Category: reflection

Year in Review: 2015

I always find it a bit odd reflecting at the end of a calendar year. My real year runs from September to June. That’s how I’m trained. Nonetheless, here are some reflections from my 2015.

Professional Development

  •  I helped facilitate an Arduino PLT with MfA in the spring. Although I helped lead the group, I was truly learning as I went. It was an uplifting testimony to being a novice that’s willing to bring knowledgeable folks together for the greater good.
  • The spring introduced me to Video Clubs and the fall allowed me to bring this rich experience to the math department at my school. I eagerly await to see where this goes. I even got invited to speak at a conference! Of all people, me!
  • The Research Experience for Teachers (RET) with NYU provided the platform to develop and learn through actual, hands-on research. I’ll never again look at human hair or cement the same way. I even got to use an electron microscope. Talk about a wow experience.
  • The Learning Partners Program helped me in unpredictable ways. I was expecting intervisitations, but the experience proved to be far more comprehensive. Some of the resulting transparency caused pain, but in a healthy way.
  • I was about my colleagues. Our relationships got stronger, more interdependent. I thrusted myself into a leadership role and invested in their success. I wanted my opportunities to become their opportunities.
  • I took up juggling. It’s not directly related to my professional growth, but I think it’s pretty cool. Plus, it’s fairly therapeutic, which helped me grow. I’m looking forward dwelving into the mathematics of juggling, which will be fun.
  • I read, and enjoyed reading, more than ever.

Teaching

  • I began assessing my students by means of standards-based grading and then improved it. I should’ve began this a long, long time ago.
  • It seems simple, but exit slips played a significant role in my class for the first time. And, in general, assessment was a running theme for me all year.
  • I once held the belief that if I don’t grade an assignment, the kids wouldn’t do it. I learned that it’s more about the classroom culture and growth mindset that make kids want to (or not want to) work.
  • I wrote to my students more than ever. And loved it.
  • I incorporated writing and discussion techniques regularly. I also thought about my questioning in more sophisticated ways. Simply put, I learned to value these worthwhile activities.
  • After years of waiting for the opportunity, I was able to kickstart an after-school bicycle club in 2015.
  • I realized that I now look at every day, every class period, differently. In fact, I feel different about teaching. I’m more aware, more dedicated, more creative. My perspective matured greatly in 2015. This has pushed me to capitalize on moments with students and colleagues like never before.

This was my first full calendar year maintaining a blog. Is it a coincidence that 2015 was such a game changer for my career?

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Why I stopped flipping

Flip Flops

Four years ago, just before it became heavily commercialized, I flipped my classroom. I created video lessons that my students watched for homework. Class time was used for enrichment, reflection, and collaborative work. I ran with the model for a year and a half.

The other day, out of the blue, I was asked why I stopped. That made me think: back when I stopped flipping, I didn’t have this blog and never wrote about why I stopped. Here goes. Four years later.

Before flipping, I usually lectured. Sure, I disguised it with an enthusiastic and energetic delivery, but I lectured nonetheless. I wasn’t critical of my own teaching at the time, so I didn’t really think twice about it.

After I flipped, I had significantly more facetime with my kids and they had more time to reinforce new concepts. I was really happy about this. My students sat back absorbing new content like sponges, this time from a video embedded with summary questions. After all, a video lecture, however dressed up, is still a lecture.

The problem was that students weren’t discovering mathematics from my lessons. They weren’t interacting with mathematics or each other during the learning process. They weren’t debating with one another while learning something new. They weren’t being asked to find patterns and discuss them with a partner. They weren’t being challenged to make connections and develop understanding. They were using technology for learning, but not to learn. Their first impressions of so many beautiful mathematical ideas included pausing and rewinding a video that contained my face. In short, they didn’t construct their own learning. I did all of that for them.

I stopped flipping my classroom because I realized that I wasn’t flipping student learning, I was simply flipping my teaching.

I discovered that I needed them to take ownership and discover how and what they learned. What’s ironic is that I actually had to flip my classroom in order to realize this. Flipping allowed me to see my lessons through a more concentrated lens that highlighted my teacher-centered approach. More on this.

Four years later, do I regret flipping my classroom? Not a chance.

 

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Token of Appreciation

I’m a huge fan of showing appreciation to others, especially for the simple, day-to-day things that often go overlooked. In an effort to promote this, I’ve started a new tradition in my class. It’s called a Token of Appreciation.

Each Friday, the Token, a small chunk of wood, will be given to someone in our class as a symbol of appreciation for something they did during the past week. The person giving the Token must identify someone that they think deserves it, shout them out, and give them the Token.

The recipient gets to keep the Token for the next week. They will make their “mark” on it by drawing their name, putting a sticker on it, or whatever else they feel will best represent them, possibly even carving into it. The following Friday, that person will recognize someone else and give the Token to them. And so on.

I kickstarted the tradition last week by giving the Token to a student in each algebra 2/trigonometry class. Here are the tokens:


A simple act of kindness. And little bit of kindness can go a long way.

 

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Questions.

Question More

I’ve realized that it has become a goal of mine to improve my questioning. Here’s some of what I’ve been pondering (and doing) as of late.

1. Asking “what if…” questions. This will usually come into play after we finish a problem. I try to change the conceptual nature of the problem, which provokes students to examine relationships and see the problem under a new context. I also really like giving the students a minute or two to generate their own “what if…” questions about a problem after we’ve found a solution.

2. Asking students to find errors within student work samples. I really started focusing on this last year with my exit tickets, but I’m doing it just about every class. I usually pick up someone’s paper and slide it under the document camera for the class the assess. Quick, easy, authentic. Plus, it creates a culture of identifying and accepting mistakes on a regular basis.

3. I’ve also begun asking students to identify potential errors within problems before examining any sample work. The result is always rich classroom discussion over creatively wrong solutions. The goal is for them to identify both subtle and more serious mistakes that could occur.

4. Having students construct their own questions (that are good). I really need to get better at this. I’ve had some success in the past, but usually when I least expect it. I’m thinking of researching more into RQI to find some useful strategies.

5. The other day, out of the blue, I utilized a “convince me” statement to a student during a class discussion. We were factoring and I proposed a (wrong) solution to him. I essentially asked “why is my solution wrong,” but in a way that felt more like a challenge rather than a question. I felt the power when I uttered it. It probably bled through from a workshop from Chris Luzniak a couple years ago on using debate in math class. He has great stuff.

6. Using questions as a foundation of my class. I want my classroom culture to be one that emphasizes the why behind the answer instead of the answer itself. As a math teacher, I’ve always emphasized work and how critical it is. But I’ve never lived out that creed by how I teach my kids. Trying to change that this year. More to come on this.

7. If one student X makes a statement about something we’re studying, I’ll sometimes turn to student Y and ask them to “Interpret what X just said…”

8. During an intervisitation, the teacher I was visiting posed a question to the class and no one responded or seemed to have a clue. He said “Alright, take 30 seconds and brainstorm with a neighbor about the question.” He waited and asked the question again and there were several responses. This was awesome.

9. The questioning doesn’t begin and end while I’m teaching. I’ve started questioning more of what I plan and structure for my students, including things that I’ve done for years. I’ve put my teaching philosophy under a microscope too. It’s changing. This will have repercussions far greater than any question I could ever pose to a student.

 

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