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What ELSE I’m emailing myself (updated)

This post has not been around long enough that I can really justify re-posting, from any sort of blogger strategy perspective. 

But, I think teachers deserve motivation and encouragement. Always … and especially this year when the news can seem dystopian, and many of us are *starting* the school year feeling  more than a little worn down. 

And, when, many of us are living and working and teaching largely through our devices, I could use some positivity in my inbox. 

And, for me, making things is self care.

So, self-justification accomplished: I made a new resource for not-quite old post: a free one page guide to send your future self some love.

Image of a computer screen with email open, a fire in the background. Text: Student Notes + Schedule Send = Teacher Self Care

Originally published Dec 2019, updated and re-posted Fall 2020.

There are many paths to positive teacher energy.

Breaks are good, so is breathing and mindfulness, and chocolate, or tea. Good colleagues help (a lot).

Usually, not email.

Except… My favorite hack for this year: gmail schedule send + student notes.

Every term I have my students write notes about what they want me to remember. (update: new digital version) They’re awesome and inspiring and give me such a boost.

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.

Resources

My schedule send tips guide on TPT

Or, sign up for my newsletter and access all of my subscriber resources

“Dear Teacher…” Notes forms PDF OR Digital

And, for all the other non-email teacher-care strategies:

Resilient Educator Toolkit (Concordia University)

How to Practice Habits of Self-Care When you Have No Time (Angela Watson/Truth for Teacher <– who has been doing lots of good thinking about teacher balance lately)

And, I started a board on pinterest to save even more

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What I’m Emailing Myself: Back to Pandemic-School Edition

We’re beginning what is likely the strangest back to school of our teaching careers. … And the internets are full (sometimes overflowing) with suggestions for managing it all.

A few links that made it through my mental filters:

Adult Ed Friendly Math Packets (Thanks, CUNY!)

Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful (Because sometimes it’s helpful to have someone explain reality)

Zoom Shortcuts (via Teach Thought)

Digital Activities (via Math = Love)

How an Ancient Indian Art Utilizes Mathematics, Mythology, and Rice (via Atlas Obscura and Pocket)

Picture of a computer on a desk with a vase of flowers. Text "What I'm Emailing Myself: Back to Pandemic-School Edition" Educational Resource Round Up from mathacognitive
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Making Answer Keys a Teaching Tool

I give out the answers. 

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.

Why I give out answer keys: 

More-or-less practical reasons:

  • Students get immediate feedback on their work  (especially valuable this year, when we’re dealing with remote learning and asynchronous work)
  • 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 🙂

Infographic. Title"Give the Answers: Using Answer Keys in Adult Ed Classes" Why? Immediate Feedback Teacher Time Differentiation Independence Trust & Respect Focus on learning How? Change copy routine Explain to students Model active learning
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Planning Helps (Or: Supporting students to succeed as online learners)

Pandemics. Living through a pandemic. Teaching in the middle of a pandemic. Learning while living through a pandemic. 

Let’s just acknowledge: this is hard. 

Actually, it’s many different kinds of hard.

But the kind of hard I’m thinking about today is how it makes it hard to plan, but also, how much planning helps all the other hard things. 

I’m back to remote teaching this month.

My students’ tech access is limited, and demands on everyone’s time are high, and I have a well-honed set of routines and teaching tools that are not all going to transfer, and it’s hard to let go of things I’ve worked to create. 

But, we’re all making the best of it.

As teachers, we’re making new plans, discovering new tools, crafting new routines, finding new ways to support our students. 

And, like I said, I’m thinking about first principles. Today: Planning Helps

Photo of a laptop and a woman writing in a notebook. Text: Distance Learning is Hard. Planning Helps. Helping students plan and complete online learning. Mathacognitive.

It’s helping me figure out a curriculum and new tools and design video conferencing classes.

It’ll help my students, as they figure out video conference classes and asynchronous work, and their kids’ video conferences or hybrid schedules or strange new in-person school routines. 

But, especially, asynchronous work. 

Homework has always been hard for my students

So, we’ve learned to plan. 

We make a plan at the beginning of the term.

And a back up plan 

And we check in on  it a few times. 

We pool our best ideas to improve our plans.

And then we make a new plan for when vacations happen, or big exams approach, or something else changes. 

Planning doesn’t solve everything. Some students never consistently make homework work. Some weeks, even for the most dedicated student, other things take priority. But, it helps. 

So, in between all the new plans I’m making for this new year, I’m planning to keep our homework planning. 

    I updated my PDFs using TPT’s nifty digital activity tools.

And I’m adding planning, and supporting, and re-planning, and checking-in on plans to my synchronous lessons. 

    And, I’m searching for good resources about how to help my students navigate (and plan!) for this new school year. (A few below, please share more!)

Resources:

My homework planning tools

Homework habit builder bundle

I love this article! Teaching behavior (homework!) with our best teaching tools, instead of lectures.

Online-learners take on making online learning work

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Learning from Mistakes (And, teaching percents)

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. 

Mistakes help you learn Practicing what we preach, and learning from teaching mistakes mathacognitive. Background picture of a hand writing with pencil on a lined notebook

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.

But I also remembered I wanted to do better, remembered the changes I wanted to make (more intentional introduction, more time, more structure etc.) and designed a whole lesson about using mental math to find common percents using my mistakes as inspiration.

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.

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Planning Principles : Points on the Board in the First Class

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.

Text: Points on the board. Starting a new class or a new unit right. Mathacognitive. Image of a vintage scoreboard. Planning for the first day of a new school year or new term

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.

So, first days of school. Name games and homework policies. What I wish my teacher (and students) knew. All of the standard stuff.

But, also.

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.

I often do something on the order of gather data about our class and analyze it.  (These proportions weren’t a first-class, but it’s of a type. These strategies for getting un-stuck were a my last first class.)

I have another first-class coming up. As I write, I’m still waiting for inspiration, but I’m clear on my goal: get a win.

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Sticky Notes, and Reflections (updated)

Originally published September 2018, updated spring 2020.

I miss my classroom.

I imagine many of you do too.

Weeks into remote teaching, I miss the familiar rhythms and tools of classroom teaching.

As we approach the end of the school year, socially distanced, I miss the big celebrations and rituals.

And, I miss some small things, like this reflection.

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.

Title: the best thing I learned in math class... Photo of a sticky note, handwritten: "that I'm actually smarter than I thought"

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)

Because, reading these questions: What helped? What advice would I give for next year? What did I learn? helps me make my missing, productive and proactive and grateful.

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

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What I’m Emailing Myself: Still Social Distancing Edition

What to write in these strange times? On the one hand, we’re settling into something like a new normal of remote work / social distancing / online learning. On the other, it’s more strange and stressful than ‘normal’.

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Accepting help. Or, leveraging volunteers in adult ed.

Perhaps this is true for you, too?

I think I am a better version of myself when I’m teaching.

In the classroom I am comfortable and confident and welcome mistakes (even my own) as opportunities to learn. I am warm and engaging and positive. I have vast stores of patience and encouragement and optimism.

In real life, some of these, at some times, are not exactly easy.

But, in my classroom, they are.

And, in real life, I am terrible at accepting help.

I would like to be humble and gracious and grateful and not think I have to do every single thing myself.

I’m working on it.

But, in my classroom, I don’t know what I would do without help.

While I am showing up comfortable and mistake-welcoming and all the rest, I have volunteers showing up, too.

Some of them have been with the class longer than I have. They come every week and lead small groups and check work and answer questions. They help me give students the attention they each deserve.

I’m good at my job, but I’m better at it with their help.

I can take on more ambitious lessons, and differentiate, and focus on the things that only I can do. And, I show students that there are multiple ways to do math, and model my (new) help-accepting behavior.

I know I’m grateful for their help.

I hope I’m also gracious and humble. (I also hope it rubs off on the rest of my life)

How can volunteers help in the adult basic education classroom? Colorful infographic with answers including: differentiation, supporting ELLs or students with LDs, ESOL conversation, small group leader

So, I know, that classroom volunteers can make a huge impact.

And I also know that teachers are already running in 17 directions, and may not have a lot of time / bandwidth to figure out how exactly that nice person would actually be helpful.

I won’t call it help (in case you have a hard time with it to…) but I do have resources to offer:

If you teach in Massachusetts, I’m leading a (free) online workshop on Leveraging Volunteers in the Adult Ed. Classrooms May 15, 2020

Volunteers can contribute significantly to adult education classes… if we know how to use them. This teacher-focused workshop will help adult ed. practitioners craft volunteer roles that are impactful and aligned to their program and classroom goals. We’ll explore common concerns – and how to avoid them; explore specific tasks volunteers can undertake; and work through a 3 part framework for defining effective roles. We’ll conclude by designing volunteers into real lesson plans, and action planning for our own practice. 

If you don’t (or you’re busy!)

E-booklet: Leveraging Volunteers in Adult Education (20 page planning guide + printable resources)

Google Apps Tips & Templates to Streamline Volunteer Management (10 pages of text + 5 pre-made forms/sheets, ready to use)

If you need more custom support, please contact me! I’ve been a volunteer, a teacher and a volunteer coordinator in adult ed. for more than a decade. I can help you design a volunteer program that suits your organization.

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Teacher Self-Care Update: A Webinar!

If you knew me in person, you’d likely know I’m a planner. 

(Actually, you might have figured that out anyways based on the number of posts on goals and the different planning guides/planners in my shop )

I like to know what’s coming and make a color coded list of steps to prepare, and I don’t particularly like changes. And, like everyone, I had lots of plans for this spring…  but I did not plan for a pandemic and all that follows.  One of the things I did plan for was presenting at MCAE’s NETWORK Conference, which was (like many things) cancelled for public health reasons.

Check out my original post for my (occasionally cranky, overachiever) take on self care

But, like it or not, we’re all working on plan B’s (or C, or D…)  now. And the good folks at MCAE have a new plan: a webinar series.

This is a change I can get behind.

I’m super excited (and kind of humbled) that they asked me to present. The topic of self-care for teachers felt important in January when I first drafted it. It feels even more so now. 

The Struggle is Real: Teacher Self-Care and Balance

Teaching is meaningful, important, rewarding…and hard. If we are to do our best work and sustain our efforts, we must find ways to manage the challenges, amplify the positives and maintain our energy. We’ll explore practical steps busy teachers can take. 

May 11, 1-2:00 PM

Registration link

Click here to check out the full (super relevant and timely!) series. And Massachusetts folks, please register! 

If you can’t make it on the 11th, MCAE will be recording the webinar, and posting it to their website.

Or, for the DIYers, I put the self care action planning sheet we’ll be using in my TPT shop. (Free for now, not forever)

The struggle is real: teacher self care and balance. Webinar mat 11, 1-2 pm. Hosted by Massachusetts coalition for Adult Education