The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of learning, fun, frustration, and determination. As this class comes to an end, I realized how much I really did learn. I was surprised, when writing my action plan, by how much I can use in the classroom right now. Learning about 21st century learning, college and career readiness, authentic assessment, and reading the Big Picture has validated my own views on what being a teacher means and why I became a teacher in the first place. Prior to the discussions in this class, I felt isolated as a teacher and just went through the motions of following the pacing guides and curricula placed in front of me by the district. This class has reignited my passion for teaching (and learning), and I'm excited to learn more throughout my time here at TCSJ.
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Today, after class, I nearly had a mental breakdown. Assignments that take some 30-45 minutes, take me hours to complete. I am a perfectionist, which was great when I worked as engineer, but is hindering me as student in this class. I am struggling to complete the required assignments to level of excellence I believe they should be. I'm also facing quite a bit of "writer's block". I constantly reflect internally. There are times that I can't sleep because my brain just will not stop reflecting. I thoroughly enjoy participating in class discussions, but I am having the hardest time expressing my thoughts in writing. I do know with a little perseverance, I will make it through, but today I just felt completely overwhelmed.
How can you foster the ability of the students or people around you to think "outside of the box"?
A mantra I was raised with is that schools should "teach students how to think, not what to think". If we do this, and teach students how to question everything, do their own research, don't take anything at face value, and ask why, thinking "outside of the box" will come naturally. It's difficult to do this with well pacing guides, set curricula, and standardized tests, but we have to try. As a math teacher, I've had students come into my class with some prior knowledge and skills, but only know one way to do it. Teaching multiple methods and asking students if they have another method fosters creativity that will lead to thinking "outside of the box". I try to do this in my class because I feel that is the only avenue I can take due to the restrictions imposed on me by the district and the state. What effect does testing have on learning?
Standardized testing stifles learning. Students, and teachers, are more concerned with passing the test than learning the material and investigating further. The tests leave no opportunity to stray from the set curriculum and explore connections and applications elsewhere. All creativity, passion, and individualism is killed due to these pointless standardized tests. One student at a time cannot happen, if we hold all students to the same standard. The students who continually don't meet these standards end up giving up completely. We lose them to the exact system that was meant to monitor their progress. But, if their progress doesn't match up to where the system thinks they should be, they lose all hop of catching up. Let's talk about marshmallows. Timed projects cause me anxiety, so at first, I did not like this activity. Add to that, my engineering background...more anxiety and shaking hands. As it turned out, I "leaned into failure" twice during that activity. After watching the TED video, I realized why. I held myself to a standard that was unrealistic, and ended up biting off more than I could chew. In my head, I was designing a skyscraper or nothing at all. Nothing was what I got. Hearing how kindergarteners approach this project amazed me and opened my eyes to my mistake. As more time goes by, I find myself thinking about the activity, and how I would approach it, if I were faced with it again. I am even dreaming about tower designs. What I am going to take away from this is to start small, then make adjustments along the way until you get to your goal.
Before answering any of the questions on this chapter, I want to share a story of my education. In the 6th grade, I was placed on an accelerated math track with about 35 other kids. Fast forward to the end of my junior year. I was enrolled in Calculus A/B, had just taken my advanced placement exam, and needed to fill out my course requests for my final year of high school. I noticed that Calculus B/C was nowhere to be found on the form. I asked my Calculus teacher about it, but he had no idea why it wasn't listed. That night, I shared my concern with my parents. They had me schedule an appointment with the counselor, but he had no idea why it wasn't listed either. The counselor contacted the administration and determined that the course was canceled because only five students were eligible to take the class. As I explained (in between sobs) to my parents why I couldn't take Calculus B/C, my dad couldn't believe his ears. He immediately made an appointment with the principal. I'm not going to tell you all of the details of that meeting, but here is an outline of what happened.
Principal:
Dad: You'll do what you can do The end result is that the teacher was paid a stipend to have the five of us in his classroom during his prep period to learn Calculus B/C. (This was also my first exposure to collaborative learning in a classroom.) My point of sharing this story is to demonstrate how sometimes schools just look at the numbers and the school as a whole, not the individual students. My education got lost in the cracks, and it took my dad's passion for me to get it back on track. Parents are the experts when it comes to their own children. Parents know the history of their child, not just the transcripts. They know the struggles, the fears, and the triumphs. Parents can offer support at home, if they are a part of what is happening at school. How do teachers evaluate growth?
If we use a traditional method of grading, we don't! I see the growth in my students using non-traditional formative assessments and working with them one-on-one, but the grade they receive is based 25% on homework completion, 60% on chapter tests and quizzes, and 15% on the final exam. I give them review assignments, so they know exactly which topics are going to be on the test, and if they make sure they know (even temporarily) those topics, they pass the test. If a student already knew the material, they will have learned nothing, but will get a good grade. If a student knew nothing and struggled at the beginning, but worked hard, studied hard, asked questions, and went to tutoring, but was only able to retain half of the information, they will fail, even though they learned more than the former student. I've tried rubric grading, but that just seemed to inflate all of the grades once I tried to translate them into a percentage to be entered in the online grade book. I love the idea of using exhibitions to have students show what they have learned and the idea of narratives to give feedback. I'm planning on incorporating these two methods in my remedial math periods next year as a pilot, then share how it goes with my department for the following school year. Tell me about a time when you (as a student or a teacher) were working on or teaching an assignment that you now realize was "fake real."
The short answer...every single day! We use a textbook called CPM, short for College Prepatory Math. CPM's philosophy is mastery over time, in collaborative groups, using "real life" problems. One assignment in particular that stands out was the introductory day for sine functions. The problem involved a nurse hurrying down a hallway with blood bags hanging from a rolling rack. One of the bags was punctured, and as it was swinging and moving down the hall, it created a trail of blood that created a sine function. There was an activity to recreate this situation in the classroom. They call that a "real life" problem? In the real world, who cares what shape the spilled blood makes. It's a bio-hazard! Clean it up. I know the textbook writers were just trying to show how sine functions occur naturally in the real world, but that doesn't mean it has real life relevance. Did you save any of the papers you wrote for school? Why or why not?
I never really thought about this, until reading the questions at the end of this chapter. In high school, I saved all of my work from my math and physics classes and a few major papers I wrote. I held on to the math and physics papers because I thought that I may need to refer to them once I got to college to pursue my degree in Mechanical Engineering. The few major paper I kept were the assignments that I put many struggling hours into and was proud of the end result. I just couldn't seem to bring myself to throw away something that I had put so much time into. In college, I kept everything that was directly related to my major because that was what I was passionate about. As a math teacher, I have struggled to get the majority of students to keep any work at all. In recent years, I only have them save their notes and the current chapter's work, so that they can use them as study guides, however, I still struggle to get them to refer back to anything. I had thought that maybe the problem was that they weren't organized enough to be able to find anything to refer back to. Last school year, I focused on trying to fix that problem, but it didn't make a significant difference. After I read this chapter, I realized that the issue is that students don't find any importance in holding on to something that they are not passionate about. Shadow day was amazing. I shadowed an upcoming 7th grader named Natalia. She almost immediately took me under her wing to show me the ropes and explained each of the procedures as we were asked to follow them. We talked for a while outside during her lunch recess. She enjoys school, but likes the summer program better because it starts at noon, and there are fewer rules. Once inside the classroom, we sat at a table with four other girls. The acronym S.T.E.M. was on the board along with about six vocabulary words, including engineer, speed, and gravity. Our instructions were to build a roller coaster for a marble, which was to land in a cup. We were given some supplies, and that was it. Since I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and have participated in a marble roller coaster competition, I decided to sit back and let them figure out what to do. The girls brainstormed and handled the materials for a couple of minutes then split into three groups. One pair worked on a structure to support the roller coaster. Another pair worked on a spiral track. I worked in the third pair to build the main track. I became the tape dispenser and track holder. It was enlightening to watch their trouble shooting skills in action. The accomplished so much more than I had expected. Once time was up, they to continued working for a few minutes during clean-up time to try to get the spiral to work. Wow!
I realized that the more instructions/directions you give the students, the less creative they will be. These students had full control and ownership of their designs as long as the marble made it to the cup. Immediately following this experience, I started to think of some hands-on, creative activities we can do for our integrated lesson next week. My goal is to create an activity that they won't want to stop working on. I also would like to repeat this Shadow experience at my own school. Maybe once a week during my prep period I can shadow one of my students. I really think this may help me to teach one student at a time. |
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