The Escalator Problem – It’s not perfect… yet.

One of the things we try to tell teachers is that they shouldn’t let the fact that a homemade resource has an imperfection force them to not make it or post it. We say this to teachers that are interested in attempting to flip their classes all the time. If you can think of a way to support your kids when they are away from you, then do it. Imperfections be darned.

Really, there is only one way to get better at providing homemade resources to your students, and that is just to practice, practice, practice. This is a great model to show your students, as well. The learning process is one that rests on attempts and feedback. The feedback on a perfect try tends to be quite boring. The feedback on a high-quality, but imperfect try tends to be a heck of a lot more interesting.

The message here is not to make mistakes on purpose because it makes like interesting, but rather that we shouldn’t wait for our contribution to be perfect to make it. Active contributors form the foundation for effective collaboration.

There is a lot of value, too, even in an imperfect video or picture, even an imperfect one. The students just respond differently when there is a story, or better yet, the image or voice (or both) of their instructor in the footage.

In my own practice, there is definitely a ceiling to the quality with which I can create material. I just don’t have skill or the tools to make things perfectly.

But, let’s not let that get in the way of a good idea…

So, if I showed you this…

… which is a video of this…

… could you answer this?

What’s your guess?

If you wanted to check your guess, what kind of math would you do?

I have a video answer, too, if you wanna check your work.

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Great Conversations and Important Lessons – Reflections on #MACUL15

#MACUL15 is over and yet it feels like it’s just begun. The conference ended after Two Guys (@2GuysShow) finished their closing keynote, but there were a lot of conversations that were just beginning at that same point. Some excellent conversations among some excellent educators. These conversations aren’t ending because the conference is. These conversations are just getting started.

Just like everyone else, I’m having my own conversations that I’m looking to keep going. And these conversations seem to have a few recurring themes.

The young people in our classes are capable of so, so much.

Often, the reason we are disappointed with our students’ performance isn’t because our expectations are too high, but instead because they are too low. Improved curriculum, classroom management, and updated assignments can play significant play roles in helping students achieve and #macul15 offered lots of chances to discuss this. Have you seen The Literacy Shed? Explore it and consider what it might do for our struggling writers. Videos with no dialogue that the students can watch, discuss, and then write the story for. Sometimes they just need help finding the words. There’s a math version, too.

But there’s more to it than that. Many of the presenters that I heard communicated a consistent message: Releasing the incredible potential inside of every kid requires meaningful relationships with caring adults. The kids need to know that they matter. That the community is richer because they are a part of it and weaker when they are missing. That each individual contribution has value because it reflects a perspective that is unique. Many kids have parents and coaches who fill those roles. Many do not. The teacher can be that caring adult. In the world of education, where so much is out of the teacher’s control, each teacher can control one thing: That they value each student in their class. As Amber Fante (@AmberFante) said, “When you believe, you teach differently… the underdog can become the hero.” If you haven’t watched her Lightning Session, you probably should.

There are few things as powerful as connecting our classroom to the outside world. 

Our students are getting more and more used to a world without walls. There’s a reason for that: Being connected to that world is really friggin’ cool. I met the two teachers in the picture below (who refer to themselves as Two Sassy Apples). They were honored on stage before Friday’s keynote. They wanted their second graders to be able to be there and see it. So… Facetime.

It was such a wonderful moment. The students cheered and laughed through the phone. They shhhhhhh’ed at each other vigorously while the MC was introducing their teachers. I know this, of course, because I got the honor of holding the phone so the kids could watch. (It happened to be hat day in their class. They loved that I was wearing a hat, too.)

Consider what those kids are learning from experiences like these? Those students are learning that their classroom’s walls are really only there to keep them out of the wind and rain. Those walls don’t have to be barriers to things that were previously too expensive, too distant, or logistically impossible to bring to them. The awesome and exciting things that are outside those walls can totally come into their classroom. We have the tools to go and get them.

If you want to teach effectively with technology, real student growth MUST be the primary focus. And real student growth is a messy process. It takes mistakes, retries, feedback, patience. The timeline is indefinite.

And while we’re on the subject, the same is true for teachers updating their practice. Brooke Mulartrick (@brookem1015) did a great job of modeling a differentiated learning process in her session by creating experiences like these in her half-day Wednesday session. Something to challenge people at all levels. A chance to collaborate and get instruction. And a chance to contribute to a single product that serves both as feedback to the teacher and learner, but also a reference that the learners can take with them going forward. Just an excellent design.

Learning is learning. And learners are learners. Given similar conditions, adult learners look a lot like young learners. See?

These are adults on Thursday exploring Dan Meyer’s (@ddmeyer) Magic Octagon:

And these are my students this past fall exploring The Magic Octagon in class:

Those of us who primarily teach adults shouldn’t prepare for differentiation any differently than teachers who teach young people.

With all learners, it’s less about the final goal and more about the process of learning.

And finally, anyone who says that secondary math teachers aren’t flexible, curious, or interested in learning new things? I would encourage you to reconsider. There are a lot of us who want to get better. You see why I’m not that concerned about the future of math education? We turn out quite nicely when given the opportunity to discuss it.

And then I went to check out my #miched colleague Zach Cresswell’s (@z_cress) math session…

Thanks for everything #macul15. Let’s keep these conversation going and see where they’ll take us.

A toolbox that is truly full

When I think of a math activity that really flexes it’s muscles, I’m reminded of the activities that could reasonably be solved multiple different ways with no method being preferable on the surface. These are tricky to create (or to find and steal). They are also somewhat taxing on your students (especially if they aren’t used to this kind of problem-solving). It requires a more intense, higher-order level of thinking.

photo credit: Jo Fothergill – Used under Creative Commons

Many schools are reaching the stage where students are carrying around smart devices. Increasingly schools are issuing them (we are up to 4 districts in our country that are now 1:1). Also, in many districts, students can be trusted to bring smart phones in with them. With all of these devices available, it seems like we could integrate a new set of tools into our tool box for consideration. We should design activities that allow the students some control over what mathematical techniques they choose to employ. But increasingly, it’s making more sense to also allow the students some control over what tech tools they are making use of.

That is a nerve-racking idea for some, especially since as soon as students start dabbling in technology that the teacher is unfamiliar with, they become their own tech support. There is a very real (and perfectly understandable) anxiety over students using technology pieces that the teachers aren’t familiar with. But we could flip that on it’s head.

First, we could model some of the tech pieces that we are familiar with.

Consider an activity where in the students use a Google Form to poll their classmates, then enter the data into a Desmos sheet to do the analysis. The formative assessment of the analysis could be done on Socrative or Google Forms.

I mean, this is a standard math task: Gather some data, represent it visually, analyze, and produce a product to submit to your teacher. What makes this different it two-fold: First, some of the more annoying parts are going to be relieved by the technology (namely recording the data, plotting the points, and drawing/calculating the best fit line… those are also the parts that create barriers to our students with special needs). Second, you are giving the students meaningful experience using their technology for something that makes their school work easier and more productive. (Imagine that… both easier and more productive… both…)

One of the goals of an activity like this is the students gaining an appreciation of the roles of each of those different technology pieces, in the same way as we give them specific prescribed practice with the math skills to gain comfort. But it should stay there in either case. At some point, the students need to build in a working understanding of each of the tools in their tool box – math, tech, or otherwise. (I was even vulnerable to whining… the right kind… used at the right time. Proper tool for the proper job.)

Then, when we unleash our students to solve a problem by any means necessary, with a proper foundation underneath them, we run a much lower risk of them choosing something completely off-the-wall. Students might replace our technology with choices of their own, but if they know that we have a standby that will work, then often the replacement is something they find more useful… and it might be something we’ve never seen before… and they might be able to teach us how to use it.

And never underestimate the power of allowing a student to be the expert in the room once in a while.

Full disclosure: The data that I plugged into the Google form came from here. Many thanks to cpears93@stu.jjc.edu who is named as the owner on the site.