Navigating the World Around Me: MCTM

First of all, it was a LONG short first week with the kiddos. We were on a special schedule that put us at only 4 minutes of passing time for our three days with students. I have prep last hour, and let me tell you, not having a moment to breath from 7:50a.m. to roughly 1:30pm each day was rough. Not to mention the only time I sat down was for a thirty minute lunch. Whew! It was a doozie. With a pep fest on day one that highlighted academic clubs (outstanding work KHS Student Government!) and chromebooks being distributed to each and every student on day two, the week felt a bit too out of my control. But it reminds me of the advice from my mentor teacher, Sharon, who encouraged me during my first year of teaching to never for get the f-word... flexibility. Flexibilty was key this week because I had no power to change the circumstances. I needed to just go with the flow. Regardless, here is how I spent my first week with students and how the MathTwitterBlogoshpere shaped this week.

Day 1

First of all, freshman are so adorable (and quiet) on day one. I mean, seriously! They were so attentive, curious, and just downright cute. I need to remember this when they don't appear so cute in the future! I've got one section of Intermediate Algebra and I'm glad I do. In the past, taught a support class at this level for many years and it will be nice to be their primary teacher for a change.

I also teach three sections of Algebra 2, 11th graders. This is a course entirely new to me. I've taught the two courses before and the Honors course that comes after, but never Algebra 2. My PLC had come up with "about you" questions to get students sharing who they are on day one. This proved to be a great success. The best two questions were "What did you have for dinner and who did you eat with?" and "What is one thing I should know about you?". The insights into these students backgrounds from these questions was perfect. I loved being able to get a glimpse into their lives so early in the year.

In all of my classes, the students completed the "Broken Circles" team builder from the book Designing Groupwork: Strategies for the Heterogenous Classroom. Dane on his Math Happens Blog describes it very well. A colleague and I participated in this team builder last May at MCTM's Spring Conference and were excited to try it out with students. I will admit, I appreciate the moral of the activity, but it was just too easy. The students were done with the circles so darn fast! This was true for all my classes and a few of my colleagues as well. Before I feel comfortable capitalizing on the moral of the activity, I believe I need to have the students complete a more challenging 'broken circles' activity. More pieces, maybe squares instead of circles, but definitely something that takes more than a minute or two. I still was able to get them to make conclusions like "We needed to pay attention to what other people needed" and I was able to determine who my talkers were because they were the first to pipe up with "I hated not talking!" but I feel there was more that could have been accomplished from the activity.

Ironically, the night before school started, while half asleep, I realized I didn't prepare any "rules" for my classes. I am quite a planner, but I am also quite easy going, so I couldn't believe I hadn't thought through setting up "norms" for the class! Ironically, while falling asleep it came to me: Be Kind, Be Present, Be Appropriate. These 3 Principles seemed very fitting for a high school math class. Student: Can I go to the bathroom? Me: Is now the appropriate time? Student: fiddling with phone scrolling through twitter while team is working at the boards. Me: Are you being present right now? I didn't call them rules, just principles and introduced them with examples similar to the examples stated above. I'm no longer that teacher who decides to rip a phone away from a kid because the rule is no phone. We have to find a way to teach students appropriate use of all tools so they are truly prepared. Being present is also a common, day-to-day challenge for many adults. I promised my students that if we can be present in class and learn what we need, we won't have the obligatory homework. And being kind is sort of like a Duh! We don't have to love everyone we meet, but we need to be kind.

What a great 1st day!! #EaglePride Go directly to your advisor in the morning tomorrow for your chrome book! 💙💛💻
— JFKEagles (@JFKEagles) September 1, 2015

DAY 2

This day felt really out of my hands. Each period was assigned a 10-15 minute Chromebook lesson, a bootcamp for day one going 1 to 1 at the High School. Chopping into a 55 minute class with a 10-15 minute video/activity made it difficult to get much done in class.

MTBoS to the rescue!

While I had what I thought were adequately long lessons planned, I didn't have nearly enough to fill the time. So I tapped into a resource I have been dying to use from the MTBoS. I had students play "Which One Doesn't Belong?" If you haven't seen this resource, it is definitely worth your while. The beauty lies in the simplicity of the question. The challenge is in creating a situation where all four choices have a chance at being the outcast of the group. We did the Shape #2 from the website and it was truly eye opening to see students all navigate to the pentagon corner.

Shape 2 from wodb.ca

I was flabbergasted by how they were all searching for that right answer. (I even attempted a photo of my fifth our all standing in a single corner, but darn blurry iPhone made a photo not worth sharing) In turn I asked, "Why might someone go to the corner of the shape in the top right?" "Or the bottom left?" They had great arguments for going to these corners, but they weren't comfortable being the person to chose that corner. It was fascinating. After doing a few from the shapes page, students became more comfortable choosing out of the ordinary corners and creating arguments for doing so. I look forward to continuing this activity with all my classes throughout the year to not only build their ability to 'construct viable arguments' but to reinforce math concepts we will be learning.

Day 3

Finally, a bit of normalcy. In Algebra 2 students were tasked with a very team-worthy task of stacking functions so that when you input a given number into the first function, you then use the output as the input for the next function, repeating the process until all four functions have been used and you end up with a given output. This created the ideal situation to put the team whiteboards to good use. VNPS here I come! Each team had images of four function machines created by the CPM (College Preparatory Mathematics) curriculum. Teams set off to complete the function machines after giving each team member a role and some general expectations for working at the boards. Very quickly some teams fell into some old habits: working solo on their notebooks, disengaging from their teams, or taking over on the whiteboard and not explaining to their team what they were doing. Thankfully, my first two sections are a bit smaller and I was able to get to these teams to remind them of the expectations and support them in doing the math. The fun part was that this struggle wasn't true of every team. Some teams fell into a groove with all team members finding some way to support and engage in the work and boy was that fun to watch. I can't wait to do more with the whiteboards, but I know I need to ensure the problems are truly team-worthy and warrant the interaction of all members. Additionally, the more opportunities I can give them to build their communication skills, the better, so I hope to incorporate some strategies from Powerful Problem Solving in the near future.

Next week

First I need to dig into the Probability and Statistics Course! I am excited to have freedom in this class, but it comes with a lot of pressure I put on myself to do great things. So, while I need to and want to dig in, it's important I do so realistically!
Additionally I need to find a way to build some challenge into the Intermediate Algebra course. Units 1 and 2 are mostly review. There's this weird balancing act of giving students a low enough entry point, but also not making it seem as though they've already done all of this. I'm not quite sure what that will look like, but I know I've got to find a way to challenge them without scaring them off!

Our ultimate task as educators: Continuous Learning

Recently I've been reading a lot. Reading academic books. Reading books for fun. And it has reminded me that reading is one of the most powerful ways to learn. But, reading alone is never enough. How will I apply what I learned? How can I connect it to what I already know and have already experienced? Combine the books I have read with the conferences I have attended recently and my mind is exploding with ideas, thoughts, concerns, excitement and horror! How the heck am I going to do justice to all these opportunities to learn when I reenter the classroom this coming school year?

While I am excited for this upcoming year to apply what I have learned the last two years, I'm also planning (hoping) to remain realistic that I won’t be able to accomplish all that I hope to in terms of improving my teaching practice. There just isn’t enough time in the school year (or my life for that matter) to make that happen. In that way, knowledge can be so very disappointing! I may know what best practice looks like, but that doesn't mean I have the capacity to make that happen in a single year, teaching three preps that I've never prepped for before. It takes years to get to that point and I will need to learn to be ok with that.

Regardless, here are my key takeaways from these learning opportunities that I hope will manifest themselves in my classroom this year...eventually.

MCTM Spring Conference, May 2015

Minnesota Council for Teachers of Mathematics (MCTM) Spring Conference is an annual tradition for Kennedy High School Math teachers. Being in the spring, it serves as an outstanding opportunity to gather new ideas to catapult us into the next school year. I love this conference because of the quality of sessions and the opportunity to network with local Minnesota math educators that I might only see once a year. I've also been blessed to present three years in a row. This year's presentation served as an outstanding opportunity to learn about not only presenting amidst technology snafus but also how patient and kind math educators are. I could not have felt more supported during such a nutty loss of internet while presenting on the power of digital tools to improve our students' math experience. Talk about productive struggle.

When we rush to help we send the messages that the S can't do this. Promote productive struggle in math-Matt Larson #MCTM #TRUTH

— Jessica Rice (@JesRice) May 1, 2015

Minnesota Summit: Google Apps for Education, May 2015

Needless to say, the Keynote, James Sanders, provided plenty of entertainment and food for thought at this annual Saturday GAFE conference. His success, he’ll claim, has occurred through opportunities to “Fail Forward” and embrace those “undo-say” moments that are bound to occur. At the end of the Summit, Sanders won the Demo Slam with a demonstration of Timesify (for transforming any old article to look like a NYT article) and the Panic Button (to magically clear all your tabs in a tizzy but then reopen them when the threat of someone seeing has passed). I’m sure he won not only for the magic of the tools, but also for his showmanship.

The Bloomington Team at the Minnesota Summit (and this wasn't all of us!)

While Sanders seemed to steal the show, the best learning opportunity came when collaborating with a colleague, a special education teacher named Kelly. I am guilty of not regularly seeking out the expertise of our special education and EL teachers, but I was reminded at this conference how invaluable their perspective really is. During a session that provided adequate time to digest and move all the new ideas forward into action (my favorite time during any session), Kelly and I talked about math homework (insert dramatic music here). Math homework, to most math teachers, is a non-negotiable that must be assigned nightly. I continue to be baffled by our students’ lack of interest in the monotonous homework we assign. I suppose I shouldn’t say that I am baffled at that. Of course they are uninterested! I am baffled by why we, as teachers, continue to assign something we know students aren’t doing. Zeros in the gradebook do not magically inspire students to do their homework. I’ve known this for years. Yes, practice outside of the classroom is important, but what will be the motivator for students to do this homework? The opportunity to discuss ideas with Kelly on how to motivate students to practice outside the classroom was extremely timely as I have been wondering how to do homework this coming school year. I will teach four core classes, which means more than 100 students who I could, potentially, assign homework to every night. I cannot imagine the headache of assigning, grading, and returning, so many assignments simply to put zeros in the gradebook for a vast majority of them. That might be the definition of insanity. After this conversation with Kelly, I think I have an idea to make homework a true formative assessment for students as well as myself. More on that in a later post since the idea is still brewing.

AVID Summer Institute, June 2015

Kennedy High School has had an AVID cohort since 2012. Since then I have learned a bit of this and that about AVID, it's mission, it's strategies and it's successes. The Summer Institute provided a great opportunity to get grounded in AVID before reentering the classroom this fall. A strong parallel to MCTM was the focus on getting students DOING! Seems like a DUH! realization, but too often we, as teachers/givers/caretakers, do too much of the work for our students. AVID reminded me (while providing me with strategies) to get students doing the thinking necessary to be successful.

I will admit, I had trouble engaging during this conference. A bike accident a few weeks prior caused me to navigate charter buses, stairs and lots of sitting with a immobilization brace on my left leg and crutches. I've never been so out of my element, asking for help, an extra chair, special assistance at the airport, but similar to the MCTM conference I found that educators are truly the best. I learned that my colleagues at Kennedy are truly a great bunch of people who were so accommodating and kind not to mention engaged in doing great work for our Kennedy students. I should also send gratitude out to the strangers from all over the country who helped me navigate the conference. I am blessed to be an educator, surrounded by the best of the best!

Conferences yet to come!

Twitter Math Camp, July 2015

Words cannot describe how stoked I am to be surrounded by math educators that I have secretly been cyberstalking for two years! Careful--the cyberstalking I am referring to is pouring over the blogs and tweets in the amazing MathTwitterBlogosphere that exists purely to be cyberstalked! I am excited (and a bit apprehensive) to dive head first into this network and absorb as much as I can while attending camp at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California starting on Thursday!

Moodle Moot, August 2015

As a professed lover of the power of technology to transform and improve how we teach, this local conference seemed like a must do this summer. Our Learning Management System at Bloomington Public Schools is Moodle and it appears here to stay! I never dug very deep into Moodle during my years teaching, but I have watched many educators around me do so and speak highly of the tool to support their work. Moodle, here I come!