I was so pumped after my 3rd teacher workshop of the year that I had to take a picture. 

Earlier this year I did my first math workshop.  Here was the description: 

Are your academic & applied grade 9s disengaged? Learn how other teachers and I transformed our teaching practice utilizing the spiral curriculum to increase retention of math. By using a combination of Dan Meyer's problem-based 3-act math, collaborative white-boarding, and Knowledge Hook's online technology, students are more engaged and rediscover an enjoyment of math. Come and learn how to efficiently implement one or any of these strategies to jump start your classes' retention and engagement! 

I checked quite often (even though I know it was unhealthy to) to see how many people were attracted to my description. It was crushing.  Even on the last day leading up to OAME, there were 3 people who signed up for my session. I managed to console myself by stating that it will be easy and having fewer people is  a good way to start one's first math workshop.  I also managed to convince myself that because it was on a Friday and it was the last session of the day...most people wouldn't come anyway.  So I managed to not take it personally.

Boy was I wrong about the number of people.  I had 30+ show up to my session!  Well, this OAME “Endlessly Spiralling  through Grade 9 Math” was much better than my previous two presentations on “To Blog , where No Blog has Gone Before”. 

There are a couple comparisons that are important to note here:

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• After two workshop presentations, I think I got the hang of it.  I went from a 1-way presenter of  disseminating information to an interactive teacher/facilitator that talked and listened to the audience.  I sometimes would lead a discussion with the audience but also lean on the experience of the audience as well for input or further expertise.  

• I’ve been using blogging as a tool in the classroom for over a year whereas I’ve been spiraling for only 9 months.  However, I am much more comfortable talking about spiraling in math than I am about the use of blogging in the classroom. 

• I used Pear Deck many times in the classroom before I did my math presentation vs my blogging presentation. 

Here is some feedback on my presentation.  Looks like about 7 people answered this first question, even though over 20+ attended.  Not everyone fills out feedback forms:    

Leading a discussion with fellow educators and administrators requires a very different than I had developed teaching teenagers. One of the biggest difference I learnt was that there was a curriculum when teaching the students versus no curriculum when at a workshop.  At a workshop, the content discussed better be useful for the audience or else it’s a failure.  In the classroom, the content discussed often isn’t the teacher or student’s choice, so we just have to make the best of it.  As a result, I started my presentation using Pear Deck to interact with the audience.  I used to only use it to get to know where everyone is from, which age group they most affect etc….

This time I used it to ask what they expected out of the workshop.  It became evident as I was browsing through their comments that some of my expectations and their expectations didn’t align.  I went through the list and acknowledged each one of their expectations; I would defer some, promising to get to it later in the presentation, and others I would answer on the spot.   A few questions I wasn’t within the scope of the presentation and I apologized but at the same time used this as a segue to the fact that I wouldn’t get offended if anyone left early.  This portion was informal in nature and opened up the floor quite a bit.  

I spent only 3 hours explicitly preparing for my OAME presentation whereas I spent days preparing for my blogging presentation.  It’s amazing that out of the 7 people that responded, 3 stated that I was ‘somewhat organized’ and 4 stated that I was ‘well-organized’.  However, upon reflection, I’ve actually spent a lot more time preparing for this presentation than the 3 hours beforehand. 

When I went to George Couros’s presentation back in October, he stated that he formatively spent 5 years writing on a blog getting feedback from all sorts of people around the world.  He would get his ideas refined and learnt how to wordsmith. 

Something similar happened to me here – I blogged about spiraling for 7 months beforehand, and I could whip together a presentation in 3 hours and then speak about it in an organized, confident manner the next day.  Normally I would have much trouble talking about my experiences, but blogging helped me refine my thoughts so that when I spoke, it wasn’t a big jumble.  

Wow.  I was thinking that OAME was hiding negative feedback at first here, because there seems to be only one person answering these questions now.  However, I looked back up and saw that there is still some negative feedback, so maybe? 

Nevertheless, I guess the respondents finished off the survey at the end, which showed I did an ok job:  3 people said it was ok, 3 people said good, and 2 found my session to be great!  I still have to work on things as only one person would recommend me as a speaker – now I have something to work towards.  Looking back – I have to work on my content.  I am not very knowledgeable about the changing math education.  My goal is to read Jo Boaler’s “Mathematical Mindsets” this summer and hopefully I’ll have a better scope and understanding of what her student Dan Meyer was going towards.    

Except….I forgot to apply to run workshops for 2016/2017 year as ultimate took up my entire life from May to June.  You live and you learn I guess.    On to the next year!  Can't wait to start tomorrow!

Character Education - Honesty with Marks

One of the things that I wonder about as a teacher is the relationship between marks and learning. While this debate can run quite deep with some teachers advocating to do-away with marks entirely and others on the opposing spectrum to anything in between.

 I am going to look at this from the student's perspective.  Especially when it comes to grade 12, many students focus solely on mark grabbing and hopefully learning occurs along the way.  I try to emphasize that if students focus on learning as the priority, then the marks will naturally come.

It's just easier, from the student's point of view, to focus on getting marks first which promotes behaviours that I don't consider 'true learning' such as passing around last year's tests, studying at the last second for the short term memory thing, cheating, and memorizing.    

Some will say it's the teachers' fault for setting up this system.  Others' will fault the universities' inability to sort through candidates other than through marks.  It might be a little from column A and a little from column B, and even from an unknown C that I haven't quite considered. 

The beauty of being a teacher is that in many ways, I control the classroom.  In my little world here, I can highlight and contrast the difference between a mark grabbing student and a student that learns for my own students.  

Every year, at the beginning, my students write a diagnostic that does not count for marks.  When I mark it the multiple choice portion, I purposely:

1)  take away a mark that they deserve 

2)  give them an extra mark that they do not deserve

In the end, their mark stays the same.  However, after I take it up the test and show the marking scheme, I go around individually to each student asking how I should change their mark.

I have found in the two years  that I have done this, many students state that their mark goes up by 1, a few ask to bring down their mark by 1, and many so no change.

I then ask the students to reflect on their action.  I cannot judge what they did because I do not know the rationale behind their action but I take the time to highlight the following:

A)  If you asked me to reduce your mark knowing full well you deserve another mark, then you are too hard on yourself.  You deserve another mark, and should ask for it - after all, you got the answer right as well as another question wrong.

B)  If you asked me to increase your mark by 1 or decrease your mark by 1 because you didn't notice the other mistake I made, then you have to pay attention a little more during test takeup.  This is a time to learn from your mistakes, which is quite often the best time to learn.  Be a little more detail oriented and listen carefully for these are important skills in life. 

C)  If you said "no change" because you didn't notice anything wrong, then you are not paying attention whatsoever.  (I may run the risk of an IEP student that has issues with the delivery, but I do make sure to show the multiple choice answers visually and say the answers aloud for each question so that should cover most minor IEPs.)

D)  A few students say "no change" but have already done their self-reflection on what question was actually right and what question was wrong.  This is fine as well.

E)  Each class, there's always one or two students that tell me explicitly that I marked one question right and one question wrong, showing true transparency to me.  This is awesome, and it is something I tell them I try to do for them as a teacher.

F)  This is the last option I go over.  I've learnt to explain this last option gently as a few of my more sensitive students feel guilty even when they didn't do this.  If a student asks for a +1 in marks knowing full well they should have a no mark change, then I ask these students that find themselves in this position to do some deep reflection.  I state: "You have just lied to me about your mark.  What did I do to you in the last week to deserve this?  (hopefully I did nothing wrong in the past week to start the school year off).  You have just inflated your mark to your parents about your mark.  Above all, you're willing to lie to yourself and pat yourself on the back for getting a higher mark than you deserve.  If you're willing to lie to yourself to inflate your mark, lie to me who has done nothing to you, and even your parents on a diagnostic test that doesn't even count for marks - what are you going to do when it comes to money or other situations?

This year, I delivered my speech well.  I returned a test on January 4th, and made a mistake on a multiple choice question.  This is almost 4 months after my little stunt.

Class 1:  I had 7 students come to for a mark increase. I had 8 students come to me for a 1 mark decrease.

Class 2:  I had 8 students come for a mark increase and 7 marks come for a mark decrease. 

As you can see, grade 9s are very receptive to this sort of thing.

When I pull this stunt with my grade 12s, I get into deep debates with my grade 12 students when I ask them these questions.  The one thing they always bring up is that this mark is so small, it doesn't matter.  From their perspective, this if this one mark occurred on a summative assessment, it would help them in their goal to getting into university and it doesn't hurt anyone.  If it doesn't hurt anyone, why not do it?

We then go back and forth about the fact that if you increase your marks unfairly to get into a university program, you're kicking someone else out of the same university program.


I know deep down that the system will have to change to have any permanent effects, but in the end, it's a fun debate and a good exploration on what honesty really means.  I learn much of my students in this little experiment and I'll probably continue to do it. 

Iterations Improving the Proficiency of my 3-Act Math Delivery

NOTE:  This is a late post - supposed to have been published last month but I've only recently found time (during exams) to post it.

For today's lesson, we turned to Dan Meyer’s video question on which cup contained more juice.  Here's my powerpoint that goes with it:  

It is a splendid 3-act problem that inspired some interesting questions.  However, the quality of their questions has decreased since September; the questions had more depth, and their observations keen.  Now, they are just giving me the question that I am looking for.  Wasn’t the whole point to emphasize the questioning to clearly define problems a little more?  It looks like I’ve fallen hard into my habits and have prized THE answer as opposed to prizing the question and problem definition. 

Wow, blogging really forces me to reflect more than usual.  It just dawned on me that the reason why the question quality has been decreasing since September is that I don’t answer all of their questions.  There were so many quality math questions that were generated by the students from the videos in September but I ignored the most quality ones because they would probably take a day to answer. 

I have placed 100% more importance on following my scheduled spiral curriculum than their curiosity. 

Looking back, I should have made more of a compromise, and actually followed through with at least a few of their questions.

It would show a lot more teacher willingness to venture into the unknown and really value their questions.  Following through to try and answer their questions would actually demonstrate how I learn – one of the most important things to model.   Instead, I’ve trampled on their curiosity and lost that opportunity to be a role model of a real learner. I feel really badly now. 

But, can’t be ruminating now, can we?  I’ll just change it for next semester.

So I’ve digressed.  Going back to the 3-act question:

After receiving their questions, I specified the question that we were going to answer today.  Which cup has more, and by how much? 

Here are their guesses as a completion to act 1: 

It’s interesting to see how many of them chose that cup A and cup B had the same amount. 

Nevertheless, act 2 came along, and with those measurements and the conversion ratio the students went about to work. 

After about 15 minutes of discussion and hard work on large whiteboards, the students put their answers on at the front.  Only 10% of them got the right answer:

 The stumbling point for many students was the CONVERSION!  I have to find another way of teaching conversions as I have been repeating it throughout the year and it still hasn't sunk in. 

In truth, the fact that many of my students weren’t able to complete this question in pairs disappointments me. 

I made this question into an entrance card to repeat for tomorrow in hopes that the students will get it during their second try.

I will take it up and repeat a similar question as an assessment on the next Friday. 

Update:  They did very well on their assessment.  I wonder if they’ve gained any ‘permanent’ skills along the way in this process or if they've just memorized the process.  I will only find out later I guess especially with that EQAO coming up soon.  

Lab Fail...for Now.

Behold, the lab that both Mr. McCumber and Mr. Shin set up & tried ahead of time.  Alas, no students chose to perform the lab or do any observations. We set it up, but didn't sell it well as a worthwhile option.

Well, it was at least fun.  Maybe we'll incorporate it in the next unit.

First Lab - Covering up Mistakes with Another Mistake is a Severe Mistake

So, I decided to trust my mature grade 12 students and do a "free for all" lab.  Rather than giving step by step instructions, I gave them a question and let them make the procedure.  The theory goes that they learn more with less help.

"Help students by helping them less" Or more popularly, Dan Meyer's "Be less helpful".   There's a reason why teachers rarely do this.

Things go wrong.  Chaos ensues.  Confusion reigns.  It's messy learning.  Apparently, real learning occurs through mistakes.  Let's analyze these mistakes:

Mistake #1:  Broken Glass
To find the volume of the rock, some of my smarter students placed and slid rocks inside graduated cylinders. However, other students dropped rocks into the graduated cylinders.  It doesn't seem so bad unless I tell you that the graduated cylinders were made of glass.

A broken graduated cylinder is no problem.  Usually what happens is that the student tells the teacher.  The teacher turns this accident into a learning moment by getting the attention of the class and telling people not to drop rocks in glass.  The teacher can make sure the area is clean of all the glass and most importantly, the mistake won't be repeated again.  But nope, this process didn't occur because another mistake was made.

                                     I'm not going to cry over spilled milk.  Or broken glass. Photo Credit: Creative Commons

Mistake #2:  Covering up a Mistake
Not telling your teacher and pretending the graduated cylinder didn't break can make things worse. Other students can slice their finger open.  The unreported broken glass is left around the area and can hurt the 8 year old students that come here for Chinese school at night.  All of this could happen because someone wanted to save their ego and not face the consequence of a broken graduated cylinder.  Sigh.

Mistake #3:  Broken Glass Redux
For an airplane to crash, it's been analyzed in Gladwell's book Outliers that about seven seemingly small sequential wrong mistakes lead up to the huge accident.  Thank goodness we're only at mistake #3.  Because we as a class didn't get to reflect on our mistake, person #2 dropped another rock into a graduated cylinder, breaking a second graduated cylinder.  Or worse, the second set of broken glass occurred because of person #1.

Summary

What's interesting is that the root of the problem is me.

I realized this when cleaning up afterwards.  I was looking in my prized box of 75 rocks and minerals and realized that they were all placed upside down and out of order.  I spent an extra 15 minutes combing the area for any broken glass.  I cleaned up the water by the sink.

It's one thing to let the students make their own procedure.  It's quite another to not set the proper tone of the lab to be one of respect for the learning environment and its materials.

"Being less helpful" doesn't have to mean "be less respectful."