Tag: March Madness

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

I’ve been told by teaching colleagues that I am too analytical. It’s a pretty good read. I’ve never been comfortable flying by the seat of my pants. I’d rather have as much information as I can get and have the pieces more or less in place before making a move.

Although that one Teddy Roosevelt quote hangs behind my desk because sometimes you just have to make a decision.

Source

It’s not always possible to have all the knowledge you need. To be honest, a key moment in my life was when I learned to operate in a grey area, when “black-and-white” is not one of the options.

Did I ever tell you about the time we bought a house sight-unseen? Moving back to the Region from Vegas, we had enough money to fly back for job interviews but not enough to come back a second time for house hunting. We did our research online (on the baby Internet back in 2005), my wife’s stepdad was our agent, we’d find a house, he’d check it out and report back. He eventually did the walkthrough of the house we selected on his flip phone while we stood in the kitchen of our house in Vegas.

Sold. We never saw it in person until we pulled up in the U-Haul.

That’s when I understood the Colin Powell 40-70 rule. General Powell felt if he couldn’t be 40% sure the outcome of a decision, that was a “no”. But he also recognized he would never have 100% of the information, so he set 70% as the threshold. Once he was 70% positive, that was a “go”.

And so it is in so many areas of life. Gather your data, assess the probabilities, move forward. It’s why the probability unit in Algebra II is so rich with opportunities for real-life connections. Yeah, we do do plenty of Fundamental Counting Principle practice, we figure permutations and combinations (“How many ways can three runners finish first, second, and third in the 100-meter dash in a field of eight runners?”)

But the big money payoff is when students see how understanding probabilities and likely outcomes can help them manage an uncertain (at best) world.

We start the prob/stats unit with a deep dive into March Madness, including a bracket challenge with their new-found handicapping knowledge.

Then out of long habit I make the assessment for the unit a pair of activities: First (because Indiana), John Scammell’s “Free Throws For The Win” .

They were like “Mr. Dull can we do something happy tomorrow? Because that was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

We follow that up with an investigation into the Monty Hall Problem (doc here). Both days they do real math and see the real applications of probability that they can start using really as soon as tomorrow.

The big takeaways are that even what seem like highly improbable things still sometimes happen. And that just because something is statistically your best move doesn’t always guarantee success. You have twice the probability of winning the car on Let’s Make A Deal by switching doors, but in any one play (which is all you get when you are a contestant), there is still a 1-in-3 chance you get the Zonk.

Goat 🙂

Weigh your options, and roll.

A lot of my friends in the building are making exactly these mental calculations these days. At our next school board meeting next week the district is expected to announce its decision on school closures and teacher layoffs. Consensus is we will shutter 4 of our 12 elementary schools, and we were told back in November that the defeat of a funding referendum would require cutting 250 teaching positions.

But as a colleague of mine pointed out, folks aren’t waiting. In his words, they are “RIFfing themselves”, lining up new jobs before the axe can fall. In some cases, making the move before the school year is done. We had four resignations from just my building on the personnel report last month, and I suspect the number will be similar this month. (That’s 10 percent of our teaching staff in eight weeks, if you’re scoring at home). And can you blame them? As the famous economist observation goes, when you lose your job, unemployment in your house is 100%. It doesn’t matter what the “official” statistics say.

I’ve been on the other side. Some time ago I left the district I call “the Family Business” for a green leafy suburban school. Well, the grass isn’t always greener. I came back. For the people and the kids. I took a pay cut to do it. There’s no district out there where the hallways are paved with gold. Few are paying significantly more than we are. There are so many districts (even in relatively affluent areas) in financial distress right now, it’s the living embodiment of “the devil you know”. You could jump districts and land someplace worse.

I feel horrible for the families who will have to make plans for their kids to attend a different school next year. For the kids who will leave their friends. I ache for my teacher friends who are going to be forced out of a job they’ve poured their soul into. For the clerical staff and custodians who won’t even be allowed to finish out the year. I’ve been told that due to the number of vacancies and emergency permit folks in the district, teachers with a degree and a license are probably safe. But even for the folks who are above the cut line, the daily anxiety over the future permeating my building is physically exhausting.

And the concessions that will likely be written into our contract (yeah that’s not even settled yet, five months after the state-mandated deadline to conclude negotiations) are frankly petty and punitive and are chasing teachers away. Folks who stay will get no raise and shoulder the burden of an unsustainable insurance premium increase.

Tuesday of Holy Week, this line from the Gospel of John hit hard:

Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” So he dipped the morsel and [took it and] handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot.  After he took the morsel, Satan entered him. So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2013:26-28&version=NABRE

That’s all of us right now: whatever the plan is, get on with it. Just tell us. Then we can take that information and make a decision.

Just like they taught us back in Algebra II all those years ago.

Ten Days Out

“I’m too old to get excited about spring break”.

One of the teachers I hang with during passing time dropped this knowledge on me this week. I’m sure he’s far from the only one who’s kind of numb as we enter the last big break of the school year. Students are baked, teachers have long since been over this year. Just give me ten days when I can shut off my alarm and my teacher brain and try to recover, and re-charge for the stretch run.

A couple of my activities that historically have ramped up student engagement fell kinda flat these last couple of weeks. Both of them involve connecting some dots and applying the math we’ve learned to the world outside our walls: a compound interest investigation involving comparing the price of a new and a year-old car to test the “15% depreciation” figure used in many textbook/worksheet word problems (and the Dave Ramsey recommendation to let someone else take the steep loss in the value of a new car the first couple of years).

And the March Madness investigation I use to intro the probability unit. (Doc here). Remarkably, of the two, the NCAA brackets did the best job of drawing my kids into the math. Even the students (maybe especially the students) who had to ask me what “upset” means in terms of a tournament were able to nail down theoretical vs. experimental probability and use data to make some informed guesses on their brackets.

If nothing else it kept math happening in Room 130 during the countdown to spring break. Which isn’t nothing.

Shutting down teacher thoughts is a survival mechanism for many of us this year. When we get back, instead of looking forward to summer break, we’ll face a parade of unpleasant news. Like, bad news followed by worse news followed by career crisis. My district is crumbling financially and has been asked by the state to prepare a corrective action plan. In addition, our contract negotiations have been at impasse since November and will also likely require state intervention.

The district will present a list of teacher job cuts at its next meeting April 2. Then it is expected to announce multiple elementary school closures at its April 23 meeting.

The most recent personnel report featured four resignations from my building alone. I suspect next month’s will be similar. Folks are getting out before they get let go, or looking ahead, seeing that raises are unlikely in a financially distressed district, trying to pad their high-five (average of the five highest salaries that figures into the formula for our pension). Our once-robust insurance plan has been gutted and will be prohibitively expensive. Morale is at an all-time low and will get worse – the written notification of cuts will begin May 2, just in time for Teacher Appreciation Week.

It would probably be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Source

Don’t check your mailbox, friends.

Is it any wonder folks burned rubber (metaphorically speaking) leaving the parking lot Friday?

For me, self-care looks like diving into hour after hour of televised hoops. Reveling in first-round upsets, rooting against rivals, and dealing with the cognitive dissonance that my favorite coach on the planet is likely to lead my alma mater’s top rival to the Final Four.

The dude was spitting bars after Purdue’s second round win today.

Painter’s definitely onto something here: “I just think everybody should take a test on their knowledge of what they’re doing. Like I think all coaches should take a test, so they understand refereeing. I think all referees should take a test, so they understand coaching. And I think all journalists should have to take a basketball quiz or test.”

Just show me you know what you’re talking about. OK?

But wait a week or so to do it.

Root For Chaos

I’ve been told I have a high tolerance for chaos. Maybe that’s why March Madness hits just right in my world. That, and I am a hoops junkie from way back, because Indiana.

I’m still trying to adjust my planning to an A/B block schedule. I know that any one day is the equivalent of two, but there are still some hands-on discovery type of activities that I’m willing to sacrifice for. Plus, we had just quizzed on the Monday before spring break, and with two blocks for each of my Red and Grey day classes, starting a new half-unit that I’d just have to re-teach in 10 or 12 days didn’t seem like my best move. I had an Amnesty Day scheduled for the final block before break so I just needed something for Tuesday/Wednesday.

The Tuesday/Wednesday before the greatest two days in sports.

March Madness.

I’ve done this activity during (or close enough to) the probability unit in Algebra II for a few years now. It was a little out of sequence in my geometry class this year, but after 18 months of remote/hybrid learning I could justify it as a way to review some linear concepts and probability as well.

Basic story is, I have my students make a tourney bracket strictly by coin flip. My kids who know hoops always laugh when they have two 16 seeds winning in the first round or a double-digit seed winning the whole thing. That of course is part of the hook.

Then I point them to the Washington Post’s NCAA Tourney app where they research the first-round win percentage for each of the 16 seeds. (Hint: it’s somewhat linear).

Then I direct them to a Desmos graph I set up for them to fill in a table with their findings. Then they use sliders to try to make a line of best fit for the data.

I follow up with DePaul University professor Jeff Bergen breaking down the math behind picking winners, and the numbers that work against the likelihood of a perfect bracket.

Now they see there is some benefit to using strategy to picking winners, even if they don’t know the game it’s gotta turn out better than a 50-50 chance for each game.

So they make a “for real this time” bracket with their new-found knowledge. Among the reflection questions I ask them is to predict how much better they will do compared to their coin-flip bracket. I hold on to all the brackets and track their progress through the tournament.

Allowing for my 80-minute time limit I had to condense the project a little this year, but here’s the slide deck for 2022.

Now when a 15-seed makes the Sweet Sixteen and I drop that knowledge on them during a bellringer, we’re speaking the same language.

So, that Amnesty Day we were talking about up near the top of this post? The geometry team decided from jump that if quizzes would be 70% of the overall grade (by school policy) then we would offer our students retakes on any quiz (up to three attempts) and we keep only the highest score. It takes a lot of pressure off and keeps kids in the game who otherwise might check out when they see their grade nosedive.

Originally the plan was to offer the retakes after school, but we quickly found that after school does not work for a lot of our students. So we decided as a group to build in “makeup days” where students could do the retakes/corrections or turn in late work during their regular classtime. I also build in a small extra credit opportunity on our Amnesty Day. And it’s been paying off in terms of results.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had a class average 80% for a quarter before. I think that’s what the TFA people would call “significant gains”. They’ve earned it tho, by going back and re-learning and re-testing. Is there some answer-sharing going on when kids are taking quizzes over and over, at different times? Absolutely. But I’d bet no more than in a one-and-done quizzing scenario where the stakes are much higher. And do I still have students check out? Oh for real. See those averages in the 40s? Those classes have a half-dozen or so kids each with like a 5% for the semester. I have airballed all my attempts to motivate them.

All this has me thinking about real human stuff. When we build in second chances, my students don’t see me as an enemy to be conquered but a partner in their school journey. I think that more than anything has to do with their success. The mindset comes first, the improvement follows.

When a student comes in after school to see if I’ve graded his re-take yet, finds out he overshot his target by a whole letter grade, then shakes my hand and says,”Thank you”…. whoooo.

We’re doing something right. Both of us.

Miss Riley lives in my head. (Source).

Then there’s the email I got from a student on Thursday night:

We’re clicking here.

Being creative in the classroom, connecting with students, sharing their joys and frustrations on the daily, helping them learn math, it’s what I do. And it’s re-energizing me for the final quarter.

Also: it’s hard to not love this from St. Peter’s head coach Shaheen Holloway.

My Region people felt that.

As hard as it would have been to believe at the start of the year (so much everything), there’s joy back in teaching again. Like the newest darling of Cubs Twitter says, when that’s gone, I’m gone.

Spring Break is here. I brought my kids in for a safe landing at the end of the third quarter. Got some quizzes to grade and quarter grades to post, but it’s also going to be 70F here tomorrow and that seems like a good excuse to put air in my bike tires and go for a long ride. And my youngest wants to go see Bulls-Raptors at the UC and I think we can do that too. Walk my dogs. There’ll be plenty of rainy crappy days to stay inside and do school stuff this week.

I like chaos as much as the next guy. Maybe more. But I also appreciate the time for peace and rest and recharging. Happy Spring Break, teacher friends.