Keeping Track of Students Who Attend Tutorials

Like many of you, we are required to hold regularly scheduled tutorials.  Our school has a late start (8:50 am) so I like to hold my tutorials in the morning when the kiddos are "wide-eyed and bushy-tailed" (as my grandma would say).  In the morning, students tend to be more alert and (hopefully) they get more out of our 30 minutes.  It sounds good in theory, right?!

Anyway, it's important to keep track of who comes.  It helps when talking to parents.  It's a good talking point with students when they are struggling.  Administrators and counselors often ask.  It's just good data.  The problem, as we all know, is collecting and maintaining the data.  It's downright time consuming!

This week I had a true a-ha moment and I literally can't wait for school to start to implement my new plan.  What is it, you ask?  Oh right...here goes...

I'm going to post a QR code (this part was my friend Danielle's idea) that students can scan with their phones as they enter.  The QR code will take them to a Google Form that can be used to collect and store the data.

For students who don't have a phone, I will make sure there is a computer up and running (with the form pulled up) that students can use to enter their information.  I've even got it set up so that on the "thank you for your submission" screen there's a link to submit another entry.  Google time-stamps entries, so there's no question about date and time.

This really is going to be a game-changer this year.  Now when someone needs to know if "little Johnny" has been attending tutorials, I can open my spreadsheet and sort it.  So much easier than flipping through pages of sign-in sheets!

Minds on Math Chapter 9 - Conferring

When I taught ELA, conferring was just something that we did.  It was a common practice to have a quick conference with students about what they were reading or writing, and the conversations were often very informative.  You could tell who was reading and whether or not they student understood what they were reading.  For writing, you discuss ideas with students and help them further develop those ideas.

When I started teaching math, though, it didn't seem as important to conference with students....until I read this book.  As I read, I thought often of my days in ELA and it dawned on me that, just like in ELA, we also teach reading and writing.  To be successful in math, students have to be able to "read and comprehend" a problem.  Students also must communicate (or write) their thinking and solutions to a problem.  With this ah-ha! and Ward Hoffer's book, I came the realization that I was doing my students a disservice by not conferring with them about their math thinking.  

Ward Hoffer offers three steps to conferring with students.  First is research.  Conferring can be used as a tool for "finding out" what students know, are stuck on, are thinking, etc.  Second, conferencing can be used to coach students.  This entails walking a student through a problem without giving them answers.  Third, help the students reflect on their thinking.  

As I think about my classroom last year, I know that I conferenced with students, but usually when the student came to me.  I was not intentional about conferring with students on a regular basis.  I realize I need to change this.  Time will always be an issue.  Obviously some students need more assistance than others, however, even the "advanced" students in our classroom can benefit from conferencing.  After all, we don't want those students to get bored and lose interest.

I think the list of "Conferring Questions" on page 147 will be helpful.  Maybe I'll put some of these lists/reminders together and spiral bind them so that I can have them with me to easily reference.

Good luck to you all as you get ready for the coming year...it's going to be fabulous!

Minds on Math Chapter 6 - Opening

Chapter 6 is all about the importance of a good opening.  Ward Hoffer suggests that that there are 4 key aspects to an opening:  welcoming learners, activating prior knowledge, setting a purpose for the lesson, and managing homework.  While most of most of the chapter seemed to be common sense, there were a few points that Ward Hoffer made that made me think about the effectiveness of my openings, which honestly, I am prone to skip as a means of saving time.  

Ward Hoffer poses that an effective opener should set students up for success.  To do this, she writes that the problems posed as an opening must be accessible from multiple entry points because they ensure that "everyone can get started, everyone can experience some success, and you can still gather useful formative assessment data."

Two suggestions for activating prior knowledge were presented:  a problem of the day and conceptual conversations.  The conversations stood out to me for a couple of reasons.  One, it's something different than is probably seen in the typical classroom.  Two, the collaboration required in having a conversation would certainly give students an opportunity to activate and pull out those things that students already know.  

I found homework an interesting addition to this chapter.  While it certainly is part of most classroom's opening routing, I wounder how it would really fit into a 5 minute opening.  Personally, I post my homework answers on Edmodo so that students can check their own as they work.  It serves no purpose for students to work problems incorrectly and more often than not if a student knows his/her answer is incorrect he/she will go back and rework it to get it correct.  Students with questions either post them on Edmodo, or ask them at the beginning of class the next day.  (I post answers only and I only accept their homework if they have the work, this keeps them from turning in a sheet with my answers.)  

As an aside, I totally understand the "limited homework" rationale and I often question our "homework Monday-Thursday" routine.  The reality of it is, though, that when students get to high school and college the demands are intense (at least they are in my district...I'll have a junior this year...I know!).  I feel like if we don't prepare our students for the academic and work-habit/time management demands we haven't fully prepared them.

Until next time...

Minds on Math Chapter 4 - Community

I have, for the last few years, attempted collaborative groups in my classroom.  What typically happens is that the groups work for the first semester, but the students come back from the holiday break and are different creatures (I'm not sure how two weeks does that to them!), but when they come back, I have a hard time being patient with them in groups.  Inevitably, my class ends up in rows shortly after returning from the break.

This chapter on community was important for me in a couple of ways.  First, it reinforced what I believe to be true, students learn better in collaborative community groups.  One of the activities that I start out the year helps students see this.  I have the students list all of the Major League Baseball teams that they can think of.  I give them about 30 seconds to complete this.  Of course, no one ever gets them all.  Then I let them confer with their groupmates and allow them to combine their lists.  What they realize is that they are better as a group than any individual was on his or her own.

Second, I took away from this chapter that perhaps my groups were not working as I would have liked because I wasn't intentional enough at the beginning of the year.  Unfortunately, I cannot wave a magic wand and wish perfect groups upon my students!  Building a community not only takes time, but it takes continual reinforcement of group goals and norms.  Building a community requires work:  reinforcing those things that are going well and correcting those things that need improvement.  

One of the suggestions in this chapter that I really liked and would like to incorporate this year is that of individual preparation time.  Wendy Ward Hoffer writes, "learners often succeed best in community endeavors when they have chances to read, write, and think alone for at leas a few minutes before engaging with others."  I often assign tasks and let the groups dive right in.  Ward Hoffer's statement about preparation time makes me wonder how much better my groups might have been if I had given my students this time to think before beginning.  I think this especially helpful for at-risk and special needs students because it gives them a chance to form their own ideas (something I don't think they get a chance to do when groups start immediately because their voices are overshadowed by stronger students).

I'm off to find community-building activities for my first week of school.

For the kids,

Minds on Math Chapter 2

Wow!  That's what I thought over and over as I read through chapter 2.  There were so many things in chapter 2 that left me feeling as if I had been overlooking the obvious for years.  The chapter was about tools, not the kind in the garage, the kind we use (or should be using) in the classroom.

As a former ELA teacher (and self-proclaimed lover of books), Hoffer's suggestion of using ELA strategies in the mathematics classroom was my biggest take-away from this chapter.   Ward Hoffer refers to the strategies as "Thinking Strategies", but the strategies are the same as what ELA teachers are teaching our students to use when they read.  Can you say genius?

All great teachers know the benefits that cross-curricular lessons have for students and teachers.  So why hasn't it clicked until now that we could use the same strategies?  Imagine the time saved when we can refer to what students already know and do and how students can use that to dive into rich mathematical content! Ward Hoffer writes, "These strategies are far more than sentence stems and conversation starters, but rather learned approaches that can scaffold students' independence as problem solvers" (p. 29).  

I am a Texas teacher, and as everyone knows, Texas did not adopt the Common Core Standards.  In Texas we have content standards and process standards.  The process standards include application, using a problem-solving model, using appropriate tools, communicating, creating and using representations, analyzing relationships, and displaying, explaining, and justifying mathematical ideas.  Our task, and a focus in our district this year, is to purposefully incorporate the process standards into our lessons.  In some ways the Thinking Strategies overlap our process standards (i.e.create representations & mental models) and in others, they work hand in hand.

I have started looking at some of the topics that come up early in the school year.  I want to take a look at what specific strategies and process standards I can use with those topics and how to reformat the class so that it fits the workshop model.  So much to do and so little time!  So much for summers off :)

Thoughts on Chapter 1

My biggest ah-has!

To be clear, some of these weren't necessarily "ah-has" as much of a reminder of things we tend to forget as we battle all of the forces pulling at us as we do our jobs.

• The importance of sharing and reflection - I've talked about this with co-workers, and I know in my own practice that when I take the time to do this, I benefit both myself and my students.  Yet, despite "knowing", and even "believing" this, I find it easy to skip due to lack of time.  I am one of those guilty of allowing "learners to work right up to the bell"!  This was a good reminder that this is an important part of the learning process.
• Work time - "The bulk of a minds-on math workshop is devoted to work time."  Even though I know that this is the way it should be, I often find it easier to "manage" my class if I have "control" over it and am the one doing the work and the students are "captivated" by watching me.  Yes, I'm hanging my head in shame right now, but I think we probably all have those classes that just have a difficult time staying on task when left to their own devices.  

What I'm already doing...

• Community - I think my teaching partner and I do a really good job of building community in our classrooms.    One thing I hear frequently from parents is that their child (who may or may not have struggled in math) now finds math interesting and fun.  (Always a good thing to hear!)  For the most part, our grade-level as a whole does a good job with this and I think it really helps the students understand the benefits of belonging to a community of learners.

Next steps...

• Creating more purposeful openings - Obviously these need to be planned....which is something easy for me to overlook, and why they aren't always as useful as they could be.  I find them difficult to plan because there are times during a class period when I think "I want to review this in tomorrow's opening".  Or, where I do want to spiral a skill previously taught and incorporate a more current topic.  Other times, the dynamics of classes vary and what works with one class doesn't work with another, or what one class needs isn't what another class needs.  (It's all so much more complicated than those outside education realize!)
• Work time - I'm so guilty of "rescuing" students who I feel are struggling.  Instead of letting them struggle with the math, I'm too quick to jump in and help (or even worse, lead them to an answer).  I need to work on questions that will help without giving answers.  Once last year, I asked a question that I knew would be a little difficult but at the same time was not out of reach.  My students just wanted an answer.  They left class without one and were not happy when they left the room.  For my part, I felt a little guilty that we ended on that note, but I secretly smiled inside when one of those students came to me before class the next day with the answer!

Can't wait to see what goodies the rest of the book contains!

For the love of good teaching,

Melanie