Recharging with NBPTS

The last couple of years have been hard for me. I keep on pushing my kids yet always feel inferior to what I could be doing; I keep working more and yet feel bad for how much I'm not working. I even slowed down on reading other math edublogs because the discrepancy between what they were doing in classrooms and what I was doing in my classroom ("Clear the screen with 2nd Quit. No, you don't have to hold down both buttoms at once.") started to pull me down more than motivate me.

Last summer was the very first in which I did not making major plans and changes over the summer. Instead I moved from the West Coast to the East Coast. I exchanged a population of 91% Hispanic students to 50% white 50% black - not better or worse, just different. I exchanged parents that can't be contacted or communicated with, to parents that take everything their kids say to heart ("Bobby says you favor the black kids! And he doesn't lie!") I exchanged a good department for a great department - some things got much better! I exchanged kids that can't add or subtract with..kids that can't add or subtract. Some things never change.

I also applied to grad school, and hopefully will get in. This may be my last year in the classroom and I have such a feeling of mixed excitement and sadness. There is so much to do in the classroom that I feel I have not yet mastered.

Hopefully, the National Board process I have begun will help me to wring the most out of these last 6 months. I have heard others say that it has rejuvenated them as teachers, and I feel like I need that. I know I do good things in my classroom, and I know I go beyond the minimum to do a lot of extra that others don't do.

 Today I'm planning several things for the short 3-day week ahead of me.

1) I'm going to use Wednesday and Thursday to review what we did right before the break. Then Friday we'll have out typical SBG skill quizzes.

Geometry: Review Congruence Theorems and Congruence Proofs. Take quiz Fri.

Algebra: Review finding slope 3 ways (from points, graph, and equation) and graphing 3 ways (from slope-intercept form, table, and intercepts). REtake quizzes Fri.

2) My classroom walls are almost bare! Its never been like this before. I need to put things up that I brought from my old school, and also 3 new things: a shiny Order of Operations 3D hanging, 10 "Good Questions" posters I made, and 3 giant tables to track each kid on every skill (identified by a secret code word).

3) I need to organize my parent contact logs and start something new I decided to do this semester: regular bimonthly contacts for every single child's guardian, hopefully by email. I want to communicate the following things: MOST important, attitude and motivation, then academic struggles, then behavior problems.

After that, I need to immediately get started with my portfolio entries.

Pencils & Bathrooms, or Human Dignity vs. Human Right to Learn

When I first started reading teacher blogs, Dan Meyer was on about a two-year extended rant about how edtech bloggers had their priorities all wrong.

I used to read his archives thinking "Big deal, move on! What's with the focusing on people I've never heard of?"

Then I heard of them. And read & subscribed to them. And quickly unsubscribed and rethought about Dan's posts. "Oh."

I stumbled onto one of them lately, and found myself responding to a comment left by Chris Lehmann (who is actually one of those ten out-of-the-classroom bloggers still on my blogroll, unlike long-gone Scott McLeod).

Here's my response:

---

>Chris: I'm going to push back here... and I'll focus on the 'pencil sharpener' piece...Could you say, "Please wait to use the pencil sharpener until there is no one standing at it?"

No, you couldn't.

Because in a class of 34, 29-33 kids will pay attention to that and be respectful of others.

And 1-5 will not. Because their lives suck in other areas, or they're immature, or they just don't like your shirt that day.

"What?!! Mtch! It'll just take a minute!"

"Oh my GOD, what the f*ck is your problem? Its MY pencil!"

"Oh I forgot." [15 weeks in a row]

And, most of all:

"Please wait to use the pencil sharpener until there is no one standing at it?"
"Huh?"
"Please wait to use the pencil sharpener until there is no one standing at it?"
"What?"
[other students giggle]
[first student turns accidental obliviousness into class act]
"Jose, I'm explaining right now! Please wait a second!"
"Huh?"
[more giggles] [flow of lesson long gone]

Alec's comments, and the above "reasonable alternative" are a clear illustration why I have over 300 educator blogs in my Google Reader, but less than 10 of them are out-of-the-classroom "educators".

I have a class website, read blogs & write one, and started an afterschool Scratch programming club, among other tech uses.

So it's a good thing I don't read too many edtech people, because they would drive me back to slates & writing in the dirt."

---

But what IS the correct balance between respecting my students' human dignity, and their right to learn?

It's something I struggle with every day.

My classic example is my most unpopular classroom rule: If you want to use the bathroom, go to the nurse, or even get a drink of water during class, you have to come for 30 minutes of after-school tutoring. Every single time.

Honestly, I wince every time I tell a kid that. And they wince back - loudly, repeatedly, and often profanely.

But it WORKS.

I learned my lesson my first year. "M" told me she had a medical condition that required frequent trips to the nurse for female hygiene supplies. Eager to be supportive, I smiled and said "Okay, just bring me a note from your parents soon, okay?" "M" smiled back and said "Sure!" The months went by and the note never came, though I kept reminding her. Meanwhile her nurse visits became longer and longer, though as an exhausted first-year teacher I didn't really keep track. Still, sometime in January I became suspicious, because other students had started to ditch as well and it triggered a deja vu feeling. (Important background info: Our school has a split lunch so if you ditch 4th hour, you can blend in with your 4th-lunch friends and avoid security). One cold February morning I stopped in at the nurse and asked if "M" had come in every single time. She pulled up her records and showed me a blank screen for "M". She had never been to the nurse.

The next semester I gave each student 3 free BR visits, and killed myself keeping track of 150 students bladder movements. I lost papers, had arguments about whether the 3 were up, wasted class time writing them down.

The next year I decided to put it on the students! Yes! Make them take responsibility! I handed out 3 passes each. They lost them and whined. They stole them from each other and erased names. They yelled at me to retrieve them and return them and investigate the thefts. They asked if they could go and "bring it tomorrow."

So now every BR visit costs you 30 minutes of your free time. Because I honestly can't conceive of a kid who would rather wet himself than spend 30 minutes in my room (they can come during lunch, and bring their lunch to eat, AND bring a friend!) I cannot conceive of a girl who would rather risk a stain than text from my classroom for 30 minutes, though plenty have been surprised that the words "girl emergency" don't get them a freebie! (And how come those students don't, after arguing with me, go to the BR and deal with it? And why do those who DO have an emergency, argue far less and then go? Hmmmm....)

And my classroom runs smoothly, and I can focus on, you know, teaching.

But if it makes the small-l-libertarians who are going to start their own schools and change the world and restore human dignity (that has been trampled by the complacent, freeloading, public school union lackeys) feel better, I feel guilty every time.

SBG: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

We've finished five weeks of school now, so I wanted to go over those promises I made to myself in the last post.

1) 1) This year I’m determined to implement something that I only thought about last semester: mandatory tutoring for anyone two concepts or more behind. Even if it lasts a month, it’ll make a huge difference.

YUP! And it's working. I've been offering the carrot of "Raise your grade! Get points back! Be proud of learning more!" WITH the stick of "If you still fail after taking the quiz three times in class, you get a week of tutoring." Getting kids to come to tutoring (talking to them, handing out slips, calling parents, writing referrals when they don't come so they get that I mean business about this...) is exhausting, but the tutoring itself is WORKING. I usually love tutoring because it let me connect with my kids and get to know them individually. This mini-group tutoring is harder, but I'm seeing improvements.

After my kids took Quiz B: Understanding Fractions three times (and only the numbers changed each time), I filed everyone that got a 3, 3.5, 4, or 5 away and made two folders: all my 1s, and all my 2s. I'm working my way through the 1s right now, and I'd say the split bewteen "truly confused on concepts and procedures" versus "too lazy to try" has been... 30-70? Something like that. I try to end every tutoring session with reminding them that if they don't do well on the next quiz they'll get tutoring again, so ask questions BEFORE time is up. It IS frustrating. A lot. But its so much better than letting it slide and then having my head explode in December because they still think 1/3 is equal to 3/1!

2) I require students to do extra practice to learn for no points, so they could take the quiz. This resulted in whining and/or anger for 90% of students who are trained to be rewarded by points like trained seals.

This hasn't happened this year! Halleluijah, thank God and all his cherubim (I love -im plural words), I have had almost NO kids ask "Do I get extra credit for practicing this?" I don't know what happened, but I am willing to burn a sacrifice to whatever deity made this happen. Just let me know, immortal being(s). The few that HAVE said this have been during detention ("What? I have to do math for detention? I thought I just had to sit here [and let my brain rot]" "Sorry, you thought wrong!") have accepted the brief explanation of "No, you're here for detention. Do this and you get to leave."

Sidenote: Writing this down makes me sound like quite the b*tch at times. More on this later.

3) Once a week quizzes in class is not enough. I’m going to try twice a week this year. Also, one HUGE difference: returning quizzes the next day isn’t enough. I plan to give quizzes at the beginning of the class... and grade and return them NOW.

Returning same day hasn't worked, just because my first concept quizzes were so LONG. But I have been returning the next day, and the students are really eager to see their grades and color in their checklists. I've also been sticking to once a week quizzes for the same reason, but its working okay!


Overall, I'm having a good time (when not exhausted) and I'm DEFINITELY seeing enough results to make this worth my while.

NO PTC = HAPPY DANCE!

(Warning: This is a very rambling post)

When I first got to school two weeks ago I found that I hadn't given my correct new address to the school, and so a bunch of summer mail was waiting for me - including a "Change in your schedule" notice. Seeing this I started to panic as I opened it.

Last summer I got a notice that said that my all-Algebra-1 schedule was changed to include one section of Topics (a.k.a. math for seniors that got passed on but still

don't know any math at all so let's do it all again). I had had a NIGHTMARE experience with similar seniors during student teaching and now thinking of doing this again in my second year of teaching freaked me out. I called my department head on her personal phone almost in tears, and she told me I could switch if another teacher was willing. One was, and I had one section of Algebra Lab (a second algebra support class for low-functioning students). I didn't plan for it all summer, the first nine weeks were pulled out of nowhere as I focused on getting my other four Alg 1 classes under control, and it was my most difficult class.

Fast forward to this year and I'm almost hyperventilating at the thought of juggling multiple preps again. I pulled it out...and it was all Algebra Lab classes.
I felt a mixture of excitement (I can concentrate on basics! Yes!) and fear (math-phobic students usually resent having TWO math classes). At the very least, I had one prep I could focus on so I was happy However, later on I realized the benefit to this plan: NO PTC!

PTC is my personal acronym for what our school calls a PLC. However, though with the best intentions by our PLC leaders, it is NOT a Professional Learning Community.

One of the VERY few things I dislike about my department is that we NEVER talk about teaching in our formal meetings. Ever. Twice I suggested we discuss teaching ideas, and both times someone said "Yes! Its better for the kids when we all do the same thing! Let's share what we do, and then pick one way and we ALL have to explain it that way! That is what is in the best interests of the CHILD." Um, really? That's the only reason to discuss teaching - to enforce more uniformity? Not to discuss pros and cons, to let teachers learn and experiment with different ways and then report back? Really? Hell, I shut up. I don't want someone deciding my way of explaining integers is forbidden after a ten-second explanation of why I do what I do. The one question I had for the school when interviewing was "Do you script lessons?" I want to learn from others, but the teachers in my blog reader share without demanding uniformity.

Okay, so in our "PLC" metings, once a month, we discuss tests. 1) Is everyone ready to test on the 15, give or take a day? Good! 2) Who is going to write the second quiz? This is a long chapter, we should make another quiz. You'll make it? Good! Okay, we're done. As you can see, we have a Professional Testmaking Community. For someone who's been quietly implementing some form of SBG with Dan Meyer-liconceptill checklists, these meetings are quite painful.

Here's a taste of what I mean. Last year, our department head and our district math head promoted the latest acronym AFL: Assessment for Learning. Sounded good, and was a pretty good idea, though not paradigm shattering enough to warrant a new acronym or the answer-to-our-prayers attitude some had (are they ever?). I attended the class, and learned about how we should build tests that allow us to target certain learning targets (SBG-like), and give students ability to track what they do and don't know (SBG-like again), incorporate alternative assessments (more good ideas) and give students a format in which to correct their tests and learn from their mistakes (scaffolding, good!). The smallest, most insignificant, piddly surface detail of all of this was that assessment questions should always have the learning target typed next to it. At our school, this took the form of a three-column table where the first column had the learning target typed in like "I can multiply matrices by a constant.", the second column had the problem, and the third column was a blank space to show work.


This is great, I thought! A lot of what attracted me to Dan Meyer's Concept Checklists was here as well. I attended most of the classes, and made plans to join another teacher for our final "project" at the best restaurant in the world, a.k.a. Wildflower Bread Company (where I am currently typing this post). We took a Saturday morning to identify key procedures the test should cover, pick through old tests to find questions that isolated these skills, make new questions when needed, add a few longer combine-skills questions, and type it all into the required format. It was harder than the old tests, partly because we only had two multiple choice questions instead of many.

(Sample conversation from the AFL class: District Math Head says "NEVER have more than 2-3 multiple choice or matching, they aren't good at identifying what students know." Teacher says "But the district final is multiple choice." DMH says "That's just so we can grade in 12 hours and send out grades, the sole purpose of a math class isn't to learn how to take the final." Surani thinks "I love you DMH!")

Okay, so back to the assessment my friend and I worked so hard on. The students failed it. They did badly. But there was ALSO lots of diagnostic information since we tried to isolate skills. The main reason to put a question on WASN'T just that it was on last year's tests.

So we rallied together! Realized that teaching for content and not for a test was going to take some real work! Analyzed the results of the tests so we could learn what we needed to go over again! Collected data, learned from it, and grew as a department!

Actually no. My department head took one look at the failing grades, and said "As long as DMH gives us a multiple choice final, we're making all OUR tests multiple choice."

Our test was thrown out. Old test came back. No one mentions the life-changing AFL acronym anymore, except to remind people "Don't forget! Write the test in the AFL format!" which means "Make a three-column table and copy-paste a long, obscure performance target from the state standards into each cell in the first column."

Meanwhile, my head exploded and I went home to vent on my long-suffering fiance.

AAaaaaaaanyway. See why I call it a PTC instead of a PLC? They're good teachers, good people, and many of them are good friends. Its NOT the teachers, its the structure we've grown to get used to.

So this year, in our school, instead of giving everyone an Algebra Lab that no one could really focus on, they are now given to two people. I teach 5, and another teacher has 3. He's an easygoing guy who never shows up to meetings, so I have appointed myself the unofficial Algebra Lab PLC Leader. I make sure to meet with myself AT LEAST twice a week to talk about teaching and learning. And I'm easy on myself too - I never start the meeting until I've shown up!

I still attend the Algebra PTC, and I rewrite quizzes and assignment sheets when asked to, but I no longer have to give their quizzes and tests in my classes. I can use my own assessments that I've thought about obsessively, rewritten as needed, focused to my personal list of standards/skills, and incorporate as much conceptual understanding as I dare.

Goodby PTC, and good luck!

~ Surani

The “I hate you!” phase

I don’t know if this is true for all teachers, but as I start my third year now I notice some basic phases of the school year:

Week One: Okay, we’ll play nice. Maybe talk a little too much, but that’s all.

Week Two-Week ___: I hate you! Slow down! Stop asking me to work! This is too much! Why won’t you repeat everything you said in the last 15 minutes? Why can’t I walk in 3 minutes late – I was looking for my lost purple bunny so I had a good excuse! Why can’t you give me a pencil? Why can’t I have a “female emergency” three times a month and go to the bathroom for half an hour? I hate you!

Problem is, I can’t remember around when the “I hate you!” phase ends.

But its really getting me down right now.

It is SO tempting to stop class and go into a lecture. You know “I’m trying to teach you for your own good, blah blah blah, don’t you want to be successful in life, blah blah blah, why don’t you appreciate me *sob* blah blah blah…”

I don’t though. I just calmly repeat the classroom procedure and either give a detention or a warning, then walk away.

But its so haaaard! Especiallly when they whiiiiine! Because I ask them to actually doooooo woooooork! Instead of sitting and watching the teeeacher do all the woooork! Oh my gooooosh! Whine whine whiiiine! Moan moan mooooan! Foul words muttered under breeeeath! Respond to redirect by distracting oooooothers!

Okay, that feels better.

I know that 95% of them get over it and start working and thinking and becoming a producing student, instead of an observer in my classroom. I know it, but I don’t FEEL it right now.

Right now I just feel like telling them what brats they’re being.

And the thing is, its STILL less than 50% of them. More than half are working hard and doing well. They’re great kids!

So why, why, why, why, why do I focus on the brats, instead of the superstars?

My prep period is ending in 15 minutes, and I still have 3 classes left today.

Goal for today: Redirect brats, but focus on superstars.

Standards-Based Grading: Year 2

NOTICE: For those coming from the SBG Gala, this post turned into a brain-dump about my entire experience with SBG. For a shorter read, please jump to my explanation of why everyone should try SBG.

Well, another seven months have gone by without a single post here...but when I saw an upcoming blog carnival on SBG it finally spurred me to start working on a new post. [Update: AUGH! Misread deadline as July 16 not July 15! Oh well, maybe this will still be a part of it…if not, finally wrote another post]


WHO, WHEN, & WHERE: I just finished my second year teaching, and my first full year attempting to use standards-based grading in my classroom. I wanted to work with disadvantaged kids, so I looked for work in the inner city – and found it. My school is 91% Hispanic, in an old barrio area of Phoenix. Overwhelmingly poor, illegally in the US, extremely high turnover, and non-English-speaking. On the other hand, I have an administration I LOVE (with few exceptions), a great math department, and I really do love our kids. They’re often brats, but they’re teenagers – they’re just doing their jobs! :-) And so many are hardworking, respectful, and sweet – enough to make it worthwhile.

I can sum up my students’ math abilities easily because I’ve used the same sentence when talking to friends and family: “I can assume that all my freshman students can add, and subtract when the answer is positive.” ( 5-3 is 2, but unfortunately, 3-5 becomes 2 as well) Sometimes I blame their earlier teachers, sometimes I sympathize with them. But for better or worse, my PLC doesn’t start Algebra 1 on the first day. Our district has budgeted 4 weeks for review; our school ends up spending NINE. That means that the true Algebra 1 curriculum is squeezed into the remaining nine weeks. Surprised that 40% fail and retake it? I didn’t think so.

WHAT: I tried a version in the fourth quarter of my first year, at the end of Algebra 1, but last year I started from the beginning. You can see a copy of the concept checklist (I’ve borrowed heavily from Dan Meyers) in a mandated (sorry Shawn, keeping that!) student notebook here:

From Classroom Activities

I worked hard over my first summer vacation to develop my concept checklist, and its continued to grow.). Here’s the Fall 2010 version:

ALGEBRA_1_CHECKLIST_SJOSHUA_FALL10.doc

Several changes are:

1)I used dy/dan’s latest suggestion to change the format. Now instead of writing in their scores, like in the student example above, they’re going to color in a new box every time their score goes up (but not erase if scores go down. I don’t agree with Dan’s assumption that if they learn it once they can relearn quickly, because I still don’t think two quizzes show understanding in long-term memory. On the other hand, I believe Shawn Cornelly’s idea of dynamic quiz grades will keep my kids from trying to raise their grade. So many times I told a kid “Just try! I won’t lower your score, so no harm in trying.” and this amazing look of PEACE came over their faces as they bent over the paper and started. I’ll be using in-class review, tests, and finals to work on long-term memory. And yes, this IS a long parenthetical comment.)

2)My PLC teaches about like terms and variables, then dumps them for integer operations and the kids forget. I feel like we’re pretending to ourselves. We aren’t doing Algebra 1 at the beginning, let’s be honest about that. I’m moving any mention of variables to the beginning of equations.

3)The thick bars across the page divide them into sections that I see as benchmarks. This list does cover everything in our district standards and final exam, and almost in the same order (see above). But I reorganized to cover “big ideas” as I see them: arithmetic, integers, one-variable equations, and two-variable equations. Last year my goal was to keep track of every student’s goals and reward them with a pizza party when the whole class mastered one set of standards. With four sets, I felt sure each class could get one party. But it never happened. This year I’m posting them on the board to get my students to hold ME accountable. Nothing makes my student happier than telling me I owe them something and I better hand it over now!

HOW: Last year I started with the most fresh, wonderful hopes of concept checklists beautifully filled out. It certainly made a difference, but I didn’t implement it well enough. Our school is a test site for a new plan to teach one semester of algebra and one semester of geometry each year. I was sure I could use my concept checklist through the first semester, but it petered out after 3 months. I already had a list of specific learning targets, vocabulary words, and “big ideas” (mostly involving different ways of modeling mathematical ideas) for each concept, and I built quizzes using that.

Downfalls:
1) Like the rest of the math ed blog community, counting on kids coming in after school didn’t work. They would only flow in at the end of each grading period, when my tutoring hours suddenly become filled with students demanding – not asking – to know their grade NOW (they threw away the report I handed out three hours ago) and expecting to fix it in the next five minutes. Faced with a written record of their lack of work, many usually friendly kids can become almost verbally abusive. I’ve come to dread the end of each term. This year I’ll determined to implement that I only thought about last semester: mandatory tutoring for anyone two concepts or more behind. Even if it lasts one month, it’ll make a huge difference.

2) I have discovered what all parents and bosses know: there is a disconnect in many human brains that does not let them easily understand that “not understanding -> need to practice -> then will understand.” Since I don’t believe in extra credit and only rarely give it to get extra cooperation when my mental health is strained, I would require students to do extra practice to learn for no points, so they could take the quiz. This resulted in whining and/or anger for 90% of students who are trained to be rewarded by points like trained seals (and I confess, I use this to help me manage 34 teenagers at once. I’m required by my school to give points for HW and classwork, and anyway I’m just not ready yet to give that up. Maybe someday.) I’m still working on how to fix this. I know I’m a softie and let whining start and continue too much

3) Once a week in class is not enough. I’m going to try twice a week this year. Also, one HUGE difference: returning quizzes the next day isn’t enough. I sometimes fell behind and did even worse, but even one day is too long. I plan to give quizzes at the beginning of the class, give them a short review assignment, and grade and return them NOW. They’ll color in their checklist before they leave class that day.

WHY: It works.

I can see the potential in it.

I can see how it helped the kids at the beginning when I kept up and redid quizzes frequently.

I can see how easy it was to tutor someone in “multiplying and dividing integers” instead of tutoring them on “Test 1” or even “Quiz 1”.

I can see how they cheer when they hit a 4 on their quizzes – kids who NEVER get more than a 70 (or 60… or 50…) on a test because they can’t read word problems or directions, they get overwhelmed by the length of a test, they have test anxiety, etc. etc. etc.

I can see how much it helped me keep track of the true level of mastery and understanding in each class.

I can see how it changed the way I view grading! An unexpected bonus is that I LOVE grading concept quizzes. I am mandated to use PLC-made tests and quizzes, and grading them is the most boring, painful thing I can think of. But my extra concept quizzes are FUN! I cheer every time a kid gets a four or a three, and I know who I’m grading, unlike when I’m scanning along page four of a PLC test. Since I can grade a whole class in ten minutes, I have a gut feeling by the end as to what my next step should be.

I can see the potention for self-evaluation in our kids. It didn’t work well last year, but I’m just beginning.

SBG GOAL FOR NEXT YEAR: Use it all year. Follow all ideas about implementation.

REASONABLE SBG GOAL FOR NEXT YEAR: Follow my intentions of biweekly quizzes, returning quizzes in the same class period, and mandatory tutoring for the first nine weeks. If my gut is right, I’ll see enough success to give me an energy boost for the rest of the semester. If not, if stress and lack of energy take over, I’ll lick my wounds and assess as usual until December, spending that time in revamping my system to start again in January.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

A Life...What's That?

Something weird happened the week before Thanksgiving...I stopped caring.

Not in a bad way - in a good way.

I got a terrible cold, and did less work the previous week, and then took off Monday so that I only had a two-day workweek before Thanksgiving.

And I think I'm starting my sixth or seventh "re-discovery" of the fact that school =/ life.

Except this time it feels a little different. I recently bought my first house (yay!) and I spent Thanksgiving weekend cleaning and planning and talking to my fiance, and school didn't really ever intrude.

And now that I'm back, I feel good about it. Not good in a "Yay! Time to implement all the things that have been churning in my mind over the weekend!" way. But a "Good. I can have more time to practice teaching calmly."

Part of it, I think, is just considering going back to school for a Masters or Ph.D in math education - it makes me feel like there's an "out." But also, talking to a director at the local university about bringing in the innovative things I've been doing made me realize how much I AM doing.

~ I'm keeping MUCH better track of attendance and tardies. As an example, I had only two absences in first period today (okay, many tardies, but still...) Last year by December I had .... as many as 15 absences in first hour. EVERY DAY.

~ My kids are keeping interactive notebooks.

~ I'm using Visual Instruction Plans.

~ I got another longed-after custom manipulative made. Didn't have much chance to use it, but its ready and was used a little.

~ I made one "Conceptual Minute" video (I'll post it soon) using a new drag-and-drop programming language I taught myself.

~ My grades are current.

~ Most of my students, when asked to list what they wanted changed about class on the back of last week's test, could only come up with my tardy policy.

Okay, enough patting on the back. I've got 2 more classes of tests to grade.

~ Ms. J

Forgive me, blog, it has been 3 months since my last confession

I'm shamelessly stealing my theme from Teaching Statistics's post, where MizT references another blog I read - f(t) by Kate Nowak.

Just like MizT, I too tried to keep a journal many times as a kid - and failed. I couldn't even keep a journal for two weeks this summer when I went to Cuernavaca for an intensive Spanish program! I did write a couple of days...

But I'm not giving up this time. I already learn so much from reading other people's educational blogs, and I want to contribute to this community - and get help from it.

I certainly spend a lot of time reflecting on my teaching, but going over my mistakes on the drive home... and at night... and the next morning... isn't exactly the same thing!

I'm in my second year now, and just finished my first week of school. Its already a lot better than last year, and I'm ready to start refining things and concentrating on the details, instead of worrying about all the first-year issues I struggled with last year.

So while this will continue to be a struggle, I'm going to keep trying. There are too many things I do that I can't wait to tell people about - and my fiance can only take listening to me for so long ;-)

Solving Equations Brainstorm

Note to self:

When I move from one-step equations to two-step equations, I've tried talking about "backwards Order of Operations" and I've tried talking about three steps forward, two steps back, etc. but they don't really listen.

For the coming year:

HAVE COURAGE AND TAKE A DAY TO DO THIS! (just a note to myself)
Make a scavenger hunt outside. for pts. PLUS extra credit points.

Then write their "clue" in the following way.

1) I hid the treasure & then faced the flagpole.
2) I took 5 steps forward.
3) I turned to the left.
4) I went down 3 steps.

TO GET TO THE....

Trashcan (or whatever).

Day before: explain the rules, go over examples, tell the kids each group of 4 will be working together. Make sure at least one kid in each group is listening (pick a team role to be leader on this).

Day of hunt: Kids get paper with "clue" and map of area of scavenger hunt. Tell them attendance is being taken before AND after. They have 20 minutes to find the treasure - go.

When they come back, discuss the two elements needed for success:

1) Undo each step in REVERSE order (4, then 3, then 2, then 1)

2) Do the OPPOSITE of each step.

**When making clues, make sure that they won't work unless done backwards & opposite (for instance, take 3 steps left and 2 steps forward; they can be undone in the wrong order and still work)

(treasure should be 4 pieces of candy? or ticket for candy)

Come back to room.

Have them fill out handout on what they did to find treasure. Maybe have paper divided in two with clue on one side, then students turn paper upside down to write backwards opposite operations, and bottom has space for reflection on what they learned.

Now to forget about this post until RIGHT after I teach two-step equations in the fall.

~ Ms. Libb!

Edit: Add "X MARKS THE SPOT" to emphasize that they are going backward to find....x!

QN: Yet More Procedures

books during tests/quizzes = extra credit
what are "even" and "odd"
how to round numbers
make parent DVD at beginning of year
KKIS (tutoring) visit in Week 3
explain why you shouldn't call people "retarded" or "gay" to insult them
why teachers cannot help you during a test
procedures multiple choice questions = extra credit on each test?
how to ignore if someone talks to you

QN: Procedures

~ Leave work out on desk when done
~ What communicating is (during a test)
~ What cheating is
~ Copy 1 problem at a time
~ Don't number ahead of time
~ 2 columns down on paper
~ Front of paper
~ Respecting materials
~ Fire drill
~ Tutoring & other rooms
~ Calculator use
~ Calculator respect

QN: Procedures

More things to teach next year:

How to read a clock
Keeping your hands to yourself
How to tear paper out of a notebook without leaving trash on the floor
What is recyclable and what isn't (i.e. gum)
How to behave during a fire drill
What a pencil is (erasable pen is not a pencil)
What you shouldn't throw in a classroom (everything)
Who you shouldn't hit during class (everyone)

HOW DO YOU MAKE THEM LISTEN?????

AIMS testing in the morning.

4 - yes, FOUR - fire drills in the afternoon.

No student with an attention span of more than 5 seconds.

What do you do???????????

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QN: Scientific Notation

I haven't written on this blog in months, but then, I haven't done a LOT of things in months!

I'm thinking that I can use this as a place to store "Quick Notes", because I have tons of ideas right after a lesson but little time to put them into effect. So, for myself next year, here are ideas about teaching scientific notation:

(Note: This is both a HOW (process) and WHY (concept) lesson.

Scaffolding: I'm thinking that a worksheet with several examples of the most basic things will start things off right.

Identifying Decimal:

Notes: A decimal point on a whole number is _______ (at the end).

Practice:

A section full of numbers (both whole and with decimals) and then kids have to identify where the decimal is by circling it. That way ALL the kids are forced to see that whole numbers have an "invisible decimal" at the end. So it could be examples like 600 and 45.6 and 0.04 and they would have to change 600 to 600. and then circle the decimal.

Identifying Scientific Notation:

Notes: Scientific Notation has a single 1-9 in front of the decimal, and then a "times ten to the ____" at the end.

Practice:

Have a bunch of numbers in exponential form (plus some others) and have then identify which ones are already in scientific notation. Put MANY examples with 0 at the beginning. For example: 6.5x10^2, 87x10^3, 0.5x10^2 (and only the first one has a single 1-9 before the decimal).

Have them circle all the numbers in correct scientific notation, and point out that 0.anything is NOT correct. Also include examples of 10^0

Only AFTER that, start practice on changing scientific notation to decimals. Positive = bigger and negative = smaller was, thankfully, easy for them to grasp and I didn't see many kids this year resisting thinking and saying "I've already memorized LEFT and RIGHT rules!".

Then, use the do-and-undo method. Maybe first a short activity about things like "what's another way of saying 3 feet forward? 3 feet forward and 1 foot forward and 1 foot backwards."

Bathroom/Nurse Pass Procedures - Trial and Error

I went through about 20 different ways of dealing with bathroom passes, so I wanted to sumamrize for myself (and anyone else fascinated by such things) all the things that worked and didn't work.

I seriously thought about using Fred Jones advice at the beginning of the year, which can be summarized as "If a 7-year-old can go the night without wetting himself, a high school teenager can wait 50 minutes. Don't let them go without a doctor's note." I agree that they CAN wait, but I feel weird about controlling people's bodily functions to that level. It doesn't seem right, and after all there ARE emergencies. I don't think a young adult should have to beg for a simple bathroom visit - it seems so condescending. So I tried many other things:

1) Decided to give each kid 3 bathroom passes, but didn't hand them out at the beginning of the year. Instead I would write them out on the school hall passes and then collect them back.

Benefits: Didn't require any organization beforehand.

Drawbacks: I would lose them. The kids would lose them. The kids would throw them away on the way back so I couldn't collect them. I collected a huge pile before buying an index card box to put them in. I then proceeded to stuff more in the index card box and never organized them. After kids got their 12th pass in 5 weeks, some of them (why not all????) caught on to the fact that I wasn't keeping track of them. Writing them out wasted time during class and annoyed me. The lack of organization drove me insane and I allowed myself to stress over it.

2) I borrowed a pyramid model from another class (copying something I had seen in another classroom) and taped a green pass inside it. I told the kids that if the outline of my PPT was green, they could quietly take it and leave, but if it was red, they had to stay in their seats.

Benefits: I stopped all my paperwork. The kids did REALLY good at not asking me when the board was red, in general.

Drawbacks: The kids still insisted on asking me when the board was green, so I was still monitoring who got to go in what order. Then some kid broke the corners off my pyramid pass. Then another kid stole it (probably threw it away). Also, if I didn't prepare my PPT ahead of time I didn't have red or green boards up, and that confused them.

3) That annoyed me so I stopped letting them go to the bathroom for the next week (an immature response, I admit).

Over Fall Break I thought a lot about my procedures, and wrote a very late Plan for Success (syllabus):

4) I told them at the beginning of the second quarter that if they had an emergency that was worth leaving the classroom, it was worth coming in for 15 minutes of tutoring. I also told them, to make them think before they asked, that if they asked I would automatically put the 15 minutes up on the board.

Benefits: They asked less.

Drawbacks: They asked all the time, including in the middle of mini-lectures or notes. They had no incentive to come back quickly. I also suspect that they tried to "get their 15 minutes worth" by wandering more than usual (this may not be true). They also quickly forgot that asking=tutoring, so they would ask, then go when it wasn't an emergency.

5) Without telling them I started asking "Are you sure? You know its 15 minutes of tutoring if you leave." every time they asked. I'd also say "After you start working" and "in a few minutes" and "No! Ask during groupwork, not while we're taking notes."

Benefits: Bathroom visits went down.

Drawbacks: I'm sick of nagging.

*) Side issue #1: Our lunch is staggered because we have a closed campus, so my fifth period algebra class is at the same time as fifth lunch. That means that the kids like to ditch and take a double lunch with their friends - or, to "go to the bathroom" and come back half an hour later. We were told at the beginning of the year not to let 5th hour go to the bathroom at all because they just had lunch, but I didn't feel like saying that so I gave them the same rules. It was a disaster! The same four kids asked to go every day, and I distracted them as much as possible but it didn't seem to make a difference. At the end of the semester I lost my temper and said "Too many people are ditching. No going without a doctor or parent note." This stopped the ditching, but caused quite a lot of bad will with that class. On my end-of-seemster evaluation form, a lot of them said "We can't go to the bathroom" as one of their main grievances. And like I said earlier, I just don't feel right being that controlling.

*) Side issue #2: A girl in one of my classes told me that she has a medical problem that requires frequent visits. I believed her (and still believe her) so I've been letting her go more often, and I told her that she wouldn't need to come in for the mandatory tutoring. Result: she took advantage of that and "went to the bathroom" all the time. Its during my 5th period, so I started hearing reports that she was walking around the lunch area with her friends. When I changed to the "no visits without a parent/doctor note" I told her that applied to her as well, and the note never appeared and the need-for-bathroom-visits stopped.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So I've been weighing the following suggestions and problems:

1) They go too often, just to get out of class or move around.
2) They go for too long - it ends up being a ditch and they wander around campus or the cafeteria with their friends.
3) They get mad when I don't let them go - and frankly I sympathize with them.
4) They ask for bathroom passes as rewards.
5) I'm worried they'll copy the passes and then use them every day with the "But you said we could..." line.
6) I'm worried they'll steal the passes from each other.
7) I don't want to be over controlling.
8) I don't want them missing important information and then falling behind when they wander back into class.
9) I don't want them interrupting notes or mini-lecture to ask, such as when I ask "Questions about that problem?" and they raise their hands and ask to leave.
10) I'm tired of paperwork, tired of nagging, tired of having to repeat myself because they stayed out for 30 minutes, and tired of wasting time and energy and class time dealing with this issue.
11) Keeping track of who did their mandatory detention is a pain in the butt.

So here's the policy I'm going to try next semester:

------------------------
BATHROOM/NURSE PROCEDURE


1) At the beginning of each quarter you get two bathroom passes. (I will sometimes give out bathroom passes as rewards for winning review games or good behavior.) Write your name IN INK on them right away and keep them in your folder or backpack:



2) You may use them during groupwork only. Get your pass out and have it ready when you ask and I'll take it and tear it up. Then quietly take the pass hanging on the wall and go. I will keep track of how long you take so be quick.

3) If you've run out of passes, you must put your name on the board for 15 minutes tutoring if you need to go again - so save them and use. If you bring a parent/doctor/nurse note you don't need to do this. For fifth hour, after you use your two passes you MUST get a parent/doctor/nurse note to go again.
------------------------

To enforce this I'm doing the following:

a) I'm copying the passes on bright neon paper I got from our VP, so they'll be harder to lose. They have my turtle so they know its for my class, and in the box on the bottom right-hand corner I'm going to initial each copy in red ink so they can't be photocopied (these kids usually don't cheat on that level, but I'd rather head off possible problems)

b) I'm going to redo my seating chart I carry around on my clipboard so I have space to note down the time they leave and come back, and if I see a pattern of long visits I will deal with it on an individual basis.

c) I would prefer something easier to recognize than "during groupwork" but I'm just not organized enough yet. I often change things in the middle of class so I can't rely on my pre-prepared PPT with red and green backgrounds, and often I'm just too tired to make a good PPT lately. I also tried music to signal grouptime but I'm not organized enough yet. Its been a big struggle to admit that I CAN'T do everything this first year, so I'm going to force myself to admit that I can't, and tell them "during groupwork."

d) I'm going to redo my detention/mandatory tutoring bookkeeping, because I've been letting them slip A LOT, so that the ones that get filled only happen because they are mature kids that come in on their own. Right now I'm just losing their respect (and my own!) for having policies I don't enforce.

e) I'm going to try and schedule times to get up and stretch so they have other ways to get our their wriggles. (Right now I've gone to a don't-get-up policy which isn't reasonable)

f) I bought a bathroom plastic logo from OfficeMax, and I'm going to tape a green school hall pass to the back and hang it by my desk in the front of my room, instead of the back (so it won't be as easily stolen). Its also not as expensive to replace if/when it gets lost, stolen, or broken.

g) In fifth hour, if they really have an emergency after using the two passes, I'll discuss it with them in the hall and then let them go in exchange for 15 minutes tutoring.


We'll see in a couple of months how this goes...

Last Teaching Week of Semester

This has been a very mixed-bag semester.

Bad: Haven't blogged nearly as much as I'd planned to
Good: I'm still alive.

Bad: Spent the second quarter doing much less modeling and conceptual work with the kids
Good: Spent the first quarter doing it

Bad: I was too hard on myself
Good: I have next semester
Bad: I'll be too hard on myself then too.

Bad: I often forgot to take attendance.
Good: I only got yelled at about it once.

There are a million things I want to fix, change, do better next year, etc. so I'm going to do a brain-dump in this post.


1) Fix my timer. I've made an animation that lets a small timer tick off in the corner of a PPT but its got a bug. I've got someone in mind to help me program a better one.

2) Make a list of teacher procedures so I don't keep forgetting things LIKE ATTENDANCE!

3) Make a better seating chart

4) Redo bellwork procedure

5) BUILD A BALANCE SCALE. My kids do not understand equations, and I regret not having a balance scale ready to model that for them.

There are so many things about organization that I just feel overwhelmed. Honestly, at this point I have pretty much stopped caring about this semester. The kids who aren't working are failing and the kids who are working are passing, so I'm focusing less on "Start working! Start working!" and walking around to help those who are trying.

We're all burned out, but I have no way of motivating these kids who suddenly stopped working.

I feel like the walking dead.

Stress Balls for ADHD Kids

One of the things I enjoy about this job is how much the kids teach you about teaching. I don't mean learning from experience; I mean when they come right out and tell you solutions that other teachers have used. One bouncy kid actually asked me to make him a behavior contract to sign, saying "It helps me behave."

At the beginning of the year many of my ADHD and/or extrabouncy kids told me that stress balls really help, so I went around looking for them (lately I haven't been thinking far enough ahead to order things online as I should). First I bought some squashy balls from Walgreens, but I'm on my second set now. If you want to do this in your classroom here are some things to consider.

1) Stress balls are something you'll see in stores occasionally, but its really hard to go looking for them. Order online, or look at Party City, where I found these balls (note to self: PC by JoAnn's, 5th aisle, halfway down on LHS):



2) Get unpopular styles. My Walgreen balls were Disney themed - Cars, Toy Story, and Winnie-the-Pooh. They disappeared very quickly, with Cars going first, then Toy Story, and Winnie-the-Pooh balls getting stolen when I had a substitute. Party City had squashy sports balls but I've learned my lesson now.


3) Make sure they don't do any of the following things: bounce, make noise when squashed, make noise when rubbed against a smooth surface like a desk, come apart easily, or seem interesting in any way. I nearly bought some squashy balls before I realized they were the "inside-out" balls that can be turned inside out and stretched over the head, with gel spikes sticking out everywhere. Huge catastrophe averted!

4) Don't let them take them home. It seems obvious, but when a kid says "If this is only for me can I keep it in my backpack?" and you're in a hurry, don't say yes!

5) Either clean them every day or buy one per student. I will be labeling mine A-L and listing which kid can use each one.

6) Keep them in the front of the room. Even though its more disruptive, make the kids come up to the front to get them and put them away. Anything not tied down is fun to steal for those 1-2 immature kids per class.

Overall the kids are very grateful that you went out of the way to get stress balls for them, though at the beginning everyone will ask for one. I suggest making them come after school to ask for one, which is what I am going to do. That cuts down on kids that just want to waste class time.

Seating Chart Template

I've been having problems deciding what information to keep on my clipboard and what to keep elsewhere. I've already gone through several permutations:

1) Keep attendance only

2) Keep attendance and write everything else down randomly near their names

3) Keep attendance and behavior

4) Keep attendance on clipboard, behavior on board (This worked very well once I listened to the other teachers and did this. During my student teaching I was at a school with such bad discipline problems that the students would walk up to the board and wipe their names off, so I was reluctant to try it here. But, as I am continuously reminded, this is NOT Student Teaching High School. Putting their names up has freed up my clipboard space, held them accountable, and helped me not lose detentions!

5) Keep attendance and write HW and Class Participation points randomly near their names

And now I am on Seating Chart Method 6.0. I needed the following things:

1) Desks with enough space to write their names
2) Desks with spaces for attendance, tardies, MP (hw) points, and Classwork points
3) Desks that would be identifiably rectangular and not square so they looked like my class (OCD)
4) Desks big enough to write on
5) Desks small enough to fit 34 on my 8.5"x11" paper in the right configuration

After spending way too much time playing with Microsoft Paint (yes, the free app that comes next to the calculator) I came up with the following possibilities for desks:



I chose one of the diagonal ones as the best for my purposes, and wasted more time (hey, its my fall break; if this is the most fun I have...) making a diagonal version. My problem is that I like the simple and clean bitmap format for things like this, but Paint has so few tools - for instance, it can only rotate 90 degrees. After spending a lot of time measuring with my fingers on the screen I hit myself on the forehead and remembered what I had realized last semester - I'm a math teacher!

:-)

In other words, if you want to make a diagonal of a certain length, you can make a circle with that radius and use any line from the center to the circumference. Again, I could have done it faster by relearning Fireworks or buying Paint Shop Pro, but I'm a geek like that. Math in action!




I then created my seating chart - 8 groups, 4 students per group, with two additional individual seats for students that want/need to be by themselves until a group activity begins (at that time they will have to pull their chairs to the nearest group if they want participation points for the day).



Finally, to make transportation and sharing easier, I inserted the above pic into a Word document and added my turtle crawling onto the page from the bottom left corner.

The top boxes are for attendance every day of the week. If they are absent I mark a slash from the top right to bottom left corners of the rectangle. If they show up late you modify it by adding a line from the middle of the rectangle to the bottom right corner (so it looks like a sideways skewed "T" for tardy).

The two diagonal areas are for classwork and homework points. During bellwork I go around and check More Practice (my term for hw) and give them 1, 2, or 3 points and write that numeral in the first triangular section. During classwork I use the second triangle to deduct 1, 2, or 3 points if they are off-task. At the end of the day I can (theoretically - let's see how this works out!) quickly input these grades into Easy Grade Pro.

2 examples (1 absent student, 1 tardy student):



All these pics, and the Word document, can be found at the Sines of Learning Document Page. They are licensed under a Creative Commons non-Commercial license.

Enjoy!

Starting Over

Well, my first nine weeks were - okay, I guess. I spent the first 6 beating myself over the head and the last 3 shrugging it off - maybe a little too much. I've learned a lot over these 9 weeks, and I have decided to view this next quarter as a way for me to start over. Even if its too late to train some of the kids to behave, I can start over. For myself.

Its fall break now, and I was planning to spend it in the following way:

Friday-Sunday: enjoy myself in Tucson
Monday-Friday: work at school without a school day looming over my head

Instead, an hour after the kids left I started feeling a tickle in my throat, and my week started like this:

Friday-Saturday: trail after friends in Tucson, hacking and coughing, with a roll of toilet paper for tissue
Sunday-Monday: Sleep 18 hours a day at home. Also drink South Asian remedy which is so disgusting that I usually choose to be sick instead

Its Tuesday now, and I'm back in my classroom listening to the radio and making a To Do list on the board. So far, it looks like this:

Kinesthetic Number Line

Friday (end of 6th week) went badly. A week ago I had decided to create a number line in masking tape on my floor. It was going to be for students who still struggle with negative numbers so that we could incorporate "kinesthetic learniing". Then I started thinking that I could use my number line for a whole-class activity. I have been thinking continuously about my model number line and about how I wanted to use the visual image of rotating about zero to represent finding the opposite. I decided that if I could get the students to stand on the number line, I might be able to find some way to discover that 'rotation' visually. I decided to make it a day's activity but as usual, I did not plan enough. I went home and made the following notes:

34 students max
-17….17
Questions:
1) Get in order on the number line
2) Add 3 to your number
3) Get back in order on the number line
4) Add -2 to your number
5)  Find someone with the opposite number (unorganized)
6) Find someone where your sum is ___9____A
7) Find someone where your difference is ____7__B___ - stand in order
8) Find someone that has the same absolute value as you
9) Find someone where  the absolute value of your difference is ___11_C______
10) Find two other people so the absolute value of your sum is ___14______D
11) Get back in order on the number line
12) Find your opposite (while touching elbows on the number line) – end of activity

Unfortunately, then I decided to sleep and finish it in the morning. I ended up getting to the school with nothing more than those notes. On the way to school, I decided to split the class into two groups- one with a maximum of 16 students and the other with a maximum of 18. (Digression- in each period, the 16 students at the front of the room behaved better and had a better attitude despite the projector shining in their eyes. I'm not sure if that's because they were a smaller group or perhaps because of the psychosocial associations with the front of the classroom.) I ended up making index cards frantically as the students entered the room. I couldn't find the masking tape, so one of the groups had only an imaginary line (no pun intended) and the postive and negative signs on the ends were made of duct tape (which had the added feature of being well-nigh invisible against the carpeting).

This lesson was pretty much a failure in every class. First hour started late because I was finishing the index cards and typing the prompts frantically from the laptop to PowerPoint. I realized that if I wanted each student to have an opposite (for the final activity), then they could not also be asked to "add up" to arbitrary (non-zero) numbers.

Notes:
1st hr:
didn't have cards ready
no ppt
forgot ppt shines on front kids
touching elbows bettter than linking
students not used to moving around
refused to find partners without help
make sure students don't leave with your cards

2nd hr
class started late bc I was remaking missing cards
don'tbe in bad mood (makes moving punishment instead of pseudo-fun)
don't give students only option of linking elbows (they hate)
if lights go out 1/2 way and stay out, don't expect to finish
if you want to keep some students after class to write down names for nonparticipation. They crowd toward you threateningly
if going to piss students off, make sure they don't take your cards, tear them into little pieces, and strew them down the hallway down the building.

3rd hr
class started lte bc was remaking stolen/torn/strewn cards
lights still off (don't do activity in dark)
make sure students do not lean against post-9/11 'panic button'
DO choose a random 100 problem assignment, telling students option between weekend hw and this in-class activity wo homework

lunchtime
left too late to get lunch, so went to cafeyuckiya to get cheese pizza (only veggietarian item on menu)
it turns out no Pizza Hut today, only 'pizza boats' made from french bread
took that and onion rings back to teacher's lounge, where I discovered pepperoni (of the insidious Darth Cube style in pizza (communist plot!), so gave to other (unsuspecting) teacher.
resorted to lunch of giant kit-kat and pepsi to different teacher's room to cry and commiserate on the human... err... teacher condition

5th circle:
class started late (shamefully, I didn't spend my lunch hour re-making cards that the students had taken
used same ploy of 'options' with added bribe of '25 minutes free time at end of class' for students - worked amazingly well, should do EVERY day!


6th circle prep
called district math specialist, told her (incomplete) list of problems: ie, students hate me, not that am behind...
wandered around school, dreading 7th hour

7th circle
tried to remake cards, so (once again) class did not start on time, kids wouldn't listen, 10 mins free timea t end

good stuff: kid have me half of his flaming chee-toes

after school:
went to older teacher's room and cried
she told me to bring in my flash drive so whe could five me docs and progs to help
power in bldg fails three times this hour, twice in middle of transfer of files to flash drive...

went home, had epiphany (to go to bed, but humbly)