Making Math More Like Science

This is my second time teaching Grade 7 Science, and once again I am blown away with the simplicity of the material but how it "blows our brains" as my students explain. As a class we have spent days talking about The Particle Theory. These 5 postulates have caused us to question everything from why does it take longer to make a cold tea than hot to the fact that we are made of the same stuff of dinosaurs. What would seem like 5 simple rules has caused all students in the class to question, explore and expand their thinking.

Having taught math for the majority of my career, I am used to parents and students feeling that the same enrichment and challenge only comes from the exploration of material beyond the curriculum. We have to leave the material of Grade 7 so that a student can become equally engrossed and inquisitive about the material as their peers. However, from observing my Science students I challenge this full heartedly. As we explore the same concepts of Science, each student is driving their thinking forward from their own questions. No new material is being presented to them, but they are using their current knowledge to ask questions and see how they can apply this thinking to the world around them. The difference I see from this and a math class is that math does not encourage student driven questions. There is a sense that an order must occur in the learning of material and that the teacher should guide it. I want to put this thinking in the garbage this year and make it so that math and science are structured in the same manner; the presentation of foundational concepts and the time for students to explore and make connections on their own.

This will be a challenge. I know from personal experience that students are taught to ask questions in science since these exhibit wonder and excitement about the material. Asking questions in math class could have a very different reaction from peers and the teacher. It could indicate an inability to grasp the concept, not able to focus on the prescribed task or "not what we are thinking of at the moment". Students, and parents, are trained to learn, practice and then perform rather than the science of learn, question, explore and perform.

To do this I have made my students first math project to be one where they need to ask their own question where proportional reasoning is the base. How far they push and go with the ideas is up to them. My last blog post goes into more details of the project. However, over this past week I am more convinced that a great exploration and student driven activities are necessary in math classes to develop the math students my high school coworkers are hoping to have come their way. They are wanting to have the thinkers, and not just the calculators.

Who is Doing All the Work?

I made a new motto for this school year: Get the Students To Do the Work.

It came from a volunteer training program for a call centre I did over the summer, where my greatest challenge was to remember to let the caller do all of the work. My job as the volunteer was to hear their ideas and then reflect them back. It was hard for me to not go straight to thinking of solutions and next steps. However, I found that being able to provide an open space for the caller to explore an idea they had, gave them more clarity in the end rather than me trying to pipe in. So this is what I am exploring this year. Giving the students the opportunity to start the exploration, rather than the strong teacher guided exploration.

I also ended last year with the goal of making my classroom and products created be more “grade 7”. I have always had the tendency to create projects or activities which are great, but take the time and attention of a Grade 9 student. I would do this because my students were capable of doing it with the right support, but they lost the time to think of their own ideas and questions. The final product looked amazing, but it wasn’t with a clear student mark on it.

So to reach both of these goals I have started the year with being open about what the learning goal and standard they are going to be evaluated on, and then asking them to create their own project to demonstrate this. Our first learning goal is the understanding and application of proportional reasoning and to demonstrate this using a variety of tools.

Click Here for the Project Outline

So to start, I told the students we were going to do a project about proportional reasoning. The next step was for them, at their desks to research what proportional reasoning actually is. We did a placemat activity at their tables and then came together as a class to share what we had found and created a definition of proportional reasoning. 

This activity was a great equalizer for the groups. Students of all math abilities had equal opportunities to provide input with their research. Also, since they all have had exposure to this concept since their early primary years, they all could relate to what was being found. We came together as a class to share our ideas where I acted as a scribe on the board, almost in a Bansho manner. They then went back, added to their sheets. Many were not fully completed, but my plan is to present the placemats back to the groups midway and at the end of their projects for them to add more detail as they understand and explore.

Their next step is to create a question that they find interesting and want to explore that uses proportional reasoning. The week before the class had worked to find out the cost of my grilled cheese sandwich by creating a question ladder, asking questions and using proportional reasoning skills. This was a diagnostic on my end to see what natural instincts to solve this kind of question would be used by each student. We created more questions together, some similar to their grilled cheese sandwich, and others more abstract. They are now creating their own question and developing a question ladder of their plan to solve it. By the end of the week students were thinking of questions that they were interested in, and therefore ones that they will persevere through determining how to solve.

Next week we are going to be looking at different types of questions involving proportional reasoning and thinking of the various strategies that we can use to solve them. All of these strategies will come from the students as I sit back and observe. Fingers crossed that is!

End of Year Reflections

With my first year teaching Grade 7 Math and Science over, I have come away really loving this year. Compared with my past few years where I have taught four or five classes, working with only two classes over two subjects and homeroom made the year feel quite different. I felt that I worked more closely with the students, parents and supports in the school due to having half of the number of faces and stories to work with. Yes, the downside is that I didn't get a chance to meet the whole grade, but I am looking forward to being in the same class and having the same set up next year. With this in mind, I have made my "Affirm, Refine and Aspire" for next year. 

Affirm:

The big thing that was affirmed for me this year is that I do love Middle School. I really enjoy how my students are wanting independence in their learning, want to explore the world around them, play games and challenge themselves, me and their peers. I also love how forgiving this age group is if you are honest with them. I have learned that once they feel you are on the same "team" as them, they will be alright with me saying "hey, I want to try something out today. I think that it will be fun, and I look forward to your feedback afterwards". They are concerned about their performance, but are open to seeing and focusing on their personal growth and goal setting rather than a percentage grade at the end. 

Refine:

This year I focused on assessment and evaluation; its purpose, goals and outcomes in my class. I started, with the support of my teaching team, using a Standards Based Grading (SBG) platform with my class. This method meshed perfectly with my Challenge by Choice activities as well as my strong belief in creating opportunities at any point for students to demonstrate their understanding. Going into next year, I want to refine how I will be using SBG. I will start the year with using Fresh Grade, a program to organize the evaluations and assessments as well as the standards. I am considering giving students the list of goals at the start of each unit and encouraging them to track their own growth over the year and take ownership over their learning. From using a quiz goal list in Khan Academy I have seen how my students used it to take the responsibility in their learning and review. I am hoping that the same thing will be possible in their "Learning Goals" (Standards) 

Aspire:

My mind, as it always has, always goes BIG with my ideas and goals. However, what has happened is that my big thinking and great ideas are great, but they also don't provide the time and breathing room for my students big ideas and personal exploration. I am setting the goal for next year to be more "Grade 7". To me this means that I am not trying to get my students to create final products that are reflective of a Grade 10, but ones that are reflective of each person at Grade 7. To do this, I am planning on taking the first three months of the school year to show my students the thinking routines, goal setting and essential skills (such as research, communication, and group work) that they will need for the year. After this, I am hoping to create more open ended projects, questions and ideas that my students will use tools described before to explore and communicate their learning. I also want to aspire to more individual check in time with students, going over their goals and what they are doing to meet the goals over time. 

To help with my goals, I am taking time over the summer to learning. I am taking the online course called "Science and Cooking" to get Grade 7 ideas for creating experiments that my students will do at home and explain the science to their families. I will explore Standard Based Grading further by reading Rick Wormeli and I am also looking at online tools that would be the best for my students to track their learning.

I also am setting the goal of taking more time for my own reflection over the year, and trying to do a better job on my blog. I want to track my thinking and development going forward so I can be better at explaining how I got to the end to others when they ask.

Hope that you all have a great summer! 

 

Transitioning to Standards Based Grading: The Evaluation

I am currently on a journey with my teaching partner to transition our Grade 7 Math and Science classroom into a Standards Based Grading (SBG) classroom. We are the only ones in our Middle School program doing it, so I have been very grateful for the ideas and feedback from others through the #SBLchat on twitter, online conferences and other teachers blogs.

This post is my reflection prior to handing back the first standards based written evaluation (test) to our students and their parents. So far, I am feeling pretty good. 

Due to the recommendations of others, at the start of the unit we handed the students out the list of the three standards that we were exploring as well as the success criteria for each. Since I am in Ontario, our success criteria was identified to be one clearly stated expectation for each of the categories (Knowledge, Application, Thinking and Communication). This way we ensured that each standard had a balance between the categories. 

Click here for this document. 

Students, with the standards in hand, didn't really get too excited. I however told them how excited I was... and they gave me a round of applause for my enthusiasm. Needless to say, that by presenting them with the standards at the start made no difference than in the past unit. So we continued on, completing activities in class, formative quizzes, challenge by choice stations and weekly homework. Each weekly quiz had a standard at the top so the students could gauge their development and understanding. The one difference that did occur was when the written evaluation time was decided, the students were not asking "Miss, what is on the test?". They all were aware of the standards as it was identified in each assignment, activity and homework problem that they did. 

Prior to the evaluation the students did a reflection identifying how they felt about their understanding for each standard (Working on, Proficient and Mastered) and they created their own review based on their reflection. The students appeared fairly confident and not stressed. 

Click here for this document.

As for me, I was very happy. Since having created the standards and how clear they were for the students, they were also clear to me. Instead of having "Fractions" be the title of the evaluation where before I would have been stressed to create an evaluation that was challenging, reflected the standards, but also would allow the students to show their understanding, having the standards, the creation of the evaluation was easier. I knew exactly what kinds of understanding I was needing to look for. Since there were no "marks" for each question, I could have standards appear in multiple questions, allowing me to see the understanding of my students thinking in diverse problems. At the end I was not trying to determine the "weight" of each question based on the marks out of the total, but now I could create an evaluation that focused on the student showing understanding.

Now that the evaluation has been written, the next part is if the students and parents will understand the feedback. One challenge has been that we don't use percentages, but instead use levels where 3 is meeting the expectations. Parents, struggling to understand how they child is doing, try every which way to convert the level into a percentage, which they understand since it reflects their upbringing. Our the evaluation we have given a level, but also shown where that level came from. This is done through a table at the back outlining the success criteria under each category that the students were provided at the start of the unit. Parents now will be able to see what specific idea/skill/method of explanation their child is working on/proficient/mastered. 

Click here for the evaluation.

Our next step is for the students to complete a reflection upon the return of the evaluation, emailing home this reflection, and then going through the evaluation with their family. We are then asking parents to give us feedback to say if they have a better understanding of their child's understanding and next steps. Hopefully this feedback (in an anonymous survey) will help us identify our next steps for supporting our students and parents to transition into, what we are hoping will be, a growth mindset evaluation process.

Next post will be looking at the parent feedback. I have also been testing out the FreshGrade mark book software and I will also be sharing my thoughts on it.

After reading this, if you have any ideas or recommendations for me, please comment them below. This is a growing stage and all feedback is helpful. 

Assessment: Working towards a "standards based grading"

Learn from your mistakes.

This is the idea that is pushed in my classroom and in the classrooms that I grew up in. The idea that it is important to make mistakes so that you can go back and improve on them. This idea, for the past two years, has made be continuously question the practice that I do in my class around assessment.

As a MS math teacher, I assess students consistently through formative work as well as signature evaluations that are both projects and written "tests". For the projects I was using a rubric, broken down into the categories K/A/T/C, allowing the students to see how to achieve a level 1, 2, 3, or 4. My written tests had marks beside each question, identifying how many of them would go to each category. At the end of the assessment, students would be able to see what level they received in each category... and then move on.

I didn't like this. How was this learning from their mistakes? My questions started to come:

1. After an assessment can my students identify their strengths and challenges based on the curriculum expectations that they were being assessed on or just in the general KATC categories?
2. After an assessment, can my student identify what concept they need to look over again?
3. Why are my parents converting everything into a percentage? Are they unable to identify how their child is doing in their learning?
4. Can my students move into the next unit of study and be given the opportunity to improve on their understanding of a concept AND I have record to show that they have improved?

For each of these questions, my answers were a NO. 

Due to this, I am starting to look at Standards Based Grading... with an Ontario twist. This means that I am making standards that also correspond to the categories. My teaching partner and I have tried quite a few things so far, but we are (for the rest of the year) going straight with the standards. 

Students will get a list of the standards at the start of the next unit. They will see these standards on all of the assessment, and also be given the opportunity to complete a redo/retake of a specific standard that did not go well. 

With this goal in mind I hope that students WILL be able to learn from their mistakes. First they will be able to identify the mistakes, create a review plan and then I can create an assessment that woks best for that student. It also means that a student CAN go back and show understanding when they understand it, not when the project is due. For sure, they will still do that project, but it doesn't mean that in the next unit, they might also include a question/topic that allows them to show an improved way of thinking. 

So far, I am excited. My teaching partner and I are sharing our process so far at the ISOMA conference tomorrow (in Toronto). 

Twitter Chats: Inspirational Weekday Hours

Over the past three weeks I have made an effort to explore Twitter further as my Cohort 21 members have told me about how great a PLC it can be. So I jumped feet first into it by signing up for Twitter deck and found what weekly chats were occurring and which matched my interest. Here is my list.

Monday Night: #MSmathchat
This is the middle school math chat group. I like this group as it is directly linked to my teaching focus. There are great resources for activities, methods of teaching and ideas to engage MS students. Also a great place to meet others that may have a blog with fun resources.

Tuesday Night: #Scichat
This is Science chat with science teachers sharing resources and ideas. The times that I have been on it is not as structured as the other chats, but more of a time that people are around and there if you are wanting to share a challenge or resource.

Wednesday Night: #SBLchat
This chat is the Standards Based Learning group. A big movement in the states, and one that I am interested in exploring. It is a good group to get ideas of how to implement this assessment method in your classroom. I am hoping to bring it in as it matches with Ontario's "Most consistent, Most recent" idea.

Thursday Night: #MSchat
This chat is for Middle School teachers. On my first chat I found a teacher who is doing interesting things with rubrics and student conferencing after projects. This encounter has turned into email exchanges so that I can better understand how she is implementing this strategy. I like this chat as it has all types of individuals connected with the Middle School world so if you have a question or idea, it is a great place to send it and get feedback.