#MTBoS12days - Looking Forward to in 2016...

I can't believe that today is the last day of 2015!!  My break went way too fast and Monday will be here before I know it! :(

Here's a brief list of things I'm looking forward to in 2016!

• My students in the Rose Parade!  Our HS band is one of the band's performing tomorrow.  My kids have been working on this for months and I'm so happy for them!
• Spring Break!  We are getting another dumpster delivered over spring break with the idea of cleaning out our garage and finishing up the back yard... yay!
• #EduRead - I'm eager to jump back into the EduRead crowd.  They push me to be better and I appreciate that!  Our first book is Embedding Formative Assessment with the T3Learns Slow Chat!
• TMC16 - I'm not 100% sure if I'll be able to attend this year, but it's on my list!
• Balance - I have 3 preps this spring, so it's going to be more and more important that I find time to rejuvenate with my PLC.  Please hold me accountable to this one and call me out on Twitter if I'm absent! :)

What are you looking forward to?

#MTBoS12days - Something I want to Improve

This is probably the hardest prompt so far, mainly because it's hard to narrow down my list to just one thing that I want to improve.  I'm a person that is never satisfied with my progress, but that can lead to my downfall as well because I I am constantly looking for ways to improve rather than being happy with the improvement I've made.  This can cause a spiral effect of depression and giving up because I'm never going to reach my goal.  That's crazy, right?  I mean, we should constantly strive to better ourselves, but at what point is it okay to accept where we are without the constant push to be better?

Sorry, that got deep for a minute...

Anyway, back to the original point of this post... one thing I want to improve.

Oh my... so many things on the list!  MUST-NOT-GET-OVERWHELMED-BY-THE-LIST!  Deep breath... In and Out... In and Out... Whew... okay, better now!

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed a discussion yesterday morning on something I want to try this semester... Plickers!  Here's my plan:

First, I need to print out Plicker sets for my AP Stat classes.  Next Tuesday, when we set up our notebooks, I plan to give each student one to go into the front pocket of their notebook.  Due to data privacy issues, I don't plan to keep track of student names with the Plickers.  We'll do some testing that day too just to see how it goes.

My hope is to use the Plickers as a very quick check for understanding that requires no tech log-in, no downtime while everyone gets out a device, etc.  I know I am limited in only having 4 answer choices, but I think this will be an easy way to integrate MC questions into my lessons as well as a check for understanding at the end of a class period by taking a quick poll.  I'm thinking I could ask them to rate themselves as Red/Yellow/Green or something similar.  I'm really excited about the possibility and would love to hear your thoughts on how you use Plickers!

#MTBoS12days - Tell me about the "Tried & True"

Every teacher has them... those "tried & true" strategies that are on your go-to list. My top 3 strategies are:

Red/Yellow/Green cups - I love my colored cups and I really didn't use them as much this past semester as I should have.  The idea is that each group has a set of cups and the color showing lets me know if they need me. Green represents that everything is going along just fine.  Yellow indicates that trouble is brewing so please come by if I'm free.  Red tells me to drop everything and high-tail it over to that group, they need my help right away!  The thing I like most about this strategy is that it is a great way for the kids to self-monitor their needs and it requires no prep!


Musical Chairs - This is one of my favorite strategies to use when I need the kids to do some practice but I don't want to just give them a worksheet to work on.  To be honest, for my students, if I give them a worksheet and tell them they have 20 minutes to work, about 1/5 of the class will actually use their time well, the rest will get distracted by chatting.  However, if I use the Musical Chairs strategy, they ALL get their work done!  The idea is to give them a worksheet and play some music.  They get up and mingle and when the music stops, they sit down.  They have a set amount of time to work a certain number of problems.  When the timer goes off, the music starts and they mingle again.  By the time it's all done, the practice is done and the time has vanished quickly!


Stations - Similar to Musical Chairs, this is another good way to do some practice problems.  I love my plastic picture frames for Station work.  I use this one a lot for quiz review because my quizzes usually have 4 objectives on them and each station will review one of the objectives.  The bonus is that I don't have to print up worksheets for the kids, I just have to print one copy for the station and it saves on my copy count. :)

What are your top strategies?

#MTBoS12Days - Start... Stop... Continue

I have already failed the Yule Blog challenge, which given my posting record, should come as no surprise! :)  We've had a busy busy week filled with deep cleaning the house, hosting my in-laws, and two days of Star Wars movie marathons.  This year, my Christmas gift to hubby was to marathon episodes 4, 5, and 6, then an evening show of episode 7.  A good friend of mine also came over to join us and it was an enjoyable and low-key day of pj's, chocolate, and movies.  I hadn't seen the original trilogy since they were re-released in the late 90s and had never seen the prequels, so the next day we watched episodes 1, 2, and 3.  As a result of all this, I haven't even been at my computer for several days, so I'm a bit behind in posting!

Start... Stop... Continue... is one of my favorite blogging prompts, so I'm so glad that it made it onto the #MTBoS12days list!  It's such a good way to reflect on the previous semester!

What will I START doing in the new semester:
Honestly, this is more of what will I "re-start" list... :)

• Eating better and back to exercising!  This fall has been rough for me personally and I've fallen off the exercise/food wagon.  I need to get back to taking care of myself.
• Reaching out to my MTBoS PLN!  The #EduRead crowd and others push me to be a better, more creative teacher.  I've not been good this year about chatting, blogging, and reading professional literature... I need to change that!
• Making Thinking Visible!  This is something that I haven't done as much this year and I miss having things around my room showing student thinking.  I need to get back to it.

What will I STOP doing in the new semester:
 This is the hardest one for me... there are so many bad habits I need to stop!

• Stop taking things personally!  This is true in both my personal and professional life.  I need to focus on the things that are really important.
• Stop saying "Yes!"  I am working on finding better balance in my life... setting priorities where they should be.  I take things on that I shouldn't... I need to let go and let others step up to the plate.

What will I CONTINUE doing in the new semester:
This is the easiest one for me... this semester was pretty good!

• Continue utilizing the "Make It Stick" strategies!  I had good success with MC Mondays, Flashback Fridays, FRAPPYs, and "Brain Dumps" and I want to expand on that this semester.
• Drinking water!  I've tried to really up my water intake and while I can't say that I'm always successful, I do drink way more water than I used to.
• High Five Fridays!  If you've read any of the TMC15 blog posts, you've probably heard about Glenn's High Fives and how they helped build rapport with his students.  I knew it would be tough to do this daily, so I modified it to High Five Fridays and it worked really well!  Thanks Glenn!

#MTBoS12days - Books and More Books!

Merry Christmas Eve!  

Today's prompt is definitely one that I've been looking forward to! :)  I love books!  Like with big puffy heart loves.  As a child, the library was one of my favorite places and I was never without a book.  I remember many times packing my suitcase to spend the weekend with my dad and taking clothes out just to fit more books in!  My office has 5 large bookcases of professional/math books and my bedroom has a large bookcase of "fun" books.  (Note:  There's only 1 "fun" bookcase because I mostly read on my iPad/Kindle app... there are thousands and thousands of books in my eLibrary!)

So back to the prompt... sorry, I get easily distracted!

A book that I've recently read:
This is a toughie for me.  I read so fast that there are a lot of books I've recently read for fun!  However, I will say that when I read for fun, it's not anything deep or profound, it's more of what would be termed a "beach read" - lightweight and easily forgettable.

A book that I'm currently reading:
I'll be very honest... I'm currently between books!  I know that sounds crazy but on a good day I can read a novel or two, because once I start a book, I really struggle to put it down!  That means that I end up in these long stretches of collecting more books to read but not actually starting one because I don't have time to finish it! :) 

A book that I want to read:
This list could be REALLY large, so I'm going to try to narrow it down to the two books that I received in the mail this week!

• Embedding Formative Assessment by Dylan Wiliam.  I'm really excited about this one.  I loved the original EFA and this one looks even more practical for daily use!  
• Unshakeable by Angela Watson.  This was a gift from a very dear friend and I'm really eager to read it and use the strategies in the book to rejuvenate for the new semester!

#MTBoS12days - Rejuvenation

During the school year, I am pretty swamped with teaching, grading, and all of the other duties that I have.  That means that a lot of things get put off until break time, so I really try to maximize my breaks with non-school related activities!

If I had to give a "Top 5" list of how I rest and rejuvenate, it would include:

• Pedicure - hands down, this is one of those must-have relaxation activities for me!  I am not really a high maintenance person, but there's something to be said for being pampered with a good leg/foot massage and a pretty color on your toes! :)
• Good books - I have always been a reader and often accused of having my nose stuck in a book!  A few years ago, I finally got sucked into the e-book craze and I love the ease of having thousands of books at my fingertips... literally!  I check "dailyfreebooks.com" every day and have found a lot of new authors that way.  
• Crafts - This has to be one of my favorite ways to pass time on a break.  Over the years, I've learned about candle making, soap making, knitting, and currently I'm on a beading/bracelet kick.  :)
• Organizing - I know this sounds a bit like work, but there's a sense of satisfaction that you can only get when an area goes from complete disarray to neat and organized.  I really hate clutter in general, so when I get into that mood, clutter goes!  I am not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination... my house is very "lived-in" and would never grace the cover of a magazine, but there's nothing better to me than organizing a closet or some other hidden area! :)
• Exercise - In the warmer months, my favorite morning activity is rolling out of bed and going for a walk.  This is my quiet time and I really enjoy the time to reflect, brainstorm, and come up with new ideas. 

How do you rest and rejuvenate? 

#MTBoS12days - Success Story

This semester has been insane.  I have wonderful students, wonderful colleagues, and really could not ask for a better life.  However, as great as this semester has been, it has also been one of the busiest semesters in recent memory, which means not a lot of time to blog about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the semester!

Today's #MTBoS12days prompt is all about the good... a success story from the semester. :)

The biggest success story I have about this semester relates to our summer #EduRead - Make it Stick.  If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it! 

One of the suggestions from the book was to spiral homework and quiz often.  I combined these ideas and decided to do two main warmup routines... Multiple Choice Mondays and Flashback Fridays.

Multiple Choice Monday consists of 5 MC questions each week over anything we've learned so far.  The kids get them back on Tuesday to analyze and reflect on their answers. 

Flashback Fridays are half sheet quick answer questions over things I don't want them to forget. 

So last week was finals week.  The kids had time to study in class on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then finals were on Thursday and Friday.  To be honest, the kids weren't using their study time quite as much as I would like and I was worried they weren't taking their final seriously.  I voiced my concern to a couple of students and here were some of the response:

      "I'm not too worried about this one.  We've prepared for it all semester."

      "This is the final I feel best about!"

      "We are always reviewing old stuff.  This final won't be too bad."

Then Thursday came and by golly, they were right!  The kids did a GREAT job on the final and I'm very pleased with the scores.  I don't have the usual angst over submitting grades and only ended up with a couple of students that were on the "rounding bubble".

I consider that a success! :)

#MTBoS12days - My Holiday Favorite Treats & Recipes

I will admit that I'm the worst cook in the world.  My family would agree as well. :)  In fact, hubby does 99.9% of the cooking in our house because I'm pretty dangerous in the kitchen. :)

So, in order for me to cook, it has to follow a few ground rules:
1)  No more than 5 ingredients
2)  Microwave or oven can be done, but stove-tops, not so much
3)  No "fancy" prep (saute? nope... mince? not a chance!)
4)  If possible, be a "1 pot" dish... I hate the clean-up! :)

So here are some tried and true easy recipes from my kitchen to yours.  Most of these have been gathered over the years and  I have no idea who the original author is... :)


Easiest fudge in the world - 2 ingredients
 - 1 container of frosting (your choice on flavor)
 - 1 bag of chocolate chips (other flavors are also good)

Spray an 8x8 foil pan with non-stick spray.  Scoop out the frosting into a glass microwavable bowl.  Dump in the chocolate chips.  Microwave in short bursts (15-30 seconds) to melt together, stirring each time.  When it's all mixed up, pour into foil pan and put in the fridge overnight to set up.

Combinations I like:  Chocolate frosting & peanut butter chips;  Chocolate frosting & mint chocolate chips
(This is my go-to recipe for easy treat boxes for family members!)


Easiest dip in the world - 2 ingredients
 - 1 block cream cheese softened
 - 1 jar salsa

Mix.  Refrigerate to set up.  Serve with Fritos. :)


Sweet & Salty Treat - 2 ingredients
 - White almond bark
 - Pretzels

Melt almond bar in a double boiler (or small crock pot or microwave).  Dip pretzels into the almond bark.  Lay on wax paper to set up.


Dump cake - 3 ingredients
 - 2 cans of pie filling (my favorite is cherry)
 - 1 box cake mix (my favorite is devils food)
 - 1 stick of butter

Dump the 2 cans of pie filling in the bottom of a cake pan. (I use a foil pan for easy clean up!)  Sprinkle the cake mix on top.  Put pats of butter all over the cake.  Bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes.  Every combination I've tried is good, but I love the cherry chocolate the best.  This is a great pot-luck recipe and it is my go-to funeral dinner recipe as well. :)



Cake Mix Cookies - 5 ingredients
 - 2 boxes cake mix with pudding in the mix (your choice on flavor)
 - 2/3 cup melted butter
 - 2 eggs
 - 1 bag of chips (your choice on flavor)
 - 1/4 cup water

My sister taught me to make these and they are the BEST cookies!  It pushes my limits of ingredients, but oh so easy to make!  Just mix together. Drop on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees.


Cake Mix Snickerdoodles - 5 ingredients
(This one also pushes my limit on ingredients, but they are one of hubby's favorites, so I can't leave them out!
 - 3 tablespoons sugar
 - 1 teaspoon cinnamon
 - 1 box yellow cake mix
 - 2 eggs
 - 1/4 cup vegetable oil

Combine sugar and cinnamon in small bowl.  Mix cake mix, eggs, and oil in large bowl.  Shape dough into 1 inch balls and roll in cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Place balls on a cookie sheet and flatten. (I use the bottom of a glass tumbler). Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.

Introducing the #MTBoS12days "Yule Blog" Challenge!

Holiday break is finally here, so @pamjwilson and I have teamed up to bring you a holiday blogging challenge!  I'm really excited about it given that I haven't blogged since August!!  Where, oh where does time go? :)

Your challenge... if you choose to accept it... is to blog 12 times over the holiday break.  The prompts are listed below and please share your post on Twitter with the hashtag #MTBoS12days.  Thanks for joining in!

#MTBoS12days

Yule Blog Challenge

• “My Holiday favorites” (you choose)

• treats & recipes to share
• inexpensive gifts to give
• holiday memories

• A success story from this semester
• How I relax and rejuvenate over the break
• A book I’ve read… a book I’m reading… a book I want to read...
• Reflection on last semester… What will I start, stop and continue in the new semester?
• A tried and true task/strategy that I can always count on
• A moment / a-ha that challenged me as a teacher & how I handled it
• 1 thing I want to improve next semester
• Classroom wishlist
• Looking forward to in 2016...

• New Year Resolutions - Personal and/or professional
• Something that makes me proud to be a - Laker, Trojan, Knight, Wildcat, Eagle… etc. 

Thanksliving

I am really feeling bitter toward my job and pretty much never wanting to do it again. I also really want to post a long list of all the things I am bitter about. But that isn't fair to anyone and doesn't help anyone.

I am determined to get back into my daily posting habit on #onegoodthing to help me stay positive and one of my New Year's resolutions is going to be giving at least 5 compliments a day. These are two things that I am in control of and will hopefully help me focus.

In another begrudging effort to also help me focus, I am going to dig deep and write a post about the parts of my job that I am thankful for. Here goes my attempt to begin a daily routine of thanksliving:

• I have my own classroom to organize and decorate to my heart's content (the thing I wanted most as a child) 
• Super cute office supplies, especially in chevron, teal, or lime green
• Free technology: laptops, ipads, SMART boards, Kuta
• Holidays and weekends off
• Summer!
• Snow days!
• Predictable hours (in the school building of course)
• It's never boring
• Getting to constantly be creative: in lessons, in worksheets, in activities, in conversation, in explaining, in literally creating programs, invitations, flyers, events, Prom, Homecoming
• Building relationships with students (really wish I could just spend all day talking to, asking and answering questions with them)
• Papermate Flair markers and Pilot FriXion eraseable pens
• Spirit week dress up days
• Having a new start every period, day, week, quarter, semester, school year
• Seeing self-created things go well in the classroom
• Not having to wear a uniform to work or come home smelling like greasy food
• Opportunities to make extra money through tutoring, summer school, coaching, subbing, etc
• Insurance and retirement benefits
• Direct deposit!
• Pretty copy paper
• Ability to requisition school supplies
• Working less than 5 minutes from home
• Knowing the entire faculty/staff and and every student in high school
• Free PD and travel
• Seeing your thoughts and ideas come to life
• Not staring at a computer screen all day
• Having routines

If you notice, most of them don't have do with the actual job of teaching but since that's currently what I am so unhappy with, I guess that's no surprise.

Carry on.

Reflecting on yearly goals & moving forward

I've set yearly goals a number of times, but feel like this is really the first year that I went back and reread my plans and made adjustments to actually try to reach them before the end of the year. Partly, this was due to blogging about them, as well as knowing that someone was going to check in with me in October to see how I was doing. Because the online accountability didn't end up being as ongoing as I thought it would be, I want to consciously reflect on my goals and think through what I want to continue doing or change for the rest of the year.

Recap of goals for this year (full post here):

Grading/feedback

• Give back quizzes with feedback only, share the grade later.
• I've been doing this and it's going well. Keep it up! Need to give more time in class to process and correct assessments, discuss with me and others.
• Students must correct original quiz and demonstrate evidence of work/learning done in order to reassess. They may not reassess on the same day. 
• I have not been as strict as I should be on this one. I basically tell them they need to do this, but don't actually check very rigorously. I have way fewer students reassessing this year though so it's not been a lot of work to manage. 
• Teach students how to use feedback effectively. 
• Sort of doing this... in-person meetings with students have been instrumental in my giving of feedback this year. I did a few peer feedback assignments and written reflections responding to my feedback, but need to do it more. 
• Have students self-assess their practices via a portfolio.
• Haven't done this yet, but plan to at the end of the semester. Need to check in with @crstn85, who's having her students self-assess their work on the mathematical practices and provide evidence for each one. 
• Get homework and projects graded more quickly.
• In-person meetings, describe here, have been really helpful with this. I discuss students' recent work with them in person so I am staying pretty current with grading. Definitely way more current with projects, which languished on my desk reproachfully for interminable periods of time last year.

Class culture

• Continue using Visible Random Groupings and whiteboarding.
• Done and done. I merged this with a goal for strengthening student-student relationships by having each daily random group go around answering a question (such as: if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? what is your spirit animal? what has been your favorite class this year? when were you last a good friend to someone? what is your favorite movie? etc) Students often give ideas for questions - it's been a great way to get to know students and to build trust and relationships in the classroom.
• Continue my policy of having students volunteer to participate in class discussions, with the caveat that each person must participate at least once or they must start the next day's discussion. In addition, when groups report out, I can call on any member of the group.
• Yep, still doing this and still prefer this over calling on random students. Everyone has to participate at some point, but they can choose when and how, which I think is important for communicating my beliefs about classroom culture and that contributions should be about learning, not for punitive or classroom management purposes.
• Introduce talking points and exploratory talk ideas into class discussions and teach language of argumentation and mathematical discourse.
• Uh, this one I've definitely failed to implement and not sure that I have the bandwidth to add another thing into the mix right now. I'll look over the list before the start of the next semester and plan out some actual activities rather than the vague idea to do this somehow somewhere.
• Continue assigning bi-weekly reflections; include metacognitive questions as well as questions about mathematics and thinking routines/student learning. 
• I have not been assigning longer metacognitive reflections as often as I did last year, but including a few reflection questions on most daily assignments. Definitely doing more questions that ask students to restate concepts in their own words, look for connections, and explain errors or discrepancies more frequently. I haven't really addressed the issue of thinking routines and how they are impacting student learning, other than asking students to reflect on their learning for bigger projects/write-ups. Need to balance the benefits of reflection with students not feeling like they are reflecting all. the. time.

Homework

• Be more intentional about homework: assign fewer problems, spiral it in more intentional ways, and always provide answers in advance and worked solutions from students' own work after we discuss homework in class. Organize homework into Review, Reflect, and Reach. 
• I'm much, much happier with how homework is going this year. I am lagging assignments, which allows class to be more flexible and not feel like it needs to cover a certain amount in order for homework to make sense. There is also more time for students to process and make connections in class before they are asked to do independent work on the topic. I am also seeing more retention since every assignment includes review that intentionally brings in topics that are related or that I think students could use more time with. I would like to assign fewer problems as we are still sometimes spending a lot of time going over questions, but they are good problems to be discussing.
• Ask students to give themselves feedback on their homework. Continue assigning a catch-up day every 2 weeks.
• I have had students give themselves feedback once, need to do it again. I have not had any catch-up days this year because students are able to complete assignments by the original due date since the work load has been more manageable and because they are getting feedback in person. Should definitely have at least one or few times that I ask students to pick an earlier assignment and revise it though.
• I will continue having students turn in pictures of their homework digitally while keeping an organized notebook. 
• I need to put more effort/teaching into students' notetaking. I would like students to take notes and write down questions/ideas/connections. This is especially important since we don't have textbooks so notes are students' only record of what we are learning. I also want to have students write down questions, conjectures, tests, and conclusions more formally - it will be really helpful to show models of actual student work so that students have a better idea of what this looks like. I am giving students time at the end of class to write down summary statements and examples, but need to do this at a few intervals instead of just at the end and give students more tips and feedback on how to do this better. I am providing a rubric for all assignments, but it would be great to have links in the rubric to samples of student work so that students have more specific models. I also need to provide students with models of what formal write-ups look like as well as what an "exemplary" (which is our highest level in the standards based grading rubric) level for each mathematical practice looks like. 

New goals:

• Take pictures during class of work that is going on the whiteboards and post these - still need to figure out an organized way to put up this work so that students can find it easily if they need to review a specific topic and don't remember the date on which we worked on it. I currently provide a list of electronic resources for each topic we are studying - perhaps I can make a second column of links to pictures of our in-class work on that topic. I still need to think about what makes sense here - a chronological order or a topic-based order. One idea is to assign each topic to a student and put them in charge of writing a summary of the topic, including examples, and uploading this to a class online textbook.
• Keep better track of students' progress. I have been doing a lot of discussion and in-person meeting, but not a lot has been in writing or communicated more formally. I am now starting to write down a summary of our in-person meeting with specific objectives listed, such as "review binomial distribution model and reassess on it next week" and then emailing the list of feedback and to-dos to the student. I should make sure to loop in the advisor when appropriate as well.
• I need to have more regular meetings with my co-teachers. I have not been doing a great job of planning together or watching others on my team teach. I wanted to do some co-teaching and lesson study, but in the frenzy of the year, this has sort of fallen by the wayside. I'd like to recommit some time & energy to this in preparation for the second semester to figure out a regular plan for making this happen.
• I need to figure out better ways to support struggling students in my classes. I have been more focused this year on providing sufficient rigor and challenge to students who learn quickly and want to explore more topics, but haven't been addressing as much the needs of students who need more time and to sit with concepts for longer and from more perspectives in order to feel more comfortable with the material. I need to structure classwork and homework occasionally to allow for more differentiation and review/reach, as needed.

Student meetings for formative assessment

This year is going by in a blur, but I did finally squeeze out a few minutes to blog about something that I've tried this year that I'm really liking. Based on a description in the book, "Creating Cultures of Thinking," I implemented something that the book calls Individual Feedback Sessions (I just call them "regularly scheduled meetings," but sure, pick the fanciest name you think you can get away with), which were created by a teacher profiled in the book. His explanation of this strategy is here, but the gist of it is:

1. Schedule 20 minute bi-weekly meeting with each student (he recommended meeting with 2 students at the same time, which I would do if I had a more typical class load). I meet with students before school, during lunch, during their free periods (if they overlap with mine), during tutorial, and after school.
2. Discuss work that the student has turned in during the last two weeks (since the last time you've seen them). Go through their work with them in detail, giving verbal feedback. Either you or the student records a summary of the feedback (I put comments in the online gradebook and ask students to also write some notes in their notebook).
3. Discuss the student's overall progress in the class, how they're doing incorporating feedback from previous sessions, and ask for questions about the content and for feedback on what you can do to support them better. Follow up on any issues that have come up in class with that student.

I have a schedule of meetings posted on the class page so students know when we're supposed to meet. For students who need a bit of an extra reminder, I have an automated email that emails them the day before our scheduled meeting. It is more work. I do have a much busier schedule during the school day as a result with almost no "free" periods. BUT, I do virtually no grading at home (other than quizzes, which I like to grade more quickly than a 2 week window would allow) AND I feel like students understand my expectations, really hear my feedback, and develop stronger self-advocacy and ownership of their learning. 

Grading papers at home by myself vs. interacting with an actual student about their actual work...
You do the math

Doing this has made it possible for me to assign better problems. I have been using IMP Problem of the Week tasks in my teaching for a long time, but every year, after grading a few write-ups, I became quickly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of grading (how the heck do English teachers do it??) and stopped assigning them. This year, I have already assigned four Problem of the Week write-ups for every class. And graded them all with students. And seen tremendous growth in their ability to describe their process and reasoning. Yes, I do think it's a valuable skill for students to learn to interpret written feedback from teachers, and I plan to do some of this in the second semester (perhaps, I provide written feedback first, then we meet and student explains how they understood it). But in terms of actually understanding and learning from feedback, in person conversations are waaaaaay more effective. Especially when I'm asking students to do mathematical work that they are not used to doing (writing about process, explaining reasoning, providing evidence, using formal notation and clearly annotating work, etc). Overall, I do think it takes more time, but it's much more fun for me and results in more learning for students so I think it's worth it. 

As the semester winds down, I am starting to ask students to give feedback to their own work and to the work of their peers so this is definitely not my only model for feedback. And as always, I'm curious to learn more about others' approaches and ideas on this.

Teaching Data

I'm going to be very transparent here so please don't attack me.

At the end of last school year, I wrote down what the last concept I taught and assessed was for each class period. Here are the results:

1 Hr Geometry Concept 28
3 Hr Geometry Concept 28
4 Hr Algebra I Concept 25
5 Hr Trig Concept 28
6 Hr Algebra II Concept 21
7 Hr Algebra I Concept 21
8 Hr Algebra II Concept 20

How is it that in an entire year I only teach 20-28 concepts? That's 5-7 concepts per quarter which translates to about one concept per week or week and a half. That's terrible. And pretty consistent across all content areas.

Maybe it's the kids? Let's look at the current data for the first quarter.

1 Hr Geometry Concept 7
2 Hr Trig Concept 9
3 Hr Algebra I Concept 6
4 Hr Geometry Concept 7
5 Hr Algebra II Concept 6
6 Hr Algebra II Concept 6
8 Hr Algebra III Concept 6

Multiply those by four quarters and that puts me in the range of 24-36.

So it's not the kids.

Let's look at my teaching. Ideally, I introduce a topic through INB pages/lecture and then a handout/activity that pertains to the notes. Ideally, that means 2-3 days per concept. Which means I should be a lot closer to 50-60 concepts per school year.

I have only done INBs since last year. Let's look at some data from pre-INB

13-14
Algebra II Concept 39
Geometry Concept 40

12-13
Algebra I Concept 44
Geometry Concept 45
Algebra II Concept 46

I am getting worse over time.

Let's look at some other curriculums. I was recently introduced to the site http://emathinstruction.com that is aligned to Common Core and PARCC standards. Algebra I has 100 lessons. 100! That doesn't even allow for 2 days per concept. Algebra II is 107.

Engage NY Algebra II has 120 lessons and Algebra I has 105.

I am not even teaching 1/4 of what students need to know. But how are students supposed to master concepts in one day?

I have really been downing myself about this for pretty much my whole teaching career. This is the first year I have been able to back it with data but...I am not preparing my students for their futures.

Here are some possible causes:

• I'm assessing too much. I quiz over every concept and a unit test.
• Interactive Notebooks are slowing me down. 
• I'm taking up too much class time with bell ringers.

Now what are the possible solutions?

Becoming a Whole Person

This is year seven of teaching for me and year one of feeling like a whole person.

Over the summer, me and my sister started trying to lose weight together: working out, walking together every day, drinking half our body weight in water, taking weight loss supplements, and buying Fitbits to track our steps and calories.

I also started my own business with the amazing skincare company Rodan and Fields which has opened up a whole new community of people for me to be a part of, new goals for me to accomplish, and new dreams for me to dream.

This school year I have also been posting daily over at the #onegoodthing blog.

So even though I have five preps, one of which is new, a cheerleading squad, and the largest Student Council club I've ever had, it feels like the first year of me being a whole person.

It sounds crazy that adding more and adding new things to my life has made me feel better- but it's true.

Now a bad day at school isn't the end of the world. I focus on the positive things that happened and write about it. After school I go walking and forget about it.

Instead of eating junk food to feel better, I'm tracking my calories to see what I should and shouldn't eat and obsessively checking if I have changed positions in our FitBos group.

Knowing that my whole life doesn't just revolve around teaching helps me not to put so much stress and pressure on myself when things go wrong. It helps me not feel stuck or trapped, it helps me feel happy and content, knowing that there is more to life than the four walls of my classroom.

I am a whole person with interests, hobbies, goals, dreams, and a life. Recognizing that makes me a better person and better teacher. It reminds me that my students are not just consumers of math, but people with interests, hobbies, goals, dreams, and a life. They are on their way to becoming a whole person- and how can I help?

Teaching Tips

I know my title isn't very descriptive but they are are so random that 'tips' is the best I can think of. These are basically things I've just discovered this school year; I'm just excited that I have new tips that I haven't already blogged about.

For the last several years, whenever I make a handout, I also make a matching powerpoint so that students see the same thing on the board as on their paper. And every now and then making these show up and disappear and slide around when necessary. This year I've had trouble with my SMART board letting me write on powerpoints. My tech person found that you can click print on the powerpoint file and select the SMART Notebook Writer (which apparently automatically installs when you install the SMART software) it will copy all of your slides to a notebook file (one slide per page) automatically. I've been using that for the first month or so until I realized, why create a powerpoint at all? I can just print the handout directly to a notebook file and cut out creating a powerpoint file that I can't even use? Duh Ms. Miller.

As much as I love being organized, I've need been able to keep up with a planner. I have a really good memory and it'll be real bad when it starts to fail me. But of course as a teacher, I always have a million things to keep track of. I'm a big fan of post-it notes but they flutter away pretttty easily. My solution thus far (although I am VERY intrigued by bullet journaling) has been email. I start a new email to myself at the beginning of the day basically making notes of things I need to do and also a note of what I plan to do and need to make for each class period. My plan is seventh hour so I accomplish some of the to-do things and sum up what must be done for the next day. Then I just e-mail it to myself so it's on my phone and laptop when I get home. Then I can use the e-mail to start the next day or else I write myself a new one so I know what I need to print and copy.

Another thing that I can't believe I just thought of is my Excel file of curriculum notes. I created a tab for each course (color coded obvi) I have and then headings for each unit. Then as I notice or think of things while teaching, I add them to my notes. These are things I want to change or redo or add to- not really things like grammar or spelling because I try to fix those asap. Since this is the first time I've done this (duh) my plan is to use that this summer to actually be productive in a specific way. And maybe for the first time, not reinvent the wheel. And if I can't get right to the Excel file, I just type it in my email so I remember to do it later.

If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you've probably noticed that I LOVE SORTING. What I've finally realized this year is that when you notice students struggling with something, especially something that seems simple to you, a need has just been created for a sort. One example for me has to do with functions. Students could not seem to tell the difference between f(10) and f(x) = 10, knowing when to plug in and knowing when to solve. Just like that, I knew that next year I needed a sort to keep this confusion from happening. And I just add that to my cute little Excel file.

Consider yourself tipped off.

"What three words come to mind when you think of school math?"

This post is a duplicate of a post I made to my classroom blog.

In a survey at the beginning of the year, I asked my 125 Math 6 students to tell me what three words came to mind when they thought of school math. Almost everyone answered, and this Wordle, which I also shared at Back to School Night, shows all the words that were listed by two or more people. The larger a word, the more students listed it. (The colors are random.)

To my teacher mind, some of these words describe associations I'm pleased to see incoming sixth graders having with math, some are merely neutral or factual, and some are associations I hope will change. I'd class them like this (listing the words in each category in order of frequency):

Positive (8): fun, challenging, interesting, learning, challenge, exciting, yay, smart
Neutral/Unclear (22): hard, multiplication, numbers, difficult, homework, easy, complicated, addition, subtraction, division, fractions, shapes, adding, equations, algebra, practice, math, complex, school, long, work, ok
Negative (9): boring, confusing, ugh, scary, irritating, annoying, weird, meh, stressful

I think it's great for students to find math challenging, as long as they're not discouraged, so I put "challenging" and "challenge" into the positive category. But I'm actually uncertain whether to classify "hard" and "difficult" as neutral or negative. Hard work can be intensely satisfying and can lead to great learning, but when "hard" is one of the three primary associations eleven- and twelve-year-olds have with math, well, I worry that they're feeling overwhelmed. At the other extreme, "easy" can be OK if it is a word used by a happy and confident student, but it might also be contributing to why "boring" appears so many times, so it reminds me I need to provide challenges in math class for all kids.

By the end of the year, I'm hoping "fun" and "challenging" replace both "hard" and "easy," and that the rest of the negative words are wiped out!

As for the students' description of the subject matter of math, arithmetic looms large, which is not unexpected for students coming out of elementary school. I do find it interesting that many mathematicians describe math as the study of patterns, yet not one student listed that word, even though they've undoubtedly looked many times at patterns in math class. Could it be that they believe "real" math is the symbols and arithmetic, not the patterns and relationships? If so, I'd like to change that so their view of math is more expansive.

Finally, I would love to see the word USEFUL showing up by the end of the year. Middle school math is arguably the most useful math students learn, but I hope they will realize how powerful it is now, not just later in life.

Back to School Night

Aaaaaaand, it's a wrap.

Back to school night felt much more chill this year than it has in recent memory. Probably because I talked a lot less and tried to run it more similarly to how I run class with students. We started with a brief intro of me because parents are really curious about that stuff, but then jumped right into a problem I've liked for a long time.



I asked parents to make a guess. Crickets. I made a guess, and that helped break the ice. Once the gridded rectangles and scissors came out, parents got into it. They were finding volumes, realizing that the cut corner had to be removed from both sides, looking for patterns, talking to each other, asking if the corner length had to be an integer, and in general, being great students. When we discussed the need to be convincing, it made sense that a general rule could help with that.

Dum, dum, dum... enter desmos:



We talked about different approaches to this problem and why it makes sense to talk, collaborate, and learn from each other in math class. I used the problem as a way to describe my most common structure for class (problem posing --> intuition --> strategies, collaboration, checking for reasonability, changing ideas --> class consensus --> formalization, showing other approaches --> application to new problem space) and made the pitch that learning that happens in this order is far superior to just skipping straight ahead to the formalization step before anyone's hands have gotten dirty, both in terms of engagement and in the depth and quality of learning that's going to take place.

We talked a bit about content and the sequence of math courses at the school since it's a weird one.

And finally, my favorite slide: what I need from parents (inspired by @fawnpnguyen's back to school night slides, available here)


I'm not sure if this what parents wanted or expected, but it was fun for me! Wish there was a way to get quick feedback from my audience, but formative assessment is severely lacking in the back to school night business. It certainly beats going through a list of content objectives and the grading policy (ahem, what I used to do).

First two weeks of school

It's been a really fun first two weeks of the school year. Yes, exhausting as well, but super exhilarating and exciting too. This year, I started the year a bit differently, focusing more on how I wanted students to work together and think mathematically than on specific content. Because it was the first year I was doing this, I could do the exact same problems with all of my classes. Here's how it went:

Day 1:

• Students came in and saw a seating chart with randomly assigned groups of 3 or 4 and were directed to one of the vertical whiteboards. I wanted to establish this as the norm from the get go.
• Students filled out Google form describing a class in the past they've enjoyed, a class they have not enjoyed, questions that they have about this class, and questions that they have about me. I used the last two prompts as ways to discuss my expectations and structure for the class and to start building some personal relationships.
• Students worked individually for a few minutes and then discussed this problem, which I stole from IMP Year 2. Our first unit will be Statistics for all classes so I thought it would be good to do a fun, but challenging problems, that related to probabilities and ways of counting events.
• Homework was to fill out a Google form asking them about themselves and to keep working on the problem above.

Day 2:

• Students were grouped randomly anew and shared their work on the Tying the Knots problem. We spent the last half of class with group presentations sharing out their progress and practicing how to present and interact with presenters.
• Homework was to write a reflection on themselves as a learner and to start writing up the process and solution for the Tying the Knots problem (I used the Problem of the Week standard categories).

Day 3:

• New random groups, and I used one of @sophgermain's activities for helping students get to know each other. Nothing huge, kids just shared one thing they did over the weekend with their group.
• New problem! This one was incredibly fun. I originally thought that we would take it into proof by induction, but after input from @woutgeo and @hpicciotto decided to stick with a more intuitive visualization of the sequence.
• I basically let students work in their groups without too much guidance from me. Most realized it gave the Fibonacci sequence pretty quickly, but were not able to explain why. Many tried to develop a closed form rule, without much success (surprise, that's actually pretty hard to do). Most groups started trying the extensions, but didn't get super far. I stopped the class a few times and asked various students to explain their group's work. One of my classes this year doesn't have as many whiteboards as I'm used to having, but our desks can be written on so I'm going with that for now.
• Homework was a reflection on their process and feelings when working on these problems and presenting/watching presentations.

Day 4:

• New groups and I answered some more questions about the class and about me. I continued to have them share out a few personal tidbits in their groups as they are still very much getting to know each other (especially the freshmen). Today's questions were about favorite ice cream flavors and favorite movie.
• This was a slightly more structured day. I pushed students to be able to explain why the pattern that was produced matched the Fibonacci sequence. It was helpful to project pictures of their written work and explanations and use that to get more precise and tight in our language. I felt okay adding on to their explanations as needed since there were more extensions to explore (2 by 2 by n case and 3 by n case).
• Homework was to work on the two extensions and to start an integrated review problem set.

Students' work on explaining the derivation of the recursive formula

Some work from the first day on developing a closed form. I was not sure as to whether I should discourage students from going in this direction as finding the closed form rule is extremely challenging. 

More fun student work at the beginning of the exploration.

P.S. @daveinstpaul shared a great follow-up programming project in which students need to write a program to generate all of the possible ways to tile a 2 by n rectangle and then extend it to an m by n rectangle. I'm going to check in with one of the programming teachers tomorrow to see if this might make sense as a posible extension in her class.

P.P.S. A new teacher who I think is going to be amazing visited my class today and I got completely turned around in what I was saying and did not do a great job of moderating the discussion. It's been too long since anyone has observed me, and I just didn't feel comfortable with the kids yet to laugh it off so awkwardness ensued. Bah. We need to be visiting each other's classrooms much more frequently.

Rethinking Grading: Ch. 5

Chapter 5: How to Reform Grading: Making Change Happen
Cathy Vatterott

Changes need not be grandiose to have a huge effect on student learning or to improve the accuracy and validity of student grades.

We must decide what we believe about the purpose of grading.

If they believe the purpose of grading is to accurately reflect achievement, then it becomes inconsistent to punish behaviors such as cheating, tardiness, or attendance with grades.

If an individual teacher believes the purpose of grading is to reflect academic achievement only, they could begin by removing nonacademic behaviors from the grade, by no longer grading practice work, and by giving more ungraded formative feedback.

When we agree on purpose, methods follow purpose.

Lesson learned:
One. Start small.
Two. Let it grow.
"Teachers need time to grieve the loss of what they thought was right."
Three. Include all stakeholders.
Four. Create a belief statement or guiding principles.
five. Have a comprehensive communication plan.
Six. Make students and teachers your allies.

When implementation is top-down with no teacher by-in, there's often a limited understanding of the changes and no commitment to the mission. Teachers notoriously find ways around policies they had nothing to do with creating.

Rethinking Grading: Ch. 4

Chapter 4: What, How, and When to Grade
Cathy Vatterott

Pre-tests set the stage, shave instruction for all, and guide individual learning. After the pre--testing process, formative assessment provides feedback to students while they are still learning; summative assessment shows the level of mastery at the end of the learning cycle.

Most teachers of you and formal feedback and formative assessment as two different things. It's easier to think of formative assessment as structured tasks designed by the teacher, results of which may be marked or documented in some fashion, so students and parents can have a record of the students progress toward the learning targets.

Feedback is a two-way recurring conversation between teacher and student.

For teachers to be able to give feedback to students, it is necessary to limit direct instruction enter create activity-based lessons.

All feedback does not have to come from the teacher; peer feedback can also be useful.

As we get targeted feedback to individual student and as they are empowered to learn in their own way, the differences in learners become smaller.

If, after repeated attempts, a student or group of students has failed to master a learning target we must take a fearless inventory of our instructional process and ask yourself these questions;
What's their level of learning properly diagnosed with pretesting?
What's the feedback about learning timely specific and helpful?
Did our differentiation move the student or group of students forward?

Using the result of a pre-test, feedback, or formative or summative assessment, teachers can identify patterns in the students work or clusters of student need. Students can then be organized into two or more groups for ungraded group learning the activities at each table are based on the errors that students made on the form of assessment.

In a purely standards-based grading system, only summative assessment counts in the final grade.

Typically formative assessments are evaluated and descriptive feedback is given to the learner, such as with practice tests.

Ungraded practice tests are especially beneficial to learn as they Activate "retrieval learning" and strengthen the connections in the brain.

One technique for practice test is called "find it and fix it." Rather than marking the answers that are incorrect, the teacher notes to the student, "five of these are incorrect; find them and fix them". This requires a student to reengage with the questions and precipitates a lot of learning.

Mastery checks: these assessments are written using three levels: green, yellow, and red. The green level questions are basic skill problems and didn't really require only one or two steps to solve. Yellow level questions require multiple steps and or multiple ideas to solve. The red level questions are generally questions of the students have never seen before, requiring them to go beyond knowledge they have obtained and\or apply the knowledge to a new situation. Students are expected to attend all three levels of questions. Their answers help the teacher to determine the students his level of mastery.

The current consensus is that homework should be formative assessment the checks for understanding or that helps prepare students for summative assessments. Therefore, and I truly standards-based system, homework should not be graded. Standards-based policies usually state that homework will be reviewed and feedback will be given, but not counted in the grade.

The final achievement of learning is more important than the steps it took to get there.

Formative assessment is assessment for learning and occurs when there is still time to improve. Summative assessments are assessment of learning that occur the end of a predetermined learning cycle, after learning has taken place.

How in assessment is used is what determines whether it is formative or summative.

Students who eventually achieve mastery should not be penalized for earlier struggles.

The most recent evidence of learning is the most accurate and grades should be replaced by the most recent evidence.

Student should never be allowed to retest without showing additional evidence that they have mastered the concept that caused him to do poorly on the original assessment.

Remember that our goal is to minimize the number of retakes a student needs to show mastery.

We want to hoops to result in additional learning, not just for students to complete missing work.

Feedback is free help-there is no grade or Mark associated with feedback.

Formative assessments give students multiple opportunities to improve, free from the threat of grades while they are still learning, and summative assessments verify and report their learning progress.

Rethinking Grading: Ch. 3

Chapter 3: What Grading Looks Like in the Standards-Based Classroom
Cathy Vatterott

The standard show us the results that we want students to achieve. We then work backwards from those results to create more specific learning targets. We synthesize or unpack the standards into learning targets, usually written as "I can" or "We can" statements.

But when we organize individual targets into lesson-sized tasks, keeps them separately, and assess them separately, students may fail to see the relevance and connection. A better method is to group targets together so that several targets may be addressed by the same activity.

Self assessment is formative assessment-it should always focus on improving the students progress toward the learning target, not I'm getting a better grade.

Learning is not so much instruction or a lesson to be taught, as an activity to be experienced.

I never heard of a student not doing *his* work; it's *our* work he's not doing.

If we want to encourage students to view mistakes as a necessary step in learning, we need to remove the threat of grading while they are learning.

Grades are not necessary for learning, but feedback is. In fact, feedback has been shown to be one of the most effective strategies to improve learning.

Rethinking Grading: Ch. 2

Chapter 2: Why We Need a New Grading Paradigm
Cathy Vatterott

Treating all students the same resulted in a certain percentage of students who failed.

Instead of teach, test, and MoveOn and one large group, learning is a series of mastery's for individual students-teach, check for understanding, apply learning, get feedback, revise learning, and get more feedback until mastery is achieved.

Unlike the old paradigm of one-shot learning, a feedback loop exist that makes learning dynamic-feedback to the students informed their learning and teachers change instruction as they see what individual students need.

Within the traditional grading paradigm, it's not safe to make mistakes. In a traditional paradigm, failure is a judgment and a validation of her students lack of ability.

Learning is hard and frustrating, but ultimately achievable and satisfying. Mistakes are a natural part of learning and mistakes or something you do, not something you are. Lack of understanding is a puzzle to be solved-not a validation of stupidity.

As grades are used to punish behaviors, they overshadow the grades students receive for learning.

In the traditional grading paradigm, when teachers grade everything, the grade means nothing.

When first attempts, including practice, are graded and went all grades are permanent, students are penalized while they are still learning. Mistakes are permanently recorded and there is no redemption.

If you have a bad week practicing, you don't show up on Friday night with -5 on the scoreboard. The only way to win the game is to get better at the learning.