Sugar as a math lesson.

This Friday we had a really fun day in class.  This summer I stumbled upon info graphics and I love they way show information.  They are usually filled with numbers.  Here is the one I used in class.  The kids worked in partners.  One student had the info graphic open and the other student had this powerpoint open.  In class we did the first two slides together and had good conversations.  The kids were allowed to bring in pop and candy.  I used those numbers to teach ratios and proportions.  Then the partners worked at their own pace.  They got to eat snacks.  We had a blast.

The End of Homework

I emancipated my students from the shackles of homework nearly two years ago. I began to realize that the burden of homework fell heavy on students and teachers. I had been reading and listening to abolitionists such as Alfie Kohn, Joe Bower, and Mark Barnes for a few years. I began to realize that students had lives outside of school, they learned outside of school, and homework was alienating them from an education they already saw as obsolete and meaningless.  

Homework is not worth it.  Its not worth enforcement measures, disciplining noncompliance, increasing hatred of "learning" and school, or the TIME.   Students come to school for 8 hours.  How can we realistically expect them to do 2-3 hours of homework after 8 hours of school work.  Sports?  Job?  What about family time or hobbies?  In our culture?  Sure, we can fight it, but where does it get us?  On the other side of the coin, how many students succeed BECAUSE of homework?  How many would not learn without homework?  It can be argued that repetition assists memorization.  While that is sometimes true, I have very little interest in memorization.  Besides, this type of learning is temporary.


I haven't regretted my decision for one second. Students do my work in class. If they waste their class time, they may have to make it up at home. My students are learning at least as much, probably more, as they ever have. I don't believe that assigning students additional work away from the person that can facilitate the learning behind that work is a good way to increase learning. Thanks to Joe Bower, I have a great new saying, "homework should be inspired, not assigned". Many of my students now voluntarily work on their project at home. Others look up related information and we discuss it in class.

Math journal days are my favorite days in class!!!!

I am in my 14th year of teaching and the one thing I have realized is the more I talk the less they get.  Maybe this points out a weakness in my ability to teach, but I always thought there was a better way to teach math.  My class is project based and there are three major components: math journals, dailies, and group projects.  As the title states my favorite days are math journal days.  Now you are probably wondering.......what is a math journal?

I teach 7th grade math and our school is in its 2nd year of 1:1 with Macbooks.  I always wanted to do a better job of connecting math to the world around us and making math fun.  I wanted to build a bridge from math to kid's interests.  In my class there are no tests, worksheets, or busy work.  Two days a week my kids have the entire period to work on their math journals.

A math journal is where the kids learn a math lesson and create a presentation over a concept they learned.  The presentation covers the math (which they make up the problems and answer it) and a connection to a topic.  The kids can relate them to anything they want. The kids create their own due dates and get to pick any math journal they want in any order.  Sounds crazy and chaotic doesn't it?

The kids love it.  They get to create their own learning journey and get to make a connection to their lives.  The best part is as a teacher I get to have one on one time with each student and have a personal conversation with each student.   I let them listen to music under two conditions, they have headphones and they get their work done.  Teacher secret:  It keeps them in their own world and cuts down on the off task talking time. 

Here are links to my math journal pages. 
Math Journals A - D
Math Journals E - G
Math Journals H - Q
Math Journals R - Z

If you click on the title it teaches the lesson, if you click on the picture it gives the project for the kids to do.

When they are done they "grade out", which means I look through their presentation and they explain the concept without looking at their work and answer questions I have.  My favorite beginning of the year comment to the students is "You can't hide from a conversation."  They learn it quickly.

Creative vs. Mechanical Intelligence

Last week my students were learning how to read charts and graphs.  We were identifying the parts of a  graph and learning how to approach complicated charts before we created our own infographics next week.  I prepared a few graphs for the students.  I cropped the title and X and Y axis labels off of one line graph.  I asked the students to suggest what the title SHOULD be based on the available information on the graph.  Obviously, there wasn't a specifically right or wrong answer, and most students chose something related to the key words still on the graph.

To my surprise, there were a few students who struggled with this.  There were several more that left it blank because they couldn't "find" the answer.  One student in particular really blew my mind and opened my eyes to different types of intelligences.  This student was a straight "A" student last year.  The conversation went something like this:

student-"I don't get the question"
me-"Based on what you can see, what SHOULD the title be?"
student-"I don't know because you cut it off"
me-"I know, I want you to use what you do know and create a new title that is appropriate."
student-(frustrated)"How can I get the right title if I can't see it?"
me-"I don't want you to guess the original title, I want you to be creative and write a totally new title that explains what is going on in the graph"
student-(looking away from her computer, sitting in silence, visibly frustrated now)
me-"Don't worry, there are lots of right answers"
student-(no response, bell rings and she leaves)

The next day, I sat down with her to "grade out" as we call it.  She had left the question blank.  I told her that I expect every question to be answered.  I tried to explain that there won't always be a clear answer this year, that she will need to be creative.  She seemed to accept it, but I could tell it bothered her.  This is a fantastic student, clearly very smart, but befuddled when a clear answer is not presented in the text.  I think this situation is a symptom of traditional education.  For too long we have told students there is only 1 answer.  This has created students that are mechanically intelligent, but lack creativity when given more open ended questions.  The world demands creative thinkers, and this student is not being served by an education that tells her there in only 1 answer to every question.

Balancing Fun and Rigor in Education

I understand the argument that meaningful content and student choice can facilitate both rigor and engagement (fun), but lets be real, not theoretical.  I teach middle school and the main way I get students engaged is when activities are fun, but not everything can be fun.  Fun doesn't always work with some of the rigorous skills and difficult content of my curriculum.  However, too much rigor will burnout the kids and they won't buy-in to the class or the content.  On the other hand, too much fun won't accomplish enough and will set a bad precedent when I try to introduce rigorous material.

So, what is the right balance of fun and rigor?  10/90 (Fun/Rigor)?  40/60?  90/10?  To be honest, there probably isn't a magic number.  Besides, things are not necessarily fun OR rigorous.  I can attempt humor during a rigorous activity, and we can take a difficult topic and try to have fun with it.  There isn't a golden ratio of fun and rigor in learning--it has to be a careful blend at all times, and one of the most difficult jobs of a teacher is knowing how to read your students to see when they have had enough, especially in middle school.

Rigidity and rigor only go so far, especially with underprivileged students who have very little to lose.  If there is no one at home checking grades, fielding calls from the school, and enforcing punishment at home, stern efforts are only going to push these student farther from an education they already undervalue.  Besides, my students will forget 90% of the content they learn in my class--its much more important that they enjoy learning and coming to school.  Therefore, I think we need to error on the side of fun learning.

Writing in Google Doc's

This year I have really embraced the fact that literacy is the foundation of everything we do in school.  I  am trying to inject more non-fiction reading and formal writing into my social studies class.  As students write, they need formative feedback.  Assigning a paper and waiting a week before we cover it in red ink is assigning students to failure.  Ideally, I would like to sit down with every student, everyday while they write.  With classes as large as 28 this year, I would need to budget 1.7 minutes for each student as I guide them toward better grammar, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, vocabulary, summarizing, etc. 

Luckily, our school has Google Apps for Education.  Every student has a Google account, so when they write, they do it in Google Docs.  They share their paper with me and I have 24 hour access to their work.  I sit down face-to-face with as many students as I can during class, but I look at every paper, everyday.  For the students I don't sit down with, I insert comments into their paper.  Comments are great ways to have a discussion without marking up their paper.  Students can respond and you can easily have a conversation about their work.  I keep track of who I talk to in person and who I comment on to keep balanced and keep track of formative progress.  By the time the paper is due, I rarely need to do any "grading" and there is no need to turn anything in.   Another major benefit is the "dog" can't eat it, they can't forget it at home, and since it's saved in the cloud any online device can access it.  Revision history is another tool that allows you or students to recover their work in case of a problem.  You can also do research without leaving your doc. 

Managing all of the paper is an issue for many teachers.  If you have several hundred students it can be difficult to manage that many docs.  Its important to use collections/folders and be proactive in managing your files.  I would also recommend teaching student about email notifications.  Every time someone shares a document with you, they can send an email to notify you.  If you are expecting their work, you don't want to clear several hundred email from you inbox. 

The way I manage my student work is by having 2 Google accounts.  I have my school account and my personal account.  When I'm online, I usually operate out of my personal account and forward all my school mail to my personal account.  I have students share their work to my school account, so 90% of the documents in my school's Google Docs account and my personal account isn't cluttered up by other people's work.  I really don't know why every school doesn't take advantage of Google Apps for Education.  Docs and formative assessment is just the tip of the iceberg.