SWAN teaching

Data Driven

Compared to the average person, I feel that my life is far more data driven than most.  I keep a close eye on the finances of my family, watching where money comes in and goes out; I read reviews and reports on nearly every product I buy, weighing all the options; and now, I track my runs with more data than I ever imagined – a forty minute run produces over 2400 data points.  Every five seconds, and I could change this to two seconds, or even one second, my new Polar RS800CX RUN collects information about time, distance,  speed, heart rate, and elevation, recording it all for upload to my computer via infrared.  A little bit of software then takes all that information and creates beautiful, informative graphs.

This was from my first run using the new “watch” (it is hard to call it just a watch, it does so much more than just tell time) and there are somethings that are still not calibrated – the elevation was way off and the “foot pod” was not set up.  Even with things not completely dialed in, this is a lot of information.  First of all, I can see that on an easy run, I spent way too much time hovering around the line between moderate and high intensity.  Simply put, I’m out of shape.  Also, you can see how changes in heart rate (the paler of the two graphs) correlated to the changes in elevations (even if the elevation was calibrated incorrectly).

So, what does all this mean?  It means that with the right data, I know a whole lot about my training and conditioning.  And based on that I can modify future training sessions to help remedy noticeable problems.  I am data driven.  Unfortunately, I am less effective at this in the classroom.  Why?  I like data.  I like the numbers.  I like what they tell me.  Why do I not as effectively analyzing my students as I do myself?  This is one area I am working on – trying to find a system that works for me.  I am especially trying to find out the data points that are most meaningful to my teaching.  Lots of people have suggestions, but so far it hasn’t effectively guided my practice.

Needless to say, this is on my agenda to be worked on this summer.

Related Posts: Mid-May Dismay / Technology, It’s Exciting / Faculty Meeting / 33 / Technology Presentation, Gold /

Something Amiss

Yesterday I was up on the fourth floor of our school, the “eleventh and twelfth grade floor” to see another science teacher.  Because the past two weeks were AP testing, there were a lot of signs up encouraging all the students who are taking the AP exams – all of the 11th and 12th grade students take at least one AP class (English Literature in 11th and Composition in 12th).  This is part of my schools “AP for All” push.  One of the signs said something about “5 on the AP,” and under it was another, smaller sign, that read: ‘You can do it!”

The “you can do it” signs are all over our building and in every class; however, this one, unlike the others which are more general, was specific to the AP test.  What made this sign interesting, and probably very telling about our “AP for All” program, was a hand written addition by one of our students.

Note:  The fourth floor is the 11th/12th grade floor, but there are occasionally other grade students that attend classes on the floor.  What I am saying is the following student commentary, unedited for spelling, may have been done by a student that is not taking the AP exam this year, but it is important to realize that they will take at least two before they leave the school – and the administration is looking to mandate more.

The quote – handwritten next to “You can do it!”:

“But youl probly faule.”

It took me a while to figure out that “faule” was supposed to be “FAIL,” but it is concerning nonetheless.

Related Posts: Cost-benefit Analysis / 99 Entries / Encouraging Comments / The Laptop Cart / Thinking, Lately. /

Mid-May Dismay

Reading how prolific some educators are in terms of their blogs and other projects is frustrating.  With the nearly seven month old little man at home and constant upheaval at school, there just isn’t enough time in the day.  I have been occasionally jotting down notes about topics that I felt deserved time here, and I still can’t seem to get things together.  However, as school winds down, ending in a little over a month, I am hoping that I will have a little more time to look back at the year and begin to look forward to the next.

Last night my little boy, after another tear filled night, woke up inconsolable at three in the morning.  Eventually he was able to fall back asleep, I was not.  So, I installed Windows 7 RC and Ubuntu 9.04 on my iMac using VirtualBox.  It was so easy that I still can’t believe I had both operating systems up and rolling in less than an hour.  I am still in shock how well everything went, and how great they run on my Mac.  Of course it is hard not to wonder why I would put Windows on my Mac when it has the brilliant OS X.  Simple, I just found a piece of software that I want to begin using that does not have a Mac version – yet!  For all the years that I have been a Mac user, this is really the first time.  However, Polar does not make a version of the Polar Protrainer 5 for any other system than Windows.  So, as I contemplate adding a RS800CX RUN watch to my collection, the software being a big draw, I have to ensure that I have the right software for it to run.  I do now.

I wish everything would go as smooth as software installs – even rough installs.  Lately my biology class has at me at the end of my rope.  It is the most frustrating group of students I have ever worked with – they have so much potential, but waste it on being unproductive.  Unfortunately, their grades will reflect this attitude and they will end up in another biology class next year.  Possibly mine… again.

The AP Biology test is over and both the students and I are relieved.  For the rest of the year we will be working on developing videos and presentations for the biology classes next year.  It should be fun.

Related Posts: Data Driven / Thinking, Lately. / 99 Entries / Handing Over the Keys / Time, Where Does It Go? /

99 Entries

My class website is currently stalled at 99 entries.  The ninety-ninth entry was for an exam that my AP Biology students took and I now have the feeling that there should be something special for my 100th post.  Of course that is easier said than done.  Because the site is used substantially less this year than last, I cannot help but feel that anything that I post will go relatively unseen by those that the post is intended for – my students.  My AP Biology students, at least ten of the twelve, would see it, and possibly even respond; however, the post would likely go unnoticed by my twenty-four biology students.  This is a problem.  Why are my AP Biology students, and even my biology students from last year, more engaged in the digital presence of the class?

One reason is obvious, I have higher expectation of technology use for my AP group.  Throughout the year they been required to add and maintain wiki pages, participate in forums, and recently, they have been using Moodle as their primary source of assignment submissions and nearly all of my resource distribution.  Because I only have have 16 computers, this kind of immersion for my biology class is more difficult.  But students don’t even use the site as a way to monitor their grades and missing assignments.  Last year I was constant fighting with biology kids about staying off the few computers there were in the room because they always wanted to check their grades.  Granted, those students also were doing much better in class than this group, and were much more concerned with how they were doing throughout the semester.  That may have a lot to do with the difference.

No matter, what I need to figure out for next year is how to engauge my studentes, even those who are in a class where computers are not used daily, to be more engauged with the website; however, I cannot make it such an integral part in the class that students without computer access are isolated.  Even student who say they have computer access may be limited to what they can access because of hardware or software constraints.  It is all very frustrated, and it has put my video podcasting on hold temporarily.

But with all that said, I still don’t have any ideas for my 100th post.

Related Posts: Handing Over the Keys / Mid-May Dismay / The Laptop Cart / Thinking, Lately. / Spring Growing Pains /

Thinking, Lately.

Recently we have had several days off:  Good Friday, “Easter Monday,” and Emancipation Day.  All of these have not only provided a nice break from school, but also time to reflect on what has gone well this semester and, more importantly, what has not.  For me, this has been an incredibly difficult semester – possibly the most frustrating I have ever experienced.  But it has also provided me with a lot to think about in the coming months in preparation for next school year.  There are definitely things that I am going to change, but there are a lot of things that I am going to keep the same.  The key to those things that I will continue from this year is how they will be implemented.

Implementation seems to have been the biggest shortcoming to the success of some of what I tried to accomplish this year.  Primarily it was related to the time spent walking through students the technologies that we would be using in class: podcasts, wikis, blogs, Moddle, etc.  I assumed that students in 2008/09 had a natural inclination to be drawn to these applications, and would be well aware of how they work and how to navigate them.  This was not the case.  Because of that there were significant frustrations with the use of these both in and out of the class – which led to some students simply withdrawing from the process completely.  Next year I will be spending a much more significant amount of time working with students through these tools – developing this is the main goal of my summer.

I have also realized that the structure of my video lessons needs to be changed.  The short 20-25 minutes “PowerPoint”-style videos I have used in my podcasts are not engaging students.  Because of this students are not watching them, they are not taking notes, and are therefore not prepared to do the classwork that was designed based on them having viewed the videos.  This also needs to be implemented at the beginning of the semester – day 1.  Beyond that time a routine is formed by the students and breaking that becomes increasingly difficult with each passing day.  Along with “day 1″ implementation of modified podcast “lectures,” I will also add the implementation of Moodle and Mahara.  Moodle will be used for content management, assignment submission, forum assignments, and maintaining a journal.  Mahara will be used for portfolio management – going 100% digital next year (done better this coming year).

There are definitely things that need to be worked out, and fortunately there is time.  But I know for certain that I am going to make this work – it is important.

Related Posts: 99 Entries / Spring Growing Pains / Mid-May Dismay / 33 / Faculty Meeting /

Cost-benefit Analysis

The past couple weeks have been a struggle.  In addition to moving and driving a student half-way across the country for a campus visit, I also had one of the most frustrating weeks of my short (five years) teaching career.  Since the Advisory (each of our two semesters are broken into two quarters, or Advisories) ended on the 27th I have been looking at student work and their resulting grades.  It was depressing, to say the least.  Of the four semesters I have been at my current school, this is the worst.  Students have submitted the least amount of work and are consequently receiving the lowest grades.  If it was not for the mandatory time we must give students to extend the time they have to submit work (and this is not only special education students that have this dictated in their IEP, this is all students) I would be issuing ten failing grades in my biology class – 45% of the class.  And in my AP class it would be 42%.

It is shameful.  In my AP biology class there were four students that simply did not turn in their take-home midterm exam.  Let me explain this in more detail.  In an attempt to reduce “teacher talk” I assigned each of the students a chapter in the fifth unit (biological diversity) to present to the class via their own PowerPoint presentation.  Students were also required to write a summary for the website and create a Wiki page providing more detail about what they presented.  Finally, they would write up a couple forum questions and respond to other student’s posts (creating a dialogue about the unit).  Other students would then see nine different presentations by presenters other than me.  After this, students would take an exam over the material and we would be on to plants – yes, we are incredibly behind, but this is one of the side effects of “AP for all.”  Students were given well over two weeks to work on this, with every class period devoted to their work.  Personally, I thought this was too much time; however, students still did not finish the assignment on time (in the past I have done the same work in one or two days – essentially, I could have completed ALL of the chapter in the same time).  Only six (50%) of the students submitted their PowerPoint on time, fewer completed the summary, and only two completed the Wiki page before the due date.  This was to be the major project for the Advisory that, in our school, makes up near 30% of their midterm grade.  Because the project took so long, something I still believe was too much time, there was not time for the students to take the 100 question midterm exam and give everyone ready a chance to present.  So, the test was given as a take home exam.

Back to the four students who did not complete the exam.  I had little sympathy.  They simply did not do the test, or “forgot.”  These four students always “forgot,” and I was tired of bending over backwards for them.  However, upon realizing that they would definitely fail the semester without earning some points, I offered an alternative test at a specific time to earn some credit – it would not be curved like the “official” exam.  How many of the four students who failed to submit the original exam?  One.  One?

My biology class was even worse.  I had to suspend teaching so that any student would submit and present their project.  It wasn’t a new project, it was something I had done with my ELL classes last semester and had wonderful success.  For my English proficient class this semester, it was a failure.  It took nearly three times as long as my ELL group, and the finished product was, for the most part, uninspired and mediocre at best.  This past week we should have been talking about cellular energetics, instead I fought to get students to complete work and potentially pass the class.  Even with a week extension ten were “unable” to complete the work.

Needless to say this has sent my own motivation to the gutter.  Although I know I should not do it, I am constantly running cost-benefit analyses in my head related to the amount of time I put into preparing different and creative lessons and projects and the actualy return I get from the students.  Right now, the cost is so much higher than the benefit (even to what it seems the students are learning) that I understand how teachers fall back on passing out endless stacks of worksheets and busy work.  Of course this isn’t me.  When I get to that point I will leave teaching; however, something needs to change.  The cost-benefit analysis in my head is not working out.  And what needs to change is the return on what I get from the work I put into the class.  Students in my class are not taking enough responsibility for their own learning, so I will have to pick up the slack.

Related Posts: Spring Growing Pains / Reflecting on the Mastery Unit / Something Amiss / 99 Entries / 33 /

Spring Growing Pains

As the third Advisry comes to a close, there have been numerous growing pains for all of us in my class.  Students in my biology class have still not completely bought into the podcasting model.  The inconsistencies of student viewings has been frustrating, as has the students access to the appropriate technology to even view the podcasts.  However, beyond that, I am frustrated most with my students’ daily production (or should I say lack of production) – specifically related to work completion.

For this unit I intentionally reduced the workload to hopefully get better submission of work and hopefully giving some students the opportunity to work on some of the supplemental “extension” assignments.  It has not worked out that way.  All of the students failed to complete their unit project on time and had to spend too much of their in class time attempting to complete that.  Unfortunately, because of school policy, these project account for nearly 30% of a student’s overall grade.  Too often this means that all other work gets put on hold while students scramble to get the projects finished.

It is a process.  And because of that I am still looking how to make progress using this format, establishing a well developed system for the future.  In addition, in my classroom and our department as a whole, we are looking revamp our portfolio projects – making them more effective and reduce the amount of time they require for completion.

Like the students, I am definitely learning as I go.

One of the things I am going to attempt to implement during the last Advisory is the use of Moodle.  Having recently added the course management system (CMS) to my website, I have begun using it in my AP class to help students focus on what we are covering, what we are doing, and what is due.  Also interesting, it allows students to submit their work within the system and me the ability to comment and grade on their work there as well.  While I maintain student grades on a password protected part of my site, Moodle also provides a decent gradebook.  Its potential as a portfolio management system is also intriguing.

Although a definite “beginner” using the system, Moodle seems to have a pretty mild learning curve.  However, I put in a request with my administration to attend the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) this summer, and they have a lot of sessions about Moodle and its use – an excellent opportunity to learn more.

Related Posts: Mastery / Thinking, Lately. / Cost-benefit Analysis / More Mastery / Reflecting on the Mastery Unit /

Wrestling with the Traditions of American Education: A Reflection

(This post is part of a series to fulfill the requirements of my current graduate course.)

While the title and authors of the articles are different, I have read this before.  I have read an article or five on the inequality, injustice and discrimination in our schools in nearly every graduate class during my time at American University.  We have read “the” articles in Principles of Effective Instruction, Gender and Cultural Diversity in Education, Democracy and Social Justice in Education, Theories of Educational Psychology, and even in Reading, Writing and Literature Across the Curriculum.  Now we are reading “the” articles in Foundations of Education.  More than anything, I feel as if my “education” is failing me – forcing me to take essentially the same classes semester after semester in order to earn a piece of paper that says I am “qualified” teach.  A piece of paper that researchers believe more and more says little about the impact of the teacher earning “certification” will have on the achievement of their students.  Essentially, little more than a hoop to jump through.

Before I discuss the article, or rather book chapter, for this entry, I cannot help but wonder when teacher education will be addressed in education reform.  As it stands, it is largely a broken system.  Of course, I am sure some universities are for more success at providing a valuable experience for new teachers than American, but I have to believe that things across the board could be better.  If these programs were adequately preparing teachers with practical information for their entrance into schools, and then solidifying their education with effective and adequate mentoring, there would be fewer teachers coming into the system unprepared and then quickly burning out and leaving.

Reading Teaching to Change the World (Lipton & Oakes, 2006) we have been asked to consider a couple things to consider.  One thing that I have noticed in my school, no matter how beautiful or new the building is, it does not mean that the students will be given the same resources as suburban districts.  For example, I work in a school building that is less than four years old – one of the newest in the District; however, I am unable to get the basic supplies to complete many, safe laboratory experiments.  Ninety percent of the labs done in my classroom are done with materials that I have purchased from a local grocery store.  In addition, in order for goggles to be worn by students, the two “classroom sets” of goggles have to be shared by the seven lab science classrooms – making it very difficult for labs to be completed on the same day.  In chemistry classes there is not enough glassware for two classes to complete the same lab during the same period – they all must be staggered.

To me, this is definitely an injustice.  Our students are held to the same standards as suburban students, but this schools have everything they need.  This summer I was at a training in Fairfax County, Virginia, where they had two boxes full of power supplies and gel electrophoresis apparatuses.  At my school, after placing the order in June, we just received one power supply and two of the apparatuses.  Unfortunately we don’t have any of the agarose to run the samples on or the DNA to test – again, I will be ordering this on my own simply so students can experience this lab activity. Also at this school students were all given the chance to utilize educational techonology or learn “21st Century Skills.”  In each these Fairfax school’s classrooms was a laptop cart with a complete classroom set of computers.  At my school, there is one cart for the high school, and one for the middle school.  Now, both of these schools are held to the same standards under NCLB -  this is inequality.

In my classroom, I have worked hard to bring as much of educational opportunities these suburban schools have to my students.  I spend a lot of money and time purchasing and preparing lab experiences that they would not be exposed to if we relied on what our school had to offer.  I also have done what I can to hang on to the mostly unused laptop cart on my side of the building – giving my students constant exposure to the usefulness of modern Internet read/write technologies.  But this should not be something isolated to just one or two rooms in the school.  All students should have this oportunites every day, in every class.  Computers change the way we communicate with each other.  It moves dialogue beyond stundent/teacher and reaches a much broader audience.  It can also bring interlectual resources directly to the students that they would otherwise never experience.  A big part of me feels that connectivity has the potential to be the great equalizer in education.  But that connectivity has to first be provided to all students.

Last Saturday Pedro Noguera said that we should embracing the diversity of languages and culture in our schools, avoiding making education an English-only institution.  With the advances in technology the world is shrinking, and to maintain global competiveness students will need to be able to move comfortably in the global market.  Much of this will be related to language skills and cultural awareness.  By putting students in English-only schools we are not only stifiling those from otehr countries, but we are limited their exposure to what the world will be like when the leave school.  Schools need to embrace their diverse populations and cultivate students who are fluent in both the language, but also the culture of two, even three different other countries.  I cannot help but wonder how different our country would be if students were learning Chinese and Spanish from the first days of class.  With a wife that speaks fluent Russian and a daycare that speaks to him in Spanish, I am hopeful that our new son will have an advantage later in life.

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Encouraging Comments

This morning I installed the Intense Debate comment system on all of my blogs.  It is a wonderful, feature-rich plug-in to most blogging applications allowing for comment threading – something I really like from using forums (although not a feature on mine) when trying to see what specifically is being discussed and responded to in the post.  It also allows for ratings (positive and negative), reputation statistics, and the ability to embed polls and videos – all seemingly very cool things.

While this is all well and good, without a practical application it is just another gizmo or widget that goes unused – think anything that you purchased at a home or auto show after watching the demonstrator show off its worth for twenty minutes.  One thing I have always hoped for on my class website is a dialog with my students.  Sure it is a great place to post information, podcasts, assignments, and student work, but I have never really gotten the response from students that I hoped.  I have always envisioned that comments on posts would help guide student learning and my instruction, but so far they have been rarely used.  Now, I am trying to change that.

Although Intense Debate requires a brief sign-up process, something I try not to overwhelm my students with, I think it might create some interesting opportunities for students to respond to post, and even provide a chance to discuss their understandings with each other – much like a forum offers, but without having to leave the post.  In addition, good or bad, I want feedback from my students about what I can do to help them learn.  Let me give you an example that is guiding and shifting my practice at this moment.

Several times in the past couple weeks one my students has come after school for a variety of reasons – most recently to retake her unit exam to earn the 85% required in our mastery guidelines.  (I defintely will reflect on the results of that exam in a future post.)  When she comes, her little sister, who is in the seventh grade, often tags along.  On her first visit to my class last week she was very funny, sarcastically saying how much she enjoyed my podcasts.  However, on the second visit she was more specific.  She commented about how boring they were, especially how I was “narrating” the videos.  Then she went on to describe how when drawing on the slides, it can make things more confusing.

I can work with this.  Sure, this girl is not even in my class.  She is not even in any biology class.  But she had actual comment about what made the podcasts boring or confusing.  And if they are boring and confusing to her, it is likely they are boring and confusing to others.  Of course the podcasts are essentially recorded lectures, they aren’t summer blockbusters, but it something to consider and something that I can try to modify.  And that is the power of comments – if they are used.

To help encourage these interactions with students via comments I have started to offer a little extra credit for quality comments.  I am not a major fan of extra credit, but without some incentive few students would actually participate.  Hopefully a few points here and there will help, and over time it will become second nature for the students – and I will be better able to help them.  I will report on the progress of this plan as it develops.

Related Posts: Spring Growing Pains / Cost-benefit Analysis / Thinking, Lately. / Handing Over the Keys / More Mastery /

Reflecting on the Mastery Unit

A couple days ago I received an email about the mastery unit I have been exploring over the past two weeks.  As I have both mentioned before, it was inspired by the work of Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams at their Colorado high school.  The email asked some very interesting questions that I had been thinking about myself, and really consider how to make this method more effective.  The questions asked caused me to really stop and think about what has been done, what needs to be done, and how to improve the process – better helping all of my students learn.

Based on the questions and my observations from the first unit, the following are the changes to how I will complete the second unit.  By making these changes I am hoping to not only have greater control ensuring that students are doing their “homework,” but also holding the students more accountable for what they are learning.

1. Videos will be posted as soon as they are completed, preferably at the start of the unit.  However, because of time constrained their may be some lag on some of the later videos being published.
2. Students will at least watch the video the evening before class designated for that topic.  Accelerated students can watch ahead and do work at their own pace; however, they must be ready to take a short quiz and discuss the scheduled topic.
3. The next morning students will take a one question, constructed response quiz related to the material – they will earn a pass fail grade for this (approx. 5 min) – a “warm-up.”
4. While taking the brief quiz, I will check their minimum one-page of notes (again pass/fail) for every video.  I want students to get accustomed to taking notes during a “lecture” and they will help them greatly during their in-class assignments and when studying for exams.  (Two days of “fail” scores will result in phone calls home.)
5. Each day we will complete a brief 10-15 minute student led “Socratic seminar” based on two questions given to the students during the video.  These questions should be prepared for while watching the videos by developing their own questions about the material.  Students will be scored by each other based on their participation questions, responses, and participation.
6. Students will then work on their assignments.  This unit will involve far less “worksheet-style” work to avoid students sharing work.  My goal is to focus more on hands on and lab activities that will require students to “do” something, not simply fill out a worksheet.
7. Each student will close with an “exit slip” that will review the work they completed – another check-in for me and an opportunity to possibly report their progress to parents or administrators.

With these changes I am hoping to see greater participation, and much greater progress in all of my students.

Related Posts: Mastery / More Mastery / 33 / Cost-benefit Analysis / Spring Growing Pains /