Month: May 2022

I’m Not Above Bribery

On an A/B block schedule the end of the year gets here in a hurry. When there’s 20 school days left, that’s 10 blocks, of which 3 will be for review and a final exam. So like many of my fellow geometry teachers, I struggled with what topics to cover in a limited time (when my students have a limited interest in learning new, challenging material).

Hammer them with six sections of area of plane figures? Formula after formula? But what about surface area and volume? We’ve got to cover that, too, right? Seriously, all the formulas are on a sheet I’m going to give them for the final. Do I have to do every single shape? Can’t they just match up shapes and plug in numbers?

(No, that’s not a great approach obviously but lack of time forces a decision on the “least bad” option sometimes).

“Bruh, we totally can cover all this material before finals. Also, can I borrow your car?” Source

I finally settled on a power standards approach to area, and a project for the volume/surface area unit.

I (wisely, in retrospect) flipped area of sectors to a Friday and bumped area of a regular polygon back to a weekday. That turned out to be the section that zapped whatever will to learn (or engage) my students had left, which is pretty much what Tuesdays are for.

Anticipating that, I planned to have The Spiky Door Project make its triumphant return as a “learn by doing” Unit 11. The source material on the Kate Nowak blog is gone (RIP f(t)-dot-blogspot) but it lives on here and here. Because the #MTBoS is cool like that.

My most recent attempt at Spiky Door came during The Shutdown in April 2020. I counted it as a qualified success. This time around I teased it as a project that I would enter as a quiz grade. Since quizzes in my department are 70% of the overall grade, now I had their attention.

Hey, I’m not above bribery.

Across seven classes, 138 of my 200 rostered students attempted the project. That’s slightly less than would turn in a regular quiz, but I also noticed some of my kids who would make a half-hearted effort at a traditional quiz try a little bit harder with this project. I showed them the rubric and sold them on a decent quiz score in exchange for two days of basic human effort.

And I got some good work.

Those are good days. Hectic days. But days when it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that learning is happening. But now I need to sit down.

And then there’s that moment when the friendly competition starts.

And my fellow teachers making approving comments (“I love artsy-fartsy math projects” was my favorite) as they pass by is also a plus. And probably moved us a half-step closer to the day when the “final” is a project, not a test. I think everybody got what they wanted and needed out of this project. Just checking in for quick convos with my students, and looking over their work, I’m confident that Learning Has Occured.

So the big difference for Spiky Door 3.0 compared to the OG a decade ago and the Remote Version: I had them start by drawing the net when we were doing this project virtually. Lacking the ability to check in with each student, that seemed like the best way. What it did do was create a situation where students had a slant height and had to solve for height of the pyramid. It was less intuitive and led me to having to google “how to do inverse sin in google sheets” to set up my self-grading spreadsheet.

This time around we started with selecting a base length and a pyramid height, then solving for slant height, then drawing the net. Much easier for my kids to visualize. I was able to check in with each student, give them a visual on the slant height, and coach them through the Pythagorean Theorem if needed. Strongly encourage myself to take this approach when we do this project again next spring.

And if you don’t think my extra credit option next Amnesty Day is going to have something to do with the Luxor you don’t know me very well.

Teach in Vegas for two years and it’s in your head pretty much forever. Source

And, eyes wide open, any project I give the last 2-3 weeks of school is gonna take some time to grade. Plan accordingly. And give yourself grace. In week 35 or whatever of the school year sleep is a necessity, not a luxury.

Tired enough last Saturday to misspell a hashtag. WTG there Steve-O.

So we closed the year on an up note. Kids learned surface area and volume. To the point where when a pyramid surface area problem showed up on my final exam review they all went “Hey! I know how to do this one!” I got cool door decorations. Sounds like time to bring this whole school year in for a landing. Please return your seat to its fully upright position.

Elevating

That was Mrs. Dull’s way of describing the Indiana Department of Education’s Teacher Leader Bootcamp to a friend of hers back in October. We didn’t know then what we were in for.

OK, that’s not strictly true. Here’s the tweet from last summer that made me go fill out the application and hit “submit”:

A year of learning and discovery. Growth as a teacher, a leader, and a person.

And it was everything I hoped it would be and more.

It’s taken me a minute to sit down and process the Celebration of Learning session on Saturday in suburban Indy. Too tired to string together coherent thoughts. This end of the school year is wearing me down to the nub. I feel like this guy trying to tag and score on Seiya:

Out by a mile. I legit almost fell asleep at the wheel on the drive home. Had to stop in Lafayette and get some sugar & caffeine and stretch my legs.

The 50 of us made informal presentations on our action research projects. There were folks who were trying to build teacher morale in their buildings, folks trying to start a GSA club in their middle school, a business teacher who put together a fantastic career aptitude research project. In my group (all math teachers), we had presentations on “How To Do This Teacher Thing”, Grit tickets, VPNS and Building a Thinking Classroom, and me.

My project was launched when my students reported to me early in the year that I needed to do a better job understanding their strengths and weaknesses in the class.

So we made some changes to our classroom practice to try to change that, and tracked the progress.

So one of the school counselors in the feeder middle school to my building posted earlier this year about reading Christopher Emdin‘s latest book, Ratchetdemic. Ordered it up that day. Dr. Emdin advocates for a model that allows students to embrace their authentic identities while displaying academic excellence. Exactly what I’ve always wanted for myself and from myself as a teacher. A lot of the things on that list up there are Teacher School 101 things, some are a little more unorthodox, but all of them involve relationship-building. Above all, I made sure my students felt seen and heard and respected in every interaction with me.

Two things:

  • I had a secret weapon: “You’re welcome”. Any time a student thanked me for a pencil or a bathroom pass or help on a math problem, I honored that effort by saying “you’re welcome” instead of “no problem” or “any time” or “you got it”.
  • The Desmos quizzes and retakes were a very simple way of building in two-way knowledge of what a student knew and where they could improve. As part of the retake process we would look at their quiz together and pick out the slides they could re-do or correct. We’d talk a little about what section of notes the problem was from, where they could find it in their notes.

So, did any of these efforts pay off?

That first hour class, one of two that stayed relatively intact between the two semesters, increased by more than half a rating point on a 1-to-5 scale. The average of the averages was a plus-o.35. Solid.

One of Dr. Emdin’s chapters is titled “Elevators, Haters, and Suckas”. The last two are obviously folks you want to avoid. Elevators sound great, like the folks you want to work with.

“You meet elevators on your journey who shake you up and take you higher. Haters are on your path to discredit you and your work because they believe they deserve your platform and/or the love you receive for doing your work. Suckas are people who are fundamentally opposed to Black joy and wholeness and don’t see any value in your work to empower young people.”

Dr. Christopher Emdin, Ratchetdemic, pg. 102 – 103.

“Shake you up and take you higher”. There’s something unexpected there. We hear “elevator” and think “hype man”. Or at least “mentor” or “sponsor”. But Dr. Emdin says “The elevator is an individual or goup of people whose goal is to challenge you to see from a different vantage point than you have been trained to”.

If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you, right?

And, an elevator does not have to be a supervisor or peer. Emdin points out that although we have been conditioned to accept guidance or coaching from adults, the most important elevators are our students.

“They will tell you what they need from you if you provide the space for them to speak freely and and elaborately as they critique the structures that you put in place to affect their learning. Once you understand the intention of the elevator and withstand the temporary discomfort of their critique, you will end up higher. Listen to your elevators”.

Woah. Our kids will tell us what they need, if we are willing to button up our egos and listen to them.

Sounds like a super teacher to me. Just not the ones I thought I’d meet this year.

I explained the Elevator/Hater/Sucka concept to my table group after my presentation. I thanked them for being my elevators, sharing their journey this year and pushing my thinking. They are super teachers too. They worked hard under challenging circumstances and came out the other end willing to share what they had learned.

So will I continue to survey my kids next year? Not a bad idea. Their feedback is important. But I also know that I need to build in my game plan for making sure my students are seen and respected and valued for who they are right from jump.

I thought I already do a good job of that. Or I did going into this year. Then my students gave me some information I didn’t know. And I probably would not have known that if I didn’t hit “submit” on that application for TLB3. it’s just one of the ways that Teacher Leader Bootcamp has made me a better teacher, and leader. And person.

Capturing A Moment

Back when I was trying to make it in the radio biz, just about everyone in my circle in and out of the business was a devoted fan of Chicago talk outlet WLUP-AM (AM 1000). The lineup was legendary: Jonathon Brandmeier in the mornings, Kevin Matthews middays followed by Steve Dahl and Garry Meier in the afternoon. Chet Coppock‘s seminal sports talk show held down evenings and Ed Tyll entertained insominiacs on the midnight shift.

We knew all the bits, copied all the voices, went to the live shows, bought the merch.

Source

It was, of course, too good to last. Matthews famously said that 99 percent of radio was a waste of electricity, and he was right.

Eventually the station flipped to an all-sports format and the voices of the golden era of the AM Loop scattered across the dial.

There hasn’t been a lineup that could compare in Chicago or elsewhere since.

Some things can’t be duplicated no matter how hard you try.

A line from José Luis Vilson’s 2014 book This Is Not A Test lives in my head 24/7:

“If you look at your teaching career, you’ve been trying to create that Nativity experience ever since you started.”

There have been big changes in my district this year. Three of our high schools closed at the end of 2020-21, a brand new school opened in August, effectively consolidating from four high schools to two. Student bodies and staffs were combined. We knew from the jump that even those of us who considered ourselves Gladiators or Pioneers or Wildcats for life would now be Governors or Wolves. Keep the old close to your heart, obviously, but we’ve got to all be pulling in the same direction starting on Day One.

And we have. Obviously everyone has their “group” but it’s not a clique. We can’t eat together the way we used to pre-Covid but we get together for faculty meetings and the occasional off-site meet-up and departments are combined of course.

Like a lot of districts we have a foundation that provides classroom grants to teachers and scholarships to students. One of the major fundraisers is a springtime dinner when one outstanding teacher from each building is recognized. This year at my school that award went to one of my fellow geometry teachers. She worked at the “target school” that remained open, and she was the one who reached out to us newcomers to share inside info (bring a fan in the spring because the hallway where our classroom are located get crazy hot) and to begin the planning process for the fall. She’s also the one who recommended the open-note quizzes and retake opportunities that have been so valuable to our students.

So led by our math instructional coach a few of us attended the dinner in her support.

Entering the banquet hall I bumped into a former colleague who is now in another district. She said, “Are you teacher of the year Mr. Dull?” I told her I’m not but that I was here to support a colleague who is. She told me she was doing the same thing. Our middle school at the old building was arranged in teams, and a former Gladiator was being honored. His teammates past and present showed up to back him up. Teacher Appreciation Week taken to its logical conclusion.

And of course that meant a little mini Gavit reunion. During the cocktail hour I saw a small cluster of old colleagues across the room. One caught my eye and motioned me over like “What are you waiting for? Get over here!”

There were five of us there, all at different schools now, some closer than others back in the day. All Gladiators to the core.

We’re all happy now. We’re all doing good work now. We are all trying to make it to the end of this crazy year now. We quick shared updates, then somebody said it. What had been hanging in the air, unspoken, the whole time.

“I miss this”.

For that core group on 175th, this was never just a job and those were never just co-workers. And I want to be very clear: that doesn’t just happen everywhere. The Gladiators I came up with are like the 2016 Cubs: an unrepeatable moment in time.

I’m working my ass off at my new building and everyone on the geometry team has each other’s back. And everybody else’s in the building too. Two of us sold our prep to reduce class sizes. All of us cover classrooms on plan when we are short subs (which is pretty much daily). We share activities and lesson plans and breakfast on payday and stories of our kids and dark humor in the hallways between classes.

But it will never be what Gavit was.

That’s OK. The past is gone. No sense trying to live there. And no sense making comparisons to ghosts. We live in the now. And we’ve got work to do.

Vilson wrote about how his neighborhood changed and his Catholic grade school moved on too, although keeping the mission in place. That the clergy who worked closely with the students, taught them the Faith and how to live it along with the Three Rs, who took them on summer enrichment trips out of the city, were doing what they always had done. It was always more than a physical building, he wrote.

It was interesting the way my former colleagues talked about how the kids this year kind of naturally gravitate to the teachers who worked at their former school. Human nature I guess. It’s a brotherhood for lack of a more inclusive term.

I’m sure the Hammond High people and the Clark people and even the old Morton people feel the same. Grasping on to the familiar as we continue to move into the unknown.

It’s the time of year when a lot of my teacher friends are reflecting on the year and starting to informally plan for the fall. Like I’ve always said, keep what works and throw away the rest. The best of us always gets carried forward. No matter what physical building we work in. My Lunch Bunch, colleagues, mentors, administrators, all of them through the years they all get rolled into the package that is Mr. Dull’s class in the right now.

I wear the red, black and grey now, a Governor till they shake my hand and give me a gold watch and show me the door, and if I can’t recreate the past the best way to honor it is to keep doing what made that Gladiator team great.

Because it was never just a building.

Photo cred: me

Adventures In #EduProtocols – Iron Chef x DIY Quizizz Review

My district has been working to level out the disparity in Red vs. Grey days in our A/B block schedule (largely due to testing and snow days), to the point where this week I had a singleton Red day. Prime opportunity to give them the same kind of project or activity my Grey Day geometry kids got a bunch of in February.

But what to do with them?

May is bearing down and final exams coming with it and this felt like a chance to slip in some review. And I took it. But I didn’t want a Kuta worksheet, and I just haven’t built the class culture this year where I could spring a Three-Act on them on a random day in late April.

Fortunately last week we had a chance to talk a little bit with my kids about how the distractors get built on standardized tests. (Most of them just took the ASVAB a couple weeks earlier so that hit just right). I’ve had an activity for years where my kids make all the distractors for a multiple choice question. Maybe they make their own semester review?

I group them up, they develop the question and the wrong answers (along with the right answer, obvi), and then dump everything into a spreadsheet I can upload to Quizizz and use as a review activity. Maybe even on the E-Day coming up for Election Day?

Let’s go.

But first, a decision: Where to collect the three wrong/one right answers, and the images for the problems (since we are doing triangles just about every problem comes with a diagram).

Took a minute of rolling it around in my head but I finally settled on making this an Iron Chef. Get everybody in a group working together in the same slide deck on a single problem. The last slide contained directed them to a GForm (I tweaked the Joe Marquez template available here) where they could enter their question, four answer options, select the correct answer, and indicate the time limit for students to work the problem in Quizizz. The Quizizz people blogged about the steps a while ago, and embedded a Marquez explainer video:

I tried to do this on the fly during remote learning last year and it blew up in my face. This time around was much smoother, mostly because I didn’t try to upload and launch the quiz right during a class while my students were on a five minute Brain Break.

And I feel like we had a hit on our hands.

I wish I could say that I’m such a great teacher and this is such a compelling activity that the kids couldn’t wait to do right triangle trig and other second semester topics but in reality it was the right activity on the right day (a Friday before an “amnesty day” for making quiz corrections and doing makeup work) and the kind of activity that has a low barrier to entry, plus strength in numbers and they didn’t have to listen to me talk, or take notes.

Regardless of the reasons my kids were super-engaged. Even kids who adamantly refuse to do any kind of math most days were in. I was able to sit with each group and (as needed) help navigate them to possible “common student errors” they could use to develop their distractors. They got familiar with common missteps. Some groups even had kids (good-naturedly) arguing over who got to make the wrong answers (“I’m good at getting problems wrong!”). But in four classes we got 16 good usable quiz items (discarding duplicates) and I added some “fun questions” to make an even 20.

Inspired by a hallway convo during passing time

Then I turned around and made the Quizizz a small extra credit opportunity on the Amnesty Day and the E-Day. (One of my kids said, “wait, you’re making us do your work for you? Unpaid?” They slay me.)

So to recap, the benfits:

  • Student engagement
  • Digging deeper into process of working triangle problems
  • Group work
  • Directions were easy to follow (not our first Iron Chef rodeo)
  • Review (and several kids told me we should start building in finals review even as soon as now because “we forgot how to do all this stuff!”)

A win-win. I love turning problems inside-out. One of my teacher connects on twitter was posting the other day about the vibe in her class when she gives her kids “un-photomath-able” problems. That’s what I’m looking for, as often as I can. I think this one qualifies.

Oh, and then this happened:

Pretty much floated home after that. Cloud Nine moment. And one of the EduProtocols authors chimed in as well.

Got plenty of good feedback (the 21st century connected teacher kind – retweets) from my building and district admin on the activity as well. I love that we’re on the same page when it comes to seeking out methods to engage our kids.

And: One month to go. It’s always good to enter May on an up note.