brian

End of the 2016-17 school year

-2. I always enjoy writing my end of school year post. It’s a great way of wrapping my head around all that has happened during the last ten months.

-1. It’s the last day of school – what a difference a year makes! This time last June I was finishing off a ten-year tenure at my previous school, eager for a new beginning. Well, this year was eventful, to say the least. No lie, part of me is surprised that I actually survived it.

0. I should start with how whiteboarding transformed my instruction this year. I’ve had small, desk-sized whiteboards for years, but usually only pulled them out for review. After Alex Overwijk’s session last year at TMC16, I knew that I had to use some VNPS and VRG this year. It only took until March, but I did. I dabbled with creating flow and it was a game changer!

1. All the classrooms are shared at my school so this is a stretch, but I’m thinking of completely defronting my classroom next year. It probably won’t fly next year, but I want my desk in the middle of the room.

2. After I hit my groove with the large whiteboards, it was all downhill from there. We dry-erased ourselves to death. I was also lucky enough to have desks in my room that are dry-erase friendly. I also picked up these sheets, which came in handy while sketching trigonometric and polynomial functions.

3. Through all of this, I discovered the immense learning value and functionality in dry erase. Kids were far more willing to get an answer wrong, to take risks. They knew their work wasn’t permanent. In fact, not only was it easy to edit their work, it was downright fun at times. At a deeper level, they stopped caring so much about being wrong.

4. My standards-based grading ran into a wall this year. This deserves a post in and of itself. But to make a long story short: I made my SBG marks cumulative for the year. What a student learns (or doesn’t learn) in October is still reflected on their grade in June. This means that they had the opportunity retake any concept from any point during the year with no penalty. At the same time, they could also lose proficiency if they demonstrated a lack of understanding on a particular concept – even if they first learned in back in October, say. Most kids didn’t like the system, but I REALLY did. Hmm…

5. Three other bits about my SBG this year. First, as the year progressed, I began to drift away from SBG with my non-Regents (non-state tests) students. It got so hard to make their retakes a priority over my Regents students. This is a problem that I hope I address next year. Second, shortly after the year began, I started requiring students to reserve their seat ahead of time for retakes (instead of just showing up). Before this change, it was a mad house of 25 kids after school trying to retake their concepts. I limited it to 15 students and then it was ok. Lastly, I never found a way to for students who initially demonstrated proficiency to move up to mastery. My focus was on moving kids up from developing to proficiency. The solution may lie in not requiring them to tutor with me before retaking. We’ll see.

6. For the first time in my career, I wrote an end of year letter to my students. I write them all the time anyhow, so I figured why not end the year with one final letter. Each class got their own and it was almost two pages. I included a remark about every student in each class. It really hit home with the kids. One student even said that she was going to frame it.

7. I blame this on my first year blues, but I let too much go this year – especially with my first period class. They were off the wall for much of the year and I was pretty embarrassed by the lack of control I had. I gave them too much latitude early on and it came back to bite me. Across the board, I need to tighten things up next year.

8. Being naive, I attempted to have a parent newsletter. Just like last school year, it went strongly for three months and…flopped. Badly. I don’t want to give up on this idea, but it’s not looking good.

9. I need to call more parents. Maybe instead of a damn newsletter, I make an effort to call each and every parent at the start of the school year. And then follow up as necessary.

10. Being the first year that I’ve taught Common Core Algebra 2, I struggled in knowing what to exactly teach the kids. Let’s just say that I learned a lot of mathematics this year. And I was good until around December…and that’s when the pacing calendar went out the window. I was forced to omit two entire units.

11. For the past several years, I did my best to preplan entire units. I’m talking having detailed handouts for every lesson before the unit begins. Th goal was to think ahead and build strong connections between lessons and key ideas. Because of my struggles with the curriculum, I came to the realization that this practice actually causes me more harm than good. By trying to follow the road map that I constructed prior to the start of the unit, I didn’t leave room flexibility in my students’ thinking that naturally occurred as they learned new things. This whole situation makes me think of this nugget of wisdom that Patrick Honner dropped on me a couple of years ago.

12. My homework structure got better this year. Unit-based DeltaMath was good. Having students check the paper homework it was a success. I realized, though, that I gradually stopped lagging it. This may be related to the curricular issues, but found it hard to plan the homework each night. Next year, I might give the students homework on Friday and make it due the following Friday – with all lagged problems. Then again, I’m now toying with the idea of no homework at all.

13. My A.P. is outstanding. She was the breath of fresh air.

14. Dan Meyer was equally outstanding in his three-part PD series that I attended.

15. A huge professional accomplishment this year was submitting component 2 of my National Board Certification. Damn that thing was work. OMG. I just remembered that I have to submit two more of these next year.

16. Math for America honored me with a Renewal Master Teacher Fellowship. My growth during these last four years has much to do with their influence on my career, so I’m thoroughly pleased that I will be continuing to grow and lead through this dynamic community. On a semi-unrelated note, I co-authored a post on the MfA blog.

17. In March, I was named a Big Apple Award Finalist. Frankly, I don’t know how the hell this happened. I’m grateful though.

18. At the beginning of the school year, I had every student write me a letter introducing themselves. I gave loose guidelines of what I hoped they’d tell me and said that I would write each of them a personalized letter in return. Well, it’s June 28 and not only did I not write everyone back, but I didn’t even read many of the letters until last week. (Reading their letters after a year of getting to know them was pretty interesting, though.) Shame on me!

19. The Token of Appreciation was lost on two different occasions in two different classes this year. Nonetheless, it was still a great year in appreciating the small moments that exist between us.

20. As I stood outside my classroom door this year, I started dishing out high-fives to random students (and staff members) as they walked by me. It was spontaneous, fun, and a total mood-lifter. Also, my fifth-period class always gave me a round of applause at the start of class. I gave them an applause as they exited. It was strange – and totally unforgettable.

21. The estimation wall was a total hit. And thanks to the inspiration from Sara VanDerWerf, so were the random problems that I posted in the hallway. From students to staff, everyone was doing, and loving, mathematics. This is genius.

22. The Mathematicians Beyond White Dudes initiative was a huge success this year. At the end of the year, I even had a girl present a mathematician that she learned about on a school field trip.

23. I learned how far we need to go, as a school community, to deliberately address race and other social issues with students and staff. A lot goes ignored. Too much in fact. More to come.

24. I’m super excited for next year. I should be teaching the first ever mathematics elective at my school, which will be treat. It’ll probably be filled with kids that need a class and not because they’ve elected to be there, but I’m still eager to explore mathematics beyond Regents and A.P. exams, which is all they know. Also, I hope to kickstart either a mathematics or Educators Rising club next year. I’m on the fence about which it’ll be. The summer will help me decide.

25. The Day in the Life series that I wrote this year challenged my will at times, but I’m glad I stuck it out. It was a wonderful way to capture what was probably the most pivotal year of my career.

27. During a group quiz towards the end of the year, I took notes on student discussions and specific things that students did as they related to productive group work (explaining thinking, showing work, asking good questions, being helpful, etc). At the end of the quiz, I spent three minutes sharing one outstanding thing that I witnessed from each group. It helped push back against social status and helped show them what’s important…which isn’t to know lots of mathematics. I want to do more of this public acknowledgment of student thinking.

28. I learned a lot about my goals this year. Looking back at the goals I set back in September, I made reasonable progress on numbers 2, 4, 6, and 8. If I go ahead and say that I “achieved” those goals (which is pushing it), then that means I had a success rate of 4/10. Whatever. In the end, what I really take from all this is that my focus this year was far too broad. I wanted to change way too much.

29. If I’m honest, it’s the end of June and I’m bothered by the fact that I still don’t feel rooted in my school. While I feel the wheels turning in the right direction, right now I’m not completely invested in what’s happening here. I suppose this is normal given that I just finished my rookie year. But still.

30. Anyhow, year 11 is now in the books. Here’s to making 2017-18 great. See you next June.

Why we’re better together (crosspost)

*This post was originally published on the Teacher Voices blog at mathforamerica.org. It was co-authored by myself and the awesome Courtney Ginsberg.

Teaching is the most complex job in the world. We shape the future. We motivate students, deal with ever-changing expectations, and tackle mounds of paperwork. Through it all, we operate within a system that champions test scores over learning. This is a mere subset of the demands placed on us every day. If you’re a teacher reading this, you can no doubt think of many more.

Given this backdrop, no one would blame a teacher for focusing solely on their own classroom and their own students. Thoughtful teachers understand the urgency to serve the 30 smiling faces that walk into our classrooms each day. With that said, there is danger in not acknowledging the role we play in the larger context of teaching. When we fail to see our colleagues, both in our own school and out, as necessary partners in the work that we do with students, we become an island. Isolated, we create everything ourselves, work through problems alone, and have difficulty seeing beyond our classrooms. In this way, our potential, and our students’ success, is inherently limited.

As teachers of mathematics, the hallmark of improvement is the meaningful connections we make with other STEM teachers. These connections drive collaboration and inspire us to rethink what’s possible for our students, our classrooms, and our schools. Naturally, this is the setting where teachers become teacher leaders. We are empowered and unafraid to volunteer our time to lead professional learning courses or simply start a discussion on an interesting topic, like we do at MƒA. Occurring with little to no help from outsiders, these are the most meaningful types of professional development experiences.

This line of thinking contrasts the message that is often promoted from the top-down, which is for us to lean on “experts” to help us become better teachers. We are reminded to seek out these specialists and incorporate their models to better serve our students. This is a linear, straightforward approach to the challenge of teaching development. Go to the expert, learn from the expert, case closed.

While this sounds great and makes a lot of money for those in high places, knowledgeable teachers understand the reality: no matter how much success or experience you’ve had in (or out) of the classroom, no one is an expert at teaching. Many will claim otherwise, but becoming a better teacher isn’t linear – it’s more piecewise than anything. Different strategies are effective in different contexts with different kids. This is why teacher leadership doesn’t hang its hat on expertise. Instead, it relies on the collective knowledge and experiences of all teachers to push the community forward.

This type of collaboration amongst teachers happens every day. For example, several years ago, while co-facilitating an MƒA PLT with MƒA Master Teacher Mike Zitolo, Brian learned of their shared passion for classroom inter-visitations. Excited to learn from one another, they made unsupervised, grassroots plans to visit each other’s schools. The result was something that deeply impacted Brian. Mike’s methodical, know-why-this-is-important approach to physics was very different from the mathematics classrooms that Brian visited in the past (as well as his own). By immersing himself in Mike’s classroom, he not only gained a deeper appreciation for the STEM work that happens outside of mathematics, but learned how science can enhance how he teaches mathematics. The experience influenced Brian to publish a lesson that integrates a microcontroller into regression analysis.

A few years ago Courtney took former MƒA Master Teacher Phil Dituri’s workshop, “Making Group Work the Norm.” It sparked a real desire to collaborate more with her colleagues, so she spent time working through ways to incorporate them into her larger school community. She ended up designing PD for her STEM team to implement similar strategies. Shortly thereafter, Courtney heard MƒA Master Teacher Shannon Guglielmo speak at the annual MƒA MT²: Master Teachers on Teaching event. Courtney and Shannon attended graduate school together so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to reconnect. They talked and shared resources on her subway map theory, which led to collaboration around using statistics to solve community issues. This also allowed for deeper collaboration within their building as Courtney is working to set up inter-visitations for the 10+ MƒA teachers working at different schools within her larger building.

In both instances, teacher leadership wasn’t defined by the level of expertise of the people involved. It was developed through a genuine interest in learning from other teachers and a willingness to openly share knowledge amongst each other. This is the beauty and power of communities like MƒA. They are filled with teachers inspiring other teachers to be lifelong learners of STEM, who invariably work towards delivering the most meaningful and authentic instruction possible. In short, we lead each other.

To expand on the interdisciplinary STEM work that already has so many MƒA teachers engaged, many of us will come together next month for three days of growth. We will lead one another through a series of workshops that share our resources and best practices, all with the aim of leveraging big ideas in and out of the classroom. This teacher-designed, teacher-led conference, the Summer Think, will be the first of its kind at MƒA and will provide teachers a relaxing atmosphere to think in ways that is so hard to do during the school year. From exploring the social, economic, and ethical issues of climate change to infusing the design process into our classrooms, the conference will use mathematics and science as entry points to high levels of collaboration. With in-depth, multi-day workshops and a variety of support sessions all happening smack in the middle of the summer, this unique experience will embody teacher leadership.

Despite the resounding needs of our own students, our influence can and should extend beyond our classroom. Experiences like ours as well as those that will happen at the MƒA Summer Think demonstrate one simple fact: we’re better together.

Day in the Life: Algebra 2 Regents Exam (Post #12)

I’ve decided to chronicle this school year through my blog. It’s part of Tina Cardone’s Day in the Life book project. This is the twelfth and final post in the series.

5:15am | Up and adam. I brew some coffee and head outside to sit and read for half an hour. The birds sing to me, which makes for a relaxing start to the day. Right now I’m in the middle of Why Don’t Kids Like School by Daniel T. Willingham. It’s pretty good.

I head back inside and put together some breakfast. I shower, grab the bike and make my way in.

7:15am | 13 minutes later I’m locking up my bike in the parking lot. This is still a little weird for me because for years I brought my bike up to my classroom.

On my way up to my classroom, I chat with a few teachers. Everyone is chill because we all know that today, June 16, 2017, is the fourth day of Regents exams. These are New York State high school exams. There is no more instruction for the year. New York City robustly organizes the grading of these exams in a pretty unique way, I think. Selected teachers from every high school in the city report to “grading sites” to mark the exams of students from schools other than their own. The organizational power that this requires is remarkable. For the most part, it runs pretty seamlessly every year. Unless you’re out scoring, you hang back at school to proctor the exams. If you’re not proctoring and have no other responsibilities, the time is yours to spend however you like. As for me, this morning I have to monitor a few seniors who are serving the remainder of their detention before commencement tomorrow, but other than that, there’s nothing that I have on tap.

What’s interesting about today is that my algebra 2 students are sitting for their Regents exam this afternoon. In total, there are about 75 students that will measure their understanding of algebra 2 against New York State’s ever-changing expectations. It’s a very anticlimactic end to their algebra 2 experiences.

7:30am | I make it up to my room, draft this post, and get lost in the abyss that is the internet. I’m hooked on brilliant.org, so of course I tackle a few their problems. I also continue working on my end-of-the-school-year draft that I began yesterday. The department chair comes in and tells me about this financial literacy course. Next year we will plan to have an alternative to Regents-bound algebra 2 and this course is one of the possibilities. It looks promising and it’s chock full of meaningful projects, which I like. We’ll see. Worst case, I incorporate certain features of the course and not others.

It’s crazy how two hours seemingly pass in the blink of an eye.

9:30am | I head down to the auditorium where there a bunch of seniors serving the last hours of their detention. While I fully expected it to be boring, I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable it was. It helped that I had several of the kids this year in class. We talked about future plans and they reflected on their past four years. One kid asked me about my feeling towards video games. I also made a bet with another about whether someone falls while walking on stage at commencement tomorrow. I said no, he said yes. The winner gets a Hershey’s.

Despite the fact that they were serving detention, the vibe I got was a communal one. Although I know it’s not true, it’s almost like they wanted to be there.

10:45am | On my way back to my classroom, I find a class set of tangrams in a closet. I’m thinking that I may use them next year in my discrete mathematics elective next year. I do a quick check-in with a girl doing makeup work to help her earn credit for the class. After, I go bunker down in my classroom and eat lunch.

Browsing Twitter, I read this tweet from Sara VanDerWerf. , I immediately place a hold on Blind Spot at the New York Public Library. Looks like a powerful read. It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about over the last year.

11:45am | My classroom is being used for this afternoon tests, so I need to find another classroom to call my home for the next few hours. I do so and find that some of my students are hanging outside the building waiting to be let in for the exam. I head out there to greet them and remind them that they don’t need luck.

12:30pm | I pop into the various classrooms and give the kids a smile before they begin. No words, just a humble wave to accompany my grin. Other teachers this week have been bringing in candy and even bottles of water for the students. There’s something about this that doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe I’m overthinking things.

Anyhow, good feelings abound after my brief visit, but inside I can’t help but be disappointed that all of the work we’ve done this year has led to this moment. I leave them to work.

1:00pm | I walk up to the deli to grab a coffee. A colleague joins me. We talk about the upcoming “Field Day” that she’s planning for the last day of school. It’s an odd day because all of the grades are in and the exams are complete, but students technically still need to be here. She’s planning an entire at a local park full of all sorts of fun, outdoor activities.

1:15pm | I sit and continue my lazy day. I swear I’ve taken less than 1000 steps today.

I type up more of this post. I think about my students taking their exam. They’re great kids. I hope they’re doing well. I hope that their work is convincing to whoever grades their stuff. I could probably do something more productive with my time, but I decide to dive into more brilliant.org problems.

3:00pm | I decide that before I leave for the weekend that I should probably have a look at the algebra 2 exam, which all of my students are sweating through at this very moment. I get a copy from the test coordinator.

Look, historically speaking, my Regents results have never been something to call home about…and I know that there many other factors at play here. Nonetheless, despite it being a big part of my job description, I will openly admit that I’m not the greatest at preparing kids for these high-stakes exams. Last year, like 50 percent of my kids passed the algebra 2/trigonometry exam — and that was my highest percentage ever. So while I always hope and prepare for the best but, sadly, I don’t really have high expectations.

So back to today’s exam. As I comb through it, I’m shocked to realize how well my instruction aligned with the exam this year. My kids should do alright. But with my track record, I doubt it.

Let me stop. I’ll stay optimistic until the results starting coming in next week. (Secretly, I’m also banking on the ridiculously low passing score that NYS required.)

3:50pm | I leave school. It’s a nice Friday evening with the family. We go out for dinner.

9:20pm | Seemingly all I did today was solve brilliant.org problems, but somehow I’m tired. Go figure. Good night.

1. Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day. Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming. When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of? What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

I made a conscious decision at detention this morning to help repair a relationship that turned sour this year. The student that I made the Hershey’s bet with…um, let’s just say we had a rough year. He ~~hated~~ disliked my class. He struggled and I failed to reach him. Yeah, it wasn’t a great experience for either one of us. But I was really glad we connected on something lighthearted and fun at detention today. I also promised myself to email him next week to follow up on a modeling opportunity that he told me about.

2. Every person’s life is full of highs and lows. Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher. What are you looking forward to? What has been a challenge for you lately?

As the year comes to a close, I’ve struggled with feeling rooted in my school. I hoped that by this time, I would feel some sort of genuine connection to my new home, but that hasn’t really happened.

3. We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is. As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students. Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

Inspired by other bloggers, this week I invited a colleague to write a guest post for this here blog. What he produced was wonderful. He’s someone that has been talking about writing more for a long time…and I figured this might be a great opportunity for him. He not only seized the moment, but during the last couple of days, he’s been putting together his own website. His writing is taking off. He’s even thinking of writing a book this summer!

4. Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year. What is a goal you have for the year?

In preparation for the Regents exam, I needed to structure my tutoring in a way that met the needs of all my students and at the same time didn’t drive me crazy. What I ended up going with was assigning each student a minimum number of hours of tutoring that they needed to complete before the exam. The number of hours they were assigned was based on their performance during the school year. They had a tracking sheet that I stamped. Of course, every student didn’t complete all of their hours, but for the most part, it was successful.

5. What else happened this month that you would like to share?

Here’s something that I’ve never done before: I taught one of my classes how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. I use the word “taught” loosely. I borrowed 12 cubes (it’s a small class) from You Can Solve the Cube I attempted to show them the steps that I use to solve it. Not all of them ended learning how to solve it, but I think they enjoyed the change of pace. Next year I’m going to leave more time so we can get into mosaics.

Why do you even teach, bro? (guest post)

Note: Last week, a Spanish teacher at my school and I were sitting around talking before freshman orientation. He’s super passionate about teaching. I learn something new every time he and I have the chance to talk. Anyways, while speaking with him on this particular day, I asked him if he’d fancy writing a guest post for my blog to share some of his thoughts. It was an open-ended invite and he was excited about the opportunity. In this post, he shares the relationship between his content area and his zeal for teaching.

_________

I learned a long time ago that my love for Spanish had nothing to do with the art of teaching. You heard me right!

Your love for math, your love for English or literature even has nothing to do with your teaching. Some of us became teachers because we saw it as a stepping stone for that next big opportunity. Perhaps we were lured into the bear trap of education because of the time off. We reasoned that we could use that time off to write that best seller or design technology to revolutionize the way we live; perhaps we became music teachers to use the time to record that next big hit. Whatever may be the reasons, the fact is that some of us are in the wrong profession and we pay dearly for it, your students pay dearly, and the system pays dearly.

But a teacher that loves to teach can teach almost anything because their passion may actually hinge on the subject matter. Instead is all about the students they teach. When you love to help others succeed, teaching the subject matter that you love is the icing on the cake.

Because of their passion for helping students, these types of teachers celebrate the smallest milestone and push through the toughest days. Every day they renew their strength and faith and face each day’s challenges with optimism and a clean slate. They have the ability to forget about the wrong students may have done and focus on their future success.

So I conclude by asking you, why do you even teach bro?