impressed that my administration came up with this. Of course I'm biased since I like my schedule, but I do think this is a good way to fulfill a lot of different needs that our school currently has.

The attitude and atmosphere is slowly changing and becoming more positive. Teachers have been coming up with cross-curriculum projects and new ideas. Since I've spent a lot of time complaining, I thought I would share some positive things now.

The elementary has started an intramural basketball team for boys and girls.
We're brainstorming ways to update, rearrange, and change the atmosphere of the library to a place people want to be.
The history and English department are doing a joint study of the Holocaust that culminates in a trip to a Holocaust museum with a tour given by a Holocaust survivor.
The band teacher wants to design his own band uniform with measurement help from algebra/geo students, measurement predictions from the statistics class, design/color ideas from the art classes, and mock-up patterns sewn by the FACS classes.
I'm stealing a project from Mimi where students design their own logo and then shrink or enlarge it (to practice percents) and with the help of the art teacher, we will blow it up or shrink it and use the printing press to create an actual print of the logo.
The fine arts department is planning a Math Olympics day where students sign up and compete for math related activities such as counting back change, doing mental math, telling time from an analog clock, etc.
We will be using Career Cruising with students as a way to kind of build a portfolio of sorts for college/careers after school as well as a way of setting goals and recording student accomplishments.
We've formed a Communications Committee to work on communication between administrators and teachers, teachers and parents, etc.

Pretty impressive if I do say so myself.

Classroom Management Workshop

2011-03-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

Effective Classroom:
-Procedures
-Mutual Respect
-Consistency
-Observant
-Flexibility
-Communication
-Accountability
-Clarity
-Discipline
-Structure

What Do You Want to Know?
-how to deal with the one problem child
-motivation
-bag of tricks
-how to deal with bullying
-managing cooperative learning and transitions
-beginning activities

Collaborative Norms
-Equity of voice
-Active listening
-Safety to share different perspectives
-Confidentiality

Come to the Edge poem

3 Characteristics of an Effective Teacher
1. Positive expectations for student success
2. Extremely good classroom manager
3. Knows how to design lessons for student mastery

Efficient is not the same as effective.

Creating Acceptance
-Make eye contact with each student
-Call all students by preferred name (Should we call students by Mr. or Ms. since we expect them to respond to us in that manner?)
-Move toward and stay close to learners
-"With-it-ness"

Give-one-get-one strategy. Give students a grid of nine squares. They fill in three with their own ideas. Then find another student to exchange one idea with. Keep rotating students until grid is full.

Effective teachers manage their classrooms.
Ineffective teachers discipline their classrooms.

Focus on procedures to limit dealing with behavior.

Discipline has penalties and rewards. Procedures don't.

Students Should Know:
Where to get materials
What to do when they have a question
Where to work
Where to put work
What the rules are

Rules are concerned with behavior, not academic work.

There's no reason to have a rule that's not important. If you don't enforce it, don't make it a rule.

Be firm, fair, consistent.

Teaching Procedures
1. Explain, model, demonstrate
2. Rehearse, practice
3. Review

The number one problem in the classroom is not discipline; it is the lack of routines and procedures.

Discuss inappropriate behaviors quietly, calmly, and privately as often as you can.

http://www.disciplinehelp.com Library of scenarios and how to deal with specific behaviors.

New Culture of Teaching: Alan November

2011-03-25T10:14:00.000-05:00

Closing the Gap Conference
Keynote Speaker- Alan November

3 Job Skills
1. Dealing with an overwhelming amount of information and being able to sift through to find what's useful and needed.
2. Global communication- being able to complete things that you can't finish on your own, working with people not in the same room
3. Self-directed- being able to work on your own efficiently without a boss.

2 Tech Tools
1. Skype
2. Screen casting tool (Jing)

Teachers should have access to any website with the complete trust that they will make the right decision. Only in the US are websites blocked.

Record people (that children are familiar with) reading books aloud to encourage reading. Use Skype to create a 'grandparent network'.

Build a video library of tutorials made BY students, FOR students that spans the entire curriculum. Over time, show different cases/ method. Students need to see other students homework more than the teacher does. The role of the teacher is now more important than ever: all content goes through and mist be approved by teacher. Ttt

We have underestimated students willingness to work harder than the teacher. Homework is not purposeful work.

Search Google using site extensions like .gov, .k13.il.us, to limit results from quality sites. Site:

Students are going to publish content on the Internet anyway. Why not be a role model for how to publish appropriate content? They're posting crap on the Internet because they've never been taught otherwise.

The majority of students have inaccurate notes. We don't have time to check for quality.

Google and Gates are paying Khan to cover the entire American curriculum. If students can get every lecture ever needed on their phone/laptop, we no longer need to lecture. Homework becomes classwork and there is no homework. Homework needs immediate feedback or it does no good.

We are blocking the most powerful tool ever invented for learning because of our fear of lack of control.

With Wolfram-Alpha, we no longer have to focus on mechanics. We can spend time on application.

Live demonstration of polleverywhere.com

Video of Eric Mazoir: Students at Harvard can get high scores on tests without understanding anything. This is our American curriculum. Even if NCLB completely succeeded, the nation would fail.

Students should read, write, and reflect before the lecture.

In the classroom 'flip', everyone wins. But we won't actually do it because of tradition. Students need immediate feedback and they cam get that now with clickers. We can know what kids are thinking! Students need to learn logic, reasoning, and how to think. They no longer need the teacher for transfer of knowledge. We've bought billions of dollars of technology but we haven't changed the process of learning. Who owns the learning in your classroom?

Use Google Docs to take collaborative notes. One person can't take better notes than three people working together.

Teach students to deal with content, not block it.

SOHCAHTOA Graph Project

2011-03-22T08:00:00.005-05:00

Update on my trig ratio graph lesson that I blogged about here. I talked to my pre-calc teacher and he said if I wanted to do this it would be good. So it wasn't necessary and I wasted a lot of time but I still think it was a good lesson. Thanks to @approx_normal for suggesting I test this out on Excel on my own. After some trial and error, I figured out that students would get a good picture of the graph by using multiples of 3 up to 90 degrees. We kept the y window the same, going up to 1 by increments of .1.

I gave them a page with three blank graphs, one for each trig ratio. And then ta-da, I made up another investigation! The hardest part for students was figuring out how to label the graphs. Especially after we realized that the y window for the tangent graph needed to go from 0 to 20 by 2s. (Note: I didn't change that yet so if you use it, that's something you need to look for.)

Then once I got them started on calculating the degrees, it was pretty much smooth sailing. The next stumbling block was when it came to predictions. I had them draw a curve through all the dots.

After using the line to predict certain trig values, I wanted them to use the calculator. But, they just wanted to try it by typing in sin(42). I probably should have shown them how to graph the trig functions on the calculator earlier. But, after they graphed the function, I had them hit trace and type in the necessary angle measure.

To sum things up, I made a Powerpoint with pictures of trig graphs from real life scenarios. The first slide is a graphic organizer which we used to take notes about nonlinear, nonquadratic, discrete, and continuous. I briefly introduced the concept of asymptotes as well.

For homework, students answered the reflection questions on the back about their process. And to be honest, the answers weren't that great. But then again, neither was the assignment.

Fish Pong: A Review Game

2011-03-21T08:00:00.004-05:00

I got this game off of the ilovemath,org wiki but I had to change some of the problems since we hadn't done all of that yet. It's a review game based on the 'win a fish' carnival game.

Original Directions:
Remember the game at the fair where you try to toss a ball in a fish bowl and if so, you take home the fish? Same kind of concept.

My "fish pond" is made from the lid of the copier paper box. I then taped down some plastic cups. Since I needed 3 different colors, I took overhead pens and went around the inside top part of the cup (red, black, and red). I filled the lid full of cups trying to not have any spaces. I just put tape on the bottom of the cups. I have a ping pong too.

Students are in groups. I take turns asking groups for a problem. Everyone works the problem. Each group shows me 1 answer. One point for correct answer, extra points are gained by getting the ping pong ball in a cup.

I have the lid of cups on a desk and another desk in front of that. The students stand behind a line that is about 2 or 3 feet away. I ask that they toss the ping pong ball so that it hits the first desk and bounces it in to the cups. If it bounces out, no points, if it gets stuck on top of all of the cups, no points.

My Take:
I didn't give any points for the right answer. I put colored post-it flags inside the cups that were worth different points. But I also noticed there were yellow, green, and blue plastic cups at Wal-Mart so I will be picking some of those up soon.

In the picture above, I ran out of cups AND they were out of the right size so I filled the rest with small cups. I don't know if that made it harder or easier but it's what I'm working with. So then the students win different points depending on what color they win.

The students like this game because they think it will be so easy and they will be great at it. The truth is, they suck. They complain that our desks are slanted and that throws off their ability to bounce but I just make fun of them and play on. And if you haven't already made the connection, students refer to this as beer pong. I originally called it fish pong and now I call it nothing, I just bring out the box.

I made my own game for similar triangles and one for trig ratio practice.

Balloon Pop: A Review Game

2011-03-19T20:24:00.001-05:00

I learned about this game at a Pippin's math conference which I blogged about here. It's sad that that was almost a year ago and I'm just now using it. You can use a regular review worksheet or my personal favorite, a Powerpoint of review problems.

Preparation:

Students are in teams. You create a sheet with balloons on it and a place to write a team name. Or you can steal mine. Print this on paper and stick it in side of a page protector. Students write their name on it with dry erase marker.

Process:
Show a problem. Each team works it, which means every person works it. They agree on a team answer. Now reveal the correct answer. Whichever team(s) gets the correct answer gets to pop another team's balloon by using the dry erase marker to draw an X on it. If a team's balloons all get popped, then they can erase a popped balloon instead of popping someone else's balloon. But that's only an option after all of their balloons have been popped. Whichever team has the most unpopped balloons left at then end, wins.

Reflection:
My students loved this. The fun thing is to watch different teams try to form alliances and get other teams out. My students said it was like playing survivor because you never knew which teams were working together. Students were surprised by how fast time went by and thought it was fun. They actually asked to do it again.

Resources:
Here is my balloon pop Powerpoint for solving systems of equations by substitution. I put the answers at the bottom of each slide and covered it with a white rectangle. Then I used the animations to make the box disappear and show the answer.

Coming Attractions: New Year Resolutions

2011-03-19T02:40:00.002-05:00

Since my school has received this school improvement grant, I plan to work my butt off this summer to take full advantage of my instructional coach.

I decided to go ahead and start my list so that as soon as school ends, I know exactly where to start. (Some are ideas and things I don't need to create or that I can't do until school starts.)

What I Want For Next Year

Binders I don't use textbooks so everything is a worksheet/handout and they are everywhere. I am too anal to let this continue. So everyone will have binders with dividers and a little bag to hold all of their supplies in. My AP suggested making them classroom binders to keep things simple. I can have a weekly TA who's job is to come in and immediately pass them out. I just want to get rid of bottle neck traffic jams.
Writing/Blogging I need to incorporate way more reading and writing. I don't know to make it work time-wise but I want each student to write a blog and comment on others' as well. I have Nonfiction Writing Prompts from the Write to Know Series for Algebra and Geometry to use as a starting place. How can I make it all work?
Develop Class Writing/Blogging Rubric I definitely want to assess these blogs but I would like to use examples of their own writing to have students help me create a rubric based on what they think is important in their writing. So as a class we will model critiquing and feedback to develop a rubric so that students can then self-assess, peer-tutor, or just understand my assessment process better.
Visual Procedure Rubrics Speaking of rubrics, I want to take pictures of important procedures that we do all the time in class. For example: paying attention in class. I would take 3 different pictures. When students were acting appropriately that would be a 1, when some are off task would be a 2, and chaos would be a 3. Then I can post pictures of the most important procedures and easily assess them: "Class you're at a 2 and I need you at a 1." Everyone knows what is expected.
Practice Procedures/Transitions I plan to spend the beginning of class literally practicing procedures and timing students on transitions until we can quickly and efficiently move from place to place, task to task, without losing so much instructional time. This is where the visual rubrics will come into play. As we practice, I can photograph each stage and use as a reminder.
Math/Art/Writing Projects I'd like to develop an art project involving math for every unit or every other unit as a motivator to get work done correctly and efficiently in class to make time to work on their project. Obviously it would be something I would grade and display, it would appeal to kinesthetic and visual learners, it would hopefully tie concepts together, and make class a little more enjoyable. If I can do it, I'd like to create a project per unit which may include art, writing, 'inventing', etc.
Formal Team Roles I've been doing group work without really holding students accountable. It has helped in some ways because they are teaching each other but I know so much more could be done. I basically want to follow Riley Lark's structure because I love how clearly it is explained. As we practice procedures, we can easily model the roles described here.
Formatives With Clickers I recently started using clickers and the students love it but it hasn't been super useful to me yet. I've been using them on bell ringers and exit slips as a way to hopefully guide my instruction. It is cool to watch but we waste time waiting for people to click and obviously some still guess. So next year, I want to have formative already developed on slides so students can easily click and I will know what to do with that information.
Display Team Results Combining the previous two, I want to use the data from our formatives and summatives to compare teams within classes. I tried this by comparing two periods but then one period just called themselves the slower class. So someone suggested I compare teams with a class which makes sense, especially because students will rotate teams. My clicker software has awesome 3d graphs which would be easy to print and display. In color.
Write Multiple Versions of Every Assessment In order to make sbg finally work for me, I HAVE to do this.
Remediation/Scaffolded Worksheets I want to have these made so that if students do not make my cut off score (I'm thinking 80%) then I immediately have a worksheet for them to complete before retesting. I will have examples worked out plus answers to the problems they complete on their own so that they can self check. I hope to use Nasco's Algebra 1 and Geometry Worksheets for that.
Index Card Flip Charts I'm totally stealing Julie's idea because some of my kids are so obsessed with taking notes. I need to do this because I give so much paper since I don't use textbooks. Plus, I'm requiring binders so it will be very easy to keep things organized. Also, in my notes/homework/investigations I can point students back to a particular concept that they need to remember. And what a great tool to study for final exams!
Math Dictionary On that same note, my friend over at Ms. Mathemagician has her students make their own math dictionary on a key ring. I can't remember the specifics (hint, hint, *blog post* cough, cough) but I think she gives a weekly vocab quiz. Mix that with an idea from @graceachen, who lets students use a certain amount of cards on the quiz but less and less cards as time goes on until they are not using any cards at all.
Embed Review at Appropriate Places I want do this right now because I love lists so much but I want to make a list of the units I need to teach broken down into prerequisite skills and new skills. From there, I can start each unit by reviewing the appropriate material and leading into the new material. Hopefully, I can eliminate wasting much of the first quarter reviewing and get into the real focus of Algebra I.
Performance Events On the one hand, I want to love sbg because I love breaking things down into manageable pieces and simplifying and organizing. On the other hand, I love investigations that tie things together in a neat package. If I'm going to try sbg skill tests again, I want to somehow incorporate performance events which will tie concepts together and definitely hit that critical thinking gap where students need to be familiar with multi-step problems. Maybe skill quizzes could be short and frequent and then every so often (end of unit, every 3 weeks, etc?) we have a performance event accompanied by a write-up that would serve more as a 'test' than quiz.

I know someone will tell me to pick one or two things to focus on and build on those but I don't have time for all that. I have resources available that I might never have again. I'm going to do my best to get as much done as I can. I will crash and burn on my own at some point so please don't discourage me ahead of time.

Don't steal my fire; just let me burn!

Critical Thinking Skills

2011-03-17T22:39:00.000-05:00

In our instructional team meeting, we've been looking at data. Which is quite depressing. But what we've noticed is that basically, our students are not retaining information. The more we talked about it, the more we decided that the real issue is critical thinking. Students can only do exact duplicates of problems we've done in class without being able to apply that concept in a different setting. From there, we are brainstorming what we can do. Here's what we came up with as a group:

Include an entire unit of story problems
Use brainteasers/puzzles/riddles to get students in the habit of thinking and working multi-step problems in a 'fun' setting with no pressure.
More practice reading math problems
More practice working multi-step problems
Teaching students to persevere and try different methods rather than giving up

On a personal note, here are some ideas I want to try next year:

Error Analysis- Having students analyze work to find and fix the problem.
Journaling- Getting students to think through mathematical processes.
Peer editing- Have students read/assess each others journal entries.
Multi-Step problems- Make every problem more than one step if at all possible, including on assessments

That's all I can remember at the moment.

What are your suggestions? How do you kick things up a notch? How do you write assessments that aren't just asking them to remember or memorize something?

PLC Readiness Survey

2011-03-13T09:00:00.002-05:00

In my PLC class, we are simulating PLC's and worked together to create a PLC readiness survey to give to the other teachers in our school who are not taking the class. We started out by all writing our own questions on issues we thought needed to be addressed. Our instructor compiled them and tried to cluster them together. We went through and voted on the ones we liked the most. Every group has the same first 11 questions. Then each group added 3-5 of their own depending on who they were giving their surveys to: elementary, middle, or high. My group was the high school group.

I wanted to share this survey in case it was something that other schools who want to implement the PLC model might find useful or at least a stepping stone to the PLC mindset.

We based the first questions on the Likert scale and then threw in some open ended questions.

I feel comfortable with my peers observing my class
The faculty works well together to explore skills and strategies to improve student learning.
I am committed to continuously seeking out opportunities to improve my teaching.
Our school has a supportive environment for students.
Our school has a supportive environment for staff.
Our district has a culture of trust and commitment.
Instructors have a voice and ownership in our school.
I value collaborative planning and sharing among faculty.
I am willing to collaborate with my peers.
I use the results of assessments to guide student learning.
Our school would see improved student achievement data as a result of implementing a system of teacher collaboration and data analysis.
I am willing to talk to faculty members about my teaching methods and my ideas.
Staff members work together to search for solutions to address diverse student needs.
What concerns you most about peer observation? (Open-ended)
How can we use assessment data toward more positive outcomes? (Open-ended)
What disadvantages do you see with collaborative planning periods? (Open-ended)

SOHCAHTOA

2011-03-12T20:16:00.000-06:00

My instructional coach sent me a link to a great little unit on right triangle trig. If you take a look at it, it's a pretty cool way of grouping students and having them measure angles and sides to find some patterns and ratios.

I also like the visual way of using string and clothes pins to illustrate the opposite, adjacent, and hypotenuse. I had three students hold the strings of the triangle and stretch all the way across the room. I made the rest of the students sit in the floor inside of the triangle. I made colorful signs and one of them had a bunch of thermometers on it that said 'Degrees'.

I had a student tape the sign to their chest. I placed the student inside the triangle at one of the acute angles. Then I chose three other students to take the signs and pin them to the appropriate string. I asked the rest of the class if their placements were correct and to explain why. On their own, they came up with the fact that the opposite side was the one the student could not touch. Now I had another student become the 'degrees' and move to the other acute angle. Three new students now got the clothes pins and signs and moved them around. This was an important part of the activity because the student who went to move the hypotenuse sign said "Hey, doesn't it stay in the same place?" This was a natural way to discuss where the hypotenuse is, why it is always the same, and why we don't use the right angle as our reference angle.

In my first geometry class, we jumped right from there into the measuring sides and angles activity and it flopped due to the fact that students still weren't understanding exactly where the opposite and adjacent sides were and that they had to look from the perspective of both acute angles. So by the time my second period of geometry came around, I remembered Dave Sladkey's post on kinesthetic right triangle trig. Although I do have a Flip cam, I didn't record it. But I did have students create right triangles with their bodies. I took our handy dandy 'degrees' sign and put it on the floor inside their body triangle at an acute angle. I asked for the opposite, adjacent, and hypotenuse and each person raised their hand accordingly. I did the other acute angle and then rotated to every other group to do the same. Then, (yes we spent a lot of time on figuring this out but what is right triangle trig without knowing that?) I had already drawn a bunch of colorful right triangles all over the board with a theta at random angles to represent the reference angle. I called each student up individually and had them choose any triangle and based on theta, label the sides accordingly. This proved to me that every single student now could correctly identify each side of a right triangle.

Hopefully you have checked out the link by now or this lesson is probably making no sense. From this point, students worked in groups measuring different sized triangles with the same angle and then finding the sine, cosine, and tangent ratios without knowing what they were yet. The idea (I think) was that students would realize their ratios were almost the same for each angle even though their triangle legs were different lengths. Then each group would graph their results and we would have what should be the graphs of sine, cosine, and tangent. Enter great discussion on nonlinear graphs that aren't quadratic and discrete vs. continuous. Maybe I misunderstood the objective of the lesson (READ THE LINK) but the graphs didn't turn out.

The instructions said to have the horizontal axis be degrees 0-90 and the vertical axis to be 0-1 by increments of .1. See below one graph each for sine, cosine, tangent.

But when the students plotted the points, it was just a bunch of scattered clusters of points.

If I connect them, is it going to work out? I'm not sure what the problem is. The students don't know what it's supposed to be yet. I though about giving them some more angles and having them use the calculator to find the value and graph some more points. Maybe we don't have enough data? Or do we have the wrong data? Or have I totally misunderstood the point? Please help.

Systems of Equations: Substitution

2011-03-10T16:52:00.002-06:00

Keep in mind that we have already done systems by graphing and reviewed finding solutions of equations. I started class with this:

Next, I presented them with this slide and asked them how to solve:

They easily knew what to do and how to write it as an ordered pair. Next I presented them with this slide:

I think maybe one or two students kind of knew what to do but for the most part, they were stumped. Now that is where the index cards come in. So we took one half (I just had them cut them up so I wouldn't have to use as many) and on one side they wrote y. On the other side, they wrote x - 1 because that is what y equals. Next, I passed out legal size white paper. I had them write the second equation down. Instead of writing the y though, I told them to draw parentheses big enough that your index card would fit inside it. We practiced looking at the equation with the index card showing the y and then flipping it over to see the x - 1. I think this was a good 'kinesthetic' activity because we were literally replacing the variable in the equation with an expression. So now students knew we had to do distributive property and then combine like terms.

From there we did one or two more examples and then they figured it out with out having to use the index card.

The next day, we practiced again.

This time, I had students get a colored pencil to write the substituted parts to make them stand out better. So we started out with a system. I told the students to make a cloud around the equation where the variable is alone. In the example below, we clouded 5y - 1. I asked the students what that equaled and when they answered x, I showed them to then circle the x in the second equation. From there we plugged in (with the colored pencil) the cloud where the x had been. We went through the steps of solving and found that y = 2. Then, with colored pencil, make a cloud around that. Draw an arrow from one cloud to the other. I asked them what happens when two clouds hit? (You know where I'm going right?) Make it rain! Last year my students always forgot to find the second coordinate of the ordered pair but now I know they will always remember to make it rain (if nothing else!).
.

I found this joke worksheet last year and I really like it because students can self-check using the answers on the right. But beware, students can figure out the joke. Specifically tell them you will be checking their work, not just the answers.

I assigned #1-4 for homework at first because you don't have to solve for a variable to start out.

One student told me she cried because she couldn't figure it out. I think what frustrated them about this was that they knew what to do, they knew that they could do it, but they were just making mistakes. Some students have actually told me that they like this and one girl said it was the easiest thing we've done all year. I've tried to stress to them that this is a new concept but a familiar process. As they practice, they improve. But what I have been impressed by is that they don't give up. They know they can do it.

Right before lunch one girl said I was making her hungry with all of this thinking and hard work. Success!

Those of you that have been reading and responding to my tweets have probably noticed my moody-bitter-I-hate-everybody-what-is-the-point-of-teaching diatribe. I still feel that way. I feel like even though my students are learning at this point, they won't know in two weeks how to do it. Or two months. And definitely not in two years. We have data to back that up.

I feel like my job is pointless. They aren't retaining anything and I don't know how to make them retain it. We've identified that students aren't really doing any critical thinking but I don't know how to fix that. Or teach it better. Or make it stick.

So. I will keep going on but yesterday, I wanted to quit. This job is impossible. If the people before me couldn't do it, what makes me think I can? I think a mark of a good teacher is when you can make the lower level students learn. I'm not doing that. Anyone can teach the top students. How do you reach the rest?

Even then, our smart kids are not retaining anything.

What. Is. The. Point.

SBG + PLC = I Finally Get It

2011-03-09T15:33:00.000-06:00

This one article assigned in our PLC class has finally cemented how sbg should work FOR ME.

*from Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work pg 190-193
Dufour, Dufour, & Eaker, 2008

Diana, Se, Marie, and Amy, the second-grade team at Westlawn Elementary, began their collaborative process for improving math proficiency for their students by engaging in collective inquiry regarding the current results and practices in second-grade math. Their math achievement data from the previous year's summative district assessment indicated 78% of second graders met or exceeded the district's proficiency target in math. They agree to establish a team SMART goal to improve upon last year's results by at least 10% on that same summative district assessment. The goal was strategic in that it was aligned with the school's goal to increase the percentage of students meeting or exceeding proficiency in math as measured on local, county, state, and national indicators. The team goal was measurable because it asked for a 10% increase over the previous year. The team believed the goal was attainable because improved results (higher levels of student learning) were required to achieve the goal. It was time-bound because the goal was to be accomplished within the course of the school year.

Prior to developing strategies to achieve their goal, Diana, Se, Marie, and AMy had a candid conversation about how they had approached the math curriculum in the previous year. They acknowledged they had followed the same 4-step pattern for each unit:

Step 1. Administer the pre-assessment from the textbook.
Step 2. Teach the unit.
Step 3. Administer the post-assessment from the textbook.
Step 4. Move on to the next unit, repeating steps 1 through 3.

They recognized they would only improve student performance in math across second grade by seeking out and implementing new and better practices. They committed to each other to use the team learning process of a PLC to guide their teamwork throughout that year.

What Did They Do?
1. They clarified the 8 to 10 most essential student learning outcomes (skills, concepts, dispositions) in math for each semester by doing the following:

Talking with the third-grade team to determine the skills and concepts most essential to student success in math for entering third graders
Analyzing and clarifying their state and division second-grade math standards
Consulting with school and division math specialists to clarify multiple interpretations of the same standards
Analyzing the district assessment, and identifying where their students had struggled in the previous year.
Developing a math curriculum map and common pacing guide they all agreed to follow

2. They created a series of common formative assessments aligned to the essential math outcomes by doing the following:

Studying the language and format of the district's summative assessment of second-grade math
Selecting appropriate items aligned to the essential math skills from math textbooks, individual teacher assessments, and state and national websites providing released math items
Creating new items deemed by the members of the team to be valid ways of assessing the essential skills
Including at least five items per skill on each common assessment to provide students an adequate opportunity to demonstrate their proficienct
Increasing the number and frequency of assessments so that only two or three skills were considered on each assessment

3. They established a proficiency target of 80% for each skill on each assessmet. For example, if they used fivei tems to assess a particular skill, students needed to solve four of the five problems correctly to be deemed proficient.

4. They collectively analyzed the results from each common formative assessment, identifying, skill by skill, the individual students throughout second grade whose scores exceeded, met, or fell below the team's proficiency target.

Through this collaborative analysis of common formative assessment data, the team was quickly able to do the following:

Identify individual students who were experiencing difficulty on any skill.
Identify individual students who were already highly proficient
Create flexible groups of students across the grade level for the intervention/enrichment period each day based on skill-by-skill proficiency.
Establish a protected block of time each day for the team, resource specialists, and instructional assistants to provide students with coordinated and precise intervention and enrichment based on students' personal needs.
Identify the teachers whose students were experiencing the greatest success on each skill.
Assign students who were struggling with a particular skill to work with the teachers experiencing the best results in that skill on the common assessments during their intervention/enrichment period.
Explore and discuss the strategies being used in individual classrooms

The team also engaged students in the process of monitoring their own learning by requiring each student to maintain simple bar graphs indicating his or her proficiency on each essential math skill. Items on the assessment were arranged by skill, and each item was assigned its own box on the graph. After every common assessment, students would color in the box for each item they answered correctly. As individual students discovered they had not not met the proficiency target on a particular math skill or concept, they knew to report to the corresponding small-group tutorial during the intervention/enrichment period to receive additional support for their learning.

At the completion of this skill-driven cycle, the team administered another form of the common assessment to students who had experienced difficulty on any of the essential skills. At that point, new student learning groups were formed. Students who demonstrated proficiency were moved to enrichment groups, while students who continued to struggle were moved to smaller, more intensive group interventions.

This intervention/enrichment process ensured that any student in second grade who was having difficulty understanding a skill would receive intensive, small-group instruction from the most effective teacher on the team for that particular skill. The process allowed the team to continue with new direct instruction during the regular math period each day, so the difficulties of a few did not adversely impact the opportunity for all students to learn new material. Meanwhile, the team continued to build shared knowledge of the best way to help young students acquire math skills through a collective study of the research on the topic. At the same tine, however, members were conducting their own action research on effective math instruction and learning from one another.

Systems of Equations: Substitution

2011-03-09T08:00:00.001-06:00

I spent one day on solving systems by graphing which is exactly what I wanted since I know I will need much more time for substitution and elimination.

Before jumping into it, I wanted to review testing ordered pairs to see if they were solutions or not. Here was my thought: I would take four systems from our graphing investigation that weren't parallel and had simple ordered pairs for solutions. I made up a similar worksheet so that students could write the solutions in. Then in the middle box, we substituted the solution into the equation to algebraically prove why the ordered pair was a solution. I wanted to spend the rest of the class period reviewing this concept. So at home I had made up these index cards (I know, I'm obsessed!) of equations and their solutions.

And I said to myself, "Kyle, (That's what I call myself. Just kidding, that's a reference to a Boy Meets World episode. Eric is ridiculous!) how can I use these cards?" My first thought was a scavenger hunt where solutions would be hidden around the room and students would have to search for the correct one. Ok, so that was my only thought. But then what to do with the equations? Well why not hide them too? I had one of my geometry classes hide the cards and they were super sneaky. I should have taken pictures of all the places they hid them. It was insane. So students happily searched high and low, writing down equations and solutions in their nice, neat rows. And then suddenly it dawned on me...everything was written down randomly. We had no idea which solution went with which each equation. It would take forever to plug in every solution to every equation. What to do? Luckily, that was the end of class so I had plenty of time to ponder.

The next day I created another sheet, very similar to the past two. I laid out all of the index cards (there were 9) and had each student (luckily there are 9 of them too- what a coinky dink) take one. They wrote this at the top of the paper. Then, I gave them the first ordered pair which they wrote in the left column. In the middle column, they plugged the ordered pair into their equation. If it worked, they wrote 'yes' in the right column. If not, they wrote 'no'. The beauty of this was that there would only be one yes each time. But since you never know who will be yes, every person has to do every problem. Well technically after you get a yes, you don't need to do anymore, but I wanted them to practice.

This turned out to be a long, drawn out activity to practice nine problems. And they only used one equation! Next year I suppose I should give them one ordered pair and have them test several equations? Or maybe just scrap this entire activity and find something that gives practice with a variety of ordered pairs and equations.

I am proud of myself for making this activity work, even though it floundered on day one.

The students asked me if they could have a quiz over solving systems by graphing and proving solutions of equations because it was so easy, so I take that as a positive sign.

And I might just take them up on that offer.

Systems of Equations: Graphing

2011-03-08T16:10:00.000-06:00

It was time to start systems of equations which I like, but starting with the graphing method, I don't. My instructional coach suggested I use graphing calculators since it is practically impossible to do by hand. Light bulb! It's investigation time. :)

I wanted to make something up where students would graph two lines and then find the intersection point. Thanks go to @bbrennan- he suggested that I have the students calculate the intersection instead of just estimating. Which worked out wonderfully by the way!

I typed up step-by-step directions so that students could work individually for once.

I had students read the first three sentences and stop. I had hoped from a previous investigation on parallel and perpendicular lines that students would understand the concept of solution and no solution. Unfortunately, they did not. We kinda scrapped that investigation anyway. So once I explained solution, the students figured out quickly what no solution meant. From there, I had them flip the paper over and go down through each system to decide if the lines were parallel or perpendicular based on their previous knowledge of slope.

Then we flipped back to the front page and I let students work on their own through the example. I circulated the room making sure that everyone got the correct answer before allowing them to move on.

Once everyone had the process under control, I set them loose on the back page. Fingers were flying, buttons were clicking, math was being done! When students came upon systems of equations that were parallel, they still typed it in the calculator and then got an error. When they asked for help I guided them back to their graph and asked what kind of lines they saw. As soon as they noticed the parallelism (te-he), they realized their mistake. Maybe next time I should put more emphasis on actually looking at the graphs before calculating.

The solutions for number 7 and 8 were ugly decimals that students whined about writing down. But once they cried me a river, built a bridge, and got over it, they realized it was only 8 digits of writing. I think this activity went well. Students thought it was cool to have the calculators doing the work for them and the process became almost a mantra: "Second, trace, 5, enter, enter, enter".

Compared to graphing by hand, I LOVED this method. I think it was a great visual, an actually effective way to incorporate technology, and is a good foundation for understanding the point of systems. Also, I planned for it to take whole period, and only one period, and it did! By golly, I might be getting the hang of this.

Slopes of Parallel and Perpendicular Lines

2011-03-07T01:21:00.000-06:00

Previously I had created what I thought was a pretty good investigation of slopes of parallel and perpendicular lines. It reviewed graphing slope-intercept form and point-slope form, plotting points, finding intersections, and comparing/contrasting equations with a nice ending that would smoothly transition into systems of equations. Little did I know, I made an error on one set of equations that made them neither parallel nor perpendicular. Another set of equations ran off of the graph, which made it harder to see that the lines were perpendicular rather than just intersecting. And I gave this to students on a day I was not in class. And weird timing things happened and we skipped a few days before going back to it. Probably not my best idea ever.

So alas, I scrapped it and found this packet on-line. It just seemed like my students were confused and needed the basics without the investigation. We spent two class periods on it and I gave some for homework. It was straightforward and hit the four concepts I wanted to leave them with: using point-slope formula to write an equation in slope-intercept form, use the slope formula and determine if the slopes are parallel/perpendicular/neither, solve two equations for y and compare their slopes, and write the equation of a line parallel/perpendicular to a given equation. After this packet, I did an index card review.

Here is card 1a and 1b.

Same concept, different numbers. Students worked in partners so that they had someone to ask if they struggled. After 4 minutes, the cards rotate. Now the students receive cards 2a and 2b.

But, if they flip it over, the answer to 1a and 1b is on the back. The idea is that students are able to self-check and not spend the whole hour working problems incorrectly. I saw this idea on Amy's blog and also at a ICTM conference. Create stations and each station has the solution to the previous station. Amy mentioned that her students wanted to rotate cards instead of rotating desks. I thought this would be easier as well and had my students sit in a circle. I made 8 sets of cards (total of 16) and we only had 4 sets of partners (8 students total) so then they were working on sets 1a/1b, 2a/2b, 3a/3b, and 4a/4b. The problem came when we rotated cards. The students with 4a/4b now had 1a/1b when they really needed 5a/5b so that they could flip them over and see the answers. Things got messy quickly and I was juggling index cards all over the place. It took me two classes in a row to figure out how to remedy this. My last class has 16 students so my set of 8 would have worked but they are terrible at transition and we waste too much time and energy of mine trying to complete simple tasks.

Light bulb! I put the two cards under the document camera. The slower students worked to complete one card while faster students could complete two in the same amount of time. (Hello differentiation!) After the timer went off (4 minutes again), I showed the solutions to both cards and then on to the new set of problems. The class was very well-behaved and quiet- most worked diligently.

I liked doing this but I want to make the station idea work too. I think that next time I should make students rotate stations or I should make two sets of 4 cards. My smaller class could do one set and then the other if there was enough time. Then my class of 16 could combine the two sets and use them all. But that won't always work, depending on the class size.

I think that I accomplished what I set out to, even if the method was different than what I imagined. But what fun is building a boat if you aren't carrying your tools while swimming?

PLC: Readings

2011-02-21T00:32:00.001-06:00

Week One:

Theory Into Practice, pg 281-290
Professional Learning Communities: Teachers, Knowledge, and Knowing
Diane R. Wood

Canadian Journal of Education 32, (2009) pg 149-171
Who is the "Professional" in a Professional Learning Community? An Exploration of Teacher Professionalism in Collaborative Professional Development Settings
Laura Servage

Professional Learning Communities and Communities of Practice: A Comparison of Models, Literature Review
Selena S. Blankenship and Wendy E.A. Ruona

Week 2:

The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, Winter 2010 pg 10-17
Professional Learning Communities: Overcoming the Roadblocks
Nan Lujan and Barbara Day

California Schools, Spring 2010, pg 4-9
Professional Learning Communities Allow a Transformational Culture to Take Root
Kristi Garrett

Reframing Organizations pg 240-269
Ch 12 Organizational Culture and Symbols
Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal

Week 3:

Academic Leadership Volume 8, Issue 2 Spring 2010 pg 1-7

Continuous Inquiry Meets Continued Critique: The Professional Learning Community In Practice And The Resistance Of (Un)willing Participants
Youness Elbousty, Kirstin Bratt

Teachers College Record, Volume 112, Number 1, January 2010, pg 182-224
Learning From Success as Leverage for a Professional Learning Community: Exploring an Alternative Perspective of School Improvement Process
Chen Schechter

Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, v83 n5 p175-17
Leading Deep Conversations in Collaborative Inquiry Groups
Tamara Holmlund Nelson; Angie Deuel; David Slavit; Anne Kennedy

Wikipedia
Professional learning community

Point Slope and Slope Practice

2011-02-20T23:10:00.001-06:00

I've been trying to come up with more ideas where students solve problems with more than one step as well as a way for them to self-check and kind of monitor their own progress.

And now I would like to share them with you. :)

First of all, index cards are a teacher's best friend.

Second of all, I'm finishing up (*fingers crossed*) my linear equations unit and I used basically the same idea to practice two different concepts.

My first idea was to make two sets of cards, one with point-slope form equations and the other set with the same equations but in slope-intercept form.

The point was that the students with slope-intercept form cards would graph their equations on their handy dandy whiteboards. Then the other students who have point-slope form equations would solve them for slope-intercept form and then go find the student who has the matching graph.

The bad part of this idea was...I never actually did it. But aren't my cards pretty? =)

Idea number two was much better and actually implemented.

I took one set of cards and wrote two ordered pairs on the front.

Students were in partners. The first partner uses the slope formula and finds the slope between the two points. I wrote the answer on the back so tiny that they wouldn't see it through the card. The second partner flips the card over to make sure they have the correct slope.

If not, they go back and look for the mistake. If they are correct, the second partner now takes one of the points and the slope and writes the equation in point-slope form. Then, they solve the equation for slope-intercept form.

I had all the cards (there were more than this) laid out and the pair had to come up and find their equation.

If they couldn't find it, then they knew their equation was wrong (since they had already checked the slope). And, from looking at the equations and their slope, they could usually pick out what their equation should be and that helped them to find their mistake.

Once students thought they had the matching pair, they flipped both cards over. In the top left hand corner I had written a tiny capital letter on each set. If the cards matched, students knew they were correct.

I gave them a new card of ordered pairs and the partners repeated the process, switching roles each time.

I hope this doesn't sound too complicated. It was somewhat confusing at first but after the first set of cards, students knew what to do. Of course, I was there to help them correct mistakes but my biggest job was to make sure students weren't just finding the letter and then searching for the right card. I kind of played gateway to the cards and made them tell me their equation or show me their work before getting to choose a card. Like any other activity, teachers need to circulate the room, check and correct.

If this doesn't work for you, I hope it triggered some other idea of how to use index cards, get students up and moving around, or just to break up the monotony of your routines.

PLC: Week Two

2011-02-17T21:34:00.000-06:00

A mission statement is why we're here and a vision statement says where we'd like to be. It's our driving force. We should own it. It should be simple, realistic, and straightforward.

Organizational culture: 'how we do things here'.

We need leaders to craft space for teachers.

We need self-observation as well as pure observations.

We need infrastructure for PLC type of learning.

Results on one test don't tell you everything you need to know, but it does tell you something.

What are you taking away from collaboration? Do you want collaboration? Are you comfortable with observations?

Are we really willing to commit to everyday, continuous improvement?

PLC: Week One

2011-02-17T21:33:00.000-06:00

PLC: We plan and implement common assessments, review data, and analyze individual student learning. Every student matters. We come together to decide what should be taught, how it should be taught, and how to achieve mastery.

PLCs can't exist without an organizational structure.

PLCs ask, what can we do about students who are not learning? How can we work together to find solutions?

All assessments give us more pieces of the puzzle of student learning. Everything is informative.

PLCs are:

a form of job embedded professional development
a formal title of what some schools already do through mentoring/collaboration
collegial professional learning. We need people to work and talk with. We want to find out what other people are doing.
interactive learning as opposed to the "sit and get"
learning by doing
a variety of contact: face to face or online
results oriented; want to know the 'what' as opposed to the 'how'

PLC: The Start of Something New

2011-02-17T21:21:00.000-06:00

Thanks to our school improvement grant, 20 teachers from my school have the opportunity to take a graduate level course for free. We are partnering with a local university and hoping that it will smoothly transition into a cohort where we can earn our master's degree in teacher leadership. So far, this is our pilot class and the instructor comes to us on Monday night from 3:15 to 5:45. The class is called Professional Learning Communities and Curriculum and the university developed it specifically for our school. If it goes well, they plan to implement it into their regular program.

Our first class was January 24th. I plan to post some notes that I'm keeping from each session. We've also been given some readings and if you are interested in what those are, please comment and I'll try to post titles/authors.

The 20 of us have been broken down into smaller groups to try to simulate a real PLC type setting. Our first assignment has been working together to develop a PLC readiness survey that we will give to other teachers in our school who are not taking the class. To me, it seems pointless because regardless of whether we are ready or not, we're doing it.

We've started meeting on Wednesday mornings from 7:15 to 8:00 based on content area. We started the first week by discussing norms. The meetings are not mandatory this year and we are being paid for each meeting that we attend. So norms were kind of hard to decide since technically, we don't have to show up. Next year we are going to eight periods so that we can have built in collaboration time which will then be mandatory.

But anyway, I think it's going to be super hard to have PLCs when we don't have any common classes. I am the only algebra and geometry teacher. Every teacher is the only teacher. How are we supposed to collaborate? How do we create common assessments? Yes, we can implement strategies and games and lesson formats, but somehow I think we are missing the point. We are the first small school in Illinois to try this and we are supposed to be setting the example for other small schools. We are pioneers and the terrain is tough!

Yesterday was our monthly in-service and we talked about exciting things such as exit exams for every course, student portfolios that show mastery of every required standard (basically a sbg report card!), aligning curriculum K-12, and implementing grade level vocabulary standards.

I think we are doing everything I want to do but I get frustrated because there is no manual on how to do this.

I can't wait to get started!

How We ACT Test Prep

2011-02-11T14:34:00.002-06:00

Last year, 15% of our juniors met the math requirement on the PSAE. Our goal for this year is 45%. We have 20 juniors.

Um, yeah.

I only have 8 juniors. I teach Algebra 1 and Geometry so basically, my juniors are already behind.

This year my school won a School Improvement grant with a LOTTTTTT of money and some instructional coaches. We are looking for a good systematic way to turn our school around and improve math scores and student learning. But for now, we are in triage.

We have a built in zero periods where students are separated by grade level. So all juniors are together and they start out the year on the WIN computer program which simulates the WorkKeys portion of the ACT. Students take a pre-test to assess their level 1-7 and then do short lessons on their weakest topics to hopefully move them up to level 7. It is very dry, boring, and wordy. After that, the Juniors have been working out of the PSAE Coach books. They also worked on reading analyzing graphs, a weak point for us, but I'm not sure what resources they used for that.

As of late, our math instructional coach took the top 7 students and very informally trained them on peer tutoring. They were then paired with the next 7 students. Right there, we've taken care of 14 out of the 20 students in class. The lowest 6 are then left for the teachers and instructional coach to pull out individually.

Our online grade book/assessment system is STI Information Now. While it has it's share of problems and bugs, the company has been working with us to write formative quizzes. They started out writing quizzes with 36 questions or more on them but we said that cannot work. Our students are already on burn out mode. So they dropped them down to 12. Each week we have an ACT Focus. The students are taught short lessons each day and then on Fridays, they are given the 12 question test. They see their scores on Monday, and students who score below 70% are pulled out individually by the instructional coach for remediation.

This method is working (I suppose) for now, but what happens when the instructional coach is no longer there? You guessed it. Something else for the math teacher to do. There's only 2 of us.

So what are teachers in the classroom actually doing to help boost scores? Teachers in all subject areas are given the weekly focus and some sample questions. The hope is that there will be a natural fit within the curriculum somewhere. I could not even tell you how that is going. All I know is that most teachers were using the literal sample questions and kids were seeing the same questions multiple times a week. Which may or may not be a bad thing. When I talked to the coach, it was communicated that the intention was not for them to literally use the sample questions but to use those as a guide. I responded with the seemingly obvious fact that if we knew how / were good at writing ACT questions, wouldn't be doing that already? Or working for ACT? To me, not the best plan of attack. I have scoured the internet for ACT practice test and I have a few books but here is a collection of what I've found. It isn't much.

For students in algebra and geometry, the principal looked at their previous PLAN and EXPLORE scores and using those, placed students who did not meet into an extra math class. The same was done for reading such that some students have all academic classes and no electives. We started out the year using Kuta worksheets to focus on specific skills. But that was really boring and I'm not sure how effective. We moved to the computer program ALEKS so that students could work at their own pace. A lot of students goof off and waste time doing other things. It's hard for me to monitor because every student could potentially be working on something different. That means I have to help on an individual basis instead of stopping the whole class and re-teaching one concept. So of course while I am helping one, the rest will be easily distracted. I started grading them by giving them participation points depending on how much time spent on a daily basis, but...they don't really care.

Other than that, we were doing Progress Checks each week (included in the collection) but there was more misunderstanding there. I wasn't teaching those concepts so what was the point of checking their progress? That kind of fell to the wayside.

The other thing that I know I have been doing is trying to kick my questions and assessments up a notch. In one of our SIP days, we talked about DoK levels and how most of our assessments are review and recall. I have been working to write questions and assessments that are multi-step. Students may have to solve, plug in, solve again, etc. In geometry, I'm always looking to incorporate and review algebra skills. I've been trying to get my students used to reading the question and answering what the question is asking instead of choosing the first number that they see in their work.

My most recent attempt is to incorporate ACT questions on my daily bell ringers. That way at least I know they are being exposed to the questions, the wording, the concepts.

Next up our (baby version) math instructional team is looking at this ACT curriculum review document to help align when and where each ACT standard is being taught. We hope to re-align from K-12 to make sure there are no missing gaps as well as come up with required grade level vocabulary.

In the future, we are thinking about exit exams for every grade....but that's for another post.

How does your school test prep?

Bell Ringers

2011-02-10T14:46:00.001-06:00

Totally not a new idea.

But new to me.

My ideal scenario is that someone would create a large bank of ACT and WorkKeys questions that are arranged by concept, not score range. Then I could easily pick questions that review or preview our lessons and the students would probably not even notice that we were reviewing ACT material. Our juniors are way burnt out on ACT stuff. We only have 20 in the entire junior class. That's small, even for our small school . The math coach has been pulling individual students out and based on previous test scores, offering remediation. But, our coaches are only available foe the three year grant and we need a more sustainable program.

Anyway.

I decided to start doing bell ringers. I put two ACT questions and 2-3 review/preview problems from the current lesson. They are super easy to make. I make one for Algebra and Geometry in less than 5 minutes. I have them in a gray basket by the door. I told the students they are called bell ringers because when the bell rings, that's what they should be doing. I start the timer for 4 minutes and tell them to work on their own without talking. While they are doing that, I go around and check their homework as well as stamp their magical homework pass.

When the timer goes off, I tell them to check with their teammates to see if they got similar answers. Then I start with number one and ask how many people have an answer. I wait until at least half the class raises their hand. Then I ask them to tell me how they thought about it or solved it without telling me the answer. They have been really good about explaining what they are thinking and sometimes even why. I think that is the most beneficial part.

I've never mentioned ACT. I guess that they've noticed that the questions are multiple choice though. lol My hopes are that since I time them and make them not talk, it's a tiny bit similar to the real testing environment. I have students keep their bell ringers all week and I collect the five on Friday. The date is included in the title so that I can easily make sure they are the right ones. If they have all five, on Monday they get an extra stamp on their magical homework pass. If they were absent or on a trip, sorry Charlie, no dice. I'm proud of myself for making that decision and sticking with it. Maybe it will be an incentive to actually show up.

I think that students are more willing to try and explain their thinking because it's not a grade so no harm done. I wanted homework to be that way but they aren't willing to do that for nothing. So I guess it's a trade off. I grade their homework so that they will do it and they are willing to try bell ringers because I don't. Anything for a stamp!

Algebra Bell Ringers
Geometry Bell Ringers

Real SBG

2011-01-31T00:18:00.000-06:00

Can sbg be sbg without choice?

Is the power in sbg the fact that students are self-motivated to practice and re-test?

What would happen if I turned choice into a requirement?

Say, anytime you score less than an 80%, you a required to do a practice sheet and retest.

Is that not real sbg?

Is it motivating the students to make sure that they get an 80% the first time so they don't have to do more work?

Is it handicapping them because they know if they do bad, they have a freebie?

I self-diagnosed my biggest sbg failure as not getting students to come in and retest. This is an option I thought of to try next year. Especially if I introduce it as a brand new system created specifically for their class in order to make sure that they cannot fail.

Forget Common Core, I'm going back to my ACT College Readiness Skills. If I can have a practice sheet tied to each of those skills, then as soon as someone scores less than 80%, BAM, I whip my practice sheet back and forth. And if I make two versions of every quiz ahead of time, then BAM, they satisfactorily complete the practice, and I hand out the new quiz. Is this how it is supposed to work people?

I am in the brainstorming process of this so go ahead...hit me with your best shot.

Fire awaaaaaayyyyyy.

Concept Attainment: y = mx + b

2011-01-22T14:30:00.001-06:00

I feel like I am way behind in my 'curriculum' and snow days aren't helping. I'm in the middle of slope/linear equation unit and for some reason this unit always sucks me in and I spend waaaaay too much time on it. We haven't even started systems of equations/inequalities, exponent rules, factoring, polynomials, etc etc. And it's almost February! Arghh. But this is not a whining post.

We had been working with graphing patterns and tables and basically slope-intercept form before I actually gave them y = mx + b. And I have to say, they are beasts at graphing y= mx + b and they are even pretty good at putting equations into slope-intercept form! And they can count the slope of a line from a graph! Some students are already able to write the equation of the line from a graph without me even telling them to do it. These are GREAT improvements from last year, so that's why I'm taking a minute to brag.

My disclaimer to posting this lesson is that we had been working with graphing from a table and from a pattern and such FOREVER before I introduced y = mx + b. Now all that to say...this lesson went really well.

I again started with a slide of examples on the left and nonexamples on the right.

As I clicked through each pair, students had to compare and contrast what made one equation right and the other wrong. As a side note, sometime it takes three or four examples before the students catch on to what we're doing here. I give them extra time at the end to go back and write what they think from earlier pairs. Like any strategy, the more they use it, the more their brain gets used to comparing.

Once we finished that, we wrote down the four properties of what slope-intercept form looks like.

No exponents
y has to be alone
x can't be a denominator
y can't be negative

Some of the equation pairs duplicated or combined those properties and the fourth is basically a specific case of the second, but it made sense in their heads. Now you can bombard them with various equations and they can easily weed out which ones are not in slope-intercept form.

After we discuss that as a class, I gave them this handout with a handy dandy box to fill in what they just 'discovered'. From there I introduced y = mx + b.

I really like the next table where students had to use the m and b to form their own equations because it's not something we usually think about. I switched up the order and threw fractions in to mess with them with the intention of training them to look carefully at what m and b actually are.

The next step has them to graph from the equation which isn't necessarily needed but I attribute a lot of my students success with graphing to the fact that I kept hitting them with it in their notes or homework or warm-up for a few days in a row.

The next two questions may not be posed in the best way ever, but I wanted them to notice that these were not in slope-intercept form so we could practice putting them in slope intercept form.

The homework attached at the end is a good mixture of problems but I don't know that the students can complete them all on their own. Maybe next time I will use those equations in the table and practice graphing them there.

Anyway, what I really wanted to know is, what is a good way to introduce point-slope form? I don't want to just give them an equation and tell them to memorize it. I want it to make sense. I could do concept attainment but I felt like it was successful because the students were already familiar with seeing equations in this form.

I thought about an investigation on finding parallel and perpendicular lines first. Then I could say, here is a point and with slope parallel to ____________, how could we write an equation?

But that's still kind of a far jump.

And @druinok kindly reminded me that point-slope form is not merely for solving for y = mx + b so I don't want to fly right past it either.

How do you teach point-slope form? How can students discover it on their own?

Will the linear equation unit EVER end?

How I Teach New Concepts: A Prequel

2011-01-18T23:21:00.000-06:00

Thanks to some comments on my post about how I like to teach, I decided to expound.

My new love is concept attainment.

I'll use my parallelogram unit as an example since I referenced it in the post above.

I started out with a Powerpoint slide in two columns.

The left column contains examples, the right column contains non-examples. As I clicked through, a shape appeared in each column. Students had to compare/contrast the two figures and decide what the example had that the non-example did not. After each pair, I instructed the students to modify or add to their guess so that it would apply to every pair.

By the end, they should have around 4 different properties of parallelograms without me ever saying a word. Well, maybe some leading questions. But we never mention the word parallelogram.

Then using rulers and protractors, we dove in to this investigation. Students measured pieces of parallelograms to find properties of a parallelogram, some of which are the same as what they deduced from the Powerpoint slides.

By the end of the period, students collaborated in teams to write a pretty well all-encompassing definition of a parallelogram. The 'actual learning' is that they've brainstormed, compared/contrasted, modified, and deduced these things all on their own. They've discovered the hidden secrets of the parallelogram! And they're much more likely to remember what they've found on their own as opposed to what they read or heard me say.

For those of you that are curious, the next day we did a parallelogram sort. Students measured pieces of other quadrilaterals to decide what properties apply to all, some, or none. Once they cut out and sorted the properties into four piles, they converted that information into this nifty checklist.

Finally from there, I threw the handout of problems referenced in my post. Using only the properties they discovered, they began to solve problems. We had not solved any problems at all. So in my mind, this was a "problem of a type learners had never seen, and related to a concept that had never been taught". I guess what I should have mentioned is that we did lay a foundation of properties before throwing those problems to students. But, in no teaching strategy that I know of, do we ever toss brand new information out to students without a lifeline.

We want to provide opportunities that are challenging but doable.Say it with me: scaffolding. I believe this strategy achieved that for me. I made sure my students could swim and and had their life preserver, then I threw them overboard.

And they're swimming.

And they just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we dooooooooooooo? We swim, swim.

Ah-hem. Pardon me.

I have some life preservers to fetch.

Conscious Classroom Management

2011-01-18T15:29:00.005-06:00

Excerpts from Conscious Classroom Management by Rick Smith

Effective classroom management is essentially invisible.

When we effectively teach behavior to our students, we enhance their ability to mature.

When students test us, they want us to pass the test.

Students don't have the self-esteem to stand up to 'Ricky'. That's my job.

By reflecting, we naturally speed up the growth process that comes from experience.

Those who gives us help blossom even more than we do.

Ultimately, teachers who are good to themselves deliver the best teaching.

If students sense that their teacher feels good, they will behave better and will perform better academically.

What gives light must endure burning. -Viktor Frankl

Caring does not equal explaining.

A teacher is one who makes herself progressively unnecessary. -Thomas Carruthers

Every class period try consciously to teach at least two procedures- regardless of what the lesson is.

Use visual rubrics for procedures.

Improved organization will decrease misbehavior.

Effective teaching involves a constant assessment "feedback loop" between teachers and students, and a responsiveness of the teacher to what the students need.

Student (b)logbook of daily activities and assignments for absent students turns into a lesson plan guide for teachers.

Delay classwork that's based on homework.

Plan at least three activities per lesson, at least one where the teacher is off-stage and employ shifts in focus and energy at least every ten to twelve minutes.

The brain loves to talk!

Don't call on a student until at least half of the class's hands are raised. Call on every student without acknowledging correctness or incorrectness but by saying"thank you".

As much as possible, build in successes for students. As students gain more confidence, we can make the steps more challenging.

Grades are for parents and college. Feedback is for student learning.

We grow in leaps, sputters, and spurts, which inevitably generates feelings of frustration. If our students push away the frustration, gory don't stick around long enough to receive the wisdom that follows.

Consequences are there to provide students with the guidance they are hungering for.

All choices bear fruit, whether sweet or bitter.

When we assume the best about our students, we see consequences as a way to accelerate their growth.

Frame consequences around student choices.

When we treat students with dignity they are more likely to respond in dignified ways.

Concrete consequences need to be implemented on a consistent basis.

We should give any major policy shift at least two weeks before deciding whether it is working. Remember, it takes us time to adjust- and our students even more time.

Make a list of changes in priority order. Implement number one in your favorite class. Once it works, introduce to other classes. Once change is solid, start with number two.

Teachers learn just like students learn- one step at a time.

The more natural the incentive, the more the students are likely to internalize their motivation.

Rewards are used as extrinsic motivation whereas gifts are an intrinsic expression if appreciation.

Listening is powerful.

If students keep calling out for attention, let's find ways to give it to them that assist the class, rather than disrupt it.

As we assume that students want to learn, let's also assume that sometimes they just need to move.

Five Keys for Permanent Change :
1. Want to change
2. Know how to change
3. Have opportunities to practice changing
4. Be conscious of their choices as their making them
5. Receive ongoing support from the teacher

A recipe for learning: a willingness to take risks, to be lost, to be frustrated, and to have fun.

All human beings have the capacity for greatness.

Classroom Management Blues

2011-01-18T09:18:00.000-06:00

My biggest flaw as a teacher is consistency in my classroom management. While I have improved greatly since last year, I attribute that more to my students than to my abilities. Last year I was very consistent about no put downs. For every put down, students have to say two nice things. I have super good hearing (unlike my eyesight) and so I usually catch every comment, murmur, or whisper. The two nice things are usually kinda dumb but I'm so consistent in making them do it that it really has helped them to catch themselves before they thoughtlessly call someone stupid, dumb, or retarded.

So, in addition to that, this year I've been working on consistently enforcing the no purse/bag rule, and the no bathroom rule. While these are both school policies, and not my own choice of classroom rules, I am proud of myself for sticking to them. I love how easy it is to look at the student and say, "You know the rule." They know the rule and the consequence and they choose accordingly. Makes classroom management easy peasy lemon squeezy.

The problem, or 'issue' I should call it, is that I don't enforce my own personal rules and consequences for the classroom. Honestly, a lot of stuff just doesn't bother me. I don't even notice if students get up to throw something away or sharpen their pencil while I'm talking. Especially since I've moved to so much group work, I'm rarely lecturing away for them to even be able to interrupt me. I don't care if they chew gum or eat in my room. I don't expect them to raise their hand and wait to be called on. For the most part, I don't care if they sit in another seat. Again, group work has pretty much eliminated that issue because I have chairs sectioned into teams of 4 and so everyone stays with their teams.

All this to say, I don't feel that there is a problem, but that was the only thing I was marked low on during my formal evaluation. I think I need to take a look through a different perspective and brainstorm how I could make my classroom a better learning environment for all. While certain things may not necessarily bother me, there is always a way to make things better. And I have had students complain at different times about the noise level and how other students are complaining instead of working. Sometimes my classroom can be a chaotic place.

One idea I read about over the weekend ( from Conscious Classroom Management by Rick Smith) is when asking for answers, to not call on any student to answer until at least half of the hands in the classroom are raised. Then call on each one of them without acknowledging correctness or incorrectness but by saying 'thank you' to each student. I like this idea, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I've been using a timer to randomly select students to explain to the class so again, hand raising isn't really an issue.

I'm working on implementing roles for each team member to gain even more accountability but I need help. If you have any links to blogs, books, or articles on cooperative learning roles, could you please post them in the comments?

One of my classes is spent entirely online using ALEKS, an online math curriculum. A lot of my students hate it and spend time complaining and freezing up their computers so that they don't have to participate. I sent the students a message explaining that I would now be grading them on the time spent each day actively working (ALEKS provides that in a simple report for me.) I can't fairly grade them on how fast they are mastering material so this was the only thing I could think of. There are 20 points possible per week, 4 per day. Here is the scale:

1-10 minutes- 1 point
11-20 minutes- 2 points
21-30 minutes- 3 points
31-40 minutes- 4 points

We have 45 minute class periods so I think that is fair. If students work more than 40 minutes, they get 5 points for the day.

This has helped some because now the complainers are being held accountable and the diligent workers don't feel like they are working for nothing. I'm not sure how much student learning is really going on, but that's another post...

My previous post was about procedures and so I guess this one is asking for suggestions of more procedures. What my administrators mentioned to me, is that even though all students were participating within their groups, were they actively participating and am I aware of the quieter, more unnoticeable students level of understanding? I think this can be handled by assigning roles to each team member and eventually moving to team members assessing each other.

My real downfall is language in the classroom. I abhor cussing but I pretty much let it slide. I can't figure out why I am this way. I hate it. I never use it. But when I hear students say it, I give the evil eye and say "Language!" in my stern grown-up voice. And they apologize and we resume our normally scheduled programming. Also, even though I don't allow put downs, there are just a lot of negative vibes. I have a couple students who are rather outspoken. Let's call them bullies, just for analogy's sake. They are experts at subtle and not so subtle comments that are rude or cocky or degrading to others. I don't know how to deal with it really. How do I write someone up for saying something that implies someone else is stupid but without saying anyone's name or that they're stupid? Ugh, I wish I had an example. Or people that are just very sarcastic, or interrupt class to say something totally irrelevant, or just snap out on 'the air', etc. I feel weird about making up an new consequence or something because what I'm doing is basically targeting 4-5 people and trying to punish them. Does that make sense? What I really need to do is deal with these specific students but I don't really know how to do that. Also, I have phone phobia. Is it okay to send a letter home to parents instead of calling them? In my opinion, it is safer because nothing can be misconstrued and keeping copies can help cover my butt if anything ever comes up. Then students, parents, teacher, administrators are all on the same page. But then again, I am biased against phones...And I have to address the students before the parents right? I'm being a coward.

During some PD last year, a guy told us about just stopping the class and having a discussion with them about a behavior that you want to change. Make a t-chart of good and bad examples, what it should look like and what it shouldn't. Bring students attention to the problem and a variety of solutions. And so forth. But just like the above paragraph, I have a hard time explaining what the problem is. They have to have a concrete understanding of what is upsetting me before they can quit doing it. Right?

This is the biggest setback and interruption to student's learning environment that I can think of.

How can I bring peace?

New Year Procedures

2011-01-17T19:44:00.000-06:00

I didn't really make any new year's resolutions this year but over the break, I did find a couple new procedures that I implemented at the beginning of our second semester.

I borrowed this idea from Dan Greene at The Exponential Curve. He called it the Readiness Checker. Students get a stamp/sticker for each day that they are prepared at the beginning of class. After 9 stamps, the readiness checker magically turns into a no homework pass. I made my own Magical Homework Pass that has 4 on a page. When students get all their stamps, they cut the grid off, write their name on it, and staple it to the homework that they don't want to do. At the bottom of each grid shows a picture of what I want them to have: a pencil, their homework or current packet, a calculator, and seated at their desk. If I want them to have anything else (i.e. ruler, marker, whiteboard, etc) I throw up a PowerPoint slide that tells them what to get. I mainly did this as a way to get students to bring a pencil to class because I decided to quit giving mine out to the same students day after day. It is also a nice way to get things started. I've been using it for two weeks now and it is a far from flawless process but all the students have been willing to do it and enjoy the anticipation of that sweet no homework pass. And they DO NOT let me forget or skip them!

The next idea came from the book Conscious Classroom Management by Rick Smith. It is a homework tracker chart that is a visual of who is doing their homework. (I also downloaded the font A Bite which looks much cooler than what you will download. Sorry.) This is mainly beneficial for when parents or administrators come in. I have my own chart that I use to check the students homework for points. Then I transfer that to the homework tracker by writing a C for Complete, an I for Incomplete, and a 0 if they turned in nothing. I admit I am behind on updating the tracker chart and so far I would estimate this has had zero effect on the students. But I am thinking that by the time March P/T conferences comes around, it will be nice to refer to. Do you think it is embarrassing for students to be able to see other students' business? Or is it motivating? I made my own charts because I didn't want to buy those huge pre-made posters that are seen in elementary.

This is the chart I mentioned above that I use to check homework for points. Someone sent me a template similar to this before I started my first year teaching (sorry to the nice lady whom I can't remember!) and I've tweaked it to fit me, like using my favorite colors. I have students in alphabetical order by last name and the number in parentheses is the number of students in the class for that period. I have a points possible row up top so I remember what the homework is out of. For days that we don't have homework, I write none so that I know I didn't just forget to check. I only check homework for completion so while I am circulating the room for stamp fest, I carry my clipboard and write how many problems the student did out of the total possible. Then when I am done checking, I show the answers to the homework and work the ones students have questions on. It also updates the date on it's own. Pretty nifty Excel formula I dare say.

For those of you who have been keeping up with me along the way, maybe you'll remember that I am not a big fan of homework. And now I'm creating homework charts left and right. What happened? I tried a unit from the CPM curriculum and found that each lesson had homework from previous lessons that were basically review problems. Kind of like Saxon I suppose. The last couple weeks before break, I assigned these problems as homework to students. I didn't put any grades in the grade book but I went around with my clipboard just the same, checking for completion. The students didn't rebel against me because the homework was (hopefully) previously mastered material. If not mastered, at least familiar. At the beginning of this semester, I told them that was practice for a new procedure. Homework is now worth 10% of their grade (school caps the percentage at 10%) and thus the enticement of the magical homework pass. I've now went back to designing my own lessons and trying to create homework problems that are similar to what we do in class so that students feel like homework is a continuation of practicing what we did in class as opposed to alien territory. I don't know if this is correct or whatever but now I know my students are practicing or at least thinking about math a bit more than they were. The amount of problems I've given range between 2 and 8. Mostly hovering around 4. If I were estimating percentages (since I left my papers at school and can't accurately calculate), I'd say I've had about 80% of students turning in their homework every time. Pretty good for the first two weeks.

And the last thing I have to add about homework: I feel like most of our class time is devoted to students working in teams to figure things out, learn new concepts, and make connections. Although I always try to incorporate time for independent practice, I feel okay about giving homework because I feel like it is an extension of that. If they spend time together 'making discoveries', it seems logical that they can independently practice what they now know to be true.

And now for the last thing I have to add about anything: I wanted to share my lesson plan template. We, as a school, have been shifting to using the 5 step lesson plan: Clear learning target (aligned as always), Activating Prior Knowledge, New Learning, Practice (both guided and independent), and Summary (for retention). Being the fan that I am of OCD, tables, and all things turquoise, I created my own template.

Happy New Semester!

My Favorite Way To Teach

2011-01-11T18:02:00.003-06:00

Break your students up into teams of 4. (It's recommended that you have one high ability, two medium, and one low)

Give each group a piece of construction paper: red, blue, yellow, or green. Have one student tape it to the edge of the desk.

Have each student within the teams pick a color: red, blue, yellow, or green.

Give students a handout of problems.

Pick a problem, not #1, to start with. That way students can't jump ahead because they never know what problem you will call out next. (Crafty, I know.) Or else they will jump ahead and do the entire worksheet. Ah, can't stop the overachiever. Give students one minute, no talking, to attempt the problem on their own.

Then, tell them to talk it over with group. Get an answer and an explanation. Circulate the room and make sure each person in each group can explain how to solve the problem.

Now...bring in the big guns:

Click go. The timer randomly chooses a color aka the team. Click go again. The timer randomly chooses a color aka the team member. The team member now stands, addresses the class, and explains how to get the correct answer.

The end.

Advantages

Giving students one minute to start on their own gives their brains time to warm up and start thinking.
You already know the benefits of team work.
Giving each team member a color and then randomly choosing who explains is the best part. It's not a personal attack, it's random. It's not focusing on Johnny or Suzie but on the blue team member. They have a team to rely on help and explanation, so they aren't left hanging.
Accountability exists. No one knows when they will be randomly chosen to 'teach' the class and (almost) no one wants to risk looking stupid in front of their friends. So a little intrinsic motivation to learn.
Students teach other. They come up with better ways to explain, they come up with more than one way to explain, and they are just more willing to hear each other.
They feel like they are doing less work because they are in groups and have some freedom to talk. Except they are doing more work, and in my case, harder work.
Time goes by faster. For them and you.
Your job becomes checker and correcter vs. lecturer.
They are discussing math. They are participating, they are asking questions, they are making connections. Instead of you giving them the bridge to walk on, they are building it piece by piece. (I made that up myself)
It is MUCH easier to plan. And impressive to your superiors.

Disadvantages

Your chairs might get out of order. I mean, for those of you who may be anal about that sort of thing...

SBG #Fail

2011-01-04T00:31:00.000-06:00

Today I gave up on SBG.

Math Teacher Must Haves

2010-12-27T22:31:00.000-06:00

Due to a previously mentioned grant my school received, I basically have free reign for supplies/resources for the math classroom. I obviously have no idea what I need. So here's what I currently have:

Rulers
Scissors
Protractors
Compasses
Markers
Crayons
Colored Pencils
Electric Pencil Sharpener
Graphing Calculators
Individual white boards
Tangrams
Pentaminoes
Document Camera
SMART Board
Projector
2 Printers (1 is color)
4 Student Computers (that we never use)
Kagan Timer
Geomirrors
Student Response System (Clickers)
1 Flip Video Camera

Basically I want supplies that are durable, sustainable, and reusable. But then again, I want to take advantage of the money while we can. Here are the ideas I've found/heard so far.

Classroom Laptops (Don't know how to use them)
Ipads (Have one, not really a fan, rather have laptops)
TI-Inspire and Navigator (scared of these!)
CBL/CBR data collection devices for the TI 83/84 (not sure how to use this)
Deluxe Probability Kit
Geometry Reproducibles (Book)
Folding Shapes: Solids and Nets
Geometric Solids (Are these the same as the above?)
Geoboards (Recommendations? What size do I need?)
Algebra Tiles (Recommendations?)
Easy Smartboard Teaching Templates (Book)

Any other ideas? Professional development is kind of iffy so for now I'm looking more for manipulatives, books, supplies, etc.

What should every math classroom have?

My Favorite Lesson of All Time!

2010-12-02T21:23:00.001-06:00

I've never taught a unit on transformations before so I started from scratch. Wait, all my lessons are created from scratch. Just sometimes it's someone else's scratch. I digress. My unit only covered reflections, translations, and rotations and I discovered I suck at teaching rotations. But, my translation lesson went over really well and my reflection lesson was probably the my best lesson idea ever!

Here's what I did. In explicit detail. With bullets. Download PowerPoint here first.

Using the questions posed [slide 1] have students answer and discuss. You should get some pretty interesting information. Sum up the discussion by telling students that most fashion models usually have very symmetric features. Also, a study was done using babies. Pictures were put up and babies tended to stare longer at the faces that were most symmetric, alluding to the fact that symmetric faces are more attractive to the eye.
[Slide 2] names the objective. [Slide 3] Have students guess which face is the real one. The real face is always the one on top (this is for you to know and them to find out!). The bottom left is the left side of the face reflected and the bottom right is the right side of the face reflected. As you go through [slide 3] through [slide 9] discuss the similarities and differences. Ask students which pictures look realistic and which don’t. Point out birth marks, shadowing, eye shape, mouth shape, etc. Basically, make the conversation as interesting as possible.
Now go to your internet browser. Ask the students to pick a celebrity famous for being attractive. Google their name to find a picture. The picture needs to be of them facing forward and preferably with both ears showing (which is harder if the person is female). Classroom management tip: You might want to do this ahead of time or where the students can’t see. You never know what type of picture might come up! Copy the url to the picture you’ve found. Then go to the website http://www.anaface.com. Paste the url into the box that says Enter Image URL. Click submit. Then place the dots as directed. Have the students help guide you. Then click next. The site will analyze your picture and talk about vertical and horizontal symmetry. This is a good place to introduce those as vocabulary terms as well as introducing a line of symmetry.
[Slide 10] Put up your picture. Your face. I inserted a 10 x 10 table with a red border and no fill over my picture. Now we start talking about where the lines of horizontal and vertical symmetry would be. Ask the students how we decide if the eyes are symmetrical. What about the ears? We want to lead students to measuring the distance from each eyes to the line of symmetry and comparing the lengths.
Before advancing to [slide 11], I had students guess what rating the site gave me. I had previously analyzed my own face and took a screenshot of the website. I put it on the slide to save class time. We want to the next slide and talked about the different aspects of symmetry. I used my own face so that no one else would be offended by the negative comments.
Now pass out the notes worksheet. I picked celebrities that I knew my students liked. Please change any of these to pertain better to your class. Have students use a ruler to draw a straight vertical line. Then draw dots in the center of each eye. Use the centimeter side of the ruler to measure the distance from the left eye to the line. Then measure from the right eye to the line. Repeat for each celebrity. Students may get bored doing the same repeated action. If so, jump straight to the geomirror. Have students put the mirror part on the line of symmetry. Have them look at the left and the right side to see the difference in symmetry.
Have the students do the back of the worksheet on their own, using the geomirror. For left-handed students, they will need to turn the paper upside down.
To end beautifully (pun intended), have the students complete the exit slip [slide 12] on scrap paper. This brings us back to the beginning of our conversation.

OMG if the students did not eat this up!! During this whole unit, I heard students talk abut how math was actually fun now and they looked forward to this class and it went by so fast. It was encouraging to finally find something that they truly enjoyed.

And for the record, their exit slip answers brought out really good comments on what their opinion of beauty was. I shared ALL of them the next day with the whole class.

Students also loved the geomirrors and borrowed them throughout the day to use on their own pictures and yearbooks and so on. They wanted to use them every day!

Does It Work? Wednesday

2010-11-17T21:17:00.002-06:00

I sent this as an e-mail to a group of teachers but I would also like to pose it to you my friends!

What do you know about College Preparatory Math?

I am the only algebra and geometry teacher at a small school and I am only in my second year of teaching. I have been creating my lessons every night on my own, loosely based on common core standards and the textbook. Except I hate textbooks. I am working with an instructional coach for the first time and so I feel like other parts of my teaching are improving and I'd like to improve my curriculum as well. I'm intrigued by CPM, College Preparatory Math, and I just have some questions that I would love to have answered by teachers that are using this curriculum already. Thank you in advance for answering any of these questions and any feedback at all is much appreciated!

What were your first impressions with CPM and how have they changed over time?
How complicated was CPM to implement?
What changes did you see in your classroom dynamic and student behavior after starting CPM? What has the student response been to CPM?
Is CPM recommended for a range of ability levels, from remedial to gifted?
Does it seem strange to you that CPM homework assignments are based on past concepts instead of current concepts? How does that work for you?
When assessing, do your tests include questions from the lesson and the homework? Did you or do you implement team testing and individual tests?
In your opinion, do students stay actively engaged? Is the material appropriately challenging?
Do students learn to better think, problem solve, and reason?
Do students take notes in addition to the work they do in class, as a team, with partners, or on their own?
Have you seen an improvement in state/benchmark test scores in a single year or over time? (I hate to ask this but it is something my administration is very focused on this year and while I do not want to teach only 'to the test', I would be doing a disservice to my students to ignore it.)
Are students learning and retaining information any more/better with CPM than with a previous curriculum?
Overall, what do you think about CPM and what else do I need to know?

This, My Friend, Is Learning

2010-11-11T22:38:00.000-06:00

I really do attribute the frustration I felt in my last post to the change in weather. I felt a lot better the next day. Also, I was put on another team. Yay another meeting! (insert pom poms and back flips). We've now started student support teams. I am on the freshman/sophomore team since I mostly teach underclassmen. It actually turned out to be the most productive team I've been on yet and we've only had one meeting.

We look at data to see which students have 5 or more absences and who are failing. Then, as a team made up of teachers, administrators, guidance counselor, coaches, and social worker, we brainstorm. We compare student behaviors in different classrooms and collaborate on ways to connect with the student, get them involved and engaged, and hopefully create some new positive experiences at school. I felt hopeful because we talked about some of the students I was so frustrated with previously.

I recommend you go back and read the comments from my last post. What I took from them is to focus on the positive and that will change my outlook which will influence the classroom culture. Also, I know that I have improved 100% in my teaching since last year and I am offering my students the very best of me. It is their choice to learn. I will do my best to influence that choice while accepting that I can't make it for them. And when they are ready to learn, I will still be teaching at a 100% better level than before.

Another positive thing that I did was to have a discussion with the class that I dread the most. We talked about other teachers they like and learn from and what I gathered is that I need to do a better job of breaking things down step by step. I also need to give students more chances to do examples in front of me during class so I can correct and redirect. (I threw that in just to rhyme. My flow is getting rusty.) I have not been assigning homework. We decided that if I assign 2-5 problems a day, I still will not letter grade them but I will check for completion. We will go over the problems in class so students can correct their mistakes. If you get 3 zero's which is basically 3 missing assignments, you get a written office referral. This is a rule that other teachers enforce which I'm not sure I was aware of, but that seems to work for the students. They agreed that the amount of problems was low enough that there really was no reason not to do it. And once again, the consistency monster roared it's head. They liked classes where the teacher did what they said they would do and enforced the rule at 3 missing assignments- no more, no less.

What I am learning from all of this productive frustration is that, I need these feelings. Enduring these feelings is helping me get to the place I need to be in order to really implement classroom management. It is helping me to distance myself from taking every hit personally. I can now be more objective and stay firm.

This is the way we are doing things. Each choice has a consequence. You decide. You live with the consequence. You suck it up and take it like a big kid.

If you don't like it, make another choice. If you do like it, then keep making the same choice.

This, my friend, is learning.

Every Day for the Rest of My Life?

2010-11-08T20:40:00.000-06:00

Very frustrated.

I don't know why this is getting to me so bad today, but it just is.

What do you do with kids that just do not care and will not try and only put forth the smallest amount of work possible?

We've been doing some partner work on a slope worksheet that I ~~stole~~ borrowed from Mimi. It's a great activity and the kids handled it pretty well. For the most part. But I had a few in each class that just copied off their partners and have no idea how to do any part of it. They don't care, they just want to be done. But I explained to them, I don't grade classwork. What is the point in copying? I told them if they plan on copying to just save their ink and do nothing because it's pointless. I explained that what we do in class is practice for the test. I told them they can choose to do nothing but the consequence to doing nothing is a bad grade. And they stare at me.

I keep thinking that once they start failing, they will wake up and realize that they have to put forth some effort. But alas, it is not the case! They are okay with failing as long as they don't have to do anything. I don't know how to deal with this. How do I teach the rest of the class knowing these few are falling farther and farther and behind. How do I look them in the eye when I know they are not learning and I am not doing anything about it? I am supposed to care. I am supposed to remediate. I am supposed to engage them. I am supposed to create individualized interventions. But what is the point if they aren't going to do anything? Is this a classroom management problem that I am not handling correctly? That is totally possible so you can tell me if that's true.

I thought not grading class work and homework would help but I don't think it has. I don't really give homework, I never have, I just can't rationalize it in my head. But if we assess what we value, am I implying class work and homework are not important?

How am I supposed to do this every day for the rest of my life? How do I face these students that are failing? And I am letting them. And then we are supposed to do RTI interventions and I am thinking, I cannot possibly face these students a minute more than I already do. If they aren't learning in my class, maybe I am the problem? But in a small school, there really is no other options.

I do not want to lesson plan. I do not want to spend every night thinking of creative ideas and activities that they are not going to care about. I do not want to rearrange my room and put tape on the floor and set up fun stations and play games and so on when it makes no difference. THEY WON'T CARE ANYWAY.

And a few of these kids are so far behind that I just no there is no way to catch them up. I can't do it and stay alive. How can we go back and teach so much and still move forward?

Again, I don't know why I am so irritated today but I just can't shake it. I took a nap, watched tv, ate dinner, ate chocolate...and it still is just weighing on me.

Is this a frustration I have to learn to live with?

7 Country Wisdoms of Teaching

2010-11-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

Catchy right? These are some notes I took at our Regional Teacher's Institute.

Although I'm not an English teacher, I do like hugging and mushy stuff. If you are allergic to that, click away. But every once in a while, some simply practical mush is good for all of us.

If the notes seem random, it's because they are. Take what you will and chew on the rest.

=)

Students want to please the teacher. Often, they don't know how or lack the skills.

If you want a behavior, teach it.

Students desperately need to like each other and you.

1. Slow Down

Figure out what you must teach and teach it well.

Every kid needs a smile. They need to feel encouraged.

Kids need to have their physical needs met, a sense of power, freedom, fun, and belonging in order to come to school and keep coming.

It is not the job of the teacher to fill the cup but to light the fire.

Create memories and belonging.

You can care about kids and still be in control.

Know your students.

2. Keep It Simple

Students control their attendance, attitude, and how hard they work.

Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Say you're sorry. Clean up your own mess. Be aware of wonder.

Kids want to do stuff. If I'm not having fun neither are they! We need to want to be there.

Just because we identify misbehavior doesn't mean they will change. But if we don't identify it, they'll never change.

3. Choose a Positive Attitude

Attitudes are more easily caught than taught. The kids are watching.

4. Choose Your Words

Eliminate the words 'I can't' and 'try'. Do or do not, there is no try. Try is a cue word that we use when we aren't going to do something but we won't come out and day it.

I can't is an excuse to give up and blame someone else.

5. Use Humor

Have fun and laugh every day!

6. Tell More Stories

Using stories teaches kids about responsibilities and behaviors without making anyone feel bad.

7. Challenge Others to Accept Responsibility

SBG: How To Grade

2010-10-23T15:32:00.001-05:00

I think my issue with sbg is how to grade.

I know my main problem with sbg is getting students to come in and reassess, but hopefully the conversations I had with 16 parents this week at Parent Teacher Conference will start to move that into motion.

So for me personally it's the issue with grading. I started out doing two questions per skill per assessment. I created my own rubric with a mixture of C's, P's, and I's with the second question weighted more heavily than the first. But sometimes the rubric didn't serve my students well and I couldn't, in good conscience, always stick to it. Which probably implies I need a new rubric.

But as I began to work with my instructional coach and discover second-year-teaching wisdom, I realized you all were right and I was assessing way too many skills. I started to broaden my skills so that one skill contained baby ones. I suppose you understand what I mean. We also started to look at the ACT and the Work Keys and pulling questions from there so that I could backwards plan my lessons to lead up to hard problems I normally would have avoided asking my students. We've already established that I should plan backwards, I've just started it, moving right along...

So my past couple assessment have only been assessing one skill but I've asked about 8 questions. How do I grade that with a rubric?

Give each question a score 0-4 and then average them together? I thought averaging was the devil...

Grade as usual, giving a certain amount of points for each problem, counting off, and then giving a percentage of points correct out of points possible? My twitter peeps said this puts me back into points instead of levels of understanding. But what if I assigned a range of percents to a rubric, say:

100% =4
90-99% = 3.5
80-89% = 3
70-79%= 2.5
60-69%= 2
50-59%= 1.5
40-49%= 1
30-39% = .5

But I guess that still isn't providing accurate information to the student because a 73% doesn't tell them what they messed up on.

I previously tried @druinok's idea of asking 3 questions per skill on different levels but that rubric was still confusing to me too.

Am I asking too many questions per skill? How often do you assess and how long are the assessments?

We've been working on developing assessments that come naturally at the end of a small unit. My coach has talked to me about balanced assessments: including some more basic, straightforward questions as well as application, word problem, synthesis type of problems. And I like that. I like the assessments we've been creating but I don't know how to give an overall score when I'm asking so many questions.

What happens with multiple choice? If they get it right a 4? If they get it wrong is it a 1, 2, or 3?

@dcox gave the advice: Say you have one basic, one "proficient" and one application/synthesis problem. Students who can do all three =5, 2/3 =4, 1/3 =3. But what if they do 1.5 out of 3, or 2.5 or 3.5? What then? What if they make small mechanical errors that throw off the whole problem? What if they start off well and then nose dive?

It's like no matter what rubric I find or create, when I'm grading, I always find a loophole that leaves me staring blankly at a paper trying to estimate how much they know based on the test and what I see in class.

What am I missing?

SBG: Error Analysis

2010-10-15T22:53:00.001-05:00

It's the end of the first quarter. I don't want to give up on sbg just yet. I've got to figure out what's going wrong so I can make this thing work.

I've separated grades in the gradebook according to skill.

I've been giving shorter,weekly assessments addressing specific skills.

Students have their own bubble sheets to fill in so that they can self-analyze what they know and don't know.

I've had 6 out of 68 students come in to reassess.

And 4 of those 6 were girls who had B's instead of their normal A's.

Overall, grades are lower than last year. But I have different students. I'd like to say that the grades are a truer picture of their abilities since I am only grading quizzes but with the rubric I was using, I can't necessarily agree with that.

Pitfall #1: I was forcing my instruction to fit in a quiz every Friday whether or not a skill logically ended that way. It didn't matter if we were in the middle of a skill or not, come Friday, we quiz.

Solution #1: By creating my assessment first, I can expect more out my students since I can plan better lessons. Creating the assessment first forces me to focus my instruction on the skills that are imperative to build up to the same level of ability that the assessment addresses. This way my teaching covers all the needed parts and class logically ends with an overall assessment.

Pitfall #2: It's possible that the students do not have enough independent practice to prepare them for taking an independent assessment. I've been trying new strategies to get away from direct instruction but 90% of what the students are doing is with a partner, in a group, or as a whole class. Maybe I am making it too easy for them to tune out and just write things down without holding them accountable for anything. Also, I don't give homework. If we don't finish something in class, I will tell them it's homework. They don't do it. We finish it in class the next day anyway. The whole idea of not grading homework is to give them guidance and correction through constructive feedback. I have morphed into giving no homework at all which translates into no written feedback until the actual assessment. So the only concrete evidence that they know what they are doing is the few minutes I walk around the room while they are working and give minor feedback.

Solution #2: My instructional coach is advising me to create a chart or some kind of system to check the work the students are doing, even if I'm not actually grading it. I started an Excel sheet where I catalog a C for Complete, I for Incomplete, or a 0 if they didn't turn anything in. This at least gives me a point of reference for discussion with a student/parent/administrator. Another idea I had is to hang up charts (like in Kindergarten or Sunday School) and let a student each day collect the assignments and go mark the C, I, or 0 for their class. That would give the students some involvement and maybe hold them a little more accountable since everyone could plainly see who is completing their work and who isn't. From there I could reward those that constantly complete their homework but I don't really want to start bribing them. Another idea she had is if maybe once a week I randomly checked a couple problems so that students would never know when I would be checking or for what. I really don't want to do that. I just hate grading. I don't want to grade all that and completion grades become fluff.

Pitfall #3: Students are not retaining information. I was doing my best to assess every skill twice in class to help those students who will never come in for reassessment as well as the retention issue. I don't know that it helped other than highlighting the fact that students are not retaining information.

Solution #3: Although I have created some thoughtful ideas on how to summarize my lessons, I have yet to do any. When faced with a time crunch, I tend to want to finish the notes or activity we're currently doing rather than stopping to start something new. I guess the truth is I haven't seen the value of summarizing as a tool for retention. Yet. Also, it seems like a waste for students to do the summary for me to glance at it and throw it away. On the other hand, most of the work we do in class gets less than a glance from me. Touche. I wonder if my students would be more likely to do summaries if they had laptops to type them on? What I'd like to do is give two problems (preferably on index cards, which I heart!) of homework each day. Surely everyone could manage that. But, I still don't want to grade it. And is 2 problems really enough to aid in retention?

Pitfall #4: Students don't care about their grades. No one wants to reassess. A good portion don't even fill out the bubble chart (skill tracking form) because it's not for a 'grade'. I suppose as long as they are passing, it doesn't really bother them. Report cards come out next week, so I guess we'll see what happens then. We had progress reports at the halfway point of the quarter, but I guess no one was really upset by their grade.

Solution #4: If I knew how to make students care, I could be rich and famous by now.

Octoeber Woes

2010-10-09T22:37:00.000-05:00

I have been wanting to blog forever but lacking the time and motivation, I did not. I didn't read any and I only got on Twitter when I was in some type of dire need. My love of teaching has been withering away. This year is much suckier and harder than I remember last year being. Last year, the prevailing feeling was that I had no idea what I was doing. This year my feeling is, I thought I learned what to do and now things are worse than when I didn't know what to and I am too busy to learn anything.

Let's just recap my current frustations.

SBG sucks.

I have been reading other people's blogs that just started sbg this year and how it is more work than expected but soooo beneficial. I am jealous of your juiciness. I have not had success. I actually kinda hate it. Shhh, don't tell. I have had about 5 out of 70 kids come in for reassessments. Four of the five are geometry students and one.One.ONE was an algebra student. The quiz is clearly labeled with the skill and their score for that skill. Each day in our lesson, I introduce the skill and the skill is at the top of their notes. They don't care that they get bad grades. None of them. And since that's all they are worried about, they aren't even realizing that hey, I don't understand very much. My quizzes suck. For the most part I give two questions per skill. My past 2 quizzes addressed only one standard and so they each had 8 questions on it. Does that make any sense whatsoever? I'm grading using a rubric but I think I hate it too. I've found myself still trying to give them more points on the rubric if they showed work or 'tried really hard'. I've been using ExamView to create quizzes. I create a bank of all the questions offered for that skill and then I pick the ones that aren't super easy but that I think they will know how to do. What kind of assessment is that? Ugh, I hate it. I am just starting to try backwards design with my coach and hopefully that will solve one of my problems.

I don't know, everything is just sucking. With the creation of my common core pacing charts, my skill list kind of flew out the window which leaves every day up in the air for me. I have not went to bed before midnight the past two weeks and as a result I am cranky and impatient and unforgiving in class because I just want to go home and take a nap. Our coaches are challenging us to implement new teaching strategies that involve more cooperative learning than my default direct instruction and my beloved powerpoints which I was just beginning to master. Every day I have no idea what to do.

I am a firm believer of routines and systems. Currently, I hate my notetaking system, homework system, assessment system, and grading system. Not forgetting my downfall of catching students up who have been absent. I literally feel like nothing I am doing is working. I am working harder and accomplishing less.

I have not been grading homework but my coach has been pushing me toward recording completion, even though I insisted on not giving a grade. I understand that students should be held accountable and I need a paper trail to cover my butt, but right now that paper trail is about 6 inches tall, lying in a chair untouched.

So I am assigning homework and the kids say, 'oh you said we didn't have to do homewoek, and me correcting them by saying 'no, I said homework isn't graded'. They still don't do it. We spend time doing it in class. Which is whatever.

This blog post is just rambling on with no direction because I have none. I can't even complain effectively.

My coach helped me ~~admit~~ realize that I was rushing to have a quiz every Friday even though the kids weren't ready for it. I liked it just because I like routine. Also because then I don't have to lesson plan for Friday. You know, since I currently hate lesson planning. I currently hate everything. I have no motivation to do anything. Usually I love reading blogs, tweeting, reading pd books, decorating my classroom, and doing fun things for the students. Now, I just want to come home and do nothing. During my plan period last week, I literally sat in a chair and stared out the window for the whole hour because I couldn't even think what I needed to be doing or motivate myself to figure out. Also last week, I feel asleep during tutoring. I only had one student who was studying her terms so I could quiz her for a test. I laid my head down and fell asleep until the principal walked in. Oops.

We have a 4 day weekend and it's Saturday night and I still haven't attempted to do anything related to school. I have a stack of tests to grade and lesson plans for the week to attempt but I. don't. want. to. do. anything. I spent the last three hours catching up on blog posts that just made me feel bitter toward those of you that are enjoying your year and having success. It de-motivated me, if that's possible. This is sad. I don't want to feel this way. I am too young and inexperience to be burnt out. I have already lost my joy of teaching.

One specific class has already ended up being something I dread. I spend most of my time at the board with arms crossed giving them the death stare so they might actually stop talking and pay attention. As I'm writing on the board, I'm thinking to myself, "I hate this class. I hate this class. I hate this class.' And as I engage in confrontational conversations with them, I think to myself 'I do not want to come back here tomorrow. I cannot face them one more time.' And then the next day I come back. I've tried a few investigation-y cooperative learning type things but their behavior and my utter failure at classroom management produces a chaotic mess.

Not to mention all the RTI and 5-step lesson plans and extra meetings and parking lot duty and tutoring and so on that eats up all my time.

Blech.

SBG Common Core Geometry Pacing Chart

2010-10-09T18:41:00.001-05:00

Geometry Pacing Chart

Common Core Standards

2010-2011

Priority Standards in Bold- Priorities are things we will keep coming back to over and over throughout the year and are assessed on ACT.

Note: In order to bridge gaps between Algebra I and Algebra II, the following Algebra I skills will be embedded as much as possible:

• Solving equations and systems of equations

• Factoring

• Analyzing and graphing linear, exponential, and quadratic functions

Quarter I

Foundational Geometry Terms

• G.CO.1 Know precise definitions of angle, circle, perpendicular line, parallel line, and line segment, based on the undefined notions of point, line, distance along a line, and distance around a circular arc.

• G.MG.1 Use geometric shapes, their measures, and their properties to describe objects (e.g., modeling a tree trunk or a human torso as a cylinder).*

• G.GPE.7 Use coordinates to compute perimeters of polygons and areas of triangles and rectangles, e.g., using the distance formula. (Note: Include factoring and systems of equations.)

Parallel Lines

• G.CO.9 Prove theorems about lines and angles. Theorems include: vertical angles are congruent; when a transversal crosses parallel lines, alternate interior angles are congruent and corresponding angles are congruent; points on a perpendicular bisector of a line segment are exactly those equidistant from the segment’s endpoints.

• G.GPE.5 Prove the slope criteria for parallel and perpendicular lines and uses them to solve geometric problems (e.g., find the equation of a line parallel or perpendicular to a given line that passes through a given point).

Transformations

• G.CO.5 Given a geometric figure and a rotation, reflection, or translation, draw the transformed figure using, e.g., graph paper, tracing paper, or geometry software. Specify a sequence of transformations that will carry a given figure onto another.

• G.CO.2 Represent transformations in the plane using, e.g., transparencies and geometry software; describe transformations as functions that take points in the plane as inputs and give other points as outputs. Compare transformations that preserve distance and angle to those that do not (e.g., translation versus horizontal stretch).

Quarter 2

Parallelograms

• G.CO.11 Prove theorems about parallelograms. Theorems include: opposite sides are congruent, opposite angles are congruent, the diagonals of a parallelogram bisect each other, and conversely, rectangles are parallelograms with congruent diagonals.

Triangle Congruency

• G.CO.7 Use the definition of congruence in terms of rigid motions to show that two triangles are congruent if and only if corresponding pairs of sides and corresponding pairs of angles are congruent.

• G.CO.8 Explain how the criteria for triangle congruence (ASA, SAS, and SSS) follow from the definition of congruence in terms of rigid motions. Include CPCTC.

Similarity

• G.SRT.2 Given two figures, use the definition of similarity in terms of similarity transformations to decide if they are similar; explain using similarity transformations the meaning of similarity for triangles as the equality of all corresponding pairs of angles and the proportionality of all corresponding pairs of sides.

• G.SRT.3 Use the properties of similarity transformations to establish the AA criterion for two triangles to be similar.

• G.SRT.5 Use congruence and similarity criteria for triangles to solve problems and to prove relationships in geometric figures.

• G.SRT.1 Verify experimentally the properties of dilations given by a center and a scale factor.

o a. A dilation takes a line not passing through the center of the dila- tion to a parallel line, and leaves a line passing through the center unchanged.

o b. The dilation of a line segment is longer or shorter in the ratio given by the scale factor.

Quarter 3

Area and Volume (Focus on real-world applications not simple use of formula.)

• G.MG.1 Use geometric shapes, their measures, and their properties to describe objects (e.g., modeling a tree trunk or a human torso as a cylinder).

• G.GMD.1 Give an informal argument for the formulas for the circumference of a circle, area of a circle, volume of a cylinder, pyramid, and cone. Use dissection arguments, Cavalieri’s principle, and informal limit arguments.

• G.GMD.4 Identify the shapes of two-dimensional cross-sections of three- dimensional objects, and identify three-dimensional objects generated by rotations of two-dimensional objects.

• G.GMD.3 Use volume formulas for cylinders, pyramids, cones, and spheres to solve problems. (Note: Informal arguments for area and volume formulas can make use of the way in which area and volume scale under similarity transformations: when one figure in the plane results from another by applying a similarity transformation with scale factor k, its area is k2 times the area of the first. Similarly, volumes of solid figures scale by k3 under a similarity transformation with scale factor k.)

• G.MG.2 Apply concepts of density based on area and volume in modeling situations (e.g., persons per square mile, BTUs per cubic foot).*

Probability and Statistics

• S.CP.2 Understand that two events A and B are independent if the probability of A and B occurring together is the product of their probabilities, and use this characterization to determine if they are independent.

• S.CP.5 Recognize and explain the concepts of conditional probability and independence in everyday language and everyday situations. For example, compare the chance of having lung cancer if you are a smoker with the chance of being a smoker if you have lung cancer.

• S.CP.4 Construct and interpret two-way frequency tables of data when two categories are associated with each object being classified. Use the two-way table as a sample space to decide if events are independent and to approximate conditional probabilities. For example, collect data from a random sample of students in your school on their favorite subject among math, science, and English. Estimate the probability that a randomly selected student from your school will favor science given that the student is in tenth grade. Do the same for other subjects and compare the results.

• S.CP.6 Find the conditional probability of A given B as the fraction of B’s outcomes that also belong to A, and interpret the answer in terms of the model.

Quarter 4

Right Triangles

• G.SRT.8 Use trigonometric ratios and the Pythagorean Theorem to solve right triangles in applied problems.

Circles

• G.C.2 Identify and describe relationships among inscribed angles, radii, and chords. Include the relationship between central, inscribed, and circumscribed angles; inscribed angles on a diameter are right angles; the radius of a circle is perpendicular to the tangent where the radius intersects the circle Include factoring.

• G.GPE.1 Derive the equation of a circle of given center and radius using the Pythagorean Theorem; complete the square to find the center and radius of a circle given by an equation.

• G.C.3 Construct the inscribed and circumscribed circles of a triangle, and prove properties of angles for a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle

• G.CO.12 Make formal geometric constructions with a variety of tools and methods (compass and straightedge, string, reflective devices, paper folding, dynamic geometric software, etc.). Copying a segment; copying an angle; bisecting a segment; bisecting an angle; constructing perpendicular lines, including the perpendicular bisector of a line segment; and constructing a line parallel to a given line through a point not on the line.

• G.CO.13 Construct an equilateral triangle, a square, and a regular hexagon inscribed in a circle.

• G.MG.3 Apply geometric methods to solve design problems (e.g., designing an object or structure to satisfy physical constraints or minimize cost; working with typographic grid systems based on ratios).*