How things go down in my classroom

My First Scratch Encounter

            What struck me most about the completed game was the not the game itself but rather the inspiration it provided.  Almost immediately after putting the final piece of code into place I regretted not having started the project two weeks earlier since the game could have been so much bigger.  New stages, new girls, new colors, and all sorts of flashy mobs to attack and hinder my ability to avoid being kissed could have been added to this prototype.  It was almost next to impossible to stop adding things to the game with so much creativity bursting forth from within.  Why would this project have struck me as such?  Perhaps it was the hours and hours of entertainment it provided or the soul-sucking decoding I had to endure.  But if a source of this inspiration has to found I feel as though it isn’t the flashy women or the funny plot that makes the learning so addictive, it’s the physics. 

            At first it was just to see if I could get a character to move back and forth on the screen, but it soon evolved into a fully controllable, avatar.  I could jump, speed up, slow down, and interact with different objects.  Surely I could have recreated Mario with this type of dominion over the virtual world.  Wielding my omnipotence became an obsession as I began to make decisions that sculpted what my final project would ultimately become.  My ultimate goal in beginning this project became the use of the physics that this character had achieved in order to create an entertaining and challenging game that could be enjoyed by anyone with a computer.

            The problems I encountered were not programming problems because I have been familiar with computers for years now and have previously taken programming classes.  They were creativity problems.  Here I must give credit to my classmates and their ideas.  Even though I did all the coding myself I cannot express how much inspiration and learning came out of our brainstorming sessions during class.  During the beginning stages, when Calvin could only jump straight up and down, I received a piece of advice that changed the game entirely.  “It would be cool if he could jump over and across something!” he said.  Within five minutes my character was bounding across the screen.  “You should build platforms and see how high your character can climb!”  Several hours later there were platforms floating up and down my screen.  There were nearly more beta tests by other people than tests by me, they seemed to egg me on.

            To be honest, I’ve had professors who tell me exactly what a project needs.  Who create marking schemes based on their exact specifications.  But I don’t learn much from those professors.  When it was said that we must make a game, and that it needed to be creative, and that for our sakes they were not going to show us a game that had been previously made in this class because it had stifled creativity in the past, my heart skipped a beat.  Finally, an undisturbed nesting ground for learning!  “This program is capable of doing a lot of things.  Make it do something cool!” is how I envision summarizing this project.  As opposed to: “Make a game where you must kill three enemies before you can win.”  Not only was I inspired to create something unique, I was also invited to use all the tools at my disposal within the Scratch program regardless of my skill in programming.  I feel as though I learned more about student motivation from this project than I did about programming in Scratch.

            The only thing that another programmer might have done, that I didn’t, was to add sound effects to my game.  Simply put, sound effects would have driven me up the wall during the hours that I spent decoding my game and so I chose not to include any.  I did receive feedback from one beta tester on their inability to know when they had hit Carmen with a snowball.  Sound might have been one solution but I think my solution is better; a visual cue.  Creating more than one solution to a problem I something I think should be a part of classrooms today.  With so many resources at our disposal it is easy to find one great solution to a problem and stop there.  But the truth is that for every problem, even math problems, there is a plethora of correct solutions and we must not get stuck thinking that every single one of our students is going to think exactly the same as us.  I am reminded of the diversity of our students.  One student may understand fractions and decimals almost instantly while another needs visual and audial cues in order to really grasp what is happening in a problem.  My main point here is that the people who beta tested my game still know that they are being hit by kisses even though there is no sound in my game. 

Information

My grade 8 math class had been studying percentages, fractions, and ratios for several weeks.  Each day I would try to find some sort of real life application of fractions; my thought being that if students were familiar with real life ratios and fractions then they would be more comfortable talking about them abstractly in the classroom.

Some days I would show something extremely simple.  Such as juice:water ratios, and some days I would simply show them pictures of really cool things such as people hanging from the space needle cleaning the side of the tower.  But one day I showed them this:

How much revenue was there in the food sales industry? 

Not exactly your typical Grade 8 Math problem.  Not exactly a math problem at all... just a snipet from a newspaper somewhere on the internet.  You'll have to forgive me for stealing it.  It isn't the problem that is interesting though but the reaction from the students.  

See, I've been studying online learning communities and their seemingly addictive nature.  Places like WoW online communities, Starcraft, eduBlogs, pinterest, technology problem solving forums, and basically any other site which gives users the ability to access any information they want to access regardless of their learning ability.  These places let novices and advanced learners alike interact with each other without discrimination.

My students first reaction was "Could you maybe just tell us how to find it?" when I introduced a more advanced problem for students to ponder and told them we weren't going to solve it that day.  I could have said "We don't have the time for that." or "We might come back to it later."  But instead I asked myself what I would honestly do if I was so curious about something.  Honestly, I would probably tune out, ignore my teacher, talk to some friends about a solution, roll it around in my head for a while, and then wake up in the middle of the night with a whole "ah hah!" moment.  Well... I've only ever made it to the "ah hah in my sleep" moment twice in my life.  

So I took a minute in my classroom and appeased their curiosity for their sake and my sanity.  Seriously, access to information in a classroom is often extremely limited!  And that is not what I want in my classroom.  Students should be able to ask, explore, and even be satisfied and comfortable with an topic, or at least informed enough to access the information on their own later on.  

Solutions

I've been fooling around with an idea based on Barbara Coloroso's constructive teaching approach.  Her philosophies are based off of three basic tenants:

1. Giving them ways to care deeply, share generously, and help willingly.
2. Curb their inclinations to hoard or harm.
3. Stop in its tracks anything that fuels hatred.

By "them" she means the students.  I've still got some work to do but this seems like a good place to introduce my solutions sheets that I've designed in regard to this philosophy.






 I asked my University Facilitator to help me develop these solutions sheets since he had taken a similar approach to classroom discipline and this is what he shared with me:

"Here are the questions I have kids reflect on (in writing) on my "Responsibility Training Plan" sheets.

1)  What did I do?
2)  Why did I do it? (This can sometimes be tough as they are afraid to admit the real reason but often this can be the most valuable question on the paper.
3)  Who was affected by my behaviour? (This should be addressed in the appropriate consequences section of the form.)
4)  What is my plan to correct this behaviour?
5)  What is an appropriate consequence for my behaviour?

I then ask for student and my signature on the paper as the key to the success of this approach is the personal discussion after the form is completed. * You must be satisfied with the responses or the process continues.

Good luck with this type of approach as it isn't for everyone. Boy, was my faculty upset with me when I started this as a high school asst.principal. The immediate responses were, "What kind of punishment is this?" or "You are not being consistent, there should be a set of rules with consequences made clear t the students at the beginning." My response was that, "Every child is different and every situation is different; therefore, every misbehaviour needs to be treated with the intent of having the individual student understand and accept  the impact of their behaviour."


There is plenty of room for improvement and I fully intend to develop this into a more flexible, constructive approach to classroom management!  I would love to see students achieving a level of awareness where they can learn to discipline themselves and accept their own consequences as a result of their actions.

Worth it.

The results of the votes we had in class have been summarized. The expectations that students voted on have all been summarized and a short conversation about what has been agreed upon will be had on Monday. That's really the jest of my very first lesson in a real Albertan classroom. A lesson which became a huge success in the following month with every student in the classroom increasing their ability to communicate in my classroom!

I think the biggest decision I had to make was how to deal with students who have been warned three times. Really, now that I think about it, three times is too much. Too much time between warnings really and students stopped taking me seriously.

I decided to use Barbara Coloroso’s ideas and implement a strategy that allows students to think about what they’ve done and not allow them to ignore the effects of their actions in the classroom. I am developing a strategy where students who misbehave write out a paragraph about how they intend to fix their behavior. I feel this strategy best reflects the values that I want to represent in my classroom. Using this strategy I do not have to send students away and it uses logical consequences instead of punitive consequences. There is more on this to come!

Unfortunately, this strategy really only works for individual students. If the class is unable to behave I figure it might be because they need a stretch so I have think I might make them do burpies or some other exercise. A countdown might work where anything over 5 seconds is counted against them.

Now, class layout. Of the 34 students only 12 voted to keep them the way they are but I feel that even these will change their mind as soon as they see the new layout. I changed the desks so that they are in groups of four. Not surprisingly, this resulted in a beautiful opportunity for proximity engagement and increased my ability to talk to the students one on one!

I am working on a system of monitoring sound levels within the classroom. If I can get it to work the new system will involve my computer and a program that detects mic inputs on my macbook. If the bar gets into the red then students will be reminded to be quieter. I have yet to see if this system will work. During my practicum I did not have the courage to try it! I think it has potential!

The last thing I want to address is my lesson. On Friday I was stuck at the board. I couldn’t move because all my notes were on the smart board and I had no real power to get away from it. I have changed my notes so that all the fill in the blanks and responses are hidden, all I need to do is click on them. With the help of an iPad I could be anywhere in the room and still interact with the whiteboard, thank goodness for technology. This should help with classroom management! Depends on how far the range is! We'll see how it goes next time I get the opportunity to try this! Plus when I manage to buy an iPad.

Can we really assess students knowledge at the end of each class? Doubtful. But I think most students can provide us with valuable information that we can use to make educated decisions about the future of our classes!

I can almost guarantee you that poorly written exit passes and brief conversations will get you nowhere, and in my experience those huge chapter exams don't really leave a lot of room for error - or time to fix mistakes.

But I am a huge supporter of encouraging students to make suggestions as per instructional strategies used in my classroom! It's so difficult to take criticism from a student but somebody strike me down if it's not effective.

Eventually this plan will actually be sustainable, at least I hope so. Right now it just feels like I make so many mistakes when I teach that every single student has something to say, and every single one of them is right!

1. Short quizzes instead of an chapter finals.
2. Update on how their projects are going jotted quickly on pieces of paper.
3. Tip sheets for advanced classes, something that reminds them of everything they already know. (I mean, I have all this stuff memorized but they really don't)
4. Study notes - maybe a discussion about how and what to study.
5. Time to correct work - maybe with help from more advanced students.

Of course, a quiz every day would take up far to much time! We could easily be use that time more productively by completing interesting and engaging activities! But I think that it would be extremely helpful for students if we could all work together to fix misunderstandings! It would almost be like reading to each other in English class. I can just imagine it now... "Wait, that doesn't sound right!"

I don't have to do all of the assessing, do I? I might be more qualified than my students in the Math department but if I am the only one who can teach the material in my classroom then I think I may have failed my students. We're aiming for higher learning aren't we? Then let's give them a chance to learn higher.

And during the short time that I have been teaching I have witnessed more test anxiety than I witnessed during my entire 17 year school career. I think I if I am really interested in knowing where my students are I am going to need to start taking them seriously. And if that means a couple more hours of work this week then so what? I'd say it is worth it.

It's good to have a vision

My plan? I see myself teaching at a smaller school soon (maybe rural, right now it seems as though it might be a private school), building a reputation as a knowledgeable and thorough mathematics teacher. I dream of having a great deal of material compiled into coherent lessons for my students to access. This dream, I feel, is already on its way with the construction of this blog! One day I hope that it hosts all of my material and that I can use it to address changes that I make to each lesson!

I'm thinking five years. That's what I need to have all my lessons ready to go by the first day of classes. This is not to say that I won’t be working on my lessons, just setting some goals for myself. A base lesson for each day that I can easily differentiate based on the students I have in the classroom.

I want to be able to talk to students about their learning preferences and to be able to show an active interest in helping them learn the way that they learn best. But I fear that I will begin to believe that it won’t be until after I compile all of my material that I can begin to do this.

The hard work that I intend to put into these first several years of my career will, hopefully, help define my work later in my career. I am not quite sure that I want to be a part of a large school with its own mathematics department. I fear that I will become lazy, and dependant upon the work that the people before me have accomplished. I sincerely hope that this is not the case! Perhaps a couple years of hard work will convince me otherwise.

In two years I see myself teaching at a smaller school (maybe even rural), building a reputation as a knowledgeable and thorough mathematics teacher. I think that at the end of two years I can have a great deal of material already collected from teachers and a lot of the program of studies already compiled into coherent lessons for my students to access. This dream is already on its way with the addition of an online database for my material and a blog for personal reflections of my work. Professionally, I will be committed to completing my first semester of classes, getting involved with the school culture, and proving that I am up to the task of teaching students.

In five years I will have completed the lessons that I worked on so very hard. All my lessons will be ready to go by the first day of classes. This is not to say that I won’t be working on my lessons, just that a base lesson is ready for each day so that I can easily differentiate it based on the students I have in the classroom. I see myself working towards the differentiation of my classroom by this point. Talking with students about their learning preferences and showing an active interest in helping them learn the way they learn best. But it won’t be until after I compile all the material I need that I can begin to do this. The hard work that I put into the first several years of my career will help define my work in the later part of my career. By this time I think that I will have moved from a smaller rural school to a larger school with mathematics department already in place and will be actively contributing to the body of knowledge that they have in place. This is assuming that I don’t absolutely fall in love with the school that I first gain employment.

Life as we know it.

When I think about all the awesome activities that schools provide I scarcely think of the academic programs. I think about the music class, the students who work out at lunch, the debate club, the students union, the Christian groups, the GLBT support groups and so many more clubs that teach students the value of social networking outside the classroom.

Spending a whole lot of extra time at the school doing extracurricular activities also promotes those precious positive relationships with students that we covet so much. If students know that we are putting in extra effort to be involved with their lives then they are going to be more cooperative when it comes to the classroom. As a bonus, this gives us the opportunity as teachers to converse with the students in a manner that I believe is more human than a strictly teacher-focused classroom could ever provide.

I think I believe more in working in an environment where I can fully immerse myself in the atmosphere, and that might mean making friends with my students. I've been warned about taking hours and hours out of my life for this job and never balancing my work life with my social life but I have trouble thinking about work in any other way. Why shouldn't my work be a big part of my life? It is for everyone else. I don't think I could work somewhere very long where I wasn't getting up every morning and saying "man I love my job, lets go spend another day with my friends today!"

Hopefully not my last attempt!

I worked on this for a while.  I guess I am hoping for it to become a regular part of the Math 20-2 or 30-2 classes I teach!  But I know it hasn't been tested and that I haven't exactly been teaching very long at all!  

Grade Stream & Strand:  Math 30-2

Topic:  Mathematics Research Project

I have a start up activity you could use for this particular lesson but I really wanted to introduce the meat of the material.  So let me preface this with my belief that mathematics is a language and that if we want to practice this language we really need something to talk about.  So I let the students watch this video in class, probably just after our warm-up activity:

America’s native prisoners of war: Aaron Huey on Ted.com (15:28)

http://blog.ted.com/2010/11/10/americas-native-prisoners-of-war-aaron-huey-on-ted-com/

or here:

The material is fairly heavy and, in my opinion, should not be shown without giving the students a chance to reflect on what Aaron has to say.  He talks about how the entire history of the indigenous people of the Black Hills have been, and are still being, taken advantage of!  He talks about their history, about their fight for independence, about their lives, and about their sufferings.  Now, I wouldn't want to force students to talk about something like this but I am sure that they would be more than curious about the history of the Lakota people as presented by Aaron Huey and will need very little prodding to have an in depth conversation after watching this video.  Some conversations that might happen?  

Maybe start off with "What are your initial reactions?" or "Has anyone heard of this before?" or maybe even "Wait, this stuff is really happening?"

Perhaps that will lead into something like this, "How do we know he's telling us the truth?" or "How can we tell he's telling us the truth?"  and thus: "Where did these statistics come from?"

Or, maybe it would lead this way: "Is their any reason to believe this man is lying to us?" or "What bias does the man have?"

These questions, I believe, would be the crux of the lesson.  They would be the real reason for exploring any further!  Or perhaps this question would be: "What are the solutions to this issue?" or "Can the problem be solved?" And it would become my job to allow students to begin exploring different sources!  I suggest something like Stats Canada but depending on the direction your students feel like taking it would be impossible to predict the sources they might need.  They might even want to research the history of the Aboriginal people in Canada and the domestic statistics!  Who knows!  And it begins...

They research, they think, they probably scream a little because they can't find anything relevant or none of their information is consistent with any other information they find.  They begin to see different sides of the story and start to connect Math with their Social Studies class, wouldn't it be great to see them ask their Social Studies teacher for help regarding their Math assignment!?  

Questions like "Is this stuff for real?" or "Could you make sense of this for me?" or "How does this even happen in Canada?" or "How many different versions of history are there?  Can you tell me about this one?"

Of course I am not at all prepared to lecture on the history of indigenous people in Canada but I do feel quite prepared to engage in conversation about indigenous history in Canada.  This may even be a good entrance point for an Elder in the local aboriginal community to come and take part in the conversation!

From here on the only natural thing to do is to learn more about these topics!  So with the program of studies in mind I would ask students to collect all of their learning into one grande presentation to share with the class.  Ask students to include how they found their information, to create unique ways of presenting their data, and to discuss how they verified the data that they found.

And have fun!  There is nothing more boring than a teacher who doesn't want to be teaching.  Encourage conversation, wait for responses, give your students a lot of time to reflect on what they see and include everyone in the activities.  Above all else I would say, be excited for what you are about to learn! You do not know everything!  So don't act like it!  When we are learning alongside or students we tend to reflect our strongest learning characteristics.  I've found that students often need to learn how to learn, and that can't be shoved down their throats; it's gotta be from watching us learn.

Here are the files.  Take a look at them, enjoy them, try them!  I know I certainly will!

The Statistics of Today (Lesson Plan)

The Statistics of Today (Assignment)

You should be like me!

Hidden curriculum:  the extra expectations that we place on students while they are in school blanketing handing in assignments on time, completing all the work expected of students, being involved with social groups, behaviour expectations in class, and normal social interactions.  I’m sure there are many more subtle hidden rules that we are slowly teaching students but I will not list them all.  


But what I would like to discuss are the implications of the hidden curriculum on my classroom.  Although I might have certain expectations of what students should do and how they should behave, I think their behaviour should not be reflected in the grades that they receive.  What is so great about the classroom is the chance that they have to complete the learning objectives provided by Alberta Education without learning things my way!  I tried to explain this to a friend once.  


The situation was this:  Assume I had a student who did not show up or was late to every class, who never handed in assignments, who never participated in class discussions, and was not the friendliest of people.  If this student came in on the last day of class and could demonstrate through means his or her own or means that I provide that they had mastered all of the learning outcomes given by Alberta Education, then I would be obliged to give that student 100% in the course.  


However, I wouldn't consider myself obliged to provide this student with any sort of reference letters, extra credit, or bonuses that I might provide a student who has been a regular part of my class.  


Perhaps the hidden curriculum should have its own system, one that's ‘hidden’ from the regular classroom, with it's own learning objectives and its own feedback that would otherwise not be provided.

What I Envision

My classroom should look busy.  

I imagine a conversation between myself and all the students that is interactive and engaging.  I imagine that the students ask clarifying questions.  

Students in my class sit in groups or pairs and work on problems together during part of the class so that they can learn from each other and correct each others mistakes.  

When we break into these groups it is not a matter of bludgeoning our way through the material but rather all the students have been prepped for the work.  They all know what to do.  They all have an idea about what is going on.  

While the class is working on individual work I imagine that I have time to answer individual questions and clarify the material with struggling students.  I imagine having all my material prepared for class before it starts and providing students with the maximum amount of time to work on their material, which provides me with the maximum amount of time to help them with the material.  

I hope that because I am prepared every day, with the proper materials and a lesson plan to boot that I will be able to take time during the class, maybe even right at the beginning, to give students some interesting tidbit about the world and build a positive relationship with them.

Different Stuff

 I am very much looking forward to differentiated instruction!  If I was to to highlight any part of my experience at school it would have to be that every teacher dutifully provides students with various levels of differentiated instruction!  

From building a complete set of notes for mathematics classes to pass out to students and review with the help of the smart board.  To adaptive questioning in order to include his students to the fullest degree possible. We help build students confidence in their abilities, to communicate their knowledge without demeaning them or making them feel inferior.  I cannot imagine that this is the end of it.  Using the smart board, designing an inviting classroom, being prepared for every class, and inviting students into conversations about mathematics are all things that I am very much looking forward to!

Practice Makes Perfect

Students like to practice.  Who knew!  My sense of students drive to mastery has been thoroughly remixed.  However, I have noticed that students do not care exactly how they practice, merely that they did.  So whether we give the students worksheets to complete on their own or we give them a couple questions to complete in a group, the students will still be driven to complete them.  

I think it’s really important to note that while students will still complete worksheets, they won’t be interested in the material if it is not accompanied by thoughtful, engaging conversation about the topics.  

We should always be ready to engage in conversations about the course content to give students a more holistic view of what they are studying and allow them to develop interests in the material beyond what we have provided them with on paper.

A Meaningful Beginning

I view myself as more of a guide than a lecturer.  Personally, I find it distasteful when a professor chooses to lecture to me for an hour straight without giving me a chance to voice my opinion, ask questions, or contribute in class.  It is insulting I am told that I should know all the material in a class when clearly I am there to learn it.  The most fulfilling part of this career is our ability to ask questions that really strike students as interesting.  

If I really do try and fulfill my end of the bargain, teaching these students, I will provide them with interesting material while they are in my class.  I will provide students with chances to excel outside the class as well as providing them with interesting material in class. The way teachers get involved with the school in meaningful ways shows exactly how much of an impact a teacher can make in a school.