Checking in

This has been a challenging year. Between starting later than usual (construction), a missed week for Hurricane Irma, and the loss of one of our 8th graders to cancer, it was a really difficult first month. We never seemed to be able to get in the groove. 

Because of the later start, we also lost all of our days off between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. That was rough. Even with two days off for a conference and a personal day after a half marathon, I was really close to feeling burnt out. One of the greatest gifts of the MTBoS community is a mutual understanding of how difficult teaching is, especially at certain times of the year. I really appreciate being able to have someone else who is totally outside my circumstances also say, "Yes, this is a tough week. It will get better." Because then I realize that my annoyance isn't my students, co-workers, or school, it's just a rough time of year. And it will pass.

Teaching four different classes is harder than I expected. Mostly because I have three single sections, and I often leave them thinking about how I'd do something differently next time. Only to realize that "next time" is next year, if that. It's hard to try to grow when I don't get another chance in the immediate future. It's overwhelming to make sure that I have everything ready for each class every day when there are so many moving pieces. There are certainly been some panicked moments when I realize that I didn't actually make the copies I needed for my next class. 

Algebra - 

This has been the constant in my career. I've always taught algebra - although the look of my class has changed entirely over the years. It's still evolving. This year has been a real struggle. I like to think that my class is more fun than most other math classes they've taken. I don't really lecture, we do tasks like Barbie Bungee, and have a lot of good discussions based around Estimation 180, Which One Doesn't Belong, and the like. However, motivating this group has been a challenge, more so than in the previous few years. I'm growing curious about having a classroom structure without homework. The value seems to be less than ever. I always felt like that practice would be key to students finally mastering skills like evaluating expressions when the value of the variable is negative or solving a system of equations. It sounds depressing, but I've become skeptical that some will ever master these skills (and whether it's really that important). 

Geometry -

My experience with these students has been key to my questioning of homework. Because of my disappointment with the online portion of our new book, I stopped assigning homework after unit 1. It was clear in unit 2 that our conversations were not sufficient, and they needed some real practice. So we started with Delta Math in unit 3 but really only in class. I taught half of them last year in algebra so it's enlightening to continue along with them and be able to recognize what they have retained. I know that factoring has been a struggle over the years, so I think I'm going to start doing some regular practice with factoring as a warm up as we move into the second semester. We spent almost our entire congruent triangle unit doing proofs - which, to my surprise, they loved! I don't love geometry, but this particular group has been really fun to move through the concepts with.

Calculus - 

I've heard for so long that conceptual based, exploratory learning may work in algebra, but there's no way to do it in higher level math. Calc honors has been my chance to prove that wrong, and it's been better than I ever expected. Because it's honors and not our AP class, my students typically have weaker algebra skills and we explore the calculus topics from a higher level. I can't count the number of times that we've done a Desmos activity, and, when we've turned our attention to notes, they look at me like I'm an idiot when I try to explain the concept to them. Because it's completely unnecessary at that point. They've already figured it all out through Desmos. This is truly the class where I wish I had a second opportunity and more time to develop tasks. Last week we started curve sketching, and I was completely blown away that they could match graphs of f and f' without any direct instruction. It was just something I offered to them as a quick intro after we finished our test. I've been using materials from the teacher who taught the class the past two years (because I have four preps) with a bunch of Desmos tasks and problem sets from Jonathan thrown in. We don't do e, ln, log, inverse trig, etc. But I'm curious about whether that might be something worthwhile to include moving forward. 

Social Justice 

This is my non-math class, obviously. We use a text from St. Mary's Press, but I'm thinking about going open source in the next semester/year. The book we use the most is just selected readings...and most of them are available online for free anyway. I would just need to curate them. To be honest, it would probably be easier than using the book for the simple fact that online access to this text is a 12 step process. Clicking a link would take two seconds opposed to the five minute sign in. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the course. It's a nice change of pace from math. And I have about four girls in both social justice and calc (on opposite days) so it's fun to do such different things with the same kids. We have well rounded lives, you know?

The Thanksgiving break has been a good one. Sleeping in, relaxing at Disney, shopping for the upcoming trip to Iceland, and catching up on school work/reflecting on my classes thus far. It was a much needed break as we gear up for the four week sprint between Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

What Learning Looks Like

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?]

Checking in on #1TMCThing

I saw a tweet the other day that reminded me that the time has come.

To be honest, I had to go back to my TMC post to remember what my thing even was. I knew that there were two. It turns out that I've sort of been doing both!

The first was more engagement with the MTBoS community as a whole. In general, I have blogged more this year than ever before. I have been more active on Twitter than simply liking or retweeting. And, I spent time at the MTBoS booth at NCTM regional in Orlando (which was actually one of the highlights of the conference for me).

The second was about Desmos Activity Builder. Specifically, I wanted to create my own activities. I have yet to create an entire activity because I'm completely overwhelmed by having four preps. We've done a ton of Desmos activities this year, and I'm feeling more comfortable using the dashboard and teacher pacing.

Last week I assigned my calculus students a project where they would be using tangent lines to "pop the pigs" in Angry Birds. It's basically the same activity that my colleague assigned a year ago. As my students started working though, I thought about how great it would be via Desmos. That made me open Activity Builder and start messing around. I can't use it this year, but it might be helpful in the future - plus it's a good place for practice.

Then yesterday when I started thinking about my 1TMCThing. And I realized that a lot of the things I wanted to do in my activity are part of computation layer. I received access during the Desmos day at TMC this summer but hadn't had a chance to really do anything with it. I knew during that time that I didn't really know what any of it meant, and I hadn't had time to really investigate. Now I really don't have time to be learning computation layer, but I got so into it that I ended up spending hours just trying to figure out how it all works. I was fascinated. I made zero progress with my activity, but I feel like I learned a lot just about building and structuring activities.

So I'm halfway there.