When I was in the interviewing process to find a teaching job, I was constantly asked, "Do you believe all students can learn?" The answer that they were looking for of course was, "Absolutely!" Sometimes though, in my classroom I find myself wondering if all of my students can actually learn the content I am teaching them. So I think the answer to the question is somewhat tricky. Yes, all students can learn. Can all students learn and apply the concepts from my Algebra class? I don't know. For the most part they can all at least regurgitate back to me the processes that I teach them, but I don't think they would be able to apply these skills out of context.
I think that this is why Laura Resnick and Sharon Nelson-Le Gall wrote the article "Socializing Intelligence". They suggest shifting the focus of intelligence studies from what academic content do students know to what skill sets can students acquire and use properly in the right contexts. This means less focus on assessing content and more focus on assessing a student's learning process. They also suggest that effort can lead to good learning skills which in turn leads to understanding. Putting this all together, I see their theory as a way to redefine intelligence as more of the process of being able to ask the right questions and solve problems with skills that have been acquired.
This new way to think about intelligence also redirects some of the focus from WHAT the teacher is teaching to HOW the teacher is teaching. The Four Domains of Teaching Responsibility is a great tool for teachers to use to 1)plan and prepare lessons that are meaningful and have specific learning goals for individual students, 2)create a classroom environment that is the most conducive for student learning, 3)implement methods of instruction that engages all students, and 4)exhibit professional responsibilities such as reflection and continued professional development.
Working in an Ohio school where the Four Domains are almost as important as the Bible, I have a certain level of familiarity with implementing the components of the domains. Before beginning work in Ohio though, I had never heard of the Four Domains and didn't realize how important they were to the schools I was applying at. I was amazed when some of my colleagues had binders dedicated to the domains and knew each component by heart (Ohio colleges have classes dedicated to the domains). See, in Nashville where I went to school, they teach the concepts that are presented in the Four Domains of Teacher Responsibility, but not in such a formatted way. It was taught as common practice or common sense that we should just use everyday. So when I was a beginning year teacher at Lakota West High School, I was at a major disadvantage to those that had gone to an in-state university. Though I knew that I needed to know what kind of student I was teaching (1b), demonstrate that I know what I am teaching (1a), manage classroom behavior (2d), know how to organize my classroom (2e), clearly communicate with students (3a) and parents (4c), and be flexible and respond appropriately to any given situation (3e), I had no idea there was an organized system to categorize each of those actions (which were common sense to me).
I did struggle a little bit my first year. It wasn't because I didn't know the domains (not that I'm knocking them, they are great for assessing and reflecting on your own teaching), it was more because I hadn't learned yet how to connect what I knew about my subject to things that my students could understand and relate to. I had to deal with the initial question I posed, "Do I believe that all students can learn?" After having a few years under my belt now, I can definitively say, "YES!" A lot of it though is up to me and how I present the content that I want my students to learn.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Results of Enacting Curriculum (Day 2)
Word Problems. They are generally the most feared thing in Math (besides factoring and fractions). I used the ideas put forth in our readings and started with something the students were familiar with:
If I have 5 ten dollar bills and 3 five dollar bills, how much money do I have?
The idea being that they take the amount of bills and multiply by the worth of each bill. This gets the general idea of what we will be doing with percentage problems and lots of others. So after this easy problem, I gave them:
I have 7 bills (tens and ones) that equal $34. How many of each bill do I have?
They start to think of all the possibilities and for some of the problems like this they have a hard time figuring out the right combination. So we took the original idea of multiply worth by amount and wrote an equation to help us solve. This seemed a lot easier for them from students past because they started with a basic idea. Writing an equation wasn't so bad because they already understood the concept.
This led into being able to solve "solution" problems that involved percents. In years past I just showed students a method to solve and then had them replicate it. But today, they were able to connect the amount and worth together and told me what to do to solve. Even some of my students that usually say, "I don't get it" were getting it. I was so amazed and pumped at the results. An example of the "solution" problems:
A chemist has some 8% hydrogen peroxide solution and some 5% hydrogen peroxide solution. How many mL of each should be mixed together to make a 300 mL solution which is 6% hydrogen peroxide.
Before these problems mesmerized my students, but today they were actually attempting them and solving them correctly. For you math teachers out there, if you haven't tried starting with something basic that your students already know, you need to give it a shot. For those students that struggle, I think it really built up their confidence to start with something easy then work harder.
If I have 5 ten dollar bills and 3 five dollar bills, how much money do I have?
The idea being that they take the amount of bills and multiply by the worth of each bill. This gets the general idea of what we will be doing with percentage problems and lots of others. So after this easy problem, I gave them:
I have 7 bills (tens and ones) that equal $34. How many of each bill do I have?
They start to think of all the possibilities and for some of the problems like this they have a hard time figuring out the right combination. So we took the original idea of multiply worth by amount and wrote an equation to help us solve. This seemed a lot easier for them from students past because they started with a basic idea. Writing an equation wasn't so bad because they already understood the concept.
This led into being able to solve "solution" problems that involved percents. In years past I just showed students a method to solve and then had them replicate it. But today, they were able to connect the amount and worth together and told me what to do to solve. Even some of my students that usually say, "I don't get it" were getting it. I was so amazed and pumped at the results. An example of the "solution" problems:
A chemist has some 8% hydrogen peroxide solution and some 5% hydrogen peroxide solution. How many mL of each should be mixed together to make a 300 mL solution which is 6% hydrogen peroxide.
Before these problems mesmerized my students, but today they were actually attempting them and solving them correctly. For you math teachers out there, if you haven't tried starting with something basic that your students already know, you need to give it a shot. For those students that struggle, I think it really built up their confidence to start with something easy then work harder.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Results of Enacting Curriculum
Today I actually came up with a problem that was at least somewhat interesting to my students (of course the picture of dog they saw helped). I did the typical "I am going to fence in my yard. The length is 30ft more than the width...." The twist that I put on it though that seemed to interest my students was that I asked them to compare fencing options that I had looked up on Lowe's website. I told them that they needed to give me a good reason to choose their option. It was interesting to see students work together and really discuss what the best option was. Of course I am not really in the market for a new fence, but they didn't need to know that.
Overall, I was happy with the results of the assignment. I just need to think of other situations that would interest my students. Any ideas?
Overall, I was happy with the results of the assignment. I just need to think of other situations that would interest my students. Any ideas?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Enacting Curriculum
All Lakota Students Will Achieve to Their Fullest Potential
This is the mission statement of the district that I work in. After reading articles about enacting curriculum that is potentially flawed or doesn't allow for flexibility by teachers to fit the needs of their students, I don't know how we can live up to that motto. I do think that curriculum is very important because it can help set clear goals for teachers and students. However, I think that sometimes educators get too caught up in the minutia of their subject and they don't allow for student discovery which leads to student achievement.
I like the ideas set forth in the article, "Put Understanding First" by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. I think that they have some great ideas about making learning applicable to all students so that they actually learn by discovering on their own and not just from lecture or reading a textbook. Their ideas would be great for the type of student I teach since my kids are generally less motivated than others in more advanced classes. Which this makes me think that maybe there should be different curricula for different levels of student.
Since my last blog, I have tried starting a new unit with a real life problem that needed to be solved, but I think that I can do a lot better than my students finding the distance between my house and Lexington. (Though I was amazed at how many of them didn't know that the distance from the river north to exit 19 was about 19 miles.) I also liked this article because they had an application of how to apply their strategies to a Math class. Most of the time when I read educational articles they are always applied to Social Studies or English. I always have a hard time envisioning some of those ideas put to use in my Math class.
I do think that the curriculum at my school does allow for some freedom though. It is not so structured that we have to teach certain topics a certain way. Morey Schwartz talks about this being a huge flaw in education in his article "For Whom do We Write the Curriculum?" where he discusses the idea of curriculum being a learning tool for the teacher. He has an idea that curriculum should be like a dress rehearsal for our classes in which the teacher tries out the curriculum first and then helps the students through it. This would allow the teacher to have the feeling of going through the learning process and remember what it is like to be in the students' shoes. Then the teacher can create more meaningful lessons that will help all students learn.
I like this idea to some extent. I think that it would be hard to "relearn" everything you know in a really authentic way. I would rather start with some key questions and then work from there to solve real life problems. Even now, I am thinking that I am going to have to come up with some better options for my scenarios. I like the idea of presenting mean, median, and mode by giving students a list of race times from 4 classes and having them decide who won (Wiggins). Maybe I can help students figure out how much they will have to work to be able to save enough money to buy the car they want. When I think about doing that, the Cosby episode where Theo thinks he can survive on this own runs through my head. His dad gives him some Monopoly money and then ends up taking it all back to represent rent, food, insurance, etc. I may have to invest in the game of Monopoly!
This is the mission statement of the district that I work in. After reading articles about enacting curriculum that is potentially flawed or doesn't allow for flexibility by teachers to fit the needs of their students, I don't know how we can live up to that motto. I do think that curriculum is very important because it can help set clear goals for teachers and students. However, I think that sometimes educators get too caught up in the minutia of their subject and they don't allow for student discovery which leads to student achievement.
I like the ideas set forth in the article, "Put Understanding First" by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. I think that they have some great ideas about making learning applicable to all students so that they actually learn by discovering on their own and not just from lecture or reading a textbook. Their ideas would be great for the type of student I teach since my kids are generally less motivated than others in more advanced classes. Which this makes me think that maybe there should be different curricula for different levels of student.
Since my last blog, I have tried starting a new unit with a real life problem that needed to be solved, but I think that I can do a lot better than my students finding the distance between my house and Lexington. (Though I was amazed at how many of them didn't know that the distance from the river north to exit 19 was about 19 miles.) I also liked this article because they had an application of how to apply their strategies to a Math class. Most of the time when I read educational articles they are always applied to Social Studies or English. I always have a hard time envisioning some of those ideas put to use in my Math class.
I do think that the curriculum at my school does allow for some freedom though. It is not so structured that we have to teach certain topics a certain way. Morey Schwartz talks about this being a huge flaw in education in his article "For Whom do We Write the Curriculum?" where he discusses the idea of curriculum being a learning tool for the teacher. He has an idea that curriculum should be like a dress rehearsal for our classes in which the teacher tries out the curriculum first and then helps the students through it. This would allow the teacher to have the feeling of going through the learning process and remember what it is like to be in the students' shoes. Then the teacher can create more meaningful lessons that will help all students learn.
I like this idea to some extent. I think that it would be hard to "relearn" everything you know in a really authentic way. I would rather start with some key questions and then work from there to solve real life problems. Even now, I am thinking that I am going to have to come up with some better options for my scenarios. I like the idea of presenting mean, median, and mode by giving students a list of race times from 4 classes and having them decide who won (Wiggins). Maybe I can help students figure out how much they will have to work to be able to save enough money to buy the car they want. When I think about doing that, the Cosby episode where Theo thinks he can survive on this own runs through my head. His dad gives him some Monopoly money and then ends up taking it all back to represent rent, food, insurance, etc. I may have to invest in the game of Monopoly!
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Curriculum Design
As I read the articles about curriculum design I found myself thinking that the whole educational system needed to be turned up side down. Grant Wiggins wrote an article titled The Futility of Trying to Teach Everything of Importance in which he discusses the need of an apprenticeship program which teaches students the skills they need through discovery as opposed to sitting and listening to lectures and then turning around spewing out facts and figures that they just heard. He also suggests that we start with important questions and teach students ways to solve or answer those questions.
This gave me an idea for my own Algebra classes. I am going to try something new and begin each unit with a real-life problem that students would need to solve. Then we would work on the problem and think of ways to generalize our findings. Hopefully this will give students the confidence to attack the dreaded word problems that a lot of them face during standardized tests.
Usually when I read educational articles, I have a hard time finding a way to apply their ideas to my Math classes. Generally English, Language Arts, or Social Studies courses are used as examples because it is easier to diversify instruction and apply concepts to students' lives than it is to Mathematics. After reading William Wraga's article Toward a Connected Core Curriculum I think that his ideas of connecting subjects would be easily applicable and make a huge impact on how students view education. Though it would be hard to connect Math and English, I can definitely see how Math and Science would make a great marriage. It would be easy for me to use Science as a connection to the topics being learned in my class and may show the application of the subject more. I do think that English principles can be used in all subjects by giving students writing assignments and emphasizing using proper English in all course subjects though.
As I was working on my first task for this course and as I was in the middle of my blog (I started on Thursday and finished today) a tragedy struck my school and impacted many of my students. Even as I am writing now I feel the weight of what has happened on my shoulders and really do see a need for a change in our school system. Our school has experienced its first homicide that I'm sure many of you have heard about as it has been in the news. In my naiveness, I didn't think that this terrible act really related to me because the student that was killed wasn't in any of my classes. However, after learning more about what happened and seeing how it has impacted my students from the past and the present I realize that it really has impacted me.
In thinking about curriculum, I really do see a need for something different than the system that we currently have. I think that schools are more than a place to learn book smarts. As some of my students have told me, schools are safe havens (especially after tragedies like we have just experienced), social clubs, mentoring centers, etc. Since our products are more than just college bound students, we really need to incorporate a curriculum that teaches students how to problem solve and I don't mean like trying to find the area of my backyard (a problem that I gave my students last year). When I say problem solve, I mean we need to help our students develop the skill set that will enable them to know right from wrong when they are put in tough situations; the skill set that will help them talk through their problems and find resources to help them instead of using violence; the skill set the will help them become positive contributors in our society.
I think that Applebee had a great idea when he wrote, "The construction of curriculum, then, becomes the construction of a domain for culturally significant conversations among students, teachers, and texts (taking texts broadly to include cultural artifacts of all sorts, from written documents to works of art to architectural monuments) (pg. 9)". If we could create a culturally significant conversation in our school not only could we teach students traditional topics, but we could also teach them ways to live better lives. When I say teach, I think of using the system Wiggin's dreamed about in which we started with questions and worked together (teacher, students and community) to solve the given problems. I think that it would make schooling a lot more meaningful to all the students in a school. Especially to those that are just trying to survive on a daily basis.
I think that all of the articles that I read for this task have shown that there is a need for something new when it comes to curriculum. The best bet may be to combine all the ideas presented instead of having a curriculum that is only a road map for teachers to follow. Instead it should be an open conversation that allows discovery by students in classes that relate to one another.
This gave me an idea for my own Algebra classes. I am going to try something new and begin each unit with a real-life problem that students would need to solve. Then we would work on the problem and think of ways to generalize our findings. Hopefully this will give students the confidence to attack the dreaded word problems that a lot of them face during standardized tests.
Usually when I read educational articles, I have a hard time finding a way to apply their ideas to my Math classes. Generally English, Language Arts, or Social Studies courses are used as examples because it is easier to diversify instruction and apply concepts to students' lives than it is to Mathematics. After reading William Wraga's article Toward a Connected Core Curriculum I think that his ideas of connecting subjects would be easily applicable and make a huge impact on how students view education. Though it would be hard to connect Math and English, I can definitely see how Math and Science would make a great marriage. It would be easy for me to use Science as a connection to the topics being learned in my class and may show the application of the subject more. I do think that English principles can be used in all subjects by giving students writing assignments and emphasizing using proper English in all course subjects though.
As I was working on my first task for this course and as I was in the middle of my blog (I started on Thursday and finished today) a tragedy struck my school and impacted many of my students. Even as I am writing now I feel the weight of what has happened on my shoulders and really do see a need for a change in our school system. Our school has experienced its first homicide that I'm sure many of you have heard about as it has been in the news. In my naiveness, I didn't think that this terrible act really related to me because the student that was killed wasn't in any of my classes. However, after learning more about what happened and seeing how it has impacted my students from the past and the present I realize that it really has impacted me.
In thinking about curriculum, I really do see a need for something different than the system that we currently have. I think that schools are more than a place to learn book smarts. As some of my students have told me, schools are safe havens (especially after tragedies like we have just experienced), social clubs, mentoring centers, etc. Since our products are more than just college bound students, we really need to incorporate a curriculum that teaches students how to problem solve and I don't mean like trying to find the area of my backyard (a problem that I gave my students last year). When I say problem solve, I mean we need to help our students develop the skill set that will enable them to know right from wrong when they are put in tough situations; the skill set that will help them talk through their problems and find resources to help them instead of using violence; the skill set the will help them become positive contributors in our society.
I think that Applebee had a great idea when he wrote, "The construction of curriculum, then, becomes the construction of a domain for culturally significant conversations among students, teachers, and texts (taking texts broadly to include cultural artifacts of all sorts, from written documents to works of art to architectural monuments) (pg. 9)". If we could create a culturally significant conversation in our school not only could we teach students traditional topics, but we could also teach them ways to live better lives. When I say teach, I think of using the system Wiggin's dreamed about in which we started with questions and worked together (teacher, students and community) to solve the given problems. I think that it would make schooling a lot more meaningful to all the students in a school. Especially to those that are just trying to survive on a daily basis.
I think that all of the articles that I read for this task have shown that there is a need for something new when it comes to curriculum. The best bet may be to combine all the ideas presented instead of having a curriculum that is only a road map for teachers to follow. Instead it should be an open conversation that allows discovery by students in classes that relate to one another.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
1st Blog Ever
Hello and welcome to my blog! This is my first time for blogging so hopefully I can get the hang of this. It seems strange to me to keep a journal online for anyone to see, but it does seem like a great way to communicate and have great discourse for an online graduate course. Keeping my blog up-to-date seems like a daunting task with all the other millions of things that I am involved in. I don't think it will be as easy for me to blog on the job as say someone who gets to use the computer all day and their company doesn't track their Internet access (I have friends that do this). I instead am generally on my feet all day: if not teaching, then walking around the class making sure students are on task and understanding the material.
See, I am a high school Algebra teacher. I have 45 min or so to make the biggest impact I can on my students and I like to use every minute of it. I do have a plan period, but again, that is spent planning, collaborating, checking e-mail, checking attendance, making copies, grading papers, and so on. So as you can see, my day at school is busy pretty busy so I am going to have to make sure I spend my time wisely when I am at home. I will have to blog during commercials of my favorite shows it sounds like.
Well for all you who read this, hopefully I will have something interesting to say each time I get an opportunity to blog, and hopefully you will learn a little more about what it means to be a high school Algebra teacher who is blogging for one of her graduate courses.
See, I am a high school Algebra teacher. I have 45 min or so to make the biggest impact I can on my students and I like to use every minute of it. I do have a plan period, but again, that is spent planning, collaborating, checking e-mail, checking attendance, making copies, grading papers, and so on. So as you can see, my day at school is busy pretty busy so I am going to have to make sure I spend my time wisely when I am at home. I will have to blog during commercials of my favorite shows it sounds like.
Well for all you who read this, hopefully I will have something interesting to say each time I get an opportunity to blog, and hopefully you will learn a little more about what it means to be a high school Algebra teacher who is blogging for one of her graduate courses.
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