peace love math

It’s been a little over a year since I cleaned out my classroom and said good-bye to teaching HS math. There are 2 main questions I have received this year:

1. Do you miss teaching?
2. Do you have to work in the summer?

Let’s dive into #1. The answer in short is YES. I absolutely miss creating and implementing engaging lessons for high school math students. Taking a course, breaking it into smaller chunks (units), and designing those chunks into daily lessons specifically for the students sitting in my classroom – was most definitely my favorite part. And let’s be even more specific… taking a MATH course, a set of math topics (whether it’s algebra, geometry, algebra 2, pre-calculus, trigonometry, statistics) – a course that (let’s be real) MOST students now say is NOT their thing… yes MOST students – is a challenge I very much enjoyed to tackle. But as you might imagine, that challenge was intensely time-consuming – because I did it each year. Maybe not at the macro-level, but at the micro-level, ie. designing it for the students currently sitting in my classroom, happened every year. Yes, the content is the same – but the way the students receive it is different. And yes, I tried very hard to individualize it so that each student felt connected to the learning. So maybe that’s what finally did me in. Because designing lessons for a group of students each year, meeting individual needs – is not sustainable in the current education system. It most definitely was not sustainable for me and it was time to get out.

Why didn’t I just ease up, you ask? Why not just give the same lessons each year regardless of the student? Good questions to be sure. I’ll ask you this then in response… “can you look a student in the eye and give them something that you know they won’t relate to or enjoy simply because you’ve done it year after year?” I could feel the energy sapped from the room when I gave in and taught to a group rather than designing for individuals. I wanted my classroom to be a place where they felt a connection to the content. I failed a lot at this, but I was determined to try. And so… Yes I miss it. But I won’t go back. There are too many other factors that contributed to my leaving… let’s chat on those for a second.

I’m going to deviate from the questions listed at the top because from teachers, the next question is:

1b. How did you do it? How did you get out of teaching? So I absolutely want to discuss the process.

In 2016 I completed my master’s program in Educational Technology – all online through Boise State University. I took 2 classes per semester – all while teaching full-time. I obtained a 4.0 throughout my studies and when the diploma came in the mail, I cried tears of joy but mostly relief. Those 2 years were some of the hardest. Every weekend was filled with papers to write, activities to create, new coding to learn, and book upon book to read. A couple of years later (2020 to be exact) I completed another program where I obtained 18 credit hours of graduate level math courses to be certified to teach community college mathematics. Once again I cried when I finished. Those classes were harder than my master’s classes.

Through all of that education, I learned so much – mainly about myself. That I wanted MORE. (I absolutely want a Ph.D. in EdTech – it’s a lot like having babies – you forget how hard it is.). But MORE from my work. Throughout my teaching career, I often wondered if I had more to give. My graduate coursework piqued my interest in work outside of the classroom.

When I graduated, I started looking to see what was available… all the way back in 2017. Back in 2017, finding jobs was definitely harder because companies were not working remotely… or there weren’t very many companies working remotely. I would apply to about 10-25 jobs per year – some of those I never ever heard back from. Most of them sent me a rejection email about 2 weeks later, just saying I wasn’t moving forward in the hiring process.

In the 2021-2022 school year, I was crying on a daily basis; sometimes multiple times per day. Parents were yelling at me, students were not wanting to be in my class, and I was so tired of feeling inadequate. I knew then as I do now that I had more inside of me to give and nowhere to give it. I went back to the drawing board with my resume, gave it a polish, and started back on LinkedIn.

I was applying to all kinds of jobs in and out of education. Mainly corporate learning and development jobs, curriculum jobs, project management jobs, anything that had “create, develop, deliver, technology” in the job description. I did steer away from medical jobs, but almost everything else was up for grabs.

In February, a job opened up with a company where a very good friend is the CTO. I messaged him through LinkedIn (he was not living near us at the time). Now here’s the cool thing… this dude was living in Colorado, being a high-falutin’ CTO. But was in town where I was at the time of this message. So we met for coffee and I gave him my story. He gave me some of the most encouraging words I’ve ever received. #1 that I matter, #2 that I matter a great deal. He reached out to HR and got me an interview. I didn’t get that job, but it was in those moments that I actually felt like I could make the transition out of education. And I began my relentless pursuit (I’m always on a relentless pursuit of something).

LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor became my highest-used apps. I followed anyone who could help me. I applied to THOUSANDS, yes THOUSANDS of jobs. It was a full-time job on top of my full-time job. Some of them were auto-applied through Indeed (I had uploaded my resume and a generic cover letter for this purpose). I had one really good lead with a company that owns 2 private colleges. I had almost 3 interviews for a learning designer position. All of the interviews had gone really well. I thought I had connected well, but after the 3rd interview I was ghosted. Yes ghosted. I went almost a month without hearing from them, so I reached out. And was then told that I didn’t get the job.

Through Indeed, I had gotten an interview with an insurance/financial company here in Des Moines. That proceeded really well and I got an offer there. My FIRST offer outside of education.

But at the same time of that – I was also interviewing for a position with Imagine Learning. It was a professional development position for a math product (that I LOVE). And in the same week of the financial company offer, I also received an offer from Imagine Learning.

Now those two paragraphs make it sound really easy. It was NOT. I was in agony. You can ask Tim. I’d be on a high during/after interviews… then go WEEKS without hearing ANYTHING. That would be when I would start crying again. All during this time, I was still applying for jobs, having initial interviews, and then getting rejection emails or being ghosted. Being ghosted is VERY COMMON in the HR industry. Just never hearing anything was so common, I started to change my mindset so that I never looked forward to hearing anything. So that when I was contacted, it was a surprise.

The process to getting those offers was about 8-10 weeks long once I had the initial contact back from the company. So 2-3 months. Which feels so much longer. I got my two offers in April of 2022. I started looking and applying in 2017. It took 5 years. 60 months. 240 weeks. A long – friggin- time.

In the middle of all of this… after completing my graduate degree, I went back to school in March 2020 to get my 18 hours in post-graduate mathematics. This was needed for me to teach dual-enrollment classes in high school (think Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry, AP Calc, AP Stats). This was way harder than my master’s degree. This was math that I hadn’t done since my Bachelor’s degree in the 1990’s. Actually this was harder math.

I also started on classes to obtain my certification for Special Education Strat 1 – mild to moderate. I got halfway through my certification before stopping due to leaving teaching.

I mention both of these because it’s not one thing that led me to my transition. I have 15 years experience in an secondary math setting. I have a master’s degree in EdTech, 18 post-graduate level hours in mathematics (certified to teach community college classes), and I worked as a special education teacher. In addition to all of that, I have corporate IT experience as I started my days out of college in data analysis and the Y2K programming boom. Needless to say I have a VERY diverse resume, which in the past I’d been somewhat embarrassed by. My long, winding road led to the successful transition. It wasn’t just one thing. I will say teaching experience goes a long way, but it was a combination of all of it that helped.

If I were to give anyone advice (and I hesitate greatly at doing this), I would say be prepared for a long road ahead. It took me 5 years. I applied to thousands. of jobs. The interview processes were long and tedious. I created so many Workday accounts I lost count. Update your resume using language from job postings that you love. Use ChatGPT to help you. Then apply, apply, apply. Get on LinkedIn and Glassdoor. Network on LinkedIn (make sure your profile is up to date). Find companies you want to work for. Research other companies that you don’t know. Pursue this like your life depends on it. Casually looking, applying, and haphazardly going about it probably won’t get it done.

Also – I did not get an offer for my dream job. I worked as a professional development specialist for 8 months, moved into a national presenter role for 6 months, and THEN got a shot at my dream job (math curriculum specialist). I got my foot in the door, and then looked for every opportunity to move around.

Back to present – this week I started in on a job that is literally a dream job. I’m a Sr. Curriculum Specialist for our math product. I get to work with and collaborate with other math folks who have just as much passion as I do about transforming math education in our country. The meetings I’ve been in have given me goosebumps. It’s been so amazing to think about my future these past few days.

Now on to Question #2: do I have to work in the summer?

Yes, but you know what – I’ve always worked in the summer. And the fact that ANYONE asks this question doesn’t understand how teachers are paid. Teachers are NOT paid for the summer off. Our salary is based on our 180-day contract. It is not annual salary. Most district distribute those funds throughout the 12 months. So while you may think that teachers are paid to not teach in the summer, you are wrong. Plus, even if they were paid to rest in the summer, it still would not be enough. And the only way any teacher goes back to the classroom each August is because of the rest. The way our country treats teachers is a whole other topic, but yes it’s one of the reasons I left.

As I reflect on this past year, I can say with 100% certainty that it was the right decision for me. Yes, I miss teaching. Yes, I work in the summer. And yes, it was hard work to get here. But I have had so many opportunities this past year – I’ve traveled most of the country. I’ve talked with and have trained thousands of teachers. And another thing that is a topic for more conversation… I’ve been appreciated so much more than I ever was as a teacher. My strengths and hard work have been acknowledged. And I’ve been rewarded monetarily for my those.

If I missed anything that you still want to know more about, leave your questions in the comments.

Peace, Love, Math… Megan

I’m a bit behind on documenting my travels…

I think I’ve been hesitant to write this one because it was a very hard week. I left on Monday with the intent on returning on Tuesday. Due to weather, I ended up in Detroit late Tuesday night through late Friday night. It was my first ever week of being gone Monday – Friday.

A couple of other things happened that week… it was the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank… which was where our corporate credit cards were through. I had left my CC at home thinking it was done. But it was reinstated on Monday afternoon so I was in NYC without my corporate card about to be stuck in Detroit for 3 1/2 days.

It turned out to be an easy change for flights because I was already scheduled to be in Detroit on Friday. And my connection was through Detroit…so I just didn’t go home. I stayed there. Tues night, Wed night, and Thurs night. And all day Friday.

I worked a lot from my hotel room. I had a mall right across the street from my hotel, so I was able to to walk over there for a change of scenery. And on both Wednesday and Thursday I was able to walk outside.

The bright side of this trip included two things:

1. I finally got my TSA pre-check appointment taken care of. This is a literal game changer for frequent travel.
2. The presentation to the district with the AE was SOOO good! Plus the AE was a guy I have been working with since last summer. It was awesome to meet in person and we were able to have lunch and talk shop for a couple of hours before the presentation.

The flight home was uneventful thank goodness. But it was a late night. I had Saturday to do laundry and then I jumped on another plane on Sunday for a trip to GA. That week… the week of March 13th was one of those that had me questioning what I’m doing. I’ve since recovered with a few days off and some really great presentations. I love what I do. But it was a grind being on the road that week and the week after.

Also on the plus side, I stayed in Ann Arbor and it was so nice. I had a great gym to go to, easy drives to get food and groceries, and on-site laundry facilities so I could refresh my travel wardrobe.

This trip toughened me up for the rigor of being on the road. It can be emotionally and physically exhausting. This experience strengthened my sleep hygiene and my resolve to tell the world about good math instruction. Both have hit the top of my priority list.

It was on to Georgia the following week… stay tuned as I catch up on my travels.

Peace, Love, Math, and Detroit!

I took my first trip to New York City March 13-14, 2023. I flew Delta for the first time and connected through Detroit. The trip out was easy peasy. I had a rather short connection in Detroit, which when it works out is GREAT! And for this trip it did. I had just enough time to order my Starbucks to go and then find my gate.

I took a cab from JFK to my hotel. It took about 45 minutes and was super easy. There was a cab dispatcher who pointed me to a car and off I went. They use an app called Curb, and I had plenty of time to download it and add my payment information. He pulled right up to my hotel. I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in the Financial District right down near Wall Street. And my room was ready early, which was great!

I dropped my stuff in my room, had a quick snack that I brought with me, changed my clothes, and off I went. My destination was the closest Planet Fitness to get a workout in, but along the way I also saw some really cool sites. Like the 9/11 Memorial, the raging bull, and Trinity Church (we’re huge National Treasure fans, so this was a treat).

I got a quick leg workout in and hiked back to my hotel… in the rain.

The NYC sales team wanted a dry-run of the presentation for the next day, so I was on a Zoom call for a little while before getting dinner, a shower, and bedtime. I spent some time that evening practicing the presentation and repeating the words in my head that the sales people wanted me to be sure and emphasize. Practice makes permanent, so I practiced until those words were permanent.

I didn’t sleep well. Presenting to 30’ish NYC superintendents was definitely intimidating for me. I was nervous and anxious… a horrible combination for sleep. After fitfully resting until 4am, I got up and did a workout in the hotel gym. I was supposed to do a running workout that morning, but my body felt VERY heavy. The emotional weight was very heavy.

I took an Uber to the Tweed Building where the NYC DOE has offices. I was there about 1 1/2 hours early so there was plenty of time for the nerves to wind up even more. I got set up and finally it was game on. It was a very lively conversation with those amazing leaders. And I left feeling like I did the best I could.

I had time to go back to the hotel and change my clothes. Then caught a Lyft from the hotel to the airport. I was plenty early for my 4pm flight, but since JFK was new to me I wanted to be early. I had plenty of time for security and lunch. I even had a planning meeting and got some work done before we started boarding.

There was all kinds of flight drama… as the weather was picking up. I sat on the plane for about 2.5 hours before taking off. Which means… I missed my connection home. I stayed in Detroit that night and the rest of the week as I presented in Detroit later in the week… but that’s for another blog post.

Enjoy some photos from NYC.

Peace, Love, Math in NYC!!!

This week I had one short trip to Salt Lake City. I left Tuesday morning at 6am and got back Wednesday night at 11pm.

It’s the week before spring break here in Iowa, and the airport was definitely in full swing. My Uber driver, Tim, didn’t “pick me up” until 4:50am. Boarding was scheduled to start at 5:20am. We got there right at 5:20am. There was quite a line at the Des Moines airport security… it took me a whopping 6 min to get through security. They were still boarding groups 1 and 2 for my United flight. I’m usually in group 4 so I had plenty of time.

I have been flying United these past few times. Next week I will fly Delta. I really have nothing against United except that I always have to make a connection. Delta offers more direct flights.

For this trip, I connected through Denver. I really like the Denver airport. I had a good jaunt between my gates and as I got off the plane, I got the notification that my flight to SLC was delayed. Perfect. I could hit the bathroom, wait in line at Starbucks, and still have time to sit down and eat my breakfast. As I was washing my hands, the notification came in that my flight was back on time. So I then hustled to the gate because it would have been time to board… only to get another notification that the flight was again delayed. The original crew got stuck in Cheyenne so they used their back-up crew… but the back-up crew wasn’t on the ground yet. I had time to get my Starbucks. Here’s a tip… in the B terminal all the way at the far end B-80 is a Starbucks with no line. It also takes orders through the mobile app. My gate was B-50, something, so I pre-ordered my nonfat peppermint mocha and egg white bites and made the trek to B-80 to find my order waiting for me. While I made the trek back to my gate, my coffee and egg bites cooled and I was ready to sit down and eat my breakfast.

The flight got pushed a couple of times. While I was waiting, I called ahead to my hotel (Hilton Garden Inn Salt Lake City Airport), and ensured I could get an early check-in. They assured me that my room would be ready.

We finally boarded and got on our way to SLC. The flight was short and I was on a regional jet… bonus though, I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me. That’s HUGE!

Got to SLC airport and had the typical 2 mile walk to baggage claim. I was forced to check my carry-on on DSM due to a lack of room in the upper compartments (which was bogus because there was plenty of room when I got on the flight). But when boarding with group 4, this is not unusual to be forced to check my bag to my final destination.

I got my bag, found my Lyft driver and off to the hotel I went.

My hotel room was indeed ready to go, so I got in and worked for about 2-3 hours before hitting a brick wall and falling asleep. SLC is on MST so an hour behind CST so while my body thought it was 6:00pm, it was only 5pm. I ordered dinner from the restaurant in the hotel… one of the major perks of Hilton Garden Inns is the onsite restaurant. I have ZERO desire to wander out of the hotel to find a restaurant. I am not a foodie and this is not a food blog. I am SUPER SIMPLE with my food. I always order the salmon with mashed potatoes. It’s hard to mess up. I get plenty of protein and a fun carb.

Ate dinner and promptly fell asleep. I woke up around 3:30am. Did the Wordle and Weaver like I always do first thing in the morning and allowed myself to slowly wake-up before hitting the hotel gym for a dumbbell leg workout and a run on the treadmill. (If you’re not convinced you can get a decent dumbbell workout in… I’m still sore from that workout 2 days later…)

After my workout, I got ready, packed, and headed to the hotel lobby to work. I had been cooped up in my room since noon the day before. I needed out. So I got to the lobby around 8:30am and worked there, practicing my presentation, sitting in on meetings, and attending a training until 11:30am when my Lyft picked up to take me downtown Salt Lake City.

It was about a 15 minute drive downtown. This presentation was to a district looking at our 6-8 curriculum. I always get there around 30 min early to make sure I’m good to go.

I delivered a good presentation. I’m not sure it was GREAT… but I got great feedback from the Regional Sales Manager who had flown in and the local Account Executive. Both of whom said they’d definitely have me back to deliver more presentations to large potential customers. That’s always my goal. For the RSMs and AEs to want me to come back.

Off to the airport for a 3 hour wait for my flight. I did a sit-down restaurant so I could order some good food. But while eating, I got notification of a task that needed to be completed quickly, so I finished eating, paid, and walked to my gate.

It was there that I spent a solid 2-hours working feverishly. While my job change is official with HR and the company (YAY!), my transition from my previous position is still ongoing. So I’m really doing 2 jobs right now. And with a few BIG potentials coming up, I needed to be able to get work done in preparation. Sometimes the airport setting is the best work environment because it’s easy for me to tune out emails and Slack and just get stuff done.

The time passed quickly as it always does when I’m working at the airport. One of the benefits of working while waiting on a flight is the quick passing of time.

About 10-15 minutes before pre-boarding, it started snowing HEAVY in SLC… it may have delayed our departure a bit because we were 30 min late getting into Denver where I hustled my butt to my next gate to walk right on to the plane leaving for Des Moines. With a tailwind, the flight was relatively short and we were on the ground around 11:00pm-ish which was 30 min early. My Uber (Tim) was waiting in the cell phone lot and we got home around 11:45 and I think I was fast asleep by 12:30am.

Quick trip… I took my Away Carry-on and my Matein backpack. I used my Gonex compression packing cubes and my Bagsmart dopp kit. I had been testing out a few options with packing cubes, dopp kits, and backpacks to where I finally have a great combination. It is totally worth investing in good travel gear when doing this regularly.

Also – I LOVE declining help with my suitcase on airplanes. Weight lifting pays off for everyday living in so many ways. It’s not that I’m not grateful for the offer of help… but I am so proud that I don’t need it.

Next week I go to New York City for the very first time ever. At the end of the week, I head to Detroit. After that I’m back to Georgia… the travel keeps coming and I love it.

Here are a few pictures from my Instagram stories. I’ll get better at this… because if you know me, you know my life goal has ALWAYS been to get better every day.

Peace, Love, Math … in Salt Lake City!!

This blog is about to kick into high gear. Last May, I left the classroom to enter the corporate world of Ed Tech. It took about 3 years and what seemed like 1,000 job applications to break through. But I did it! I started as a professional development specialist, delivering virtual training to teachers and districts who had purchased our (more on who I work for later…) product(s).

Two weeks ago, I was promoted to a position that has me delivering presentations and giving counsel around our core math product, Imagine Learning Illustrative Mathematics.

Join me as I chronicle my travels across the country. I’ll start by getting everyone caught up on the last 5-6 weeks. I’m reeling, posting, and storying over on Instagram: @math_work_life_travel.

I can’t wait to share it all with you!!

Peace, Love, Math… and TRAVEL!

I have fond memories of my classes from high school. I grew up in a small town. My teachers were friends of my parents who also graduated from the same high school. I took a very traditional path, following the same schedule as my older sister who graduated valedictorian (I was in the top 5, but a stupid B in sophomore English kept me from the very top – yes, I’m still bitter, Mr. Leitze).

Despite the fond memories, the teaching was very sage-on-the-stage-ish. We would go over homework from the previous day, takes notes on the new stuff, copy down the examples, and then be assigned homework. Rinse and repeat. I’m not complaining. I still remember a lot of the content from those classes 30 years ago. I very much remember learning Trig from Mr. Banks, Pre-Calculus from Mr. Coleman and Calculus from Mr. Beam. Mr. Beam also tried to teach me Physics, but it didn’t take.

It’s not uncommon for present day teachers to teach similarly to how they were taught, and there have definitely been times when I have done exactly that. But that pedagogy doesn’t exactly work at the middle school level where I began my teaching transformation, and nowadays it doesn’t work all that great at the high school level. The days of students sitting and listening to a teacher for 45 minutes without any problems are long gone. (maybe they never existed, I may have blocked out some of my HS days).

A few years ago I read the quote: “she who does the talking, does the learning.” And it has stuck. Another quote by Sara Van Der Werf goes something like: “they will say it before I tell them, they will see it before I show them.” This is student engagement. These quotes have been rooted deep in me… But HOW do I achieve this in my classroom???

This has been my work the past few years, but especially this year. So what am I doing? How am I doing it? Well… there’s no way a group of 2nd graders are going to sit still for 45 minutes to hear a math lecture and then do practice problems… so I started with investigating math practices at the elementary level. I got to observe a 5th grade classroom a few years ago by the amazing Joy DeJong. She’s now retired, but I learned so much by watching her classroom one afternoon. She used a Workshop Model for teaching mathematics. There was a mini-lesson and stations. Each station had specific learning or practice to happen, and while the students were working in their small groups, she would call certain groups to her table to give more instruction to the small group of students.

And this is what I’ve started doing. Less of me, more of them. By teaching Trig/Pre-Calc this year, I’m teaching students who have chosen to extend their math studies beyond the graduation requirement. Many of these students are college bound on some kind of STEM path. Many of them are self-motivated. Not all of them, but many. One thing I discovered was that it looked like I was just getting in their way from time to time. All they needed from me was a gentle nudge and then they took off on their own.

So one method I’ve started this year is to stop teaching and start nudging. The whole-group lessons have gotten very short. Sometimes I don’t even give a whole-group lesson. We do a warm-up and then move straight into groups. One group literally gets no direct instruction from me. They get it indirectly by reading through the new concept, investigating something with DESMOS, and/or looking at examples. They have access to videos, examples, and answer keys. I’m still in the room, and check-in from time to time. They work through the lesson and practice together, often pushing each other’s thinking and teaching each other. It’s one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed.

While that group is working individually, I then have a group of students who do need some direct instruction to get started. We work together for a short time (6-7 minutes) and then they move into independent/group time. They have access to the answer keys as well.

The 3rd group (I typically use 3) usually start with practicing previous material. They work together also and can get some good practice in until I’m ready to give them the direct instruction that they need.

This is just one my “workshop” models. The next post will discuss another one. I’ve never had so much fun. And the feedback from students is extremely positive. The ones who are figuring it out as they go, love it. They want to work this way every day. And most days they get to. I can’t remember the last time I gave a lesson that was longer than 6 minutes. That’s my target number for days when I think a mini-lesson is warranted to the entire group at one time. If I can’t get it done in 6 minutes, then it needs to be done in small groups. That’s my current rule for myself.

Ask me questions. Push my thinking. Give me more ideas…

~PeaceLoveMath… and it’s all elementary. MSH

From time to time I get asked about my planning process. While working with a new teacher this year, I documented my process for a unit we’re doing together starting Tuesday.

I have the week’s topics sketched out from a team conversation on Thursday.

I start with a Google Slides Lesson template that is already created.  At the beginning of the year, I find a fun template that I can use for an entire year (Slides Carnival or Slides Mania are good websites to find them).  I add in the slides that I want to use every single day.  (Do now, Learning Target, Agenda, and then a bunch of blank slides).  This is what I’m using this year:  Lesson Template Grid Notebook – this will force you to make a copy.  I put this link on my bookmarks bar. 

When I go to plan a week, I open a new tab, then click on the Bookmark to copy it.  Rename it (I also use a standard naming format every year) and move it into my Lesson Slides folder (this is also a structure I set up under each unit at the beginning of the year). 

I do this 5 times for each day of the week.  I get the Lesson Slides skeleton created for each day.  Add the name of the slides to the first slide. 

Then I start with the content.  I spend time with the learning target and think about the teaching structure.

For Tuesday, I know I need to direct instruct quadratic and absolute value functions.  I think through what I really want them to know about these and what activities I can do to solidify their learning.  I’m going to use the parent graph toolkit, but I’m only going to use the one box as we do these parent functions.  I’m not going to cover the generic graphing formula or the transformed function shown on the toolkit.  We will talk about domain and range, the vertex (as a key point), the 1-3-5-7 pattern that you can use to tell if it’s the same size. 

I looked for activities that I’ve done in the past and decided on creating a DESMOS Polygraph for quadratics and absolute value functions.  A polygraph is similar to the game guess who.  Students will get paired up.  One student will be asking yes/no questions and the other student will have to eliminate graphs based on the answers.  In the end, we want students select the right graph, but this really is about vocabulary. 

Tuesday’s Polygraph

If I don’t have anything I’ve done, I search for others or think about creating one myself, depending on time.  A lot of times, there’s a DESMOS activity or a Kuta skill that I can use to adapt to what I need.

For a practice day, I have a standard set of activities:  question stacks, scavenger hunt around the room, speed dating, row games (partners do 2 separate problems that have the same answer – not applicable with this unit), Delta Math.  These type of activities allow me to differentiate as needed. 

For days with direct instruction, I plan a lesson so that at most I’m teaching 10-15 minutes but have an activity that solidifies what I’ve taught – that might be a practice activity (listed above) or a DESMOS exploration (sometimes the exploration comes first, then the teaching).

The lesson on Wednesday will be very similar but with square root and cubic functions.  By the end of Wednesday, they should be set on parent functions so that we can move on to translations on Thursday. 

I’ve completed the slides for Tuesday and Wednesday and plan to finish up Thursday and Friday tomorrow (Sunday).

I will do a run-through of each lesson the morning that I do it to make sure I am using the right language and hit all the concepts that I want to cover.  (I have a tendency to forget things in the moment, so rehearsing always helps me.  When I rehearse, I repeat those often forgotten phrases over and over again. ). 

I’ve sketched out the next week to include:

Mon 12/13:  The “a” effect

Tues 12/14:  Descriptions, Equations, and Graphs – put it all together

Wed 12:15:  Practice – with a speed dating activity

Okay – that’s a ton of information. Let me know if you have questions about this process. 

Our district is in the process of transitioning to standards-referenced grading.  I’ve been using standards-based practices in my classroom for years, so this really isn’t anything new to me.  However, the reporting aspect is usually where everyone gets hung up, myself included.  How do we accurately reflect student learning?  Because we are standards-referenced and not standards-based, we still will use letter grades to ultimately report student progress.  Teachers will enter a 1, 2, 3, or 4 based on a student’s level of proficiency and our online grade book will convert that to a percentage based on a 100% scale.  While that in itself could be discussed until my youngest child becomes an old man… I’d prefer to talk about how to gauge student progress.

The words assess, re-assess, and retake all get thrown around and teachers discuss and debate all the time the right way to determine student learning.  I’ve decided to go with a whole new approach this year where hopefully those words won’t be uttered in my classroom.

This year I’m going to collect evidence.  I’m not going to give a quiz or a test or a formative or summative assessment.  I’m just going to collect evidence.  And I’m going to collect multiple pieces of evidence over time…much like a crime show gathers evidence to determine a suspect’s guilt or innocence.  The more evidence a detective has, the more confident that detective is in solving the case.  (I’m watching Blue Bloods on Netflix while I exercise…can you tell?)

I’m creating “folders” for each standard for each of my classes.  Students will store their evidence on those folders and record their progress on the outside of those folders.  There will only be 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s on the outside of their folders along the name of the evidence.

The best part of an online community is the collaboration of other teachers.  A few years ago, I met a colleague through Twitter.  He just so happens to teach across town so we’ve been able to get together from time to time.  He sent me a way to determine a student’s final mark regarding progress toward a standard and I’m very excited to try it out.

Students will provide evidence at least 3 times and be given a 1 (beginning), 2 (progressing), 3 (meeting), or 4 (advanced) as already defined by proficiency scales that have already been created (or are in process of being finished as I type this – which is another blog post, but has been a game changer when it comes to determining student progress).

The final mark will be determined through professional judgement (the art of teaching) using the mode of scores in combination with the most recent score.

This year our grade book will not automatically do the calculation so I’m going to use the following scale to assign a grade as I am required to do:

1 – 50%

2 – 70%

3 – 90%

4 – 100%

I have multiple goals with this.

1. Be prepared for when the district is in full implementation of SRG.
2. Take the focus off of grades and put that focus onto learning. – THIS IS THE ULTIMATE GOAL!!
3. Eliminate the dreaded retake process.  Learning is on a continuum.  There isn’t an end date.  Students will (hopefully) learn that if the evidence doesn’t show what they want the first time, there will be other opportunities to provide more evidence.

There are tons of other goals as well… but those are the big 3.

How much confidence do I have in this?  I’m super excited to move away from “quizzing” and “testing” students.  I’ve been assessing multiple times for several years, so it’s basically a change in terminology which again I’m super excited about.  But I really have no idea… when it’s new, it’s new and I’m attempting to #sucklesseveryday.  (another Dave Richard idea that I have “borrowed”).

Peace, Love, Math, and collecting evidence…

 

Yes, it’s been way too long since I’ve blogged about activities going on in my classroom.  That’s what happens when I have 4 preps… sorry!

This week in Algebra 2 we started our polynomial unit, and I was out of the building Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  So I started the students with polynomial operations since I felt it was a skill they could do without me.  I created videos each day for them to watch and take notes and then used Delta Math to practice.  They learned how to name and classify polynomials as well as add/subtract and multiply.  I used a lot of Sarah Carter‘s stuff on polynomials.

Today we started on graphing polynomials. Of course we started with DESMOS Polygraph:  Polynomials.  The students don’t have all the language yet, but they were able to discuss intercepts, opening up/down and then they got into the bumps and humps which produced quite a bit of laughter…

Moving on with about 30 minutes left of class.

I had them glue in this graph organizer that I created based on something I’d seen somewhere else.  It looks like this and can be found here:

I knew I wanted the students to investigate how this works, so that I wasn’t just giving them notes.  But it took me a while to figure out a way that would be effective and manageable.  Here’s what I came up with…

I created 7 functions for each of the 4 different possibilities.  Here’s a link to the Google Doc with the different functions.  I divided the students up into 4 groups simply by numbering off.  And then gave the following instructions:

When I gave the instructions for finding similarities of the graphs, I did encourage them to look at the arrows.  We talked about if the graph went off the page in DESMOS, add an arrow to their graph on paper

I was constantly walking around asking probing questions like what do all the leading terms have in common?  The students were able to see the commonalities in the leading coefficients (positive or negative).  But the leading terms were a little more challenging.  The only questions I asked were:  “what do 2 and 4 have in common?”  “What do 3 and 5 have in common?”.  At least 2 in every group were able to identify even/odd.

When looking at the graphs, I encouraged them to look from left to right.  The prompting questions I used were:  “where are the arrows on the left?” “where are the arrows on the right?”… there were a lot of “ohhhh, they all point down” or “they all point up”.

Once each group was confident in their own commonalities, they did a gallery walk to see how the other graphs were different from theirs.  They got 1-minute at each poster to notice and discuss similarities and differences.

Then they went back to their own desks and we looked at the graph organizer.  All classes were able to identify each of these graphs.  I had them point to the station that fit the description.  They were dead on every time.  This is what we filled out in our graphic organizer:

On Monday I will have some kind of entry activity where they identify “arrow” behavior.  I haven’t talked about what end behavior is… just the arrows.

This went way better than expected with the exception of 1 class which is always much harder to manage.  They didn’t get to do the gallery walk.  Instead I had each group tell me the characteristics of their graphs.  It was not nearly as effective as the classes that did the gallery walk.  The gallery walk embedded the behavior into their brains.  That was the key AFTER they had become confident in their own graphs.

Here are the pictures of the posters from my last class:

This was a great activity for a Friday.  It got them up and moving around.  They were collaborating and for the most part everyone did a good job.  I was able to walk around and talk to all the groups and nudge those students who weren’t actively working… it was very accessible to all students.

I’m excited to see where this goes and how they make connections to the specifics of the graphs once we get there.