Month: April 2021

Taking My Turn In The Rotation

Did I ever tell you I did one of my pre-service teaching semesters at Greg Maddux’s high school in Las Vegas? It was a perfect assignment because I was homesick to death and the school was very Region-like. The neighborhood around Sahara and Eastern reminded me a lot of the district where I teach now. And the teachers, staff, and students made me feel at home.

Anyway a quote from Maddux popped up in my FB memories the other day:

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Sounds like another profession I know.

A couple of the days this week were decidedly not awesome. We’re deep in the midst of the logs unit right now with Honors Algebra II and I can tell I’m killing them slowly. It’s our third week of hybrid and I think I have a pretty good handle on the mechanics of dual-mode teaching, but between distancing and making sure I include both groups on anything we do, my creativity is a little stifled. We’re doing an awful lot of notes in Quizizz Lessons and then practice in MathXL. I’m checking all the boxes for “parts of an effective math lesson”, but I’m not inspiring anybody by any means.

Didn’t even get to break out Ren & Stimpy:

Wacky parody toy commercials not withstanding, logs are not fun just in general. And during hybrid anything I could do to create some movement or face-to-face collaboration is out. Speed Dating, Stay & Stray, something.

If it makes me feel any better, the story is the same at my son’s school. I asked him if they do any kind of #360Math, or gallery walks, or think-pair-share, or digital breakout rooms, or something to get them out of their seats and talking about math to other humans, or something, when the subject is kind of dry.

Nope.

“Against Covid rules, plus I think all the teachers there are anti-making- anything-interesting.” Oh man. I mean, he’s one of those kids for whom school is like eating brussels sprouts, or flossing. But still.

And I bet if I sat in on a class of his I’d see teachers working their hardest under difficult circumstances. I mean, 18 years in has taught me that what kids say doesn’t always share a ZIP code with the reality of what happens in a classroom. But perception is reality.

And hey, adults are not immune to holding on tight to the reality they prefer to hear and believe either.

Short term memory, right? Even from class period to class period sometimes. And bulletproof confidence.

Mission Control

We had a pretty positive day today. My Algebra II classes were reviewing for a radicals quiz on Desmos. It clicked for one of my in-person students, who eventually went to the board to teach his classmates, then took some one-on-one time to help out a friend who was struggling. We got to compare answers with snapshots too, which always helps clear up areas of confusion.

Just need a bigger perfect square, right?

We closed the day with my first semester Alg II class, who are licking their wounds from a systems quiz. I can’t really leave their grades, or their level of understanding, where they are right now, because bad. Sounds like time for a do-over disguised as an extra credit project. Somebody in the MTBoS years ago had kind of a “do-it-yourself” systems of equations word problem activity that I used once or twice. I couldn’t find it in my files, so to the Google machine we go. Landed on Better Lesson with a really cool and well thought-out DIY systems project from Mauricio Beltre. Took his outline, tweaked it for my students, dropped it into a GSlides deck, and away we go.

My in-person students each got a one-on-one sit-down, and an appropriate level of support to get started (“If it’s me, the easiest of the five is the sum and difference of two numbers. The next easiest is nickels and quarters because you already know the values. You don’t need to make up prices.”). From what I saw they were off to a roaring start. They did it, man. Made up their own word problem, wrote the equations, solved the system. Pretty solid way to end the in-person week.

It’s harder to tell how well my remote learners did. I couldn’t do the sit-downs with them like I did with my in-person students. My (FWIW) solution: I could see that even the students who “got it” needed some extra time so I made it my Friday e-Day assignment. I cut a video explaining the process to them just like I did to the in-person students, and embedded it in the assignment in Classroom. I’m hopeful with extra time and extra help they can make some sense of systems. So we’ll see.

By the 2:30 bell I’d almost forgotten the Great Logs Debacle of 2021. Almost. Because there’s always another class.

Gonna keep working on that short term memory. Bulletproof confidence is not so bulletproof after the last couple of years, but my Twitter bio doesn’t say “stubborn jackass” for nothing.

Gimme the ball every fifth day and let’s go. Got a game to pitch. Whether I got my brains beat in last time or not. That’s what Mad Dog would do, anyway.

Walk With The Wise

This bloom caught my eye on the way out the door to teach logs on a glorious spring morning.

I consider myself an Algebra II veteran, but as many smart people have pointed out: during Covidtide, everyone is effectively a first year teacher. So with logs on the agenda (traditionally an area where my students have started to rethink their relationship to math, and not for the better) I spent a little more time than usual the day before not only thinking about my plan but also making a quick swing around a handful of math blogs just to see if anyone had successfully converted their in-person logs lesson to remote, and really just to see if there was anything I had missed in my prep.

This morning I walked in to Room 341, got both my desktop and my chromebook booted up and pointed Spotify at “Guided Explorations“. You see, my district is big into mindfulness this year, and one of my online math connects, Ed Campos Jr. has got me meditating. Concurrent with launching #FlattenTheCurveFlattenTheBelly he’s been seeking (and sharing) ways to manage stress. (Video above). Which is how I ended up listening to RZA teaching me to manage my breathing at 7:25 on a Wednesday Morning.

In the midst of the guided meditation, I heard: “A wise man surrounds himself with other wise men.”

Or, in this case, wise women.

It was perfect. Where’d I go for help with math teaching, or at least confirmation I was on the right path? Same place I’ve been going for like a decade now.

I’ve been using Kate Nowak’s logs opener since about forever. Yesterday I stumbled across a Sara VanDerWerf blog post that referenced the activity (see, told you I knew I was heading in the right direction), with added input from Amy Gruen and others.

So today we got them thinking about how a group of numbers like, say 5, 2, and 25, or 3, 2, and 9 might be related. Looked for patterns. I intentionally withheld the term “log” from them until we started the actual notes. Then we started pondering the question: what exponent can I put on 2 that results in a value of 8?

And then finally taking them for a loop. Because visual.

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The independent practice was on MathXL, and we spent a good amount of time at the end of class asking & answering questions on the work. I addressed a lot of the answers to my remote group, but most of the engagement came from the in-person students. Still can get better there.

So today’s One Good Thing: take my stuff and other peoples’ stuff and make it work for hybrid. And write about it in case it helps someone else.

I think we had success today. Because I surrounded myself (virtually) with wise people.

Another thing I noticed today: it felt normal. I’ve been leaning on Quizizz lessons with embedded practice for my notes and guided practice “station”. So we jumped into that after the Nowak logs activity. I split my time between my chromebook for remote learners, and circling the room and stopping to check in on my in-person students.

Bouncing back and forth between in-person and remote learners has been a point of emphasis for me since we came back to the buildings a week-and-a-half ago.

Sometimes both groups are deathly silent. It was definitely a more inquisitive group today than the first 7 days of hybrid, which is good. Questions beget questions.

The planning paid off in engagement.

This is what I mean by “normal”: I can feel a lot of the old in-person classroom actions clicking right back into place – check for understanding by walking around and asking questions, anticipating areas of struggle and building those in to my slides or Quizizz lesson or Desmos activity or whatever. It feels good.

And it’s paying dividends, especially for some of the students who really didn’t ever get in a groove during remote learning. It’s super-apparent that if we judge or grade students during remote learning by the standards of the in-person classroom, we have missed the mark badly. I’ve got students who are thriving in-person right now who kind of slipped out of sight during remote.

Seems like kids and adults both benefit from putting themselves in the right group of people. The blooms are beautiful.

First Day Back

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Yesterday in this space we were talking high anxiety over returning to in-person school, teaching students in my classroom as well as remote learners simultaneously. Turns out I was far from the only one fighting nerves yesterday.

Everybody I talked to today slept like crap last night. It seems like the whole school staff was up staring at the ceiling at like 3:00 am.

Alarm went off at 4:30, morning went smooth. I hit a gapers block as soon I got on the Borman (surprise!) because of course I did. But that was the glitch for the morning. Pulled in to the lot at pretty much my target time, and already there were kids lined up at the door to get in. So happy to see their smiling faces. Just like the good old days.

Our superintendent has asked his building principals to check in with him daily to report the ups and downs of the day so we can catch and correct any issues early. My principal asked us for our input. I’ll share my responses:

I narrowed down my procedural focus to four items:

  • Starting the Google Meet on time each hour for my remote students
  • Making sure I intentionally addressed both my in-person students and my remote learners with questions
  • Making sure I gave explicit instructions to both groups on our activities for the day (not just relying that the chromebook mic would pick up my directions to the class)
  • Sanitizing desks at the start and end of class

I missed the spray bottle for my first class meeting but got the rest. Also: pretty damn cool that my admins are going ground-level-up when they are seeking info on our return to the buildings.

I made my main focus an effort to provide an equivalent experience for both groups. I committed to using our Brain Break during class time, and idea boosted from Ed Campos Jr. back at the beginning of the (remote) school year.

So aside from that, how’d the day go? I wanted to ease back into school after spring break, give my Algebra II students a chance to use some prior knowledge, and to reacquaint them Desmos activities. My 7th hour dutifully plodded through the “Build A Bigger Field” activity. At the end of class we were talking through why the green dot would go at the turning point of their parabola, and boom. Everything clicked into place. For a few minutes they inundated me with precise math vocabulary and answers that showed they had a grasp of the concept we were working on.

It was just like the good old days. I made a small fool of myself pointing out what they did. It was glorious.

Oh yeah, and one more thing:

As Mrs. Dull said, basically Doc Brown. I smiled myself senseless.

That anxiety Monday was real. But it turned out to be unfounded. Day One in the books, 42 or so to go. Not that we’re counting or anything.

So, we can do this again tomorrow, right?

Butterflies The Size of 747s

A million years ago I got hired at my student teaching school. That eased the transition to my first “official” year of teaching: I knew the administrators, my math department colleagues, the students, the office staff, counseling staff, the custodians, the building layout, the best driving route at 6:15 am, plus after student teaching was over I finished the year as a long-term sub at a different school so I had experience reviewing and giving final exams, inputting grades, and closing up a classroom for the summer.

My district invited Harry and Rosemary Wong to present to the hundreds of newly-hired teachers as part of our onboarding days. Even gave each of us a copy of their book.

Going into year one I had no worries. Had a reasonably uneventful year, and by June I felt like a real teacher. Recharged my batteries over the summer, but by late July I could see grey clouds on the horizon. Getting ready for year two, I could feel it in my chest. The anxiety was undeniable.

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Finally I mentioned it to my office manager, a very wise woman, who said, “Of course you’re nervous. Last year you didn’t know what you didn’t know. This year you know what to expect”.

Tomorrow I’ll stand in a classroom with in-person students for the first time in 386 days. Last night Tuesday spent all evening trying to intrude on my Sunday. I don’t get the Sunday Night Blues much, but all last night was a mental rundown of what needed to be done today, what I have to pack (remember a mask!), what time should I get to school, did I print off rosters and seating charts, and, and, and.

Like seriously, I’ve been doing this for 18 years. I shouldn’t feel apprehensive about going back. But I’ve never been this nervous about “starting” a school year before. Not in year one, or the infamous year two, or when I switched schools. I feel like Norman Dale walking out of the locker room in Hickory for the first time. Or coach Boone getting ready to lead the Titans.

I was cool with remote teaching. I was well-prepared thanks to my online PLN. My students and I have all got along well on seven months of Google Meet classes. My administration has been super-supportive, especially as the weeks turned to months and we could see our students’ level of interest start to wane. I’m vaccinated. We have all the procedures in place that have been proven in other districts to make in-person learning possible during a pandemic.

My tech set-up has been tested and put in place. I have my units planned out for the rest of the year.

I got my squad in the building.

Teachers I follow online have done dual mode or hybrid teaching, and shared their advice.

There is zero reason for me to be as nervous as I am. Yet here we are.

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Just gonna keep reminding myself of all the things on that list up there. Also: program the coffeemaker. And set an alarm or three on my phone.

Sometimes not-normal times call for normalcy. You got this…