Why Popsicle Sticks and I DON'T get along!

It was during a recent post conference with a co-worker that student questioning strategies came up.  What I have been working on this year is really engaging all students.  Here is how I have been trying it....

• Ask a question
• Call on a student
• Call on another student to clarify previous students answer
• Ask another student to repeat 
• Ask another student to put in own words

You get the idea.  This goes and goes and goes till I believe all students have an understanding and/or participation of all/most students.  It was suggested that I should use Popsicle sticks to make sure I get to all students.  Ok, I can deal with that but I almost fell off my chair when I heard the second statement.  To make sure that I reach all students, once I call on a student, I should NOT replace the stick in the cup!  NOOOOOOOO! I screamed in my head. 

What's my beef with Popsicle Sticks for Student Engagement? 

The first thing I thought of was what if I were a kid in my classroom.  I would pay really close attention till my name got called and then I would check out because my job was done!  

So today on my way home from work, I called Annie because I felt that this subject matter was an "Annie" topic.  Her first reaction was , "Oh NO!"  After she talked me off the Popsicle Stick ledge, she shared me her tricks for the sticks!  Thanks so much!   

So here is the alternative to Popsicle sticks!  Random Name/Number generator.  This essentially does the same thing as the sticks BUT if completely random.  I haven't done much digging into this yet but I found this one that is user friendly and fast!   I think an app for this would be great that I could just have on my phone/iPad.  One more awesome thing about this random name picker is that it is based on Math and when a student says "You're picking on me" because they have been picked numerous times,  I can point out that I had nothing to do with it!

What strategies do you have for calling on students and making sure that all have a chance to speak? 

Katie 

***Update***
I was in my PLT meeting today after school and this exact topic came up!  The pros/cons of popsicle sticks, random number generator and random name generator.  The general consensus is that they are acceptable AS LONG AS the sticks are put back!

Current Struggles

There are a few things that I am struggling with this new school year and I am hoping someone, anyone can help!

• Freshman attitudes
• After dealing with middle school students, I thought that high school attitudes would be nothing.  Well, the mix of high schoolers I have seem to all play off the worst of each other.  In one of my classes, I have the following
• highly distracted x2
• clueless x 2
• joksters x 3
• the 'all I want is teacher attention' x 1
• middle of the ground but not a leader x6
• too cool for school x 2
• and of course the blenders (the rest)
• So what do I do? This is their current seating arrangement: 
• They are in pods of 3
• Each pod has a leader, a student who has strong math skills
• Each pod has an outgoing student who isn't afraid to ask questions
• There is mixed ability at each pod
• The distractors are all seated so they are facing 'out' and not towards the general group.
• I have incorporated movement, humor, engaging problems but they seem to still be pushing back. 
• I hold high expectations and I am not about to give in on things this early.  I have a group of girls that continue to fight on 'rules' such as being in your seat when the bell rings, being ready for class when the bell rings.  Out of the 28 students in the class, it is these 3 that just ruin it!  What can I do? They ruin my day. 
• Working checkpoints into a demanding curriculum/pacing guide
• We have a pacing guide that is pretty set in stone.  We have a curriculum map that should be followed.  I want to work in check points but I feel there is NO time!  I was thinking about using exit slips and entrance slips.  I want to but the hesitation I have is the time.  Since there is such a wide array in the classroom, what take one student 10 minutes may only take another 1 minute.  How I do balance this?  How do I work around this?  I have done it in the past but for some reason, I am running on empty and have nothing. 
• Co-teaching
• This has been a frequent topic of my blog lately.  Things just aren't working.  
• From my end, I feel my co-teacher wants to be involved but doesn't give the effort, dedicate the time and knows that I will take care of it.  
• I am struggling being a good teacher in these classes because I am not comfortable

So I have just aired my flaws and problems.  Please help!!!!!

Do you have suggestions for classroom management techniques that work amazingly? 

What about managing the demands of a pacing guide and the need for ongoing assessment? 

Co-teaching relationship building?

I feel that I am a 1st year teacher out of college again that has absolutely NO tricks up their sleeve anymore.  I am deflated and need some inspiration. 

New year, New school, New Goals!

I will admit that I started this blog post about a month ago.  Thank goodness that I outlined my goals so when I revisited it, I could just write.   Past me was looking out for future me!  Thanks!

Here are my goals and their current status.   I know that there are currently 7 goals but I am feeling good about this year.

1. Remind - I previously have used Class Dojo to track not academic behaviors, communicate with parents and have students reflect on their behavior.  Since I made the move to high school this year, I didn't know where it was going to fit in but I know I needed something to communicate with parents in addition to phone calls and e-mails.  Remind has rocked my world already.  Once a parent or student signs up for your class (using a code that they text to a 6-digit number) they instantly have access to 'reminds' that you send out.  Also, there is a chat feature.  This all occurs through a text message on their phone!  It is so easy it almost too good to be true.  I want to get ALL students signed up.  This week we have open house and I am going to be hounding my freshman parents like crazy!  Not only do I want ALL to sign up, I want to challenge myself to use Remind on a daily bases. 
2. Visible Learning-  This will be my biggest challenge for the year.  I learned about this during new teacher week and I have a lot more to learn!  Here is the gist of it.  There are different instructional techniques that have an effect size.  The idea is that the larger the effect size, the greater the learning is.  Also with VL, it is about communicating Learning Targets, Success Criteria and Why we learning something to all students.  This is a lot harder than one thinks!  More to come on this topic soon... I hope. 

   

   50 Effect Sizes of Visible Learning

3. Twitter/Google-Coming from a district that was ALL tech to a district that is just starting I find myself wanting to help streamline things!  First, the district has a twister but the high school does not!  I want to tweet at my high school!  I am still getting my feet wet and don't want to disrupt things much right off the bat.  This also goes for google.  Google docs... as much as I hate the phrase, 'create a google doc for that' it is actually pretty functional.  This past Friday, I witnessed the same birthday list be sent out 4 times through email.  That was because on the 1st draft, people were left off.  The 2nd, corrections were made.  The 3rd, mistakes were found and the 4th was the FINAL I guess.   I so wanted to create the google doc and share it but I know that people aren't ready for that yet.  So my goal for Google is to educate my department on how to use google docs to streamline things.  I have started a little bit but once again, don't want to rock the boat as they say.  
   
4. Co-teaching- Work towards sharing the classroom, letting go, letting someone else in, finding a balance, working together.  Lots of work to do but hopefully some district provided PD will help me with this. It's for the better of the students.  
   
5. Workload-  I don't want to be in the 'new teacher' funk again.  This means, I have a life and I need to find a balance between my work and my home life.  I need to set time aside to work and have fun the other times.  I have found myself saying, "I am going to have to do work on that Sunday so I can't _______"   That's not fun.  
   
6. Blogging-  I want to blog at least once a week.  Ideally I want to do it every other day but I know that will never happen so I will write at least once a week.  Once I get in that habit, I will up my goal.  

What are your goals for the year?   Do you have something that you have started and will do whatever it takes to follow through with it?  I would love to hear from you.

Have a great day!

Never Forget

On this day, 14 years ago that I was at home with my Mom.  It was on a Tuesday and for some reason, I was still at home when the 1st plane hit.  I can vividly remember sitting with my mom in the TV room staring at the TV.  I was only 17 at this time but I knew that this was big.  This was bad.  This was a disaster.  I did not know at the time that these buildings were to NY like the Sears Tower or the Hancock Building were to Chicago.

In disbelief of what was happening, I went to school.  I can remember walking down the hallway and thinking to myself, what is happening.  It was sometime later that we got word in the school that a 2nd plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  All I wanted to do was to get to Ms. Kris' classroom.  She was our aviation teacher, she would know what happened.  By the time I got there 7th period, she was not allowed to talk about it.  Being glued to the news for days, I still did not understand the impact that this act of terrorism had on the US and the people involved.

Over the past few years, I have watched documentaries and movies about 9/11.  I have cried as people involved told stories about their involvement.  I have sobbed at the idea that people woke up that morning and then they were just gone.

Today I watched 'Boatlift' and it is the story of boaters who flocked to NYC to rescue ordinary people from the unknown.

As I am sitting on the back porch watching this, I am crying like a baby.  The thing that got me was that nobody should ever have to go through this, EVER.  This was a horrible event and the good in people came out.  Strangers helped strangers in any and every way they could.  They rose above those awful people and did the right thing.

Another documentary I watched was 'Out of the Clear Blue Sky'.  They lost everything AND everyone.  They lost their friends, their family and themselves.  This is a news story about Cantor Fitzgerald.  This shows that emotions are real, these are real people that have had to overcome the worst.

Sitting in school this morning I was a mixed bags of emotions.  The kids that I am teaching were 4 years old when this happened.  I feel bad that this tragedy follows them and will forever follow them. Then I felt sad because of all the kids 14 years ago that lost their parents while they were sitting in a classroom.  They started their morning saying the pledge and on with their day they went.

Here, 14 years later, during a moment of silence, I wiped tears away.  How could anybody ever recover from this.  Then I think, people are good and good will prevail.

I realize this post is out of my usual but I couldn't not write about it.  I want good people to win.  I want the future(the kids) to learn that although there are nasty people out there, they have the choice to be good and to make this world a different place. What do you want to teach your kids that has nothing to do with your subject?

Never Forget

Moving Day into My New Classroom!

So it finally had to happen.  I had to take ALL of my things from FMS and move them to my new classroom.  I have been dreading this day since, well forever.

Caitlyn (my former neighbor at school) always said that whenever she needed anything, she would come to me because I had EVERYTHING!  I like to be prepared, what can I say. The packing process was miserable.  I did it over 3 days.

Day 1
It was more of a 'search and rescue.'  I went to school to survey what I needed.  I had some boxes and I found out the cold heart truth was that those boxes just weren't enough.  In addition, I ran out of packing tape.  So I packed what I could and walked away.

Day 2
This was a serious packing day.  I needed to get my butt in gear and make some progress.  The hurdle I found on this day was that I wanted to keep everything.  It was so hard to let go of things.  For example, I had 4 brand new fly swatters in my cabinet.  I should really get rid of them, I haven't used them so naturally, they should go.  But, what if I create a great SMARTboard game and I NEED them?  In the box they go!  After my internal fights subsided, I did pretty good.  I was able to give things away to co-workers, separate the things that I was going to leave for the new teacher that would be in my room and pack the things I was taking.  At the end of the day, I had 2 table tops loosely filled with 'stuff'' i didn't know what i was going to do with.  In my book, it was a success!

Day 3
This was the day I was going to move out.  I was on a mission and I had to finish it that day.  It was not so bad.  I worked on tying up to loose ends.  I gave away MORE things to another math teacher.  This lightened up my load by a bit (and filled up her stroller!)  I had everything packed and started to bring things down to the truck.  On the second trip down, I realized that I had not packed the truck properly and needed to re-organize.  It was hot, the boxes were heavy and I was quickly becoming crabby!  In the end, I called the hubs and asked him to come by with my car for the last load.  I took the easy way out.  When everything was packed and loaded, I bid farewell to my home for the past 3 years :(

I may have added this picture before BUT it is still sad....

So now what?  I had boxes in my car and in my hubs truck.  Should I just let them sit there till I can't handle it anymore?  I was fully planning on it but I also was feeling a bit like a hoarder still.  So the next night, we pulled the cars to the alley and it was my time to go through and purge some more.

Yesterday, it was time to bring my boxes to my new HIGH SCHOOL room!  Here are some pics of my room after 1.5 hours of unpacking.  Nothing on the walls yet but soon!

Looking in from my door.  I have a classroom that is attached to another room through a wall.  I have only ever seen these walls with cork board but as you can see, I have a WHOLE wall of dry erase board!!!!!!!  Also, it is magnetized as well, SCORE!

 This is a view looking in from the door.  A mess, I know but totally workable.  You can barely see them but on the window sill, I have unpacked my gnome collection.  It is official, I work here now!

Last picture that has the most work to be done.  On the far side of the classroom, there is 1 tall cabinet, 1 short cabinet (under the counter), a very long counter and an equally as long shelf.  Above is a giant brown bulletin board.  It is 30" x 20'.  That's a lot of dip!  This is my biggest challenge and something that I may be most proud of when finished!

So I am very excited to move on to this new adventure.  I can't wait to share pictures when I am 'finished' with my classroom.  Reflecting on this process, I think every teacher should 'move' every 3 years to reduce the amount of clutter.  What do you think? 

Thanks for reading!

Growing Mind and Bodies

Being a middle school teacher is way more than teaching students math.  Some people say they would never want to teach middle school but truthfully if you can teach middle school, you can do ANYTHING!

Including but not limited to, my role as a middle school teacher is to:

• Encourage students to join different clubs
• Encouraging some kids to talk, to anyone!
• Help them deal with parental issues
• Organize their lives including but not limited to folders, lockers and schedule. 
• Be there to listen when they don't know what do to about a boy/girl
• Know everything about their 'time of the month'
• Know when students need to go to the bathroom for a BM
• Hold a Pokemon lunch once a week, because they still like to play with their friends
• Modeling correct manners and following through with please and thank you's
• Making sure they 'have' something instead of 'got' something
• Introducing them to things in life, like the prices at the grocery store

And probably my favorite roll as a middle school teacher, measuring their physical growth.  Some boys grew 4 inches from the start of the year!  WOW

What other roles do you play other than teacher? 

Stop Motion

Over the past few years Jason has been watching Frank Howarth on YouTube.  He is a phenomenal woodworker who incorporates stop motion into his videos. So I decided that my goal was to incorporate stop motion video into my newest video resume, tweet at him and have him tweet back.  Here is what I have so far!  I can't wait for the final product to be finished. 

I am really over the moon right now!  Hope you enjoy.  Any suggestions I would love to hear them!

Day 1: When Things Start to Change

It is the first student attendance day after winter break and I am tired!  Yesterday we had institute day which was nice but I still went to bed at 8pm!  HOLY COW!

As I start to reflect the first 4 months of school and look to the next 4 months there are somethings that I am going to do differently.

1. Incorporate more MARS tasks into the routine.  If you are not familiar with MARS tasks, they are wonderful activities that access student's thinking and push them to the next step.  A lot like what PARCC is about to do to all these kids.
2. Go back to backwards design.  My school adopted CMP3 this year and it has been a rough transition for others and myself. I need to take back the feeling that I am accomplishing things in the classroom and really push these kids to be their best.
3.  Start taking advantage of the information that entrance and exit slips give.  My curriculum partner and I were talking at institute yesterday and decided to cut the number of problems on the weekly quiz and gain this information other ways.

Do you have anything that you decided needed to change when you stepped away for 2 weeks?  I would love to hear about it.

Control Center of the Classroom

Any teacher knows that a paper management system (also balled being organized) will make the world of different.  Here is my 'control center'

There are a few key components that keep my life going.

1.  Make Up Quizzes

So I used to play the game of 'track the student' to make up grades and I was horrible at it!  I realized after I implemented SBG that it is not MY responsibility to track them down but it is the students.  I give a quiz each Thursday so the students know that if they are absent on a Thursday, their make up quiz will be push pined onto the board waiting for them.  How do I remember to do this?  When I pass out the quiz, I see who is missing and immediately write their name on a quiz and tack it up there.  Easy peasy!

2.  Hand in Papers Here!

What you can't see is that each bin is marked by period so students know where to place their papers.  This is where anything/everything goes into, I take nothing on my desk or in my hands.  

3.  Papers to be Passed Back

This is for me.  Once I grade/check-in any papers, I put them directly into the corresponding slot.  I find that this has helped me keep the clutter off my desk and motivates me to finish everything.  As an added bonus, I also have found that when kids see papers in there, they will offer to pass them back!  Double bonus!

4.  No Name Papers

I still don't understand how middle schoolers fail to put their names on papers but it happens!  So when I find one, I grade it and hang it up.  From there, it is up to the student to claim the paper and hand it in again, with their name this time. 

5.  Crate in the Middle 

You know when a student is absent and they come back and go "What did I miss?" This takes care of that!  When I hand out something in class, I immediately put it in the corresponding file folder.  My advanced math has its own section and the other class periods have their own section.  I made a file folder for each day of the week.  The new papers I put in standing up and the old papers are then turned sideways into the file folder.  This part of the control center is the hardest for me to remember to everyday but it makes my life SO much easier!

Of course there are some math cartoons that are funny and spruce it up a little bit.  What does your control center look like?  I would love to hear more ideas/suggestions!

Katie 

    

And it has begun... 1st day of school 2014!

The day that I feared and looked forward to the most happened.  The 1st day of school! This year, I will be teaching 7th grade again.  At our middle school we loop with students from 7th to 8th grade.  So after being spoiled with wonderful students (most of them ;)) and bonding over 2 years, I get a fresh batch to mold.

I decided to spend the days (6 to be exact) at the lake relaxing before madness started.  I set up some of my room before I left.  I always take a picture of the room and title it, "The Calm Before the Storm".

Calm Before the Storm 3

I did not do that much other than put new fabric on the bulletin boards, put up the things I know I want students to see everyday, arrange the tables and organize my desk area.  I figured out last year that putting up math posters at the beginning of the year really does no good.  They blend into the walls and become a backdrop instead of helpful hints and teaching aides.  What I did last year was as we came to a topic, I could create the posters myself, use them as a teaching aide then after find a permanent home of the wall for them.  This worked really well and allowed me to make them as we go and personalize them to students needs.  I will post more pictures as I add things to my room.

On a separate note, the night before school started, I was of course procrastinating doing things that I should be doing, so I made this flower pot for my classroom.   I had found some old glass beads and cool shapes in my college things (yes I graduated in 2007 and just got to going through things, don't judge) and grabbed a planter from the garage.  I spray painted the plastic pot black and hot glued the glass on it, purchased some wheat grass from the grocery store and ta-daaaa!   It wasn't until after I did some research that I realized that wheat grass has a shelf life of 2 weeks so as of now, it looks great.  Moral of the story, I have another week or so to figure out my next game plan!

Looking forward to getting in the swing of things this year.  Does anyone have an alternative to wheat grass that will last for months with minimal attention?  Suggestions are always welcome.

SBG PD Follow Up!

So I was extremely happy with how the PD went!  Attendees were very eager and open to getting started on their journey!  Below is some of the feedback I sent to my principal that came up during the 3 hour session. 

1. When implementing, learning targets should be consistent across grade levels.  At my middle school, I teach 5 sections of math, my curriculum buddy teaches 5 sections of math and the special education teacher teaches 1 or 2 sections of self contained math.  These are all the same grade level and if it wasn't for the massive amount of collaboration time we put it,  we would never be on the same page.  It was brought up that the ELA classes do not work together as much BUT if the learning targets were come up with ahead of time than each teacher could teach how they like but all students would be measured on the same scale.  

2. Educating staff about SBG best practices and presented workable/relatable research based evidence.  I hate to say it but in order for SBG to be successful, it needs to be done right with constant reflection and altering.  Providing a good foundation and creating an atmosphere where conversation is fostered is key in school wide implementation.  (Disclaimer:  I am not an expert, I just call it as I see it!)

3. Provide ample time for collaboration with grade level partners.  My curriculum buddy and I worked together daily this year but unfortunately not everyone can or will do that.  Designating more than 45 minutes per week will foster a healthy relationship and benefit the students the most!

So as a classroom teacher, how are you supposed to ensure that SBG will be successful?  Well part of the recipe for success if your attitude, dedication and advocacy for your needs. The other part of the recipe is to get your administration on board.  I have been very fortunate to have a principal that encourages teachers to try new things and gives the freedom to do so.  Although I do have this freedom, I also do lots of research and send my principal many emails and have meetings to advocate for SBG and keep him informed of things.  

The saying, "If it were easy, everyone would do it" comes to mind because it hasn't been easy all the time but in the end, students have benefited from the hard work and responded to a different grading system.  What issues have you run into during your journey with SBG?  What successes have you had and would like to share?  The more we as educators talk about SBG the better things will be for teachers, administrators and students!!!!

A math joke for your enjoyment!

Standards Based Grading PD

So tomorrow I am leading my first PD by myself!  I am very nervous but at the same time excited!  So my plan for tomorrow is to overview a little bit about what exactly is Standards Based Grading, what it means for students/parents, where exactly does/should one start and lots of time to start the process and ask questions.  I want to emphasize the ask questions and work with others because sometimes just having focused time on a topic works!  I am by no means an expert on this topic but I try my best to read proven research and adapt to my classroom/personality.

Below is a link to my presentation.  I will update tomorrow with how things went.

SBG PD Presentation

Let me know what you think of the presentation and any ideas/comments you have about SBG.  I would also love you hear your experiences and success stories to improve my out SBG practices. 

Katie Wicklander's Video Resume

This is my first go at a Video Resume!



Let me know what you think and any ways I can improve it.