I tried something that I learned by reading a conversation on Twitter this summer. I would only be guessing at who was having this conversation, so if you read this and it sounds familiar, let me know so I can give you credit. Anyway, the conversation was about tests and retesting.
What I found interesting was the idea of retaking the test as a group the day after they take the test individually. The group has limited time, say 15-20 minutes, to complete the test. I tried this with our first skill quiz in Algebra this year.
My reasons for trying it were to:
1) help students see that they are not the only ones with a question,
2) allow peers to work together and think through the quiz,
3) to give me and opportunity to listen to how students were explaining the math to each other, and
4) to make sure that everyone had a copy of the quiz in their math binders with the problems worked out (some students will never bring back the signed test to put in their binder).
I have two completely different groups. My first group is a higher ability group that doesn't enjoy being quiet and still for more than 10 seconds. This has been a challenging group so far. My other group is quieter, but as a group, they struggle a little more to understand the material. They present a different type of challenge.
I say this because there were two different outcomes for this activity. In my first group, I walked away feeling "meh" about the process. It took a lot of work to get them started and on task, even with regrouping them so that students that did well were placed with students who didn't. They were also more argumentative with each other in a nonproductive way. I struggled to convince them of the value of their work. We will try this again on another quiz/test, but I am thinking to take it another way. I am thinking of making it an error analysis activity and using mistakes that students actually made on the test.
My second group had a totally different experience. They got right to work, helped each other, and talked about the questions. I heard thinks like "I thought you had to..." and "But why wouldn't you..." while they were working with each other. This was completely beneficial for them. I also was able to answer questions that stumped the entire group, which made for a great dialog between the students and I. I felt like this group walked away with understanding of what they did wrong and what still needed more practice. It was a good use of time and we will try it again in the same way.
In sharing this technique, others thought that I should do this before the quiz/test. I don't think that it is a bad idea by any means, however I have two concerns. My first concern is that the only way that they will review for the test, will be the group test. I want them to know how to study for math without me giving them questions. The second concern that I have is that the questions are standards based and more open ended. I am a novice at writing questions this way and am just not confident I can write three or four questions that I really like, so I can do a practice test, test, and re-test. I'm not ruling it out, but I'm just not ready to go there, yet.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Friday, August 29, 2014
Some Thanks...
The teacher workshops are completed, the room is set up, and the lessons are written. It has been a long and exhausting week, but for the first time in a long time, I am feeling calm going into the school year.
This sense of calm comes from so many people who probably don't even know that they have helped me over the summer tie some loose ends together, rethink how and why I do things, and help me realize that all of us have the same issues in the classroom. Everyone has the student who won't stop talking. It's not just me. Through the stories that they have shared, I have begun to feel that I'm not alone when I feel like I am swimming upstream. So I want to take a moment as my school year begins to thank some of them.
First of all, I want to thank those who inspired my classroom bulletin boards this year. Thank you for inspiration when I had none.
My favorite is the Star Wars themed growth mindset posters from Paul's (@TeacherPaulP) blog TeacherPaulP which I combined with Sarah's (@mathequalslove) idea, from her blog Math=Love, to put up sayings from a fixed and growth mindset. I added Darth Vader and Yoda to the mindset phrases to keep the theme. I will enjoy saying "Use the Force" this year when I hear fixed mindset statements.
Next, I have to thank, Sarah (@msrubinteach) from Everyone's a Genius for the idea to do the loop-da-loop for how you learn a skill. Looking forward to using it to remind students that learning is a process.
Finally, Pam's (@pamjwilson) blog, the radical rational, had an awesome bulletin board for displaying sentence starters that I totally just did my best to recreate. I am hoping that this will be well used by my students!
Besides all of the help with decorating, I need to also give some thanks to The Global Math Department for the truly awesome professional development that I attended this summer. If you haven't attended a Global Math Department webinar yet, please try one. It's free and that is every teacher's favorite word!
MTBoS and everyone I met and worked with at Twitter Math Camp are awesome. I am excited to become more and more involved with the both groups. It is amazing how technology in general has made it possible to sit on my couch and talk to teachers all across the country. I feel like I dated myself with that statement, but it's so true!
And speaking of sitting on my couch, I want to thank those who monitor the chats on Twitter. I like to lurk during #msmathchat and Justin (@JustinAion) and Adrienne (@shlagteach) do an awesome job. I know there are other groups and other monitors, but I haven't explored all of them yet!
Thank you to everyone for your inspiration and willingness to share what you do!
This sense of calm comes from so many people who probably don't even know that they have helped me over the summer tie some loose ends together, rethink how and why I do things, and help me realize that all of us have the same issues in the classroom. Everyone has the student who won't stop talking. It's not just me. Through the stories that they have shared, I have begun to feel that I'm not alone when I feel like I am swimming upstream. So I want to take a moment as my school year begins to thank some of them.
First of all, I want to thank those who inspired my classroom bulletin boards this year. Thank you for inspiration when I had none.
My favorite is the Star Wars themed growth mindset posters from Paul's (@TeacherPaulP) blog TeacherPaulP which I combined with Sarah's (@mathequalslove) idea, from her blog Math=Love, to put up sayings from a fixed and growth mindset. I added Darth Vader and Yoda to the mindset phrases to keep the theme. I will enjoy saying "Use the Force" this year when I hear fixed mindset statements.
Next, I have to thank, Sarah (@msrubinteach) from Everyone's a Genius for the idea to do the loop-da-loop for how you learn a skill. Looking forward to using it to remind students that learning is a process.
Finally, Pam's (@pamjwilson) blog, the radical rational, had an awesome bulletin board for displaying sentence starters that I totally just did my best to recreate. I am hoping that this will be well used by my students!
Besides all of the help with decorating, I need to also give some thanks to The Global Math Department for the truly awesome professional development that I attended this summer. If you haven't attended a Global Math Department webinar yet, please try one. It's free and that is every teacher's favorite word!
MTBoS and everyone I met and worked with at Twitter Math Camp are awesome. I am excited to become more and more involved with the both groups. It is amazing how technology in general has made it possible to sit on my couch and talk to teachers all across the country. I feel like I dated myself with that statement, but it's so true!
And speaking of sitting on my couch, I want to thank those who monitor the chats on Twitter. I like to lurk during #msmathchat and Justin (@JustinAion) and Adrienne (@shlagteach) do an awesome job. I know there are other groups and other monitors, but I haven't explored all of them yet!
Thank you to everyone for your inspiration and willingness to share what you do!
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Behavior Expectations: My Only Summer Craft :(
I have been feeling like a grinch because I have had little enthusiasm to decorate my room. I want it to look pretty, but really wish my fairy godmother of the classroom would come and wave a magic wand. Then my room would be the prettiest in the land. OK, enough wishful thinking.I wanted to frame my expectations (ok, not really mine; borrowed from another school I used to teach at a few years back) and put them on the wall. I went to my local craft store, but the $1 frames were to small and the others too expensive. I thought about misscalcul8's blog and this picture. I thought that I could get some scrapbook paper and laminate it. I had found cute clothes pins at the craft store, so it seemed simple enough.
Well, half way through picking out scrapbook paper, I decided that I wanted something sturdier. I went back to get some foam board and found packages of 8"x10" foam board. Problem solved! I bought the foam board and the scrapbook paper and headed home to make something pretty for my classroom.
This is what I created. Scrapbook paper and foam board are now my new best friends. I am very excited and think that they will look great in the classroom. Plus, they will be a visual reminder to the students.
If you want to know more about the behavior expectations, here is a link to the parent handbook from my previous employer. I don't use them exactly the way they are prescribed in this handbook.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Goals for 2014-2015 Academic Year
I go back to work on Monday for teacher workshops and getting the classroom ready for the new school year. I have been lacking motivation to go and spruce up my room this year and I know that I will have a lot of work. Fortunately, I did not have to take everything down off of my walls and bulletin boards. So, it is more about trying to make the room look fresh for the new school year and I have plenty of ideas to make the freshness happen.
Each year that I have worked with my principal, he has asked for the staff to write their personal goals for the academic year. I have been working on what mine will be. I've narrowed it down to theses three:
1) Blended Classroom:
At the end of last year, I felt that the goal for next year was going to be flipping the classroom. That is still a goal, but it will be much more of a blended classroom than I originally thought it would be. There are a lot of reasons for this.
The biggest factor to sway me is that I am going to "unit-fy" the Saxon Algebra I book. I found that as I "unit-fy" the text, there were places that I could actually give myself time back. I especially found that there were lots of places to make a foldable that contained ideas from several lessons from the text.
I will still make tutorial videos for students throughout the year. I will also assign some of them. I am just not quite ready to be fully flipped. Maybe that will change as the year progresses.
2) Standards Based Grading:
I want to make strides to do this better this year. I have spent a lot of time matching units, lessons, and standards and melding them together to hopefully be cohesive. I have developed a self tracking sheet for students to keep in their INB this year. I started units in Jumprope (it's a free on-line SBG grade book). Still playing with the grade book and will see how it works. I like the reports that it will make for me. I think it will help parents transition into SBG. I am also in the process of making syllabi for each unit. All of this has meant less time for making foldables and putting together INBs.
However, none of this will work well unless I am more diligent about getting the corrected work back to the students. Feedback is an area I have struggled with my entire career. I need to improve and by focusing on making standards based grading work, feedback has to be timely.
3) Less Time Explaining; More Time Doing:
My last goal ties into the blended classroom. I want to spend more time doing math and talking about math. I have already gotten a subscription to Mathalicious and I want to subscribe to Yummy Math. Both sites have lots of interesting problems, are real life based, and are very, very reasonable for the teacher budget. Especially, if you are like me and will be paying out of pocket to access them.
I want the students to do more thinking which means I really need to keep the classroom focused on collaboration. I am hoping that the problems I find on both of these sites (and others sites I find throughout the year) will help me to foster that collaborative feeling. Time will tell. Plus, I can plan all I want, but until I have students in my room trying to do these activities, I won't know.
Well, those are my three goal. I think that is enough. I also feel like I will be able to measure them by the end of the school year. Success is hopefully in my future!
Each year that I have worked with my principal, he has asked for the staff to write their personal goals for the academic year. I have been working on what mine will be. I've narrowed it down to theses three:
1) Blended Classroom:
At the end of last year, I felt that the goal for next year was going to be flipping the classroom. That is still a goal, but it will be much more of a blended classroom than I originally thought it would be. There are a lot of reasons for this.
The biggest factor to sway me is that I am going to "unit-fy" the Saxon Algebra I book. I found that as I "unit-fy" the text, there were places that I could actually give myself time back. I especially found that there were lots of places to make a foldable that contained ideas from several lessons from the text.
I will still make tutorial videos for students throughout the year. I will also assign some of them. I am just not quite ready to be fully flipped. Maybe that will change as the year progresses.
2) Standards Based Grading:
I want to make strides to do this better this year. I have spent a lot of time matching units, lessons, and standards and melding them together to hopefully be cohesive. I have developed a self tracking sheet for students to keep in their INB this year. I started units in Jumprope (it's a free on-line SBG grade book). Still playing with the grade book and will see how it works. I like the reports that it will make for me. I think it will help parents transition into SBG. I am also in the process of making syllabi for each unit. All of this has meant less time for making foldables and putting together INBs.
However, none of this will work well unless I am more diligent about getting the corrected work back to the students. Feedback is an area I have struggled with my entire career. I need to improve and by focusing on making standards based grading work, feedback has to be timely.
3) Less Time Explaining; More Time Doing:
My last goal ties into the blended classroom. I want to spend more time doing math and talking about math. I have already gotten a subscription to Mathalicious and I want to subscribe to Yummy Math. Both sites have lots of interesting problems, are real life based, and are very, very reasonable for the teacher budget. Especially, if you are like me and will be paying out of pocket to access them.
I want the students to do more thinking which means I really need to keep the classroom focused on collaboration. I am hoping that the problems I find on both of these sites (and others sites I find throughout the year) will help me to foster that collaborative feeling. Time will tell. Plus, I can plan all I want, but until I have students in my room trying to do these activities, I won't know.
Well, those are my three goal. I think that is enough. I also feel like I will be able to measure them by the end of the school year. Success is hopefully in my future!
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