Involve Me and I Learn

Today I tried a new formative assessment with my AP Computer Science students. We are working in bases and I was having a difficult time telling who was really getting it and who wasn't getting it. I realized I needed a new formative to check for understanding.

That is when the above Chinese proverb came to mind. I told them, but they were forgetting, I taught them and they were remembering but not able to apply it, so I needed to involve them. So what formative assessment would work in this case? Simple, involve them and let them write the assessment.

It started with a piece of lined paper for each student. I had them fold it down the middle the long way, or as one student said "hotdog style". They put their name on each half. On the right they had to come up with 9 problems: 3 problems that convert from Base10 to Base2 (or visa versa), Base16 to Base2 (or visa versa), and 3 more that convert Base16 to Base2 (or visa versa). They could put the questions in any order they wanted. On the right half, they had to create the answer sheet.

That's right, I had them creating pop quizzes.

That meant they had to work through the 9 problems they created to come up with the answer sheet. I told them they could ask for as much help from me as they wanted to write these quizzes. My stragglers quickly popped up. Most did OK, some wanted me to check their first few questions then completed the rest on their own. One student needed one on one help through the whole process, and I had to reteach her most of the concepts. She had an "Ah Ha" moment and completed writing her quiz and answer sheet.

Then came the exchange.

I used a ruler to tear the page in half. I kept the answer sheet and the other half went to a different student, who put their name under the creator's name. They took each other's quizzes, and went to the student who originated the quiz if they had a clarifying question. I collected the quizzes as they finished them.

I collected them but I didn't correct them.

When we return to school next week, I will hand out the quiz and answer sheet to yet another student. That student will add their name under the quiz taker's name and will use the answer sheet to correct the quiz. If there is an answer on the quiz that does not match the answer sheet, then the student doing the correcting needs to determine which one is right, the quiz or the answer sheet and mark them accordingly. I will then take the quizzes back and enter their formative grade before giving them back their completed quizzes. If I see any patterns that need to be addressed, we'll take time to do that in class.

If all goes well, we can start Base8 on the next class day!

This formative is a keeper. I was able to reteach on the spot and it gave confidence to the students who understood the work.

Setting Up a Competency Based Classroom

Our school has been going through a redesign and transformation to a competency based system. Every year has been a little different than the year before. One of my pitfalls during this process has been the posting of the competency we are working on.

I started setting up my classroom this week and decided to make it a priority to come up with a system that would be easy for me to follow, and right in front of the students.

I have put my competencies on construction backed strips with magnets on the back. I sectioned off the dead space on either side of the SmartBoard portion of my white board. One section for each prep. Each class has 6 competencies. We usually concentrate on one at a time, sometimes two.

I can remove the competencies that we are not working on that day, which also frees up space in that section for me to write items of importance (such as the essential question!).

Helping students reflect on their work is also another area where I have struggled. I have put together a board of prompting questions for reflection on learning so that students will have it at their disposal.

Clock Watchers

Not really a part of the competency based class room but in a computer lab where the clocks on the computers have a different time than the clock on the wall, it can cause much confusion. To resolve this confusion, I have cleverly covered the clock in my room to encourage them to keep their eyes on their computers, where a clock is readily available.

I would like class room management ideas from other high school teachers who run competency based class rooms. Thanks in advance.

Celebrating Academics

Tonight was our Academic Award night. My own daughter walked away with hardware for the shelf. It is an amazing feeling as a parent to see your child's value of education recognized, but even better, to celebrate and elevate the hard work of your own students.

My other daughter is a Senior this year so we are going through the ending of an academic era in her life. That is bittersweet. I am excited about the next step in her life, but sad that she is moving a couple states away. This is no small accomplishment for her. She struggled through and was a C student throughout. This year she really pulled it together and became the student I always knew she could become, but she regrets not taking it to this level sooner. She didn't get into her first choice for college, but she is going. I assured her that the taste of success she is feeling now will carry over to college. I think she'll find college the place where she'll bloom.

Next year I will have the largest AP Computer Science class that our high school has ever seen. A large APCS class in the past has been 6 students, next year I'll have 14. I'm very excited about this because it shows that our student body is starting to see a value in a more challenging class, and the competitiveness this course will afford them as they compete for spots in top notch colleges.

This year's graduation class had two students who made it into the first round of the Merit Scholarship competition, and one of them became a finalist. His reward for all his hard work is a full scholarship to Northeastern, which is his first choice school. The other student will be attending Yale in the fall, with a large scholarship from the college that will nearly pay all her tuition.

Tonight we announced that in our Junior class, a student has moved into the Merit Scholarship competition. I can't wait to see where it takes her as she is entering her Senior year.

There is so much negative in the media about our students not hitting the target. I think it is important not to forget that some are hitting the target, and others are creating that target. I'm so proud of them all. I can't wait to see where all this hard work takes them. This is the time of year we can truly celebrate our academics!

What Will Education Look Like in Ten Years?

I have been thinking a lot lately about what school will look like 10 years from now. I am finishing my 6th year of teaching right now and it has changed tremendously over those 6 years. Most of the changes are related to technology but I think the bulk of the changes are a reflection on how the world is changing around us.

The world is flat once more. We are able to connect in so many ways that we couldn't connect just a few years ago. Today at a PD presentation, another teacher told us about QuadBlogging. We can now enroll our student or classroom blogs into this blog exchange system with other schools throughout the world. We can get feedback from outside of our buildings. It is the digital version of our old penpal projects done when I was a student in the public school system.



So what will schools look like in 10 years?

I think school (the physical building) will be a place where students go when they are struggling, or need resources, or need to collaborate with people in person. School will provide offices for their teachers as a place where they develop curriculum or meet for professional development or to meet with students for individualized instruction. Schools could very well abolish their bells and become a place of computer labs and recording studios. Learning will become an anyplace/anytime venture. Students will be able to enroll in courses online from a menu of schools who employ highly skilled instructors. Students might be enrolled in multiple online schools so they can have their pick of classes as well as instructors. Their local institution may end up becoming a clearing house for their learning by tracking what students are required to do, testing their competency, setting them up with internships, referring them with online programs that meet their individual needs, tutoring services, learning portfolio and project presentations, etc. Texting their teachers might become as common to them as texting their friends. Accessing learning will be done on-the-go using cell phones and tablets with data plans.

This is just what has been rattling around in my mind. It makes me wonder as a professional instructor how I should prepare myself for this shift? I am currently developing my courses to be blended, requiring all my students to use an online component. I suspect that eventually I will have requests for my blended material be made available to students who cannot fit Computer Sciences into their regular schedule as a way to earn their credit in the subject area. They will become distant learners, but in the building with their online instructor.

An important aspect of this shift will live with the students. They will need to become managers of their own time. They will need to start planning so they can fit it all in. Right now we plan their time and direct that time with bells and a school year that ends on the 180th day. A student that has good time management skills can finish a course in half the time whereas a student that does not manage their time well could end up taking twice as long. Time to learn becomes rolling, and honestly, makes it necessary to have school year round. Learning could become what it should be, a natural process of curiosity and discovery.

Again, this is just what is rattling in my brain. In fact, 10 years from now, kids could still be required to enter the building, spend 6 hours a day there and go home at the end of the day. Maybe we will still have a bell system that moves them from one subject to the next throughout the day. But my gut tells me that the digital component that is entering our lives will force a change in the physical part of how we educate our students.

Grade Level Expectations

I read this post

Here is my response:


In 1999 I was not in education but I was a parent with students who were above grade level expectations. It was the Kindergarten teacher of my oldest who suspected her acting out in class was because she already knew how to read and write and was bored during those lessons. We lived in Arizona at the time and she suggested a Charter School for my daughter. My daughter had to go through testing during that summer before her first grade year to determine her placement. As a first grader she was changing classes throughout the day and working through levels (but never "grade" levels). She was promoted twice in her reading classes during the school year and then promoted (later demoted back) in her math class. She never saw herself as a "first grader" but she could say "I'm on level C for math and Level J for reading". She knew if she wanted to advance, she had to put in the work to do that and if she slacked off in the next level, that she could be sent back a level.

When we moved to NH in the middle of her second grade year, there was no grade level on her transcript so the school here had to call Arizona. Arizona told her that at their lowest level she would be in third grade. NH decided that she was too young to be in the third grade, so they put her in the second grade. The acting out began again. I asked them to promote her up so she would be challenged and assured them that if they did, the acting out would disappear. The school board did not agree with me and she has resented it ever since. Even now as she is getting ready to graduate with 7 more credits than our high school requires, she says "I could be in college right now".

So I agree, from experiencing it as a parent, and watching my own students, that grade level expectations sort of puts a kink in competency based learning. Students can be promoted (or demoted) based on real-time performance throughout the school year.

Reporting What I Learned at ASCD12

I have been consolidating my notes from the ASCD conference in Philadelphia. I do have to say that the convention has recharged me and relit my love for my job. I have been in the muck lately. I haven't ventured out to meet others with like minds, passion and new ideas. I have been doing my research in a redesign bubble. It also made me realize how far ahead we are in some aspects at my school, but how far behind we are in other aspects.

The convention also helped me realize that I'm on the right track with the blended classroom model I am trying to develop. Before the convention, I based my practice for this model on the research I've been doing independently. Now that I have been able to interface with like minds who have been doing this longer, I have found new ideas that I can inject.

I also found out how I can use social networking tools to keep my PD personalized and up to date. I am trying to make a habit out of using Twitter to start building my personal learning network (PLN). This allows me to get information in real time about things I'm interested in learning about. I have even been getting incidental information about things I didn't know were out there.

I wish our school would open up social networking to our professional staff so I could show them what I'm learning. Right now, the way it stands, I would have to capture video on my computer from home and bring in the video if I wanted to show them. Too many road "blocks" in place right now.

I also like the idea of a senior academy as a means to help our seniors transition to a world of work and independent learning. A nay-sayer this morning at the teacher's table said "We had that at our old school and we found that the kids were packing in all their required classes their first 3 years so they can make their senior year as light as possible." And my response was "Really? They started planning their freshman year with the end in mind? They tried to manage their time so that they can graduate on time?" I was probably a bit too snarky, but the point was that is what we want them to do! We have students here that are on the 6-year plan because they drag their feet through the mud, not seeing a value in taking their classes, doing well in them and going in to the world ready to work. But if they get a motivation, like a light senior year, to start working in their classes so they can do better, finish them on time, and then have a lighter senior year then yeah!

But the point of senior academy is not only to open the campus for our seniors who don't have classes, but also to free up their time so they can work on that in-depth senior project. It frees them up to do community service which will help them become competitive for scholarships, or prepare them to be good citizens. It gives them some independence to learn how to juggle school and work, much like they will have to when they go to college. Sometimes I think we are not really preparing them to be independent with their time. They finish high school with every minute of their day planned for them and then three years later they are like lost lambs on a college campus trying to figure out where and when they are supposed to be someplace.

When the Teacher is the Student

One of my hobbies is weaving and another is sewing. I enjoy fiber arts, and it is such a remove from my job teaching technology that I look forward to working on my projects. Yesterday my daughter and I went to a fiber arts symposium broken down into various classes.

I signed up for five classes, none of which were weaving. The first class I took was "Learn How To Knit". This is something I've always wanted to do, so it has been added to my bucket list.

I had a very patient teacher. I needed so much help with every step that I thought to myself "why am I bothering?" Why? Because I have always wanted to learn this. It would be a good skill to have. People have been doing this for hundreds of years and I would like to continue that tradition. I just wasn't getting it.

I found casting on very challenging. My yarn was coming untangled as I knit. She stopped the class to show me how to cast on. Then she showed us how to do the knit stitch. She had to stop the class to show me how to knit stitch. Then we practiced. I was getting pretty good with the knit stitch, even getting a little faster. My confidence was building, my fingers were going faster and it actually started looking half decent. Then she stopped us to have us do the purl stitch. I now had to wrap my mind around a different stitch. I was fumbling, I was untangling and I was highly frustrated. She stopped the class to show me how to purl.

I was thinking about all this on the way home. How much accommodation this teacher made just for me. I met the objectives of her class. I'm able to sit on my own and cast on, knit and purl. I'm not very good at it YET but I know with practice I'll be doing it as mindlessly as I weave or sew. In fact, I had even bought an extra learning kit so I could show my older daughter how to do it when I returned home, because she couldn't be there with us that day.

That is when I faced my first test, or summative as we call them at our school. I had to switch from knitting student to knitting teacher. That would be the real proof of my understanding. Could I pass my knowledge on to someone else?

I was not very successful at teaching her how to cast on, so she looked it up on YouTube. She finally figured it out. I was able to successfully teacher her how to knit. I have not taught her how to purl yet, but she was fine with that because she wants to master knit before purl.

This morning I tore apart my project again and practiced casting on. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. Then I started practicing knit again and decided to stick with that until I can do it mindlessly, then I will do purl again.

My teacher couldn't have given me that extra attention that I needed if it had been a class of 30. We were a class of 6 students. I was learning hands-on. I didn't need to know the entire history of knitting before picking up a needle. I jumped in there and started learning by doing. I didn't need to have an IEP in place to get that individualized attention, I just needed a teacher that could read me. I didn't need to be assigned homework to practice the skills, I went home and discovered my short comings in the craft when trying to teach it to someone else, and my daughter showed me how using available resources (YouTube) can enhance learning. Most important, I didn't need to get a grade or have credit attached to what I was doing to make me want to learn it.

What did I need?

I needed a desire to learn it
I needed the opportunity
I needed the materials (needle and yarn)
I needed a patient teacher
I needed to be able to share what I learned with someone else who wanted to learn
I needed to be able to make mistakes and start over
I needed to determine what I wanted to practice, and what I wanted to wait to practice

Now I need to figure out how to transfer this discovery of what I needed in order to learn to my own students so they will want to learn in spite of credit, grades or graduation requirements.