For Such a Time as This? #MTBoSBlaugust

Two days, two blog posts. Wow!

Today I want to look back and reflect a bit on teaching during the quarantine.

When I first learned that we would be teaching remotely and virtually, I thought, "I've got this!" Having been a "flipped" teacher for many years, I was familiar with cranking out videos. My students were familiar with watching instructional videos (although not as many this past year, due to various circumstances).

THIS is the type of situation for which I'm prepared!

Umm...maybe not.

One place where flipped lessons shine is in face-to-face time with students in the classroom. They've watched the video in their personal space, so we do the work in our shared space. They explore. They collaborate. They practice. I circulate, assisting and encouraging and stretching where needed.

This all looked very different in the virtual space.

For one, I allowed my students to have their video off (I would do this differently, now). I was looking at a screen full of names. No facial expressions, no body language to let me know who was or wasn't understanding.

Not every student watched the videos ahead of time, so I had to use the first chunk of our Zoom time reteaching the lesson.

Ways for students to explore and practice material via Zoom were limited.

I felt like our time together (virtually) was a lot of me, me, me, something from which I had gotten away in my flipped classroom transformation.

There was little interaction and no back-and-forth. I missed it so much.

As we moved through the quarter, I got better with ways to make a virtual class more interactive, and that helped. But it still wasn't the same.

The move to virtual instruction in the spring was sudden with little preparation time.

It feels likely we'll have to do at least some of this coming year virtually.

I have a few ideas about how I'll do things differently next time. And I attended a couple of virtual PD sessions that modeled ways to make the most of remote instruction; I will definitely implement those if/when we have to teach from home.

But the learning curve was surprisingly steep for virtual teaching, and - to my dismay - I was not near as prepared as I thought I would have been.

Thankfully it's an opportunity for growth of which I can take advantage the next time around.

Is It Really August? #MTBosBlaugust

Talk about a blogging hiatus! My last blog post was around Labor Day of last year.

I have had thoughts of blog posts and the desire to do some blogging, but nothing ever materialized. The start of a new MTBoS Blaugust was the motivation I needed to crank out SOMEthing.

While the first semester of last school year was pretty typical, and the first half of the second semester was, too, we all know what happened in March.

As the coronavirus and COVID-19 entered and started spreading throughout the US, it felt like a snow forecast. Will it happen? Will it get to us? Will we get a dusting or a foot (a large amount for Alabama that would shut us down for a while)? Will we shut down?

It did come, and we did shut down. Like, really shut down. Things are mostly open again, and movement is a little freer, but numbers continue to rise alongside uncertainty.

The 2020-2021 school year was (and still is) in danger of being done from home. For many, it has already been decided that it will begin that way.

My district kicks off next Friday (8/7) with the return of teachers. Our superintendent says we are going to do everything possible to begin "as normal" - as normal as it can with masks, social distancing, lots of sanitizing, and some students choosing to do school virtually - so that we can build those crucial relationships with our students.

I appreciate that.

But it seems surreal that it is August and time to go back to school. Time has been in some sort of weird warp where months have seemed to last for years.

It didn't feel like August would ever get here.

While I did some normal summertime things, it did not feel like a normal Summer Break.

And now my brain is trying to shift into school mode for a year that will be unlike any other.

So...hello, August. I have no idea what you hold, but I've (mostly) quit trying to predict. I'll take a day at a time, do what I need to do, and try to create the best year I can for me and my students, regardless of what comes our way.

Turn & Talk - Testing-Style

I tried something new this week. Two somethings new, actually.

Algebra 1 had their first unit test on expressions and equations.

The first thing I tried was an idea I got from Howie Hua (@howie_hua) on Twitter. He gives his students 5 minutes before a test to talk about the test - without pencils - with classmates. He says it lowers test anxiety and results in "rich" math-talk (I LOVE math-talk).

Many other teachers have used his idea, and they have all posted glowing tweets from the experience.

So I tried it. I called it "Test Turn & Talk." I told students they had to stay in their seats and could talk to the classmates around them.

I knew right away it was beneficial when students read the first question and I heard, "What's a coefficient?" from a couple of students. I heard students talk about making sure they looked at the last questions of the test. A couple of students didn't say anything to anybody. Students probably spent about 3 minutes actually talking about the test; after that, the conversations turned decidedly non-mathematical.

I liked the process. Those who had forgotten what a "coefficient" is would have been stumped on the first question, and that would likely have affected their performance on the whole test. I could sense confidence and calmness as students had the chance to look at and even talk about the test before they started.

As I read about Howie's practice last year, I wondered if it could be applied to some sort of test correction procedure.

So I tried another something new the day after the test.

I marked the tests the day they were turned in. With highlighter. I didn't write any "points off" or what grade students had made. If they missed any part of any question, the question got highlighted.

The next day I passed the tests back to the students. I gave them an official "Test Corrections" sheet (using the same one I blogged about last year). The sheet forces them to explain what they did wrong the first time AND makes the corrections easier to grade because they're all nice and organized.

After receiving their tests, students had 10 minutes to work individually. They could consult their notes and ask me clarifying or directional questions (although I told them I would not find their mistakes for them or tell them how to rework the problems).

Then students were given 5 minutes of "Turn & Talk" time. They had to put their pencils down (we found that under the desk was better) and they could talk about their tests/corrections/work. They, once again, had to stay in their seats.

We repeated the process 3 times.

There was lots of great math-talk. I heard lots of "OOOHHHHH!" as lightbulbs came on. I heard students share strategies for problems I might not have thought of.

After corrections, I regraded the tests - with the corrected problems - and gave students "points back" from what they would have earned had the tests been given a grade the first day.

The overall result of the two days of different forms of "Turn & Talk"? Happy students and a happy teacher.

I gave a reflection on the third day asking students what they thought about each thing: "Turn & Talk" before the test and "Turn & Talk" mixed in with individual work time for test corrections.

For the pre-test "Turn & Talk," students mentioned feeling more confident and less overwhelmed.

For the test corrections process, students mentioned really understanding why they had missed problems (win!). They, of course, loved being able to improve their grade. One student said it was his/her favorite thing a teacher has ever done.

As for suggestions from the students, they wanted more time to "Turn & Talk," and they want to be able to use their pencils during "Turn & Talk" time; they also would like to be able to move around the room. Right now, I like the 5 minutes. I also like the no-pencil policy; I don't want students simply copying from someone else, and I like that they have to process and remember what they discussed with peers when they return to their work. As for "Walk & Talk" (as one student called it)...I'm not sure. I want them to work with the students around them (their seats change all the time), and I don't want the whole class to mob the one kid they are confident will know how to do everything.

One student suggested a couple of minutes of individual time before "Turn & Talk" time for the pre-test. I like that idea. When I first told students to "talk" before the test, they sort of looked at each other and didn't know where to start.

I REALLY liked having tests AND corrections graded and posted in 2 days. A big reason for this is the 10-question assessments from this bundle along with this curriculum guide from Rise Over Run that I am using and loving this year. It deserves an eventual post of its own, but 10 great (editable) questions that tell me everything I need to know is a great way to do tests!