The marathon has begun

I remember my first 10K race. I was not in contention for any prizes. It was a personal test of my endurance. The adrenalin was flowing and my muscles anxious for the race to begin. The gun sounded, and the race began. My muscles began doing what they had been trained for and the anxious tension diminishes. That is where I am in my "race" to becoming a teacher. The excitement of the first few days has given way to the steady beat of feet hitting pavement. I'm in the first half mile and it's a long road before me. I want to jump ahead to the finish line, but realize it will get here, just keep one foot in front of the other.

There is so much I don't know. I've finished my first semester and see the vast road ahead and want to jump to the end. I remember: one foot in front of the other. What steps can I take during these holidays? I'm focusing on assessment: standards-based assessment in particular. Intel has a free internet course that I'm working on and there are math teachers blogging about their experiences. I'm hoping to find a local teacher doing it so I can observe first hand how it can be done. Have I mentioned that there is so much that I don't know? How can I possibly learn it all in one year? One foot in front of the other.....

Standards-based approach

As I read through information on the Internet about Standards-based assessments, the context is usually state testing. There is talk of moving from a comparison of how a student performs with respect to other students in that grade to the extent to which a student shows mastery of a content. In many math text books I see pages in each section dedicated to how that particular content will look on a standardized test, "teaching to the test."
The Education Commission of the States published a report in 2002 responding to "No Child Left Behind" and gave 6 criteria for assessments:

• Assessment tasks should involve activities that are valued in their own right, engaging

students in “real-world” problems rather than artificial tasks.

• Assessments should model curriculum reform.

• Assessment activities should focus on objectives consistent with the goals of instructional

activities, thus contributing to instructional improvement.

• Assessments should provide a mechanism for staff development.

• Assessments should lead to improved learning by engaging students in meaningful

activities that are intrinsically motivating.

• Assessments should lead to greater and more appropriate accountability.

As a teacher, I know I will need to be conscious of State testing, but in the trenches I am concerned with how to assess authentically and in a way that helps students and parents see where they are academically what they need work on. Nothing helps me more than seeing someone else do it. David Cox has a blog that he shows different and inspired ways of assessing students. He video tapes a task a group of kids are doing and adds their summaries and discoveries to it. I can see so many different ways of assessing, but it's the assigning a level of mastery that I think is the tricky thing. In one of his post on assessment David gives steps in the process of mastering a skill. First can you duplicate the skill, repeat it in a similar circumstance? Second, can you apply the skill in a different situation that you haven't seen before? Then third, can you create something unique using the skill? I think I see my 3 Levels of Mastery rubric!

tutoring

So, Friday I spent the day at the High school turoring math. I had a couple of kids getting help with physics, but most of the kids needed help with math. One student is having trouble with baisc factoring. I'm going to search the web to see if there are any tutorials I can get some material from to explain it differently. Nothing I did helped yesterday. On the other hand I got to see the light go on for two geometry students. You go over something one way and look for the light. A couple of times one student said, "yeah, I get it." But you can tell by the look in their eyes if they do or not. I think kids are used to telling the teacher what they think the teacher wants to hear. I want to know if they get it or not. The beauty of tutoring is it's one-on-one. I can take the time to look in their eyes and go over the material in a different way if I see that they don't get it. I had a really good talk with one geometry student about how trigonometric functions are proportions, like similar triangles. He is a wrestler and the discussion went something like this:
Me: You do proportions already. What weight class are you?
Him: 195 lbs
Me: What do you bench press?
Him: About 210 (I don't remember the exact number)
Me: So give me another wieght class.
Him: 145 Lbs
Me: can they press more or less than you?
Him: less, maybe 160
Me: Why?
Him: He's not as strong.
Me: is it related to how much he weighs?
Him: yea.
Me: how about somebody weighing 130?
Him: about the same as the other guy (in 145 weight)
Me: Why?
Him: he wieghs about the same as the other guy.
Me: You're doing proportions intuitively.

OK, so this ain't rocket science, but it is the most beautiful part of teaching. I get to be a part of a kid's learning. I'm thinking that when I'm finally in a class room, I'll continue tutoring.

Day 2 of the NCTM

Day 2. The first session I attended was America’s Got STEM Talent. We were presented with three STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) units by three different publishers. We evaluated them according to their S, T, E, and M content and whether we would use it or not. It was helpful to have a representative from the publishing company present the units, but like everything else the quality of the presentation didn’t necessarily represent the quality of the product. In one presentation we were only shown the intro video, which took the whole presentation time (about 5 min) and we got nothing on the actual materials. The hook was great, but couldn’t judge the content. The other two were for elementary and middle school and were interesting, had good content, and were well laid out. I know this is a program that I will want to use, and I can implement either as an elective or an after school program.

Dr. Frank Wang presented an entertaining as well as informative seminar, Keys to Successful Teaching: Turning Research into Practice. He gave 5 points: 1)Provide Students with a rewarding experience, 2)Get the students actively involved, 3) Review constantly, 4) Teach in increments, 5) Test frequently and cumulatively. Dr. Wang was an apprentice under John Saxon of Saxon Publishing and managed the business after Saxon’s death. If you’re familiar with Saxon math, you can see the correlation between Wang’s philosophy of teaching and Saxon’s approach to mathematics. I adhere to Wang’s philosophy but not to how it is implemented in the Saxon text books. Dr. Wang gave recommendations for several books. I’m adding them to my Christmas reading list. I feel like the 4mat units I’ve been writing follow Wang’s 5 points fairly well. I have seen the concept of reviewing constantly modeled in my Observations through the “Bell Ringers” that start the math class. I’ll need to include that in my lesson plans when we start those.

The Rules of the Game was an interesting seminar. It was lead by a publisher consultant. The content was activities from their text books. There were three great hands-on activities for probability and geometry. Math Labs, as they were called, are great learning tools that are relatively short, but tangibly demonstrate important concepts. I don’t know how often I will be able to use them due to time constraints, so importance of concept and difficulty of the material will be two criteria I’ll use for choosing labs.

FABULOUS, was Jason Williams’ 50 Fabulous Finds for the Classroom:  links, resources, FREE computer programs and resources. You can find all his treasures on his link. Scroll down the page and check out a few. OMG it’s overwhelming! My approach will have to be to look at one, and only one, link a week to implement. My first link is Rubistar, a rubric design and resource sight.

The last seminar of the day covered the new Common Core State Standards, which should be called National not State. It is a hot political teacher topic. This looks like it is the first step to National control of the educational system. When the government gives you money, it wants a say-so in what you do. The origin of this initiative is scary and NCTM’s work to have actual math teachers involved with the development gives me hope.

It’s been an amazing couple of days. I’m getting a clearer view of how I want to teach, and I’m acquiring resources for great lessons so I’m not “re-inventing the wheel.” The biggest impact this conference has had on my vision is probable the STEM and Engineering seminars. I can so see myself implementing these type of programs in our school and community and incorporating these kind of units to build context for the math.

NCTM 2010 Regional Conf. Day1

WOW, the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) 2010 Regional Conf. was awesome! I’m coming home with new ideas, resources, and inspiration. The first day included integrating math with engineering, something I think will work well with my Electrical Engineering background. Look around at all the engineered creations around you. Ask questions, make connections, do the math. Great resource: engineering lesson plans from an engineering perspective.
My next class was Algebra: connections with multiple representations. It is just like my MA513 class so I only stayed for 30 minutes. I’ve seen how building understanding through progressive problem solving is powerful in teaching.
I spent another half-hour in Meeting Learners’ needs in mathematics with differentiated instructional strategies. In this seminar we were presented with strategies in formative assessment, teaching, and summative assessment. Nothing new in formative assessment, but I saw how the teaching can tiered for three levels of mastery. The group with a basic level of mastery requires the teacher’s guidance and a review sheet. The instructor will spend more time with this group than any other. The group with an average level of mastery will get minimum direction and no review sheet. The instructor will spend time with this group as she sees necessary. The group with advanced mastery will be given the no review sheet and instructed to create their own learning, even creating teaching materials for the other groups. All the groups will be given the same materials with the same teaching objective, but each group will investigate it at their level. If the project is measurements, for example, all the groups will be given measuring cups, measuring spoons, pictures and water. The first group will be given instructions to investigate how many cups are in a quart, how many tablespoons are in a cup, etc. and a chart to fill out with the information. The second group will be given similar directions, but no review sheet. The third group will be told to find out the relationships and present it in an organized manner. Forms of summative assessment include KWL, journaling, Think-pair-share, mapping and Quick write. As I write lesson plans and have to accommodate ESL and IEP students this approach will be invaluable. The students will all be doing the same content, but at their particular level. I was worried about how I was going to actually make teaching at different levels work in a classroom.
I spent an hour in a Reflection session where attendees discussed the things they’re learning at the conference with respect to geometry. “Hands on” was the general consensus with noting that as little direction from the teacher actually helped with student learning.
Enough of the first day’s epiphanies, I’ll post about day 2 tomorrow.

Technology continued

I posted earlier about my technology class and the new "weapons" I have to use on my unsuspecting students. We went over student support materials and how to make those cool forms you can fill out on the computer. I had always wondered how they were made. Now I know. Well, kind of. It's a lot of steps and I didn't catch all of them. I'm going to try it out and let you know how it goes. I'll be checking out tutorials on the web for this.

As i get ready to create tests i have to think about what will really demonstrate an understanding of the concept? What questions do you ask? What testing format will lend itself best to evaluate their learning? Do i go with the standard mathematics equation test or word problems? The News letter and Power Point projects were good evaluation tools. Is that enough? I like the idea of a learning journal/blog. I guess the medium we use, paper or internet, will depend on the resources my students have.

I like the wide range of student support options I have: Youtube, Power Point,and Prezi, to name a few. I don't think the boring lecture with worksheets is my style at all. I think there are several interactive websites for math as well. Hopefully they will have technology resources available at the school I teach. What are my options if they don't? How can I get resources in the schools through the community and local businesses? I'm getting a lot of answers in my classes, but there seem to be more questions that pop up with the answers!

Standards-Base Grading (SBG)

Assessment, how? The SBGing sounds difficult, but great, until you get into the question of how is this going to be different than regular grading. It makes the kids number chasers just the same as regular assessment and it doesn't give a wholistic assessment of their knowledge; you assess each "tool," but can they discern which "tools" to use in larger problem solving situations. So I'm thinking I create a grading Rubric that has individual tool assessment as well as project assessment on it. Throw in participation, collaboration, and .... my gosh, I think my head is going to explode. I am learning so much and I see how much more I need to learn. Building with one brick at a time!

Technology in the classroom

As I progress through my technology class, I gain confidence to use this new "weapon" in my classroom. Having students create a Power Point presentations or a News publications is a real useful tool to evaluate their comprehension of the material. If they can communicate the information clearly and have fun, everyone wins.
We covered copyrights in class today which has sobered me up. There are legal restrictions to what both I and my students can use and how we use it.

Controll for "their good"

Dr Meadows gave a link to Alfie Kohn's blog. A rebel at heart, Kohn gave a sarcastic list of how to create non-readers, and followed up with some positive principles for teaching. His next to last paragraph has summerized the battle which has begun in myself:

"The best teachers, I find, spend at least some of their evenings smacking themselves on the forehead – figuratively, at least – as they reflect on something that happened during the day. “Why did I decide that, when I could have asked the kids?” And, thinking about some feature of the course yet to come: “Is this a choice I should be making for the students rather than with them?” One Washington, D.C. creative writing teacher was pleased with himself for announcing to students that it was up to them to decide how to create a literary magazine – until he realized later that he had incrementally reasserted control. “I had taken a potentially empowering project and turned it into a showcase of what [I] could do.”[15] It takes insight and guts to catch oneself at what amounts to an exercise in pseudodemocracy. Keeping hold of power -- overtly for traditionalists, perhaps more subtly for those of us who think of ourselves as enlightened progressives – is a hell of a lot easier than giving it away."


I have found myself wanting to control and "inform" for the "good" of the person I'm interacting with. That is so counter productive to what I REALLY want to do as a teacher. This sin against teaching must be killed! I must allow others to struggle and learn just as I am now struggling to learn. I want to be a good teacher.

New view

I feel like explaining my new vision has to begin with why I am doing this.There are three steps that brought me to UAB's Fifth-year program. First I have an under grad degree in Electrical Engineering. I chose EE because I am a math geek; I see things in terms of mathematics. Second, I have 7 kids and have home schooled (HS) off and on for the past 18 years. I also taught classes to homeschoolers in Basic Circuits. Third, my kids are growing up and going to public school so I'm thinking, "what do I want to be when I grow up?" I know I want to be involved in my community (CI). Well, in my mathematical way of thinking,  "(EE +HS) / CI = go back to school and get your degree to teach high school math"

Math is such an abstract subject. Teaching it has to connect it to our senses and experiences. My experience with teaching comes from teaching in a homeschool co-op where parent/faculty taught enrichment classes in their expertise. I taught Basic Circuits  by using an electronic kit. The abstract concepts in the manual were described in terms of a water system, something everybody can relate to. My experience as a musician (I played clarinet in highschool and began violin 2 years ago) connects the tuning of my notes with my instructor with visualizing and hearing sine waves matching up.

The circuits class was also very hands-on. We discussed the concepts, observed a circuit diagram (schematic), speculated about what would happen in the circuit, then built and observed the actual function of the circuit. I was inspired as I looked through the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) curriculum available free through Intel. There are examples out there of this working and it's so exciting.

I've heard the term "Project-based approach" several times and wondered what that was. It sounded like something I'd like to incorporate into my pedagogy because it made the learning real/relevant, a part of life. I have started a free internet course on Project-based Approaches that is giving me more confidence that, yes, I can manage this in a classroom setting.

Assessment in this new environment is also a concern for me. Because in Maja's World, "Don't sweat the details" won't fly. I know my weakness is administration and my employer won't assign me my own "Type two" secretary, so I've got to get a handle on how to tackle assessing my students. Standards-Based Grading was described on teacher blog by Mr. Cornally. This is a direction I want to go. I don't want the typical problems of a cartoon world test (a made-up world with limited parameters), but a test of their ability to assess a real world situation, come up with an approach, and choose from the tools (knowledge) they own or find the tools needed to deal with the situation.

Dan Meyer has a YouTube video called "Math Curriculum Makeover" and makes the point that this is an amazing time to be a teacher. The availability of multi media resources is astounding. I not only have access to resources all over the world, I also have the ability to bring it into my classroom in big screen techni color. Multi media tools like Prezi, Wiki, YouTube, Google, Blogs, are some of the 21st century resources that will help me lead my students into the amazing world of mathematics.