According to the state of California, I Suck as a Teacher

Warning:  This is a total venting post, read with caution! (It is more for me than an audience)

On Tuesday I began my 22nd year of teaching.  The fact that I have been in the classroom this long is ironic.  I had a different path picked out, even though I had been encouraged to become an educator by friends and people in the profession.  When I finally caved to the idea, it was because I wanted a job in my major out of college.  The other driving force was the fact that I could work anywhere (I have, and that is a whole post in itself).  When I started teaching, I gave myself 7 - 10 years in the classroom.  After that, I saw myself in some sort of "official leadership" role.  So, here I am still in the classroom, not because I couldn't move upward, but because I chose to stay.  After this week, my first week of school, my heart and head know my place is in the classroom, yet according to how some of my students did on our state tests, I should not be.  Okay, I am being a bit dramatic, but I was in my principal's office crying after the test scores came out.  Thankfully, my principal is a very centered, understanding man who can calmly and effectively deal with his emotional female staff members.  So, what happened?

• for the first time in the 9 years I had been at my school, my test scores dropped significantly (every other year, my students showed improvement).
• I had 2 Algebra 1 classes for the first time in four years and they were the ones whose scores had dropped from advanced or proficient to basic or below basic.
• Apparently teaching students how to problem-solve and think does not translate to improved test scores in mathematics

Okay, let's calm down for a second.  I teach in a state that is over-obsessed with test scores.  They factor into real-estate transactions!?  I have to consider the following facts:

• I implemented standards based grading for the first time
• I had not taught the algebra 1 curriculum in a number of years
• I challenged myself by trying new strategies... too many to write

None of any of this matters, I am broken-hearted because I let my algebra students down.

Stop. Take a breath. Lets think about who I am as an educator.

• I am someone who does not pull out last year's lesson plans and adjusts the dates.
• I am someone who takes time to build relationships with her students.
• I am someone who even after 21 years believes in the good of my students and will work to make learning meaningful for them

I could go on and on, but as I think about my list I realize that there is a higher power at work.  When I question what the heck I am still doing in the classroom, it comes down to this...

Deep down in the core of my being, I am doing what I love to do... Spending 5+ hours a day with the most incredible people - my students - and working my rear off to make learning meaningful for them. 

I promise:

• To  believe in the good of my students and teachers I work with
• To find ways to make mathematics meaningful 
• To include "Authentic Literacy" (Schmoker) and promote purposeful reading, writing, and discussions.

So, what the heck am I going to do?

• Use standards based grading to drive learning
• Use Authentic Literacy - purposeful reading, writing, and discussion as the primary learning of content and skills
• Integrate technology to support learning standards

Stay tuned, I have some good stuff coming up on how my first two weeks of school went! 

Standards Based Grading: The Foundation for Learning in my Classroom

The other morning I got up early to journal before my first PAID day back to school.  I emphasize the word paid because if any of you are like me, I had already spent a handful of unpaid days in my classroom knowing I would need the extra time to get myself ready for a new school year.  Before I wrote, I closed my eyes to visualize how I wanted our (students and educator(s)) classroom to look:

When I close my eyes and picture walking into my classroom, I see students busy or should I say INTENT on being mathematicians.  Some are working in pairs, others individually.  I am sitting at a table with a small group providing instruction or intervention or enrichment.  There are students on the computers, sitting on the floor, working with tools, writing, sharing, creating and they are all engaged, self-directed, and self-monitoring so that I can focus on working with my small group.  Everyone is involved in meaningful math activities all with the same goal of proving their understanding of the math standards.   The students are focused on the standards individually rather than everyone doing the same thing at the same time.  It is calming for me to think about my classroom operating the way and also daunting - it takes a lot of work, preparation, and foundation building to have a middle school classroom that actually works this way!  I've always had this vision and when I taught elementary students, I took the needed time to establish this vision.  So, this year, I am going to do the work to create a classroom that is as close to my vision as possible.

The foundation for building a classroom environment described above is Standards Based Grading.  I will be using what I learned from reading the book: The Daily 5 which is a book about elementary literacy.  The reason I bought and read the book is because they go through and describe exactly how to create a classroom of self-directed, self-monitoring students who are focused on learning.  The authors describe some "Core Foundations" one of which is "Creating a Sense of Urgency".  They also state that
"Purpose + Choice = Motivation".  As I thought of these two ideas, I realized that the driving force for my classroom would be my use of Standards Based Grading.

So, as I begin my second year of working to implement standards based grading and having it drive my vision, I decided to re-visit an invaluable resource that I found November 2011:

Educational Leadership:Effective Grading Practices

For those of you interested in implementing standards based grading or changing your grading practices to support student leaning and achievement, you need to read these articles!

Here are some highlights:

• Susan M. Brookhart:  "Standards-based grading is based on the principle that grades are not about what students earn; they are about what students learn."
• Thomas Guskey : "No research supports the idea that low grades prompt students to try harder.  More often, low grades prompt students to withdraw from learning."  
• Rick Wormeli:  "Lawyers who finally pass the bar exam on their second or third attempt are not limited to practicing law only on Tuesdays."  
•  Alfie Kohn: "Grades don't prepare students for the "real world"- unless one has in mind a world where interest in learning and quality of thinking are unimportant."
• Robert J. Marzano and Tammy Heflebower: "Demonstrating knowledge gain can be intrinsically motivating to students." and "Teachers should allow students to upgrade their scores from previous grading periods."
• Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Ian Pumpian: "When practice work is part of the overall grade, students don't take risks, and teachers don't get valuable glimpses into their understanding."
• Carol Ann Tomlinson: "An A that doesn't represent personal struggle and growth is a lie."  

There are other great articles from inspiring educators.  The final quote I want to leave you with is from Susan M. Brookhart: Teachers who are skeptical about standards-based grading need safe honest conversations about their beliefs."  Keep this quote in mind as you take the next step in sharing your successes in using standards-based grading with your colleagues.

I did not mean to be this wordy, however, I felt I needed to share my re-focus process at the beginning of the new school year and this ASCD issue helped me.  If my vision is to work, and my grading is to be motivating, then I need to keep these articles close!  At my school, I am still a salmon swimming upstream against an incredibly strong current, as are some of you out there who are taking on standards based grading in your classrooms.  

Thank you all of the #sbar folks!  You keep me going and fighting the good fight!  There is no way I would have persevered with this one if I did not have your resources and support!  I look forward to a great school year of learning and sharing with all of you!

Let the fun begin...  Happy New School Year!

My New Job

In August, I will be beginning a new job as a middle school math teacher in room 62 at Spring View Middle School.  Wait a minute, that is where I have been teaching for the past nine years.  Confused?  I, for the first time in a long time, am not.  For the past several years I have been looking for greener pastures, seeking and considering a variety of different positions and/or titles in education.  This spring/summer I read Linchpin, Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin and my perspective on many things has been permanently altered, especially the way I view my career in education.  And so I am announcing that I will be "getting a new job without leaving".  I will be doing my job in a new way by looking for opportunity and refusing to hide from blame.  I have decided to do my job BETTER and transfer my passion to my job and in the process guide my students in doing this also.  Here is what I have so far as my job description:


Looking for a Middle School Math Educator:
General Description:

• Someone who sees herself as an artist who works for respect, connections, relationships and wants to cause change - Seth Godin
• Someone who is smart, courageous, and bold
• Someone who honors her calling and trusts her heart - Oprah
• Someone who makes plans, takes small steps, revises, refines, improves and then moves forward again - Eric Ryan, Adam Lowry, and Lucas Conley
• Someone who is committed, no more "yes" it better be "hell yes!" - Derek Sivers
• Someone who is willing to be an "Ish" - Peter Reynolds
• Someone willing to find what Drives herself and each of her students - Daniel Pink
• Someone who will "take a moment to slow down to a more thoughtful pace, to ponder, reflect, imagine and envision.  Take time to believe in her dreams, to celebrate possibility" and continually ask herself "where is it you want to go..." To follow her North Star - Peter Reynolds

Obviously the above is a compilation of quotes and books I have been spending time with this summer.  I will  have this list posted in my classroom so I can see it and  remember while in the midst of the daily "have to's" we as educators encounter everyday.  I know, the above is great stuff in theory, how am I planning on using it to change the everyday workings of my classroom?!

That will be addressed in my next post!

Mirror, Mirror

At the end of every school year I have my students complete some sort of written evaluation of their math/science class and of me as their instructor.  For the first time I used a Google form which allowed the students to respond anonymously to specific questions.  Remember, I teach middle school.  What I love about seventh and eighth grade students is that they are brutally honest.  They will tell you that they think your hair looks horrible, not intending to be mean, but to just spew the thought that is currently in their adolescent brain at the time.  I also have to honestly admit that although I appreciate my students no holds barred honesty, it is sometimes difficult to take in.  So, here are some insights into my students' responses.

Standards Based Grading:
The Good
Overall my students liked my implementation of standards based grading.  They liked the fact that it was based on their understanding of math standards and not on behaviors such as homework completion.  They also liked how they could easily track the standards and know their proficiency levels, which enabled them to take responsibility for their learning and prove understanding of the math standards.  They loved that they could improve their grade as their understanding increased.  They noted that I needed to provide more timely feedback and more frequent feedback which is something I know I need to improve!  They also noted a difficulty with my grade book not matching the rest of the schools which made checking grades difficult.  This is something I plan on working through this summer.

The Bad
It was interesting because many of the students who appreciated standards based grading were also extremely mad at me as an instructor.  They were mad because I did not spend class time lecturing and giving them a step by step process for solving math problems.  Class time was a time to struggle with difficult problems in groups rather than me spoon feeding them specific steps to follow.  They were appalled that I was forcing them to problem solve, think, and build understanding instead of giving them a "recipe".  They felt ripped off because I did not embrace the passive lecture style that other math teachers in my department utilized.  This students summed it up perfectly:

"My least favorite part of math this year was the inconsistent learning environment and curriculum.  I would have liked to go more in depth with each math concept rather than do real life math problems.  This is because on the CSTs (our standardized test in CA) I didn't understand the majority of the material, when my friends in other classes understood it with great ease.  I enjoy working with real life math problems because it is practice for how we will actually use math later in life.  But unfortunately that isn't how the Rocklin District and California State Tests view math.  I believe I would be better prepared for Geometry next year if we had learned more of what the district expects from us."

This student comment summarized the general feeling for most of my algebra 1 students.  They appreciated the fact that the real-life problem solving I did with them would relate to their future jobs.  However, they were concerned about their state test scores and the fact that I did not tell them how to do/think which in turn left them feeling inadequate. It is also interesting to note that we have common unit assessments so my students did learn the same exact standards and took the same tests as the other classes.

The Ugly
Even though the students appreciated my use of standards based grading, a few suggested I go back to letter grades.  These folks knew how to manipulate the letter grade system.  They did not like that they had to continuously prove their understanding of standards.  Again it was about me doing the work for them so that they could regurgitate and get the grade.

A Long Hard Look in the Mirror
I have to be honest, when I first started sifting through the student responses, I asked myself why in the heck I had the students fill out this evaluation.  Then after my ego got over itself, I stepped back and looked at myself as an educator and this is what I learned from my student responses:

• I really appreciate my students honesty even if it is difficult to hear
• I need to provide more frequent and effective feedback
• I need to backward map my classes and create meaningful and useful formative assessments
• I need to teach middle school students how to "practice" math and how to individualize their "practice"
• I need to help students apply their mathematical understanding using real life problems and connect the application to district and state expectations
• I need to teach my students to "find, filter, and apply" their mathematical understanding

The Amazing

As I reflect I have to acknowledge that with the implementation of standards based grades I no longer heard the sentence: "Is this for a grade?"  I also no longer heard the sentence: "can I have some extra credit?"  What I did hear on a daily basis was: "Can I prove to you my understanding of this standard?" and/or "What do I need to do to prove my understanding of this standard?"  It is easy for me to be hard on myself and feel defeated by the 140 honest responses by my students.  But instead I appreciate my students' candid responses and how they have forced me to look at myself and work to improve myself as an educator for my future students.

Ending the Year on a High Note 2012

During a conversation with one of my close friends at the beginning of this school year,  we discussed how we would go "out" of teaching either by retiring or by making a career move.  We decided that we would approach each year as if it were our last and that we would make sure to make it our best year.  We made a sort of a pact that we would make sure to go out on a high note no matter what.
I am a huge Seinfeld fan so I have shared a video of George Costanza going out on a high note...
George Costanza Leaving on a High Note

Shortly after that conversation, we had to endure the daily countdown of days left in the school year recited from a teacher who was looking forward to retirement.  I can appreciate the anticipation, but hearing the count at lunch everyday got on my nerves a bit.  Being a math teacher, I figured a good way to quiet my colleague would be to give the count of days I have left which was quite large for a number of reasons one being my 6 year old son (5 at the time) and me having to send him to college and have the funds to do so.  The number I so boldly shared at lunch made everyone laugh and did not silence the countdown at all.

An educational blogger who has influenced me greatly this past year wrote a bit about cruising at the end of the school year: Josh Stumpenhorst - Cruise Control
Even though our state testing took place a month ago I decided to end my school year on a high note and not hit the cruise control button.

Last year I was inspired by Dan Meyer.  I combined what I learned from him with the need to prove to my husband that I could utilize a smart phone in my teaching and created "Real Life Mathematics Connections" for my students.  Connecting Math to My Life  I took pictures of the mundane activities my family and I did on the weekends and it morphed into the link above.  In the process, I was banned from taking pictures in our local supermarket until I had a chat with the manager and pleaded for my math students.  I now have permission to use my smart phone camera if I "check in" when I enter the store.

The link requires many more blog posts describing the process etc... it was also the impetus for the end of the year project  I assigned this year: What Does Math Have to do With It?  I made the decision to be vague in the description of what I wanted my students to do.  They created math blogs using blogger at the beginning of the year and I had them write about their passion.  My intent was to have students make periodic math connections to their passion.  It did not work out that way for a variety of reasons (again to be discussed in a future blog post).  I did get some interesting work from my students What Does Math Have to do With It?  I am not pretending that  this is stellar work.  This is a first attempt at students connecting math to their passion or interest and some of the examples I have included hit the mark and others are not close.  The important thing is that I have 120 or so student samples that will help me make this project more meaningful for my future students.

Check out the links and student work and let me know what you think!

Testing Week Down Time

Testing week is upon us.  From Tuesday through Friday we will have full school days and I will be spending over 7 non-testing hours with a rotating group of 130 students.  Three fourths of these students I have not had any class time with at all this year.  So, I sit and ponder how to provide quality activities that will make their testing week as positive as possible while they are spending time with me, a complete educational stranger in their lives.  I think I have come up with some low tech mathematics ideas and resources I would like to share for those of you who are in a similar boat or are just wondering what the heck I am planning on doing with these middle school kiddos for four days.

Last Monday April 23 - the day after Earth Day my students explored the Brita Water Filter 3 Act Math activity from Dan Meyer's Three Act Math Activities.  I showed the short video about plastic water bottles circling the Earth and it really hit home with the students.  Here are the questions my classes came up with: Brita Questions.  The reason I am bringing this up is because it is leading up to my first activity for testing week

A Year Is...  I will begin by showing all of the students the Brita Commercial (19 second version) to remind those students who got to play with the math what we did, and for those who did not, to introduce the idea of a year of their life.  Then I will share some of things that I am considering for "A Year Is... in my life.  I will be thinking of those this weekend.  Then the students will have some quiet time to list some thoughts, then share with their groups, then we will make a class list of ideas that will enable the students to steal from each other.  We should have some interesting ideas and discussions.  My goal for this activity is to give the students a mental break while connecting to their lives and integrating math that is meaningfully applied to a topic they are interested in.  The students will produce posters that can be displayed in their homeroom classes for our "Showcase Night" which is our schools version of Open House.

The other activity will be math art which will be some form of tessellations since that incorporates pre-algebra standards.  It again allows the students to explore math topics but gives their brains a break after testing and allows for cooperative interactions and a relaxed atmosphere.

Finally, I have one of my classes everyday because it corresponds to our lunch schedule.  For this class I am going to use the book, Creating NIM Games.  I am not sure how many of you are familiar with NIM games or the game of Poison, but it is something I love to do with my students EVERY year.  I begin by showing the students the basic NIM Game Rules, it is not a fair game and so it is a hoot watching the students play and discover strategies and collectively create moves and counter moves.  I let them practice and play each other and then we have a class "tournament".  Right when the kiddos feel confident in their ability to win, I introduce a new NIM game (the above book has a plethora of them).  If we have time the students will create their own NIM game which is the culminating activity in the book.

My goals for the week:

• Give students a mental break while still providing learning opportunities
• Creating an atmosphere that is relaxed, collaborative, and creative
• Allow a brain break
• Respecting the students' need for learning experiences that  are the opposite of the testing environment
• Mix seriousness and fun
• Lighten up the atmosphere during a stressful week for students

Thank you those I stole ideas from!

My Favorite Time of the School Year, NOT!

I was not planning on blogging tonight but as I was cruising twitter, my awesome PLN shared this post by Lee Colbert and because of the events that transpired this past week, I felt compelled to write.

This past week was the worst week I have had as a teacher this year.  Teachers returned from spring break on Monday to district in-service and the students returned on Tuesday.  Our state testing starts the first week of May and so, like so many other teachers in my shoes, I am feeling the pinch of the material I have yet to "cover" before the testing begins.  I am a math teacher for those of you who did not know and I have spent this year implementing a standards based grading system that is new to me and my students.  I have also worked to make my math classes more about problem-solving and thinking rather than teaching rules for students to follow.  I work everyday to build student confidence in their ability to use their brains to think through problems.  

I fear that all of the time I have spent this year empowering students to create foundations for their mathematical thinking and understanding was demolished this week.  Even though I worked to provide discovery learning activities for the students, they were confused, frustrated, and questioning their math ability and understanding.  The culminating event was my last period of the day on Friday when one of my higher level math students was brought to tears as he struggled with the content he thought he understood and was feeling stupid and incompetent of which he is neither.  

As I consider my plan of action for the next two weeks, keeping the events of the past week in mind,  I have decided to change course.  Instead of cramming material down my students throats and causing an erosion of their confidence, I will take a different path.  

These next two weeks will consist of me reminding my students how smart they are, what great problem solvers they are, and working to build their confidence back up by reminding them that they already know so much about mathematics and mathematical thinking.  My only hope is that they still have faith in me and believe me when I tell them they can do this and anything they set their minds to.  I have to make sure my students understand 1) I trust in their ability and 2)I know and believe the last thing they as students want to do is fail.

I really HATE standardized testing because of the way it makes my students and me feel about ourselves.  Even though I will be re-planning this weekend, my heart feels lighter because my classroom will be one of celebrating and reinforcement  instead of cramming and discouragement.