Did you Differentiate?

Some reflections on the past few weeks:

Worksheet Hell Works For Some
After I threatened to make worksheets, we did them. Some of the kids preferred them! It turns out that my kids with behavioral issues preferred the security of knowing exactly what to do. Hmmmm. My other kids were miserable, but this class is about 2/3 difficult and it was nice to have a peaceful period, so help me (GUILT GUILT GUILT).

Differentiation Can Work For Short Bits of Time
We have double periods for a couple of weeks so that we can do the state standardized tests and so I decided we'd remediate and retest the last set of standards. The kids who mastered all the standards got out their iPads and began doing online practice for our next topic, integers, in the back of the room (I'm in a science room with lab space). I told them that they couldn't watch any videos because some kids would be testing and that they had to use trial and error to see if they could figure out the rules regarding integers.

The kids doing remediation (another packet) worked really hard. Most of them did well and I was able to spend a few minutes one on one with each kid as I went around the room.

The kids moving ahead did very well too. By the time everyone had finished their retakes I had two kids who had worked through absolute value, addition, subtraction, and had figured out that two negatives multiplied together make a positive. I did not work with this group at all other than to make sure their technology was working. When we debriefed at the end of the period a few of them were so fired up they planned on working on integers at home with friends.

Some Kids Aren't Ready For Freedom (This Makes Me Cry)
As the remediation kids finished their retests they got their iPads to begin work on integers. Here is where it started going south. These kids had trouble focusing on the task. Many of my kids who are behind in math are also my behavior challenges (I see you all nodding there). As soon as a enough of them got to the iPads I ran out of classroom space to keep them separated, which seems to be part of the key with them. I ended up making everyone move back to their desks as soon as the last retest was finished. I had to take one kid's iPad away for working on an unapproved website.

The Upshot
I am trying to figure out how to give my mature students more freedom to make choices and move ahead at their own pace. At the same time, my kids with behavioral challenges seem to thrive in more controlled and scripted environments. When I asked another teacher how to do this, she said, "When you figure it out, let me know!" Not really the response I was looking for.

Ideas?

Miss Nelson is Missing!

I came across this video of one of my favorite books when I was a kid, Miss Nelson is Missing!, by Harry G. Allard. It strikes a chord with me because in my math class right now I feel like Viola Swamp, who I imagine was a worksheet packet kind of teacher. I hope to turn back into Miss Nelson someday.  If you remember the book, you'll love this adaptation by a class of Kindergarteners.

Behaviorally Overly Ambitious

My morning math class has been struggling with behavior this year. For whatever reason, I get the kids who move into the district. They tend to be lower-skilled students, since a move into our school is often the latest in a long line of moves. Such moves disrupt their education. At some point, they learn that there aren't very many benefits to being a good student since all that work counts for nothing at their next school.

Disengaged kids become bored kids who tend to get into trouble.

It had gotten so bad it was almost impossible to teach. The last straw was the day class was interrupted 10 times in 46 minutes, mostly for students in my class being called to the office to be told they would be serving a working lunch because of all the assignments they had missing from my class...the one they were just pulled out of.  *sigh*

I had had enough.

So this week I rebooted the class on the advice of a colleague. We practiced walking into the class. We practiced raising our hands to talk*. We practiced working with a partner.

The rest of the week I had to have them walk into class multiple times. If they didn't get it in a way that supported the learning environment, we practiced it until they got it.  A few of my trouble makers were out frequently this week, so class time was mostly OK and I only had to remind them to raise their hands rather than do another lesson on hand raising.

Then yesterday I got bold. They had been working hard. I was tired of seat work/training. I decided that we would do some math practice with a relay race.

That was stupid. They weren't ready, behaviorally, for something that had them up and about. It got so loud before we even got through a trial run of the relay that I had to cancel the whole thing. I even had my mentor in the room to help me. Some kids got so angry with the kids who ruined it I was worried there might be a fight on the way out of class. I'm angry with myself for wasting so much valuable learning time.

I promised the students some nice worksheets for practice next week. This is not the kind of teacher I want to be. I hate worksheets. I EVEN MADE PACKET, so help me. I'll probably make up some challenge packets for the kids who are ready to move on, but they're still packets.

I have to remind myself to go in baby steps. As a group, we can only move as fast in terms of behavior as the least-skilled kid in the class.

I'm afraid the last 6 weeks of the school year are going to be dead boring for the students and for me. Blech.


*I prefer a more open, conversation-type feel to class and I don't usually enforce raised hands to talk. I hit my breaking point with these kids though, so I felt compelled to be strict about it. We'll see how long I can do it.

Introducing Slope

We are working on graphing right now and it's time to do slope. I hated, Hated, HATED slope when I was in middle school. Rise over run made no sense to me at all. I thought about how to approach slope this year for weeks.

Usually I start with a line that's got points on it, I do the whole rise over run business, and we plug away until we can do it without too many errors. Eventually I take away the pre-plotted points and they have to come up with those.

Since one of our standards is that students will be able to draw a line given two points or a point and a slope, I decided to start by drawing this time. Once we had a line with two points down I gave them one point and asked what I'd need to know to draw a particular line.

They thought about it. I love this. They really thought about it. At one point someone suggested that we needed to know how to get to the next point so we'd know what direction to go in. Brilliant! So I told them to go 2 up and 3 over (to the right, because right now we're always reading graphs left to right). I wrote 2/3 as a ratio with the words "up" and "over" next to the numbers. Then, on a new coordinate plane, I drew the same starting point but with different "clues" to the next point. And then another one. And another one. And then I let them tell me how to find the next point on the line.

This could have flopped in so many ways, particularly since this class has many behavioral issues. But it worked!

What I love is that THEY figured out that the top number is related to y somehow. THEY decided that we could skip the word "down" and slap a negative sign on there. THEY noticed that 3/2 gets you the same line as 6/4.

I only barely brought up the word slope toward the end of class. I briefly mentioned rise over run, but didn't dwell on it. Their whole assignment was to take points and slopes I gave them and graph them for practice. I plan to do more practice in class tomorrow before we start finding slopes on lines that have already been drawn. I'm thinking I might make it a treasure-map sort of activity, or one where one kid comes up with the slope from a line and passes it to another kid who has to draw the original line based on what the first kid gave them.

While I have no expectations that they will understand slope better than students who learned with me before, I really loved trying something new and having it work out so well. I wish class could be like that everyday!

The Bombed the Test

We recently had a test over percents. It did not go well. I tried multiple ways of teaching and practicing over the unit to engage everyone. I really don't know what went wrong, but I spent a few hours this weekend coming up with a study guide and review packet. Because I was already behind some of the other teachers, kids will have to spend some time working on this on their own.

One of the other teachers had extremely good results from his classes. His teaching style is very different from mine, but it really seemed to work for his students this time around. I use his worksheets as homework frequently because they are effective, but since several parents have complained to me about not following along with the book (their kids lose the worksheets) I've tried to use the book whenever possible. Our book is common core and we haven't switched standards yet, so I can't pull much out of the book at times. I wonder if switching back and forth was part of the problem.

We also had part of the state standardized test toward the end of the unit, making those class periods very short. But it still gave me over two periods for review. I knew some of them weren't getting it, but I thought more of them were. Ugh. I've had a lot of very disruptive periods during this unit. I'm not sure there's a single factor I could point to, but I feel terrible for my students.

All I can do is try to do better next time.

Science Olympiad Regionals Results

I just have to brag on our kids a little bit. I am the assistant coach for our school's Science Olympiad team. This past weekend we went to the regional competition and did extremely well. Across our two teams we medaled in every event. Our A team medaled 18 times and our B team medaled 16 times out of 23 events. We go to the state competition in a few weeks.

I can't really take any credit for this success because I'm only learning the ropes this year. The coach is amazing and the kids are incredible. We can only field one team for state, so cutting half the team was extremely difficult. Luckily, the state competition will be held nearby and we expect a lot of our extra team members to come cheer on those who are competing.

If you are interested in starting a Science Olympiad group at your school, go read the information at the Science Olympiad website. There's almost too much information. Keep in mind that you DON'T have to buy all the recommended videos and kits in order to be competitive. You really need motivated kids, supportive parents, and perhaps a good PTO to help you pay for a bus to competition.

Helping Students Behind in Math

I'm very glad this is one of our middle school blogging topics because some days I feel as though I'm doing this OK and other days it really gets me down.

I feel that my school makes considerable effort to provide support for struggling students.  Twice a week we have tutorial time when teachers can sign students up for remediation activities.  Students who fall behind on homework are assigned a place at lunch where they can eat and do homework at the same time.  Next year, students who haven't passed the state test in math will be placed in a companion class to their regular math class that will help them fill math gaps.  Students who don't quality for special education services but are having a hard time getting work done on a regular basis for any reason get assigned to an academic lab period, where a teacher is available to help them one-on-one with their work.  The academic lab typically has fewer than 6 students in it each period.

In my department, I'm lucky enough that we always schedule at least one review day before a summative assessment.  Sometimes we do a whole class activity and sometimes I differentiate the activities based on what I know from formative assessments.  After that, students can remediate and retake assessments on the same topic as many times as we can squeeze it in during class or tutorial.  I do require students to show me what kind of effort they've put into learning the stuff they missed before they retest, usually from materials I supply since many of our topics aren't in our books.

Where I struggle is with the students who, even with all this support, still have difficulty in math.  Sometimes the problem is with their reading level.  Other times they are slow processors who don't process slowly enough to get assigned to a study skills class or qualify for special education support but are slow enough that it takes them twice as long as everyone else to get it.  Having defined class time periods is especially hard on them, because if they haven't got it by the end of the period it's like starting over again the next day.

I am really looking forward to reading what other teachers are doing.  I get so many ideas from the blogosphere!

Middle Schoolers Make Bad Choices

One of my lovable ruffians was caught showing his friends an illegal substance in the media center this week. He hasn't been to class since, though I'm told he's spent considerable time in the assistant principal's office with his guardian in attendance. I am so sad for him it hurts. He has a lot going for him as a person and I'd hate to think that this one mistake will define him for the adults in his life forever.

I realize that teenagers do stupid things. I did plenty of stupid things myself. Heck, I would not want my teen self in any of my classes because I would drive myself insane. I get it. But I can also see the train wreck coming. I got lucky. Some of my students won't be so lucky.

I do think I did everything I could to build a relationship with this student. He's not a mean kid and he responded to adults who showed an interest. His thoughts and attention are clearly on other parts of his life right now, rather than on school. Here's hoping he can find a new, more positive, focus.

My Big Campus

Is anyone else using My Big Campus? Our school system has adopted it as a means of, well, all sorts of things. It doesn't integrate with our grade book, so not grading (thank goodness). But our students are all loaded in now and my classes are set up.

Debates about whether there are better systems out there aside (I think there are), I'm finding it mostly useful as a place to dump all those great links to things I find. I've also put a couple of practice quizzes in there but have yet to use them. I'd love to do some assessments with it, particularly when I'm forced to use multiple choice questions for whatever reason. Actually, essay questions wouldn't be bad because then I wouldn't have to deal with tween handwriting.

On the negative side, I don't always have reliable technology on which to use My Big Campus with my students. While I usually have access to slow netbooks, in the last week they've been whisked out of my room by the 8th grade science teachers. This is fine, because they are science department netbooks and I tend to use them more for math, but it makes planning interesting.

Beginning this week I'll post homework for math on My Big Campus rather than on my website. I created a bundle of online resources for students who want more support with the topics we'll be covering in this unit. A third of my students don't have internet access at home, so I can't use it as a way to flip lessons.

Anyway, I'd love to hear how other people are using it or if anyone found it a complete waste of time.

TKD and Me

Last summer, my daughter began taking Taekwondo (TKD) lessons. For her, it was physical therapy. For me, it's been a real eye-opener as a teacher. Here's what I notice while watching TKD classes that relates to math and science teaching for me:

• Most classes are highly mixed in terms of skill level.
• Most classes are somewhat mixed in terms of age; adults go to separate classes from kids for safety reasons.
• New students are shown what they need to know when they're ready to learn it, not before.
• A new student can start at any time, not just at the beginning of a defined season.
• New students learn by watching more experienced students and then immediately trying whatever's being demonstrated.
• All students are expected to show respect to all other students, regardless of skill level.
• Skill levels are denoted only by belt color, which serves to let a student know who they can ask for help.
• Everyone progresses at his or her own pace rather than on an imposed schedule.
• Classes are open; students come to any class that meets when they can come rather than signing up for a specific time slot, which can change weekly.
• Students who aren't up for TKD opt out by not attending that day; students who are not ready to concentrate are asked to sit out or leave until they are.
• Students can come up to 4 times a week and so work at the level of their interest and personal bandwidth.
• Students test their skill level when they are ready; teachers do not send students to the assessment until they are confident the student is likely to achieve a new belt.
• Teachers act as coaches who refine skills being learned, often having more advanced students doing the demonstrations and explanations for new skills rather than doing it all themselves.
• Students who decide TKD isn't for them can simply stop coming.

I'm sure there's more, but these are the things that stick out in my mind. I haven't really refined this at all, but I've been thinking about how my classroom differs significantly from my daughter's TKD classes. I'm tempted to sign up for TKD just to see what it feels like to be a student in what is a purely mastery-based learning environment.

A challenge to myself is to see where I can implement some of these ideas. Some of them are not appropriate for public education. Others are not something I do right now, but that I might think about trying.

I realize I'm not saying anything new here, but TKD serves as a way to show that learning at a student's pace is possible in the right environment. Creating that environment inside traditional school is the challenging part.

Homework Makes Us Sad

I have to grade homework as a completion grade. That's the school policy. So, that's what I do. I assign homework, and I check it off when it's completed. I don't grade it. I don't even note that it was turned in after the date when I said it was due.

I watched a colleague today go through all his classes to track how many late assignments all his students had (our grade book doesn't do this for us). He was upset at all the work he had to do. I was sad for him. I don't do this work because I don't see how it benefits students except in an oblique way.

My colleague's comment was, "I sure wish we could go to standards-based grading so I don't have to grade homework anymore!" Um, sure, because SBG is all about making less work for the teacher.

I am still sad for him, because his eventual transition to SBG will probably be a tad difficult.

Is This a Bad Volume Problem?

As I was shoveling all the snow that fell where I live recently, I wondered exactly how much snow I was shoveling. As my 7th graders are struggling with volumes right now it came to me that after a little practice with regular shapes I could ask them exactly how much snow I was shoveling.

To the left, my humble abode. I have no clue what the scale is here (does anyone know how to get that information from Google/Bing/MapQuest?), but I can measure it if I have to. What is hard to see from the picture is that my driveway is actually a trapezoid. The kids don't have a neat formula for volume of a trapezoid, so it might be interesting to see what they do with it.

But is this even a good question? I mean, *I* care how much snow I shoveled because I was sore afterward. But would my students even care? They might like seeing my house, I suppose. But that doesn't make it a good math problem.

I have several students who struggle with the basic shapes and formulas. But those shapes are so abstract. Who really cares about the volume of a triangular prism? I don't unless it's filled with Toblerone. Then I might care. But then I wonder if throwing in an actual object from reality might be too much for those kids. My more advanced kids might think this is totally obvious and lame.

What I like about my driveway is that I can give them the picture and make up a scale if I can't find it. Then, they have to use what they supposedly know about scales to get measurements. Then, since we've talked about you never really need to memorize a formula for a right prism because you can always come up with the answer, they CAN find the volume of my driveway snow. They'll think they can't, but they can.

Is the scale thing too much/too hard? Should I just give them the measurements?  Is this a really bad attempt at bringing in relevance? I really want them to THINK about volumes, not just learn how to use the formula from the state test reference sheet. What would be a better problem? I could add on to it by making the problem about the number of calories I burned while shoveling all that snow, since I'm sure there's an estimate rate for that sort of thing somewhere. I have to admit, given how sore I was, I'm curious about the number of calories I burned. But would the kids care?

Heck, I'm not even sure I can devote a whole period or more to this, though I'd like to. I'm off the departmental pace as it is and I'm the new kid so I don't want to make too many waves.