First Cracks at Accountable Talk, Note-Taking, and Video Watching

I have some relatively significant goals this semester and have tried to get them going as early on as possible. I am going to try to reflect on them as often as I can to try to keep myself on task. Here are my thoughts after the first week:


Day 1: I set out to accomplish two things the first day of school. 1. Make use of Accountable Talk strategies to start to work on collaborative, effective discussions between students (student to student, not teacher to student) as I continue to seek a more student-centered classroom. 2. Start the semester off with someone that would make students want to come back tomorrow!

I created tent cards for student groups of desks to help introduce a variety of Accountable Talk strategies and tried to model a couple of them while I was introducing the ideas. So far students seem to have a mixed reaction to them. But I will continue to try to get them to focus on self-improvement in communication as a life skill, not just a classroom skill.

I used activities from Spark101 that were scientifically relevant and engaging to each course to use for the first day. Students seemed to have a lot of fun in those discussions and got to attempt to solve a real-life problem using their current knowledge and info shared in the video.


Day 2: Another goal for this year is to do a better job of helping students become better note-takers (and by extension, better at watching educational videos for my flipped class). I found a College Geek video that introduced effective strategies for note-taking and create a note-outline for students to use to take their first note (that was a model of the first strategy mentioned).

I also modeled a strategy for video watching by pausing thee video after each note-taking method was shared to allow them to record their thoughts/ideas. We also discussed pros and cons of each method and where different people might choose to use each one. I also stressed one of the lines in the video "You are a STUDENT, not a dictating machine!" and the importance of actually PROCESSING information while you are learning (so that you are learning not just writing down something to learn later).

This lead to a fun start to the next day because I got to show them some electronic note-taking apps and organizers. A couple of students have even started using a couple of the apps and trying one of the note-taking methods already!


Day 3: Continuing the goal of helping them become good video watchers (and needing to introduce them to one of my main reasons for switching to a flipped class) I had them watch a video as an entire class, while taking notes, without touching the pause button. The effective one was a Crash Course I picked for my Grade 10s to watch. He speaks pretty quickly in general and it was introducing some things that they did not know yet (but was related to something they did last year).

The frustration in the students was very evident. Some gave up entirely. Some were madly note-taking the whole time. Some gave me exasperated looks when I just smiled at them when they said "can't we pause???" Afterward we shared some feelings/adjectives to describe the experience and I promised them that they should NEVER have to feel this way again because their learning would be in their control. A point a used to remind them that this involves them communicating with me - a lot (I can't read your minds, really!) - if they do find themselves feeling this way again.

I think some of them were annoyed that the "note" ended up being futile, but most of them appreciated the resulting honesty and seemed to feel like they would be in the driver's seat in my course. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part though.


Day 4/5: I have now started to introduce students to watching educational videos individually and taking notes effectively. We are using class time to watch lessons at this point in the year and I am making sure they are taking notes and trying to give them feedback about the notes themselves. This is probably the hardest part for me...I do not feel like I am an expert myself. But I am trying. I am doing my best to encourage them to (at the very least) have examples/visuals when possible, and to show they processed by taking NOTES not recording every word.

My Grade 10s are being introduced to EduCanon right away so I am trying to use the embedded questions to get them to focus on important things and forcing them to pause at various points. Hopefully we can work together to pare back on my forced pauses by the end of the semester knowing that they will do it on their own. Fingers crossed.

Any advice/ideas/etc that you have for me on this topic would be greatly appreciated!


Still to come (i.e. something I have not started yet but hope/plan to) - student ePortfolios and reflections

Communicating with Parents, a #flipclass #Flashblog

In this weeks #flipclass chat we are discussing ways that we communicate with parents (in general, and specifically to do with our flipped classroom). Here are some things I do or have tried.

Since I started teaching 6 years ago I have given out an intro letter to my students to read themselves (and sign) and then for them to show to their parents to sign. It usually says a bit about ways to contact me and the communication/responsibility I expect of the students in terms of getting info home (this varies depending on the grade/level of the course). Since I started flipping I have modified this letter more and more to introduce the basics of the flipped class and to invite parents to an info night at the school where I will give them a run-down of what it is and they can ask questions.

Generally I get about 50% of parents saying they will attend and then 1/3 - 1/2 of those will actually show up a couple of weeks later (I am guessing because they have a better sense from their child about what is going on by then and no longer feel the need to come). It has been well received from those who do come, and the most common feedback last year was "It is clear that you care about our kids and that you are enthusiastic about this format...and that is all we can ask." Generally speaking, parents seem to respect us (usually I do this with a colleague) for what we are doing and just want to have a thorough understanding of the "new" method. [I also tried to use a google form that they could submit questions to in advance of the session but no one took advantage of it].

Through the letter and the info night I tend to get a good dialogue going with many parents and they seem to feel more comfortable approaching me later in the semester when they have concerns. This is extremely helpful as a high school teacher as it decreases the ones I have to worry about getting in touch with later (in most cases). I have  learned a lot in the past two years from the parents of my students as they have the home perspective of what the flipped class entails and it has given me a lot of insight as to what students need from me in order to be more successful. I especially appreciate the ones who take the time to come to see me in person and are clearly there to help their child and respectfully help me in the process.

My grade 9 (and I am considering for 10 as well this year) parents also get the opportunity to submit their email address to me to be a part of a mailing list for the class. I use this just to keep parents informed (and to adjust to having a child in high school since communication seems to be so different from what they are used to) about the class - what we are presently doing, what work I have returned recently, and what is coming up. This opens the door for communication from some of them who have concerns as they can hit reply to my email and ask me to call or ask a question. I have found this practice to be extremely helpful (mostly) and requires a bit of work up front to create a distribution list but then takes me 5-10 minutes every couple of weeks in the semester (meanwhile, cutting down on the phone calls I have to make).

I think the best part of this contact is that it forces these new high school students to recognize that their parents are going to find out anyway - so they may as well tell their parents themselves!

Week 23 - First Time Using Mathalicious

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about my experiences at the 2015 OMCA Conference in Niagara Falls, ON. I wanted to try using it as soon as possible (as they say, if you do not use the new thing right away you probably never will). We were starting off the Grade 10s (after doing a bunch of numeracy review) with Quadratic Relations (not my first choice, but I went with it) so I chose their Wiibates lesson to hope that it would be something engaging as I was planning to use it to introduce the topic (no lessons done in advance at all). My hope was that by starting off with an application it would show the students why they should bother to learn about quadratic relations.

Being the first time trying to do something that was going to be very new to me, and new to my students, I knew that I was going to run into some snags...so here they are:

- I had planned on about 1.5 periods to compete the task and it ended up taking 2+ periods

- All of my students had basically forgotten how to find the equation of a line (seemed to have a weak grasp of slope in terms of its equation although many found it in the context of the question) - this is why I would prefer to start the course with Linear Systems - which is greatly what contributed to the added time needed to complete the task.

- Students were not very engaged by the end of the task, though it started out decently (of course those who actually play video games were the most interested).

These snafus got me to wondering how our Grade 9s are being taught slope? why so easily forgettable? My instinct is that this should be something they remember well because it seems like the Gr 9 curriculum puts a lot of focus on the equation of a line and linear relations in general. I did not find this easy to reflect on as I have only taught MFM 1P once (and it was only 60% of the course as I started at the end of October) and this was 5 years ago. But this is something I would greatly consider when I do finally get to teach MPM 1D.

I definitely plan to try other Mathalicious stories during the semester. The overall concept is still well worth the time and it can only get better with more failure :)

I did ask the class what they thought overall afterward (using thumbs down/sideways/up) and most of them gave it thumbs sideways. At lunch I asked a couple of them for their honest opinions and the consensus was more or less that the lengthy time it took to complete was what made it into a less than ideal experience. They were willing to try something similar later on.

We're Baaaack!

A new school year always comes with new ideas, new excitement, new students, and new personal goals. One of my goals this year is to blog more often! I have probably said this before, and I don't know if I will be able to keep up with what I would like to do, but I am going to give it a go.

This semester I am teaching Grade 9 Academic Science, Grade 11 University Physics, and Grade 11 Workplace Math (Math for Everyday Life). I am continuing to work on my flipped class this year with the two former classes mentioned and am hoping to build on things that I tried last year. My Grade 9s are working with some videos that have questions embedded via EduCanon (this is new for me) and I hope to developed a lot more in-class tasks for my Physics kids this time around. I have all three of my classes on Edmodo this year as well. I really liked the idea of the kids having App access to our class website. So far so good.

This week I introduced the concept of the video lesson and put a focus on note-taking and the importance of taking the time to process the learning by summarizing and questioning. My Grade 9s had the opportunity to watch a couple of videos and note take in class as well as doing one at home (they won't likely have this concentration of "lessons" throughout the semester) and my 11s got to work at their own pace this week through a scientific numeracy introductory unit.

I am trying to gamify my workplace math class somewhat this semester to engage the group of students more effectively than I did last semester. I made use of Kahoot on the first day of class and hope to use this more in the future. I am also trying to turn the class into a "Game of Life" of sorts - each week I am hoping to come up with 6 scenarios related to what we have learned that week and they will roll a die to see what happens to them. They created avatars this week to introduce themselves to the class including their goals for after graduation. They were very honest about what they wanted and posted the resulting link to our Edmodo site. Here is one of them.

One last big change I have made in my approach to the flipped class this year is that I am hosting a parent info night early on in the semester so that parents can come in to get more information and voice their concerns before we get too deep into the semester.

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions your input would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers to a great new year!

Here We Go! It's Flip or Flop Time.

A couple of years ago I started hearing about the concept of a flipped classroom. I wanted to work toward finding ways to make this concept possible in my classroom but knew I had to take steps toward it before throwing myself into it. I started by trying to shorten my physics lessons to give students more class time to problem solve, etc along with giving them access to the lesson notes online (pre-lesson notes with blanks and then posting the completed ones after the fact) - and before you ask, no, this did not lead to students skipping class but it did allow ones who missed class for specific reasons to stay caught up. I then moved this idea to using a protected class management site (in my board we currently use Angel) so that I could easily organize what I was posting, send students messages, etc. This process allowed me to get more comfortable with the course/teaching (I am currently in my 5th year of teaching) and to integrate more technology into my class without overwhelming myself.

Now I have taken the plunge and am "flipping" my Grade 11 Physics and Grade 12 Advanced Functions (math) classes. As a first time "flipper" I am making use of other people's (public) YouTube videos in addition to making my own so that I am not spending all of my time creating video lessons. I spent a couple of weeks in the summer looking through a couple of specific YouTube channels to find some lessons that I liked (i.e. followed formats that I would use, taught in a similar way, etc) and making note of which lessons I would have to create my own for (or would use investigations, labs, etc instead of direct instruction for).

I will blog on some more of the specifics of my new classroom in the near future (I just wanted to introduce how my technology integration has been/is a work in progress). If you have any parts of it that you would like to read about, let me know by commenting, etc (I am more likely to blog when someone else gives me an idea anyway). For now I would like to comment on something related to these ideas that I have mentioned in the past. I still very much believe that students are not getting the instruction related to technology that they need - I feel that many of us are assuming that children are so comfortable with technology that we are not teaching them (leaving students that aren't naturally inclined toward it behind).

Early on this semester I wanted to try Socrative (emails you a report in excel format), so I created a "quiz" (that was actually a survey) so that I could collect data on student technology use. 16 of my Grade 11s participated and 18 of my Grade 12s and the results were as follows:
- Most have reliable internet access at home (5 of the Gr 12s said "sometimes")
- Most usually or always have a personal electronic device (PED) available in class (6 said rarely or never)
- The majority that have access to a device is a Smartphone or iTouch (small screen - important to know, not effective for creation but fine for viewing with good eyesight)
- The majority of those devices are Apple products
- About half of my Gr 11s (fewer Gr 12s) would prefer to read on a device than from a paper book
- They admit to having a variety of learning styles, but the majority choose "doing" as their main source of learning (fits right into the flipped class idea)
- 7 of the students admitted to finding technology difficult and rarely convenient OR just plain scary

I felt that these results left me with some food for thought and have reminded me how important it is to make sure students are aware that there are options (i.e. it is possible for me to give them copies of electronic lesson plans on a USB, if needed I could download the videos and put them on a USB or DVD if needed, etc). A couple of them are taking me up on the first of those possible ideas and will make the flipped classroom less stressful for them as they will not have to stress over the use of Angel as much. They are also getting used to the fact that the "teacher computer" at the front of the room is available for use during class (since I am up helping people out most of the time) and they have learned that I am fairly knowledgeable in helping them figure out how to get their PEDs on the wifi and opening various files. Which has led me to wonder if there are not teachers and other students who have not been able to get past these difficulties - these problems could easily create barriers to using all sorts of technologies in the classroom.

Anyway, I have digressed a bit - the ultimate purpose of this post was to reflect on the technology use in the classroom (specifically as it relates to the flipped classroom) and how it affects students. And in the end, this week has led me to think that in order for more of us to teach students how to use the technology more of us need to be comfortable using it on our own (this part of the revelation also brought to you in part by the sentiments expressed by colleagues in their new school board blogs) and perhaps I can offer my services with some "drop in times" to ask questions about devices on the wifi and various apps and websites that I am familiar with.

Fellow teachers - would you take advantage of someone offering this idea? If not, why not (i.e. what is stopping you or what else do you need in order to want to)? If yes, what kinds of things would you want to come to ask about? (I would like to compile a list of ideas/suggestions for those that might not have their own initial idea).

Please comment or sent me a Tweet @TchngPassion

My First "First Week" of School

So here it is, we are three days into the school year - and I am actually a teacher in September...how weird. It has been a great experience getting to help set the tone of the school year (both within my classroom and in the halls). I think that this year is going to feel much more at home (even if I am teaching Science and terrified that I am going to screw up every day).

I started my first day of classes with icebreakers to help my students get out of their seats and get to know one another. The only thing Science related they saw was my intro letter that they were to read, sign and have their parent/guardian sign. Grade 9s respond much more timidly to name games on the first day, but I think that everyone learned a few names and had an experience they will look back on and laugh about. I must say, indoor "snowball" fights are fun and Grade 9s and 10s cannot do the Birthday Game in silence to save their lives. Hilarity.

My favourite story so far comes from a Grade 10 class on the second day, when a student asked me "Miss, are you Canadian". When I proceeded to tell him that I was, his response was "oh, because you have a Canadian accent". I didn't really know what to think about that one...so as usual, I laughed! (I laugh way too much in that class...they already know they can distract me with their goofy ways. Oh well!)

I'm teaching an applied Science class for the first time in my career. As expected it comes with a group of unique students; many talk too freely about things that teachers do not want to hear about; some have more life experience than I probably ever will in my life; some live in single parent homes; and others will constantly be a struggle to get to do work (even though they are perfectly capable of it). I have actually had some good experiences so far (they make the struggles worth dealing with most days) with students completing work and willingly asking questions and participating in class...it is definitely less of a struggle than applied math was. All I can do is try to keep up what I am doing so far and hope that most of them hold on. I intend to be there as a role model for them and give them a place where they can feel like they are capable of being successful.

I am both excited and nervous to see what the following weeks hold for me and my students. Every day is different and cannot be predicted. Maybe one of these days I will even learn to get to sleep at a decent hour and have things planned before the 5 minutes before class starts. But just maybe.

A Beginning

This week I completed my first full week of starting my own classes from day one of a Semester. I got to try some things - not doing course outlines the first day, developing classroom expectations with my students (instead of dictating them), teaching Science for the very first time, using a Culture Assignment with my Grade 10 Math class, using Student Conferences from the start to try to get to know (a few of) my students so that I could really know who I was teaching instead of just knowing the material, using Math Journals with my Grade 10s...

Wow...that is the first time I've really sat back and thought about all of the things I have been doing, and now I think I really understand why I was so tired this week! And I haven't even met with half of my students...they keep missing their time slots (oie vay).

But so far I can say that it has been fun. I did get to start planning a little bit before things got underway, so in some ways it has been less overwhelming (but teaching in two departments, makes the overwhelmed feelings come right back). It is a challenge to work for two different department heads - they will never have the same style/expectations/etc and I have two sets of department meetings to attend and keep track of. But more of the challenge is trying to feel comfortable with my science lessons before I walk into the classroom. I am finding it really difficult to stay ahead of the game, so it goes day-by-day which makes it hard to be prepared - something always get forgotten...but I teach next door to a colleague with the same class so I am surviving.

I had a student tell me in this first week that she has realized that I can make math fun again. That had to have been the highlight...getting to see something make a difference so soon. Another student expressed concern over her success and what she can do in the future, so we have agreed to meet to try to work through it. I have really enjoyed these journals, I feel like I know these Grade 10 students better after a week than I knew many of those in my Semester 1 class. Definitely feel enlightened by some of their perspectives.

If I had to address one realization from this week it would probably be the realization that this feeling of being the young teacher that the kids relate to will not last as long as I would like it to. I look young for my age, so it will happen for awhile, but it will slowly fade and they will fool me with their technologies and slang terms more and more often. I find the students are more real in my class than they would be in a more experienced teachers room...and it's not just about age. They think they can get away with stuff without me noticing it as a new teacher...but they are wrong so it's funny. Maybe I will know things have changed when I stop being able to hear the "mosquito" ring on their cell phones.

For now I will be content with how things are (and I am more than content) and enjoy the things I get to hear, see and learn in my classroom and in the halls. I will keep enforcing things in my class that force the kids to take ownership for what they do and say and try to teach them how to be better, charismatic people. I will keep working to be the teacher that I have always wanted to be. I will keep trying to make math something that doesn't suck for most students. I will keep being me, and letting my students be themselves.

A Beginning

I have been sitting here creating this blog for the last while. Trying to come up with a name and a URL that were both available and something that I thought reflected me and the purpose of this weblog. It is not easy to summarize a purpose in a few characters, never mind to create a description for a blog in 500 characters or less.

I wanted somewhere to come to discuss my thoughts, even if it is nowhere in particular as I have proved to myself in the past that I no longer take the time to keep any kind of hand written journal - even if it is a new years resolution!

In any event, these first two weeks of my B.Ed have proved to be trying - if only on my patience and my organization skills. It has been very introductory so far (although understandably so) but there are many things that we have been asked to do in time for next week (and I have not used an agenda since high school). Even still, I have already found quite a few things to write down...many of my instructors have said things or posted things on a power point presentation that have really made me think about what I am going to do in the classroom and how I am going to accomplish them. Even at this point I feel like there are many more aspects of teaching and managing a classroom than one person can handle. I am already feeling very unsure of myself in this regard, but am also really excited to go about trying it. I can't wait to continue thinking about how I am going to accomplish things and what my priorities are going to be - it's as invigorating as it is frightening!

Three more weeks left until I am off to my first "Final Year" Practicum!