It's been about eight years since I first heard about SBG. Having taught for only a few years at that point, I knew already that something wasn't working in the math classroom. We had recently switched to a PBL-style spiraled workbook for pre-algebra (although I didn't know either of those terms at the time). In my Algebra 2 class, I could tell that students weren't learning the first time and felt helpless in overcoming that.
Enter Dan Meyer and SBG. I was fascinated with this idea of mastery and giving students multiple opportunities. I modeled my tests after the examples he posted and gave my students a chart to document their mastery. Eventually my admins started asking questions. They loved the idea of mastery but had some questions about how much timing was allowed. Shortly there after, I left the school and moved home to Florida.
My first year here was the worst year of teaching that I've had. It was the only year I taught on a straight (non-block) schedule. I always felt rushed, and I knew my students weren't learning well so I curved a lot of grades. Looking back on that year of teaching, I never want my classes to be like that again. Something had to change.
Various things changed over the next four years, and eventually I ended up where I am now. All of our lessons and activities are aligned to specific objectives that we discuss on a regular basis. Tests are broken down by objective and sub-scored so that students have a clear picture of what they do and do not understand. I allow them to go back and reassess over any skills that were not fully mastered on the test. A select few take advantage of the system, but those who do benefit tremendously. There is almost no visible test anxiety among students because test day isn't a one time chance. The opportunity to grow is always available. I don't expect to be perfect at something the first time I try it, how could I ever expect that of students who are learning so much at one time across a variety of disciplines?
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Along the way, I read Mindset. Carol Dweck and her anecdotes of growth in diverse fields made me reflect on my own learning experience and how differently it could have gone.
As a new teacher, I was stunned when I saw students standardized test score reports (those that show percentiles) and realized that not all students have bars that go across the entire page. Now, as a math teacher, it should be fairly obvious that if we're showing percentiles, there have to be students in each of the percentiles, but my scores had always been in the top 95% and above so I assumed everyone else's were too.
In high school, I took advanced coursework and did well. It was rare that I had questions so I never learned to ask for help. I could get by with memorization so my understanding of concepts was shallow. Somehow I got 4s on AB and BC calculus without any true learning.
Then I went to college, and my first semester was a disaster. As an engineering major (because people told me that if I was a girl who was good at math, that's what I should be), I enrolled in Chem 1 and Calc 3. I ended up dropping chemistry when it was clear that I would not pass. Never once did I see out help from my professor or TA. Asking questions signaled that I was weak or dumb, and I didn't want to be seen as either of those things. Instead I quietly withdrew from the class and looked into changing my major. Calculus was another story. Without a conceptual understanding of the basic ideas, working in multiple variables was next to impossible. The fact that my professor refused to answer questions only reaffirmed my belief that if I was smart enough to do this, I shouldn't have to ask any. I got a C- and ended up retaking the class the next semester. Never in my life had I had to withdraw or earned a C! What was happening?
To be honest, I'm not sure that I learned much in college. I steered clear of the classes that were difficult for me and was very successful in classes where I could mostly memorize. The same was true for both of my experiences in grad school. Along the way, I suppose I learned some analysis skills, but my professors were largely happy with me being able to regurgitate what they had said in a different scenario or format.
When I read Mindset, particularly the sections about the high achieving students who felt like failures when they suddenly were not perfect, I felt like I was reading about myself. My entire identity had been that I was "smart" and "good at math." I'd never had to work for that. I had no idea how to work for it. I had no idea how to learn. When I suddenly wasn't just good at it anymore, when I encountered a time that I had to try, I lost all hope in myself and my ability. I felt worthless because without that ability, it seemed that I had nothing.
This reflection on my own experiences in learning has completely transformed how I approach learning in the classroom. I often think that if I had a growth mindset as a student, I would have stayed with engineering, I would have worked to my "potential," and I would probably be doing something different with my life. In some ways, I'm very grateful that I didn't have that mindset and that I ended up where I did. I love teaching, and I can't imagine being this happy doing anything else.
Finally being free to ask questions, I have learned so much about math as a teacher. Concepts that never made sense as a student come alive with manipulatives, Desmos activities, and more. Even better, concepts that I am afraid to teach because they were so hard for me become alive when I can do more than simply lecture about them.
There have been a number of times this year when I gave my students an activity about a challenging topic (chain rule, related rates, etc) and then go to "explain it" via lecture, and they look at me like I'm an idiot for thinking it needs to be explained. Because it isn't hard for them, they already understand it because of the activity. Just yesterday it happened with curve sketching. We went over nothing other than the derivative having an output value of zero when the original function would have a horizontal tangent line, and they figured out everything else they needed to sketch the graph.
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I don't know where this leaves me. Yesterday I was reading a study about assessment and grades. One of the closing lines was, "We don't give grades in order to sort kids." I think that sums up my biggest distinction from a number of colleagues. Grades aren't to show who is the smartest or to make some feel good about themselves (and others feel bad), they are a tool to inform instruction and encourage all to work towards mastery.
[In thinking about real world evaluative processes, we don't hope to get a better "grade" than our co-workers. We want everyone to be doing their jobs well. We don't compare rubrics of observation to see who was the best. That's flat out silly. Yet our students do it with test grades all the time. One of the biggest mindset changes for me was when I heard a statistic about school being the only time in life that we are given a once chance opportunity. There is no other test, no other opportunity that you have only one chance to "pass." If that were the case, our growth would stagnate - and what kind of world would that be? So why in the world would we set up schools that way?]
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