Blog 19

Prompt: How will you address classroom management in the final weeks of school (or next semester)? Will you change anything? What kind of positive incentive plan will you implement in your classroom? How will you communicate it to students and parents?

My positive incentive plan is multi-layered. I have class points for each class, which can be earned by student participation. The class points are part of every student's grade (albeit a small percent), and are used to encourage teamwork. Students earn points by volunteering to answer questions (with guidance, if needed), submitting completed homework, committing and accomplishing certain goals, and noticing mistakes that I make. 

There are only two ways to lose class points: if students are off-task or misbehaving, I erase points that are earned one at a time off the board until order is established. Students generally pressure their peers into getting back on task or following the rules. The second way is when a student has demonstrated academic dishonesty. The first infraction will result in a zero for the assignment or assessment. The second infraction will result in the erasure of all points earned by the entire class. This is to illustrate that cheating hurts others in society at the benefit of one individual. 

I have only had two incidents where I've erased more than 1 or 2 points off of the board. Most issues have been resolved through peer pressure, therefore I do not have to expend energy in pleading students to stay on task. I simply turn to the class points on the board and slowly erase points until the class notices and gets back on task. I have not found empirical evidence that students have cheated, although one student has shown some signs once. This matter was resolved.

I have a class captain each week that is selected by the previous captain. They are responsible for making decisions on behalf of the class (e.g. choosing who answers a question, deciding when the class is ready to move on, choosing to have music or not during independent work, etc.). I award class captains with a choice of their favorite snack (under $5), which I go out and buy personally. They are also responsible for handling specific duties (e.g. reprimanding off-task students, passing out papers, etc.) that help me save time during class.

To save time at the beginning of class and get students engaged, I have a "Red/Yellow/Green" light indicator that tells students how prepared I felt they were when entering class and beginning their work. The warm-up work is always on the board once students enter the classroom, so as soon as I finish taking attendance, I circle around the room and check student work on their bell-work sheets. A timer is running and once it finishes, I determine how prepared students were for the day. 

For every green light, the class gets additional class points. Yellow lights constitute a warning. If a class gets two red lights in a row (for two days), I start with a seating chart the next day. If the red light continues, I remove privileges like music during independent practice. I have yet to go beyond the seating chart. Generally, misbehaviors and off-task issues are isolated to one or two students, so by the time the class has reached that point, they have been sent to the Responsible Thinking Room to go through an RTP and negotiate their return to my classroom. 

This program has been evolving over a year, and while it has its benefits, there are definitely flaws and loopholes that my students are finding. I may need to include a few adjustments before next semester:

1. I need to be more consistent about enforcing the rule that class points are not awarded for someone answering more than one question. Many of the same students get asked to participate over and over again.

2. I need more short-term incentives. The idea that all of the class points add up to a final percent of everyone's grade is not a strong incentive sometimes. Perhaps setting short-term goals within a time frame will help boost participation and motivation.

3. I need to be clearer about my expectations on what is considered misbehavior and what is not. Sometimes the line gets blurry and students tend to push the limits before it becomes punitive. 

Blog 18

Prompt: How do you plan to implement active engagement strategies in your classroom? How will this impact your instruction?

I believe that active engagement is a choice that students make. Certainly, teachers can create an environment or structure that keeps students actively engaged, but it is ultimately a choice that they make. There are a couple of ways that I think teachers can engage students, and a few of these ways I intend to try for myself (since I just learned about them):

1. Changing the method of questioning to include all students (e.g. instead of: "Who can tell me?" use: "I want everyone to think about...")
2. Creating roles for each person when students are grouped together (e.g. Student A will describe as many ways as they can on how to graph a linear function, Student B will hold up a finger for every correct response)
3. Allowing for sufficient think time (i.e. 3 seconds) and a signal for responses (especially for choral responses)

What worries me most is the disparity in student understanding for these activities. There is often a tendency for one student to dominate the activity (especially during group work or choral responses) and a culture of allowing that one student to mask the participation of other students. Creating those expectations and helping students overcome their own tendencies to be non-participants is tricky, since many students struggle to do even basic arithmetic and have developed a learned helplessness that has persisted for many years. Still, there is merit in allowing peer learning to occur, and engagement is definitely higher when such activities happen. If there is more active student engagement, indubitably, instruction will improve as well.

Blog 17

Prompt: How can you incorporate the STEM concepts to a particular project or lesson plan in your classroom?

The wonderful part about math is that it is a critical component of science, technology, and engineering. To incorporate science concepts, it would be particularly beneficial for me to work with the science teachers in my school. I know that after talking with our biology teacher that some of our standards like probability and exponential growth are related. Co-teaching a class or lab together would really reinforce these concepts for our students and show them how our disciplines overlap. To  incorporate technology, I know that many websites contain games or activities that teach programming or require logical reasoning to complete. Using these discovery-type apps and web-based games can provide students with an opportunity to grapple with challenging situations or sandbox their ideas in a virtual complex. There are also many engineering challenges and activities that can be found online. My favorite is the Marshmallow Challenge, since it is relatively easy and cheap to facilitate. The activity is also great for team building and has a TED video to go along with it.

Blog 16

Prompt: Have you had to go to your school counselor to assist in a situation? What was your experience in working with the counselor? Were you able to get the student or parent the resources they needed? If you have not had an experience with a school counselor, after hearing this webinar...what scares you most about the topics discussed? What thoughts did you have reflecting on the content of this webinar?

I haven't had to actually go to my school counselor for anything on my end. In fact, he has come to me multiple times to talk about certain situations. We do have a personal friendship outside of the school, so sometimes the lines between working with each other can become a bit blurred. He has come to me once about a parental complaint (concerning a student's eligibility for Homecoming queen of all things), several times regarding transferring students (he is also responsible for scheduling), and occasionally to talk about students who have had certain traumatic experiences that I should know.

In all cases, I've benefitted from being notified about these situations. I was able to call and reason (to an extent) with flustered parents, discuss the consequences of transferring students to certain classes, and adjust my engagement with students that I know are suffering from problems outside of school. I am very thankful for our counselor, who does so much on top of his required role. He has definitely given me good warnings in many cases, and I know that I would be more scared to approach parents and students without his help.

Blog 15

Prompt 1: Common Core and You! After participating in the webinar about Common Core Standards, what are your concerns? What ah-ha did you have about CCS? What will you continue to do or do differently to ensure that you are teaching to the CCS?

My initial concerns about the Common Core mainly surround how standardized assessment data will be used. I'm all for the method of using alternative questioning techniques because this pushes educators to focus on deeper understandings on learning objectives. Still, the structures are not in place at our school for rigorous learning and remediation. Currently, I do not think that the results will be favorable. And in some ways, I almost think that policymakers and CCS designers are hoping for districts to fail just so they can provide some fodder for education reform. I fear that teachers will feel punished if this data is used for evaluative purposes, but what else is data used to do?

I do like that the movement is focusing more on less standards and more in-depth and rigorous learning. Certainly, the pacing is key to ensuring that teachers feel prepared to provide adequate learning experiences for all students. Structures need to be in place that support students needing remedial practice, and students in need of enrichment also need challenging and creative ways to apply what they have learned (sounds like a lot of SolutionTree-speak, I know). Perhaps all of this will just take time to develop. I certainly hope another reformational program or movement doesn't swoop in soon to wash over this.

Currently, our school uses Beyond Textbooks for its curriculum, which isn't very helpful as far as resources. I've been told that the curriculum is CCS-aligned, but our benchmark assessments don't even model the same type of questioning that our students are expected to tackle for PARCC. While I do use the BT formative assessments, I believe that I need to start incorporating more formative assessments that ask students to find multiple ways of arriving at solutions. For example, I could teach multiple ways to graph linear functions (using slope-intercept form, creating a function table and evaluating the function, etc.) or show students how to rearrange the same formula multiple times to solve for a certain variable. Whatever the case, our students just need more practice.

Blog 14

Prompt: Am I a professional? What are my personal actions that demonstrate this? What sets me apart from the peers at my school? Do I hold myself to a higher standard? We can always improve, what can I do to improve my professionalism?

I am a professional. I have to be. The two definitions of 'professional' that I have adopted from the interpretations of others are: "someone who is able to teach their art or skill" and "someone who continues to implement best practices and develop mastery within their own field." Teaching, in my opinion, is the epitome of a profession. As far as my actions are concerned, I've continued to implement different teaching techniques and strategies into my classroom based on their effectiveness from studies and observations. I participate in ongoing professional development and contribute to new programs and ideas at the school. 

What sets me apart from the peers at my school is mostly my age. I don't like the idea of setting myself apart from my peers. That mindset breeds partisanship. For an effective professional learning community to occur, teachers should not work in isolation. Rather, we should be working as a team to ensure that all students are receiving adequate support and time to master material. Do I hold myself to a higher standard? All the time. It is the driving force of improvement. What can I do to improve? Always accept opportunities to be observed and take constructive feedback often. I learn most when I receive suggestions and recommendations from others. I feel like collaboration, coupled with self-guided active learning (i.e. testing new techniques in the classroom) will make me a better professional. It's probably the professional thing to do.

Blog 13

Prompt: Have you witnessed staff acting in an unprofessional manner? If so, what can you do to avoid pitfalls associated with unprofessional behavior?

The extent of my personal witness of unprofessional staff behavior is limited to observations of inappropriate attire and comments during faculty meetings. The norm for our school is that Fridays are casual, although I do find from time to time that some faculty members dress casually any day of the week. The most upsetting behavior I have observed occurs during faculty meetings every Friday where teachers complain about students, school policies, and other random nit-picky items in a very malicious (although apparently sarcastic) manner. There are side-conversations, some teachers are on their phones, and the topics on the agenda trail off into different tangents.

To avoid such unprofessional behavior, it is important to understand why such behavior is unproductive (and in some cases, counter-productive). Additionally, norms need to be set AND consequences for not following the norms. All stakeholders should be invested in the norms (i.e. they should be part of the norm-creation process) and all stakeholders should understand and practice the procedures for addressing a violation of the norms. This norm-setting will not only improve the professionalism of faculty meetings, it will improve school climate and culture.

Blog 12

Prompt: “What are your goals for the Spring 2014?” What are 3 things that you want to improve or initiate within your classroom this semester?  How can  your Cadre Leader support you with these goals?”

My first new thing that I want to initiate within my classroom is a new reward/incentive system that students perceive as meaningful. Currently, I am adopting a variant of Fred Jones's PAT system from his book, Tools for Teaching. My system is called time-on-task and it is a whole-class reward system that adds time to a class "bank" when students are on task and following instructions. The system is also a classroom management tool, so time can be deducted from the "bank" when students are misbehaving or being off-task. By the choice of the students, time can be redeemed, once it has accumulated to a full hour, for a day at the gym where they can play basketball and relax. While I am not personally invested in this idea, the students are invested in the program and self-regulate each other to earn more time-on-task minutes. Fred Jones suggests that PAT rewards should be "preferred academic time" where the rewarded activity is academic in nature. I would like help in designing a more academic activity that the students would find just as rewarding (if not more rewarding) for their time-on-task. 

The second thing I want to initiate is not solely in my classroom, but affects my classrooms significantly. After attending the Solution Tree PLC Summit in Phoenix, AZ a few ago, I am sold on the idea of overhauling the PLC system at our high school. We currently use our PLC time at the high school to either (1) meet and complain about the school, (2) run errands that normally would not be accomplished during the work week outside of school, or (3) work on our own priorities. The PLC system described at the conference really inspired me to transform our school system into a collaborative community that dedicates its time and efforts to ensuring that all of our students succeed, but that would require a change in our school culture and climate. I am a new teacher (and a Teach for America corps member) trying to implement this change in school to help our students improve academically and socially. I'd appreciate advice on how to institute this change effectively without ostracizing other veteran teachers (who might not have a favorable opinion of TFA). 

The third thing I want to initiate within my classroom is more rigorous assessment of student understanding. So far, a colleague of mine has talked about how he has created a process where students are able to create their own "study guide" comprised of problems they have written themselves based on learning goals and objectives. I would like to have a similar activity or assignment where my students are able to create and make problems that are relevant and rigorous for them. Any additional suggestions would be much appreciated (on how to implement such an activity or other ideas on how to achieve similar results).

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