Truly Human

Molly Sarle sings a song called “Human”. (I’ll insert a link later. Note to self.) I thought of it when thinking about the writing #prompt5 issued last month on Mathstodon.xyz. I also thought of how my humanity shows daily in class as I unabashedly make errors. But the aspect of how I bring humanity into the classroom I’ve wrestled with is loving my learners. I’ve always loved learning and maths, but loving my learners takes more of myself than I was willing to give for many years.

I didn’t think love belonged in a classroom. I intentionally avoided the word itself in my room. Then, one day, I heard my most respected colleague talking with her class and she told them she loved them. I could not believe what I was hearing and feeling. I felt sincerity and calm. I longed for that very feeling in my space. My love of maths must extend to the humans all around me. I intentionally fell in love with my students and worked hard to show that love to them and my class changed. I changed.

It’s hard to be sad when I sing and it’s also hard to be sad when I love. My room becomes a much happier place. I am more relaxed and confident and so were my students. Everybody wins and nobody gets hurt. Well, that’s not exactly true. I get hurt sometimes, but that is the price of loving. Sometimes it hurts.

Students are human too and sometimes they do stupid things. They may be unkind, unwelcoming, and even unlovable. They do things that piss me off. They may break in half the new pencil I loaned them rather than returning it to me. They may interrupt learning for others with silly distractions. They may even cheat — which is what I despise most—but, it is much easier to forgive and move forward when I come from a position of love.

So, how do I go about loving in my classroom? I am patient. I know —me patient. It’s a new thing I’ve been working on. I smile, greet, help, forgive, and once I know my students, I even tell them I love them. Not too soon. I must know them, warts and all, first. Love is not a word I share lightly. It’s not fairy dust that makes my room a magical place. It is a word that conveys with sincerity I will do anything I can to help my learners learn. I treat them with the most precious human feeling of all. Love.

Reflecting Forward for 2023

I’ve been in a slump for quite a while as far as teaching and learning go and it is now time to get out of it. Here’s what I’m doing to make that happen….

• I signed up for an Immersion Math Circle camp that I will attend next week.
• I signed up for the 2023 Math Summit hosted by NC State College of Education in August. I attended the conference virtually in the past and I am looking forward to being with fellow educators in three dimensions.
• I joined a Twitter alternative. (Mathstodon) The wider online math community has been a source of inspiration and support in the past. A dedicated group of mathematics education professionals are working very hard to revive that community. Join and follow me @vaughn_trapped@mathstodon.xyz . Check out Julie Reulbach’s post HERE  to figure out how to do that. 
• I am going to focus on the good in school (the building as well as the institution) and in people, be they child or adult. 
• I am going to dust off my blog and actually participate in active reflection about my teaching practices. That is a very affirming practice for me and I’ve felt the effects of neglecting that. 

Last year I practiced more self-care than I ever have. I improved sleep patterns, started routine exercise, and took myself out of my comfort zone in the kitchen–trying new recipes and flavors. The changes made for a better personal year. Now it is time to address needed professional changes. 

I began slightly veering away from the prescribed curriculum last year, especially toward the end when coverage necessitated speeding up. This year I plan to be more deliberate about what I keep and what I supplement in the curriculum. I have been an advocate for and faithful user of the Open Up Resources (OUR) mathematics curriculums since 2017. One supplement I use is www.MathBits.com; however, it requires money that neither the school nor the county will provide. It’s inexpensive for what it is, but too much for me to foot the bill each year. I supplement OUR with  Infinite Algebra and all of its variations for which the school/parent organization pays. I also incorporate aspects of concepts formalized in Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics as I have for years even before the book was published in 2021. [A friend (Lydia Kirkman @lydiakirkman) attended a session at Twitter Math Camp (#TMC15) presented by Alex Overwijk (@AlexOverwijk) on Vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS) (aka whiteboards) using the techniques he learned from Peter. Lydia shared the techniques for using VNPS with me and I immediately put them to work in 2015.] This year I am going to make deliberate efforts to marry aspects of Open Up Resources and Thinking Classroom as I prepare for each of my math courses. 

The aspect of that marriage that excites me most is a part of the Thinking Classroom I’ve never pulled off. I want to grade/evaluate the Thinking Classroom way (Chapter 14). I plan to use the self-assessments from the Open Up Resources workbooks to build my instrument to record observances of concept progression for individual learners. I am weirdly excited about this. It should help me focus more on my struggling learners and give all students better regular feedback. This will also help me keep learning targets more clearly focused–something I’ve always struggled with.

Another thing I would like to do is use Thinking Classroom concepts to ensure all students have access to rich tasks. I plan to do this by incorporating more “Ready for More” problems from the Open Up Resources curriculums as tasks in my classroom. I hope to rewrite these as tasks for groups to work on before formalizing the math in the course of the lesson. The idea is to give challenging problems up-front so all students get a crack at them — an idea I learned from Fawn Nguyen (@fawnpnguyen). 

I feel good about these decisions and I know there are more aspects to flesh out. I do not want to backslide on my self-care routines, but I need more joy and purpose in my professional life. Wish me luck!

Planning Out-loud

I am trying to plan a bit for next year. This is some raw thinking, so feel free to push back. Until I have a pacing guide, I am going to work on structure, regardless of the course. I will be teaching NC Integrated Maths 1 and 2 to 8th graders.

I learned several things last spring. I have other areas to bring into focus so I can work on them. Here’s where I am now:

1. There needs to be a school bell schedule of sorts. This cannot come from me, but must be implemented above me. I tried to keep a schedule of synchronous classes last spring and continuously had to adjust my days and times due to staff meetings and department meetings and district training opportunities. Teachers and students need consistent structure, just like a normal school day.

2. Students need a schedule. Last spring, my most successful students were those whose parents made certain they went to bed at night and got up in the morning. Structure and home support matter. While that is always the case, the effects of parental support and structure are amplified with online school when learners are not yet in the mindset of self-monitoring.

3. Too many apps and links and new programs for students leave little time to concentrate on learning content. Figure out the most beneficial tools and stick to them. Seems to me 3 to 5 applications are the maximum any class should have throughout the year. I will be using Desmos, Nearpod and Edpuzzle for certain.

4. Planning at least a Module at a time is essential. Tweaks here and there must be made, but a longer-range plan is helpful. I hope I know where we are expected to be at the end of the first 5 weeks of school so I can plan backwards. I know I want to spend ample time up-front getting to know my learners and their support systems.

 5. Synchronous class time is sacred and must be used for class discussions, discoveries and sharing if student work. Students can take quizzes, complete practice, interact with videos, check homework and take notes on their own time. It is likely I will only see learners twice a week.

6. A platform must exist where students can easily submit work from their workbooks so I can plan how to use that work to further learning in class. Perhaps I set up a Google folder by course by week where students submit pictures or scans of their work. If students can scan their work into a file. I can select and sequence work for class discussions in realtime. Maybe there is a way to do this within Canvas. 

7. Students must value learning for learning’s sake if online learning is going to be successful. If students go through the motions, checking off boxes with no real interest in outcomes other than grades or parent approval, they will be able to play the game of online school. However, students will not truly be successful at it. So, how do I build the culture I want online? This is always the culture I strive for in my classrooms. My students can hear, feel and see my passion for learning, and for many, that is enough inspiration. That is far from the norm though. I must help them find joy in learning.

8. I want a white board where students can draft their mathematical thinking as they develop it. I know I am going to send physical white boards home with students when they come to pick up their workbooks, but what about an electronic whiteboard? I just started looking at Google’s Jam Board. I like that the boards can be captured as images. I like that you can add post-it notes so you can actually type things in. Typing with a mouse causes hand cramps and not everyone has a stylus or a touch screen for writing. Canvas has sharable whiteboard space, but it gets very crowded with large classes. Zoom also has annotation tools that could be used as a white board. I’m still testing out options.

9. Summative assessments can be run through Canvas, though I think I will tighten the windows of time available for assessments from what I permitted in the spring. By being too accommodating last spring, some students got so far behind they could not catch up so they gave up entirely. 

10. Communication with parents needs to be simple and systematic. I need to develop a newsletter format, include links for additional help, preview the coming week and recap the past week. This must be done for all courses. This will help me stay better organized and focused as well. I will put samples of the technology we will use in our learning for the week. I may put in talking points to help parents engage in conversations about learning math with their children. A weekly calendar will be necessary.

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11. I see I have two classes of 37 students and 2 classes of 29 students at this point. I know supplemental instruction will be necessary as there is likely unfinished learning from last year. I envision this will be short videos I find or create. I do not want to steal student learning through these, but they must be efficient if students are going to watch them. Again, these videos will help me focus the course content. Videos can be part of a Nearpod lesson, an Edpuzzle lesson, a Desmos activity or they can stand alone as a file within Canvas. The key here is efficiency to cover unfinished learning from prior courses. I hope to accompany these with “green sheets” and train learners how to use these to support their learning so we may continue to work on course-level material.

12. Train students on using discussion boards in Canvas. I made an incorrect assumption last year that students knew how to respond and interact with discussion boards through Canvas before our remote learning experience. I was wrong. 

13. Activities in Desmos as well as the MVP/OUR lesson activities require perseverance on the part of students. Positive experiences requiring effort and perseverance will be key in the first two weeks of school to instill these qualities in students.

14. Not everything that matters counts toward a grade. Students and parents alike need to understand what grades are in my classes. Grades reflect mastering the standards. Grades are not rewards any more than they are punishments. Grades are simply the common shorthand language spoken and understood among parents, teachers and students. See number 7.

 15. Last year I did not teach Math 1. In fact I only taught Math 1 one year since the implementation of Common Core and those students just graduated. I am excited about this course. It used to be that students had 20 days to solidify their placement in Math 1. If, upon mutual agreement among parent, student and teacher, it is determined to be in the student’s best interest to move over to a grade-level Math 8 class, that could be accommodated, but only within the first 20 days of school. This first 20 days will be, likely, online. This necessitates additional relationship building with students and parents involved in Math 1 to get to know these students well enough to determine what is, indeed, in their best interests. It is also possible that the “20 day letter” is no longer a thing.

Emerging categories based on numbers above:

In my control 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Not in my control 1 2 7

Teacher 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 
Student  2 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14 15
Parent  2 5 10 14 15
Administration  1 2

Tangible 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 12
Intangible 7 14 15

Looking at my crude sorting of ideas, it is clear that students and I together shoulder the most responsibility. This is as it should be and always has been. I hope my list helps me better prepare communications with parents and students regarding needs and expectations. Looks like I have some work to do so I better get to it.

Perfectly Timed Lesson and Distance Learning Vaughn_trapped Style

Mathematics Vision Project is the curriculum I am using and we began the last Module for Math 2 this week. The first lesson set the stage for some meaningful LIVE online conversation with learners. The lesson is titled “TB or Not TB” and uses, as you might guess, tuberculosis testing results for the basis of studying the meaning of conditional probabilities. I launched the lesson and students naturally  substituted Covid19 testing for TB as we thought about the context. We had the discussion of what it means to have a false positive or a false negative. We talked about which was more dangerous. Students were more invested because they could relate to the lesson’s context. They indeed met the goal of developing an understanding of the situation presented.

So, you may be wondering how exactly I pull-off live discussions in the middle of May, 2020 with 40-some 8th graders. Well here is some of what I have finally landed on after many failed experiments and inefficiencies.

• We meet LIVE two days a week, for those learners who are able to. I usually get 35 to 45 participants from a course of 52 students. That’s 2 brink and mortar style classes, but I run a combined virtual session.
• We review the lesson assigned the prior day and preview the next lesson.
• Students ask clarifying questions, offer options and make conjectures on open mic or in the chat window.
• For online LIVE lessons, I take a district created PowerPoint and dump it down to a pdf. (Pardon my lack of technical jargon. I am a technosaurous trying to survive in the 21^st century.) I import that pdf and share it with my class by way of a shared screen through Big Blue Button  which we access through Conferences in Canvas. I, as well as students, can write in real-time on the “slides”. The writing stays with the slides when I forward them which is handy if we need to revisit. (Note to self – go back after class and record those screens of the lesson that are marked up for students who were not there.)
• I make clear the purpose/goal of each lesson and make certain through discussions that we hit the main points of the lesson. Students have their workbooks that mimic the slides so we are all literally on the same page. Students take notes and write down questions to ponder. I have them circle words and we go through new notations, for example, in this lesson, conditional probability…the probability that A occurs given B has already happened: P(A|B). This detail of instruction is NOT in the workbook because the workbook is NOT a textbook. A teacher is needed to execute this curriculum. Students also ask questions of me and of one another.
• After the LIVE session, I post a scan of my completed lesson workbook pages to Canvas. To do this, I use a set of RocketBook Beacons that I attached to a small whiteboard. I point my phone at them and they shoot themselves to where ever I desire, usually my school email, but I am experimenting with other options. (I started by using my RocketBook pages and balancing my workbook while displaying the medallion at the bottom of the page, but Beacons are faster and create clearer images for me. I am not using them as they were designed, but it works for me.
  
  Here is the result:   8-1-1.
• Another thing I use to work with my learners online is a pdf of chosen problems from Problem Attic. I format and download a set of questions I harvest and choose to display one question per page, extra large, simple font to a pdf. If we want to quiz ourselves, I import that pdf and share the screen as I did with the lesson pages. We use the polling options available through Big Blue Button if I choose multiple choice questions. I can also have students type answers into the chat window, but wait to press enter until I count down so they do not steal the opportunity for others to learn. We also write on the shared screen and talk about the questions. I then post this set of practice problems along with an answer key to Canvas after the LIVE session for all to access.
• We finish in an hour. So that’s one hour twice a week LIVE. Since April 12^th : we finished one module, including quizzes and a test, that we started before March 13 – the day the world changed; we completed an entirely new module and quizzed twice and tested on it; now we are into the final module which we will finish including testing by June 5th. It cis everything that I have motivated learners and for that I am grateful. I have measured results. Students who attend and participate in the LIVE sessions perform better on assessments.

So, this may look and even feel successful at times. I assure you, it is far from optimal. I miss the smells and the noises and the looks of elation as well as confusion. I miss sitting close to kids and watching them think through concepts. I miss being able to see individual student work so I can sequence it for sharing with the class. I miss seeing my students’ smiles when I say, “White Boards—GO!” as they run to their favorite #VNPS in the room. I do love that my kids are driven learners. They have worked and they have been exposed and the large majority of them have really tried.

At long last…something to say

Time to blog. In the midst of a year where I felt like I little productive to add to the education community, I am now in a position to do so.

I just got off a Zoom chat with my niece who teaches in China. Here is some valuable information from our conversation.

Glimpse into our future first:

• Temperature checks are the norm. They happen as you enter a grocery store, your apartment complex and your school building. This is still occurring three months into the situation in China.
• After two months of isolation, they are now seeing people moving about the community, though most wear masks of some sort.
• They never had the shortages we are experiencing. Call it what you will.
• They have been told multiple times that the school will reopen, only to have it delayed week after week.
• Plan no more than a week ahead.

Now for school issues:

• Many parents at first were concerned that education was not really taking place online, but most have now come to grips with the reality of the situation and see and support remote learning for their children. Expect resistance and pushback from parents at first. It might not be as bad in the states since parents will have the benefit of seeing how the rest of the world is coping with education already.
• Keeping regular school hours is important. Even if you teach the same course multiple times during the day, combining classes does not work because students will be attending other classes. To avoid coordination issues, you must see your classes at your regularly scheduled times online.
• See your classes face to face via Zoom or some other such medium at least once a week if not daily. Students need that. The learning must be real. Seeing faces makes it more real.
• Some parents may opt their children out of this learning platform. That is administration’s issue to deal with. Report it, but spend your time with the students who are signed in to learn. Be there for them rather than chasing students you cannot catch. It’s the same group you were have trouble reaching in the regular classroom.
• There will be pleasant surprises. Some students who were tuned out at school now have a parent supervisor making certain they attend to their schooling. It will be so nice to have them being part of the learning process.
• Set up assignments no more than a week at a time. Some students will go ahead and it will be impossible for you to keep ahead, current and play catch up all at the same time.
• If students do not begin when the classes begin, it will be nearly impossible for them to catch up. Make certain the start times are sent out loud and clear!
• With all that said, stay positive and flexible. Embrace the learning you are doing and celebrate the initiative your learners are taking.
• Students who did not take action during class will not likely take action under these new circumstances. Teach those who are there to learn.
• Begin with as much structure as you can and maintain that structure. Try not to make changes along the way if you can help it.
• Teaching a course at the same time as teaching a learning platform is nearly impossible. Get the platform in place first. That should be easy for my students as their science and language arts teachers have done such a good job running their classes through Canvas for the past couple years. I hope you are similarly situated. If you are not in that position, get the platform set first so students know how to communicate and retrieve information.
• Thought you weren’t a technology teacher? Think again.
• Day by day changes will happen. Week by week changes will happen. My niece has seen reopening dates announced, reschedule and then cancelled. They play it week by week, but they have a routine and classes are in session. We can and will do likewise.

Now, with all that said, be safe. Love yourself.

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling overwhelmed and a bit depressed. I think this is probably normal — whatever that means these days. What I do know for certain is that we need one another. I can’t high-five you or give you a hug (not that I’m big on that under normal circumstances) or shake your hand, but please know, I want to help you and I want to help my learners. Be safe. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Live, love, math — in that order!!

Rising Out of #teacherfunk

I think quite a lot about professional development. Whether I’m preparing to give or receive, I want it to be worthwhile.

A while back I was deciding whether or not to give the PAEMST a third shot. Yes.  That’s right. My third shot. The first year I submitted, I was a finalist for the state of North Carolina. My lesson was terrible and my write up wasn’t much better. But there I was, a finalist. Two years later, I apply again. My score is double the score from the year I was a finalist, but it wasn’t in the cards. And oddly enough, I was totally ok with that. See, the growth I achieved during and after each of these processes has been the most growth I have ever made as a teacher. It is no less and no more than the personal growth I went through when I did my National Boards. (Note to the world—the most significant professional development a teacher can get is personal professional development through structured reflection. It should be recognized and recorded as such.)

So why am I applying again? I had to. Early this calendar year, I found myself in a terrible funk as a teacher. I had no confidence and my students sensed that and seized on it. That just made each day worse. I had to shake what was happening to me and in my classroom. I thought about when I was at my best and what made me my best and it all came back to serious, structured, self-reflection. Reflection on my foibles as well as my fabulousness. I knew I had to resubmit for PAEMST, so, on March 1^st, I self-nominated. I am doing this for my self and for my students. They deserve my best and I was not at my best before I made this decision. I was an over burdened teacher who felt compelled to beat herself up over data. Data points that truly represent neither me nor my students. Data points that are valid in hindsight, but at the moment made me feel like a failure. I am now on a natural high that is propelling me forward as well as my learners.

For me data is emotional before it is informative. That is something every administrator needs to know about me, and probably about most other teachers. I take my job very seriously. Data is merely one dimension that defines me as well as my learners. We are so much more than one stinking data point. I could go on a whole diatribe about grades and end of grade scores and whatnot, but I won’t. People that don’t understand will not suddenly change their position on my rant.

If you are like me and need a structure to help you reflect and give yourself a significant career boost, then do some structured, self-refection. Use the National Board prompts or the PAEMST dimension prompts. It is so worth it for you and your students. While you’re at it, you might as well apply, right?

Simplifying radicals? Who needs it?

There was a time I thought radicals should be simplified. A factor of a radicand should never be a perfect square. To do otherwise was just sloppy math—so I thought. Now, I think differently. You should consider it too.

pic fromthemathlab.com

Making the square root of 40 look like 2 on the square root of 10 serves no real purpose in the mathematics of real life. You can readily estimate the square root of 45, but trying to do that with three square root 5 is a much more complicated task, and for what? If I am going to the fabric store and I am asked how much ribbon I want, I better not say, “4 root 2” and expect to get the correct amount. At the hardware store, I am far better reasoning that the square root of 32 feet would be a bit less than 6 feet, and a bit more than 5 and one-half feet and just say 2 yards. The lumber department does not want to hear this nonsense about radicals and square roots.  They want to cut my lumber and send me to the register to check out so they can help the next person also get a reasonable amount of lumber.

Photograph by question_ev3rything on reddit

Now, I know, one needs to simplify radicals to combine radicals via addition, such as the square root of 27 plus the square root of 12, but seriously. This is not reality. This is a contrived problem that I have never seen come up in real life. Ever. And I sew and measure and do real life things with math—at home. It does not come up.  It’s clever, like a party trick, but not terribly useful.

I do make certain my Math 2 students can “simplify radials,” but just for the “man.” Not for real life. I used to “ding” my students (take off 1 point just to be mildly irritating to get them to conform to convention) for not simplifying radicals. I am totally rethinking that.

Reality says leave radicals as they are so they are easy to estimate to be useful and to check for reasonableness. Done.

Last spring’s project…square roots…get it?

 

A Tale of Two Years

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” Thanks to Charles Dickens for igniting my thought process.

This is year two for me teaching 8^thgrade math using Illustrative Mathematics’ curriculum published and distributed by Open Up Resources 6-8 Math. Year two is everything I had hoped it would be. I marked my Unit 3 assessments Wednesday and was pretty pleased with the understandings my learners demonstrated. I tallied the individual scores just to get a macro feeling of how the classes were doing this year on the Unit 3 formal assessment. I felt pretty good about student work, but mildly disappointed in myself. As I was marking, I wish I had some student copies from last year’s assessment to compare similarly situated learners’ progressions. (Year one people—make and save a couple student copies to look at next year for each assessment. I thought I was going to remember, but I didn’t.) I did find my teacher copy with the tally marks of last years’ results. Drum roll please…the scores are better. And more students are able to put their understandings on display on the assessment. And, dig this, I am a month ahead of last years’ pace. And the results are significant. [Timeline correction…Last year, I started Unit 4 on February 2^nd. February 2^nd!!!! This year, I started Unit 4 December 7^th. That’s almost 2 months ahead and we have already had 7 or 8 days out of school due to weather issues. And my learners understand more and perform better.] This is all because it is year two. My class sizes are a bit larger than last year, but the mix of historical performance measures (skills, abilities, levels—all horrible words to describe children’s current placement) is about the same. This year-two teaching experience with this curriculum is a wonderful feeling. I attribute improvements to the following changes, in no particular order.

• Focusing on not over-teaching is a giant change affecting pace issues of the past. This revelation came during summer PD sessions with the good people of Illustrative Mathematics fame.
• I am also better at formative assessment on the spot so I am not waiting until I can look at a stack of cool-downs to know if students got the intended learning or not. I have better interventions, earlier.
• This year I made a commitment to move along regardless of stragglers. If I have learned one thing comparing last year to this year it is that you are going to have stragglers no matter how slow and thoroughly you go. Slowing down only harms the learners who are ready to move. It’s like walking in a line with a class of students. No matter how slowly you walk, the end of the line gets further and further from the front. Continually stopping so they can catch up is necessary, but holds everyone back. I need to work at incentivizing the back of the line, aka the stragglers, so they want to keep up and be part of the learning group.
• This year I am using the practice problems whenever I can. This may be as filler at the end of class or as a pre-class activity to review the prior day’s concepts. I also assign targeted practice problems as Unit reviews before a Unit test. I’ve also put in a Quizizz activity once in a while. I’m going to give the Kahn Academy practice problems a shot next. That retrieval/practice routine must be played out regularly.
• The launch for each activity is better year 2 because I know where I am going. I know what the focus of the activity truly is and I know where the stumbling blocks are. I am not removing the productive struggle, but I am better with my instructions and communication to learners of the expected outcomes.
• Both activity and lesson syntheses are better than last year in that they exist, usually. They are focused and tight. They tie to the lesson summary or they come with a note or a highlight on the activity page in the workbook to seal the deal. I am still working to improve all of this and it’s not nearly as good and tight as it reads here.
• The professional development, I am receiving on the unit materials and elements, is better this year since I can actually attend the sessions. Last year they were not held at a time when I could make it without missing one class of each of my two courses during the day, plus I was sooooo far behind I was afraid to be gone.
• This year I have the support of my nationwide PLC. I am also supporting other users of the curriculum so I get better and think more carefully as I respond to inquiries and participate in twitter chats. I also feel a sense of accountability to my nationwide PLC and this makes me prepare and research at a much higher level than I otherwise would.
• I spend more quality time reflecting as I prepare Guru Zoom chats and draft the weekly #OpenUpMath Twitter chat questions. Nothing sharpens skills like leadership.
• Taking some of the preparation off of me and putting it on students, by having student workbooks, is a positive change for which I am grateful. I am not certain learners took the copied version of the activities last year as serious as they do the official workbooks this year. I am also able to invest in better preparation because I am not making copies of the materials. Workbooks also save valuable class time not having to pass out papers.

Just look at the understanding that is demonstrated here. This learner is testing algebraically as well as graphically to determine if the ordered pairs are indeed solutions to the given equation. And look! Going beyond what was given, she tests a point not provided (4, 3) that works in the equation to see that it is on the line. I cried–in the best possible way.

Not everything is rosy, however. Horizontal and vertical lines as well at the shifting of proportional lines (y=kx from 7^thgrade) was horrible last year and no better this year for the most part. Why??? I know I did a better, more explicit job connecting points and coordinates and lines. I did better, but the students weren’t doing enough. I need to beef that up and I am going to go back through those lessons again and see what it is I am NOT doing. The lessons are good in the moment, but they are not sticking with learners. I have got to make them stick. There needs to be struggling retrieval and spaced practice. All those sticky things must happen more and better than I have been doing. I will also check with my Tweople and see what their experiences and remedies are This is one area that did not improve from last year, yet.

I am going to continue to tweak and ponder, reflect and revise. I pledge that to my self and to my PLC.

Gearing Up for Open Up Resources 6-8 Math Year 2

A couple weeks ago I quickly responded to Leeanne Branham’s question about what makes good teacher PD.

Had I given more thought to Leeanne’s question I would have added PD must have a common thread running through it, an over-arching theme, aka a number 1 takeaway you almost don’t realize is there until near the end of the session.

As I was reflecting on Year2, Day2 of Open Up Resources 6-8 Math PD with Kevin Liner of Open Up Resources 6-8 Math and Illustrative Mathematics Curriculum fame, it occurred to me that Monday and Tuesday’s PD hit every mark. (Aug 13-14) The number one takeaway, over-arching theme, common thread was simply this: in order to be effective and efficient, don’t over teach the lesson. Do not go beyond the Learning Goals set out in the lesson. Over-teaching, getting off on tangents and celebrating spoilers rather than quietly acknowledging and telling smarty pants students (I mean that in the best possible way) to keep it to themselves for now are the main reasons we get behind during lessons. Teachers are the problem. I am the problem. I need discipline and self-control and first of all self-awareness. Now, to get down to the nitty-gritty of how this unfolded throughout training—not exactly in order.

We talked about what it really means to reflect on our teaching and, in particular, a lesson we have taught. The take-away here was that we as educators must reflect on our planning processes and not just what went well or poorly during a particular lesson. In this refection of our planning process we must not only look at the short term planning of the lesson, but also the long-term planning, both forward and back. Reflect forward. Whoa! Failing to do this risks understanding the learning progressions that are so carefully written into the curriculum. In edu-speak, this is coherence. It matters what comes before as much as what comes after. Sequence matters. The big reveal is not going to be in the first lesson of a unit. Ever. Teaching for conceptual understanding necessitates learners progressing through the concepts and building understanding that each individual personally owns. Seeing far into the future in the planning stage will help us as educators honor the conceptual learning progression. We are learning to teach differently so our students can learn differently. We keep hearing, “trust the curriculum” and this deep dive and reflection into long term planning reveals why the curriculum can be trusted. It’s all there.

We were reminded once again of the Five Practices, and looked at them from the perspective of planning.

•  Anticipating students’ solutions to a mathematics task
• Monitoring students’ in-class, “real-time” work on the task
• Selecting approaches and students to share them
• Sequencing students’ presentations purposefully
• Connecting students’ approaches and the underlying mathematics

NCTM , 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions

Kevin said these practices are the ingredients that create magical conversations among learners. For our training session, we focused on anticipatingand sequencing. When planning anticipating and sequencing it is always better to do that with our peers rather than in isolation on a Sunday afternoon. To that end, establishing group norms for PLCs at our schools is necessary. Day 2, we spent quality time broken into our school groups discussing, developing and revising PLC norms. This is where we got something tangible to take back to our schools to put into motion. Having a group protocol is the difference between a productive PLC and a non-productive PLC. Highlights of the group norms for planning developed by the wonderful teachers at Northwest Guilford Middle School in Greensboro NC follow. Please know, this is NOT a final, polished, static list, but rather a summary of the norms we discussed as a group. They will change as we change as educators.

• Doing Math Together (like actually work problems)
  • Respect think time
  • Do not interrupt others
  • Be “all in”
  • Drop your pencil and listen
  • This is not a race
  • Pick a topic with a longer term focus so the PLC can go deeper with exploration and problem solving

• Sharing Our Understandings
  • Focus on teaching goals as they relate to learning goals, meaning goals for my actions as a teacher, for the future
  • Use a timer to move things along
  • Listen more than you speak (a rather BIG deal)
  • Be fully present

• Discussing Students and Their Understandings
  • Strive for more than antidotal evidence
  • Speak of learner understandings and common errors
  • Focus on the product, i.e., what students are producing as evidence of their understandings
  • Confidentiality is critical

• Connecting and Reflecting on Our Own Practice
  • Just as assessment informs instruction, so must past experiences inform planning and teacher-moves
  • Help is on the other side of vulnerability. Open up and be vulnerable in your PLC as you plan and reflect and get feedback
  • Leave with a plan of action for the future
  • As peers, we must hold one another accountable

With norms also comes the issue of what to do with breakers of the norms. Some suggestions were a yellow card or a light bell ring. A taskmaster, timer, rule enforcer, norm police position needs to be assigned on a rotating basis. Not it! Please don’t pick me!

So what is missing from here from the past? Notably, negativity, comments about what students can’t or won’t do and war stories. As teachers, we must have an outlet for frustrations, but such actions can run the productive PLC train off the rails. Take these frustrations to the gym or to the track or the bar. Work them out and get over them, but please don’t derail your PLC.

We spent a good deal of time learning about how to use Cool-downs more effectively. I thought I did Cool-downs great last year. I did them everyday. I reviewed them at the beginning of the next class. I thought I nailed it. I was wrong. Other teachers at the training stated they periodically used the Cool-downs as homework or just used them when and if they had time. Cool-downs were rushed through and never truly sorted and analyzed by teachers. We went through a lot of motions last year, but none of those motions were great. Kevin helped us see a productive, more intentional way to use Cool-downs.

The biggest shocker was that we do not have to use Cool-downs each and every lesson. As we plan, we decide if we are going to use the Cool-down and budget the time for it. Maybe even do two in one day. When we do Cool-downs, we will look at them with a focus on student understandings, not merely, did the kid get it or not. A student can get a correct answer and still not truly know what they are doing just as a student can get an incorrect answer and make a computational error while the conceptual understanding is solid. What is understood is quite different from what we see in a mere answer. You want kids to show their work? You better really LOOK at their work. The information gleaned from the Cool-downs will then be used to actually plan subsequent teacher-moves.

So here is this great concept of teacher-moves. Not teacher reactions. Not teacher assumptions. Not teacher experience. Not teacher instincts. Actual planned out teacher moves designed specifically to intentionally address student understandings. These get noted on the daily clipboard roster so they are addressed and not forgotten by the frazzled teacher.

Another shocker—not every lesson/activity is a five-practices activity. Wait. What? I still don’t quite have my arms around this one. Note to self: pay more attention during PD. More on this when I figure out why I’m confused here. Truth.

How to differentiate daily and live through it has never truly been taught to teachers in a way that is actually possible to successfully pull off. Asking administration for help and advice on differentiation will keep them out of your room because they don’t know how to do it either. (This is obviously, just one snarky gal’s opinion.) What we can do in our teaching, however, is make small tweaks that get the actual support to the learners in need. Planning multiple lessons at multiple levels to be monitored and evaluated and assessed all at the same time day in and day out by one teacher in a class of 35 students is pure folly. Small tweaks. We can do that.

We spent time looking at multiple representations of mathematical concepts and limitations of each. The point is, buildings of conceptual understandings have varying entry points that may expire when the situations get more complicated. This necessitates higher-level thinking and abstraction. We start with accessibility by honoring coherence in concepts layered throughout progressive courses. Colloquially, the punch line may be the algorithm, but you must lead up to it—lay foundation on which to build. For the record, my English teacher, bestest buddy, has told me on many occasions that my analogies, while useful at times, take a bit to get used to. My apologies, but I must be me.

Now, how to plan a lesson as a PLC:

•             Do cool-downs together for upcoming lessons
•             Read learning goals and learning targets
•             As you go through the steps above: Do, Share, Discuss, Connect
•             Read the synthesizes–ALL of them
•             Read each activity and complete and then Do, Share, Discuss, Connect

The focus must be on WHAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!!! for each lesson.

Every piece of feedback to a member of the PLC has an action associated with it:

•             I like the way you did…I’m going to do that too!
•             Oh, I didn’t see that part. Can you re-explain that form to me?

Teachers are to a PLC as students are to a classroom. Self-discipline and focus as individuals are essential. Just as we want our students focused on the learnings of the day, so too must be focused on the learnings of the PLC. Teacher-management is like classroom management for PLCs. It is essential for successful group planning.

I have been working on this post for two weeks off and on—mostly off. I apologize if it seems disjointed, but I wanted to share and may not have polished like I should. I’m sorry.

So fearing that TLDR has set in for most readers, (I would have bailed long ago) if you made it this far, you have earned a merit badge. Enjoy.

 

 

 

Vaughn’s TMC18 Reflection

Math is emotional, or at least teaching and reflecting about math is emotional. I’m never sure if it is exhaustion, elation, the combination or some other tion of which I have not yet thought. By mid-June and I am emotionally spent. I rest and repair, and then comes Twitter Math Camp (TMC) and the emotions flood back. This year was no exception. TMC18 was my third Twitter Math Camp and each of them have been emotionally draining while at the same time inspiring and uplifting. Knowing that there are actually other math teachers that I can see, hear, and touch who work as hard and care as much as I do brings me to tears every time.

Part of what makes TMC exhausting is hearing and reacting to the stories of others. Elissa Miller gets me every time. She teaches love and caring and by sharing what she does each year in her favorites presentation she teaches us those acts too. Whether it’s “say two nice things” or wristbands of joy, she teaches us to be better teachers and better people.

I first came across Glenn Waddell  as I stalked TMC15 thanks to periscope, though I had borrowed from his website long before that. Glenn shared his high five experience as his favorite. That simple action, that five minute talk, changed the culture in hundreds of classrooms for thousands of learners millions of times. That makes me cry as campers publicly share their high five experiences.

Kent Haines talked of reading to his infant children and then learning that he was doing it all wrong.  I laughed and cried. That was Kent’s intro into his favorites presentation about a website compilation of games for young kids and families. I just loved the intro the best.

Lisa Henry’s husband, once again, shares his perspective as the spouse of a math educator. At the close of camp, he explains why he gives up his vacation time and travel budget to support a bunch of strangers from across the country at Twitter Math Camp. He does it for his kids because he wants every kid to have teachers as committed as the ones he sees at camp each summer. And I cry.

During her keynote, Julie Reulbach brought down the house as she talked about teacher leaders and feeling like impostors and trying so darn hard for our students and having to realize that we must stop feeling like we are falling short. We must stop under-appreciating ourselves. Is it any wonder the public disrespects teachers when teachers are self-deprecating? Julie made us tweet statements of what makes us great as individuals. And we did it. And then we saw people at TMC Jealously Camp doing it and I wept as I thought, my gosh, the power to influence greatness which exists in this room is astounding.

From Tuesday through Sunday I was surrounded by passionate educators doing whatever they can to better themselves for the ultimate purpose of meeting and exceeding student needs. I lived in a house with educators whom I am proud to have as both peers and friends. We don’t come from the same place. We don’t teach the same grade bands. We do, however, share a love for what we do. And that is to eat ice cream and play board games. Oh, and teach math.

So, as you can see, this post is all about feelings. This is my summary of #TMC18 compiled two weeks after it is over. This is what stuck with me without looking back over the swell archives that have been compiled (except for a couple of pics I harvested). I have great resources that I may access at any time about the content of sessions at camp. What I have without effort and technology are my memories and my memories are all about my emotional reactions to events at TMC18. It is similarly true for our students. They will learn with us and will know how to access information should they forget, but what won’t be forgotten is how our students feel about us, school, learning and math. We have a huge responsibility. Together, we are each better than we are alone. I look forward to spending the next year with you, my friends.