How I assessed on trig identities this year...successes and lessons learned.

This has turned into a much longer post than I had planned...I always remind myself that I blog for myself and to reflect on my practice, and if others want to read, then good for them :)  I have also come to realize how wonderful having blogging as an outlet is.  I am not blessed, as many are, to have a collaborative partner or a like-minded colleague in person and thus my online community has become that PLC and sounding board that every teacher needs...Thanks for being a part!

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I've never really been that happy with how I've assessed my students on trig identities.  The last three years I've just resorted to a take home test where students had a lot of time as well as all their resources.  And, even though I've gone over what is allowed (basically everything on our class website) and not allowed (google and friends), I have come to realize, unfortunately, that expectations of integrity and character just cannot be followed by most teenagers these days.  (That's probably another blog post series in itself, but not something I really want to write about because it frustrates me so).  It's also really hard to grade trig identities.  I recorded my time last year and I spent about 15 hours grading 100 students' exams simply because every problem is complex and there isn't always one right answer.

So, this year I decided to have the test be in class only.  There were several reasons for this - I wanted to give my students a break over their spring break was a big reason.  I also wanted it to be a partner test so they could collaborate and communicate about the material, which I thought would help their understanding.  (Perk of partner test = my grading cut in half!).  Partner tests could only really be done in class.  I also wanted to monitor their completion of it a little better and hopefully limit the amount of cheating that went on.

The test is over, it's spring break, and the test is graded.  Students are in the process of giving me feedback on the process and I am reflecting on the whole thing... Here are my thoughts:

General setup:

• Students had to pick a partner that was +/- 5% of their current grade.  With a few exceptions, this happened.  That helped with matching students up not with their friends necessarily, but with students who had a similar level of understanding.  Students had the opportunity to pick their partners for about 2 days (with my approval), and then I started to match up the remaining ones based on their current grades.
• Students could only work on the test when both partners were present.  If they planned to meet at 7:10 but one partner didn't show up until 7:30, the one who arrived on time would just have to sit there and wait.  It was frustrating for them (and me watching them sit there), but it made the partner test more fair so one person wasn't pulling the whole load.
• Being the week before spring break, I had about 15 of my 105 students not there Thursday and Friday (the two days set aside for in class testing) due to school field trips who wanted to leave earlier than the 9 days already given for break.  (That's also a whole blog series which I don't want to write).  So, they had to finish before they left.  I also had probably 30-40 students gone on Friday, which was a shortened day but still 40 minutes of work time.  Those students also had to finish before they left. (Over half of those gone weren't even told by their club/sport advisor until the day before that they wouldn't be in class).  The plan was that students would be given 2 class days, and then they could come in before school, lunch, and after school for Tuesday-Friday. My room was packed and crazy every day, but students were focused and working.  Students who were missing class just had to make accommodations.  Thankfully, most of them were able to partner with other students who were missing class.
• The test had some choice in it.  There were 30 questions, but the students only had to do 22 of them.  Most of them were in sets, like "here are 3 problems, pick 2" or "here are 2 problems, pick 1".  This allowed them to still be successful even if there were a couple of "stumpers" out there.
• So, would I do it this way in the future?  I think so, with a few tweaks.  I would still partner up students in the same way and make partners both be there if they wanted to work on it. I would set aside 3 class days to work on it though, and not have it be the 2 days before spring break (although that is when this unit always falls, so I'm not sure what I would do.  Waiting for them to take it the 3 days right back from break would make them want to study and stuff over break instead of taking a break.  But, maybe that would be a good thing!)

Thoughts about the test

• The results were decent for what is probably the hardest test of the year.  They aren't as great as I would have hoped, especially considering it was fully open note, partner, etc.  I made 50% the cutoff, meaning if a student scored below a 50%, the grade in the gradebook wouldn't be lower than a 50%.
• It is interesting to see the gap between passing and failing.  There is between a 5.5-11% jump between the C's and D's.  Meaning, it wasn't like students scored at all percentages.  They either passed it pretty well, or failed it.
• Here are the results from my 3 classes:
• CLASS 1:
• 15 at 68.5 or below (9 of those at 50% cutoff)
• 17 at 73 or above with 4 A's
• 70.7% avg
• CLASS 2:
• 13 at 66 or below (2 of those at 50% cutoff)
• 24 at 77 or above with 9 A's
• 77.9% avg
• CLASS 3:
• 10 at 62 or below (6 of those at 50% cutoff)
• 26 at 71.5 or above with 10 A's
• 78.4% avg
• As trigonometry has been getting tougher (i.e. beyond simple SOH-CAH-TOA), I seem to be losing some students.  It is now not in the world of "these are the steps you take every time" to solve the problem.  It requires critical thinking and deep processing.  Unfortunately, some of my students see that and just decide to quit.  It's sad and I can't quite figure out how to reach them.  None of my 50% cutoff student groups asked any questions for the 2+ weeks we were working on this unit or the week they could work on the test.  There were a lot of practice days built in where they didn't have a new video to watch and we just practiced and worked on problems in class, trying to expose them to as many different types of problems and situations as possible.  However, as the saying goes, you can lead the horse to water but you can't make him drink.  33% of the test was straight from their PQ problems or ones we did as a class on the board at the beginning of the period.  Many students, even those who passed the test, did not get those correct.  It's disheartening to me.
• I really think some of this is due to the students not really taking their WSQs or practice work seriously.  This seems to happen at this point in the year every year (at least it has the last several years since I rearranged the pacing to put trig closer to the end of the year).  I know it's spring fever, getting closer to AP testing, etc, but I'm not sure what the solution is...I just spent the whole afternoon today putting together my trig graph Desmos exploration activity and Big Question discussion prompts/templates for next week and no matter how excited I am, if students aren't willing to put in the time and effort to listen, ask questions, and think... it's just not going to be successful.  Student motivation is key.  It's tough because not only am I not spoonfeeding the content to them, it's content they must think critically about and really try to make connections in their brain.  Those two things come with automatic shutoff triggers for some of my students and I'm not sure how to undo that.
• Students were able to use the iPods during the test to access the course website only.  They were given strict instructions that they were not allowed to use Google or any site besides what was linked on our course website.  There were things searched on Google (specific problems typed into the search history) on three iPods.  I put a lot of trust in them and am basically relying on their conscience and their character to hold them accountable because there is no way I can monitor it fully myself.  They couldn't use their cell phones, to help them avoid taking pictures and texting each other.  They had to leave all their work in class each day, although they could go home and practice/study some more.  They were instructed they could only talk with their partner about the test even though it spanned multiple days.  Despite these expectations, which my students assured me were fair and reasonable and should be easy to follow, I know I had students who cheated.  And since I can't "catch" them, I can only hope it will catch up to them one of these days.  It is so frustrating for me, since character and integrity are things I emphasize and try to instill in my students from day 1.

Student comments

• I asked my students what they thought about the PARTNER test, the MULTIPLE-DAY test, and then just the UNIT Q CONTENT.  The five questions I asked them were:
• How was your experience with a PARTNER test?
• How was your experience with a MULTIPLE DAY test?
• How was your experience with the UNIT Q MATERIAL? Did you do enough PQs before the test to feel confident?
• How easy do you feel it was to follow the expectations of integrity Mrs. Kirch set out? (i.e. not using Google, not talking about the test with anyone but your partner, etc). Were they fair expectations, or not things that Mrs. Kirch can expect her students to follow?
• What changes would you suggest be made if we were to do a PARTNER and/or MULTIPLE DAY test in the future?
• Overall, the students pretty much all said they had a great experience with a partner test (collaboration, support, helpful, reassuring, etc), a great experience with multiple day test (less stressful, felt more successful), a hard time with the Unit Q material (even doing all the PQs wasn't enough, it was just that tough), and very easy and reasonable to follow the expectations (then who were my iPod cheaters?!?!?).

• Out of the 53 responses I've received so far, students said they spent between 60 minutes and 530 minutes on the test, with most of them between 174 and 300 minutes.  (60 minutes was my lowest percentage, but my next time up was 95 minutes and they got a 100%)
• In terms of suggestions for changes, here were some that were made:

• I would suggest it not to be within the days a lot of peipke arent there. Because then they get the disadvantage of having less time.

  I would suggest having different versions for different times to limit the possibility of sharing problems with other students.

  Overall, I thought this test was okay except for the time crunch. I liked that we did the test in partners since the test involved a lot more work than usual. The multiple days allowed some more flexibility in schedules if we were busy for certain times/days.

  Give us about a day more to work together.

  I think that the partner and multiple day test is very helpful to many students. The only change that I would suggest is not to make it an open note test, because I think a partner is the best resource that one can use.

  I would allow students to take the test on any day of the week during class without doing the practice quizzes because it is their test grade and by extending the time period of the test to a week, the students can choose to practice to achieve a good grade or preemptively take it and fail. It is up to them if they want to earn the grade they think they deserve for their hard work or laziness.

  Next time, I don't think we should use the iPods because we already had a problem with it on this test. The SSS already helped tremendously.

  I suggest you have a sign up sheet, first come first serve. So it won't be crowded.

  I think it was good but it was annoying how a lot of people would be trying to talk to my partner during the test and ask him questions.

  I would say that there should be some way to ensure equal preparation on both partners. My partner and I were both prepared equally, however I noticed that other groups seemed to be carried by one person. I think it isn't fair that one person is depended on.

  No technology at all

  I would suggest that more time should be given during class because I felt like 2 class periods was not enough and that all the students had to come multiple times outside of class.

  I honestly think that the system is okay as it is. By requiring both partners to be there, you kind of avoid the typical "one person has to carry the other", and technically split the work in half.

  I feel that the way it was done was fine. The way partners are picked is very efficient and it makes sure that both partners contribute to the test.

  Hm. I would personally prefer that these tests be worked with three partners instead of two so you're able to have more brain power knowledge. But realistically, I say that the changes that would be pretty nice to students would be that having some of the practice problems in the test would be very helpful to students in the future.

  While I think it is absolutely fair to partner students that have similar grades in the class, I would recommend that you provide students with the option to take the test by themselves. From my perspective, it felt as though we were obligated to take the unit test with another student. I felt as though the schedule for the multiple day test was generous and fair.

  It would be convenient to have the test scheduled on a regular week because the week of the test consisted of a lot of school events that meant people were in and out all the time, including myself

CUE14 - Notes and Reflections (Friday)

Wow - Friday at CUE had some of the BEST and most useful sessions. See my notes and comments below.


REDEFINING ASSESSSMENT WITH GOOGLE AND IPADS

• HOLLY CLARK
• @hollyclarkedu
• Bit.ly/digitalportfolios
• http://edtechteacher.org/summer/ 
• Netflix is a disruptive innovator. They thought of things before blockbuster did and now blockbuster is gone.
• These kids cannot learn in the same way we did. Putting things online for them is critical
• Digital student portfolios=digital citizenship
• Digital citizenship is NOT about cyber bullying
• What they need to learn:NOTHING YOU PUT ONLINE IS PRIVATE
• EVERYTHING THEY DO IS BUILDING THEIR DIGITAL WEB PRESENCE
• "When I used to make mistakes, I did them in analog"... Now it is all digital!!
• WHAT THEY CURATE IS  A REFLECTION OF THEM. don't put something online that isn't your best work!
• THEY NEED TO UNDERSTAND FONTS, COLOR SCHEMES, ETC.
• FRIENDS DONT LET FRIENDS USE WORDART :)
• when making the blog, students need to understand why they need their blog to look professional and appealing. It's not just a suggestion, it's a requirement.
• THREE TYPES OF PORTFOLIOS
• 1. Process- the steps you took
• 2. Showcase- the final product
• 3. Hybrid- includes a little bit of both
• Collect via DRIVE
• reflect via FORMS
• publish via SITES
• CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS
• Who owns it?
• Who curates it? Until 3rd grade, it needs to be the teacher. Then students can do it
• Who organizes it?
• Where does it live? Google sites, blog, etc
• Solving one math problem... Video at the beginning, the middle, and the end. Show the growth
• Resumes and stuff should be online. Design a google site for yourself! Learning profile, personal learning goals, accomplishments, interests as tabs on the side. Can constantly update and add to.
• Pick three templates for students to choose from for their blog. That's it.
• Touchcast
• .info
• Every April they go on sale for 99cents
• Crystalkirch.info

JR CHROMANDO SESSION - see his site for full details. I took notes on ones I didn't know about that really stood out to me.

• Bit.ly/chromandotraining
• Customize the way that google chrome works for you
• Multiple signins with gmail accounts. 
• Omnibar-URL or search bar
• Start typing YouTube and then a tab will come up and you can search directly from the omnibar
• Works with amazon, yahoo, target, cnn, etc
• Pinned tabs- right click on tab and pin it. When you close chrome and have pinned tabs, they will automatically load for you. NO MATTER WHAT COMUPTER YOU ARE ON, PINNED TABS SHOW UP
• Bookmarks bar. Just icons if delete titles, can also have folders... Organize this!
• Apps- all installed on apps page, find them in apps store
• Extensions- find on chrome web store, get installed to right of omnibar
• Chrome app launcher. Will take you directly to the app you need so you don't have to do multiple clicks
• Extension- adds functionality and effectiveness to your browser experience.
• Applications- programs that work entirely within the browser. They live within the chrome browser. Constantly updated automatically
• In the chrome web store there are categories, including "education"
• There are new apps "for your desktop" and "Offline apps"
• What is great about them
• 1 click access, functionality, accessibility, productivity
• extensions- just delete them when you are done with them
• Apps- remove them from chrome. Right click, "remove from chrome"
• Save different resolutions for different projectors. Windows resizers
• ON A MAC. CTRL and swipe will zoom in on webpage. Check to see if this is right (it might be command and swipe but I'm not on my mac right now)
• START USING EVERNOTE!!!!!!
• Google voice search Hotword. "Ok google" and then you speak
• Google quick scroll search. When you search and you click on the search result, it will find things within the WEBPAGE as well so you Don't Have to read the whole thing
• TABMAN. All tabs come up as a list so you can easily navigate
• Screenleap. Easy share screen
• Goo.gl URL shortener
• Snag it. You need the app and the extension
• Students can download it to do screen recordings for free!!
• Tab cloud- Put tabs in groups for different presentations and save them
• We video for student video editing
• Momentum extension
• Daum equation editor - uses latex
• Mural.ly

ROADMAP FOR BLENDED LEARNING
iNacol

• 6 elements to implementing and maintaining blended learning
• With the common core implementation, you HAVE to move in the direction of blended learning. Every school will become a blended learning school to better personalize learning for all students
• This is a journey, not a destination. It takes time to maake the change
• Changes with blended learning...
• What the student is doing and where the student is
• What the teacher is doing where the teacher is
• What and where the content is
• It's not just flipped learning, where every student is watching the same video every night.
• Definition - horn and staker, check out slides online
• Every student has their own learning path. Ultimate goal.
• Blended learning does not mean putting more technology in the classroom. It's not about smart boards and 1-1
• First- what are the learning goals? then, what tech can I use to help implement those learning goals
• THINGS SHOULD look DIFFERENT IN  A BLENDED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, MORE STUDENT CENTRIC, MORE PERSONQLIZED LEARNING
• If you cannot identify the front of the room, you are probably in a distruptive/blended classroom?
• (See session notes for tomorrow about how admin observes a blended classroom)
• WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? What are YOU TRYING TO ACHEIVE BY IMPLEMENTING BLENDED LEARNING???
• 1. Create your learning goals
• 2. The leadership will determine sustainability and success. Both teachers and admin
• 3. Collaborative leadership style is essential
• 4. School culture of support, innovation. It is ok to try and fail
• 5. Ongoing pd. for teachers and leadership
• SIX ELEMENTS- DOWNLOAD THE ROADMAP FOR FREE ONLINE
• 1. Leadership
• Ongoing interactions between leaders and teachers. Formal and informal, one on one and group.
• School culture of innovation and empowerment
• Start small and build
• Ongoing communication is strong and occurs in a variety of ways,
• Meeting time DURING THE SCHOOL DAY for collaboration and support
• Designated blended learning specialist
• 2. Professional development
• Formal and informal
• Common preps for blended teachers
• Training through district but also find opportunities out of district
• Have a implementation manager who can help find resources and provide support. (Like a tosa)
• Mentoring program
• 3. Teaching/instructional practice
• Teachers work together to create resources that they need
• Always analyzing data
• Classroom setup was not in rows..they were in groups, you couldn't tell where the teachers desk was, etc
• Instruction can be individualized
• 4. Operations, admin systems/ policy
• Changing schedule, block scheduling, etc
• 5. Content
• Are you going to build your own content or are you going to buy it to buy it from someone else?
• Will there be a common platform or does every teacher choose for themselves?
• 6. Technology
• Clrn.org has reviewed online content providers for the ca standards
• The order of this list matters. Notice that the content and technology is at the bottom. You need the other stuff first!!
• "Blended the best of Face to face with the online world"
• 3-5 year implementation
• See continuum and timeline on resources
• Observation form
• Blended learning rubric
• Leadership, new staff roles, new student roles, personalized learning plans and progress, 2 more
• A day in the life of a blended teacher webinar online
• INacol.org/ something...  Think it is blended?
• CHECK OUT RESOURCES

SOCIAL MEDIA TO ROCK PD-Karl, John, Victoria

• Adding a space or period before a tweet means everyone sees it. If out use @ first, only people who follow both of you will see it

INSPIRATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

• RUSHTON HURLEY
• Nextvista.org his nonprofit
• Is your school a better school today than it was five years ago?
• Is your school a better school today than it was ONE year ago?
• Will your school be a better school one year from now?
• How is a school measured
• --Test scores... That is a lousy way to measure a school
• Does what it measures deserve the time we put into it?
• --Attendance, discipline statistics, passing rates (and why are students passing or failing)
• --Teacher progress -look at possible questions linked from slides
• Have you learned something new this year?
• Have you collaborated with a colleague on a class activity?
• Have you worked with someone else to learn something new?
• Do you feel you are making  a difference with _______ of your students (none, some, lots, all)
• --Whoa factor
• Did anything happen in the last week where students learned something and said "whoa!!!"
• The whoa factor is a big deal!!!
• Inspiration and technology
• Technology is the very best tool he knows in developing an exploratory culture in school
• Fear and stress is probably the number one barrier for teachers
• -will I be replaced by technology?
• It is laughably naive to think that teachers can be replaced by videos
• "Any teacher who can be replaced by a computer... Should be" -Arthur c Clarke
• "You don't have time to get through the curriculum you need to because of the way you teach!"
• USE GOOGLE SEARCH SMARTLY
• Haiku poetry filetype:ppt
• SHOW STUDENTS THINGS (videos, ppt, etc) AND HAVE THEM TELL YOU WHY IT IS BAD, WHAT IS MISSING, WHAT IS CONFUSING, ETC.
• A child will press a button to see what it does. An adult will ask what a button does before they press it
• Moving from the head to the heart...
• What are the barriers that people have put up around their hearts?
• @mrjohnlozano
• CIS
• comparison inadequacy syndrome
• Way too often we compare ourselves to the teacher next door... The only person you need to compare yourself to is the you that you were yesterday
• Baby elephant chain story- they just get used to and even though they could break away now that they are older, they don't. They stay chained and don't move.
• What is the chain that is holding you back?
• Isolation is the cancer of the education system.******
• Check out RESOURCES, there are a ton.
• Slides at tinyurl.com/RH-CUE14-improvement
• May you inspire and be inspired each and every day

Bammy Award - Please vote!

Please consider voting for me for the Bammy Award for Secondary School Teacher of the Year.  I am honored to be nominated by my friend and mentor, Jon Bergmann.  You can vote here.

What are the Bammy Awards?  Here is a description from their website, www.bammyawards.com 

The Bammy Awards is a cross-discipline award that identifies and acknowledges the good work being done all across the education village. The Bammy Awards was created in response to the tremendous national pressure on educators and education leaders to improve student outcomes, the impact of high stakes accountability and the intense scrutiny that today's educators face.

The awards aim to foster cross-discipline recognition of the collective contributions being made to educate children, encourage collaboration in and across the various domains, elevate education and education successes in the public eye, and raise the profile and voices of the many undervalued and unrecognized people who are making a difference in the field.

Week 8 Reflections - Thanks for a great activity, Zach & Steve!

I finally got to my trig verification unit and I was super excited to use the activity my colleagues (from Twitter!) shared about a few months ago.  (See the post here)

A few notes about how I did it:

• Student had already done simple verification problems and had worked with identities for about a week before today.  The night before, they watched a short intro video where I went over different strategies and approaches to consider.  They did not see any problems worked out, just the intro.
• I made 2 copies of each identity, and I made one of my own so I had 6 identities, 12 folders. I have 6 tables so that's why I made an extra one.
• I also gave each group a stack of sticky notes and on the left side of the verification, they had to write the identity used or the algebraic step needed to move to the next part.
• Once they think they had it right, they called me over and I either approved them, gave them a few tips/suggestions (for example, if their sticky notes didn't use the proper vocab or terminology needed), or if they didn't have it right I gave them some tips and went to the next table.  Once approved, they snapped a picture of it (for accountability purposes; one person in each group had to email me their set of 6 pictures), marked their group off on the board (I forgot to take a picture of this, but I just made a table with their group names on the left and the problem colors on the top and they got to put an "x" in the box when they were done - it made it a fun competition, too), and then they traded out for a new color.

Things to change for next year:

• There were 2 identities that were much shorter than the others, similar to the ones we had done at the beginning of the unit.  I want to change those to make them longer/harder like the rest.
• I purposely did not really give many directions.  I just told them they had six "trig challenges" to do and told them to get a folder.  I only had one group all day that didn't really understand what to do.  I was hoping for them to notice the "verify" that would start the problem and then all the equals signs and the fact that the right side never changed.  I don't think I will give detailed directions next year, just check in with the groups individually and make sure they are on the right track.

Overall thoughts

• The students seemed to love it.  We now have 3 more days of just practice with these before they have their assessment.  I'm looking forward to how it will go tomorrow in class.
• This was the most engaging, interactive, and active 54 minutes we've had in a while. The period FLEW by!

A few pictures from the day...

 

 

 

 

 

CUE14 - Notes and Reflections (Thursday)

I had the privilege of attending the annual CUE conference in Palm Springs this last week/weekend.  Here are my notes and thoughts from the sessions I was able to attend.

THURSDAY:

1. Free Software Tools for Common Core Mathematics - David Thornburg

• Thornburgthoughts.wordpress.com
• Fibonacci - I already do a lot with Fibonacci and the Golden Ratio in my Math Analysis class - here are a few more ideas to try out next year
• Actually show the geometry from the spiral with the area of the square with side length from Fibonacci series. (google search fibonacci spiral for images)
• Make google spreadsheet with formulas in it to automatically calculate the ratio as we continue down.  Instead of just telling the students what the ratio is, start putting the numbers in the series in, and see what they notice.
• Awesome --> If you come up with another sequence that is Fibonacci like, meaning that the next number is the sum of the previous two, it ALSO converges at a ratio of 1.618
• QUESTIONS- WHY IS THIS TRUE?!?! Ask the students that!!
• This activity meets all eight of the standards for mathematical practice
• Knights of knowledge- collection of two minute videos to get students thinking.  See website here
• Now has a Chrome web app you can add to your browser
• Geogebra. Use it.
• MIT site- scratch
• Wolfram- 
• Mathematica
• Wolfram alpha
• Wolfram language and system documentation center

2. 7 steps to flipped professional development using interactive agendas - Laura Conley

• Padlet.com/wall/CUE2014
• @Lconley86
• Flipped-pd.com
• Takeactionreporting.com
• See article here
• See slides here
• What is flipped pd?
• Teacher centered. Teachers are asked ahead of time what they would like to learn (based of technology use in the class). A lot of times they didn't know what they needed so she would give them suggestions about what would be good starting points. Smaller groups, not a huge room a time. Broke them into content area groups
• Technology rich and interactive. Teachers are sent email ahead of time with links and what accounts they need to have created, what logins they need, and what they should have downloaded, etc.
• Promotes active learning.
• Values teachers time and input.
• Facilitated
• What is it NOT?
• It's not watching videos ahead of time
• endless talking by presenters
• not the same every time
• SEVEN STEPS
• PLANNING
• what are the principals goals?
• What are the teachers goals and needs?
• Who is the facilitator?
• What are the different levels of technology usage that you will be encountering?
• CREATING AN AGENDA AND MODELING
• interactive agenda (she uses thinglink, sample here)
• Make background image with Piktochart - Infographic made in piktochart and saved as jpg and then put into thing link
• Agendas sent BEFORE pd
• They are sent ahead of time so people know what to expect and can ask questions ahead of time.
• Even the agenda is used to model how teachers could create something like this and use it in their classes
• Search her name on thinglink to see some of her interactive agendas
• Make sure when creating agendas and timelines you always make time for teachers to PLAY!!!
• Modeling- begins before the actual pd day. Teachers actually need to do it themselves
• CONTENT
• Relevant
• Teachers needs
• Remember - less is more!!
• Give "take aways"
• Unique for each group and dept
• DIGITAL TOOLS
• Evernote
• Padlet.com
• Socrative.com
• Todaysmeet.com
• MONITOR AND ADJUST
• change course as needed
• Remember your students are a great resource
• Time
• Tech problems
• EXIT SURVEY
• Continue modeling
• Create ahead of time
• She uses Socrative
• Check out space race thing on Socrative
• Students do not need to log in with Socrative
• FOLLOW UP
• use exit surveys
• Actively listen to follow up
• Know change is possible
• Create change

3. Deeper learning through online communication and collaboration

• Bit.ly/dlsomera
• What is deeper learning?
• Rigor
• Critical thinking
• Applying to real world situations
• Being able to teach and share things with someone else
• Not teaching to the test
• When a student learns something beyond just the content, able to apply their knowledge from other classes to what they are learning. Internalizing the information
• Knowledge that is transferable
• Deeper learning =content mastery + 21st century skills

• 21st century skills
• Critical thinking
• Creative problem solving
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Motivation and self regulation
• See rest of notes online  Bit.ly/dlsomera

4. KEYNOTE#1 - Dan Meyer

• Cue14.mrmeyer.com
• What is your edtech mission statement?
• Tools that will help me
• Capture perplexity
• Share perplexity
• Resolve perplexity
• Perplexity is not boredom or confusion.  It is not engagement. It is having a notion, knowing it can be answered and wanting to get it answered
• CAPTURE PERPLEXITY
• A bunch of tools that do what he wants, with explanations
• TIP: J key will move to next article in feedly
• TIP: Social bookmarking (diigo)
• TIP: YouTube -keepvid.com to download them off YouTube and without comments or ads
• TIP: Call my own google voice number to leave a voice message about something I want to remember but can't write down at the moment
• SHARE PERPLEXITY
• Document camera
• Keynote. Cover things up from pictures with white rectangles to make them more perplexing
• Blog and twitter
• The classroom is an unforgiving place to teach. Put your stuff online to test it out first
• RESOLVE PERPLEXITY
• with math. With your discipline. That's how students resolve it.
• He used to...
• Start with the objective ... The ones who finished first got to do the perplexing things...
• Now he starts with perplexing things... And then helps get you unperplexed.
• "You'll be tested on this stuff and that makes it important" argh!
• "Today we are going to ask about..."
• Matt vaudrey starts with daily doozy. A question! A perplexity!

Thursday sessions I wasn't able to attend but wanted to:

• Google Scripts
• Yet Another Mail Merge (might use this instead of FormEmailer)
• Student blogging do's and don'ts (David Theriault)
• Formative assessments on mobile devices
• Twitter- a superpower for educators (Jo-Ann Fox)
• Google Certified Teachers Panel
• Are you flippin' kidding me
• Twitter as a PD tool
• Everything Google Forms (Will Kimbley)

Week 6 Reflections

I just realized I skipped Week 5.  It has been a crazy couple of weeks!

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Today I made 25 dinners for the next month (I do once a month-or-so freezer cooking) which was a lot of fun but also kept me on my feet on my "day off".  It is worth it though, because it will save me so much time during the week.  Plus, I got to try three new freezer recipes today and the first one (we sampled!) turned out fantastic.  If you are interested in any of my easy freezer meal recipes, check out my online recipe book here and go to the freezer meal plan!

I presented a webinar with Sophia.org on Tuesday afternoon - you can check out the archive here.

I'm heading to CUE in Palm Springs on Wednesday of this week and looking forward to a great few days learning and sharing!  If you are going to be there, let me know so we can try to meet up!

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Let's see...

I made a change to one of my students' blog posts this week and I think I'm really going to like it.  Normally the students do individual blog posts where they create their own problems (sometimes word problems, sometimes just math problems) given certain qualifications, and then solve and explain them step by step.  It's been working really well and a great way to apply, analyze, and evaluate the math concepts.  However, I get a little overwhelmed with grading them sometimes and decided to make a decision to ease my grading load.  What started as a purely selfish decision actually turned into a fabulous learning experience for the students!  I had them partner up and TOGETHER they made the problem(s) that they would put on their blogs (one student would "host" the problems, the other student would just link to the "host" blog).  The beauty of this (besides cutting my grading in half) is the collaboration that it requires.  After I went over the requirements in class on Friday, every single student was engaged, communicating, collaborating, arguing, suggesting, and otherwise completely involved in the 20 minute time period given to write and solve the problems.  It was fantastic!  When the students do the posts by themselves, there is some form of collaboration because I ask them to share and check each other's work, but with this they HAD to work together and TWIRLS (think, write, interact, read, listen, speak) in order to get the job done.  I'm definitely considering making more of the blog posts "partner" ones - and NOT just because of the selfish grading reason!

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My "internal" flipped class is going fairly well.  Last week was a tough week because we got off of routine - the Common Core Units of Study we have to use from our district wasn't ready for us, so Wed-Fri we just kind of "made do" and it turned into a nightmare because without routine, my students in that class go crazy.  Thankfully, we reset and refocused on Monday of this week and they were back in the swing of things within a couple of days.

I really like the way that the Common Core (or at least how our district is doing it) approaches a lot of the math topics.  For example, this unit we are solving equations, but the unit starts off with the students thinking about an "unknown" and using mental math to "solve" very simple equations.  Then we delve into simple one-step inverse operations, and then into two-step equations.  However, before just teaching them procedures, we had them do something called the "number challenge" where someone would come up with a problem - they would plug a random number into their calculator, and say "I am multiplying/dividing my original number by ___.  I then add/subtract ____ to/from the result.  My final answer is ____".  Students then had to figure out what the original number was.  It was a fun game and started off with just guessing and hoping they were right.  However, students soon figured out how to work backwards with inverse operations (even though they hadn't learned them yet) to solve the puzzle.  It also reinforces what we are learning this coming week, which is that the order in which you solve an equation is important (must add/subtract first).  It just seems so much less procedural than the way that we have been teaching it the last few years.

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Today I had a former student (I think he graduated 3-4 years ago) post on his Facebook wall the following comment - it made my day!

Just wanted to say thank you to Crystal Kirch, years later and I'm still using her math binder she made us create but what can you say great teachers leave a lasting impression. Still to this day she's my favorite teacher I've ever had

And another occurrence this week that just makes you smile...

For pi day today, my fourth period kids came in singing "happy pi day to you" (to the tune of happy birthday) and presented me with a mcdonalds apple pie.
This is the same class who, after I mentioned offhand on Monday that I get lonely during lunch sometimes now that I don't have the same lunch as the rest of the teachers in my building, had 17 of the 35 kids come in on Tuesday during lunch (right before their class period) just to "hang out and keep me company"

Here's to another great week!  (That will be easy considering it's pretty much a two day week since we have the CAHSEE -CA High School Exit Exam - two days and then I'm gone two days for CUE!)

Week 4 Reflections

Math Analysis
My students took their Unit N Test this week and ACED it.  Seriously, I made a note to make it a more challenging test next year, even though I thought it was challenging to begin with.  Here are a few activities that I did that I think were really helpful.  You can see the Unit N tab of kirchmathanalysis.blogspot.com for all the resources.

• Every video assignment included optional "extra videos" for those students who needed to see even more examples.  They were there for the students to go back to at any time.
• Every day in class we did "kinesthetic" angle practice with our arms.  It started with just drawing angles, but then we did coterminal angles, reference angles, etc.  I think this helped with the mental visualization of what we were doing.
• Besides the kinesthetic visualization, we also did a lot of other visualizations in terms of trig function values and quadrants.  Instead of fully solving problems, we put them up there and talked about what we knew about the quadrants and where the answers would lie.
• Before just giving the unit circle to my students, they had to derive it and come up with the values themselves.  I wanted them to see the unit circle as just 3 special triangles reflected in multiple quadrants; thus, it's not something crazy hard to memorize.
• When we got to concept 9 (finding angles given trig function values), we talked a lot about logical answers.  For example, if the values had a radical 3 in them, the only logical place for the angle to be would either be the 30* or 60* reference angle.  Thinking through what makes sense and what is logical was very helpful.

I got to meet with a student who has been struggling all year with the content and the structure of the class.  He showed great progress on this last test and just working with him individually for about 20-30 minutes was really meaningful.  I'm looking forward to seeing him continue to make strides in the right direction.

Another student who failed every test 1st semester but now is finally spending the extra time he needs (he came in as a much lower student than his peers).  He rewatches videos, asks a lot of questions, and is just deciding to be fully engaged in their learning.  He just got an 84% on this test.  An 84%!! Wahoo!

I'm finally starting to learn more about the absolute awesomeness of Desmos.  I have to give a shoutout to my awesome twitter PLN who responded with some amazing Desmos creations that I'm going to use later in the year with Math Analysis.  It is already added to my summer to do list when I have time to tinker. If you are a math teacher and haven't checked out Desmos... you are missing out!

CCSS Course 1
My afternoon class is seriously magic.  It's been so amazing to see the students engaged in their learning - and really learning the material!  I will admit, having only 27 students and 1-2 aides every day is definitely helping.  They have their test on this unit on Tuesday, so we will see the results of this crazy asynchronous month of learning.

My other CCSS class is still another story. I just can't seem to figure out what it is... is it the 7 more students?  Is it the individual student personalities in the class? I definitely sense less respect (for teacher and peers) with 3-4 specific students that I think is draining the entire class environment.  Not to mention a student stole an iPod this week. I know who it is and have great hopes that it will be returned by tomorrow after many discussions with the class about honesty, integrity, and doing what is right even after a mistake is better than making 2 mistakes by continuing to lie.

One change I made is that starting Friday, all students went to the END of the assignment chart and started working backwards.  The last 10-12 items on the assignment chart are all review for the whole unit.  I did this because some students were so far behind that I'm hoping they will at least be able to understand part of the concepts by doing them in the review.  We'll see how they do.


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Well, a little short and sweet this week, but that's how it's been lately.  Life is good, Grayson is growing and will be walking any day now (and only 9 months old), and I'm just trying to find rest and balance.  March is a crazy month heading to Palm Springs for CUE in 3 weeks and a retreat the following weekend... heading into a week off for spring break!