Made4Math - What is Your WHY?

Today's #Made4Math is a bit different, but I think it is a good, reflective "project" for back to school.

Last year, I started a new job as one of our school's two instructional coaches.  Our principal was reading Simon Sinek's book Start With Why, and she thought ideas in the book would be good for our faculty, and she wanted us to implement something.  I immediately downloaded the book, watched Sinek's TED talk, and started thinking about how we could carry out the idea of a WHY for our school and teachers.  (It was very interesting to read a "business" book and relate it to teaching and education, by the way.)

According to Sinek, every person and organization knows What they do and most know How they do it, but few can clearly state Why they do what they do.  He asks you to determine: what’s your purpose, what’s your cause, what’s your belief, and why does your organization exist? 

To encourage our teachers to develop their WHY's, we introduced the concept during our August professional development days.  We allowed each department time to prepare a WHY, and then we shared all of the creations.  Teams took pictures, wrote a philosophy, performed a skit, and the math department may or may not have choreographed a dance.  ("Math Rocks, baby," a la "Ice Ice baby."  If you've got a problem, we’ll all solve it. Check out the math, it’s not magic it’s logic...could have happened...)  My personal WHY is this quote by Benjamin Disraeli: The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.  All of the WHY's had the same themes and were about helping the kids succeed, moving students closer to graduation, preparing them for the future, and becoming good citizens in the community.

My work partner and I chose the sayings below as our WHY.  We typed up the quotes, got a frame, and put the flyer in a prominent location in our office.  As in any new role, there were several times during the year that we were both floundering; however, any time we questioned our work, our progress, and our leadership, we would refer to our WHY.  Had we helped our teachers?  Did we ease anyone else's burden?  At a particularly stressful time in May, I moved our WHY very close to our desks to remind us that yes, we had succeeded and had a good year.  

How does this relate to #Made4Math?  Because our WHY helped focus us throughout the year, I decided to make our "poster" a bit prettier, thanks to @mathtastrophe's tutoring on ColourLovers.  (She was right, and even a non-artsy person like me could spend a long time on the site playing with patterns and palettes.)  I can't wait to hang our WHY in our office!

For you...

I would like to encourage you to ask yourself, “What is my WHY?”  What is your purpose or your cause for being a teacher?  If you are a veteran teacher, why do you remain a teacher?  Type up your WHY and put it in a frame; share it with your students, make it a screen saver, stick it on a post-it by your computer, or write it on your board.  New educators--you usually write a teaching philosophy during your prep programs, but can you condense your feelings into a sentence or two?  Veteran teachers: when have you formally re-stated your reasons WHY you became a teacher?  (It's time to think about those reasons again!) 

On your challenging days, and you know they'll happen, look over your WHY, meditate for a minute, and remember the excitement and the enthusiasm you felt on the first day of school.

Have a wonderful week!  If this is your first week back, good luck and have fun!

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First Day Fun

I keep thinking the summer will never end!  But students return in two weeks, and my schedule just changed, so #HSSunFun is the perfect opportunity to really get focused on my class, and I'm certain I'll be inspired by what's happening in other classrooms.  Thank you, @Carol_Leonard, for organizing the high school teachers!

In previous years, my first day priorities were as follows: brief introductions (self, each other, room) brief discussion about procedures, and start the math.  (I still have that agenda in mind, but with our study of mindset and our shift towards differentiation, I now have a few new plans for the day/week...and that will be another post!)

Procedures:

I've always appreciated the distinction between rules and procedures, and I definitely do not want to spend the period going over all of the syllabus details.  I have a few broad rules and many procedures, and those procedures make our classroom run smoothly. During the week, I explain our class procedures as needed and as situations arise... pick up your papers from this table as you enter the room, immediately look at the board/screen to see your first instructions, pass out papers this way, sharpen your pencil before the bell and after the lesson, etc.  We continue reviewing procedures throughout the first few weeks, and when new students arrive, I ask the veteran students to share our classroom procedures with the new students.

Math:

In our pre-calculus class, we hit the ground running with trigonometry.  When I discovered wordle a few years ago, I was looking for any excuse to incorporate a wordle into a lesson and had an idea.

I created this wordle using descriptions and definitions of trigonometry that I pasted from several math websites.  I make a copy for the students and ask them to "analyze" the wordle and to sort the words in any way they choose.  (I also share how I created the wordle and explain that the larger words occur more frequently in the text.)  I ask students to compare their lists with their neighbors, and then they share some of their "sorts."  Next, I ask students questions such as:

• What do you think are the important ideas in trigonometry (based on the "big" words)?
• What do you remember about functions? What other functions have you studied?
• What do you remember about triangles?
• What other familiar words do you see?
• What new words did you find? (radians, cosecant, cotangent are the most common answers)
• Did you find any "real life" words on the wordle? (engineering, astronomy, measuring)
• Do you think trig is related more to algebra or geometry?  Why?
• Did you notice the word circle?  How do you think circles and triangles could be related?

We discuss the idea that trigonometry will involve a lot of familiar territory, but it will also be a whole new language and a new way of thinking about triangles, angles, and circles.  And I let them know that yes, we will discover a connection between circles and triangles!  

Students tape the wordle into their notebooks and as we talk about new concepts, I ask them to go back and check the wordle, find the word and review how they sorted the term.  During the first few weeks, we return to the sorted lists, rearrange the words, and try to make new connections between the words and concepts.

I like this activity because in a very "ease your brain out of summer" way, it reviews some algebra and geometry, previews a bit of trig, and allows students to start making connections between previously learned concepts and the new world of trigonometry.

Last week, I attended several sessions of great professional development, and I can't wait to write-up ideas about developing my classroom culture/community and helping students change their mindset about math.  Stay tuned!

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Cool Classrooms!

Last year, we hosted our first annual "Tour of Classrooms," and since it's time to do some serious thinking about bulletin boards, calendars, sub crates, and absence binders, I thought it would be fun to revisit and share the coolest things we saw in our teachers' classrooms.  (Since I am a floater teacher, I did not get to decorate, but I went on the tour.)   I think some high school teachers get accused of bland classrooms, but not the one below!

The tour served multiple purposes:

• Teachers were able to "show off" their classrooms.  (And our principal donated office supply gift cards to the winners.)
• Administrators were able to visit rooms in a completely non-threatening way and recognize teachers in their departments.
• At the beginning of the week, we gave teachers the rubric for how prizes would be awarded (based on supplies, organization, etc.) so some teachers created new "spaces" in their room for those items, calendars, schedules, word walls...
• We conducted the tour on the Friday after lunch (school started on Monday) so some teachers said the contest motivated them to be more organized and ready to go on Friday, rather than spending the weekend at school.
• Our school is large-ish, and I think some teachers rarely leave their own spaces to visit other classrooms.  We sent different administrators to tour different hallways and everyone took pictures, and we compiled all photos into a slide show.  We sent the link to the entire faculty, so everyone had the opportunity to see all of the cool things in all of the classrooms.

The grand prize winning room belonged to an ELA teacher, who is also our girls' basketball coach (thus all of the sports stuff on her board above.)  Find more pictures of her room below.

On the tour, we found...

The math teachers (and a few others) were all about board calendars, and they used duct tape and fun borders to create their agendas.

Loved, loved, loved this make-up work folder, and the teacher left it propped by her "Information" bulletin board.

A science teacher made wordles for each unit of study.

Great classroom and writing rules:

The zebra print belonged to Coach Holly and her winning room!

 

 Great door signs, especially if you are frequently out of your classroom:

The tennis coach never has trouble with his desks squealing across the floor!

To change the look of your teacher desk, try these tricks:

Need to borrow a pencil?  Please return it to its velcro holder when you leave!

A few creative word walls/vocabulary displays:

And a shoe holder for the calculators!

Japanese class, obviously

For those fortunate enough to have windows...

 And finally, a few other creative walls and bulletin boards:

In an AVID classroom

ELA projects from recent years

Social studies collages

It is so much fun to peek into other classrooms.  Hope you were inspired!  Did you see any ideas that you can duplicate or use for your room?  Happy decorating and organizing!

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Made4Math - Mathography

Like several others, I was inspired by #made4math, so I started this blog as a place to share.  It didn't take me long to decide on the first thing to share, and I hope others will be able to adapt and use this assignment.

I always tell my students that if I didn't teach math, I would teach English because I love to read, and I try to find as many opportunities as possible to get them to write.  On the first day of school, instead of completing a getting to know you form, I ask my students to complete a "Mathography," which is an autobiography with some math questions thrown in for fun.

For (at least) the past 15 years I have given this "essay" to every one of my math students (8th grade through AP Calculus) and I couldn't ask for a better first day of school assignment.   The students are not too happy about such an assignment on the first day of school, but their papers are always honest, revealing, and oh-so-insightful, and I read their essays several times throughout the year.

I change the questions a bit each year, depending on the course, but I have included most of my past prompts, and I usually ask 5-6 questions each year.  When I have repeater students (when I have taught Algebra 2 one year and Pre-Calculus the next year, for example) I change the questions quite a bit to reflect already knowing some of the kids' background information.  When I teach seniors, I add a few more questions about future plans, colleges, etc., and I can use their essays when I write recommendation letters.

The students are (almost) always so positive and excited during the first week of school, and they all have great goals.  After reading their papers, I know all of the "getting to know you" information, plus the students reveal how they feel about school and math in general.  They often give me personal information as well, such as family information (dealing with illness, divorce, death) or personal struggles.  For the question "Is there anything else I should know about you?" I give these examples: one student wrote she always forgot her glasses so she needed to sit in front, and another wrote her best friend was in the class and they talk too much, so please don't seat them next to each other.  (Sage advice from a teen, right?)

One new addition for this year will be for my juniors to comment with a sentence or two to our class blog.  I'm still tweaking the post, but I envision the post as an introduction to me, our class, our class culture and expectations.

Math-Ography


For my ESL students, I provide a fill-in-the-blank version.  For the past several years, I have taught a "newcomer" class, and most of my students are refugees.  If a student cannot answer any of the questions on the first page, I know to immediately begin as many interventions as possible!
ESL intro

I "stole" the Mathography idea from Julie H., one of my first math department chairs.  (She posted the papers outside of her classroom, but I treat them as confidential documents.)  I have also seen something similar in one of the AVID "Write-Path" books.  Could this assignment work for you?  Any suggestions?  I hope you'll be able to incorporate at least parts of a Mathography in your classroom--it is such a great way to get to know your students. Enjoy!

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