Day 16,I made it 15 whole days before a real rant. That is more than two weeks. That is pretty good for a girl like me. Here goes my first rant. I HATE Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT). My mother told me never to use that word (hate) but I really don't think saying that I strongly dislike Teachers Pay Teachers really conveys my true feelings.
Tonight I spent some time rereading a post on Graham Fletcher's page, Questioning My Metacognition. Graham is an incredible educator. He has really caused me to pause and think more deeply about the math I teach and the instructional choices I make. His site and his Twitter feed @gfletchy are sources of inspiration. I spent time tonight relearning about subitizing to foster multiplicative thinking. I'm fired up about using Marilyn Burns' game Circles and Stars hand in hand with what Graham Fletcher calls, "Not Your Mom's Flash Cards." I know these tools will help to build number sense, automaticity, and multiplicative reasoning. I'll get a lot more bang for my buck than if I just drilled with traditional flashcards where the best result that I'd likely attain would be fact memorization. Anyway, I digress. Do you know what Graham Fletcher charges for this great PD? Before you decide, let me add that there was a video I could watch where he modeled using the, "Not Your Mom's Flash Cards." He and other readers of his site share other (array, etc.) cards based in building number sense, automaticity, and multiplicative reasoning . Do you think there is a one time fee or a subscription to his site/resources? If you do, you are wrong. He charges Zip. Zilch. Nada! I'm not exactly sure why he doesn't charge or throw his resources on TPT but if I had to guess it is likely because he has made a commitment to doing his part to ensure that math is amazing for as many kids as possible. Every time he shares his knowledge, experiences, or materials, his reach is greater. He impacts more students and more teachers. He enriches math education for not only those teachers (and their students) who can afford to spend on resources but because they are FREE, we all have access. Isn't that just all kinds of awesome? So, for all the teachers who say, "if I'm going to put all my time into designing or making or creating something, then shouldn't I get paid to share it because, after all, now the teacher who buys it is saving all that time? Don't I deserve to be paid for my time?" I'd offer this first question in response: So why did you take the time to design, make, or create that whatever you want to call it? Did you do it for your students? Or did you do it to make extra money? Did you do it because you wanted to offer your students an experience that is better than what they'd otherwise have? Or did you do it to make some cash? Then I'd ask: Has no one ever just given you a resource that they designed, made, or created? If they did, how'd that make you feel? Have you ever just given away the fruits of your labor only to see that a colleague thought enough of your work to use it with his or her own students? How'd that make you feel? Are we really about collecting money from our colleagues? Finally (I promise...almost done), so much of the "stuff" on TPT is pretty CRAP. Don't get me wrong. The teachers who sell on that site are often very talented and have, in fact, spent tremendous time and energy designing, making, and creating. I just can't help but notice that a lot of the stuff (not all) on that site is crap. Pretty crap, but crap. There are a plethora of worksheets and packets that are "standards-based" and designed with the intention of making the life of a busy teacher easier. However, especially when it comes to math materials, buyer beware! A lot of it is mathematically concerning and just low quality "stuff". Instead, couldn't we just be generous? Couldn't we just share more, knowing that what we get in return is impact and influence. Those are pretty great returns on investment, no? In the spirit of generosity I'm sharing a week long unit that I developed to introduce students to unit fractions, adding fractions, subtracting fractions, iterating, and comparing fractions, As a result of this week long unit, students are generally able to name a fraction as a mixed number and as a fraction greater than one with no procedural instruction. I've taught it for two years now, along with my colleagues, and students generally remember it as one of their favorite math experiences of the year. If you like more of a project-based-learning, hands-on approach, this might be for you. Access to Cuisenaire rods is necessary though. It would be appropriate for students in grades 3-6. I'd love your feedback. The Construction Conundrum Even more important, check out Graham Fletcher at Questioning my Metacognition. It will be worth every moment you spend there. Oh, and stay off Teachers Pay Teachers. And share generously with your colleagues. Your work is worthy. They are worthy. Their students are worthy. The impact you can make makes it worth it.
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Day 15Here is what happened last year. Much like this summer, I spent time reflecting on my practice. I followed the work of Jo Boaler and I read her awesome books, Mathematical Mindsets and Mindset Mathematics:Visualizing and Investigating Big Ideas Grade 4. I came away totally empowered and committed to beginning the new year with Jo Boaler's Week of Inspirational Math. After much planning and excitement leading up the the first day of school, by the end of the second week (6 actual school days), I had deemed my work with my students to be a complete and total failure. They were frustrated and I was too.
Jo's work assumed that students had received, up to this point, a rich mathematics education where instruction focused as much on the content standards as it did on the mathematical practice standards. My first two weeks quickly showed me that my students were not in the practice of thinking deeply about mathematics and they were not used to making sense of mathematics independently. The problems I posed assumed that students were accustomed to productive struggle and had built up some stamina when it came to the hard work of sense-making. This did not seem to be the case. They stared back at me with helpless expressions, unable to engage in the work without step by step instruction from me. This is, in my opinion only, the direct by-product of fidelity to a curriculum that is not-student centered and has no foundation in deep mathematics learning. I took a step WAY, WAY back and gave students the opportunity to play with math. We had to go back to content that was at a second and third grade level so that my students felt comfortable taking risks with proofs etc. Eventually, we could attach fourth grade content standards. (We're talking November.) Here it is July and I'm wondering what my new class will know and be able to do. I don't want to assume that I'll face the same challenges I faced last year but I also don't want to set my students up for a frustrating start to the school year. How do you plan like this? While in the past, there have been classes that were more ready for the rigor of fourth grade than others, I've never seen students struggle in meeting both the content and practice standards as I did last year. Maybe it was an exceptional year? Still, there is this voice in my head that reminds me that last year's students were bright. They really were. How do you plan in July for students you won't meet till late August? How do you plan when those things that you used to be able to count on just can't be counted on anymore? I have no idea what to do. Except that I'm going to prepare by reading Jo Boaler again. You should too! Mathematical Mindsets Mindset Mathematics: Visualizing and Investigating Big Ideas - Grade 4 Week of Inspirational Math Day 14YEAH! I read this tweet and thought, "yes, that is an area where I'm fairly strong!" That doesn't always happen. I remember years ago when I was a math specialist. Math coaching was really a new concept, especially in our district, and my colleagues had varying levels of comfort around being coached. Prior to coaching, I was a young-ish teacher in the district. For some colleagues, I'm sure it felt awkward having the teacher who used to teach across the hall come into their classrooms to coach them. To kind of ease the transition, I used to offer my colleagues a few options. They could teach a lesson and I could observe, focusing in on a very specific goal/behavior/skill they were working on. For some this was asking meaningful questions or engaging all students, etc. Other teachers might not feel comfortable with that model so I'd also offer to teach the lesson and ask my colleague to observe me. During the lesson, I'd ask them to notice and wonder and to share with me, at the lesson's conclusion, what they noticed and what they were wondering about now that they'd seen me teach. The goal after building relationships with teachers through both types of lesson observation was to move to a model of co-teaching where we would plan a lesson together and launch it together and then debrief at the end. I wasn't surprised that many teachers opted to observe me teach a lesson. I was almost always surprised by what they noticed in the lessons.
Of course, I spent a lot of time preparing those lessons. They were standards-based and I worked to incorporate mathematical practices (before the actual math practices were defined). So, I was always a little surprised that teachers were seldom impacted by the math. Instead, they often commented on the non-mathy things that I did. (non-mathy = adjective describing the aspects of a lesson that were not directly related to math.) I remember early on I had visited a sixth grade teachers classroom. He was fairly new to the profession but very talented and passionate. He could not get over the wait time I used. He said it made him feel really uncomfortable. He said it was like an awkward silence that made his skin crawl. He mentioned that he couldn't really breathe until it was finally over and I had called on a kid. They he said that he couldn't believe how I had gotten kids to participate in the lesson whose voices he had never heard in class. He also noted that after I had used crazy wait time for about five of the questions, kids who generally had a had flying in the air right away were holding back a little before raising a hand.. When they were called on to participate, which wasn't nearly as often as when he taught (they had been the only kids regularly participating), their responses were much more thoughtful. Somewhere along the way I learned something important about teaching. Maybe it was from Marilyn Burns. I'll give her the credit. She is amazing and I've learned so much from her. I bet this came from her too. Anyway, I learned that I don't have to have all the answers to all the math problems. I only need to be willing to do the work alongside my students. I learned that I don't even need to find these answers rapidly. I can take my time to thoughtfully make sense of problems too. So, when a student shares her response I have no issue saying, "Well, let me think about that for a moment. I've never considered what you're saying before. You really have me thinking." Do you know why I say this? It is not to boost the student up and make him or her feel good about him or herself. I'm not just modeling good math behavior. Here is the thing, I say things like this because everyday I am struck by student thinking and need to take a moment before responding to digest it all and make sense of it for myself. I need to give myself a moment or two to think about my next instructional move. Do I ask a student to sum up what we all just heard? Do I sum it up and follow up with a question? Do I ask a question like, "would your way of solving this problem work for all problems like this?" or "how can you prove that what you've said is true?" In reflecting on my lessons, I sometimes wish I'd played a situation differently but I know that I'd make fewer positive instructional moves if I gave myself less think time. Honestly, there are days in my fourth grade classroom when a student has presented a way of solving a problem that is so "other" to me. The way the student solved the problem is foreign to me and I NEED the time to figure out what the student did and why the student's way of solving works. I need to make sense of it for myself. When this happens, I'll tell the class I need a moment. I sit down on the floor or in a student chair and I give myself the think time I need. When I'm finally there, I share my struggle with my students. For example, I might say, "I followed Sam up until the point when she said.... but then I got confused when she said...then I realized... now I understand...but what I'm still wondering about is...Does anyone else have something to say about this? Do you have anything else to say or add, Sam?" It is important to me that I'm modeling good math practices. I want my students to understand that often mathematicians don't "just know" the answers to problems but that we can arrive at answers with perseverance and work. I also want them to know that I take their learning and their thinking seriously and it is worthy of my careful consideration. I want them to see me as a working mathematician who enjoys thinking about math and engaging problems. That this pursuit can be rewarding and even fun. I want them to understand that math intelligence is not something that you are born with, but instead, it can be cultivated. I also want my students to realize that I'm willing to roll up my sleeves and do the work with them. I need to teach them that while correct answers are important, I value the process. The wait time I use goes a long way in building a positive math culture in our classroom. Day 13I have a fifteen year old son who runs as a hobby and works in a fish market during the summers. Raising him can be stinky business. My thirteen year old daughter's ballet bag could knock you out. Like any mother, I have found my share of unidentifiable food products in lunch boxes. Today, some days after the end of the school year, I walked by my daughter's bedroom where she was finally emptying out her school backpack for use at an upcoming field hockey camp. There was a white/green/brown blob on her hardwood floor. A nasty, rotten apple. No kidding. As I was gearing up to let her have it she reached down to the same pile on the floor and handed me an envelope. "Some girl at school gave this to me and asked me to give it to you," she said, sort of apologetically. She was a little late but seemed to sense that the letter was enough of a decoy to save her from one of my rants. Ya, who cares about rotten apples, right?
I don't need to be a superhero teacher. I need this. This all day is enough. This was a gift today. Every day I get to do this important work with kids like this kid and her classmates is a good day. Day 12Let's go ahead and process this tweet for a moment. Do we do this in schools? Have I done it? Have educators I look up to done it? Yes, yes, and yes. Trust me, we've done this without meaning to be...not sure of the word....mean, exclusive, lazy, thoughtless, or insensitive. Any of those words probably fit. There are probably others that you could offer.
Here is the thing, every kids wants to be included. Every kid should be. As parents, we want our kids to be accepted and welcomed and to belong. I remember dropping my daughter off at a dance intensive a couple of summers ago. I worried that she might not fit in with the other dancers in this new studio that she was visiting for the summer only. I actually pulled the instructor aside and I explained that my daughter was having difficulty getting up over her box on the left side (or so I had been told. I understand nothing in the world of Ballet). I wanted the instructor to know this about my daughter so that she might not be "found out" and "stand out" in class later on. He was a very passionate instructor with a no nonsense approach. He didn't speak to me gently. He wasn't about to coddle my daughter. He looked right at me and said, "every dancer, in this studio, and everywhere for that matter, has something she or he is working on." And that was it. Every student comes with unique gifts, talents and struggles. Everyone has something they're working on. Period. We're all the same in that way. The "what" we're working on may be unique and set us apart. Some students have a plan that maps out some of the specifics when it comes to the "what.". For example, plans may include strategies and accommodations that should be used as they're proven effective in the past. Plans often map out how often and where a child receives support. Kids are kids. They're all the same in that they're all working on something. Let's include them all. The ones with no plan and the ones with plans. I'm going to try to be far more aware of the language I use so that it is representative of what is in my heart. All kids belong in my room. I will work to make sure they all feel included and not like "other" because I've gotten callous with my language. This is important to me. Day 11 There are a surprising number of superhero teachers out there. I love this. The first real superhero teacher I remember following was Marilyn Burns. By following, I mean, I bought all of her books and tried to teach the lessons as I imagined she would. When attending a NCTM conference where she was the keynote speaker, I got to her talk super early so I could get a front row seat and pretty much rushed the podium at the end for the chance to talk to her.
Fast forward twenty five years and there are lots of teacher superheroes out there. For sure, Marilyn is still number one in my book but now I've added the likes of Graham Fletcher, Jo Boaler, Marc Chubb and Tracy Zager to name a few. I have heroes on the ELA side too. Lucy Calkins tops this list. I also follow Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell as well as Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. Although I buy books when they're available, I follow many of these educators on Twitter. I am easily inspired by these superheroes and the seemingly countless number of educators out there who are doing amazing things. What is remarkable is just how willing educators are to share their work for free so that their impact can increase. In other words, these educators care so much about children and their learning that they share their work through tweets and blogs and websites. We're all better for it and the quality of education in America's public schoolrooms is undoubtedly better for it too. So, what's the problem? There really shouldn't be a problem. Really, no problem at all. But, if I'm being honest, there is a problem. I don't measure up. Not at all. Not in any way. And why is this even part of the conversation? Why can't I just learn from these greats, improve my craft, increase the power of my instruction and go on my merry little way feeling blessed because my load has been lightened thanks to the smart and generous sharing of others? Instead, the nasty little byproduct of the hero teachers and their sharing becomes my low teacher self-esteem. Seriously. It is true. Even now, as I'm eleven days in to writing a blog I can say with fair certainty, no one will ever read, I worry that it doesn't measure up. Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT aspiring to be a superhero teacher myself. There is way too much pressure in that for me. Instead, I want to have the sense that what I'm doing is important and smart and that someone else might find value in it too. I read some of these books and blogs and tweets and I marvel over how thoughtful and smart other educators are and while I'm grateful for their work, I wish I fit in among them. What is absolutely true about each of these educators who I follow is that students and their learning are alway center stage for them. So, my big take away tonight is that every time I put my students and their learning center stage, I'm one step closer to the superhero teachers who I admire most. Day 10Fractions: Units and Equivalence by William McCallum is a very good read for 3-5 grade teachers charged with the tricky task of teaching students to recognize equivalence in fractions. The author warns us about trying to use words or phrases to explain what is going on with fractions. Our explanations fall flat and in fact, "get in the way of the truth." The expressions "reduce" and "simplify" suggest that the fraction has changed in terms of quantity. Giving students opportunities to experiment with fraction number lines and tape diagrams will help students to understand equivalence vs. explaining equivalence using language that will, in the end, only "complicate the matter."
This is one of my guilty little problems. Too often, in a misguided attempt to speed through curriculum, I set off to explain what my students need to understand. In the end, I often feel frustrated and the student hasn't learned anything. Students must be the makers of sense. This is work that we cannot do for them. When we try, we supply reasons and examples from our personal learning. More important is giving the students the opportunity to learn for themselves. Otherwise, the student will seldom be able to grasp the big ideas and understand in a way that is marked by fluency and flexibility. I also use too much direct instruction. At the very least, the direct instruction portion of my lesson always runs over. I wonder how much time I waste explaining things that should be discovered. I am certain that I should wrap up before I do. Another goal for next year is to truly stick to the ten to fifteen minutes of direct instruction in the plan. If I'm to achieve this goal, I really need to be thoughtful about what is taught. Next year, I will explain less and allow more time for my students to do math. I will continue to meet with the class at the end of the block to solidify the big ideas. This is not to say that I should present them. The opposite is true. Ideally, the students will be able to state what they noticed in the course of their work and also share what they're still wondering about. This goal seems like a small one but I know that if I'm successful it will also contribute to a positive climate where the students are in charge of the learning. Fractions: Units and Equivalence Illustrative Math by William McCallum A short piece that is well worth your time. Day 9"8 Teaching Habits that Block Productive Struggle in Math Students" was an excellent article that has me thinking about the ways that my good intentions can sometimes interfere with student learning, especially in math. As I read the article I was immediately struck by #1: Calling on Students Who Know the Right Answer. Boy, I do this all the time. Oh sure, I do a nice job of capitalizing on those teachable moments when a child shares a wrong answer and we work through it and this amazing learning happens because someone shared the wrong answer. But, what would be possible if I changed the question? What if, instead of asking, "who has an answer for me?" I asked, "is anyone willing to share what they're wondering or thinking about so far?" I think the rephrasing of the question would allow students to see that I'm inviting them into a conversation about math and their thinking versus putting pressure on them to have it all figured out.
In terms of student engagement, I really think that the other students in the room would be more inclined to listen to the conversation, to see where their thinking matches up or veers in another direction. If I followed up with, "and who can respond to what so and so has shared?" instead of responding to the student myself, I know richer conversations would be possible. I work hard to establish a culture in the classroom where mistake making is a welcome part of our learning but I know that this small shift in my practice could refocus my students on the thinking and the process versus the final product. This is an important shift that I will try to make this year. I really aspire to create a culture where students own the learning and where all the learners are deeply engaged in the process of learning. This seems like a step in the right direction. Day 8I reread the Red Tent this summer. It was an amazing read about Dinah, a biblical woman who little is known about. If there is one thing I learned from this book, it is the importance of adaptability.
The women in this book, especially Dinah, adapt to major changes in their lives. Honestly, most did it without complaint. As a new challenge or change presented itself, the women learned what they needed to and moved forward. This is a powerful lesson to take into my own life. When change comes our way, when we are called upon to do things differently, when people who we've counted on to be one way change and act unpredictably, we need to adapt. We can't control the challenges that life will throw at us. The only thing we can hope to do it to adapt to those changes in a way that is reflective of our values. This year, there will be changes and challenges that lie ahead. I will work to accept those changes and challenges with grace. I will commit to learning what is necessary so that I can embrace the change and capitalize on the challenge. I will focus on my ability to be adaptive. I will remember Dinah and her ancestors who celebrated ritual, customs, history, and holiness while taking excellent care of themselves and the ones they loved. I will make adaptability one of my personal goals for the 2018-19 school year. Day 7I love Twitter. Seriously. I love that I can follow educators who are inspirational and are innovative. I also love that I can access little bits of information at a time and it doesn't bog me down too much time wise. I have learned both content and pedagogy. I have participated in educational chats and I follow specific hashtags (ex: #MTBoS) that keep me in the loop when it comes to content I care about. I have also hosted a couple #kidmathchat chats with my fourth graders. Using Twitter made the learning very visual and helped to engage the students. I'm looking forward to discovering even more ways to unlock Twitter's power in education.
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Marie McManus BrighamA public school teacher who gets to wonder alongside fourth-graders. Archives
December 2018
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