Month: January 2023

Synchronous Snowday

Surprise! I probably should have known better. I mean the Winter Storm Watch got hoisted I think Monday. I knew we would get snow, maybe even enough for a cancellation. It just didn’t register to bring home my document camera.

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Partly because this is the first year of a new state law that limits districts to three asynchronous e-learning days per school year. We are using two of them for our family-teacher conference days and holding one back for an emergency. So the options are traditional snow day with a makeup somewhere down the line, or go synchronous.

So here we are. (I used to work at one of those radio stations that read off school closings in the mornings, by the way. Good times). My district did a pretty good job of managing the information – reached out to parents through our parent portal last night with a timeline for any closure, as well as a promise to post the closing on the district web site, on its social, and through the portal.

On the positive, most of what I do in class lives digitally (bellringer in a Google Form, notes in Quizizz slides). I don’t have to scramble to convert all my materials in the early morning hours of a surprise snow day. The practice set is on paper but last year I started making a MathXL version of the assignment as well for students who were learning remotely due to quarantine. So I’m covered there as well.

So the day was already set up in my Google Classroom. My math colleagues group text lit up starting around 5 am just touching base to make sure were on the same page as far as content (Polygon Angle Sum Theorems), I shot my kids a reminder message about logging in to Meet for each class (as well as activating the Meet link). Grabbed five minutes out in the backyard to get my head straight before going live, assembled appropriate beverages, and saddled up for the day.

  • Broke out the Cimarron-Memorial mug for today. Serious volume.

My district was remote for three quarters of the 20-21 school year so we all got plenty of practice teaching from behind a chromebook screen. Still, it takes a minute to readjust.

I have first hour plan on Red Days so I was able to ease into the day. By the time my kids got to me they’d already had a remote class, which I think helped. And to their credit, the kids who did sign on were engaged in a way that my remote learners three years ago rarely were.

But still, to break up the long block I fell back on a tactic I learned from one of my online math connects. The Brain Break returns.

Only one Meet-bomb from my cat (I would have set the over/under at 2.5) and my dogs were pretty chill. They wore themselves out before school started I think. And the rest of the day went off without a hitch.

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The big question for me is, how much of what we did today will stick? (Honestly I think that was part of the motivation for the state making the move it did on e-days. When we did asynchronous e-learning my participation rate was way down). I’m pretty sure I’ll tweak my bellringer for the next class meeting, adding a polygon angle sum question, as much for the opportunity to re-teach as anything else. (Also: yay me for taking advantage of some extra planning time this week week to make copies ahead for the next section. Won’t have to scramble in the work room before school tomorrow).

Other than that, just going to soak up the peacefulness for the rest of the afternoon.

P. S. Back before Winter Break as a bellringer/check-in I asked my students to predict the date of our first snow day. Two students nailed it on the dot, two others missed by a day. Maybe I’ll throw in some extra credit.

Teacher Report Card – “How Is It January Already?” Edition

First semester in my district came to a close on Friday. In a word: uneventful. Not even a snow day. Compared to the last three school years it was positively normal. Final exam makeups the first three classes, covered another class on my plan last hour, worked ahead a little so I can hit the ground running to post grades on Teacher Work Day Tuesday, bolted out the door.

Didn’t even so much as make a social media post.

Looking back I was pretty pleased with how geometry went during the first eighteen weeks. Did my students feel the same way? One way to find out.

I asked for their feedback on the semester, using Matt Vaudrey’s Teacher Report Card. (Previous recaps here, here, here, and here). It’s some of the best feedback I get every year.

Replying anonymously, students rank me from 1 (never happens) to 5 (oh yeah definitely all the time) to a series of statements.

I got exactly 50% response rate, 60 out of 120 students this semester. So, how’d I do? Academically I scored well in:

  • “gives tests that reflect the material in the unit” (4.55)
  • “provides time for review of material” (4.55)
  • “gives enough time for assignments” (4.52)
  • “encourages different opinions” (4.47)
  • “grades fairly” (4.45)
  • “is fair when correcting behavior” (4.42)
  • “gives good, fair assignments” (4.37)
  • “tells us our learning goals” (4.25)

And in terms of classroom atmosphere:

  • “respects each student” (4.82)
  • “dresses professionally” (4.78)
  • “does a good job of treating all students the same” (4.73)
  • “keeps the class under control without being too tough” (4.73)
  • “seems to enjoy teaching” (4.68)
  • “uses language that we can understand” (4.40)

My areas of growth (stop me if you’ve heard this one before):

  • “tries new teaching methods” (3.83)
  • “has interesting lessons” (3.88)
  • “has a good pace (not too fast or too slow)” (3.98)
  • “answers questions completely” (4.02)
  • “makes me feel important” (4.05)

I’m just going to have to make my peace with the fact that my idea of an interesting lesson and my kids’ idea of an interesting lesson are two different things. I’ve been saying for years that I can’t compete with TikTok and YouTube, and apparently that is an accurate assessment. We’re in the midst of a transition to a problem-based learning model and I’ve been primimg the pump with Three-Act tasks for years, so we’re doing a lot more than “fill in this worksheet” or “do this MathXL assignment” but it’s still not getting a pop. (In a related story, did I mention that In-N-Out Burger is expanding eastward?)

I’ve always been a subscriber to “productive struggle” so I’m not surprised that “answers questions completely” didn’t register. I’m a little concerned about “makes me feel important” coming in as low as it did. I felt that this year I learned names a little quicker than during Covidtide and did a pretty good job of building relationships. The 4.82 for “respects each student” kind of balances it out I guess.

And I’m super-pleased that my students feel my tests cover what we learned, and that I offer enough review time. We are on 80-minute blocks in an A/B schedule so on quiz days we use the first half of class for review and the second half for the assessment.

So, what do my kids like best about the class?

  • “I like that you explain the topic in a way it’s easy to learn all I have to do is show up and listen to get the topic we’re learning about.”
  • “I like that you answer questions in different ways so that everyone gets it.”
  • “What i like best of this class is that we’re able to listen to music and Mr.dull is always quick to be there when you need something.”
  • “Mr. Dull is never tough on us. He’s one of the only teachers who consider the mindset of teens our age.”
  • “That I have a teacher who is willing to work with the students.”
  • “how we can work with people near us and use their notes and knowledge to help us”
  • “Mr.Dull doesn’t make the lesson boring he makes it fun to do. So I’m always existed to come to this class room.”
  • “I like that Mr.Dull actually teaches us and doesn’t just expect us to know the topics the first day of learning them.”
  • “That he engages with the class and gives us an opportunity to speak and share out our ideas and questions without making it tough”
  • “he be dripped out head to toe and quizz retakes they save my grade so much”

And how can I improve the class?

  • “take time to talk to each individual student on how they’re doing and if they understand the material”
  • “more interactive projects / assignments”
  • “on notes we need to do more of the questions instead of getting 4 sheets of notes with about 2 problems solved on each sheet”
  • “i think the class could be improved by students speaking up more. so everyone can have different perspectives of things”
  • “Giving us the sheets in Spanish to understand the topics a little better”
  • “maybe the way desk are arranged”
  • “More posters around the room”
  • “slower teaching speeds”
  • “less points on tests”
  • “If it wasn’t at 7 in the morning there’d be more motivation to learn and feedback from students.”
Math at 7:30 should be illegal

And their parting words:

  • “I think you are an amazing teacher overall you helped me a lot and i appreciate your time and patience with us :)”
  • “That I like you very much and I hope to see you for the next semester”
  • “You’re a great teacher.”
  • “thank you for being a kind teacher and teaching in very interesting ways! made the class more intriguing”
  • “Overall i really enjoy this class and i hope other students can say the same thing.”
  • “hope i don’t fail”
  • “Thank you for giving us time to deliver the work”
  • “Your one of my favorite teachers. Your in the top 5.”

Hehehe I’m not sure if they mean “top 5 ever” or “top 5 this year” (out of 8). But either way I’ll take that as a compliment.

The Indiana Teacher Leader Bootcamp session this week was on the science of improvement. I’ve returned this year as a mentor after doing Bootcamp as a participant last year. The science (and math) teachers at my table recognize the Plan-Do-Study-Act model as the scientific method. My big takeaway from this semester’s student feedback is we are on the right track, students are learning and we’ve built the right culture, but I have some work to do in reaching out to my students individually.

I’ve got a new schedule of classes beginning Wednesday, and that seems like a good a day as any to start working on that goal intentionally.

If you want to offer your kids a chance to help you grow as a teacher, Matt Vaudrey’s Teacher Report Card is here. Edit as you see fit, and let it rip.

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Back and Forth

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One of my admins stopped by my class just before winter break to inquire if I’d be open to taking a class of students repeating Algebra 1A second semster.

Longtime motto: You tell me what to teach, where to teach, and who to teach, and I’ll take care of the rest.

Plus, those are my people. For about half of my time at Gavit, my principal wisely saw that giving her brand new teachers the most challenging classes was just chewing them up and spitting them out. Everybody was better off if we spread the wealth. We kept our new teachers longer, and it was an awesome learning opportunity for me.

Of course my first stop after saying yes was to go see one of our freshmen algebra teachers to get my bearings.

I was able to do more than that.

It’s an awesome collection. Total plug & play. Bellringers, notes, practice sets, slides, in-class flip videos, exit tickets, projects, the whole schmeer. I’m toying with tweaking it a little bit to suit my style but I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Although that is kind of what we do these days.

Or used to. Check this reply to a Dan Meyer thread from just after the first of the year.

Meyer’s #WCYDWT (“what can you do with this?”) and three-act math opened up a whole new world in my classroom. Matt Miller made a name for himself with “Ditch That Textbook“. Both have their place and are always going to be in my toolkit. But making Desmos activities and Quizizz lessons for every section does take time. A lot of time. It feels like from here like the pendulum is definitely swinging back these days. I think a lot of us have re-evaluated a lot of practices since the pandemic, and trying to sustain all the unsustainable things seems like it’s at the top of that list. “Teacher Twitter” changed everything teachingwise, but it’s changing too. Less sharing of stuff, more personal support which is good especially after Covidtide. Also many of my follows have moved out of classroom roles and are no longer blogging their day to day.

Long ago, back in the early days of NCLB, we were under the gun from the state DOE and the principal at my school needed a model we could use to improve student outcomes. He selected one devised by a professor/researcher at a nearby major university. We sat for the PD after school, and shortly thereafter began the implementation. Then a few months in, cleaning out some storage in the math department we came across binders from literally 20 years earlier filled with the exact materials we had just begun to use. Our department chair nodded knowingly.

So it goes with curriculum and lesson design. Just like with fashion, if you wait long enough everything comes back in style.

Textbooks are not bad in and of themselves. They make a great source of examples and practice problems. Hell, our New Tech trainer last summer, giving us some guidance on getting started with problem-based learning, suggested we dig deep into the problem set about halfway through the chapter and find a multi-step problem. She told us we could probably turn that into a pretty solid PrBL activity.

Maybe it’s just what you do with that textbook when you get in the cockpit.

So thanks, Freshmen Algebra Team. Thanks for sharing your stuff with me. It’s a gold mine. And will probably save me untold hours of work, and massive amounts of stress.

I’ll take it.