Breaking my silence: Where I am today

The title probably makes it sound like I'm going to talk about some controversial topic that I've just been holding back on for beyond my limits. Maybe it would have been a good title to boost my statistics had I actually be making any money on these posts. Where it is actually coming from is, for the past year I've spent a lot of my time keeping closer with the students in my classroom, my family and in collaborating with the teachers in my building. I became a little turned off from the self-promotion and "making a name for myself" attitude that I was seeing more of in the edu sphere and creeping up in myself as well.
I had a chance to catch up with a good friend last night on the phone that also happens to be in education. Talking with him some about this he reminded me that it is still important to share our experiences with other teachers for the sake of the kids and improving our schools for them. So that being said, even after 12 years of teaching, I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing but will share a new post on where I am today and the journey that I hope is ahead for my classroom.
I'd like to believe that my classroom is centered more this year and last on conversations between students 70% of the time each day. That as often as I can I'm providing activities that first help them to explore and build their understanding that at some point tip toward developing efficient and meaningful math skills development and solid mathematical thinking. I am thankful for the continual improvement of resources like Desmos' Function Carnival in having some engaging ways of doing that in a way that is fun for kids. I also like the idea that it isn't just the typical edtech garbage--that there are good math people I know under the hood developing it in a thoughtful way.
This year in my professional reflection process I'm desiring to make a better connection to activities like this and what we are learning rather than just having isolated fun, engaging things that don't really move my students to a better understanding of the other class stuff we do.
Today we are unpacking what we did yesterday through function carnival and my hope in this activity was to lead kids to develop the skills necessary for future success based on what they explored yesterday.  This lesson started with students thinking individually, sharing with their partner and then having a large class discussion for the first 10 minutes of class and then partners moving forward at their own pace, discussing and writing their responses. I was free to talk with groups as the need came up and pulled us together as a group as it seemed necessary.
I think this is an area that we need to get better at as teachers--myself included. Yes, still trying to incorporate explorations and investigations but then getting better at connecting those activities to learning and use of those skills learned in future learning opportunities. Maybe in sites like Function Carnival there could be a teacher lesson pool that we could start sharing ways of getting to that with students?

Teacher awards

I ordered some frames online this summer thinking that maybe I'd get around to framing some teacher recognition certificates I had received over the past few years to give myself some credibility on open house night--perhaps to avoid some of the 'you don't look old enough to have been teaching that long' comments.
After placing my frame order I continued to clean out my desk and found some handwritten thank you cards from students. It occurred to me that these are more of an award than the certificates I had intended to frame. It's easy as teachers to lead others to believe what happens in our classrooms (especially if they have never set foot in it) with our words and the image we make for ourselves but you can't fool the kids.
I guess those certificates will have to wait a little longer to see the light of day. I will be displaying the cards in my classroom this year.
Have a great new start to the year everyone!

Parent letter update

Here is an update I sent to parents on our current class structure and the changes they may be seeing since the start of the year. 

It's far from the perfect plan but it is my reality right now based on some adjustments and continual reflection of what I'm teaching students (intentionally and unintentionally in class).

Parents (and students),

I wanted to update you on some changes you may have seen in the way students are working through each unit. I have tried to make our learning more focused on the big ideas for Geometry. Instead of textbook assignments, students are completing 'learning target packets' when we get to the point where they are ready for practice. The textbook can still be used to look over examples and get extra practice problems.
Our learning cycle now consists of:1. An introductory activity or investigation in class. We do this so students have some context to rely on when we get to more difficult problems within the learning target. A more hands-on approach makes the Geometry more real and interesting for all of us.2. Video lessons. Different than in the past, I don't assign videos to be watched until I feel students have been exposed to enough of an understanding in our class period. This allows them to have the context they need to be able to understand what they will see instead of introducing new ideas through the video.3. Additional practice or activities in class. We have used this time to do some more indepth problem solving, additional practice, work time for those who are ready and small group work for students identified through our warm-up question that still need some extra help. These days are often labeled as our work days and students receive instruction closely matched to their current level of understanding. Students also have the option of completing extension projects for each unit. If done well, the extension can be a way for a student to earn an A for the unit independent of their test scores.

Classwork, retakes and gradesStudents are given the solutions to their practice problems, either online or in a classroom binder. I do not collect the homework but students are to check their own problems and ask questions if they do not understand after seeing the worked out solution. The learning target practice is not entered into the gradebook. I was finding I was spending far too much time recording practice problems that weren't for grade and not enough time preparing meaningful learning activities for our time together in class.Online you will see a simplified gradebook for math. The only grades that will appear are quizzes and tests. If a student is missing a quiz or test they will be zapped, I will no longer be zapping for tests that should be retaken. (Any quiz score below 80% should really be retaken after additional learning and demonstration has been made of their understanding to me.)If a student needs to retake a test they need to:1) Complete a 'ticket to retake' worksheet, 2) rewatch the videos, 3) correct their missed test questions and 4) show me their notes they've taken from the videos.The grade at the end of trimester 2 will be the first grade used on the high school transcript. If you wish to have that grade be changed to a P that is an option now available and you can let me know. A grade of P will not affect their high school GPA but for college entrance it may be possible that the course should be taken again in high school for a letter grade to be present on the transcript.This got to be a long update but hopefully it helps in knowing what is taking place in class. Thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any questions.Sincerely,Andy Schwen

Making adjustments and seeing benefits

I have always wrestled in my classroom with doing what is best for kids and learning. Opinion or experimenting sometimes win my favor but in the back of my mind I'm always thinking about what research says is best. That being said I've made some changes in my classroom lately that I think (both by opinion and research) are benefitting my students.

Begin with inquiry where students construct or discover much of what they are learning

In the (recent) past the videos were used to introduce new material and the idea was that we'd go beyond that material when students came to class. The trouble came with when students either didn't watch the videos or worse yet didn't understand them. By introducing the material through video I was also bypassing the opportunity for students to construct their own understanding through inquiry and make meaningful connections.

As a geometry teacher I want my students to understand the hinge theorem because they construct some triangles on paper rather than because they wrote something down what I said in a video--that won't make sense to them and they won't be able to apply it in new situations if they don't understand it.
I'm not throwing out videos, I'm changing the role they play in the learning cycle based on Ramsey Musallam's Explore-Flip-Apply method. Students first explore the concept in our classroom community, after our explore activities are complete they then view video (flip) later on to anchor what they are developing in understanding based on the investigation and then students apply the learned ideas to new situations. This has helped in focusing our class time and giving more meaning for us to scaffold our learning on.

Also during our class time I either begin with a question (often review but not always) or a new seating chart. I take attendance either by missing seats or by who didn't respond to the question. I base the seating chart off of data although the kids don't always know that. Our current seating arrangement places kids who scored better on our last assessment next to those that scored lower.

The intent is to raise the level of conversation for all students as we are doing these community based activities. Students will usually just choose their friends (which they still can on some days) but I want to make sure great math is happening at all groups. 

In some cooperative learning staff development I had years ago we were told never to place the highest achiever next to the lowest achiever (neither would be able to understand each other). With that in consideration, I created a seating chart that relies on recent High, Medium High, Medium Low and Low scores. I have students with highest scores seated next to students with the medium low scores and students with lowest scores positioned next to the medium high scorers and some of each at each table group. I also know which table groups are hot-spots in the room so I make sure to get to those more often as I anticipate they'll have more questions. I generate a chart for each class on a selected assessment and then throw screenshots into a Google presentation so I can access them quickly to either print or use at the start of a class.

For those that use my assessment system you can actually add the seating chart template to your current dashboard by searching and installing my seating chart script that is now available in the script library. It is also included for new users automatically.

My instruction needs to be more focused on learning targets.

I was concerned that by focusing on separate learning targets and objectives students would see the learning as separate modules and not make connections but instead I've been finding the opposite to be true. Because we've been more focused, students have more readily made the connections themselves.

As we begin new ideas, they are grasping them quicker and making connections across ideas that I haven't seen with past years. 

Students begin each unit by looking at a self-assessment rubric written for each specific learning target. They continue to look at the rubric as they are in the learning cycle and write down new dates as they see themselves moving to the next level. Students are taking more ownership in their learning by seeing what it will take to get to a mastery understanding of each learning target.
As a teacher I can anticipate the levels of understanding a student will show as they move through the cycle. This helps them identify their own level using specific indicators in the rubric can help them see where they are in the learning process.

Past practice for me was to just give them the "I can" statement but they didn't really know if they could or couldn't or to what extent. 

In anticipation of some students arriving at mastery sooner than others I'm trying to include a link for many learning targets to an activity that is an extension of the learning. Here's an example of a rubric for an upcoming unit.

No more homework quizzes

I've done away with submitting work answers online for class work that is formative in nature (not for grade). I found students were bypassing learning and just trying to come up with answers. I've been able to attend some staff development by Tim Kanold where he said to give students the solutions to homework for them to work toward in place of students not knowing the answers ahead of time. I have put together class work problems where the expectation focuses more on explaining their understanding and applying of skills from the current learning target and integrated review of targets from the past. 

Solutions are posted online (worked out by me) and also in a printed binder in the classroom and students are encouraged to check these both when they get stuck or when they finish. I said last week: 

"Don't assume that you are awesome and got them all right. You might be awesome, but just double check your solutions before you think that." 

By giving students the solutions they are able to check for their own understanding and I am not spending my time recording more data in my grade book or checking individual homework assignments. I can spend my time as a teacher preparing meaningful activities for what we do while we are together.

Always reflecting on what we do

I believe that I will probably be doing something totally different a year from now or maybe even next month as far as class goes. I will always be looking for methods that will help my students learn math (and life) in more meaningful ways. I believe this is what makes us as teachers better is that constant struggle for how we can be better for our students. If you think there is a better way or I am totally off-base with this approach, please feel free to guide me in the right direction in the comments below. If you just criticize without offering solutions that helps no one.

Use of data to assign peer groups for a class activity

Not that everyday in my class feels like a success, but today I felt like we accomplished something positive. We are moving into a topic I anticipate students to struggle in based on my classroom history. I put together a Google PowerPoint that had two tiers of difficulty to it. On the first slide I put an overview of the problem followed by two links--basic and advanced where student pairs could decide which path to take. They then would complete that portion and move ahead to see my potential/suggested solution--allowing each group to determine their pace. Each group seemed engaged the entire time and the conversations were focused and getting to higher level topics not obvious to the activity itself.
What's more, I had a chance to try out my seating chart creator. Using a recent assessment data point, I made the chart to pair a struggling student with a student demonstrating recent success. My reasoning was to elevate all conversations that would be taking place to bring more students to a higher level of understanding. The seating template, now that I've made it, can also be saved and updated with future data points. I'm also thinking of using a different structure for seating to assign students needing additional help for some more targeted intervention time at the start of some class periods. Beauty of it is students don't know why they are placed where they are but I can work more efficiently in getting to students that need help sooner based on classroom location.
I hope to post a video demo of the seating chart setup in action soon.

Quadratics Investigation (Part 2)

Last time I wrote about exploring Camtasia and Tracker for video analysis of projectile motion. I had posted a video but wasn't sure the direction to take with it. I was soon reminded of just why I'm on Twitter as a teacher and wish others would see the same value in it.
We hear so much about collaboration with teachers in our building, comparing test scores, etc but really only scratch the surface of what could be if more teachers explored the use of Twitter for exactly the same purposes. Having a first draft of a video completed for the activity, I put together some questions and a tentative progression and posted a link requesting feedback from others before moving forward.
A direction I'm wanting to go in this next year is following Dan Meyer's 3-Act format with more lessons in my classroom, so in my tweet I mentioned him as an influence in my planning. I then went and got some lunch. An hour later I had rich comments in my document, one of which was from Dan himself giving me a great idea for a 'hook' in getting students interested in the work.  ( I was fortunate to attend a breakout session this spring where Dan led Minnesota math educators in a class type setting going through such an activity.) In addition to Dan's comment, I had Casey Rutherford, a physics teacher, giving some great perspective on what he sees in his classroom as well as some content specific help. This is the interdisciplinary work I always heard about in college (and never saw in reality).

After the feedback, I went to work editing the next version of the video and activity questions-- taking a slightly different direction, I am very pleased with the progress I've made since then and more focus that was brought to this lesson thanks to the help of others (although I'm still open to suggestions at this point as well).
I've connected a data set (via a goo.gl link displayed at the end of the video) for students to explore the actual data and make connections and their own conclusions of what will happen. 
Unhappy with the idea of them needing to manually enter each value into a calculator, I looked into Geogebra's web app and found a spreadsheet function that allows myself or students to paste columns of data from the Google spreadsheet right into it. What's really nice is I can select specific cell areas and only analyze those parts of the data (like the flight of the ball toward the wall, but not after it bounces up higher which has some great applications for students in understanding behaviors of the graph in looking at its table form). 
A takeaway I hope for this lesson is students having a better understanding that the projectile motion model is based on vertical position of a flying object and not its position in space. 
Here are some screen-shots taken from using the data in Geogebra:

Horizontal vs. Vertical Position

Time vs. Vertical Position

Time vs. Horizontal Position

Finding encouragement in discouraging data

I'll share some quick data that has been encouraging in a time that has also been stressful with the end of the year approaching...

We (myself and two other teachers) had a quiz that students took last week that didn't go so well. In the past we've required students to have mastered the learning targets before taking the test (best practice) but with state testing, finals and the end of the year approaching all students took the test on the same day (reality). The results were interesting. On the homework quizzes students had 61%, 71% and 40% on the learning targets (including students that have done corrections). The learning targets on the test came through at 65%, 71% and 43% respectively. I talked with my classes yesterday and it was helpful in demonstrating why I have them do reflections and corrections on their misunderstandings in our learning cycle.

I also looked at some data from our previous unit and thought I'd also share this graphic showing growth across the pretest, test and retake (for those students that retested):

Flipped instruction: A cohesive classroom technology plan

I've been thinking lately about what moved me towards flipped instruction in my classroom. From the start I was always a teacher that tried to use technology to assist in my instruction, most likely influenced by watching every episode of Star Trek: Next Generation in high school.
As a teacher I try to not be so random in the structure of class. Each activity, each lesson should have a purpose and too often I don't think education approaches technology in the same way. We are continually thrown random tech tools that are "cool" or "interesting" but never shown how to put such tools together in a way that makes sense or is helpful for students. I believe that #flipclass is a community of educators wrestling with cohesion of technology in a classroom. I'm not saying it's the only one, however if you're skimming you probably won't catch that.
We aren't just about videos, we (hopefully) still wrestle with what current educational best practice is telling us but in general it seems we are looking for a technology plan that makes sense for our classroom, that is efficient, saves us time and maximizes learning for our students.  It does take time but then again doing anything well in life will.

A more strategic and varied #flipclass approach

We started a new unit this past week and I have resolved to implement more differentiated activities with my students. I've been polling students at the beginning of class with a question meant to identify those students I want to work with more intentionally during the period. Those identified students then do some small group instruction with me, group work on the interactive whiteboard, discussions, etc during the class period. A follow up question is done near the end of class for me to quick check in with students still having misconceptions.
I've also begun printing off a handful of practice sheets (nothing fancy, just the provided resources with our text adoption) for the students that just want some extra practice or for the students that I think need an extra challenge beyond the basic material (differentiated tasks during class). I have backed off from the more self-paced approach and focused more on depth than speed in the classroom. Students that finish early I encourage to work on a more challenging task or review past lessons with each other. This has helped to make daily class less crazy and more focused.

Pretest to Quiz Growth Results

I'm pleased with the growth results shown on our quiz today (measured from the pretest to current quiz) as they seem to be much more consistent than past results have been. I feel that individual student needs have been met more intentionally with this approach and look forward to moving more in this direction as the year progresses.

Finishing the race strong

Since beginning my teaching career I've always been concerned with reaching a tipping point where I am no longer open to new ideas or strategies. Where some new form of email, hardware or vegetable comes along that I just don't accept and the world passes me by--rendering my skill sets obsolete. I'm hesitant to complain about the new layout of Facebook just because it is different from what I'm used to.

I've come to believe that in general there is probably not an age that determines when a person gives up trying or considering a new idea but rather a mindset that has always been there--the idea that you can finally arrive at a level of contentment and no longer accept any new information. I'm sure you could get by just fine, but 'just getting by' doesn't interest me and I hope that it never does.

In guiding my students through mathematics I want to do so in a way that builds their intuition to apply the math in areas that have not yet been formally learned. A memorized algorithm or process done the exact same way as the teacher does not help them with this process. I need to reward students for applying their own ideas and understanding in new situations and more importantly provide them those opportunities.

If a student demonstrates understanding differently than what we expect them to, we should pause as educators and be open to the fact that we may not have considered all possibilities in an exercise we have provided in class.  Students like to see that something is new or novel. Collaboration seems to thrive in this type of situation.

We should never penalize a student for arriving at a correct conclusion different from the path we had thought of. Mathematics can be beautiful, connected and intuitive but will never appear that way to students if we make it seem like there is a recipe that must be followed every time. We too often spend time building our own personal understanding of mathematics and seldom give students that same opportunity.

I read a post this morning by Tim Kanold about a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset and this resonated with where my thoughts have already been this week. Our tendency toward either mindset has nothing to do with age or experience and everything to do with who we are as individuals. I believe it can be changed but that can only happen through personal reflection.

Update on Flipclass Student Reflection and Assessment Results correlation

I surveyed my students again after completing another unit of study. I gave the same survey at the beginning of the year with less definite results than what have appeared mid-year in the graph below. I have correlated individual components of my classroom structure with actual student assessment results. Students self-reported their study habits and I asked them to only answer "yes" or "no" to individual questions if it was true 100% of the time in this past unit. It appears the most significant indicators of a successful end of the unit assessment are students that watch every video (0.28 correlation) and students that ask for help in class (0.2 correlation).

There are some positive things to note in the negative correlations as well I believe: 

• The lower correlation behaviors are all behaviors that would normally be required in a traditional classroom (doing an entire homework assignment, reading the textbook section, taking notes). I see this as students are now able to do what it is they know they learn best with and abandon strategies that simply do not work for their learning style.
• Outside of class study time reported by students was also low so I believe the flipclass approach is taking a large burden of time off of my students this year and placing the majority of their learning time inside of the classroom (although I wouldn't mind if they started studying more at home).

Thank you to all my loyal readers. Last February when I started blogging I never would have dreamed I'd be sitting at nearly 18,000 views today. Happy Holidays!

What if meeting agendas worked more like Twitter?

I'm in a collaborative team for the Geometry course that I teach. Part of our collaborative meetings each week was spent recording our conversations in a Google document and then saving it into a shared file for others to access and view our discussions. We were making copies of a template and then saving those copies into a common folder. In wanting our team notes to be just as much for our growth as a job requirement I sought out to make a collaborative agenda that had a memory and was a little more...alive.

Agenda Feed View

Long and short of it, the agenda has some parts that are edited initially in a spreadsheet tab at the beginning of the year--things like our team SMART goal, Norms and Protocols. Agenda items are added in another sheet by either editing the spreadsheet itself or by sending a form response including the team member name and the agenda item to be discussed. Having the items loaded prior to the meeting time can be spent addressing the items and looking at our follow-up steps.
What I like most about the idea is that all our past discussions are housed in the same document and can be easily accessed. Having it in a spreadsheet also allows a "Word Cloud" chart at the top to pick out our team's most frequent words. If the words that are specific to student learning, great, but if they tend to center on our past weekend activities it's maybe a sign our group needs to refocus.

Word Cloud

The idea puts less pressure on having a single recorder for organizing the next meeting agenda and can be edited quicker if the form link is just a bookmark within a person's web browser or sent out in an email prior to the meeting. The most recent five discussions and follow-up items are displayed on the "Agenda Feed" tab of the spreadsheet. Multiple "meetings" within the week can just be recorded by the date discussed and will show up in the agenda feed. Past items can be viewed by clicking the arrows at the bottom of each chart (these charts can also be customized to display more items per view by editing the chart).

Future Agenda Items

There is far from anything earth-shattering in the structure but it's an interesting way of bringing some organization to discussions and meetings in a systematic way. Who has time to look back at past meeting agendas anyway?--Have them all in one place.
If you are interested in trying the idea you can get the template here. Once you open it to see the spreadsheet view, click on "See Responses" and choose "spreadsheet".

I have not tried yet but I'd be curious to hear if anyone has success in embedding the agenda feed in a website to publicly display the most recent agenda for their meetings.

Flipped classroom data: Comparing participation in activities to assessment results.

If student reflection on learning is important and I believe the different components of my flipped classroom are important in the learning process I thought it'd be a good opportunity to test the results with some classroom data. 

I asked students some yes or no questions and compared the results to their actual test performance. The results will stimulate some great conversations tomorrow about what is working and what is not. Watching each video I have provided shows a strong correlation with the test results where reading every section in the textbook does not seem to have a positive result (which was a little surprising to me).

Moodle, Commercial or Google Forms

I have been doing some reflecting over the summer. I want to make sure I'm continuing to use Google Forms for an assessment tool because it is the best option for my classroom and not just because I've invested a lot of time into it.

Moodle: 

Pro's: Can display data by class, allows randomized questions and item banks, purely electronic

Con's: Time intensive, requires tech-savvy to make it look nice

First on the subject of moodle, my main reason for not liking it is I don't like how it looks and comes across for the end-user. I know there are ways of customizing it to look cleaner and less busy. The trouble is I simply don't have time to simplify the appearance of something when there are simpler appearing products out there. Moodle has some benefits though--if all students have joined a class you can see a gradebook view once they have completed it that will give stats like how long they spent on the assessment. You can randomize questions and pull from an item bank to build multiple versions of an assessment. That said, I tried building an assessment in Moodle this summer and the number of checkboxes and menu options for each assessment item was overwhelming to say the least. It was too time intensive. I realize there are shared item banks out there and once the work is done, it's done but I already have working tests that have gone through revision processes and I am not interested in starting from scratch or in importing the test items into moodle.

Commercial Product:

Pro's: Allows for scores by learning target, easy to compare data with other teachers in collaboration

Con's: Difficult method for individualized learning plans, still uses paper for the most part, not able to do short answer which is nice for math solutions.

Currently in our district we have a product that gathers student test data. The main collection process is by printing bubble sheets and then later scanning them in (nothing really all that new to education). The test items can be scored by learning target as long as the targets are a state or national standard already preloaded into the system. I'm told there will be an online component as well that would let students enter the assessment through classroom clickers or a website. It seems it would be difficult to use this option if students were not all in the same place at the same time (something I'm trying to move away from in a more individual learner approach). I don't like the idea of students needing to wait until the next day to get their results, and moreover needing to print yet another sheet of paper that would give them their results. On a positive note, this product would allow me to use my current course tests although most answers submitted would need to be fixed choice of some kind (T/F, multiple choice, gridded-response).

Google Forms

Pro's: It's Google, simple appearance to end-user, easy to link to externally, template created saves time on item customization, works well for individualized classroom pacing, graphs and visual data displayed for teacher quickly to assess class/individual data, scores by teacher custom learning targets, ability to collect and correct text/short answer items.

Con's: To customize the reports beyond the template some knowledge of spreadsheet formulas is necessary, initial setup is quick but can be confusing for a first time user

In using Google Forms, I have been able to move to a more self-paced classroom. I have worked with smaller gifted math classroom formats where that was the common practice but this has allowed me to adapt those same instructional strategies for my larger (30+) classes. Students now move on at their own pace after demonstrating mastery. The student knows, without my need to tell them, an estimate of their understanding by the automatic feedback upon completing an assessment (also possible in Moodle). As a math teacher it is also nice to have the option to request numerical answers from students (rounded if necessary to a specific place value)--this is also possible in Moodle I believe. I get quick snapshots of students and classes simply by opening an assessment and these graphs can also be easily displayed on a class website for the public. The assessments are embedded in Google Docs along with links to the electronic text and instructional videos. It was important for me that these were all in the same place for my students.

After reflecting on these three options, I have decided to continue on in using Google Forms as a tool in the classroom. The decision can mostly be the attributed to the ease of implementation in a learner-centered classroom,  that I had the option to really customize it to gather and report the type of information that was relevant to me as a teacher and to be able to access it in a quick, visual manner.