Hoping to Suck a Little Less

Creative Commons Licensed photo by Flickr user benjamin_scott_florin

After five months off I'm getting ready to start teaching again. Over the course of the past five months I've thought, read and learned a lot about teaching math. I've read a lot of blog posts by amazing math teacher. I took Jo Boaler's How to Teach Math course. The one thing that I kept noticing is that there are a ton of great teachers doing amazing things in their classrooms. Which led me to the questions: why am I not doing these great things? Why is my teaching sub-par? Although I didn't have any answers for these questions I've decided to step it up a little this year. I don't claim that I'm going to be amazing this year but if I can suck a little less that's a move in the right direction.

What do I want for my students?

Comfort: I want my classroom to be a place where students are comfortable making conjectures, thinking outloud and sharing their ideas, even especially if they are wrong. Learning from our mistakes will be very important

Number Sense: I want students to develop better number sense so that they can make sense of the world around them and check to see if their solutions make sense. I'm hoping to working on number sense by using estimation180.com and visualpatterns.org on a regular, if not daily basis.

Collaboration: I want my students to share their thinking and reasoning. I want them to help one another and to learn from each other.

Enjoy Math: My hope is that by doing the above students will enjoy math a little more, be actively involved and hopefully seek out mathematics in the world around them.

To all the great math teachers out their doing great thing: thanks for the inspiration.

The Frustration of Learning

Recently I needed to replace the shingles on my roof. I decided to go with a steel roof instead of shingles, figuring I could do the work and save on the labour costs. I had been told by many people that putting up steel was easy and it didn't take long. This confirmed my original thought and I ordered the materials.

Now I should mention that I'm much more comfortable, and competent at, pounding a keyboard to move bits than pounding in nails with a hammer. I began by stripping the old shingles, fixing the bad spots in the roof and strapping it. This process alone had taken a lot longer than what most people said it should take to do the entire roof. I was feeling a little discouraged but I was determined to do the work properly and later discovered that most of the people I had spoken with had much simpler roofs than mine.

As I worked I learned a lot about roofing and a lot about myself. I think my best learning came from making mistakes. Doesn't all learning happen from making mistakes? I would make a mistake and then get really frustrated about it. This didn't help much since as I became frustrated I was more likely to make more mistakes. I recognized that many of my students likely get stuck in this cycle. Most of my frustration came from the fact that I was being slowed down. I just wanted to get the job done. I'm guessing that students are often in the same boat. They don't really care about the learning they just want to get the job, work, assignment, etc. done. After a while I realized that my frustration was counter productive. I decided that it would be much more productive to view my mistakes as learning opportunities. This small shift in mindset changed my entire outlook. No longer was this a project that had to be completed in a hurry. It was a project that I was going to do right and one that I could take pride in.

I think that frustration is an important part of learning. I need to let my students know that, and I need to work to ensure that they know it's a natural part of learning. I need to encourage them to work past the frustration to get to the reward side. I have a feeling that if they can get to the reward side once, getting there again will be easier.

Setting Personal Learning Goals

One of the big things across the province right now is learning goals. A learning goal is what the students are expected to accomplish by the end of the class. The goal is explicit and is written in student friendly language. It should be posted somewhere at the beginning of the class and left visible throughout the class so that students can monitor how well they are meeting the goal throughout the period. This isn't anything new, the process has simply been formalized and reiterated.

Just as we have learning goals for students I think it only makes sense for teachers to have learning goals. These should be goals that are set periodically to help a teacher improve his or her learning. The learning could be in any area. Examples might include wanting to improve group work, learning a new method of presenting a lesson, learning a new technology, connecting with other teachers more regularly or anything else.  These goals can help teachers guide their learning just as they do for students. I don't think it's necessary for a teacher to have a learning goal every day but it may be useful to set one for a week, a month, a semester or even a year depending on what the goal is and how it is to be achieved.

My goal at the beginning of the school year was to improve my presentation skills. I have presented to the staff at the school numerous times and each time I did I felt like the presentations became more effective. After each presentation I wanted to present again. I was hooked. I decided that I wanted to present at a number of conferences so that I could refine my skills in this area. My goal wasn't to improve my methods of delivering my classroom lessons, but I think I may have improved there as well.

I submitted proposals to present at two conferences early in the school year. The first was a virtual unconference. meaning that I was presenting virtually to an audience from around the globe. The biggest challenge here was trying to figure out how to present without really getting a read on the audience. The audience was small and the presentation was alright. After the presentation I reflected on how I could improve and looked forward to the next presentation.

My second presentation was at the ECOO conference in November. This is the premier educational technology conference in the province. One of the first things I thought of after my proposal was accepted is 'what am I doing presenting at this conference? What could I possibly offer these very savvy teachers?'. As the presentation drew nearer I realized that I was likely doing some things in my class that at least some of the participants were not aware of.  Once the presentation was complete I wished that I could have another chance since there were a few things that I wanted to tweak right away. I reflected and made note of the things to improve.

The next two presentations were somewhat unexpected but since I was looking for opportunities I followed up by submitting proposals. One of the proposals was for the Eastern Ontario Staff Development Network. I presented two sessions on mobile learning. The room (although small) was full and we had to turn people away. The presentation went extremely well. I felt like I had finally mastered presenting. The feedback I received was very positive. I even had teachers asking where they could find the presentation since they couldn't attend. 

My final presentation came at the request of an assistant superintendent who had visited my class and liked how I was using technology to engage my students. She asked if I could present to the district principals on 21st Century Learning. I decided what better way to show what I was doing in class than to bring along some students. The presentation was only 30 minutes but in that time we were able to show some of the tools that could be used and gave participants an opportunity to try some of them. For me the best part of the presentation was the student involvement. It was so much more powerful for the students to show what they had learned and for them to show the principals how to use the technology than to simply have me speaking. We all received a nice letter from the assistant superintendent expressing how well received the presentation was. This letter made us realize just how valuable the knowledge that each of us possess can be to others. There was some talk at the end of the session about presenting to school staff or even students. The students I had brought along with me were so excited about this possibility.

The presentations have been great learning experiences. I'm happy with my progress towards my goal. Unfortunately, I don't think it's a goal that I can ever check off any sort of list. There's always room for improvement. If you want to get excited about teaching and learning make sure that you see both sides. Be a part of both teaching and learning.

Hockey as a Metaphor for Learning

As I played intramural hockey with some teachers and students this week I couldn't help but think how the learning process on the ice seemed to be the ideal way to learn. I wondered how that process could be transferred to the classroom.
The intramural hockey program was started by a teacher at the school five years ago as a way to improve the skill level of staff and students. The goal was to really develop a love of the game. The group of players is extremely diverse. There are boys and girls from grades 9 to 12 as well as teachers, all with varying abilities. When the program started I was a complete novice. I had never played hockey before and really wasn't a good skater. Some of my team mates (and opponent) play very high levels of competitive hockey.
The goal of the program is to help all of us become better players. The atmosphere is always very positive and all players are very supportive of their team mates as well as their opponents. The better players often setup the weaker players and provide suggestions and feedback. Your better opponents will often give you an opportunity to try a shot, a pass or a move, while your weaker opponents will work hard to prevent you from doing any of the above. As the weaker players try to outdo each other, their skills improve. Improvement also happens as the weak go up against the strong. The strong seem to provide just enough support, but will also challenge you so that things aren't too easy. Finally, the strong players will challenge each other so that they will improve as well.
Wouldn't it be great if our classrooms allowed for the type of collaboration that is happening on the ice. The strong students would be able to provide the weaker students not with an answer to a question, but just enough support so that the weaker students could be successful in understanding the content.  The weaker students could work hard in an attempt to outdo each other, while the strong could continually challenge each other. Perhaps the most important part of this setup would be that the teacher is a learner as much as the students, learning and trying new things and benefiting from the knowledge and expertise of the students.