#flipclass 2012-2013 Week 5b Reflections: Highs and Lows

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Week 6 is over, and what a week it's been.  Lots of highs and lows, for sure.  I just realized that in our school calendar, this was really "week 5", since the first half-week doesn't really count.  So I'm going to call this "week 5b" :)

From being out in meetings all day Monday, to benchmarks and tests in all my classes, to a webinar with Bill Nye during 4th period, to the devastating news of a student's death on Friday...this week has just been mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting...

This also marks the coming of the first "report cards" on Friday, so I will be doing my first formal "evaluation" survey with my students. I sent it out today and it is due on Friday.  I'll be sure to blog about that next weekend or the following week. :)



Random fun stuff:

• I have another webinar coming up through Sophia.org on Tuesday, October 9th at 4pm PST.  It will be a different presentation than my other webinars and focus more on the different ways I use the WSQ to organize my class, help my students to process material, hold my students accountable, and promote discussion.  You can register here.  Sign up now, as "seating" is limited!
• On Wednesday, I got to be a special guest on a Bill Nye Skype Webinar hosted by Sophia.org and Capella University.  My portion is from about 5 minutes until 15 minutes into the webinar.  Check it out here. 

algebra 1.


Using videos for productivity with subs. I was out of my classroom on Monday for a leadership meeting, so I used that time to have my students put together their "flipbook" for Chapter 2b.  I really don't think it is that hard of a task, but getting 40 students to fold, cut, and glue things in the right place at the same time is much harder than you would think.  The students were supposed to view the video over the weekend (only a few did), and then they watched it together in class.  It was only a ten minute instruction video, but most of the kids didn't finish putting it together in class because it took them so long to cut and glue.

Anyways, I think it was a good use of a time when I was out for the students to accomplish a task I needed them to get done in a day I wasn't there.

"Ticket to the test" update. In other news, my "ticket to the test" policy is coming along... okay...  Students had their FOURTH opportunity to take Chapter 1 yesterday, and I still have (I think) 9 students out of my 75 Algebra 1 students who haven't taken it.  This is with reminders, student conferences, and parent phone calls.  I'm not sure what else to do.  I have several students in each of my classes who have literally done nothing all year.  I call home and talk with the parents and the parents say, "Okay, we will do it all this weekend and I'll make sure he's caught up on Monday." Then the kid shows up Monday with absolutely nothing done.  What do I do in that case? I've enlisted all the help I can, and still nothing.  The few students left will be going up to the office next week to talk with counselors and admin, but I fear they are so far behind at this point and so lowly motivated I'm not sure what the next step should be.  This only applies to a few students in each class, but still...

Student meetings. I have been having individual meetings with all my students who got D's or F's on the Chapter 1 test for Algebra 1.  I only have a few left to meet with (besides the 9 that haven't even taken the darn test!).  I hope what we talked about in the meetings stick with the kids.  Most of all, I hope they realize that I care about them and their success, and I am here to support them.  Sometimes that's what students need to know - that school is a place they can come where they can trust people and get support.  I'm hoping this relationship building goes a long way come the end of the year.

I had a meeting with three of my Algebra 1 students yesterday after they came in to (finally) take the Chapter 1 test.  I knew that none of them were ready, but they showed me all their "work" and said they had it all done, even though it was obvious to me they didn't really understand what they were doing and all their practice answers were wrong.  But, at this point, I realized that no more of my talking was going to matter until they had personal experience.  So, when they were done I sat down with them and their Chapter 1 tests, looking at the last 5 questions on the distributive property/combining like terms.  All three of them made the same mistakes (if they got -2b-5 as their answer, they would write -7 because they thought they could combine them together).  We opened up to their PQ problems in their notebook and... wa-la... they had done the same mistake in all their PQ's, but didn't care they had gotten the answer wrong.  We had a nice discussion about how to get help BEFORE the test and why it's important.  I gave them the analogy that they had a really bad habit of just "being okay with sucking at math" because they are used to failing and getting moved on, which is what happens in intermediate school.  I told them it was like having a habit of not brushing their teeth.  That's a habit that needs to be broken, because brushing your teeth is something you need to do.  Showing up confused, not asking questions, not checking answers to PQ problems, being okay with just being wrong over and over again and not putting forth the effort to get help... that's a bad habit that must be broken.  It really seemed to click with them, but we'll see if it spurs them to any action...

Chapter 2a Test Results. The Chapter 2a test came with interesting results.  For Chapter 1, I had about 26 period 1 students and 13 period 2 students not ready for the test on the first day.  For Chapter 2, I had only 5 period 1 students but 18 period 2 students not prepared on Thursday.  I was very happy with the period 1 results... not so happy with period 2.  I have a lot of concerns with that class.  First, they are already a "lower" class in terms of ability, they have been my "behavior problem" class (even though with the seating change that has improved greatly), and I seem to have a lot of students in the boat of "oh yeah, I get it" when they really need a lot of help.   I have really tried to focus with them in small groups, but when it comes down to it, I think it is a huge motivation issue.  I currently have no A's, 3-4 B's, 3-4 C's, a couple D's, and the rest F's... and most of those F's are because the students haven't taken either the Chapter 1 or Chapter 2a test... so they just don't have any scores in the gradebook!  Report cards go home on Friday and I hope those numbers change greatly by then since this week there are still more makeups... but I have a feeling they won't...

Update on the week based on my plans and goals I wrote in Week 5

I'm keeping the same four goals in Algebra 1 for a while, because I feel like they are points of focus for the entire year.  Sometimes in this class I get so overwhelmed by the management of it all.  I have students at all different levels, students that literally need babysitting to even get a pencil out, and students who are ready to be about 3 weeks ahead of the class if only I was ready.  I would say that is my biggest struggle with teaching Algebra 1, but it is made easier with the flipped classroom because I am able to differentiate better.

1. Make intentional time to "interview" and talk with every group about the math.
2. Actually look through my students' work in their notebooks. Ask them questions. Have them work out the problems in front of me.
3. Ask students to solve problems on their mini-whiteboards more often for me to look at.
4. Make intentional time for "small group" instruction on whatever concepts I feel need the most focus.  

algebra 1. My plans and goals for this next week:

I feel like the four goals I have listed above are ones I want to keep for a while, until they are accomplished or become such routine and habit that I am doing them without even thinking about it.

1. Make intentional time to "interview" and talk with every group about the math.
2. Actually look through my students' work in their notebooks. Ask them questions. Have them work out the problems in front of me.
3. Ask students to solve problems on their mini-whiteboards more often for me to look at.
4. Make intentional time for "small group" instruction on whatever concepts I feel need the most focus.  

algebra 1. My continued focus for improvement: 

1. I still haven't really done anything with the HOT questions in class, besides ask the students if they got them answered.
2. WSQ resubmissions are coming along and many students are "figuring it out", but there are just as many who haven't.  I don't know if their writing skills are that poor or if they don't understand the expectations.  Either way, still need to grow here!



math analysis.

Inquiry bust on Monday.  I tried something new on Monday. It completely busted.  Part of it was because I wasn't there.  Part of it is because my students are still used to being spoonfed.  But, it was a learning experience.  

I had planned this activity for a while before I knew it would fall on a day I was going to be out, but I thought I would give it a try anyways.  For the first lesson of Unit G, I had my students watch a video that just laid the framework for the unit.  It gave them the basic vocabulary and told them a little bit about each part (rational functions).  However, I did NOT tell them how to put the pieces together and how to graph them functions.  

For three days before I was going to be out, I warned my students about the "new activity" they would be doing on Monday.  I tried to explain what I expected from them.  Let's just say it wasn't a good thing to try for the first time when I wasn't there to support, encourage, and guide them.

Some students did fine.  Most of the class, however, said "this is too hard", "she didn't teach us", "how can she expect us to know how to do this", "I don't get this".  Those are the same responses I am sure they would have said to me if I was there.  And I would have guided them along or prompted them to use their resources (notes, extra videos, textbooks, each other).  However, for the most part, that didn't happen.  Needless to say, they got a very bad report from the sub because most of them just chose to sit there pouting the whole period.  That led to a nice little conversation the next day...

I might try this again... but I will definitely be there in class the day that I do!

Blog posts as the "S" in the WSQ. For Unit G, instead of typing their full WSQ into the Google Form, I had them do the "S" portion as a blog post.  If you go to my student site, you can see the blogroll on the right hand side and read what some of the kids wrote.  Some are great, some are good, some have to be re-done.  However, I like that the "bar of quality" was raised a bit because they were publishing it, and I did actually read every single post and make comments on what needed to be fixed. I liked that students could add a little creativity to their answers by utilizing the bold, italics, underline, color, highlighting, font size, etc... all things they don't have with the google form.  I also required them to include an image, although some of them didn't necessarily choose images that went well with paragraph.

In all, the students had to do ten "blog posts", each that were a paragraph and is the same amount of work that would be done in a normal WSQ, just separated out and published elsewhere.  However, there are a few takeaways from this experience. 
1. Don't do as many posts in one chapter.  Maybe just choose one or two summary questions I really want them to publish.  Even though I hope the caliber of writing and focus is "blog-post good" in the google form, I know it's not and my students spent a lot more time trying for "perfection" on the posts.
2.  Start including peer-reading the next time.  Blogs are still being set up, and I don't want to overwhelm the students with reading others and commenting as a requirement yet.  But it's definitely something I want to do.
3. Better instructions at the beginning.  My instructions were not that clear (you can see the post on the home page of the class blog that talks them through what to do, but that was posted AFTER a lot of students had already started writing).

RSS readers are glorious for keeping track of this :)

Student-created videos.  Unit F saw the first student created video.  You can see the very basic instructions I've put together for my students here.  Like always, there are some great ones and some crappy ones.  Some students are having a hard time explaining themselves clearly and precisely.  But, we'll get better :)  These are also posted on student blogs if you want to check them out.  They have a page called "Student Videos". 

Complaints without suggestions. This week marked the tipping point for some of my "complainers".  I finally put a stop to it on Wednesday and told them that my classroom is flipped and will be flipped and no complaints are going to stop it or make it change.  I basically told them that the complaints need to stop and I'm not going to put up with them anymore. (a little cheer inside for me right now!).  I told them that if they have a "complaint" with a solution/suggestion for another way to do something, to please bring it to me.  But the complaints for the sake of complaints because they just feel like it are done, over, and I'm not dealing with them anymore.

On Thursday, I had (for the first time!) a few kids come up and tell me how much they really love the flipped classroom and how good it is for them.  I was really grateful after a long week that they took the time to do that.

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Why are we flipping? With that conversation, I also spent a little time going over with my students some of the reasons WHY I flip my class and WHY I have them do all the different activities like writing their own problems, recording their own videos, blogging, etc.  This led to an explanation of Bloom's Taxonomy and how so many classes are focused on the bottom two levels of remembering and understanding, but I am trying to provide opportunities for them to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.  I told them that all classrooms are starting to focus more on the higher levels, but I am just someone who is willing to put my "neck on the line" and do it first, when students are still uncomfortable with it.  The pyramid visual really helped a lot of my students (from what they told me) to have a purpose behind what we are doing.  I definitely need to introduce it sooner in the year next year.

"Ticket to the test" update. After the Unit E catastrophe with a ton of students (1/3) not coming prepared, Unit F was better.  I only had 8, 10, and 2 students not ready for the test. (In classes of 28, 38, and 28).  And... EVERY STUDENT WHO TOOK THE TEST ON THE FIRST "CLASS" DAY GOT A "C" OR HIGHER ON THE TEST! That has NEVER happened before!  I hope my remaining 20 students can pull through as well (2nd chance is on Wednesday morning), but how exciting is that!

Update on the week based on my plans and goals I wrote in Week 5

1. Meetings with students who did not succeed on Unit E test.  Look at their PQs, SSS packets, study habits, work habits in class, time management, etc... all to help them get on the right track. 

• Only 1 happened this week. I was focused on the algebra 1 kids...

2. Hold students more accountable for getting a few things signed of EVERY DAY on their WSQ chart, including quizzes.  A little hand holding might go a long way in helping them learn time management.

• I've tried to do a better job with this, but it still needs to be emphasized.

3. Students will be blogging the summary part of the WSQ this week... it will be interesting to see how it goes!

• see comments above

math analysis. My plans and goals for this next week:

1. Meetings with students who did not succeed on Unit E test.  Look at their PQs, SSS packets, study habits, work habits in class, time management, etc... all to help them get on the right track. 

2. Hold students more accountable for getting a few things signed of EVERY DAY on their WSQ chart, including quizzes.  A little hand holding might go a long way in helping them learn time management.

math analysis. My continued focus for improvement: 

1. Challenging the students that need challenging and working with the struggling students (I already know exactly who they are).

2. Continuing to do small group teaching at the U every day as needed.