I feel like a first-year teacher drinking from a fire hose. A couple days before school started, we were offered the opportunity to pilot the Open Up curriculum in our county for mathematics in grades 6 through 8. Because I had taught math 8 with zero resources for the past 12 years, other than what I harvested or created myself, I jumped at the opportunity.
There are many things I love about the Open Up Curriculum.
- I love that I have to be more organized, focused and deliberate.
- I love that I learn and see math differently each and every day.
- I love the warm-up and learning routines and structures.
- I love trying new things.
- I love that the materials are already prepared.
- I love that my kids are challenged and then they still have second chances if they don’t get something the first time around.
- I love that they finally respect my kids and me enough to develop some real resources.
Struggles:
I cannot get ahead. I barely keep up. Each day I rush to get ready for the next. I prepare a PowerPoint to keep the class and me on topic. I snip screen shots into a PPT and prepare Student Task Sheets using what Open Up provides. Problem is, I frequently have to heavily edit so the information fits nicely onto a printable document. Mastering Textboxes has helped enormously in this area. I am saving all of these edited documents, so hopefully next year will be better. If that holds true, it will be the first year I have ever used what I made the year before. I have always created everything new each year in response to what my kids need.
I know that Open Up is integrated with OneNote and I even spent a couple hours being trained on how to do that. On my own, I cannot for the life of me figure it out though. I have to get ready for the next day. I don’t have time for trial and error where it is mostly error. I want to learn how to do all of that, but I also must be ready for the next day. I cannot sacrifice my kids for my learning curve. I also know there are Google slides for many of the lessons, but I have no idea where those are. I had them in the last unit, but can’t find the link now. There’s just too damn much to keep track of. I have to use what I know I can pull off now. I must survive.
Adjustments:
I am working on pacing myself and my class based on the recommended time estimates for each activity. I have a hard time not getting each and every comment and contribution out of students before I move on, but a timer is helping me. I hate leaving a kid unheard, but we need to move.
Many kids are used to waiting you out. They will copy what you do, but they will not venture out on their own. I am now waiting many of them out, but I can’t wait them all out. There just isn’t time. I love mistakes that kids learn from, but too many won’t even try until the bitter end. Working in extra supports and re-teaching is tough. Where? When? With what?
I struggle with formal assessment as well. I hate grades and love learning. Unfortunately, we are required to take a minimum number of grades a quarter. On what? There are only end of unit formal assessments, but that is not enough. There are no quizzes. I collect daily work and cool downs periodically, but are they really formal assessments or are they just part of the learning process? I started the year doing my own quick quizzes, but have gotten away from that. I need to get back to that. Now.
The formal assessments created by Open Up are really great, but they are a bear to evaluate. If we were doing standards based grading, I could see where this type of assessment would be really helpful. We are not though, so making the grey into black and white is a challenge for sure.
Misconceptions about conceptual understanding:
For years I was told to dig deeper to get students to better understand. Problem was, nobody showed me what that meant. I was left to my own devices. I thought I was doing that when I insisted students understand why certain math algorithms worked. Turns out, I missed the mark. I am finally starting to understand what conceptual understanding means. If somebody was writing about it, I wasn’t reading it. Open Up Resources is actually showing me what it means to have/get/show/teach conceptual understanding of mathematics topics.
What I worry about now, is what my NC Math 2 kids are missing along the lines of conceptual understanding. These are the kids who have done well so far because they have been able to get away with memorizing stacks of mathematical algorithms. My only evidence that I am actually teaching for understanding in Math 2 is that I have a few kids that have historically gotten all As now struggle to get Bs because they do not truly understand what they are doing. I digress. This is about my experience with Math 8, Open Up Resources. I long to crack this conceptual understanding nut though.
I confess, I tell my Math 2 kids everyday how excited I am about what I just learned in Math 8. The ones that truly listen to what I am saying are very curious and want to know more. How I wish I could teach them this Math 8 goodness as well. I know next year I will work much of this into the Math 2 warm-ups. I do a bit know, but not like I wish I could.
Sharing:
I want to share with others, but I am slow. I know I should put all my stuff on Google Slides and share that way, but I haven’t learned all of that yet either. I need help figuring out how to efficiently share my stuff. I am re-creating all this and I am not sharing. That’s not who I am. I need help figuring out how to do that without spending an additional thirty minutes a day. My biggest problem is that I stink at asking for help. I will do anything for anybody, but I am not good at asking for help for myself. I’m getting better, but I still have a long way to go.
Goals: (These are actually wishes because I do not have actionable steps for them—yet.)
- Create a Desmos activity of each lesson. I experimented with a cool down, but I want more. I think the tasks could be adapted pretty easily in Desmos.
- Figure out how to use the parent resources created by Open Up. I am not even sure how to show parents that they are available. What I print stinks, so there must be a better way.
- Figure out how to get students to utilize the reflection piece created by Open Up. That looks pretty deep and by deep I mean valuable.
- Design a notebook or filing system for students to organize work papers so resources are available for review.
- Figure out how to work training into my schedule. I teach Math 2 second and last periods. Math 8 is first and third. Trainings are half days. This takes me out of half of each of my classes. We have a dozen cross-teamed kids so adjusting the schedule is not practical.
- I want to find or develop a group of learning tasks that show kids that their efforts matter even if they don’t get to the end. Too much of math is about the end and we need to start to praise and celebrate the middle because that is where the learning happens. I think this will help that perseverance piece a great deal.
Closing:
I hope I don’t sound like Debbie Downer. I am really digging this curriculum. I even showed my pharmacist brother-in-law how cool it was over Thanks Giving. He said, “I don’t fully understand, but I can see how it would be exciting for a math teacher.” Now, granted, he is above average intelligence. The point is he appreciated what Open Up is trying to do for kids’ understanding. He also enjoyed how excited I was about it.
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