I did a WODB (Which One Doesn't Belong) and it worked effortlessly

Today I put up my own WODB on the board (I couldn't find a scatter plot collection I liked on wodb.ca unfortunately) and had the students identify which doesn't belong and write their reason down. I did this in place of/as my starter for class today.

I don't know of a decent way to make these graphs electronically, so if someone knows of a tool (all I can think of is GeoGebra) let me know.

Anyway, it went swimmingly. The most common answers were A and D. Here are some of the reasons from students:

Answered A

Answered D

Students used some clever ways of describing things which was awesome. They knew that something was different about D, but had forgotten the word for a data point that is drastically different from the others.

For both of these it was great to guide the discussion from colloquial words to more mathematical language. For instance, on A, some students said it was "positive." I asked "What is positive about it?" or "what do you mean 'positive'? These other ones are about the x-axis." We drilled it down to it having a positive correlation or positive slope.

Those who answered C had some interesting ways to describe a weak correlation - usually by just saying it was "more scattered" than the other ones. We were able to formalize that phrase a bit more too. Awesome!

Answered C

Unfortunately no one picked B. I was bummed about this, but I can see why. When I asked students why they didn't pick B, they said things along the lines of "There was nothing special about it" or "It was perfect." I guess "having a strong negative correlation and no outlier" really doesn't slip off the tongue...

Anyway, great activity. Thanks to all the people who told me about this (half of the presenters at the NCTM conference) and especially Mary Baurassa for threatening me for failure to follow through - oh and for running wodb.ca.

I'm planning on doing another tomorrow with functions (we're reviewing everything from the year.)

NCTM Annual Conference 2016 - A Report from Matt part 2

(I tried to find all of the slides, but I'll work on collecting them as time progresses.)

Anyway, now that the conference is over and life is moving on, I should probably make some goals and stuff.

Goals and stuff:

Implement immediately:

• Self Assessment prior to summative tests. Make/find a form for students to fill out that will help them think about their learning - do they know the material or not? Them give them resources to study. Something like this:
• 
  
• 
• Get started on getting students used to talking about math by doing wodb.ca or "create debate" type of smaller tasks.
• 
  
• Pick some tasks to try out that will help my students review what we've learned this year.

Eventually

• Work towards doing better tasks. Use them to teach. Follow framework from mathdiscussions.wordpress.com
• Figure out how to build fluency as well. One suggestion I heard was to pick a higher level task that requires students to do a skill multiple times to find a solution.
• Re-make assessments to hit higher DOK.
• Constantly look at class time and pick more efficient activities (spend less time going over homework).

Other thoughts

• You know, I should keep track of data as I implement tasks. What is the improvement?
• I should keep a journal/blog of this journey...
• I should then present at a local conference about my journey.

NCTM Annual Conference 2016 - A Report from Matt part 1

Going into the conference I had the following questions:

• I don't know how to balance conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. How do I do that?
• How do I get students to stop seeing grades and focus on learning? Take charge of their learning?
• How do I help students help themselves?
• How do I fix holes? Get students up to speed?
• How do I differentiate in a reasonable way?

While I didn't expect to answer all of these from the zillion and a half sessions, I figured I needed some direction going in.

Here are the sessions I went to and a quick recap:

Thursday

1. Session 19: Goal-Setting and Self-Assessment Strategies to Promote Achievement

1. Awesome session. The presenter showed real data from her school on before and after using a self assessment tool. Huge gains. Closed the achievement gap.
2. Session 86: 3 Act Math: A How-To
1. Again a good session, but a bit too much of an introduction for me. The presenter shared some good resources and showed how it works in the classroom.
3. Session 112: Create Debate
1. Awesome session. Presenter shared 15 easy ways to get your students started on a debate. Off to a good start on how to have students discuss things.
4. Session 158: Posing Purposeful Questions
1. Good session. Emphasized picking the right questions. Stop using questions that lower the cognitive demand. A great task can be destroyed when you ask questions that get them the answer without requiring them to think at the level you wanted.
5. Session 197: Geometry Tasks That Promote Habits of Mathematical Thinking
1. A bit dissapointing. Presenters spent a lot of time having us complete tasks - which isn't particularly useful. I had to bail early unfortunately.

Friday

1. Session 270: Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices: Purposeful Questions and Meaningful Discourse
1. Packed session. Peg Smith, so that is understandable. Solid session. Really gets at the heart of making tasks good - getting students to think, express their thinking, and defend it.
2. Session 320: Ignite! Session
1. Great Ignite! session. I particularly like the 80/20 time principle presentation. I've been thinking about my own classtime use and been working on making it better.
3. Session 368: Fumbling toward Inquiry: Starting Strong in Problem-Based Learning
1. FANTASTIC session! Especially for me - a rookie in this whole inquiry-based activities.
4. Session 410: My Journey from Worksheets to Rich Tasks
1. Also great. Along the same lines as the previous session. Just as helpful.
5. Session 438: A Brief History of Math Education: Lessons for Today
1. Entertaining. Particularly interesting. We can stop the pendulum swing this time!
6. Session 507: Reflect on Your Practice: National Board Certification in Mathematics
1. Not particularly useful for me. I wanted to learn about how other people use reflection to improve their practice.

Saturday

1. Session 518: Forget What You Know; Listen to What They Know
1. Good. Great question stem: "What question would you ask to get the information you need to figure out..."
2. Session 560: Why and How to Let Students Struggle? Thoughts from Research
1. I skipped out on Dan's session because he was going to record it. This was a great presentation on productive struggle. Presented by a professor from BYU (go Utah!). Basically, the research says that struggle is productive if they struggle, but don't get frustrated. The gains in student learning are significant. Retention goes up too.
3. Session 583: Facilitating Meaningful Mathematical Discourse
1. um... I'm having a hard time remembering this session. I'll have to listen to it again.
4. Session 597: Framework for Effective Teaching - Integrate Common Core Math Practices!
1. Possibly the best final session I could go to. The presenter introduced a framework for getting your classes into the habit of mathematical discussions - completing tasks at a high level. Resources on her website.

Getting Caught Up

So... I haven't written anything in quite a while... my bad. Really no excuse other than I didn't make the time for it. My bad.

Summary of the last two/three years of teaching:

My first year of teaching at West Hills Middle was stressful and busy. Just trying to get something ready for the next day and keeping grades caught up swallowed up my time. Oh, and I got started on my Master's Degree form University of Saint Mary. And I made solution videos for the assignments I assigned. Why did I do that to myself?

The 2nd year wasn't much better. But I finished my master's. Boo ya! Take that school.

This year it was my goal to not be stressed out anymore. And so I cut back on a lot of things.

And then I went to the NCTM Annual Conference at San Francisco. IT WAS AWESOME!!! (more on that in the next post) Now I'm working on getting active in the Math Twitter Blogosphere.

NY Times - Why Do Americans Stink At Math?

I know I haven't written anything down in a long long long long long long time (about 10 months). Teaching was crazy. I will elaborate later. I figured I should get started again though. I decided to start with a beautifully written article in the New York Times called "Why Do Americans Stink At Math?" by Elizabeth Green.

Here is a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html?src=recg&_r=1

I though this article was a great summary of why any math education reforms haven't worked in the past and why we're struggling now with Common Core. We don't know HOW to teach differently. We aren't trained to. We have some 13,000 hours of training learning the old way and some 2-10 hours of the new way (if you're lucky).

One thing I've struggled with is that we have new standards, but everything else is the same. Tests still focus on algorithms. My district gave us a scope and sequence wherein we can hit each topic if we spend one day on it. My attempts at doing otherwise have yielded backlashes. There needs to be a shift in philosophy on all parties in order for Common Core to fully work.

Educational policy makers probably won't change. It will have to start with me and you. Teachers will have to change on their own. Teachers are going to have to take the risks and take the fall if students don't succeed.

Can I risk losing my job for trying to do better?...

Reflection: Why changing has been unsuccessful

I haven't really posted since my school year started. That is because life has been crazy with the school year starting (and for some weird reason new teachers to JSD have some 40 hours of things to get done but no extra time to do them) and with starting a Master's Program through University of Saint Mary. I finally feel like I can stop going at 100 mph. I can go only 75 now.

Anyway... time for a quick reflection.

I wanted to become a completely new teacher at the start of the year. I was determined. I felt like I could do it!... but then school actually started. I instantly had to get into survival mode. I struggled to just get the next day ready. I had emails to answer, evaluations to complete, professional portfolios to complete, and mounds and mounds of homework and tests to grade and put in. I had absolutely no time for anything I wanted to do. Instead I only had time for the things I needed to do to stay afloat.

This has led me to contemplate: why can't I shake out of the traditional way of doing things? Why is it so stinkin hard? Well, before I can do that I need to have some sort of foundation. I need a place to start. CURSE BEING A NEW TEACHER!!! I love teaching, but being new is such a hindrance. I don't know how students will react to anything. I don't know how I'd normally teach anything because it's my first time teaching it. I'm hoping that as the year goes on I can catch up and make something happen, but no guarantees right now.

On another note, during the little bits of time I find in the bathroom or on the train to work, I've been reading John Hattie's Visible Learning for Teachers. He and Dylan Wiliam should be friends. His book says many things that Embedded Formative Assessment says: Make success criteria very clear, find out what students know, and teach accordingly (so far). Hattie's book has a lot about teachers working together to accomplish goals. Overall, it's been a good read.

Exploring MTBoS - What makes my classroom MINE?

I'm excited to be participating in the Exploring the MathTwitterBlogosphere activity! There's nothing like having a huge online community of people crazy enough to want to teach math collaborating together.

So one thing that I think is a defining characteristic for my classroom is that I refuse to have students just practice a skill on their own via a worksheet or book assignment. I always have turn that practice into an in-class game. I love games! My students seem to like it as well... unless we've played the game too many times recently (my current use of my collection of general practice games hasn't been thorough enough). If you ever have a game that let's students practice algorithmic skills, let me know about it. It will probably end up in the game collection.