I met with Zachary Hermann on March 13th, and it had a significant impact on how I have been teaching since I met with him. Before I delve into the specifics of how my teaching has been impacted, I want to first note that Zachary and I met so that he could help me manage my teacher inquiry project aka Master’s Thesis and help me finalize my inquiry question.
He began by asking me why I chose my inquiry question, which was (at the time) ‘what do teachers do to assist students after they have been absent from school’. After talking with Zachary a bit, it became apparent that what I was really interested in was helping students who have missed content (for whatever reason). ‘Why do they miss content’ is an important question to consider. Is it because they weren’t paying attention in class? Well maybe a teacher should tell them to pay attention next time! Zachary asked me (rhetorically) ‘why do you react the way you do when students have a question’, and mentioned that most teachers do not even know why they react a certain way (this is a concept known as Principles of Reaction, which I need to research!). Practically, the principles of reaction explain why some teachers always answer questions, some teachers never answer questions, and some teachers sometimes answer questions dependent upon if the student does X, Y, or Z. I admitted that I am an ‘always answer all questions’ kind of teacher (for now!). Zachary and I mentioned how this establishes cultural norms (remember Samera pulling me from my position across the room to answer her questions?), where when students have a problem, they look to me as their solution. Unfortunately, I answer all questions at all times, and students DO look to me to solve all of their problems. I thought this would be desirable, but I am tired of all the effort I am outputting. I want to work smarter instead of harder. So this past week, I decided that I only want to give instructions once. I am sick of having to repeat instructions. What a waste of effort. So to act smarter instead of harder, I told A band (on March 14th) that I do not want to have to repeat this instructions and will be only relaying them once so to pay attention!! Zachary mentioned that just because students have questions does not mean I have to answer them immediately. He gave me the example of helping 4 students over the course of 10 minutes on the same question, when I could have instead presented that problem to the entire class and helped the entire class in only 5-6 minutes. So instead of solving each individual question as they arise, to walk around, gather data on who is having what issues, and solve them as a class. Zachary was full of wonderful advice like this. He also expressed the concept of ‘delegated authority’, where I might for example allow more students to teach material. I might be able to help 60% of students understand a concept by explaining it, but having students hear explanations from multiple sources can help immensely. This boils down to saying that having 4-6 teachers in a room can be more impactful than having only 1. Delegating authority to students can help facilitate there being more active teaching delivered to students from different sources. Instead of students hearing only my explanation, they get to hear many. This allows me to teach smarter instead of harder. Delegate responsibility and authority to my students so that I can be free to do more! Which leads me to the final point I will make in this journal entry. Zachary asked me ‘how do you spend your time in class? Who gets your time?’ These questions were impactful! Now, I approach questions posed by students differently. Instead of running across the room to answer each question as they arise, I am trying to behave differently, which pretty much means not running across the room to answer question as they arise. I caught myself doing this today, which was frustrating and I realized it as it was happening. How exactly do I change my behavior though? What should I do instead of answering their questions directly as they arise? I know there are plenty more questions I should be asking about what should I go about changing exactly and what alternatives are out there. Also, which questions am I referring to? Because I do still want to respond to all questions during classroom discussion time. As I am writing this, I just told a student ‘an undefined first derivative does not have to be the result of a vertical line. That’s all you’re getting from me,’ and walked away. One final note. I observed a fellow math teacher who is known to demand perfection from students in their work. What I saw in his classroom was a thing of beauty. He was sitting down the entire time teaching. He could project his math to students from his computer, and by writing on his computer with a special pen, students could see his notes. He put this software to great use, and his pacing was excellent. He asked terrific questions, and really seemed to be challenging his students to think. While a couple students had their heads down (which went unaddressed), no students were having side conversations. Nearly all seemed to be paying attention. I want my classroom to look a lot like that. I cannot wait to observe him again!
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Alex Koroljow
March 11, 2018 I am trying to finalize an inquiry question. I am taking notes whenever I meet on Tuesday evenings in inquiry groups, when other members of my cohort share about their inquiry projects. My inquiry question as of now can be summed up as ‘how do teachers assist students who have missed classtime?’ I brainstormed as I read through the question, and focused on key words and expanded upon their relevance to absenteeism. Teachers -- the beliefs held by the teacher, do their beliefs matter? For example, teacher’s opinions of how they can best help a student, or if they even care to. Assist -- how do teachers define assistance, do they even care to assist students? Is this heavily dependent upon school? Students -- do their individual personalities matter? If so, how MIssed classtime -- Is there an important reason they missed school? Does this matter? Students: How do you contribute to school? Do you miss being at school? If so, what class? I’m unsure if any of these ideas have merit as an inquiry question, but I will be meeting with Zachary this Tuesday (and Sarah on Monday) which will hopefully help! Two incidents have unfolded that make me wonder if they can be connected to student absenteeism (which is where my inquiry question resides). One incident consisted of a student who essentially boycotted an entire lesson and refused to engage for the entire period. The other incident consisted of a student asking a question that was addressed directly to the entire class several minutes prior to this student asking me in private. This student had not been paying attention, which the same came be said for everyone sitting with him at this table. J: ‘Why is there a triangle when directions ask for a trapezoid?’ Me: (pause) ‘J, we just went over that as a class. Pretty much because the height is zero.” I did not give J an answer that I would categorize as enthusiastic. I hesitated before answering J, and so may have been noticeably frustrated from the student’s point-of-view. I did not know how to respond, because I was frustrated that J had not been listening and now I had to explain something we had just gone over. Mr. Latimer told me not to be afraid to talk to him straightforwardly, and tell students that we just went over it as a class and they should pay attention. I am thinking these incidents can be connected to student absenteeism because in both cases, the teacher is presented with a scenario where they can help a lot, a little, or not at all. With enough planning and preparation, I know that a teacher can have a tremendous impact on students that are absent or who miss key points in class. I just need to flesh this idea out more. I am thinking that teachers should have extra copies of handouts in an easy-to-find place so that students who have been absent can find them easily. A website like canvas can help kids keep track of these assignments. This is me focusing on a micro-level. On a more macro-level, teachers need to come prepared with a plan for how to deal with students who have been absent. They need a system in place to be most-effective (in my opinion). I should ask teachers about the systems they have in place or what they value. I know that Brad values acknowledging that students have responsibilities to multiple classes, and that when they miss one class, they actually miss a whole bunch. This can be stressful on students, so Brad pays special attention to this. I also conducted another interview with another teacher, which I will detail more in my next journal entry so stay tuned! This week has been crazy. Brad had to leave early on Tuesday due to a family emergency, so I had to 1) teach his two calculus classes that day, and 2) administer a test to D band (algebra 2) the next day (Weds). Unfortunately, office hours Tuesday afternoon were cancelled, so students from D band were frustrated and upset about missing out on that study time the day before the test and expressed this frustration to the entire class immediately before the standards quiz was distributed on Wednesday morning (8:15 am).
That is pretty much what happened. The next day, Brad told the class that whatever material they did not answer on the test would be graded as is, and that students could proceed with retakes moving forward like normal. One student, Darlenny, was so upset by hearing this, that she put her head down on her desk and kept it there for the majority of the rest of the 65-minute period. We learned new material during that lesson, and Darlenny missed most of that new information, presumably because she could not handle her emotions well enough. I walked over to Darlenny, unaware that she was in rebellion mode, and asked her if she wanted to take a walk around outside and grab some water to wake up. She replied (without lifting her head) saying that she already had standards to retake and now all of the new standards (which were left blank and will be graded as a 1/5 aka 20%) will be impossible to retake. I tried to provide whatever assistance I could, by reminding her that since she was late on the day of the quiz and did not provide an excuse or a note, that if she could that could potentially help her. She refused this scenario, and instead chose to keep her head down for the remainder of class. It was a shame to see, not because I like Darlenny as a person and am disappointed in her, but because she missed valuable information moving forward over the course of this lesson which she refused to participate in. Even though she was physically present during class, she was not mentally or emotionally present. How do teachers help students who are absent from school or absent from partaking in the content like Darlenny was? Is there a difference in how teachers help students such as these? Do their approached differ? I have not compiled enough evidence yet, with today being January 21. I should be collecting attendance records regularly, and noting trends whenever I see them. I have not reached out to other teachers at SLA, so this is also something I must do. I did have a discussion with students who missed the introductory lesson on parametric equations, which would prove to be essential on the benchmark project. Three of the four students in that group missed the intro lesson on parametric equations! No wonder their group struggled so much when it came time to find these equations and use them. I can remember only one student out of the four coming to see me for extra help, which is disappointing. I could have done more to encourage students to come in for extra help to make up the material they missed, which again would prove essential for the benchmark project.
I will make sure to record the grade that this one group in particular gets on the benchmark, but am unsure how much or what kind of analysis to do on their numbers. I would like to compare them to the average score of students who were present for that lesson. On January 12th in D Band, which is an Algebra 2 class, we gave students the opportunity to choose their own path. They could either work amongst themselves on the project, or come to where I was teaching on one side of the classroom and re-learn the procedure for solving 3-variable systems of linear equations. I taught this lesson to 4 total students. What was frustrating was that a student who did not attend this mini-lesson began our meeting by asking me what the first steps would be to solve for a quadratic equation given a few points. This was the exact topic I taught as a mini-lesson, and this student was asking me to reteach it to them after not attending the mini-lesson which was designed specifically to address this topic. I was speechless when this student asked me to reteach them a part of my mini-lesson. I certainly did not feel like doing that entire lesson over again. That would have made no sense. What I ended up doing was helping them find the equation of a quadratic given 2 points, one being the vertex and the other being a different point. My mini-lesson involved the more rigorous task of finding an equation of a quadratic given 3 points, so I felt the easier 2-point version would be suitable to teach. I am including this anecdote in this journal entry because this student who did not attend my mini-lesson was what I am calling ‘mentally absent’ during class, and may not have heard the directions that the class was to be split up into two sections – group work or a short lesson taught by me. It was frustrating to hear them ask me to teach that lesson to him on quadratics. I did not want to take the time to help them out. This entire situation makes me remember advice Sarah gave me, which is that some students may tune in and out, and should be able to look around the room and see the material they have missed. Similarly, another student had her head down on her desk while important information on the project was covered, and she appeared to be sleeping (eyes closed, mouth open). Another student was embracing the sleeping student’s head as she slept, so this made me uncomfortable enough to not approach either of them although I should have. Later on, this young lady expressed frustration over not knowing what was going on with her math. I had very little sympathy, and did not really put forth much effort to help this student during the rest of our class. I am currently in the process of making a survey for students to answer, and we are handing out a survey for students to answer which will cover questions such as what worked, what didn’t, etc. I am beginning to work on my master’s thesis for Penn this Spring, and the inquiry question I am contemplating using for the purposes of my teacher research is presently ‘what strategies or practices do teachers use to assist students who have either missed significant time in school, or have significant gaps in content knowledge, and what are the advantages/disadvantages to these strategies employed by teachers.’ I am currently in the beginning stages of gathering data and evidence.
I want to know how I can best help students when they either miss significant periods of time in school or when they have significant gaps in content knowledge. I am considering editing my inquiry question to be, ‘‘what strategies or practices do teachers use to assist students who have missed significant time in school, and what are the advantages/disadvantages to these strategies.’ This version does not even mention the ‘gaps in content knowledge’ dimension, which I fear will be too nebulous to cover for the purposes of this project. I believe I will ultimately have to decide whether to consider ‘gaps in content knowledge’ or ‘absences’ for my teacher inquiry project. Presently, I am thinking that absences will be a less-daunting topic to cover. My Penn mentor, Sarah, was extremely helpful in a one-on-one meeting today, where she pointed out examples of what I might be able to use as evidence in my project. It was incredibly helpful to hear what evidence might look like, because I was having trouble imagining examples of evidence that I could use. Sarah made this look easy today, which has had a relieving effect on me. Now, I am on the lookout for more evidence, whereas before our meeting, I was not. She was able to point out numerous examples of evidence that are at my disposal just from my D band algebra 2 class this morning (this class will be referred to as ‘D band’ hereafter in this journal entry). Sarah observed D band this morning, where only a third of the class showed up on time. This is atypical for the school where I student teach, and to make matters worse, today was an extremely important day for students to be present. We have a benchmark projects coming up later this week, and the content we covered today (parametric equations) is necessary for this important project! To make matters worse, before today’s class (occurred January 10th 2018), D band had only met once since December 20th, 2017. Two consecutive snow days during the week we returned from holiday break caused us to miss 2 of the 3 total days allotted for school that week. We were also hampered seeing D band due to an early dismissal the week following the consecutive snow days. It has been a challenge to manage these breaks from school, as now our Algebra 2 classes are not in sync. How do we as teachers handle this? I feel pressure to move quickly through material now with D band, because they are a day or two behind A band. Annotated Lesson Plans
First week of lesson plans Second week of lesson plans Third week of lesson plans Blog Post Video Response to Sarah Thank you again for your comments on my teaching. I wish I had had a more recent video to share with you. Unfortunately, that was all I had and could not scramble to get you one last-minute. I do things last-minute way too often. Your comments were helpful despite the video being old. I still do not feel entirely comfortable waiting for the students to quiet down, and I do talk over chatter still sometimes. I need to keep working at this and keep having it in mind. I appreciate you pointing out that when I am engaging with one student during a classroom discussion to include the entire room as well so that students do not lose focus. That is really helpful to know because I do not keep this in mind currently when in the midst of classroom discussion. It is great that the table of boys in the back was broken up. Splitting them up helped improve the atmosphere of the classroom, as I am sure you can tell! Thank you so much for the feedback Sarah! I really appreciate you going through the entire video and leaving such specific comments. It is really neat to hear your comments while being able to watch what is happening in the classroom 'at the same time'.
I am still trying to improve when it comes to waiting for silence before continuing to teach. I spend time at home thinking about students talking over my lessons and what is or is not appropriate side conversations. It would be terrific to get your opinion on how to tell 'good noise' from 'bad noise'. I am well aware that you will not be responding to my response. I know I will learn it in time, but it is great to hear your input. You know so much useful information! I have never actually spelled my name for the students. They have not seen it very much, which is actually fine with me but now appears may be an issue. I don't care much for my last name, so I imagine that is why I have chosen to hide it. I should pressure him to take attendance more because I never take attendance. I have done it before but it would be make me feel better to take attendance each day since I will need to do it. I have a tough time identifying who is off-task when they are seated. Volume is an easy indication, but with phones and computers it is tough on me. I have no idea what they are looking at on their screen, and have no real idea how long they have been engaged in that activity. It stinks that they have constant access to phones and laptops, but I understand that there are pros and cons to this classroom management strategy. A sense of urgency would be great for students. I tend to give them plenty of time to work through problems. I need to do a better job with timing these activities to pressure students while being reasonable. I designed an 'accuracy challenge' which presented them with far too many problems to complete in the time allotted, which puts a different kind of pressure on them. We emphasized accuracy, which is something I would like to emphasize again and endlessly to students. Better communication with the SAT would improve the quality of lessons. He could serve to attend to students who are not paying attention or alert the instructor that certain students are not paying attention. To start the year, Brad spends part of his class on building a set of classroom expectations with feedback from the students. Brad requested feedback from students on expectations they have for each other and expectations they have for the instructors. I really like this method for beginning the school year, because it sets the tone that the students and the instructors are each responsible for how the school year will unfold. Brad has also repeatedly commented on the importance of committing to the established expectations, so he does not establish expectations and then subsequently ignore them.
‘What happens when expectations are not met’ is a great question because I am not exactly sure how to answer it with regards to my own classroom experience with Brad. I have never seen a student openly defy expectations, so I have not seen a ‘nuclear option’ from Brad. Students have always complied with Brad’s requests, and I am curious to know how Brad would act if a student acted disrespectfully towards the expectations established by the community around them. I can recall one instance where a student asked Brad if ‘this [math concept] is something he is pricky about’. Yes, this student asked if Brad was pricky about something. Brad immediately stopped (the room grew quiet awfully quickly) and Brad demanded that this student rephrase his question. Brad did not make his demand angrily, but his tone of voice conveyed annoyance and that his request for rephrasing was not optional. The student found other words to voice his question. This is the only instance where I can remember an exchange between instructor and student that warranted some form of (minor) discipline. Brad never lost his cool or reacted emotionally to the vulgar choice of words, and this is likely due to the innocence of the student who posed the question. This student genuinely seemed to be unaware of the meaning of the word ‘pricky’, so Brad seemed to take that into account in his response, which was measured, controlled, but also conveyed the inappropriateness of the student’s word choice. Brad teaches algebra 2 and calculus, and he believes that these courses are upper level math courses and that his expectations for these classes should resemble expectations that colleges will have for these students. Consequently, Brad does not have a bathroom policy nor a cell phone policy. He implores students to be responsible for how they spend their time in class. This is a huge level of trust that Brad places on his students, and I am sure that if I had these policies I would get demolished by students. Brad however gets his students to follow these expectations responsibly. Students do not abuse their privileges. It is astounding to see. Brad wants his students to manage themselves (and each other), so these policies (or lack of policies) reinforce his desire to prepare students for college (and the world after college where students will need to have self-discipline). My last post detailed the physical space where I student teach, and focused on SLA’s core value of collaboration. You may then recall that desks are arranged in pods of four or five for all portions of the class. We will have presentations this week, but I doubt the desks will change position. With the desks being structured in pods so often, Brad has taken his belief in collaboration and extended it into the physical space of his classroom. This post will take this physical space and use it to examine my classroom mentor’s approach to establishing a strong classroom community.
Brad does a great job of establishing relationships with students and establishing a sense of community within his classroom. We know Brad has his desks groups to emphasize collaboration. He follows up with constant verbal connections to collaboration with extend throughout his entire class period. Some things he has said to the class include, “check in with your group, make sure you’re on the same page”, “check with everyone at your table to make sure you agree”, “discuss as a group”, and “as a group, you’re working together”. Brad can only do so much to get students to work together, but these quotes from one class period alone signify his consistent efforts to get students to work collaboratively. Brad is currently having students in all four of his classes (2 courses of alg 2, 2 courses of calc) prepare presentations on varying math topics as groups. They were given plenty of time in class to work on their presentations and ask Brad and myself questions on their topics. They are getting plenty of practice working together collaboratively and thankfully we have been given a terrific group of students who work diligently. Another example of Brad incorporating collaboration into this classroom routine occurs every morning, where a group of 2 students are tasked with presenting the warm-up problem of the day to the class. Presenting alone can be scary for some people, so having a partner up there to present with can be a huge help for students (and adults alike). I have seen warm-up presentations where one student was struggling to explain some work on the board when their partner stepped in to help. To put it succinctly, having help, helps. And one thing Brad has told me repeatedly is that he doesn’t want students to view him as the only source of learning in the room. He wants students to also be able to learn from each other. I’ve never heard this concept expressed about a classroom before, so I am excited to remember it and try to implement in my own classroom one day. Inquiry into Design of Physical Space
I am working with Mr. Latimer, who teaches two periods of algebra 2 and 2 periods of calculus. He fully embodies SLA’s core value of collaboration through use of his desks, which are all arranged in groups of either 4 or 5. He has also clearly put thought into how decorates his room. His room is decorated in the exact fashion that I hope mine to be when I become a teacher. There are colorful projects that are both math and art which incorporate conic sections into images from popular culture. There are also some student projects of functions being applied to roller coasters. These student projects convey that Mr. Latimer values the work students put forth, and that math is not all worksheets and numbers. Outside his door is a small sticker which in rainbow colors reads ‘LGBTQ welcome here’. Inside the door he has a picture of a bunch of ladies dressed in soccer attire celebrating together along with inspirational words. I want to have similar decorations in my own classroom because I want students of any background or ethnicity to feel as though the classroom is their space, that they belong there just as much as anyone else, and that they are helping contribute to an atmosphere that cultivates a love of learning. In addition to decorations, Mr. Latimer has openly spoken to his students about the kind of classroom environment he wishes to build. His approach is best encapsulated in a statement he uttered this past week where he said, “it’s okay to be wrong [and] make errors, make mistakes, that’s why we have white boards.” Mr. Latimer began his school years by asking students to participate in setting class-wide ‘norms and expectations’ and followed that up by commenting on his acknowledgment and acceptance for students who learn at different rates. Brad has said, “if we all commit [to these norms and expectations], this will be a great classroom environment.” Brad clearly believes that a supportive classroom environment leads to more achievement for students and teachers, and I am fortunate to be partnered with such a sensible classroom mentor. I am fortunate that my classroom mentor shares similar beliefs to my own, and I am doing my best to keep track of all the messages he sends to students. He has multiple white boards around the classroom, which he painted with his daughter, so he is clearly practicing what he preaches about making mistakes and learning from them. His desk is in the far back corner of the classroom, and Mr. Latimer never seems to use it while class is in session. Instead, he centers his focus on the students for the entirety of lessons. It is great to see my own classroom vision come to life thanks to Mr. Latimer. |
Alex KoroljowStudent teacher at SLA @ Center City, Philadelphia. Archives
January 2018
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