Technology in the MS Classroom #msSunFun

See all the other #msSunFun submissions for this week

iPad apps (I have an iPad, my students do not):

• Doceri: I just started using this last week after reading about it on @danbowdoin's blog. So far, I've made a few video examples for students to watch as review and for a sub to show when I was away on a field trip one day. It is incredibly easy to use, which is a huge selling point for me. You hit the record button and write with a stylus or finger while commenting on what you're writing. Hit stop when you're done and upload the whole thing to YouTube. Done and done. We are slowly, but surely, moving to 1-to-1 for students, so this would be a cool app for students to use to create videos for each other.
• AirPlay: This allows me to mirror my iPad screen on my projector via an Apple TV device. I'm actually still waiting for the Apple TV to be installed in my room (any day now, IS...), but I've played around with this before asking for my own and it's awesome. You have the ability to project stuff wirelessly from anywhere in the room instead of being tethered to where the computer is plugged in. Although, I just saw that you can do this type of iPad mirroring without the Apple TV. If someone does this, let me know in the comments because I'm thinking of trying it also while I wait for that Apple TV to get installed.

Classroom Management Technology:

• Edmodo: I'm using it for the first time this year, and it's so much better than my old class webpage for providing kids with easy access to class materials and encouraging interaction outside of class. Students often post questions (sometimes, they take a picture of their work using their phone or iPad and post that too) and answer each other's questions. They have arguments about homework problems (whose answer is right??) and post interesting math questions they are wondering about. So, so cool.
• Google docs: I use these to survey students anonymously through Google Forms, get input on what music they want to listen to in class, and have them write and share reflections and conference preparation documents with me. I also use it to share documents with other teachers (for example, the other Algebra 1 teacher and I have a shared spreadsheet we use to plan out the unit), such as notes from meetings and committee reports.

Organization Technology:

• Evernote: Started using this over the summer, and it's helped me be much more organized this year. Because I have it on my phone, iPad, and laptop and all the accounts are synced, I can track cool teaching ideas from twitter or blogs, information about students (including the missing homework form idea I stole from @approx_normal - I take a picture of each one and stick that in the note for that student), textbook sign-out sheets, and notes from meetings/conferences, not to mention personal stuff, like receipts, restaurants, books/articles I want to read, and vacation planning materials.
• Hackpad: I blogged about this app earlier this year. I use it similarly to google docs, but it has the added feature that the name of the person writing shows up next to their text so it's really handy when you want to know which person wrote which part of a document.
• Google calendar: Our school recently moved to Google Apps for Education, so everyone has a school google account. We use shared google calendars to keep track of shared events (field trips, meetings, and advisory activities) and large tests and projects to help make sure that we're not over scheduling kids or putting too many assessments on one day. I also need this for my own personal organization to keep from imploding. All events in my life go here and my husband and I can see & edit each other's calendars to keep from double-booking ourselves or our kid.

Default mode

This week was a little disappointing. I had been very excited about how the year had started - I put in a lot of work this summer to revise the first big chapter (exponent properties and polynomial operations) to make it more constructivist and engaging. There was lots of group work (including using my new big whiteboards!!), writing and reflection questions, and classes that built from exploration --> sharing out --> a teeny bit of summary from me to pull it all together. It felt organic and like the ideas were coming from the students themselves. Almost all of the students did a really great job pulling everything together for the chapter test - the average was much higher than last year.

Working polynomial problems in their groups

I had students give me anonymous feedback via a google form towards the end of the chapter (yay for actually doing one of my goals for the year!) and was happy to see how positive students were feeling about the class and their understanding of the material. My favorite quotes:

"I think that we should keep spending a lot of time going over homework and learning by making mistakes in the notes."

"I like how you have us interacting with others with our groups to solve problems."

"I liked how last year we consistently did notes, like a pattern, and at the beginning of this year, it was hard to adjust to what we do now. But now I realize that I like figuring things out in my own ways, not just following the repetitive steps on the notes."

Given how well things were going last chapter, I was surprised with how meh this week has gone. Classes felt boring and I noticed that I was doing lots and lots of the talking and that students were passively completing problems with little engagement and interaction. Then I gave a short & sweet quiz on Friday on some early factoring concepts (factoring by GCF and factoring by grouping). Holy cow. So awful. So so so so awful. It's like they learned almost nothing this week. I can count on one hand the number of students who did even remotely well on this quiz. Thinking things through, I've realized that I've completely reverted to my default mode of teaching - here students, I'm going to work through some example problems, and you just follow along. Now, you try some and I will help you if you get stuck. Oh look, class is over. Let's do that again tomorrow. Ughhhhh!! 

This quiz was a good wake-up call for me that old habits die hard and that I need to be vigilant and keep the big picture in mind for how I want class to go and what I need to do to make sure that it's student-centered and engaging and that students are actually learning and not just following along mindlessly. My plan for Monday is to provide one actual incorrect approach for each problem from the quiz (one per group) and have students analyze the error and explain what went wrong and how to do it correctly to the class. I also want to talk about study strategies because I definitely got the sense that few students actually reviewed for this quiz or did so in an effective manner. I made this handout to help them think through studying for math quizzes and tests:

Study for Math

Then, it's back to the drawing board for me to plan the rest of the week's lessons with what I've learned this past week in mind. It's nice knowing that every day, I get a fresh start and a chance to get things right.

Writing and reflection

One of the goals that I set for myself this year was to make writing a more regular part of my class, rather than the add-on journal entries I've had students write the past few years. Kids had been resistant to these (a few refused to do them at all) and I felt like I wasn't seeing much improvement as the year went on. Those who were reflective and took the assignments seriously got something out of it, but lots of kids did a crappy job, took a 1/3 or 2/3 score and moved on with their lives.

So this year, I started the first real unit (after reviewing last year's Algebra 1A material) with worksheets that kids started on in class and that had more problems and a reflection piece at the end for them to complete at home. Here's one (adapted very closely from CME Project Algebra):

Ch. 7 Day 1 12-13

I used the same writing prompt each day:

How well did you understand today’s lesson? Use one or more of the following prompts to help you answer this question (write at least a few sentences, include at least one example).

a. One thing that I understand really well from this lesson is…

b. One thing that I didn’t understand at first from this lesson, but now do understand is...

c. One thing that is still confusing to me from this lesson is...

d. Something that I’m wondering about that is related to this lesson is…

Some positives: 

• Every kid is responding to these. Maybe because it's the last question on the assignment and they've already put in all the rest of the work, or because it is an almost daily component of their work and thus normalized, but I'm having much less resistance to writing this year.
• I feel like I'm getting a better understanding of kids' misconceptions and questions. Yes, there are some who always say "I understand everything. Here's a trivial example." But lots of kids are taking the time to write about a problem type they don't understand or a question they have about the topic that wasn't addressed in class. 

Things that still need to be worked out:

• Getting kids to use the example as evidence for what they are saying in words. I want the response to be a coherent piece of writing with the math embedded in the words, not as an add-on because it's a requirement to include an example. 
• Having kids go deeper in their explanations, rather than just stating a procedure they used (or not explaining what they did at all). I want them to explain why their approach worked (if they're using prompts a and b) or where they got stuck (for prompt c). I would also like them to write more. I think that if I require at least a paragraph minimum, fewer kids (ahem, boys) would be tempted to just pick the easiest example from the notes and try to regurgitate it back to me in the fewest number of words possible.

Here's one of the better ones from last week because this student actually explained their example in detail. Again, I'd like them to go a bit deeper into the "why," but at this point in the year, I'll take it.

So, a few things that I know I need to do to promote better writing:

• Give specific feedback. I've been saying things like, "needs to be longer" or "explain your example," but I should really talk to kids and tell them more specifically what I want them to change.
• Show examples of strong math writing and have kids point out what the person has done well, in addition to things that they can still improve on. 
• Tell kids why it is that I'm having them do math writing. Perhaps it would be helpful to (in general terms) talk about the research on metacognition and learning. 
• Change up the writing prompts and have more writing responses to actual math problems. I just had kids do an investigation in class with the homework assignment being a writeup of the problem, their process, and solution, if any. Once I grade these, I will have a better sense of where they are at with their writing about math and where to go from here.

Any other suggestions??

Making Math Class Easier

One of the things that I've been thinking about lately is this idea of "making math class easier." @ddmeyer asked about people's opinions on foldables earlier today and linked to a blog post that stated, "I really wish I had math notes like these growing up…math would have been so much easier!" Now, I'm obviously not ripping on this woman. I'm sure that she's an awesome and caring teacher. It just really made me think about this idea of "easier" and whether this is what we should be aiming for in math education. I have seen lots of teachers teach "tricks" or "mnemonic devices" that are supposed to help students remember concepts and procedures. A colleague of mine tells her students about colored socks - she pulls two socks out of her drawer and if they are the same color, that's good, but if they are different colors, that's bad. This is supposed to help students remember that when signs are the same, the product is positive, but when signs are different, the product is negative. Most of us have probably seen the little mnemonic device for absolute value inequalities: greatOR and less thAND to "help" kids convert absolute value inequalities to and/or compound inequalities. There are a lot of these hanging around.

To me, foldables are in the same category of "cute" device that will help you remember something. Yes, kids love them. They are easy. All these devices are colorful or cute or make a little rhyme or whatever. But like it or not, I feel that there's a tension between this aspect of math and the side where kids are grappling with rich problems, constructing meaning, and having ownership of ideas. I understand that many teachers use these "shortcuts" as ways to summarize a concept or wrap up a discovery lesson. And hardly anyone gets away from teaching any shortcuts whatsoever. Maybe that's not the point. But I do think that we need to think critically about what we're doing when we emphasize these shortcuts. Even if it comes at the end of a deep, rich lesson, there's going to be a bunch of kids that are going to remember the "trick" superficially, and it's going to be what the lesson was all about in their mind. It's going to train them, to some extent, to expect tricks like that in the future and avoid the harder work of understanding and internalizing the concepts underlying the shortcut.

Yes, a hook can be powerful for motivating student engagement. But I think it can also be junk food that distracts us from the substantive meal, which is not as shiny or easy to digest at first glance. Let's look instead for ways to make the mathematics more profound, more apparent, and more rich for kids. It really doesn't need to be dressed up and tricked out because it's pretty darn awesome on its own.

#msSunFun - Favorite Ways to Practice

Go here to submit yours

This week, we're blogging about ways to get kids to do practice in our classrooms. To be honest, this is so not one of my strengths. I am pretty terrible at coming up with creative ways to hide the fact that they just need to do a bunch of problems right now. I would much rather plan a discovery activity or an application lab, so I tend to treat practice with some annoyance, even though I know it's important. Here are a few classroom structures that I've liked for making practice a bit less dull:

• Speed dating from @k8nowak (students rotate through, pairing up with a different partner each time)
• Matching puzzles from @sqrt_1 (answers to problems are along the edge so students match up a piece with a problem to a piece with an answer)
• Solve Crumple Toss from @k8nowak again (students complete a problem, bring it up to you to check, and if correct, student crumples the sheet and tries to make a basket using the recycling bin or garbage can for points)

My own, much, much less creative go-to structure for practicing problems is the following:

Teacher puts up a problem. Everyone works on it - students may work with anyone else in the room that they want to until everyone is done. A random student is chosen who puts their work under the document camera and explains what they did. If they are correct, the class gets a point. For every one/two/three (depends on how generous I'm feeling) points the class earns, a homework problem is removed from that night's assignment. 

When presenting this activity, I make it very clear that if a student has the wrong solution, it's an issue for the class, not for that student - the class wins or loses as a group. Therefore, everyone has the responsibility of making sure they check what they have with others and get help if they are confused and everyone has the responsibility of checking in with others to make sure that no one is sitting alone and confused. Kids seem to take the idea of group responsibility very seriously when we do this. Maybe it's a middle school thing, but kids are running around the class, talking with each other, arguing about whether their answer is correct or not, and reaching out to kids they see sitting by themselves. The group responsibility piece also makes kids that would rather just sit on the sidelines or be quietly confused work harder and engage more fully since they don't want to let their peers down. When I first tried this, I worried that kids would feel the pressure in a bad way, but instead, it seems to result in an increase in support and encouragement, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

And that's exactly what math class should feel like.

My Favorite Friday - Hackpad to organize meetings & discussions

Submit yours here

This is my first time doing one of these, but I wanted to share a site that I've been using to help organize meetings and discussion groups at school. The site is hackpad.com, and it's basically a wiki (or document that is editable by multiple people), but with some nice, extra features that make it super useful for organization. To use the site, you can either create an account or use an existing Google or Facebook account. The benefit of using one of those (I prefer using a Google account) is that you will stay logged in to Hackpad for as long as you're logged in to the other account. And if there's one thing that I hate the most in the world, it's logging into accounts. 

Uhhh... my password?????

So once you're in, you can start making "pads," which are basically blank documents that you can share with other people. The awesomestestest thing about Hackpad is that once the people you're sharing them with make accounts, their name automatically appears next to whatever text they've entered. Here's a screen grab from a pad I'm using in a professional development group on young adult literature:

A few things to note:

• There are several different privacy levels, from public to those with link only, to those on a pre-approved list only. The default setting is private (only you can see it).
• Bolding an entire line of text automatically makes it an entry in a table of contents, which is super useful for organizing long pads. (See the table of contents on the right-hand side above)
• It's super easy to embed links, images, tables, and videos - the site recognizes the format and everything is embedded in a single document.
• You can create to-do lists with check-boxes.
• When changes to the pad are made, all of the people signed-up for that pad get an email with what the changes are. They can edit by going directly to the pad or by replying to the email.
• You can group pads into collections (basically, like folders - the pad above is in my "School stuff" collection).
• You can call up specific people using the @ symbol - if they have an account, their name will pop up from a drop-down menu and they will get a notification email that says they were called up in a pad (basically like tagging in Facebook or Twitter). This is super useful if you have a question or comment for a specific person and want to make sure they see it.
• People can edit at the same time and the changes are recorded in real time. There is no need to save - it is all automatic.
• You can link to other pads so one can be one initial pad and when it gets too big, you can cut chunks off and make them into individual pads that can still be navigated to from the main one.
• You can view the document as a cohesive whole or as a series of changes, ordered from most recent to least recent. This can be helpful if you just want to see what's been changed.

Yes, there are some similarities to google docs in that pads are shared and editable by many people. The main benefits that I see with Hackpad are:

• You don't need a Google account so this can be used with lots of different groups of people with varying levels of tech-savviness. People can access it using whatever means is easiest for them (Google account, Facebook account, or with an email address & password).
• The name of the writer is automatically shown next to the text they added so it's super easy to see who is saying what in a discussion so no more typing in third person, or trying to figure out who "I" is in a document.
• You can "tag" (or call up) specific people.
• Ability to view recent changes.

Some drawbacks that I've found are that if you have a lot of pads (which I do), you can get inundated with emails for updates being made to each one (to fix this, you can set a specific pad to not get notification emails) and the site does not play well with Android mobile devices. I'm hoping that they will come out with an Android app sooner rather than later, since that would make it way more convenient for me to use on the go.

I wrote a blog post for them recently specifically about how I use Hackpad in an education setting: https://hackpad.com/7sD02CpiqYk#Using-hackpad-in-education.

Reality vs. Ideal Classroom

This has been a challenging year so far. Exhibit A: I have not been on Twitter much since school started almost 2 weeks ago. Exhibit B: I have not blogged in almost 4 weeks. Exhibit C: I haven't responded to any comments made on my blog from the past 3 weeks. Apologies, all around. And I promise to get to those comments really soon.

What I'm struggling with the most this year is that my expectations and goals are much higher than they have been since my first few years of teaching and they're running head first into the reality of school life. I blogged about some of my big plans here, here, and here. The basic gist is that I wanted my students to process at a deeper level this year, involving more writing and more problem solving, and I reworked some of the curriculum to reflect these changes. The issue that I'm having is that these goals are very difficult to achieve in the constraints of the current system. One of my courses is an accelerated Algebra 1 class taught to 7th graders, who I see for 45 minutes, 4 times each week (which doesn't include time lost due to conferences, field trips, assemblies, etc). Although I am not "teaching to the test," per se, my students do need to be able to do well in their following (accelerated) math classes and gain a reasonably strong foundation in Algebra 1 content, as well as study skills, organization, and ability to show work clearly and using standard notation. And I cannot seem to find the time to both teach a high level of content understanding and skill development while incorporating actual problem solving, writing, discussion, group work, labs, and all of the other components that I think are crucial to a rich, exciting middle school math class. 45 minutes is just not enough time to go over homework, use a problem-solving or groupwork based approach to teaching a concept, and assess students' understanding of said concept before I assign problems to be completed independently at home. Every day, I am rushing through things that just need more time to stew and develop in students' minds, telling them the conclusion because class actually ended 2 minutes ago, and they need to be able to do their assigned homework for the night, and I can't possibly write them all a late pass yet again, just because I desperately want more time for them to discover the conclusion themselves and own it on their own terms.

what I feel like this year

I know one possible solution: cut stuff out of the curriculum. Are rational functions and equations really that important for Algebra 1 students to master? What other content is really Algebra 2 material that's been pushed down into Algebra 1? What things do you cut or wish you could cut? Any other suggestions out there? (I've already petitioned for a change in the schedule that would allow for more time for math, and have been told "soon" for about 8 years.)