Co-teaching and the start of semester 2

Welp, it's been a month or so since we've been in the full swing of things, and "intense" would be the understatement of the year. As a department, we rolled out a co-teaching model for almost all of the core Math courses this semester, which has created many new opportunities and also, challenges. Here's a quick summary of how we're approaching co-teaching, pros, cons, and next steps/thoughts/questions.

Summary of approach:
The core Math courses we offer follow a Math 1 --> Math 2 --> Math 3 sequence, after which many students will take Calculus (as a new school, we have not yet firmed up all the elective options we would like to eventually offer students concurrently or after the core sequence, but that's a whole other blog post). The way that co-teaching is working this semester is that two classes of the same level are scheduled at the same time in two rooms that have a divider down the middle that can be lowered or raised. There are about 26 - 36 students in each co-taught class with two Math teachers. Each of the rooms has a projector and an Apple TV so that a single computer can project to both classrooms, if desired.

The two or three teachers who teach the same prep meet during a joint planning period for two long blocks and one short block each week. Most of us have two preps, so are attending multiple co-teaching meetings. We also try to carve out a few hours once a month or so for all of the co-teaching teachers to meet and discuss how co-teaching is going overall.

Pros:
Many more grouping options are now possible than were available in a traditional classroom setting. We have had some success with differentiated groupings based on support level needed (either student-selected or teacher-assigned) and would like to explore other groupings (theoretical vs. applied, review vs. extension, project topic selected, or just interest in a topic... for example, we recently had a class where students could either be audience members for fellow students presenting on their projects or help generate a proof for an earlier topic we hadn't had time to delve into in depth). We like the idea that students can potentially learn in different ways from different teachers and have more options for who to see outside of class for help as well as choice in their groupings. Peer-peer interactions can also be more rich when there are more options of students with whom to interact and there can be a cohort rather than one or two students with a particular need. Curricula are also much more aligned than they were when classes were taught individually since we're planning so much together.

Cons:
Mainly, the cons are in figuring out how to make the best use of all of the new choices available to us and time to do all of this well. All of the pros above in terms of coordinated planning and differentiated groupings can only be realized with very thoughtful and intentional implementation, which translates into lots of time together... time discussing content/process goals, creating lesson plans, reflecting on those plans, thinking about what work various students did that day and how they received feedback on that work, and how all of these things will inform the next day/week/month.

Next steps/thoughts/questions:

There are so many things left to work out. A big one are the different responsibilities that co-teachers now have and that need to be partitioned: Who will do what during class? Who will take the lead on a particular lesson or do all lessons need to be jointly planned? Who will be responsible for giving feedback to which students and then communicating to the other teacher those student needs and what has been done so far? Who will help to make sure that the administrative stuff necessary for running a class is being done? How will we reflect on co-teaching as a practice systematically in order to learn from this semester and make it better for next year? How will co-teachers interact with each other during class, communicate about changes to the lesson plan, or give each other feedback about the lesson/teaching? And where is all of this time going to magically come from?

One area of huge support has been the hiring of an assistant teacher into our program a few weeks ago. She has already made a huge difference in the level of overwhelmingness we were feeling initially and has been instrumental in being an extra pair of eyes in the classroom, both for student learning and feedback on the lesson, as well as in helping with some of the grading and administrative work. I now understand why co-teaching often involves removing a prep or class from each teacher involved - there is so much more to do now. Trying to do it in addition to full loads for both co-teachers was perhaps a bit rash, and we're so glad to have the extra help now.

Next steps are to make progress in answering some of the questions above, as well as in continuing to play with the various possible groupings to try to harness more of co-teaching's power. It will also be important to get more student input into the process - how do they see this improving their learning and what ideas do they have for creative/new ways of organizing a classroom?

I would love any feedback, suggestions of literature that might be helpful for us, or questions!

Interactive Notebook Tips

If you're new to INBs, check out my posts here here and here to get started and see my obsession.

If you're not new to INBs, I hope you can still find {or suggest} something useful.

• Text Boxes: I create all my INB pages in Microsoft Word. I start by making the orientation landscape, narrow margins, and one page view. Then I insert a text box and change the size to 8.2 by 5.2. Then I copy the text box so that I now have two text boxes. Then I click Print so I can see the preview and make sure the edges of the box aren't cut off. Now I make all of my content fit inside those two text boxes. Before printing, I remove the outline of the box 
• {so it doesn't get messed up when copying}. When students get the page, they cut in half and tape into the LHP and RHP of their notebooks.
  
  
  
• Tell Them Where To Tape: If you're doing a foldable or even just a paper folded in half and taped in, I find that literally telling students where to fold and tape keeps them from accidentally cutting it in half. I've also learned to not put those directions in a thick/bold font because it will show through. =) And if you don't already know this, my copier makes me turn the second page upside down when I copy front to back so that it folds correctly.
  
  
  
  
• Print Two Sheets Per Page: If you find a nice worksheet or activity with lots of parts, sometimes it is easier to print two sheets to a page than to try to recreate it in a way that fits two to a page on your own. This option is at the bottom of the print options.
  
  
  
  
  
• Make Your Own Sample Notebook: This is something I get behind on all the time but it is so valuable. When you have your own notebook ready to go, it works great to walk around the class and model to students. Also, if students are absent, when they return you can just hand them your notebook to get caught up on their own. I don't advise making your pages more than 1 or 2 lessons ahead of time because you never know what might come up or change. I like to use pretty prints that I can easily tell apart and I use a different color pen for each as well.
  
  
  
  
  
• Make A Sample to Demo: While it's important to have your example already finished for students to see, for more complicated pieces you might need a live demonstration. For example, I recently posted about my function notation slider INB page. I had mine finished but I also made an extra so I could stand in front of them and show them how to bend the slider and cut slits in it without destroying the whole thing. You can never be too clear with your directions.
  
• Extra Copies: This goes for anything being handed to students but always make extra copies! Especially if it's a complex foldable. You hate to go all the work of creating and copying it just for a student to cut it the wrong way {which will happen} and then you have no extras.
  
• Color: Most of my INB pages are not fancy foldables or super cool sliders. They are just notes with directions and examples. One way to add some dimension is to have students highlight, circle, or underline important things. Anytime we graph we use markers, especially when graphing more than one item. Color With Purpose as some call it is a great way to emphasize differences or similarities or connections. For example, when graphing absolute value equations, we first found the vertex, made a table, then graphed. So we highlighted the vertex we found algebraically, the vertex in the table, and the vertex of the actual graph. Also, anything to do with inequalities or shading we always use colored pencils. Color coordinating is love.

Google Apps Training

I went to a decent one day training for Google Apps and I thought I would share my notes here. They are mostly tips and tricks that I think are clear enough to understand.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

My biggest let down was when the Fazoli's catering boxes for lunch held subs instead of pasta. =( Why does everyone think subs are the best idea ever for PD lunches? At least they didn't serve my most hated side dish...plain potato chips.

Gmail → bottom right corner ‘Details’ → sign out from all other places with one button

Gmail →Gear → Labs → experimental cool stuff like right side chat, may break or disappear

Google Docs → Tools → Research → Search the Internet in a box on the right → Drag and drop pictures into a document and it automatically cites the sub text at the bottom → Filter image results to see what images are free to use

Flubaroo lets you save grades and answer keys straight to student’s Drives. It’s also incorporated into Google Classroom.

Pictures in email → add to drive next to the download button → click organize to change folder

www.google.com → Settings (bottom right corner) → Advanced Search → teaches the ‘codes’ for advanced searches → minus sign to include

Search e-mail with operators → from: to: subject: AND OR - *

Search operators https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en
(you can even search hashtags)

Advanced Image Search → search by image size (big images shrunk down take up the original amount of data) → search by color (to match themes, pick transparent so you don’t get the white box around it) → search by type (clip art, animated, etc)

Chrome Web Store → Google Tone → Add Extension → broadcast URL to other computers around it with Google Tone, microphone, and sound enabled

Chrome Web Store → Share to Classroom → In Google Classroom, you can push a URL to your class that forces them to that age

Chrome Web Store → Alice Keeler Classroom Split → split screen in classroom so students can see directions and work at the same time

In Google Doc → Add-ons → Get add-ons → Orange Slice → imports rubrics for automatic grading, processes the score and highlights the categories in the rubric

Insert → Comments → pops up on the side → have to give permission to comment

Revision history → go back to earlier changes

Names/pictures show in google docs in the top right. Clicking on it takes you exactly where they are typing.

Administrators can set extensions to be assigned to each user name or to each device.

Idea- limit to registration pages only on a few chromebooks in the office

Go to calendar → Create new → Block off specific block → Change to appointment slots → Specify the time → Share to students to sign up for specific time slots

Snag It → steals image, selected area, entire page, scrolling, video with voice, annotate pictures with text and shapes, grab link to it, or download picture

Screencastify → recording the screen or just one tab

Your google account is a youtube channel → Video on your phone and upload to youtube

Flubaroo →  to allow for more than one correct answer to a fill-in question? Just put %or between correct answers when filling out your answer key

https://www.youtube.com/editor Slow motion, filters, add audio, stabilize

https://www.youtube.com/cards Video Manager → Videos → Edit (enhancements, annotations, cards, no comments)

viewpure.com → paste youtube link and it strips out clutter and pop-ups

youtubetime.com → Paste in URL link and choose a start time → Gives link to video clip

Slide Deck link https://goo.gl/hvghiy

Unit Circle Art II

It's that time of year again for my unit circle project first. See last year's post here.

My requirements are that it can't be made out of paper and has to contain radians, degrees, and ordered pairs.

See my previously linked post for the rubric I used.

Function Notation Slider

I pinned a great idea for function notation and then found out it's from someone I actually know {I love when that happens}. Download the files and read Kathryn's original post here.

I'm basically posting about this for my blog readers who are not part of the MTBoS because I love it so much. The blue part is on card stock and the green part is just copy paper. A student told me I should have used card stock for that too.Next year!

We taped the green piece down on the empty squares with dotted lines. When I asked students what they thought those empty boxes were for one of them said "For us to make up our own numbers!" which is a great idea. The blue box slides while the green part stays attached. I almost made them glue it down before I realized then it wouldn't slide at all. Oops!

I also really liked the definition of a function that I found online: "f(x)" means "plug in a value for x into a function f". I also like to emphasize that f(x) is a label, a way to name an equation, and that we never do math with it.

Short and sweet!

Unit Circle Table

I was searching our MTBoS database for unit circle ideas when I found this post by Henri Piciotto called The Human Unit Circle. A teacher makes cards, takes students outside, and they form a human unit circle and then the sine and cosine curve.

Mine is not as kinesthetic but still kind of cool.

First I printed the cards on blue and green card stock {in keeping with the theme of my room of course}, cut, and laminated.



Then I thought about how I could create a perfect circle when I noticed the perfect prop- my circle table.

I used washi tape {love!} and Sharpies and ta-da:

I have 8 Trig students so we worked quadrant by quadrant. I passed out the cards and ask students to decide if they were cosine or sine of our 'special angles' and then pair up. 

Next I asked them to go to the table and put their cards in the correct place. We finished all four quadrants and then they brought up patterns they noticed right away.

"The numbers for 30 and 60 are just flipped."

"The numbers on the same color of tape are the same except for negatives."

"The numbers for all the 45's are the same except for negatives."

Finally they took their INBs to the table and copied down the numbers, going back after that to fill in the radians and degrees for each angle.

Better than me just putting it on the board.

Magnetic Proof Pieces

One simple thing I've done this year in teaching congruent triangle proofs is I printed and laminated some of the most common reasons found and attached magnets to them.

I also drew up three common "facts" that we look for when the information in the given is not enough.

This has been great for students to refer to while they are writing proofs. On one section I was able to tell them that every reason came from one of those pieces and that helped students complete proofs instead of leaving some parts blank.

 I still don't know why they want to really throw out 'definition of midpoint' when the given says 'bisect' but you can't fix everything!