Things that make you go hmmmm

Really happy with the way the week ended.  I gave a quiz to my students and almost all passed.  I think I had 2 or 3 out of 72, and I'm talking A's and B's passed.  What did I do differently this week?  Well after Monday, when my math coach came in, I went back to basics.  I just gave them what they needed to know  in about 10 minutes (being careful not to TELL them things, but ask questions that lead them to what I want them to know) and them boom practice, practice, practice! 

As I get ready to write up lesson plans I am keeping this format. Since my class schedule is weird and I have my classes for different amounts of time each day, I will plan a more complicated activity such as stations or something for my longer days only.  This means I'll probably have to make 5 different sets of lesson plans, but so what!  I loved how this week went and I want my kids to keep "getting it!"

I like teaching again!

I cannot stay down for long!  I am still stressed and worried and swamped with work, but I decided I need to blog more and reflect more so here it goes...

My math coach came in on Monday, and I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I love her!  Every time she comes in, I truly learn something that I can apply and immediately see results.  Its the most awesome thing.  So this time we focused on my expectations for my class and my urgency.  Now if you asked me I would say that "why yes, I do have high expectations for my class!" but if you looked at what I was giving them to accomplish during their class time and how long I was giving them to do it, you would think something else.  And I didn't even realize it!
So, I started displaying this Online Stopwatch after my lesson and tell them that they have to get x amount done in that time.  They freak out at first, but by golly they get it done and they are just spending pretty much the whole time completely focused on their work it is awesome.  I notice some kids are actually fatigued when they leave my room!

In my 7th grade class I am teaching combining like terms and distributive property.  I really liked Sarah Rubin's ISN page for combining like terms and I got to thinking about the lines that she has separating the terms.
I decided that in order for my 7th graders to even understand where the lines go I had to make a rule they could follow no matter what.  So the first thing I taught them was to look through the entire expression and anytime they found a MINUS sign to apply the "KCC" which is Keep Change Change, or keep the 1st number, change the subtraction to addition and change the next sign to the opposite. Anyway after they go through and KCC, they separate all the terms into boxes.  The only "thing" allowed between the boxes is addition signs!  Then if they were just combining like terms they can go ahead and put all of the "boxes" that have the same stuff inside together and add.
If they have a term with parentheses, they have to take care of that first.  To me this always seems like a "no-brainer" you multiply the outside number by all of the things inside and  I would proceed to draw the familiar arrows going from the outside factor to the two terms inside, etc.  For some reason this is difficult for 7th graders. So I thought about my boxes again (picture example to follow.)  Actually I had read about the box method and FOIL about a year ago and taught my 8th graders it with much success, so I figured I would go with it for distributive property...It worked!!  Here is a picture of a problem they were able to simplify with all my crazy boxes!
All in all it was an awesome week.  My 7th and 8th graders took a quiz today and had great results.  I hope we can all keep this pace up for the rest of the year!

On a side note, I've kinda fallen off the "flipping" wagon.  Will post more of that at another time!

Edcampnj, #shiftclass, charter vs. public

Whoa, long time no post.
I have reached the point in my teaching career where I think I would be better suited flipping burgers.  What is the statistic, most new teachers leave before 5 years or something like that?

I am so done.  I hate the paperwork, I hate the pressure of "if the test scores don't improve you probably won't have a job here", the apathetic students, etc.

The worst part of it all is I blame myself.  I want my students to succeed, I want to be a great math teacher.

I have heard that it takes 8 years to be a good teacher.  Is this true?  Does it sound right?  I guess the problem with starting a teaching career as an older person, every minute counts.

I went to edcampnj today.  It was fun, but... there were only a few high points for me.  1.  I connected with another teacher who I went to college with.  We were both older students with kids, etc.  But she is my "soul mate" in the teacher world. We haven't gotten together in awhile so this made my day.  2. While most of the sessions seemed to cater to ELA, the last session was about Khan Academy which I have previously hated, but after today I am like "wow so cool!" and this has to do with being introduced to the "practice", "coach" and reports section.


Saw the term "shiftclass" tonight and I am in love.  There are a lot of things I am thinking of with this, my version is that I post in video fashion the "notes" of the day for them to put into their notebooks.  I see how this is probably the PROPER term for flipclass.  But aaaagggh this is such a complex subject.

Back to my college buddy and edcampnj, it was held in her middle school.... they may be adding more 7th grade math teachers next year.  I LOVE my school.  Its a charter school.  Long hours, lots of responsibility, low pay.  I think I am updating my resume.  Sad/excited/hopeful/confused.

I need to blog more. I need to reflect more. I want my students to achieve more.

The Good

So I've been going through a "down" phase with this school year, but happily, there are some good things going on that have me very happy.

I have a 7th grade student who is new to our school.  One of the things I did the first week of school was to make a "Twitter board" and the students had to make math tweets on index cards that I hung on the board.  I told them the tweets should be about math, but could also be about the new school year and that they should include the hashtag #math.  My new student's tweet was "New school new opportunity to do better" that really stuck out to me.  He started off showing "signs" of being a trouble kid, but did well on his pre-assessment.  I pulled him aside one day and asked him if he liked math and what he wanted to do when he got older.  I told him that he could really do well in my class and could have a lot of opportunities in his future.  I've noticed that since this conversation, this student is one of my top kids!  He has passed all of his assessments and is just a model student in class.  My goal is to try and have more of these conversations with students!

The other good thing that happened lately is my Donors Choose project got funded!  I asked for 4 refillable tape dispensers and 50 rolls of tape for my ISN's and I got it!  What a neat process!  I got a 50% match right off the bat from Quill and then a match code from Donors Choose so it was easy to get funded.  I need to think of some more projects!

Those were the two major things that popped out at me.  There are a some good little things going on, and if I can get some more time, I would like to try to get on here to blog more regularly!

Fail Fast and Reflect

My kids are failing, which in turn means that I am failing.  This post is going to try to help me sort out what isn't working, what is working and how do I fix it!

What is working:

• ISNs- My students have been 100% prepared with their notebooks everyday, which might not sound so impressive, but in my experience this is huge. Not only do they bring them, but they are organized and they are taking them seriously.  I gave an open notebook test this week and the kids were very relieved to find that the notebooks actually helped them!  I think that alone let them see the value of taking accurate notes.  Step in the right direction, but I will address a problem that I am having later on in the Problems section!
• My version of flipclass- This somewhat goes hand in hand with the ISNs.  They are copying the notes from the videos into the ISN's.  Which is probably better than if they were trying to take the notes down in class.  
• Edmodo- Kids love it!  I even have other teachers using it now.  They are communicating with me more and asking for help.

Problems or what isn't working:

• Groups/tables-Especially in 7th grade.  They could not stop getting off topic and just chatted up a storm.  The past week I have put them back in rows, actually I have them come in and sit in their groups with a 1 team leader at each group who checks that they copied their notes.  Once that is done, they turn their desks around to form the rows. Then I do a short mini lesson while they are quiet, using popsicle sticks to draw names to answer questions then they do their work independently/ silently until I tell them to pack up and turn the desks back to groups.  VERY teacher centered and I HATE IT!  But what do I do?  They are not taking responsibility for their learning and I don't know what to do!
• Student centered learning- In my mind, I thought they would watch the videos which only consists of the big idea and vocabulary.  Then come to class ready to get to work and learn together how to "do" the math.  Not even close.  Its not even like they are waiting/wanting me to spoon feed it to them, they could just care less!!!  I know that I have to engage them in the math, make it more personal, etc, but I don't know how to do this everyday.  This is how I feel:  I've spent the past four years learning how to teach, and now everything I've learned is totally wrong and I have to relearn it all over again. 
• Materials-  I've complained about this before but my textbooks and resources SUCK.  They were totally expensive and the principal is not letting me get new stuff.  Luckily since I work at a charter school, I don't have to use them, but it just seems like a huge waste.  Plus a ton of work curating my own stuff. 

Solutions:

• I think I am on the right track with training the 7th graders by putting them in rows. They are learning to work quietly and stay on task.  My hope is that after a few weeks we can start getting back into groups and working at the same level-on task and quiet talk.  I am going to start this with 8th grade next week.
• I am going to implement a little competition between the groups and classes.  I am still working on it but it will be based mostly on academic achievement but a little on behavior.  I am hoping this will start to motivate them to learn.
• I need to figure out how to move my lessons back to student centered.  I loved the jigsaw activity I did two weeks ago and I want to do this with 8th grade, but I go back to my group problem.  I may try this with 8th before putting them in rows.  

Toolbox and the ISN

I rarely come up with my own ideas when it comes to teaching, I am the queen of stealing!  I get so excited when I do come up with something that I haven't seen before but works. So something I started doing which seems to be really effective is what I refer to as The Toolbox.  (Now I'm sure that other teachers do this, but it was just new to me.)
At the beginning of the lesson I tell them the "tools" that they need to have in their toolbox in order to master the new skill.  I actually make a slide with a toolbox graphic on it and have them put it in their ISN.
For example for combining fractions they needed:

• Add and subtract integers
• Find the LCM/LCD
• Simplify fractions

Then the best part is I had them write the page number that these topics were on in their ISN!  Now when they are working and get stuck, I tell them to go their toolbox. It seems to be an great solution so far!

PLCs and Week 5 Reflections

My school has started to embrace the idea of PLCs or Professional Learning Communities.  So this post is a reflection about that, and my 5th week of school.

So to start off, my first "real" contract job is the charter school that I work at.  I LOVE the fact that it is small.  I teach 7th (36 students-two classes of 18) and 8th (36 students-three classes of 12)  But one thing I don't like is that I am the ONLY 7th/8th grade math teacher.  To say I felt isolated is an understatement.

This year with the formation of our PLCs I already feel so much more supported!  We had our first meeting today.  It was with me, my principal and our all purpose aid-who just happens to be an awesome math teacher!!  She has been coming into my room for at least 3-4 of my 5 classes each day as long as she is not covering for an absent teacher.  I think it is so great!  I love having an "outside" set of eyes to point out things that I miss. She has already given me so many great suggestions that I wouldn't have caught unless I was "on the outside looking in."

What I have found so far with my pre-assessments and my first mini unit test, is that my students don't test well.  They know what they are talking about during the lesson and the work they are doing in my class, but they either don't retain it or are just bad test takers.  So I need to figure out how to fix this!  If anyone reads my blog and has a suggestion I would love to hear it!!!

Next, about flipping: I LOVE Camtasia Studio, the only problem is that I have to shell out the $179 to buy it.  Is it worth it?  My trial runs out in 4 days and I think I am going to buy it.