But mostly, I think it’s about being a few months into the school year. The new-ness has worn off (even this year, with so much new) and a holiday break is sounding good, and I (and I assume you) could use a reminder of the positives.
So, the struggles with tech and attendance and the impacts of the world on our students (and our teachers) are very real and very present. But, I’m taking a minute to remind myself of the wins.
Including …
+The student who came, so sick and still determined to zoom class.
+And the classmates who taught her the exponent lesson she had missed. (And passed along home remedies and good wishes)
+And the one who had been MIA for a few weeks who came back (I think it was the email “I’m worried because we haven’t seen you…” Because, connection, even in the slog of managing remote attendance)
+And the one who asked for quadratics. And the one who has been in school for like 2 months in the last 10 years who jumped into algebra on Khan academy.
I am worried about other students, and the challenges of the year, but these and others can keep us moving forward and reaching out and putting the best teaching we can out there.
Sometime last spring when “this lockdown thing will be over soon“, and “let’s plan for life after COVID” seemed like reasonable statements in reference to fall 2020, I pitched a plan to a couple of programs to do some instructional coaching.
“We’ll do it, right“, I said. We’ll start from strengths and build a culture of support, and I’ll work with teachers on goals and action plans that are relevant to them.
It’s a good plan. And two programs agreed. And a funder. And I was glad to have something to look forward to. (#selfcare)
These are times for granting ourselves and others some compassion, and recognizing that some of the energy we might like to spend on goals is already committed. We’re spending it on living through a pandemic, learning a new way to teach, supporting our families and friends, on (too) many other essential tasks.
They can give us focus in crazy times, and provide a sense of progress. And, I think, all of us can benefit from bringing some level of intention to this strange chapter and all that we are navigating.
So, 3 ways to think about goals, even in a pandemic.
Oxygen Masks
We need self care more than ever. So, one way to think about goals, is to think about committing to practices that will help us through these times. We might ask:
What will I intentionally not do, to make mental space and time for the things I have to do? (I will not do more than 3 takes of any videos; I will not check my work email on Friday nights …) This fully counts as a goal to my overachiever, perfectionist self.
What practices will I incorporate into my teaching or my life because they fill me up, even in the midst of all that is 2020?
Taking care of others can be a path to compassion fatigue and burn out. It can also be a source of motivation, purpose, grounding and fulfillment. (The random links my internet browsers sends me told me so , but it is true) Just, know yourself and your limits, ok?
Is there a particular, impactful way you want to maintain (or cultivate) connections, to show others you care? With your students, your colleagues, others?
Is there a project or cause, however small or large, you can devote some time to to combat feelings of helplessness or frustration?
Looking Forward
This crisis will not last forever. Sometimes it’s hard to believe, but it is true. You might find it helps you cope to think about life-after. (You might also end up with a grant still in a pandemic… or maybe that’s just me)
Hard times can bring clarity and focus. If 2020 has clarified any priorities, goals or dreams, we might consider what steps we can take now to prepare for or pursue them.
We’ve all had to grow and learn this year, perhaps you want to expand, re-purpose or leverage your new skills in the future?
Some caveats, as we set goals, in the middle of a year like this.
Lets set goals that help us through, not weight us down; lets set process goals, not outcomes (because we can only control what we can control).
And let’s hold them gently — whatever goals we might set –as inspiration and intention, not sources of stress and pressure
Maybe it’s just me (except I know it’s not) But it’s easy to get caught up in an unattainable quest for teacher perfection. Especially here on the interwebs, where drive by comments are easy, and only the Pinterest-perfect shows in our feeds.
But, if ever there was a year for letting go of teacher perfectionism….this is it.
This will be — for many of us — a year of adapting and flexing and mostly making the best we can of decidedly not optimal situations.
Personally, I am resolving to never complain about the photocopier again, because I so miss a physical office and a classroom that is not my laptop angled strategically for the best video conference background view. I will be grateful when we are back to it in a way I never was before.
And yet, the truth is: the photocopier frequently jammed, and it hasn’t stapled right in ages, and imperfect as it was, I will still be grateful to work on paper in a real classroom again (all the wistful sighs for group work, and physical manipulatives, and no more zoom sessions…)
That teaching is better, and dearly missed, and also imperfect.
I am hoping that this is a thing I will learn from all of this. (Because, we ought to learn something for all we’ve been through) To be grateful, to flex and adapt, and also, to give some grace to the imperfections. Maybe, even, to my own.
And so I’m thinking about the ways we adapt. Ourselves, but also our materials.
Text books and worksheets are resources, if we use them well. I’m grateful for a shelf full (and grateful I brought them home when we first shut down)
And, yet. They are not perfect either.
Sometimes the examples are confusing or there isn’t enough practice or there’s too much of one thing. Or the critical thinking could be higher, or the focus clearer, or any number of other limitations.
So I hack it (read: adapt, modify)
Make a copy or a scan, block out the parts that don’t apply, hand-write in new instructions or questions, mix and match exercises or books, cut and paste if I have to. Make it work. (Mentally apologize to the human who labored to creat the resource in the first place)
The result is not the prettiest, perfect-looking activity. But it is a class that is planned, with a teacher who is calm(er?), and materials that are imperfect but good (like the rest of us) as we flex and adapt and make the best of it.
Nudge students to examine the explanatory text and/or example problem (that always gets skipped!), by asking them to write a summary, or read/think/pair/share.
Add a retrieval practice task.
Reading/writing task + neuroscience. Read the passage, turn the paper over, and write what you remember on the back or in your notebook.
Isolate one skill.
Interleaving is great. But for the love of numbers, sometimes we need to learn one thing at a time. Select the questions that are most relevant, eliminate the others.
Use copies and a glue stick or scans and a computer to cut and paste questions from two skills together to review, or to practice distinguishing two similar tasks
Add an annotation task.
Ask students to underline or circle a particular type of information in each question.
Add a problem analysis task.
“Before you solve each question, write the units you are looking for/operation you will use/restate the question/etc.”
Break the question into steps
Particularly useful for complex problems. Add a), b) and c) with prompts to scaffold thinking.
Change the question/answer format:
Add or remove an answer bank, or convert multiple choice to open ended to differentiate or adjust the challenge level to you students
Add or remove equivalent forms.
Ask students to give answer in two forms, or edit the answer key to accept un-simplified answers. Again, differentiation.
22/7 might be a better approximation of pi than 3.14, but sometimes you don’t want to reteach fractions in the middle of the geometry lesson. Sometimes you do.
I am not, generally speaking, a fan of making videos. (Or, often, of slide decks)
I feel self conscious on video, and do too many takes, and I’m not even really a video-watching fan, and we’re doing zoom sessions anyways, and, well, it’s just not my favorite thing.
But, when I started planning for this year, I knew there was one video I would definitely be making: a screencast of the my “Wish my Students Knew” presentation.
I’ve been trying to figure out how we establish a classroom culture, when we don’t have an actual classroom. It’s puzzling, but core values still seem like the place to start.
Originally Published Feb. 2018, updated fall 2020
I kind of knew what I wanted in a classroom culture: support, and listening, and welcome, and a palpable belief in every student. But, I wasn’t always sure how to create it. I would not have guessed part of the answer was PowerPoint.
I had been using ‘What I wish my teacher knew….’to start my classes. I love this. It’s beautiful, and valuable, and works at least as well for centering the teacher (and reminding me why I do this!) as it does for giving voice to the students.
So, as I pondered all of the misconceptions, and information gaps, and misunderstandings about math learning that my students started with, I added, ‘What I Wish my Students Knew…’.
A dozen or so slides with some key ideas that I share in some form or fashion every first week. It’s my chance — before we start with the variables and the word problems, in the middle of the attendance policies and school calendars — to tell them what I think is really important to know about math class. (And to start to debunk a few things many think they know)
It doesn’t create a culture by itself, but it sets a nice foundation. They know where I stand, and what I believe.
I’ve been adding to it as I think of new wishes, and playing with the presentation format. I’ve given this as a straight-up powerpoint, a gallery walk, a read-around, had pairs look at a few slides, and now, a video.
And, if some administrator ever comes looking for a teaching philosophy, this might be what I hand them.
So, without further ado (but with commentary)
I wish my students knew…
… Everyone can learn math. (They are often fairly certain that this is not true, at least as applied to them.) (( If they learn this, I don’t care if they learn another thing))
… But we don’t all learn the same way, or at the same pace. And that’s ok
… I hated my math class in high school. (I often talk about Mr. B – -, whose teaching style combined with the difficulty but apparent irrelevancy of cosines to my life, to convince me that I wasn’t a math person) ((I hope they hear “I can empathize”))
… Turns out I don’t mind math as an adult. And I love teaching it. (I hope they hear, ‘it can change’)
…You don’t have to like math to learn it. … But it feels really good when you get something that you thought was hard. (Those moments are the reason I keep doing this job)
… Most of math looks scary… until you learn it. (I’m a big fan of exposure therapy for math anxiety “Look at this thing we’re going to do today….” …”Hey, nice job, maybe that crazy-looking thing wasn’t so bad)
… You really learn math when you do math. Not when you listen to or watch me do math. (So, no, we’re not going to sit in rows facing the board)
… You’re learning the most when you’re working on something that you can just about figure out, but it’s still kind of hard.
… Mistakes happen. Even to me. And it’s no big deal (I put mine on the board for all to see)
… Checking your answers helps you learn. If you do more than mark it right/wrong, and instead figure out how to fix your mistakes. (Answer keys are a fixture in class and a learning tool, except for all the past-teachers in their heads scolding them about cheating. )
… Asking questions is how you take charge of your learning, and get the information you need. Also, I’m a terrible mind reader. (Phrased for those with trouble asking for help, and for those who just want to help)
… It’s ok to ask for help. Better than ok actually. (Some things bear repeating)
It hardly seems that I should have to say it any more, it’s been said so often. And yet, these are strange times.
They are hard, and sometimes too full of video conferences, and sometimes not full enough with anything else. Pandemics are many things: stressful and scary and dramatic and changing all the things. And also, boring. I am — personally — dearly missing the mental stimulation of life before COVID.
I’m filling some of that space with designing materials, because staying busy helps, and so does — for a few minutes at least — thinking about a future, when this will be done, and we will be back in our classrooms, doing our thing.
Sometimes I design materials because inspiration hits, or I saw something on twitter that looked fun, or some PD told me that the best way do teach X was to do Y.
Mostly, though, I design materials for my students.
Something about the format (the resemblance to fractions? the assumed grouping symbols?) threw him off and he was metacognitively aware enough to notice it and ask for practice with the challenge point.
Go him.
I love when my students get to this point in their learning. I said ‘absolutely you can have more practice, let me go find some’
And, this seemed easy.
It was straight numerical computation practice. Open the classroom computer, google “order of operations with division bars” , click print, and my student will be on his way. Make a couple copies for the other students who chime in with ‘me too’s’ and ‘can I have one” (because they would, they’re awesome like that)
Which, is responsive and differentiated. But also, this is why I design materials. (Also, because, pandemics)
Because, if he needed practice, someone else probably will too. And he had thought to notice a point that I (and apparently the math publishing world?) hadn’t paid much attention to before.
I will now.
And, yet.
Practicalities.
In the moment, we can’t stop class to design something for each student. And, it took me months to design something for him at all. He has moved on.
Part of the art of teaching — that all the lesson plans in the world can’t quite capture — is how we respond and pivot and creatively problem solve mid-class, when a student has a question.
We can’t fully know what questions or needs will come. But we can know that some questions will come, and we can be ready:
Keep our options open. Among the best investments in my classroom: three milk crates + hanging files of math work. I can pull dozens of worksheets when I need them. For distance learning, I’m setting up a folder in Google Drive to play a similar role.
Adapt the materials we do have at hand. Pick only a few problems to do, tweak the ones there (I forget how many negative signs/fractions/etc. I’ve whited out, because sometimes we need a break), add a task to a worksheet etc.
Take note of the particular points students struggle, so we can prepare or research materials for next time. File the info or resources where we’ll find when the curriculum comes back around.
This year, I thought, I want to *actually* remember this. Not just now in the shiny, exciting start of the term, but later. Like say, the week before winter break when it’s always dark out and everyone is tired and very ready for break and there is So. Much. To. Do.
So September-me scanned my students’ notes, and to say I wrote myself an email would be exaggerating. I typed in my own email address, attached one inspiring note’s scan, and hit “schedule send” for a random Monday some time in the future.
And now, on random Mondays. I get sweet notes from my students full of hope and goals and fresh September energy.
The rest of my inbox is still the rest of my inbox. But, I read them, and remember the shiny new year feeling, and feel much better about email than I do on most random Mondays.
And then, I hit ‘reply’ and schedule send it back to myself for another boost on some future random Monday.
I tell my students that I’m going to on the first day of class. I think, they think I’m crazy. Or lying.
And then I give them work the next class with the answers on the back (or, this year, at the end of the digital file) and they think I’ve made a mistake. (Many assume it is a strange and indecipherable worksheet, because the reality of an answer key is so unexpected)
It’s not a mistake.
It’s an intentional and powerful teaching choice.
Note: My classes are ungraded. I love this aspect of my teaching, and it’s common in adult education, but your experience may be different depending on your context. I’d be curious to hear your experience in the comments.
Sharing the task of checking work with the students frees up time for more impactful tasks. I can look briefly at their work with the goal of assessing and providing verbal feedback, not marking each item.
It also lowers the barriers to differentiation and independent work. It’s easier (for me) to imagine students working on 3 or 4 different things, when I don’t have to worry about tracking and correcting 3 or 4 different things or getting everyone finished at the same time to go over the answers as a class.
It helps develop independence in learning. Students’ aren’t dependent on me to provide feedback, or stuck waiting for me to give them that feedback (wasting limited class time). They can check and move on, or ask a more informed question if they got it wrong.
These are good reasons and real benefits to both me and my students. But, they are far from the most important reasons:
Giving the answer keys conveys trust and respect. Adult ed students didn’t always have the best experiences in school, they might have felt judged. They rarely felt trusted. It’s powerful to hand them the thing their previous teachers probably kept locked away.
Even beyond that, I can think of no more powerful statement that the point is not to the answer, the point is the learning that leads to or flows from that answer.
What answer keys don’t do:
Provide nuance or guidance. Knowing the answer is B or 17.2, is only so helpful. This is true whether they get that information from the key, or from a hurried teacher-correction. We know this, and we all want to provide quality feedback. I ask students to check their work in class, but I also look at it as I’m conferencing and provide the guidance and nuance. Do you understand why it’s B? How did you get to C? It looks like you did ___, have you tried ___?
Encourage cheating: I always tell students they can’t cheat. No grades means they’re only hurting themselves if they copy the answers without understanding, and few do. Also, they are adults who are choosing to participate. They know they need to learn this stuff to meet their goals, and that there’s no reward or punishment for the number of right answers on the class work. As a result, I’m more likely to get people who are afraid to use the answer keys because that seems like cheating than people who are actually just copying
How to make answer keys a teaching tool:
In all honesty, the hard part of this is not the practical reforms, it’s the mindset shift for both teacher and students.
Except… textbook publishers don’t make the keys easy to read. You might have to help students navigate the dense paper-saving pages they provide. When I’m on it, I draw a star or box before I photocopy, but I’m not always that on it. We manage.
Change how you make copies. If you have a student version separate from the answer keys, there’s a transition period of reuniting them for each round of copies
The first time, take a few minutes explain to students why they have the keys, and how to use them as a learning tool.
As students work and check their work, model how to engage the keys as a learning tool: Student: “Will you check this?” Teacher: “You’ve got the answers here. I’ll check the first couple with you…” “Ok, so your answer is different from the key, can you figure out why?” (Also, Repeat. This is a skill. It takes some practice.)
My resident curmudgeon and long time student now tells the new people how long he resisted the answer keys (boy did he) but that they’re actually kind of helpful and not cheating. If you knew him, you’d know that’s a powerful endorsement 🙂
We try to teach our students the benefits of mistakes.
And I like to talk about brains and neuroscience, so “someone did this study…” is a thing I say a lot in class. My favorite one: guessing wrong helps you learn things.
This is wonderfully useful to cite in class. It can encourage participation, free up guessing, or encourage resilience (“Got it wrong? No worries, now your brain is ready to remember it right” )
It’s a little less fun, but still useful to live in our own practice.
Last time I taught percents, I guessed wrong about some mental math.
Context: There are always multiple practice options in my class (a post for another time). When I guessed wrong, I included a new exercise among these options, thinking it would be an easy add and some welcome variety.
It was not.
It was confusing and most of my students gave up and used their calculators to practice the approach they already knew. Which is fine as far as it goes, practice is practice, but doesn’t help you calculate a tip in a restaurant without a phone app.
But, guessing wrong helps you (ermm, me) remember.
Without going back to my lesson plan, I don’t really remember what else we were doing that day, but I remember G., an older guy, with a settledness about him that I liked, looking at that paper like it was written in a foreign language.
Ouch.
It’s a good reminder, as we’re celebrating the value of mistakes, that they still sting. Even when we believe they’re beneficial, even when we are actually benefiting from them.
And it’s a good reminder, that ( maybe because) they sting, they help us learn, too.
So, months later, I sat down to plan a new percents unit, and, I remembered G., remembered the sting, and remembered my mistake.
I probably made more mistakes when I first started teaching.
But I think I learn more from them now.
I suspect that’s true for many experienced teachers….?
I think, as veteran teachers, we can ….
… Recognize a mistake for a mistake. You have to know something about what your best teaching looks like to recognize when you fall short of it.
…. Feel the sting, but have the confidence in our abilities to respond productively (and not go into a shame spiral/avoidance)
…. Diagnose what actually happened (not just that something wasn’t good), and analyze why the mistake was a mistake.
… Have enough perspective to sort out the signal from the noise. What mistakes are important? What are about us? What are not actually ‘mistakes’ , but rather the randomness of the universe or factors beyond our control.
… Respond, because we are not constantly ping-ponging from one mistake/learning to the other, trying to grow in all the ways at once, so we have some time between mistakes to process them.
… Respond, because we have skills and mental resources to do better.
This fall, a lot of us, are feeling like beginners again, as we’re figuring out how to teach in new physically-distanced, virally-safe ways.
And, we’re going to make mistakes. I’m just hoping I can keep my head clear enough to learn from mine.
It’s been a while since I wrote, here. Honestly, it has been hard to write about teaching, while everything about my teaching has been so upended by the pandemic. After a spring of emergency remote teaching, I (really) needed the summer break. I’m coming back soon to still-remote, but better planned remote teaching, and I’m looking forward to being back here more.
2020 update:
A few weeks before COVID, I started a new class, with a new group of students, and a new context. And, then, like everyone, I started (abruptly) to figure out remote work and online learning, turning on a dime, doing our best to navigate. I’ve started a few new things, professionally in the last year. And now, again, starting a new thing: a full semester online (for me, maybe hybrid or socially distanced for you).
I’m finding it calls me to think about first principles. In times of change, what do we know to be true about teaching and learning, regardless of the other stuff.
There are undoubtedly more elegant and insightful thoughts, but also: my thought in planning for the first day, the new year, the fresh imperfect start is ‘get a win’.
For my skeptical mandated students, who weren’t interested in my name games
And for my students, used to our supportive classroom, abruptly plunged into online learning
For my new this term students, and for me, never great at transitions.
Get a win.
Teach a piece of math that we can all learn.
Provide a sense of progress in the chaos.
Start the momentum, set the tone, take the first step.
The first step is the hardest. But there’s nothing like making it, to remind you that you can take it.
And the next one. And the next.
Originally published March 2018, revised and republished 2020
Things that are different about adult ed:
Students don’t all start in September, stay in my class through June, and then move on to the next class after summer vacation.
They start when they’re ready, place into the class that suits their skills, stop when life gets in the way or when they’re ready to take a test and succeed, move to a new class when the teaching staff thinks they’re ready for it.
There are ways that this is beautiful (learn at your own pace! Education organized around the student not the calendar!) And ways that this is challenging (So many moving pieces. And I am not great at chaos). We manage it as best we can by starting and moving bunches of students together at a few scheduled points throughout the year.
All of which is to say, I get more than your average level of practice at first classes.
At least three times a school year, a third or more of my class is new. They might be new to my class, moving from a lower level where they were cruising along comfortably – feeling like the smart kid for once – to a new more challenging class. They might be in a math classroom for the first time in five or fifteen years (and feeling ready to get their HiSET, but maybe not so ready for math class) or back to school after a break to handle whatever life threw at them.
Different reasons, but for all practical purposes a new class.
Principles I’ve learned through multiple first days every year of my teaching career:
Get points on the board.
Meaning: By the end of the first class – between the introductions and the policies and the questions – be able to point to some math and say –truthfully, universally — “we learned that.”
This is a worthy goal for any class, but especially for first classes, when we’re trying to set a tone that is not “OK, we’ll pick this up next class”. For the new students, in particular, it’s much needed proof that they can handle this, the first piece of tangible evidence in the case I’m building that ‘yes, you can learn math’
And, this, I think, is a goal for all of us, whether you have one first day or seventeen.
With apologies to the standards, I don’t think it matters so much what they learn that day, just that they learn.
So, my criteria for getting points on the board:
A one off. Something self-contained, not requiring anyone to have been here last week, or to come back next week to learn.
As close to guaranteed success as teaching allows. I’ve rearranged significant parts of curriculum to teach an easy win on the first day. (A student who leaves their first class feeling lost is off to a very rough start.)
Bonus points: An activity that incorporates getting to know you and math in one. (Like these) Also, group work.
But, it’s also one of the small things that’s giving me comfort:
Because I have years’ worth of good advice and touching reflections to read through. And they warm my heart every time.
Because next year we’ll be back to sticky notes and normal, and I hope I remember this year, and appreciate what I have (Because, Joni Mitchell was right)
What helped: Taking action, letting go of expectations.
What did I learn: How to use all the video conferencing. What’s important. What I value in teaching.
Advice: Its too soon for advice, I think, beyond ‘enjoy’ and ‘be grateful’. Maybe next year.
This reflection is available in my Metacognition Bundle (along with some of my other favorite reflective tools)
I’ve done the same reflection at the end of each of the last three years.
I post some questions (best thing I learned; what helped me this year; and always ‘advice for next year’s students’.) and give students 3, 4, 5 sticky notes each. One note per answer, on whichever questions move them.
The number of notes depends on the class (read: how willing I think they will be to participate, how long it will take them to fill their post its, my willingness to push them to be reflective)
There is a bit of confusion, and some grumbling from my resident curmudgeon, and then there are answers. Some are prosaic “the best thing I learned is fractions” some are philosophical “The love of math” The are all stuck on the wall by the appropriate prompt, and we do a gallery walk reading and adding stars of agreement (and giving me an easy assessment of points of consensus) I think we all get a much needed boost from so much positivity.
Sometime between graduation and the arrival of new students, their post its are transformed. Typed large in a pretty font and colored paper, I tape them carefully to the wall. Three years in, I have a happy word-cloud of student advice and wisdom hovering over us at all
Three years in, I love cycling them this way – the end of the year to the beginning, old students to new.
And, three years, in, I see themes.
The biggest, most consistent theme: grit.
“Even if you’re feeling overwhelmed, trying to call it quits. Don’t!! it will pay off in the end.”
“Keep striving and never give up”
But also, general wisdom
“Love yourself” and “Don’t be hard on yourself! Give yourself credit!”
And, notes to melt a teachers’ heart
[The best thing I learned is] That I’m actually smarter than I thought.
(That one actually lives on the bulletin board right above my computer, a constant reminder of why I love this work)
So, as the new school year starts, I’m taking energy and wisdom from last years’ students. <3
