Pear Deck Experiment - Final Thoughts

As I wrap up the semester, it's time for that reflection to see what went right and what went wrong.  This year, I decided to try a Pear Deck experiment.  I felt it would have the audience interact with me and also make use of the technology that my students seemed to have.

It was silly, but I first tried it out in my first ever presentation in front of teachers at the YRDSB QUEST conference.  Looking back at it now, I was quite a beginner and it wasn't the greatest place to try and fail at it as you can see the audience was made up of many big-wigs in the board and around the world.  Oh well, you live and you learn.

It looks like I've a wide variety of people from around the world for my presentation here! #YRDSBquest pic.twitter.com/VZYni4YZVK

— Andrew Shin (@MrAShinYRDSB) November 20, 2015

Wow, lots of middle school teachers during my session. I'm glad they stayed! =) #YRDSBquest pic.twitter.com/TvCjaeIGHt

— Andrew Shin (@MrAShinYRDSB) November 20, 2015

I learnt my lesson, and practiced Pear Deck more in the classroom where the audience was a little more forgiving.  It also modeled for my students the importance of trying something new.  Not being afraid to fail.  After a few lessons, I got the basics down.  As with anything new, a teacher has to let them play with the technology first before getting to the real learning that can come with the technology:

The students nowadays seem to be interested in the illuminati, it seems.

After a few trials with my students, I had the confidence to try it again during my 3rd presentation of the year at OAME (Ontario Association for Mathematics Education).

Hey, how come no one is here from northern Ontario? #OAME2016 #smallsamplesize pic.twitter.com/8KIe4o61pB

— Andrew Shin (@MrAShinYRDSB) May 6, 2016

Looks like I have some parents in my workshop and a few elementary school teachers, eh? #OAME2016 pic.twitter.com/vo64U2WIDd

— Andrew Shin (@MrAShinYRDSB) May 6, 2016

/script>

Looks like ppl r enjoying #OAME2016 thus far. I hope those dots didn't shift to the right after my presentation! pic.twitter.com/2Yt8BMfUR8

— Andrew Shin (@MrAShinYRDSB) May 6, 2016

Given the feedback I got from this workshop session I ran, it looks like my Pear Deck experiment was a success 8 months later.  There will be more on my OAME session later in a different post.

Moving forward, to make use of this technology properly, I have to get my pedagogy up to par.  Asking great questions is an extremely important skill as a teacher.  This technology can amplify the effect of a good question or bad question.  I saw that when I made deep, interesting questions, the Pear deck amalgamated all of the students' answers and we could have a discussion based off it.   It allowed my introverted students to participate without having to speak aloud in class.   However, if I made too simple of a question, the students would either not bother to answer or start to graffiti the slide.

When I ask a question, I have to be able to identify if we want to discuss it verbally or if it's a deeper question, I can let Pear Deck do its thing.

When trying to guide, discuss, push, prod - it's important to step away from the projector and to discuss with the class.

When it's time to let the students think - Pear Deck gives the students the space and time to think and illustrate their answer.

I'd like to practice using it next year, but I think I'd have to ask the administration for it, as it is super expensive.  Perhaps I'll try a similar software in Nearpod, next year.  

In the end, however, I had fun trying something new and the experience has made me a better teacher - which is all I can ask for.

Earth and Space Wrapping Up

To wrap up the semester, I decided to set up a bunch of guest speakers.

First up is a writer for space.com on the latest in astronomy apps, and astronomer -  Mr. Chris Vaughan (@astrogeoguy)  He arrived at the school at 8:15pm and 12+ students came trickling in afterwards.  It was a tough time for the majority of my class as there were many tests and assignments due that particular week.  A definite reason to not run this workshop towards the end of the semester.  Next time I'll change the time of year this occurs.    

@trudeauhs checking out Jupiter on trudeau hs pic.twitter.com/uo8166oa1m

— Andrew Shin (@MrAShinYRDSB) June 10, 2016

Nevertheless, we saw the moon in spectacular detail, then Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and then a whole host of stars came out.  Antares, the "equal to-Mars" star, which twinkled, giving away its star status making it distinguishable from Mars.  We saw Vega, the brightest star in the summer sky.  Other salient and very interesting things in the sky was the ISS and the iridium flash by a satellite.

@trudeauhs We got a snap of Saturn thru @astrogeoguy 's telescope. Thx for teaching us about telescopes & night sky! pic.twitter.com/JapnU7u5o4

— Andrew Shin (@MrAShinYRDSB) June 11, 2016

Second up was Ms. Julie Lum, parent council chair for the past 3 years as well as a geologist + engineer for the Suncor/Shell.  We managed to tag-team this presentation, as I helped convert her quiz into a kahoot.it.  The change from last year's presentation to this year's was impressive as she incorporated videos and presented Shell's vision of clean energy and latest in fracking in an engaging presentation.  It's pretty cool to see a parent council chair who is willing to try teaching.  As a parent of 3, parent council chair, and now a 'teacher', she has put on hats as a parent, administrator, and teacher.

he skillfully guided students through their misconceptions of the universe.  He would take students' inputs and ideas and weigh them by guiding them through logic  - pulling on some of their ideas, like a loose thread, until it came loose.  He followed them through on their misconceptions to point out its weakness from their own logic that he helped guide to eventually crumble their misconceptions.

He arrived early, and I gave him the option of speaking to grade 9s.  He held a Q&A session.  He taught with humility and incredible openness.  The questions that those grade 9s asked (most of which came from my ex-grade 9 math students who I have encouraged to ask questions) were great - how is the universe expanding, how big is the universe, why is it so much harder to breathe as you get higher, how do we measure how big things are, etc.  Again - he has never taught grade 9s, but his ability to take such difficult concepts and simplify it for them was like watching Michaelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel.  He used anecdotes, simple math analogies, and drew upon everyday experiences to satisfy their questions.

He apparently teaches astronomy to humanities students - UT forces humanities students to take a science.  I could see that he used the same tone with my high school students - where every word he used was measured and carefully selected so as to keep his audience engaged no matter how difficult the concept.  I could tell that he used this tone and linguistic style for both the grade 9s and grade 12s as there was one hint where this 'armor' broke - one of my grade 12 students asked how can the universe be simultaneously infinite in size and infinite in mass.  His tone and pacing changed ever so slightly as the question started to enter the realm of math.  He excitedly rattled off the density equation and explained how the beginning of the universe can be infinite (because the universe is anything and everything that will be), but also be small in volume, exploding the density to infinity.

A colleague pointed out that I can do this same process as the professor with my math students - where I can help guide a student to use their own logic to to help them see the error of their own math solution.  And it's true...I can do that because I know the subject matter.  I just don't know my astronomy well enough to get to that level.  So it was spectacular to watch and see this occur for an astronomy course.

His visit, among many things, showed me that I have a long way to go as a teacher.  It was really fun to watch the art of teaching.  Time to get to work!

Math and Work

Balance.

If there is one thing I've learnt over the years, it's that balance is key.



Teaching math comes out with all sorts of different instructional strategies and technologies.

However, attaining fluency in math is just like anything else - practice is key.  Today's learners are less and less receptive to repetitive drill and grill - which is fine.   Drill and grill is for the assembly line workers of the 1900s.

The way English is taught in schools when I attended was that it was never really explicitly taught.  English was always implicitly a part of the curriculum from what I could remember.  Even grammar.  I was taught English in many different contexts, whether it was experiential by going out to the local fair or interacting with people from other schools in the collaborative learning environment.  Sure, there were some explicit grammar lesson to keep things in balance, but the learning occurred without me even realizing it.

I have been trying to attain this balance in the math classroom with those 3-act problems introduced by Dan Meyer.

Introducing a problem through a vague video is that first step.

Inviting the students for any questions or comments about the video is the hook.  Sometimes those videos are something that they would recognize from their world (ie:  a videogame) or sometimes the video can be about an abstract math concept.  I have to balance the context of the problem with their world and the 'outside' world to both connect with them and also teach them about something outside their world.

Spiraling through the curriculum is also a form of balance.  We stay long enough on a topic such as linear relations to challenge their attention span, but also switch to 2D measurement perimeter and area to keep them engaged.   We provide problems that vary and cross the different strands to show that math is not just one dimensional.

However, after problem solving we must go back to do some focused learning.  Usually in the form of worksheets that focus on a particular skill, I find that students have a little more motivation to practice the skill that we just introduced through the video that we just problem solved.

It's interesting to see them focus on practice and drilling and grilling.

One of my friends, who plays in a band for a living, stated that music and sports are probably the only subjects that students 'practice' anymore, where they are willing to try and do it over and over and over again.

The students still need practice.   I tried to vary the practice in a few different ways - with the use of whiteboards.  The whiteboards are super important as they are MEANT to be erased, which encourages students to try - regardlesss whether or not they fail.

Balancing differentiation.  These are the only two things that I have seen work consistently.  But it's hard to pull it off.