My Teach Like a Pirate Thoughts

I began typing the following post this past winter.  I'm just getting around to finishing it now.  I have since finished reading the book, and I do recommend reading it if you haven't yet. 

Student Survey Reflection

This post references the student survey I posted about yesterday.

I was pleased that my students were honest for the most part.  Some decided to write silly answers, but that was to be expected.  Most responses were pretty standard, but a few really told me something about myself as a teacher and how I run the class.

One of the most telling prompts was "The best part about Ms. Beebe's class is ___________."  I learned that students like the notebooks, test corrections, and the class atmosphere.  I have a hard time motivating and engaging students in the math that we do.  I try to compensate by being enthusiastic and making class as fun as possible.  It's evident through the survey that I've been achieving my goal, but I need to work on finding ways to make the students enjoy the math as much as they enjoy me.

Another enlightening prompt was "Ms. Beebe is different from other teachers because ____________."  It worries me that students think their other teachers don't care about them passing or about them as people.  Many of the things they said that makes me different, I'm sure other teachers in our school also do.  Students just may not realize it.

My favorite prompt to read about was "I always felt ____________ in Ms. Beebe's class because ____________________."  From this prompt I learned that I've created the class atmosphere I've always wanted.  I'm ecstatic that my students feel happy, comfortable, welcomed, and protected.  This was one of my favorite prompts and will definitely be repeated in the future.

I was a little concerned about the "Ms. Beebe is the type of teacher who treats students like _____________________."  So many students said that I treat my students like they're my friends.  Everything I've been taught is that it is wrong for you to be on a friends level with your students because it can create classroom management problems.  I'm coming to realize that it is difficult to put that wall up with students that are only 10-13 years younger than you.  I'm easy for students to relate with, and friendly, and it comes naturally that they see me as being a friend to them.  I guess I should embrace it because it may not last as I get older.  I have to maintain focus on fostering mutual respect between my students and I to curb any possible classroom management issues.

One thing I noticed about the surveys is when reading them by class, I saw many similar responses by each class.  It really framed the experiences of the class and that each class was different based on the time of day and the students in the class. 

Here's What...

I've been unable to blog for months.  It's been killing me.  I've had so much to share, and couldn't. 

At first I was completely unmotivated to blog.  This lasted for 3 weeks.  But then, when I had something worth sharing, I was too busy.  Then I was silenced. 

I received an email from a company (at least I think it's a company) that I've never heard of (and that no one I asked had ever heard of) claiming copyright infringement because of my blog's original title.  I changed my title well over a year ago because it no longer fit my goal for the blog (I went from blogging for secondary teachers in general -because everything is for elementary teachers -and then decided to blog more specifically about math).  (I thought the original title was kind of cheesy anyway.)

The most frustrating part was being treated like I'd intentionally done something wrong when I had no idea that anyone had ever used that name before.  I sincerely felt that the message was bullying.  Now at this point, I know that I was probably taking this more personally than I was supposed to, but this was how I was feeling when it happened. 

Until I was able to go back and edit every picture that had the original blog title referenced in it, I refrained from blogging to avoid legal problems.  I simply didn't have time to sit and go through every post and edit every photo and re-post every post. 

Today was the first day of state exams, and our first day without students.  Therefore, today was my first day to come home and have nothing that needs to be done for tomorrow.  (This part of the school year is so glorious.)  So tonight, I sat down and edited all the photos that had the original title in them.  So now if you were to go through my original posts, you may notice that the photos have splotches to cover up the title.  I hate the way it looks, but there was no other way to edit the photos without cropping them, re-framing them, and then re-adding the text.  Ugh.

The good news is that I can finally start blogging again.  I have plenty of posts sitting in my drafts, and plenty of posts that I've been wanting to write.  I'm glad that I've overcome this small hurdle and can now move on.  

Interdisciplinary Unit

Our school is working on a building-wide project.  The teachers were told to pair up and create an interdisciplinary unit.  Since this is a new endeavor, the parameters are pretty loose.  We have to complete the unit sometime within the first two weeks of February and we have to incorporate another content area.  Our theme is "Around the World". 

I have such a hard time coming up with ideas for things like this.  I tend to be a very linear thinker when it comes to incorporating other disciplines into my lessons, even though I was taught to do it frequently in my undergrad.  So when I came up with an idea that not only made sense, but also worked with my current unit, I was ecstatic.  We are currently in our Polygon unit, which focuses on parallelograms.  Our next unit is Similarity.  When thinking about things from around the world that are parallelogram in shape, I thought of flags, which connect to Global History - the social studies course our 9th and 10th are currently enrolled in.  I also thought that in analyzing how the shape influences the design of the flag, students could recreate the flag to scale.

The 10th grade Global History teacher assigned students a country and had them research what the country was doing in World War I, their current unit of study, and what the flag means.  I'm having students study the properties of the shape of the flag (they're all rectangles), printing out a small picture of the flag, and having students scale the flag up to a full sheet of paper, with respect to the proper proportions.

I anticipate my next post to be about the results of the project.

Student Reflections & Resolutions

One of my goals for this year is to help students develop skills that will help them in all aspects of life.  Since the end of the first semester is right around the corner, I had them reflect on how things were going so far.

I gave them each a sheet of paper (half-sheet to cut down on waste), and asked them these 5 questions:

1. On a scale of 1-5, how hard have you been working this year?  I had them circle a number 1 through 5.  I set them up to answer the question like this - 5=I've done all of my homework, and I regularly come in for extra help; 1=I rarely do my homework, and I never come in for extra help.  These are the things that I look at most to determine if students are trying.
2. Do you think your current grade accurately reflects your effort?  I had them circle yes or no.  Prior to giving them the self-evaluation I passed out a small piece of paper with their grades written on them.  I showed them their overall average, homework average, quiz average, and test average.
3. Do you think you're on track to reach your Regents goal?  We set goals in October for the Regents exam, NWEA, and a personal growth goal.  Maybe I should post about that another time.
4. What habits have been helping you?
5. What habits have been hurting you?

I was very impressed with the honesty and maturity that my students responded with.  On question #1, no student gave themselves a 1, which I agree with.  I had two students give themselves a 5, which I also agree with.  (For some reason, my students this year are very reluctant to come in for extra help.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe I should ask in a survey.)

On question 2, I realized that I need more options.  Students need the room to be able to say "no my grade doesn't reflect my effort because I work hard and it's not paying off".  Or they could feel the opposite way.  I'll have to restructure this for next time.

On question 3, I was happy that the majority of my students said that they're not on track to reach their Regents goal because most of them are not.  There are study and test taking skills that need to be developed first.

Questions 4 and 5 were enlightening.  Students appreciate their interactive notebooks, they understand the impact of completing homework for the good and bad, they understand the detrimental effects of procrastination, and many realize that need to start seeking help.

I had my students do this reflection on Friday.  Tomorrow I'm going to have them take this a step further and complete a Keep-Change-Start-Stop form.  (For more information, read Sarah Hagan's post here.)  I did this with my students last year, but not until the end of the year.  (We had one for personal reflection, and one to reflect on my teaching.)  By doing this tomorrow, I want to essentially set new semester resolutions.  I want my students to take their reflection, and turn it into an action.  I'm going to have students complete their Keep-Change-Start-Stop, collect it to read and provide feedback, and then give it back to students to keep in their notebooks.

My New Favorite CCSS Resource

In the fall, I was fortunate to be able to participate in professional development for Common Core Geometry.  Over the summer we met with other Geometry teachers in our county and poured over the first two modules posted by EngageNY.  If you haven't seen them yet, take a look.  All five modules are now posted.  There's some great things there, but there are also several concerns.  The last thing I heard from our BOCES math specialist is that we are on our last revision that is included in the state's contract with the authors of the modules.  (Meanwhile, we are still finding typos and calculation errors.)  Another concern has been that the people writing these modules are not affiliated with the people writing our state test.  The teachers that used the modules for Algebra last year said that they didn't align to the test very well, so their students were unprepared for the common core exam.  The thing that scares me the most is that teachers from other states are using these modules too.

[Side Note - An example where we already know the modules won't align to the exam:  Rotations are taught by showing the image and preimage of a rotated figure, and students are to use constructions to find the center of rotation, and then measure the angle of rotation.  However, when students actually take the exam, they are not given access to a protractor.  This makes no sense to me what-so-ever.]

So, just in case you are using or planning to use the EngageNY modules in Geometry, I wanted to share what one teacher is doing.  She has taken the modules and broken them down into units.  On her website she posts how she adapted the modules into notes for her students.  These notes are much easier to follow as a teacher and as a student.  I have not used them with my classes because I'm taking a different route this year, but a friend of mine has been using them and she says that they've made a big difference compared to the beginning of the year when she was using the original modules.  See this teacher's lesson notes here.  I am also linking to this teacher's homepage.  On the left side, you can find videos for the lessons.

Home Office Tour

I'm not a resolutions person.  Not for New Year's at least.  It's always bothered me that if someone knows how to improve or that an improvement is needed that they can wait until January 1st of the next year before making a move.  What I love about resolutions however is all of the sales on office supplies, organizational supplies, gym equipment, workout gear, etc.  I decided to take advantage of these sales.

The sales combined with time off from work and the opportunity presented by having to almost completely dismantle my home office to accommodate my giant Christmas tree gave me the idea to refresh and reorganize my home office space.

I was inspired by this pin on Pinterest.  The shelf is from Hobby Lobby, which is currently my favorite store.  However, when I got to the store I was not thrilled with the price (even at 50% off) and the overall appearance of the shelf.  The wooden shelf is unfinished wood, and the hardware is purposely worn and cracking.  I hate that.  When I buy something brand new, I want it to look brand new.

I decided to improvise, and I purchased a plain shelf.  I'd actually been looking for a shelf to hang over my desk to get some of the decorative clutter off the desk.  While shopping for baskets to organize my closet, I had the idea to just hang wire baskets under the shelf .  The pro is getting the look that I liked, the con was not having drawers.  (I also lost out on not having the hooks under the shelf, but I don't need them anyway.)  After mulling the idea over while waiting for the baskets to go on sale, I decided to go for it.

The most exciting part of the makeover was the last second decision to move the desk so that it is nestled in the corner next to the bookshelf that was already there.  Unfortunately I don't have a 'before' photo to share.  Just trust me when I say that so much space was being wasted by the original desk placement.  I put my laminator and selphy printer on top of the book case.  Before I had some decorations on top of the bookshelf, and with the bookshelf being just under the window, it became a place for my cats to sit and knock the decorations over.  Now they avoid the top of the bookshelf.

I'm using the shelf above the desk to keep some of the decorative clutter off of the desk.  I'm using the baskets to keep the things that were thrown in the desk drawer easily accessible.  (One basket is for all of the notepads I've accumulated, and the other is for all of my interactive notebook supplies.)  This space is still a work in progress.  I might add a few more organizational things to it, but it's perfect for now.  I was able to place a small stack of drawers between the desk and the wall.  Having the drawers there give us a place to keep our laptops when we're not using them so they don't have to be left on top of the desk.  I'm really striving for a clutter-free desk so I can concentrate better on work when I'm home.  I also took advantage of the time I had to re-organize my drawers.

The extra space that I gained gave me almost an entire wall to use.  I bought a bookshelf from Target.  (It's Closet Maid brand.)  What I love about it is that the shelves can be changed.  This is the perfect bookshelf to accommodate my binder collection.

I also re-organized these drawers (that are one either side of the new bookshelf) as well.

I was able to use this bookshelf to free up some space being used around the apartment and to move all of my papercrafting supplies closer to my desk.  I put the printer on top of the book case.  I was a little disappointed that I was not able to put the printer closer to my desk.  That is until my husband came up with the brilliant idea of nestling the little table that used to be for the printer between these two small benches we have against our accent wall.  (Not pictured.)

I am absolutely loving this new setup.