Summer School 2019

Summer School 2019 - My Classroom Management Weakness

Grade 10 applied - 38 students - 33 failed the course previously - two already failed course twice.
Result - 2 failures, 36 passes - no drops.

Interestingly enough - I had students with numerous day school attendance issues.  Skipping over 15 classes was the norm for about 8 students.  Lates numbering in the 30s was the norm for a couple. However...

The structure of summer school and the shortness of the course (18 days) reduced the possibility for them to start skipping.  The threat of 2 absences and you're out of the course and 4 lates = to 1 absence was enough to keep most in line.  Minimal interventions needed - just a couple of reminders to the students themselves and they shaped up in no time.

Even more interesting - many of them showed up for exam review day even though they knew it wasn't necessary.

Relationships are key.  It is the only thing my TES teacher (SP7 - students at Risk at OISE) taught me - that's what he focused on.  Positive teacher relationships.

I had to fight off pneumonia.  It is difficult to do lecture based teaching with pneumonia and I don't recommend anyone try it.  As a result, some of my classroom management went to the wayside and the classroom was unruly.  It was embarrassing as I had one teacher ask me to keep my own class quiet.  I had another colleague friend come in multiple times and check in on me to see if I was ok given the ruckus that she could hear from her classroom.  It was a circus.

Looks like I was mixing up 'positive student teacher relationships' with letting the students do whatever they want.  Not positive at all.

There were some conflicts.  Two boys and homophobic slurs culminated in a slap to a face; I tried to do some brief conflict resolution but it failed as one week later, they were close to fighting again with lots of hurled insults between the two of them.  I noticed most students starting to back away; one little girl who was closest to them, looked up and then continued to work.  I found out later that she lived at Jane and Finch and this sort of altercation was considered 'light'.  Turns out her brother was taught by my wife.  I get to look at my wife with more newfound admiration.

I told my wife about the state of the classroom and the lack of classroom management.  She told me there is a fine line between classroom management and classroom community.  I still think my management needs work.  Hahaha - I'm 11 years in to the teaching profession...but I guess 38 students stuck in one room, with the same students, with the same subject for almost 6 hours a day will really test the limits of one's classroom management. Do I get a 'pass'? 

I had to get administration involved with this one after the latest altercation.  I decided to get them involved with some ring leaders of the misbehaviour in the class.  It certainly helped with the management of the classroom.  I'm not sure if I should have done it right away - as some of the 'roasting' I did back at them seemed to build some community.  Roasting your own students is a very dangerous exercise, as most of these students are here in summer school because of lack of self esteem and/or have math anxiety in class.  It also has the potential to turn my classroom into a routine bullying session and that isn't a safe place to learn - at all.

This was probably the most involved admin with my class that I have had in my history.  They were there to support and it was awesome.  I think I've always had a little fear with involving admin - as it may question my own effectiveness as a teacher.  But involving admin was awesome and a positive experience.

Dimensions and Exponent Laws

OLD DRAFT POST FROM 2017 that NEVER GOT POSTED

Some of you asked how I was able to spiral in algebra at so many times - and I completely forgot to share this with you.  I show a cartoon version of Carl Sagan's Flatlands to anecdotally show the difference between a point (constant), a length (x), a square (x^2), and a cube (x^3).  The video is thought provoking that we often get into discussions involving what the 4th dimension would look like. Having a discussion about ghosts, God, or whatever supernatural things...is what x^4 implies. For those that are super interested (usually my academic students) I usually point them to an xkcd and this discussion can really go on.  

OLD DRAFT POST THAT NEVER GOT POSTED.

OAME – 2017 – Kingston

Last year I ‘performed’ three PD sessions.  This year, I only did one.  I was going to tweak OAME 2016’s presentation and use it for 2017 as I thought I got reasonable reviews and I felt pretty good about myself afterwards. 

However, the week prior to my presentation was our annual OSSTF PA Day where staff get to choose what to do for their PD.  Many colleagues, stressed as they are choose to do popular options such as treetop trekking, yoga, dance, or even choose to do marking – each of which are held at different schools allowing us to meet and mingle with our colleagues who have chosen based on similar interests. 

I chose to attend a classroom workshop as suggested by the math consultant at a regional heads meeting 6 months prior.  It was a workshop headed by a university professor Peter Lilljendahl who has had most of his experience in the math classroom.  He is now devoting his full time to doing research on the classroom and what practical things can be done/changed/removed to improve education.

My mind was blown. 

My teaching got turned absolutely upside down by that experience that I immediately changed my own teaching and the upcoming workshop despite being a little overwhelmed with duties as an assistant head and also convenor of the ultimate Frisbee YRDSB league (the biggest sport in YRDSB with over 1500+ students).  I pivoted with how mentored my student teacher, and encouraged her to try the new methods of teaching.

As for my presentation – I had to keep the topics similar to my description – but I IMMEDIATELY switched to the vertical non-permanent surfaces (VNPS) and visible random groupings (VRG) methodology as it was through Peter’s work that these two changes have the biggest effect on the classroom. 

But it didn’t just effect my classroom.  It affected my presentation.  I couldn’t present the old way anymore after seeing the power of both VNPS and VRG.  I had to revamp my whole presentation in under a week.  

Sounds unnerving?  Yup.  Was it unnerving?  Nope.  It puts more of the onus on the people in the classroom.  Less on my prep.  I just have to be able to think on my feet.  

I came in early to try to move all the desks into ideal classroom formation (groups of 4 aligned randomly, allowing room on the edges.  I also put up clingrite sheets vertically.  However, there was no way I could set this all up in time while trying to fiddle setting up my laptop, so I involved the people attending the PD.  I already got people to interact with each other as comments about the Clingrite rolls spread around the room!  =)

I began with a short intro – and as usual my fellow teachers were surprised at how long I have been teaching. 

Not 3 minutes in, I immediately launched into the Tax Man problem.  I asked if anyone had heard of this problem and if they did, to help me facilitate in this great big room.  I gave them random groupings through cards, and off they went.  The room was abuzz with talking, interest, and engagement. 

Within 5 minutes, my presentation was already better than last year’s, just from engagement alone.  Gone was the Pear Deck, the fancy technology that cost me $16.  This was way better. 

I circulated, with the help of the other teacher who knew of this problem, who turned out to be a celebrity math Ontario educator, Alex Overwijk who runs the website ‘slam dunk math’. 

We did a gallery walk to see how groups approached problems differently.  I ‘leveled’ to the bottom with an extension, and the discussion that occurred at the end tended to the approach of the problem itself.  I steered the conversation back to the teaching style and approach; the learning there was absolutely tremendous. 

I repeated the same approach with a 3-act problem to a weaker effect because its process needs to be refined by me….and that there were too many people in the room to get each and every person’s ‘question’.  I should have adjusted by doing a sharing within groups and amalgamated their work that way. 

I did my Knowledgehook plug, spoke some final statements and then I was done.  The amount of people that stayed behind on the second last presentation of the very last day of the conference was amazing.  They thanked me in person, and the discussion in the community that I created was strong.  Emails were exchanged between teachers and I met some wonderful people.  I got tweeted back by a few of my delegates, and my reviews were much stronger than last year:

It turns out that adult learning is similar to teenage learning – VNPS and VRG all the way, mixed in with a very good problem, some leveling to the bottom were all tools that made engagement of my PD session at an all time high.  (for me that is) 

2 Year Update

So - I became a department head of mathematics at a new school called Bill Hogarth Secondary School.  The amount of work required in opening a new school made me forget about this blog entirely.  Developing leadership skills as part of the leadership team of the school as well as trying to establish vision and setting direction (I'm spouting off Ontario Leadership Framework jargon now) were higher priorities than this blog.

But - now I'm back here as reflecting is quite the final stage of the learning cycle.  I haven't had the time to reflect too much lately and so here I am after 2 years of the new school as well as fresh off a summer school swing at Milliken Mills Secondary School.

I look back at my previous posts and see that I was extremely excited by Peter Liljedahl's work.

Well I have been working at the "thinking classroom" for a couple of years now and have been able to apply it with some moderate success.  I have found that there is a certain subset of students who struggle with this "thinking classroom" philosophy.  Students who believe that mathematics is mostly about rote, repetitive, neatness/note-taking - and have been receiving positive reinforcement of their effort in repetition and rote thinking typically struggle with the "thinking classroom".  Quite often, these are students who put much effort in their schooling and the sudden change in what is valuable in mathematics can be quite jarring for both student and parent.

I'm tired - but I'll update this soon. Lots to reflect as I look towards the past.