Weekly Reflection 12: Math Lesson 2

I taught a lesson to my 5th grade math student on equivalent fractions. Before we started we wrote down our learning goal for the lesson.

Here is the assignment:

   

This student likes to work using a white board.  Here is some of her work:

Weekly Reflection 11: Math Lesson- H2

H2- Honor Student access to content material

To me this is a form of differentiation. When we think about the purpose we serve as teachers, it is about giving our students access, tools, and skills to survive and thrive in the world. Often content tends to be a tool to teach skills that students can then apply to a variety of subjects and situations in their future. That being said, the content is still important and making sure it is accessible to students is important. This particular student I work with is able to learn most of the material that her classmates can, but needs the content presented to her differently so that she can access the material. I work with her four days a week to give her access to the material. In this particular lesson we worked on prime and composite numbers and word problems. Her classmates were doing the same thing, but moved through this topic quicker and with less explanation.

Here are some excerpts from a recent lesson of a student I work with in the Learning Center:

3.6-Rephrase your learning targets using student-friendly language:

By the end of the lesson you will be able to tell the difference between prime and composite numbers and be able to tell me why. You will practice using the problem solving strategies:  (We wrote this together before approaching the word problem)

3.7 – How will students demonstrate this? Describe observable actions. – e.g. Given (learning activities or teaching strategies), the students will (assessable behaviors) in order to demonstrate (connection to EALRs/Standards).

Student will be able to tell me whether a number is prime or composite. She will be able to explain how she knows this by telling me factors of given numbers. She will be able to tell me how knowing the factors will allow her to decide whether a number is prime or composite. She will also demonstrate for me how she will use our problem solving strategies as applied to a word problem.

3.10 – Academic Language – What are the linguistic demands embedded in the learning targets? (Consider what language and literacy skills students may need to know in order to demonstrate their competency on the learning targets successfully.)

Strategy-ways to approach a word problem in order to find the answer

Factors- numbers that divide into a given number

3.11 – Academic Language – What key vocabulary (content-specific terms) do you need to teach?

Prime Number-A number divisible only by itself and 1

Composite Number- A number that is divisible by 1, itself, and at least one other number 

5.5-Learning experiences:

Anticipatory Set: We will learn the difference between prime and composite numbers by defining them and putting examples up on the board

Statement of Objective: Student will be able to differentiate between prime and composite numbers. Student will be able to label them. Student will be able to solve a word problem using specific strategies.

Input: Student will be shown definitions for prime and composite numbers. I will give her examples, using factors to explain the difference.

Guided practice: Student will go to worksheet and begin to identify which numbers are prime and which are composite. Student will write on the board to figure out the factors of a given number and I will be able to help her through it.

Independent practice: She will work through labeling numbers prime or composite on her own, using the white board as work space

Input: I will remind her of the problem solving strategies we learned. Writing them down together on a white board

Guided Practice: We will read through the word problem together. I will remind her of he steps as she works through the problem. I will make sure she writes down her thinking each step of the way.

Here is the word problem and the work she completed on the word problem:

5.6 – Closure – How will the key points of the lesson be articulated?

We will review the definitions of prime and composite numbers. We will review how to find/use factors to determine whether a number is prime or composite. We will review the steps we went through to solve the problem

5.6 – Closure – How will the key points of the lesson be articulated?

We will review the definitions of prime and composite numbers. We will review how to find/use factors to determine whether a number is prime or composite. We will review the steps we went through to solve the problem

5.7 – Closure – What questions or prompts will you use to elicit student articulation of their progress towards the attaining the learning target(s)?

I will ask the student to tell me the difference between prime and composite and have her explain to me how finding the factors will help her tell the difference. I will have her tell me the problem solving steps and explain how she got her answer

~

In order to access the material the student needed the steps of problem solving to be explicitly restated. She also needed a warm up involving a review of prime and composite numbers. This student benefits from a review of previous lessons or skills learned in order for her to be successful. I am “honoring her access to the content material” by presenting the information to her in a way that will allow her to reach the learning target for the day.

 

Weekly Reflection 10

As part of my Internship Observation Assessment I was asked to fill out section 6.3 of the long form. This section asked me to look at three works samples from my lesson and answer a few question pertaining to them. Below are my answers and some screenshots of student work. The lesson was on finding the Least Common Multiple, using a certain method we learned in class involving prime factorization. Then they were to apply this to putting fractions in order.

Three work samples:

1- M- She is the strongest student in the class. She tends to work quickly so she sometimes misses directions or may make simple mistakes. However, she demonstrates understanding of concepts quickly and sometimes seems bored in class- this can make teaching her challenging. I am currently working on some enrichment projects for her.

M did meet the Learning Target of the lesson. She successfully demonstrated understanding of ordering fractions by finding the LCM of a given set of fractions and making the denominators the same.

In the above example it is clear she knows how to find LCM and use that to order fractions. She did have to be told to make sure to show all of her work and that her work is clear so that I could follow her train of thought. The assessment was appropriate because one goal she is working on is showing all of her work in a way that is organized and neat. She had to practice this a lot on this particular assignment.

2-E- She is not quite at grade level. She struggles with concepts, and works very slowly. This means that she does not often make it through all the practice that she really needs to solidify her understanding of topics. She is a slow starter, for example, one thing she did after I assigned the assignment, was to write out all the problem numbers.

This is a problem, because it is a way for E to pass time without actually doing any work. In addition to that, she does not really leave herself any room to do that work, and she forces herself to write in a small space. I had her start again on a fresh sheet of paper and just jump into the work, no writing out all the problem numbers first. Although she was able to demonstrate that she understood the overall concept, of making the denominators the same so that the fractions could be put in order, she did not go through all the steps to find the LCM that she was taught to do. And although she got the problems correct. I am concerned about her not showing all of her work because of her history of struggling when concepts become more challenging. She did meet the Learning Target of the lesson, but I will be watching her work carefully in review material of this topic.
3-S- This students has struggled with math for years, but in the last 1.5 years has begun to show more enthusiasm and less nervousness towards math. This in turn has led to more success for her. She is very hesitant to ask for help though or show when she does not understand something; unless I really push her to open up to me, which can take a lot of time. I do feel like I have made some headway though and that she has begun to be more open to asking for help, or at least taking it. S does NOT like to show her work. She will often work through problems in her head and then go back and show her work; this sort of defeats the purpose! At the beginning I made it clear that I needed to see her work along the way since one of our goals was to show how to find LCM and then use that to order fractions. She did that through the first ten problems or so, but did not on the last ten or so. In the following picture you can see how she was showing her work and then she stopped. She demonstrated understanding of the Learning Target, but it concerns me that she stopped showing her thinking. I will be watching her work carefully in review material of this topic.

TELA Project- P4

P4 – Practice the integration of appropriate technology with instruction.

Teacher-candidates use technology that is effectively integrated to create technologically proficient learners.

We live in the 21^st century and the classroom does not look the same anymore. We need to move forward with our students. We live in a time where technology is advancing so quickly and if we are not providing students with opportunities to use technology and modeling the use of technology then we are doing our students a disservice. This can look different for different teachers. It can even look like students working alongside teachers. I have found that children these days have loads of information about how to use technology. Students are interested in technology and are often teaching themselves in ways that we may not know how. Engaging them as teachers in your classroom can be another way to incorporate technology and help them learn as well as yourself!

KhanAcedemy.com

For my TELA project I am using KhanAcademy.com in my 6^th grade math class. I started the year using a regular math book and following a traditional classroom style of lecturing while the students took notes, then they had a few minutes to start their HW. They would then go home and the next day we would review some of the HW they had questions on then we would move on to the next topic. It became apparent pretty quickly that this format was not going to work for my class. In trying to find an alternative way to reach these students, I was reminded of Khan Academy. I have used it in the past and several teachers in my school use it casually, but I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try a flipped classroom.

Khan Academy is a website that has thousands of videos on an array of topics across different subject matters. The videos are pretty short; they are clear and articulate. Over the years several features have been added that make Khan Academy more user friendly and perfect for a flip classroom setting. After each video there are a series of practice problems the students can do. Here is the cool part, as the teacher you can have the students choose you as a coach and then you (the teacher) can monitor their work. There are several different ways to view their progress as well. You can view it as an overview like this, where it shows you quickly using colors how all the students are doing:

Or you can view individual progress (this can be seen in more than one way, here is one example):

This is a cool way to view it because it shows you each night what they are doing. This way you can track that they are keeping up with their work and it gives you data on how they are doing. There are also incentives for the students to win badges and such- they seem to get excited about that!

Now that I have been giving this for HW, we have been able to do the assignments in class. This has allowed me to be able to sit down with each student and work with them. Find out where they are struggling, what is easy for them, and where they just need more practice. It has allowed me to give more individual time to each student. I also have been able to incorporate a project every couple of weeks that encompasses a few topics, since we have more class time. I still spend some class time going over the video, or sharing other strategies with students, but this has given me more time in class with the students and they enjoy the Khan Academy for HW and the students feel like they are getting more out of it.

Unfortunately, there is not a video for every topic we cover, so my classroom is not a fully flipped classroom, but the students like using this as their HW and like working on assignments in class. This gives students the opportunity to use technology at least a few times a week. Lately I have been thinking a lot about how I can take this to the next level. I thought a great way to end the year would be to have the students get into pairs, choose a math topic from the year, and create their own videos and assignments on that topic! This way the students can integrate a math topic they have learned with the technology they have been exposed to. I plan on enlisting the help of the technology coordinator at my school to work with me and the students in creating these videos. I think this would be a great culmination of the flipped classroom, and maybe I would even be able to use these videos with future classes!

NETP Goals:

2.0 Assessment: Measure What Matters
Our education system at all levels will leverage the power of technology to measure what
matters and use assessment data for continuous improvement.

3.0 Teaching: Prepare and Connect
Professional educators will be supported individually and in teams by technology that
connects them to data, content, resources, expertise, and learning experiences that enable
and inspire more effective teaching for all learners

Observation 1- 5th Grade

Observation 5^th Grade

What I see…

What I wonder…

-Classroom has posters around the room with -Norms for different   activities, lesson norms, independent reading norms, and inquiry/writing   norms -Teacher is using a document camera and projector   -One other student is working independently on the computer in the   back   -Student: when explaining exponents, 2 to the power of 3. You do 2   times 3 Teacher: I am so glad you said that, I have taught 5th and   6th grade, that is the most common mistake, that students would do   2 x 3 – and then she explained what it again -Students are copying notes into a notebook -Teacher puts a problem on the board and asks for student’s   participation. She calls on one student, several students call out to correct   student. She ignores the comments, and says to the student she called on to finish – Teacher- “Thank you for raising your hand” student has a question   about a different scenario- she says, let’s do it. -Teacher-“thank you for those of you who are raising your hand” -Student- “Do the parenthesis really matter?” Teacher-“Yes, it does matter, sometimes it won’t, but in this case it   would, so let’s do it without and see.” -Teacher refers back to order of operations list -Teacher models how  and when   she can use mental math- she is incorporating other strategies they have   learned -Transition- students are taking out their white boards and writing   down a sample problem from the board. -Students solve the problem then hold up their white board so teacher   can check for understanding -Transition: after the check for understanding, teacher is handing   out the next assignment, giving the title and due date for students to write   down. -Students get right to work as they get their sheet -Students are quietly working – 8:30 -One student is finished- teacher walks over to check, she tells him   to get the HW packets, he goes back to his desk, teacher gives him grade book   to check off who has turned in the HW packets -Two students have come to the back for extra help- one asked for it,   one had to be asked to come back for the help -A second student came back to help with the HW packets -Class blogger has gone back to his desk to work on the math   assignment -Some small conversations have started happening Teacher:” Boys and Girls   quiet time, she is handing out “way to go cards” (part of our PBIS program)   for students who earned them based on the week- (she tracks behavior over the   course of the week) -Several students have gathered around  the back table, teacher comes over and   tells students to sit down and reminds the students who are working on the HW   packets of their job -Students turn their “way to go” cards in after they have written   their name on the cards, then teacher chooses from the bin one students’   name, student can now choose from a prize bag. Student chooses. Transition- “Ok I am going to hand out the HW, waiting for your   attention so we can talk about how”. About 1 minute goes by; teacher also   shows a visual queue with her hands.” Eyes up front so there is no confusion   about HW”- She goes through each page in the packet on the document camera.

I wonder why the student is working by himself in the back on the computer. I found out later that the student is the class blogger. The blogger   blogs on Fridays-  a different student   each week                                                         Great way to do a quick check in during class, does not take much   time and gives teachers a quick overview of what students got. Love the white   boards!

 

This was a great observation, this teacher is amazing, and I love when I get the opportunity to spend time in her classroom. I also collaborate with her closely to help support several of her students. Most of the time I am in her room, it is working with students, so it is really nice when I have a chance to just observe great teaching.

Weekly Reflection 9: Dr. Robert Marzano comes to SPU!

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Robert Marzano at SPU. I went with my Principal who was also interested and excited to hear Dr. Marzano speak.  We were both particularly interested in the subject of teacher evaluation as well.

Marzano began by talking about how we are in a position now for reform, which is exciting! He does not think that in k-12 education will have any dramatic changes in the next several years. We are in a really great place; it will be all tweaks now. So what we need to be talking about is teacher evaluation, and it is about looking district to district and school to school and there might need to be small differences in every school as to how we evaluate teachers.

In this post I am going to attempt to summarize what I learned from Dr. Marzano. He has vast amounts of knowledge in this area and I will only be touching the tip of the iceberg. I hope to convey how impressed I was by him and how excited I am about the importance of evaluating teachers. As is he, he sees this as “low hanging fruit” meaning it is something we can easily grab onto and develop a structure for.

Before I write about some of the specific evaluation tools that are out there, I want to reference a conversation about what the purpose of the evaluating would be. There seems to be two reasons for evaluating teachers; either to develop teachers or to measure them. This is an important distinction because it changes which type of evaluating tool one would use. Most people in our group leaned towards developing teachers as being more important.  Dr. Marzano’s evaluating tool is more of a developmental model. So you would use another tool if you wanted to measure teachers.

–           State tests

• these are a couple generations removed from what actually happens on the state test, so teachers are being penalized- this can’t be the only measure

–          Benchmark assessments

–          End of course assessments

• These are a little better in terms of correlating with what is happening in the classroom and these can be used as common assessments which means having several teachers grade it, which helps give objectivity to the score

–          Student learning objectives (SLO)-

• This is an interesting measure. It means that every teachers sits down with every students and sets goals within a timeframe, and then sees what percentage of students meet these goals- this gets used in evaluating teacher success

–          Student evaluations of teacher

–          (It is important to keep in mind how much time the teacher has taught those particular students as well- this would be a variable)

A question that arose during the conversation was, what about assessing the teachers’ pedagogical skills? How can this best be done? When we think about how it is done now, a principal might go in and observe a teacher once or twice a year, and it is usually pre-planned. Does this really give the principal an accurate picture of the teachers’ skills? No! So how can this be solved? Because this would be an important component when making a developmental plan for a teacher based on evaluation. The state of Massachusetts says that there should be ten observations, BUT the observer does not need to be in there for a whole period. This is interesting because it helps give a framework, by saying ten times, but then another variable is introduced if the teacher is not being observed for the whole period.

Many states are saying four is the number of observations. This is the number that principals feel is reasonable and it gives principals the opportunity to observe the main three types of lessons that get taught and one unannounced visit.  Dr. Marzano described the three types of lessons:

1-      Content is brand new- this is more of a stand and deliver lesson- (this constitutes about 60% of lessons)

2-      They had it before and now going into more depth- (this constitutes about 35% of lessons)

3-      They had it before and the teacher is asking them to apply the information- (this constitutes about 5% of lessons)

The idea here is that principals would pre-plan with teachers to get into the classrooms for observing one of each of those types of lessons and then one unannounced visit.

One other factor to consider here is time teachers have been teaching. So having different expectations based on the amount of years a teacher has been teaching.

Dr. Marzano then went on to describe his system of measurement in detail. You can visit his website for more information regarding Dr. Marzano’s measurement plan ad research (marzanocenter.com).

I was very glad to have been able to attend this workshop and hear in person some of Dr. Marzano’s thoughts on pedagogy and the role of teacher measurement. And he was surprisingly funny!

 

 

 

Weekly Reflection 8: Child Find

Last week I went to a meeting at the Seattle Public Schools about Child Find. Child Find is the Seattle Public Schools obligation to find and evaluate children in private schools. This meeting was basically about a chunk of money that could go to the private schools for children who are not in IEPs, but who need more support than they are receiving. This money was referred to as equitable participation or proportionate share. We were at this meeting to help decide how the money would be spent. Students on an IEP cannot receive money from this fund. However, the student can be on a service plan or student accommodation plan.

An example of a child who would qualify for this proportionate share money would be someone who is evaluated by the public school and who qualifies for an IEP, but is not on one. A reason a child would not be put on an IEP, for example, is a situation in my school. We are a dual curriculum religious school. It is sometimes not worth it for the parent to choose to have their child sent to the public schools and miss out on some of the short amount of time the students have in general studies (since this would then defeat the purpose of a double dose of the subject) or the student might miss some of the religious studies, which the parents also don’t want. We (meaning a decision between the parents and teachers) often choose not put children on an IEP and send them to the public schools because it is not worth the time.

At this meeting we were asked to decide how we would use this money to support these students. One more important detail that played a part of our decision was that, if we have a student on an IEP and they are currently getting services from the public schools, we are to encourage the parents to keep their child on the IEP and not access this proportionate share money. The reason being they get more services through the IEP and the students are then being served through FAPE, which then requires us to service the student and move them forward. Where students on a service plan are not covered under FAPE and may receive services only once a week or not enough times to move them forward at the pace they deserve. And once this proportionate share money runs out for the year, and then it is gone. This is also the first year we have this money, so there is a lot of unknowns and we will just have to see how the decision we make works out.

We decided that a lump sum of the money would go towards equipment, such as FM systems. Then the rest of the money would go towards hiring tutors, particularly in reading. The tutors can be hired by the schools individually, but SPS would also provide a tutor that would come to each school for 1.5 hours a week. This was the proposal put together by the team that was at the meeting. It still needs to be approved. It was pretty cool to be a part of the decision making process that determines where and how a chunk of money is used to support our students.

Weekly Reflection 7: Sustained Silent Reading

This week my Principal gave out an article to the Lower School teachers entitled, “Making Sustained Silent Reading Really Count: Tips on Engaging Students” by Katherine Hilden and Jennifer Jones. We discussed the article and what this could look like in the different classrooms. The article focuses not on the research as to whether or not sustained silent reading is good for kids, but about how to make sustained silent reading (SSR) meaningful and useful time spent for each student. The authors of the article put together a profile of different types of readers. It is written on a continuum and shows types of readers and how much teacher support is required for each level. For example, the student with the highest need for teacher support are the ones they reference as “fake readers” and the ones that need very little teacher support are called, “bookworms”.

The article mentions that in order to keep tabs on the types of readers you have in your classroom; it will take regular conferencing with the students. At this point in the article we spun off into an engaged discussion about how to find time to conference with all of our students in the classroom. We are a dual curriculum school; this means that we only have about three hours to teach all of our general studies to our students. This does not leave much time per subject and our teachers have to be creative as to how to spend their time. The fifth grade teacher was struggling with how to find time to conference with so many students. One idea that was suggested in the meeting was to conference with a few students per day, and expects to get to each student once every two weeks. This would be enough meetings to gather data to find out where the students are in their reading, but not be overly stressful or overwhelming for the teacher to find time to do this. Another suggestion was to conference with a couple students at a time who are about the same level, or perhaps reading the same book. The fifth grade teacher had another great idea involving a journal. Instead of having the students write a summary in their journals of their reading that week, she has the students write her a letter. She provided the students with a rubric as to what she wants included in the letter and a sample that she, the teacher wrote. I thought this was a great idea, it gives the teachers specific information about the book (because of the rubric) and allows her to monitor if her students are actually getting through the books since she has expectations of how many books they should read by the end of the year. I really enjoy these meetings with the Lower School teachers because we tackle practical issues the teachers are having. It is inspiring to see that when teachers get together and have the opportunity to share, how much they can learn from and help each other!

Hilden, K., Jones, J. (2012). Making Sustained Silent Reading Really Count: Tips on Engaging Students. Reading Today, 17-19.

Weekly Reflection 6: Science Lesson

Today I met with the science teacher at the school to discuss a new idea for a lesson tomorrow. Several teachers have been having difficulty with one of the classes in the school. There have been some meetings around how to best handle them and a new discipline policy has been put in place. One of the modifications for the students is that they cannot be in the science lab for science class; they have to earn back the privilege. The science teacher had been trying to conduct some really engaging lessons, but they involved a lot of movement and the lessons were unsuccessful.

The science teacher thought about how she can plan a lesson that would be useful to the students and engaging, but for now, kept them in their seats. She came up with the idea to run Jeopardy like game using MSP questions.  I helped her today with some of the planning. We decided on how many categories there would be, point values of the questions, that the students would be in groups of two, and what the students can win with their points. There will be two adults in the classroom, the science teacher and myself. I will continue this post tomorrow with a debrief on the lesson.

The lesson went okay. It seems to me that the science teacher and I differ a little on how to best manage the behavior in the classroom, and I don’t think we did a good job of making clear to each other the difference in our expectations beforehand. It was also challenging, because since it is her class I felt like I was holding back a lot and not intervening to help her when she seemed to be struggling or making what I thought, was the wrong management decision.

Overall, the behavior of the students was improved and they were very excited about the prospect of earning back being in the science lab or having extra recess. I do think that most of the students were engaged, but there was still an undercurrent of the disrespectful behavior that she is struggling with. After class we had a short debrief together and though we agreed that it went pretty well and we agreed on some changes we could make for next time; it is seems we have a little different perception of the behavior. It is possible I have higher expectations than her, but I also know that having those higher expectations is the only way to get these kids to behave how you expect or want. This is something that we will have to work on.

Weekly Reflection 5: Team Building

This past week in school two days were dedicated to an all school activity (first thru eighth grade) called Color War. The idea of this activity is to promote team building among students as well as leadership skills in the middle school, particularly the eighth grade.

We have been doing this activity for several years; in fact, I participated in Color War when I was a student at the school! Since I have been teaching at the school there has been different formats that the activity took and different amount of time that has been dedicated to it.

At the beginning of the week last week, I felt pretty negative towards the Color War. Mostly because I felt like we have so much learning to do and it just did not seem a worthwhile use of time. Part of the way the students are able to demonstrate leadership is that the eighth graders pretty much plan the entire event. There are several activities throughout the day that have been the same year after year, but the students plan how to break out the Color War and how to organize the days. Teachers are assigned to each team to help monitor and provide supervision, but we barely did anything! It was amazing to watch the Middle school kids really take on the leadership. The younger student began looking to them instead of the teachers, when they had to leave the room for anything even to use the restroom.

Although I still wish I had more teaching time, it definitely taught the students strong team building and leadership skills and reminded me that there are other important skills we must impart on our children other than academics.