Week 21 - OMCA with Mathalicious

As a mathematics educator I am always looking for ways to show math in an authentic light. It often feels like curriculum limits these opportunities as we feel forced to cover certain topics in a fairly short time-line and we get sucked into it easily. As they say, we often resort to methods and ideas that we were taught with. It takes effort to find new ideas and make changes in education.

So when I heard about the OMCA conference this year and heard that it was featuring the Mathalicious website I wanted to jump on it. Their website has one goal - to use real-life problems to show how math is used as a tool to solve them. Textbooks generally used what is referred to as "canned" math - that is to say that questions are created for the sole purpose of using a specific math tool. What Mathalicious does is take something that is a problem first, and narrate it in a way that allows math to clearly be used as a tool - and generally the end result is something the students will not expect. This can be anything from taking a scene from a play, to looking at pizza to crust ratios, to deciding if a university education is worth the money.

The conference turned out to go as well as we had hoped (I went with a colleague) as the presenter was engaging and sold his product well. We got to try out a bunch of the activities on their site and experience a bunch as an audience. I must say that I don't know that I will ever do the site justice as a presenter myself, but I am still excited to try things out - we got a 6 month subscription with our conference fee. I think what really hit home about the whole experience was that he really forced you to reflect and recall why you had become a math teacher to begin with. We were forced to look at the core of math education and decide what was important - and that is exactly what we did.

By the end of the two days we were ready to head back to work to try something new! The timing of the conference was both terrible (leaving our classes for 2 days in the very first week of he semester was difficult, routines are yet to be established) and perfect - we were able to head back to immediately start using what we had learned. We intend to make use of the website this semester to test out how it might work, where things can be used, gauge student engagement and try to master the art of presenting these well-planned, authentic problems.

First goal is to use one to introduce a topic and to just see how it goes! Basically, to throw ourselves into the deep end - and either sink or swim! (probably a bit of both).

Looking forward I can also see how this has the potential for authentic assessment, great opportunities for collaboration, and the hopes for observation and conversation! It will take me some time to get there (and I can only hope that I will get to teach this course again in the near future - not 5 years down the road again). The excitement of having access to a well-planned, thoughtful resource is invigorating and a great opportunity. I am hopeful that the time they put into these lessons (literally a team putting in at least a week into ONE lesson - time I could never hope to have for one lesson) will only add to my students' experience.

If you have had the chance to try one of the Mathalicious lessons I would appreciate you sharing your story :)

Week 20 - Setting up MPM 2D

Here I sit trying to set myself up to teacher MPM 2D this semester (OK, really it was 5 months ago...but I fell of the blog bandwagon and am playing catch up) with way too many ideas of what I think is needed going through my head. How am I going to set up my LMS? What gamification ideas am I going to try? Where am I going to source my videos from for my flipped lessons? What will my classroom routines be? (See - so many decisions to make! The next time someone accuses teachers of being lazy I think I will read them this opening paragraph). Here is what I am hoping to accomplish:

1. Use Edmodo to set up an online area where students can access resources, connect to each other, and have one account to do multiple things. I use EduCanon (which allows me to embed questions into YouTube videos for my flipped lessons and students automatically have an account for when using Edmodo) and am hoping to make some use of the cK-12 resources for online practice and quizzes.

2. Badges on Edmodo for a bit of gamification. I struggled with this last semester. My efforts often peter out and students cannot see what badges they have not earned yet so there is no added drive for them really. I will make use of the badges to connect to the University of Waterloo Problem of the Week - I am going to post this problem every week and for each month there will be a badge for 2 things

• attempting at least one problem that month and submitting a solution
• completing a min of 3 problems that month with a consistent effort and mostly correct results

3. Make use of a known YouTube channel (alrichards314) for some of my flipped lesson videos and search YouTube for at least one other with a lesson style that I like. Here is the one I ended up using because the lessons are usually set up so that an explanation is given for the tool/skill/concept before examples are used to show how to use it.

4. Every class will start with a 10 minute warm up that is developed to help students work on core numeracy skills to improve confidence (i.e. multiplication, division, fractions, etc). I hope to attempt to make sure what we do here is somehow related to that days work but feel it is important regardless. I am planing to focus on one skill per week where the difficulty builds up and Fridays will have some kind of game component.

5. Tracking student achievement using an excel tracking sheet for learning goals throughout the course (recording what learning level the student is at based on what I hear/see/mark - the long term goal being the observations/conversations piece of triangulation of data, for now I just want to get used to using this so that it can be a tracking method in the future). I also hope to have the individual student have access to this in the future so they can see what areas they should keep working on. I have also started using a OneNote file to track student work and am hoping to keep doing this (I soon realized that while this was doable first semester with a small class it was not feasible to do myself with 28 students - I made an attempt to get students to do this for themselves as an eportfolio but did not follow up well - now a goal for the future!).

Yikes!

Week 19 - Taking Risks

Well if it is not obvious this is a very delayed post as the school year is technically done, but image for a second instead that first semester is just ending and second is around the corner. I had been thinking a lot about taking risks at the time - both from the perspective of taking chances as a teacher, and the perspective of getting students to take risks in the classroom.

My own psyche fascinates me as I seem to be able to take risks in my teaching (both in class and online) despite having trouble with this in my everyday life. Perhaps it is something to do with my comfort in my profession and my confidence in the support I get from my PLN, colleagues, and admin. If it is not that, then I really do puzzle myself. This is not to say in any way that the risks I am taking do not feel that way - many of them do.

In my classroom I am always trying to do something a little different. Trying to come up with things to engage students in my flipped classroom (which could mean a new lab, different investigation, new attempt to use manipulations to teach a concept, or using a new strategy altogether) means that I am taking a risk with what students are going to learn (or if they will learn) which always feels like a personal risk. I think that most of that personal risk is related to pride. I feel thankful that this first semester had some good students so there was more room for me to take personal risks or my ego (I find it a lot harder to do that when I am having a rough semester already).

These risks lead to a feeling of vulnerability. Every time a teacher posts a blog, admits to defeat, publicly asks a question on Twitter she is risking feeling vulnerable or judged by others. Now it is not very common to be challenged by another educator, as there is a mutual respect and desire for personal growth and learning, but in doing so our thoughts and ideas are published for everyone else to see (students - current and former, - parents, and community members sometimes monitor what we do as well) and I have experienced first hand how these things can be misunderstood or twisted out of context to make them seem something they are not.

This has become a bit more of a ramble than I had intended, so if you are still reading I thank you.

The other side of the idea of risk taking is trying to get students to take risks in the classroom. I will be the first to admit that I have had a lot of trouble getting this to become more common in my classroom. Teenagers often carry with them an innate desire to fit in (and for many to blend in) and risk taking in front of their peers may be the last thing they wish to do. But it is with these risks that learning comes from. We learn by making mistakes, by making new connections. I have challenged myself to come up with a time that I made a mistake that I did not learn from...and could not come up with one.

For now one of my goals is to try to use conversation in the classroom more as a means to get students to start to talk about their thinking, to admit when they are unsure, to work through problems together. I have tried giving students an online place to do this as well to give them 24 hours access to things, but have not had much luck. One thing I do know is that if these things do not get initiated by students that usually are not authentic enough to get them to use it. I have tried even giving them anonymous ways to post online to ask questions and still have had no luck.

If you have any ideas to share for in class or online risk taking for learning please leave a comment below!

Week 30: Trying New Things in #flipclass

This weeks #FlashBlog for #flipclass is about innovation. We are supposed to share something new that we are trying that might be helpful for others in their classroom.

One thing that I am trying to be more mindful of is the use of conversation in class to help students process and talk through any confusion. There is a big push for numeracy in Ontario these days and one thing we have introduce (or really, reminded people of) at our school is Accountable Talk.

So I have been trying to create more opportunity for communication as a way to help kids work through their thinking and model for others. I cannot say I have gotten to the point where I am using these specific conversation prompts, but my plan for next year is to start the semesters off with them written on tent cards at each group so that we can create norms and start off on a good foot.

One thing I have been doing that has been pretty effective is recycling some work I did a couple of years ago and re-purposing it to create conversation. I used to hold twitterchats with my Physics class. usually about 3 per unit and I would use them to get students to give concise answers and to get them to focus on the concepts (the tendency is for them to focus on problem solving too much - I have blogged about this and will add the link to this later).

In the last couple of weeks I have been opening up the files that have my questions/prompts in them and using them to start class each day. I highlight 2-5 questions for them to discuss in their groups and then walk around to eavesdrop. It has been a great way to get them talking about the material and identifying points of confusion early on. And I will eventually make use of this to take conversation notes of what specific students understand to use for assessment practices (one day).

I don't necessarily look at this practice as being all that innovative, but it is a new thing for me - and so far I am finding it very useful.

Week 17: I Was Tapped on the Shoulder This Week

In my board the department headships (positions of responsibility, or PORs) are 5 year terms. This means that every 5 years they are posted internally for anyone eligible to apply to. I have been told for a long time that I have some natural leadership qualities which has lead to many people in my life asking me if I have plans to be a principal/department head/etc. I have always found this a difficult question and the short answer is usually "I love my classroom right now".

I do sometimes think about a POR, and have explored a bit about what it would mean, etc. In our board it has been defined as leadership in three areas: curriculum, administrative, and school. The administrative portion is often what we see as the headship - the budgeting, ordering materials, making decisions, doing the timetabling - and as much as I enjoy logistics this is the part of the job that does not interest me. I don't want those concerns to take away from what I do in the classroom and the difference I am trying to make in various areas of the school. The school leadership part seems like a bit of a given to me. Attending and helping with Grade 8 parents night, in school leadership, etc. The curriculum leadership is the part that I am passionate about. I love learning and working on my teaching practices (especially as they relate to assessment and evaluation), but it is also the part that I find I can do as a teacher. Being a teacher-leader has been a pretty satisfying piece of my job in recent years.

With the PORs posted this winter it was indicated to me by various people that I should consider applying. I was, of course, flattered by the suggestion and have taken their opinions into consideration. It would be neat to work with a team of people at the school to work on improving the learning and working environment (although we already have a pretty good one), but when it comes down to it, I felt good about what I was accomplishing in my current position. I have always felt supported by my admin, and I already feel that I am able to make a positive impact on my peers. There were, of course, other concerns that I had as well, as it can be difficult to change roles within the same group of peers, and I did not feel ready to think about applying to another school's POR at this stage.

There are many pros and cons to consider overall, but in the end I think that I am going to decide to stick with the current challenges I am taking on, as I do not feel the desire to take on a new one (a big one, at that). Maybe sometime down the road I will change my mind, but for now my decision is to see what happens at my current school (as I am sure there will be some changes) and make decisions from there.