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I feel Your Pain…A collective Sigh

Oct 11th, 2011 by

I wrote this reply to John Burk’s recent post Quarter Grades-a roadblock to growth mindset and learning? (Quantum Progress) about how being forced to assign letter grades in the middle of the semester leads to the loss of a growth mind set in your students.

Please read his thoughts there first…

When my reply dragged on to include spaces for paragraphs I though I’d be a good idea to paste it on my own blog:

Exactly! I had to give quarter grades and I was swamped by students coming in to reassess, “because I have to have at least a C or I can’t play sports,” or somesuch answer. The growth mindset I have been struggling to foster was completely gone.

“Which assessment are you ready to re-try,” I would ask.

“Whichever one will make my grade go up the most,” was the reply…

I’m going to tell all my students when the 2nd quarter starts next week after fall break that I will show them the door if they come to me with that request.

I had to give letter grades last week for the quarter…4 weeks ago I gave every one of my 193 students a “P” for passing instead of a letter. I had to field dozens of emails from parents asking what this “P” meant and I simply said that their son or daughter doesn’t have enough data in the grade book for me to provide an accurate grade. They seemed happy with that response so early in the year, but parents and administrators demand letter grades by the end of the quarter.

But I want to ask the parents and administrators, “What does this B- tell you about what Steven knows and can do in the classroom? What does it tell you about what he’s great at? What does it tell about what he’s struggling with and improving toward?”

I’m afraid the response will be, “Well, he’ll be allowed to play sports…”

Posted in Growth Mindset, SBG | No Comments »

My Classroom Doodle

Oct 9th, 2011 by

This is as close as I can get to putting my students’ desks in a circle

 

Classroom Doodle

 

My classroom’s biggest limitation is lack of open space, followed by no access to lab equipment, followed by nowhere to put lab equipment.

Good thing there is no lab equipment, since there’s no fume hood (or evac system at all), running water, eye wash fountain, or fire extinguisher.

Posted in Miscellany | 2 Comments »

Student Experience, Learning, Owning it: On the Impact of Student Reflections

Sep 24th, 2011 by

The more often I have students reflect after assessments, the more often they think about what they learned.

The more often they think about what they learned, the more often they think about what they experienced.

The more often they think about their experiences, the more often they confront their own roles in learning.

The more often they confront their own roles in learning, the more often they realize their learning is in their own hands.

The more often they realize their learning is in their own hands, the more they want to learn.

The more they want to learn, the more they learn.

The more they learn, the more I have them reflect.

Where was I going with this…

Oh…back to the beginning.

Tags: ,

Posted in Growth Mindset, Miscellany, Student Reflections | No Comments »

Teachers are cathedral builders…or they should be.

Sep 5th, 2011 by

I read a blog post or comment from a woman a number of months ago that went like this:

Three men were working on a building site.  When asked what they were doing, the first man answered, ‘I’m laying bricks.’ The second said, ‘I’m making a wall.’ And the third replied, ‘I am building a cathedral.’

It’s about vision, isn’t it? It made me think of teachers. The cathedral builders don’t talk about how little time we have to lay bricks and make walls. We know we are building a cathedral.

I really wish I could remember where I found this comment so I could provide a link or give credit because it sums up a major tenet of my teaching philosophy and keeps me from going bonkers when the minutiae of school sets in.  Not the minutiae of students and learning (those are the two reasons I wake up in the morning  with my brain already at a steady hum thinking of ways to engage my students in relevant learning). I’m talking about the minutiae of being worried about class sizes, making it to IEP meetings when I really want to meet with my science film club kids after school, turning in the 14th mandatory parent signature on the 14th mandatory form to the office, attending the mandatory website training during my prep period that has been identical for 3 years, collecting research for my Masters thesis when I just want to go home to my fiancee, etc., etc.

I’ve been back to school for a month now, so the honeymoon period is over and the realities of 39 students in a box surrounded by 2600 students in other boxes is making me think about if I’m worrying more about the minutiae of bricks and walls or the cathedral: the ability of my students to learn and my responsibility to teach them how.  I’m in this for for the long haul.  My students, who come from poverty and hardships that I have only read about in books during teacher-school, need a guide who’s firmly grounded in the big picture of how to learn and use knowledge, not one who’s stressed out about getting overcrowded rooms of teenagers to pass multiple-choice tests.

So I made this and hung it on my wall (actually, it’s with a different photo but I needed to find one available on Creative Commons to share here):

Click to raise to the sky...or whatever cliche you like better.

Whenever I’m feeling dragged down by the work of school, I stop what I’m doing and go find a kid to talk to about his or her learning.

The papers and signatures can wait.  The email imploring me to remind students of the yearbook photo schedule that’s more complicated than leading the Western Front can wait.  The 2600 students and 100 teachers in the other ice tray-like rooms aren’t in this conversation.

I’m working on a cathedral.

Posted in Miscellany, Professional Development | 4 Comments »

“How are the iPads doing?” “x&$@ #%^”

Sep 4th, 2011 by

Multiple times a day I’m asked, “Hey, how are the iPads doing?”

To which I want to reply, “Oh, do you mean the student learning, engagement, and demonstration of understanding through their teacher’s implementation of iPads and social media in the classroom? If that’s what you mean, it’s going pretty well.”

Posted in iPad Integration posts | No Comments »

My 36 iPads are here…now what?

Aug 14th, 2011 by

Actually, my post title doesn’t really portray exactly how excited I am to introduce the iPads to my students this week.  I’ve been thinking constantly about their introduction and integration since I wrote up the proposal to my principal last spring.  However, I am overwhelmed by the idea of 30+ iPads in the hands of a crowded freshman science class.

  • How do I lay down expectations and rules and responsibilities and at the same time portray excitement about a classroom tool that all of us can’t wait to get into our hands?
  • How do I create opportunities to ensure my students can create and demonstrate understanding of content rather than simply consume content?
  • Relatedly, how do I design activities that use the iPads for showing understanding, rather than simply as a tool the students could use to aggregate content from the web?  The latter does not show me, the teacher, any understanding.

Reading this got me thinking:


The Hope for Transfer
Low road transfer…this is why people really do need to learn things and have them in their brain. This is impossible if the info is never actually learned because it’s so easy to find online. But one doesn’t think, solve problems, create ideas, or transfer knowledge with the Internet. It happens only with what’s inside the brain. And now we know the brain is thinking and making connections subconsciously for moments, hours, days before the “thought” or “solution” or “idea” pops into your awareness or consciousness. Your brain doesn’t google to solve problems…it makes connections with what is actually inside the brain.
Perkins, David N.. Making Learning Whole. Wiley, 2010-05-11. ePub.

I’m a huge traditionalist when it comes to the idea that thoughts, ideas, wisdom, and creativity have to come from what is inside the mind.  The brain can only troubleshoot and make connections with what it contains, and does so constantly-subconsciously.  Ah-ha moments (I hate that phrase now, but is there a better one?) don’t come by intentionally googling solutions.  They come from days, weeks, or years worth of data between your ears coming together at a moment of electrochemical bliss known as consciousness.

How cool is that?  Can I make iPads help with that?

UPDATE: It is important for me to note that two other teachers at my school are introducing iPads, too.

Posted in iPad Integration posts | No Comments »

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