I had to take a break from Tennessee data, so I spent my time looking at ACT data. I love the ACT! I love it so much that I took it 6 times in high school and earned the same score each time. I think that is why I love it so much. If I can take it 6 times and earn the same score each time, it has to be consistent. In Tennessee, as in other states, our students take the Explore test in 8th grade, the Plan test in 10th grade, and the ACT during their junior year. That amounts to a lot of testing and a lot of data. Since every student in the state is required to take the ACT, our state average is not that impressive. I worked with our College and Career Counselor to try to find a way to help students on such important tests.

We decided to look at the Plan test data from 10th grade and compare it to the 8th grade Explore test scores for each student. If a student did not show growth during that time, then it was an indication to us that he or she needed intervention before the ACT. Most ACT test prep is done after the student takes the test for the first time and is unhappy with the score. We wanted to be proactive. We generated a list of ‘at risk’ students and offered them a free ACT bootcamp. We also opened the doors to any student who had already taken the ACT. We had over 100 students register for the bootcamp!

Our bootcamp was offered the Saturday morning before the December test date for ACT. We spent 10 minutes explaining each test and giving pointers as to how best to approach each section. We then divided the students into small groups and drilled ACT type questions. At the end of our time, we gave a mock ACT that was 1/4 the size of the original test. We sent the students home with flashcards and more free websites then they could ever use. The students left exhausted after our 9 – 12 Saturday morning session. It was a blast!

We are now planning on offering another session in March before every Junior is required to take the test. My hope is that the students will be familiar and comfortable with the test and not intimidated by it. I am so grateful to my school and staff members who helped with this event. It couldn’t have happened without them. The response from the community was tremendous. ACT test prep is expensive, and that our school would offer it for free was amazing!

I woke up this morning and was reading my Twitter feed and was so excited to see that several teachers across the nation have started a grassroots movement.  They are asking that all teachers tweet, call, or email their Governor, asking him or her to take their states standardized test and publish the results.  If you are from Tennessee, here is Governor Haslam’s twitter name:  @BillHaslam.  I will be sending him a very respectful tweet, providing him with a link to this article, and asking him to take our Algebra 2 EOC and publish the results.

What I learned from that experience is that I tend to get lazy in some areas as a teacher.  I assume my students know things they don’t.  I am now in my 4th year of SBG and loving it, but I realized this week that I have gotten lazy with my implementation of it.  I know that retesting is not SBG, but only one small part of it.  I know that my students need to constantly be improving their learning.  I know I need to incorporate formative and summative assessments.  What I failed to do was communicate to my students the importance of excellence in all assessments, the first time.  Too many of my students have  adopted the attitude of not really preparing for assessments because retesting is always an option.  I am not sure of how to fix this problem.

One idea that I am toying with is requiring the completion of an assignment for a retesting opportunity.  Many of my colleagues do this and call it a ticket to retest.  I have limited the number of times they can retest during the day.  They used to have 3 chances a day including before school, after school, and during lunch.  I no longer allow retesting before school.  (I’m not a morning person.)  My biggest problem seems to be my honor’s classes.  I want to instill a good work ethic in these students and I think doing your best the first time is part of that.  Any ideas or suggestions are welcomed…

Assessment has become the new testing word in recent years. We shouldn’t give tests or quizzes anymore, but assessments. Is there really a difference and if so what is the difference? I started giving assessments three years ago thanks to Dan Meyer and his blog on How Math Must Assess. I have tweaked his system over the years to fit my style, but it hasn’t been until this year that I feel that I have successfully implemented the formative and summative pieces of assessment.

I give my students small assessments once or twice a week that measure learning on two to three standards. If seventy percent of the class doesn’t show mastery, I back up and reteach. If seventy percent do show proficiency, I continue the lessons, but provide remediation to those needing it and retesting opportunities. If assessment, test, or quiz results do not affect your teaching and planning, they are not formative assessments. If you test kids and move on regardless of the results so you can cover the material, you are not utilizing formative assessments. I know this because until this year, that’s what I did. I had too many standards and not enough time. Instead of using assessment to inform and direct my instruction, I was using it to check off a list.

I give several summative assessments throughout the semester that model Tennessee’s End of Course test. Although these do direct my instruction, they are accumulative so I view them as summative. I guess the true summative assessment is the state test at the end of the course. The more I study forms of assessment and alternative assessments, the more intrigued I become. I want to constantly assess my students and use that information to guide their learning. I think there are several ways to do this and I’m always looking for the most efficient and effective ways.

Essential questions and number sense are teacher buzz words that will have to wait until another day, but until then, I promise not to overuse them in educational circles. At least not without researching them and putting them into practice.

So, about 10 minutes before class started the idea hit me, write the problems on notecards.  Put the zeros on one card and the polynomial on the other card creating instant pairs.  I created enough cards for every student in the class.  When the students arrived I started the class by handing out the notecards randomly.  I told them that some of them had zeros and their job was to write a polynomial and other students had a polynomial and their job was to find the zeros.  I gave them 5 minutes to work their problem and then told them to find their partner.  One of the girls was shouted, “So this is like a game with math!”  Yes, fun in math, who would have thought?  After the students were in pairs, we proceeded to another activity.

On my high from Algebra 2, I tried it the next morning in my Algebra 1 class.  I handed out notecards with trinomials that needed to be factored and notecards with binomials that needed to be multiplied.  I know there are a ton of worksheets with matching games like this, but I have always disliked that students don’t have to actually work the problems.  I think this fixes that issue.  I see this pair up activity as limitless.  I plan on giving some students graphs and asking them to write an equation and other students equations and asking them to create graphs.  I also plan on saving these notecards and when I need students in pairs or groups randomly pulling out old notecards we have done before and having them find a partner this way.  This should incorporate review into the classroom.  Please feel free to share your ideas for pair up games in the comment section below.

This year, I am teaching a cotaught Algebra 1 class. I am blessed to work with an amazing co teacher. She helps me and the students so much. The students in this class are so incredible. I’ve never had a group of students that crave affirmation and blossom with just a little encouragement. My tears have come as a result of hearing their life stories. So many of my students come from heart wrenching backgrounds. In my worst nightmares, I could not imagine facing what they have survived. The fact that some of them manage to get out of bed in the morning is miraculous in itself. Forget the fact that I have to teach them to factor a trinomial, I just want to teach them to function in society. Many tears and prayers have been spent on this group of teens. They have captured my heart.

My frustration comes with some former students and coworkers. Since I do teach a remedial or repeater class, I often have students who have never experienced any success in math. They come to me hating school and viewing me as the enemy. Through the magic of Standards Based Grading, I convince them that I am not out to get them, just measure their learning. Through Dan Meyer type activites, I get them to view math as a puzzle and somewhat fun. Some students have their first taste of success in my class. (It’s not me, it’s the blog world that inspires me.) I love the end of the semester when I hear things like, “I’ve never gotten an A in math,” or “I had fun in your class,” or my personal favorite, “I don’t hate math anymore.” (Once again not me, it’s all of you I steal from.)

These kids leave the safety of my room where homework is not graded and seldom required. They leave the world of retesting where tests are meant to measure learning and guide my instruction instead of punishing the student. Most of the students leave my alternative class and enter the traditional math classroom. (These are not students who aspire to go to college.) The students shut down in the traditional environment. They hate math again and stop working. Several come back and visit and we have heart to heart talks. I try to tell them that if they aren’t trying I can’t help them. I offer to tutor them and help them in anyway, but faced with 30 problems of book work every night and large chapter tests, these students revert back into a pattern of failure.

I am frustrated with them and their lack of perseverance. They have tasted success and it was not enough to inspire them. I am frustrated with traditional teaching. We are not getting this particular group of kids ready for college. We are trying to prepare them for life. This generation is different and requires new teaching techniques. Outdated pedagogy is not the answer. Most of all, I am frustrated with myself. Am I doing this group of students a disservice by trying to create an educational utopia in my room where failure is not an option and effort is rewarded? Is allowing a student multiple attempts to demonstrate mastery setting them up for failure in the future? Since I am the radical teacher in my building with my wild ideas about education I have few coworkers to ask this to, so my blog friends, here is the question: Have you encountered this in your schools? Are students who have been successful for you, failing for others? How do you justify this without labeling yourself as the ‘easy’ teacher? (I know this is several questions and not just one. Comments are not just appreciated, but desperately needed. Thank you!)

Now that my job depends on this new evaluation system, I decided I needed to rethink the end of my classes. (Tenure is also out the window in TN. Two years of consecutive low ratings and you can be let go.) I always heard about Tickets out the Door and other such items and didn’t put much stock in them. I’m a believer now.

Here are some brief activities I have gathered that meet the requirement to measure mastery daily, without requiring too much preparation or time.

1. Ticket out the Door: This is a classic closure activity, but I don’t pre make mine. I have a stack of scrap paper cut into small squares and I hand them out and have students work a final problem in the last five minutes. Sometimes I have students grade them in class or sometimes I collect and grade. I never take an actual grade on them and so far, the students don’t seem to mind. It is amazing the effort they will put into this when you tell them, “Show me what you learned!”

2. Show me your sign: I taught my students sign language for the letters A, B, C, and D. At the end of class, I put a multiple choice question on the board. I give the students time to work the question. When time is up I say, “Show me your sign!” The students show the correct hand signal for the answer they got. This gives me a quick way to scan the room and see if the majority of students mastered the objective for the day or if we need to review it in the starter for the next day.

3. Find my Mistake: I have students work a given problem and make an intentional mistake. Students then trade papers to try and find each others hidden errors. I collect these at the end of the block. The students really get into this one, trying to make the mistake subtle and difficult to find.

4. Tweet It: Students are asked to use their cell phones (our school allows this) or are provided with a notecard. I ask the students to tweet one thing they learned in class today that is related to the daily objective. If they use their cell phones, they are required to hashtag our class so we can go back and read them later. This requires creativity since the students are limited on characters.

5. Write my Starter: I ask students to create a problem with a solution for our starter for the following day. I collect these and then type one up for the next day. I give credit to the student. They love to see their name on the projector and are proud when their problem is chosen.

When this new evaluation system started, I was overwhelmed and frustrated with the feelings of having to jump through hoops, but I can honestly say it has made me a better teacher. I now think about everything I do in class and if it measures learning and relates to the objective. I find I waste less time, but I’m still working on my transitions of activities. Overall, I never leave a class anymore without knowing if my students got it. Sometimes they do, and that is a great feeling, and sometimes I leave knowing I have to back up and punt tomorrow. Either way, I know and that’s progress.

By the way, I’m always on the hunt for closing activities that measure learning, so post away in the comments. Thanks!

I was listening to “The Regular Show” in the background and heard a random math problem.  Of course, I had to go watch the show.  The entire episode was on the importance of a high school diploma.  I’ve decided to show this clip in my classroom sometime just for fun.  Who knows, I may even assign the math problem as a challenge problem (the one about the turtles, not the hardest math problem ever).

I started using notecards with Kate Nowak’s Speed Dating activities.  Instead of printing out cards or writing problems, I would make one worksheet and cut the problems out and tape one problem per notecard.  Easy and effective.  My students ask to speed date at least once a week.

I have gotten a little more creative with my notecards.  I now will color code them and put different level of problems on different cards or different topics.  I will then take a ‘deck’ of 52 note cards and throw them all over the floor.  We call this 52 pick up (I know, not original).  Each student is required to find and work 2 problems of each color.  This way each student is working 2 problems at each level.  If I have students in a class with different abilities, I will put them in groups based upon ability and say, “Group 1 works the yellow problems, Group 2 works the green problems…”  So far the kids haven’t caught on that the problems are sorted by ability or difficulty.

Find the Mistake / Ticket out the Door:  I know this is nothing new, but for some reason, the students are more willing to do this on notecards.  I hand out notecards with one problem on it.  Each card is different.  I have the students work the problem and make an intentional mistake.  I encourage them to be clever.  I collect the cards.  At the end of class, I redistribute the cards, making sure no one receives their own and have the students find the mistake.  The students take great pride in being able to ‘trick’ the person looking for their mistake. 

Yesterday I was in the lunch room, talking to a government teacher and she was concerned that if she handed out a worksheet with several readings on it the students wouldn’t do it.  She wanted to the students to read several passages and paraphrase them.  I suggested she cut out the readings and paste one per card.  I told her it was important to time the students and give them instructions on how to pass the cards.  She handed out the cards and told the students they had 5 minutes per card to read and summarize each one.  She gave a one minute warning.  After class she told me that those students read more that period than they probably read all summer.  She couldn’t believe that the notecards worked.  She partook of the notecard kool-aid and it is good; note cards are magic!

So, I started my own list of sentence frames (more like paragraph frames).  I’m going to try using them this year in my Algebra 1 class.  I am fortunate to have a co-teacher in this classroom who will help me develop these.  I am going to use them as starters in the class before I introduce the lesson.  Here is an example:

Algebra 1 Sentence Frames_002

My objective is to have the students copy the paragraph and fill in the blanks.  I will then allow time for the students to work with a partner (Think/Pair/Share) to explain how and why they placed the words in the appropriate blanks.  We will then discuss the correct answers as a class.

I’m trying this for several reasons:

1.  I’m tired of putting math problems on the board as starter problems and having students sitting there doing nothing because they “can’t do the math,” even though we went over it the previous day.  Everybody can put words in blanks.

2.  I want the students to use the correct math vocabulary.  I’m tired of them saying things like, “that house thing over the number.”  I’m hoping that if they write it, then they will remember it.

3.  This is a co-taught class, so I want the students to experience success.  Many students come into this class hating math or thinking they are bad at math.  I want to provide opportunities for students to feel a sense of understanding and accomplishment, even if it is just putting words in the correct blanks.

4.  Most of my students don’t know how or when to take notes.  These starters will then serve as our notes for the day.  We will work sample problems under the paragraph that represent the standard of the day.

At the end of class, I will put the slide up on the projector again and review the paragraph with the students.  I want to reinforce what we learned that day and make sure we close our topic and not just end the class with “work these 10 problems.” 

LaQuinta High had great success with this strategy.  They presented several examples from math, science, and history.  Here are my creations so far:  Algebra 1 Sentence Frames.  It’s a work in progress.