Did I Do Enough?

My son's baseball season is finally over. Yes, the season that started in chilly late March finally ended this weekend with a lost in the sectional final for all-stars. As usual, my son had a very good season, helping gel together a team most people did not predict to finish second in the league. He batted fourth and had to pitch a lot, neither of which he has had to do before this year in his young baseball career.

Then, he was fortunate to be picked for All-Stars. This was about another three week journey of games and practices. His team played very well, just fell one game short. Losing is hard. Losing is not fun, but it builds character. He rolls his eyes when I tell him that, like any 10 year old would do.

What I realized while watching him play was I may never get to coach him again. See, he is joining an elite soccer team in the fall with established coaches. They play both fall and spring, and he was asked to join the team after a tryout earlier this spring. I will need to learn to walk to other side of the field when games start!

I do not think I am handling this realization well that I may have coached him for the last time.

I have been his coach since he started soccer, basketball and baseball. I have been there to teach him the little "game within the game" scenarios for several years and will miss that.

Then, it also struck me: What if I did not prepare him enough? What if I could have done more? I know there is still a lot about being an athlete he needs to learn, but I am hopeful I have given him enough of a foundation:

1. It is always about the team. Always. No one is more important than the team.
2. We win together. We lose together. No one person is blamed when things do not go our way. That includes umpires/referees/officials.
3. You play the game the right way. Always being fair. If you were out, tell the umpire. If you dribbled out of bounds, tell the referee.
4. Always give your best effort. Sometimes that will be enough to win, sometimes it won't, but don't ever sell yourself short.
5. Never publicly criticize, or "show-up", a teammate. If they made a mistake, follow it up with encouragement. Never criticism. He knows he made a mistake, he does not need you to point it out.
6. Have fun. Playing sports is fun. Playing them at the level my 10 year old can play them makes them even "funner". That's right, I just said that.

I do not know if there is an educational thread in this post, but it was something I needed to get off my chest for a couple of days now. I am glad I get to watch him play still, but I will miss the time we got to spend together being at practices and games. It will be tough to walk to the spectators' side of the field in a couple of weeks, but I think I am ready to pass the torch to his next set of coaches. They are getting one special kid and a heck of a player. Thank goodness he is like his mother.

All Apologies....

Sometimes things hit us like a bolt of lightening. Things we should have figured out right away is apparent seconds after we need the answer. We get a very quick "Ah-ha" moment.

For me, there was no quick "Ah-ha" moment. No, I would be talking with my daughter who would mention how she was struggling with her fitness, so I would chime in: "Solving that would require practicing the skill."

My son would mention how he could not bunt the ball exactly how he like. My response, you guessed it, would be: "Have you practiced it?"

So, I was running the other day after reading several blog posts from my favorite writers. I had an internal dialogue going about how I wish I could write like these other bloggers. Yes, I was talking to myself. Those of you that run consistently know exactly what I am talking about. That is when the lightening bolt hit me. No, not literally, since it was a clear day. But, figuratively speaking of course...

I need to practice to get better. I need to practice the very message I keep sending to my kids. So, after delaying all day, I have run out of excuses, so I sit and write....

I am excited about the opportunity this up-coming school year to teach Algebra again. See, about four years ago we stopped offering the course to our advanced math students. I confess that I was probably the main reason for it. As I am the only 7th and 8th grade math teacher in our small public school, I did not want the "bad test scores" making me look bad. I am very embarrassed to admit this. Yes, fours years ago, I believe I was the reason we stopped offering this challenging curriculum to our students.

Now, I still provided some advanced work to the 8th graders who could work at that level. I supplemented the current curriculum when I could, but I knew it was not enough.

Needless to say, I am happy that we are bringing this course back. In addition, we will be offering an accelerated course for our 7th graders as well. This time, I am not so concerned about how they do on the dumb state tests they will have to take. Maybe that is a sign that I have "grown-up" in the last four years. I think it is because I am so over the whole test craze disease has swept education the last several years.

My kids might do well on those tests; then again, they may not. I do not care. I will be continuing a course that never should have been interrupted. To my students who missed out on taking Algebra, I apologize. Who says adults can't "grow-up" even when they are old.

What have you regretted as an educator? Please share....

No Longer a Pipe-Dream...but now what?

Well, the word came officially during a meeting on the second to last day of school: "I expect every 3rd through 8th grade student to have ChromeBooks for next school year." The statement came from our Superintendent during a teachers' meeting where we were discussing solutions to a separate problem. But, as he uttered those words, I could not concentrate much on what the remainder of the meeting was about. All I could think about was how having this technology would change so many things in my classroom. Changes I have been looking forward to since this discussion started a couple of years ago. Now, what was once a pipe-dream is really going to happen...

Immediately, my mind began to formulate several reflective questions:

1. How will this change my instruction?

If my students are going to have the ChromeBooks with them all the time, then I need to maximize their usage in my room. I did bend the rules in the past and allow students to use their phones for data collection, video creation or accessing our Google Classroom account. But, now everyone will have this technology at their finger tips, and I need to take advantage of it.

2. How will this change my assessment of student learning?

I will need to increase student choice now that this technology will be readily available. I always thought I did an okay job in the past, but I will really need to kick this up a notch for next year. I think if I constantly share the learning goal with them, and give them time and space to show me they understand the concept, we should be good to go!

3. Is there an assumption that teachers will know how to best use this technology?

This is what I have spent the most time thinking about. I am afraid that some in the district will see this as a "technology problem" solved by simply providing the ChromeBooks to the students. I am afraid there will not be proper teacher guidance on how to use them effectively to increase student learning in our school. I may need to offer my services for a PD day on this. I am by no means the best person in my school to give this PD, but I think many would benefit from getting everyone in the same room to discuss things prior to the students getting them. My message would be: It is not for us, it is for our students' learning!

4. How will this change what I can expect students to create to demonstrate understanding?

As a math teacher, I need to break away from the old school thought of paper and pencil method for showing understanding. I need to be more flexible and allow my students to decide how they want to demonstrate their understanding. We will be learning as we go, but I guess that will provide me with several new blogging topics.

5. How will this increase transparency in my classroom?

I see this as a great way for our students to show the great stuff that goes on in our room. I am hopeful my students will create e-portfolios and/or vlogs to chart their learning next year. Since a number of our 8th graders are going to high schools outside of the district, I am seeing these as on-line resumes as well. The best part? My students will be sharing their products with a countless amount of people. That should increase their quality for sure!

As you can tell, this will be a summer of preparation for me. I am hopeful these changes will create a love of learning for my students. It may also reinvigorate myself as well, since I feel like I have been in a funk for the last several months. The equal access for all of my students to the new technology just might be the shot in the arm I needed!

Are there any other areas from above that I missed? Please share your thoughts...

Stop Pretending

I recently read a post by Bill Ferriter (Twitter handle is @plugusin) titled: "Here's What We Have to Stop Pretending." In this post, Mr. Ferriter does a great job of mentioning that we need to stop many unproductive truths in education if we want to see our profession improve. After some thought, actually several days of thinking, I have one area that as educators we need to stop pretending works. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest mistakes I see repeated throughout the country. Will stopping this cure all of our ails? No, but it is a start....

We need to stop pretending that we can copy and paste a success from one district and plop it into another. We seem to be so hard-pressed to find the "miracle cure" in education, that we are willing to just blindly copy whatever program a district/school/classroom has and mirror it in our own. We want success so badly that we assume this successful program can be copy and pasted into our own?

When will we realize that education can not and should not be carbon copied. We work in a community where humans interact constantly. With that interaction comes different thoughts, feelings, reactions and attitudes. These differences are what make our job so great and difficult all at the same time. These differences need to be taken into account when we try to just copy and paste a program that was successful elsewhere.

What would I like to see? I would love if education took a cue from the pharmaceutical world. We should provide a footnote after our success stories that explicitly list the possible side effects of using the program. We should be told that initially, only 75% of the kids were successful. We should be told it took 3 to 5 years of intensive planning and communication from the administration to have it be a success. I think we would get a much better picture of how hard it would be to replicate that program's success...

Does this mean I am against "borrowing" from others? Absolutely not. I think sharing ideas and successes is the great part of having a PLN and being connected. I think we just need to realize that the successes we read about should never be viewed as "quick fixes". There were years of planning and hard work that came before the success. You have to be willing to put that same amount of time in if you plan on being nearly as successful as the other one.

What are some things in education you think we need to stop pretending about?

What is a Mean Absolute Deviation?

The past couple of weeks have been filled with students working on projects ranging from measuring their height and shoe size for scatter plots, to students practicing standing long jumps for work in the area of measures of central tendencies. The 7th grade did a great job of working with the averages of smaller groups and comparing them to groups from a different class period.

This had me thinking of teacher evaluations and how our numbers might "stack up" against someone else's scores. Generally, we would be given the average of the scores generated from both announced and unannounced observations. The average of those visits would be put into a formula to determine my "effectiveness" as a teacher.

The above mentioned 7th graders also had to determine the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) from a set of numbers. This is where we determine how far the individual scores are from the average of the group. The smaller the MAD is, the less variability is in the set of numbers. The higher the MAD, the more variability there would be. I started thinking if this should be added to our teacher observations as well.

For instance, a teacher with a low MAD would show much more consistency than someone who did not. The teacher with a higher MAD may have spent more time planning for the announced observations than when someone just "popped in". In my opinion, this lack of consistency should not be taken lightly.

A teacher that is much more consistent, meaning a low MAD, would show much more consistency in their daily planning. In my opinion, this teacher would not just "put on a show" when it is announced observation time. I know this takes a great level of confidence, but I think this should somehow be added to our observation "score".

I apologize if this just seems like I am rambling, but I am trying to show my students how I would connect what we are working on in the classroom to a real-life situation.

Any thoughts on the addition of the Mean Absolute Deviation to our teacher observations?
Please share....

Tips for Pre-Service Teachers

For the first time in my almost twenty year teaching career, I have the privilege of working with a pre-service teacher for several weeks. Technically, he is a Practicum Student, so he is only required to be in my room for about 50 hours. During that time, he is required to teach a couple of lessons and get involved in as much of the daily activities of my class.

I am excited to finally be working with a pre-service teacher. The way I see it, I have had several tremendous teachers that helped me early in my career, and it is my responsibility to pass along as much of that knowledge as I can. Our main jobs as educators is to pass along our experiences (good and bad) to the younger generation of teachers. Pay it Forward, if you will...

I sat in the back of the room as the Practicum student started his lesson, four feet away from his supervisor from a nearby university. Earlier, in the morning, I asked him if he wanted me to stay in the room. He has a sub certificate, so he could be left alone with students, but he wanted my feedback on what I saw. It was during his lesson that I wanted to pass along the following to all pre-service teachers:

1. Be aware of time. Plan for more than you think you will need. An activity will rarely take exactly the time you think it will. Sometimes it will take less; sometimes it will take more. Bottom line, you need to be ready either way.

2. Watch your wait time before calling on students. This is still something I have to correct myself at times.. It is rewarding to call on the first hands that go up. It makes it seem like the students really know their stuff. But, this can be misleading. Maybe your questions are not high level enough if they can be answered in 3 seconds. What about the kid that is working through the problem, and is just not as quick as his or her classmates? If he or she knows you call on the first two hands, they will stop trying because they know they will never be that kid.

3. Don't hesitate to answer a question with a question. Redirect a question from a student to a different student. The right answers do not always have to come from the teacher.

4. Always provide a few challenging problems in an activity. Your students will appreciate the work.

5. Know the difference between groups (students) talking through their work, and just talking. Just because you can hear their voices does not mean they are off task. I have come to the realization that many of my students need to talk their way through math problems. I just smile because that was me when I was in their shoes. And for some, it actually is their shoes because many are wearing Vans or Nike!

6. Do not be afraid to adjust the groups if you see several students struggling with a particular part of the activity. Give them another shot at seeing some examples in a small group with you or a video to help. Get their questions answered and usher them back to their original group. Many students just need to hear things a different way to understand what is going on.

7. Be interested in their methods, not just their answers. Let students explain how they worked through the problem. Their explanation will solidify their own learning and maybe help a classmate or two along the way.

8. Try and stay for the whole day. It is very easy to just find a two hour window in the morning or afternoon to step into a classroom. I really suggest staying for an entire day. This gives you the opportunity to see the how the whole day ebbs and flows. You get to see how not having recess at lunch requires an alteration to the lesson plan for the 8th graders right after lunch. Those are the things you will never learn in an education textbook.

I guess I appeared to be very into providing feedback, because the supervisor asked me if she could read my notes. After reading through them, she asked if I would like a student teacher in the fall. I told her that I would love the chance to work with new teachers. It is all about paying it forward. When she left, I did not know if she was there to evaluate me or the practicum student!

I am sure I have missed a few tips for pre-service teachers. What can you add to the list?

Strategic Confusion

Have you ever had questions floating around in your head for a few days? As much as you try to find the answer to those questions, you just can not? You read, reflect and discuss the topic with others. Still, you can not find what you are looking for. The questions haunt you. They frustrate you. They challenge you...

As fate would have it, I stumbled across a post from @WHSRowe on twitter about Strategic Confusion. The title itself intrigued me. I was hoping this would provide me with the insight to begin answering my questions. As usual, through Rik's knowledge and transparency, I think I found the answers I was looking for...

I decided to try my own version of Strategic Confusion. I had just finished a unit on Scientific Notation with my 8th grade students. We learned how to divide and multiply numbers, write numbers in scientific notation and threw in some exponent work as well. Rik's post provided me the motivation to intentionally create a scenario for my students that forced them to take control of their own learning. How did I do this?

First, I asked them to bring their devices to class. Then, I provided them with some links through Google Classroom that would show them how to add and subtract numbers in scientific notation. These two topics had not been introduced yet. I informed them they would be required to provide me with a short write up describing the steps they took to learn this activity. In addition, they must provide me with 5 problems they create and solve to demonstrate their understanding.

What did I observe? I noticed a group of students that immediately began viewing videos on their devices. Others began looking through the notes I also provided through Google Classroom. They immediately began taking control of their learning. They immediately used the resources their own way to guide their learning. I was able to move around the room guiding students as they needed it.

I need to do more of this intentional strategic confusion to help my students learn how to work through situations when they face a difficult task. I need to explain to them times when I had to do the same thing. This is such a critical step to being a lifelong learner. If I am not preparing my students for a lifetime a learning, what is it I am really doing?

I think I found a new addition to my class routine. I love that the students can use their devices to view videos in groups to guide their learning. This would give them an opportunity to hear a different voice explain the topic. I love finding new ways to tweak our culture of learning to increase student learning and engagement.

But most of all, stretching myself to try this activity helped me begin to answer the question that was rattling around in my head mentioned at the beginning of this post: How do I get my students more comfortable learning challenging topics they initially struggle with?

What tips can you share that I can add to my list?