Self-Evaluation

30 June 2006

Ok. So. Apparently I say, OK, So, a lot. I was sure that I, like pretty much every teacher I've ever had would have some annoying verbal tick. Ok, So, will have to do for now.

Ok So, what else? Watching myself made the advice of my second second-year all the more obvious. Sometimes I teach like college-radio. Dead-air is awful. It's just so boring and painful to watch. Seeing my own dead-air made me physically wretch. So, everything needs to be quicker and more energetic. I don't necessarily want to do more, just do the same and similar things more quickly and more often.

Ok, So, watching myself also convinced me even more that I want a classroom that uses tons of small group stuff. Concept tests, group problems, just lots of the students communicating with each other while I float and occasionally address them all. It's just so unrealistic to lecture or do examples for more than 10 minutes and even pretend that people are interested. Even if I have to go back and forth between groups working in twos and then going over an example, I think that would be preferable.

Ok, So, in the spirit of me talking less.

Management

28 July 2006

Much of the focus of this month has been on management. How can we manage our students? How can we manage our classroom? How can we manage our lives? I've been thinking a lot about these issues. While Ben, our professor and many of the second years repeat again and again that we need to set up highly structured environment for our students. The rhetoric behind these claims characterizes the students as lacking any structure in their lives, indeed as students who crave some structure in their lives. On one level, I am willing to accept that the evidence behind these claims is true. After all, I don't have any experience with these students; Ben and the second years do. I am less inclined to accept the conclusion their draw from that evidence.

Just because students crave structure, does that mean that, as teachers, we should give (or impose) our notion of structure upon these students? Giving (or imposing) structure, after all, is our justification for the regimented procedures, rules, and, to varying degrees, silence in the classroom. In this model, as Ben as suggested, we use our status as a professional, to some extent, to justify why these students should obey our structure. In turn, we need these structures to foster a learning environment. In turn, we are instilling (one method of teaching, I suppose) a respect for this sort of structure in our students.

My issue with this method of management is that it never explicitly asks the students to own any sort of self-management. It's all based on some oddly objective "procedure" that displaces any agency over the structure itself. After all, it's not the teacher's fault, it's the all a matter of procedure. It even displaces the student from his/her own behavior. It's not the student, but the behavior that conflicts with the procedure. My vision of management would, instead, first work with the students to develop and then put that in place. Practically, this may involve setting out, very explicitly, MY procedures and then working with the students to adjust those procedures. I believe that if the students have a part in making their own classroom rules, they will be MUCH more willing to obey them and to suffer their own consequences.

In addition, I'm also of the camp that interesting work will do most of the management that I would want anyway. I envision a class with lots of group work and lots of inductive learning (even my vision of student-made procedures is inductive at heart). In summer school, almost all of my management problems have come on days when I've known my lessons weren't interesting enough, when I was spending too much time at the board and when I just wasn't giving the students enough to do. Ms. Monroe and Joe both commented that my class might be a little unruly, but I'm not convinced that the shouting out and the 12" voices are a problem. Maybe I'll change my mind, but if most of the talk in the class is about the subject, I think I'm winning. Students will always be disengaged at times. Who wasn't in high school? But "idle" talk between students is not necessarily unproductive. Not only can it help relieve some of the tension of having to be in school, but it can help establish the community that my classroom needs. And, if the work is interesting and challenges the students in ways that they think matter, then a culture of work will emerge, particularly with a healthy dose of encouragement from their crazy and energized teacher.

I think by showing my students this sort of respect, that is, a confidence that they can create healthy and productive social structures will help build trust within my classroom. Most of all, as I said, I think it will help build ownership in the classroom. Since my biggest rule is "Take responsibility for the classroom community," this ownership is essential.

I anticipate the students will be very opposed to this idea at first. Just like my students in summer school were really really frustrated when I first asked them to actually problem solve. But, like in summer school I think the honest I'm almost sweating out of my shirt catches on. While I'm still having tons of problems, one of the biggest successes for me is that many of my students at Holly Springs will tell me when they don't understand things I'm saying. Many will even interrupt me to say they don't understand. In fact, the other day, I was giving a particularly boring lesson and I think we had a good dialogue about why that was and what I could do better. After all, who knows better what's interesting to my students, than my students themselves. So, even in my failure, I was pretty happy that they were honest with me.

So, I guess I'll have some experimenting to do come August. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? I'm really very interested in two things: does anyone read this and, if so, what does anyone think of these ideas.

Induction to Induction

23 June 2006

So we had the choice to try either an inductive lesson, a cooperative groups activity or a folding paper exercise. As much as I like folding paper, I decided to try another inductive lesson.

So, I was teaching solving one and two-step inequalities. We had already covered up through equations with only variables in them, so the solving part wasn't a problem. I just needed the class to realize that when you multiply by a negative on both sides of the inequality the inequality sign flips.

Generally, I set up a comparison. Side by side I had a list of equations: x >1, x>2, x>3 (labeled 1a, 2a, 3a) and their opposites (labeled 1b, 2b, 3b). I set up a table that gave x values and asked the students if each value satisfied the inequality. From those values, I asked the students to help me graph each on the board. By comparing the graphs from the a's and the b's, I asked the class to create a rule that would generalized this property. I asked what was different about the a's and the b's (eventually eeking it out of them that the only difference was that if you multiplied/divided one you'd get the other, but with the inequality flipped). It was really great that many actually did begin to see this rule.

I love this kind of lesson. I feel like the majority of my lessons may not be strictly inductive, but my most comfortable mode of instruction uses the parts of inductive teaching that encourage problem-solving, but, for expediency's sake, provide a bit more direction. Mentor Moe calls it Socratic and I'm not opposed to that label.

Speaking of Mentor Moe, I agreed with his two major comments. On the one hand, it was amazingly satisfying to see two of the kids on the right, much much quieter side of the room actively involved. Not only were they actively involved, they were the engine behind the induction. KR came up with the rule and TW, normally frustrated and somewhat bitter, was positive and engaged. On the flip side, the normally active students were somewhat less active. In fact, I'm sure the whole class did not follow the inductive logic.

Two ways to improve: 1) clearly and repeatedly state the problem that is driving the induction. In addition, from the beginning stress that we are making a rule and continue to come back to both the problem that necessitate the rule and the progress toward the rule itself. It's really not that difference from writing a good paper. Start off with a clear problem and continually link back to that problem in each paragraph. 2) Use an overhead or make a handout. I originally planned a handout, but I wanted to try it without one. But, I think all the erasing I had to do on the board was too cumbersome and wasteful. An overhead (which our classroom inexplicably lacks) would have been perfect. Just throw the template up there and reuse reuse reuse.

I'm planning on having a highly inductive/Socratic classroom. it might be interesting to have a couple of inductive sessions and then some practice workshops to hammer out skills where the class works in groups or alone on just dozens of examples. I think that would be a really interesting way to combine overall concepts, skills, inductive teaching and cooperative learning within a good classroom routine.

I guess we'll find out.

Sarcasm

15 July 2006 (I know this is displayed right above this on the blog, but I need it for my own records).

So, what I've been thinking recently has to do with both a little of what I've read from Mentor Moe's blog from last summer and some feedback I got from him and my partner in first-year crime (whom i will call, Battery): sarcasm.

In my evaluations, Mentor Moe has complimented my use of humor as an effective disarming device with my students. On Wednesday, however, he mentioned that my sarcasm was beginning to blend too much in tone with something that the students might interpret as serious. Battery reinforced Mentor Moe's point when he said that he actually felt that I had become angry/annoyed during my lesson. To the contrary, I had a blast that day. It was the most fun lesson for me so far this summer. I mean, there's still tons to fix, like board organization, and presenting any semblance of written notes on the board for the students, but I felt like I was able to extract even just a small bit of interest and engagement in the connection between the abstractness of algebra and the concreteness of numbers: a hugely important point for anyone even thinking about math, ever.

Now, humor isn't something I use just to disarm the students (henceforth, my kids). For me, humor is just about the only philosophically stable way to approach our high school system. High school IS boring. The procedures and structures and tests we put these kids through ARE silly. I don't want to hide that. I don't want to lie to my kids. That would break TWO of my classroom rule: (Speak respectfully and Take responsibility for the classroom community). Humor allows me and my kids to recognize how stupid these structures can be while still realizing that we're going to have to use them. No you can't be late; no you can't disrupt my lecture; no you can't go to sleep. But, I also can't pretend that every moment of class will be intellectually and emotionally stimulating and engaging at all times.

That is to say, I cannot abandon humor as a teaching style, as a way of sustaining interest through the self-consciouslly boring lulls.

But, what do I do when I begin to press sensitive kids too much. Especially since part of what my humor wants to do is make my classroom intentionally non-serious (or, as a neologism, consciously dis-serious), this conflict between kids interpreting my lame, high-school teacher witticisms as serious threats, insults, or even comments is a formidable one. Obviously, I can't just say: I love you all; I will never be annoyed or angry at YOU. If they trusted me to begin with, this wouldn't be an issue. (I also can't decide if something to that effect is a worthwhile poster). I think this might just be something of which I have to become a better self-monitor. There will be students (like me when I was a student) whom I can press with sarcasm. There will be others I can't. In general, I need to keep my tone lighter. Always lighter. But, it's a dangerous line that I'll have to walk; but, I don't think it's any more dangerous than ones other teachers have to negotiate. Getting students interested IS dangerous. That's part of why it's worthwhile.

Questioning Strategies

13 June 06

I used a mix of Concept Tests and Cold Calling in class today. I wrote a problem on the board, asked the students to work it out individually, then I cold called on a student to come up to the board (or dictate from their seat) and explain their method. It worked pretty well, in fact the concept tests worked much better than I anticipated. Many of the students actually did share their results, but with their friends across the room, rather than the partner I envisioned sitting next to them.

I needed a better protocol (really, any protocol) for picking partners for the concept test, but the cold calling was good for that context.

I'm going to try a similar method tomorrow, and will report about those results then.

14 June 06

Ok, so I forgot the index cards with which I was going to cold call. Instead I improvised a method where I spun the class list to choose someone at random. It didn't really work that well and it certainly didn't give the students the same sense of randomness that the stack of names does. I did do something like concept testing though where I had them come up with answers to questions I posed on the board and then discuss them with a partner,

I think cold calling, in general, might be more beneficial for me to make sure I'm calling on students equally and not missing quiet ones or picking on ones who are spacing out. I haven't really gotten many complaints for just picking names which I would need to displace onto a sense of randomness; in fact, I got more lip when I used the real cold calling, but maybe that was because it was the first time.

I think much of this questioning strategy experiment wasn't that new for me so I didn't discover that much. The partner thing surprised me because it worked better than I expected. It worked even better today when I had a real protocol. It will work even better next time when I actually enforce that protocol. More generally, questions and questioning plays such an enormous part in my classroom anyway that trying out new questioning strategies wasn't really something I had to do for this assignment. It's what I try to do everyday anyway.

Focus Paper Response

11 June 2006

I read Mason's focus paper on John Dewey and his philosophy of education. I'm interested in the work Dewey and L. L. Nunn have done on progressive ideas of education so I was happy to see that one of last year's focus papers covered some of this material; in fact, before I saw that Mason had written on Dewey, I was going to write on Dewey myself.

Dewey saw a strong link between education, democratic citizenship and individual experience. Dewey wanted a system of education that took seriously the its implications in the everyday life and experience of its students. Therefore, Dewey saw the experience of the classroom itself as just as important as the material covered within it. The approach toward education, in my mind, shifts the structure of the classroom from a strictly vertical organization to a more horizontal one. Mason identifies the two main consequences of this emphasis in a Deweyian education as a fostering a democratic awareness and the habit of self-education. In addition, one aspect of Dewey's philosophy that Mason highlights that I hadn't really thought of was Dewey's willingness to praise the organization of traditional education while looking to improve that structure through more experiential methods.

Organization, as Dewey points out, seems so key here. Right now, I think that is by far the weakest part in my teaching. I've clashed, personally, with some of the rhetoric in class of the teacher as the boss of the classroom, functioning almost as dictator. I agree wholeheartedly with Dewey that the classroom needs to mimic the social and political structures we want to foster in our students. Therefore, I want the students running my classroom as much or more than I am. As a teacher, then, my role becomes mostly a model. What might a democratic leader look like? As a teacher I need to model the behavior of a effective and engaged equal. At the same time, I need to organize the path by which we can move through the material as a democratic unit. I want a tangental and free-flowing classroom, but I also need to establish the consequences for disrespect. Whether its giving more warnings, lines and detentions, I need to establish an organized and consistent set of expectations both for the material lesson as well as for classroom behavior. Those expectations are always up for discussion, but I need to spark that discussion.

One idea that i've been toying with is to set up positions in the classroom that shift every day or every week. They would be something like a sheriff and a deputy. I want the students to begin to feel responsible not only for their own actions but for the actions of the whole class as well. I'm interested to see if setting up a system of expectations with consequences for the students, themselves, to enforce might help raise the level of student ownership of the classroom.