Mr. Steve Leinwand

How many of us teach the way we were taught? How many of us plan lessons relatively quickly because we lecture, or maybe because we teach the same courses year after year and it’s just gotten to be that easy? How many of us observe other teachers for the purpose of collaboration to improve what we do? How many of us believe that if we continue to teach the way we have been, student achievement will go up?

That last question is really what I’m looking at. I know that in my short six years of teaching the same courses I’ve found myself answering positively to the first two questions, but yet negatively to the last two. Unfortunately, I think there are plenty of teachers out there who are not honest with themselves and may believe that what they’re doing is fine and will continue to be satisfactory with the CCSS. This is an issue. I think we can all agree that with the adoption of the Common Core students are going to be expected to do more than they have in the past. Independent thought and critical thinking are going to need to be included in our curricula so they can rise to these challenges. We need to implement strategies and practices into our daily lessons so that we can build up these skills not only in students, but teachers as well. The other day I had the pleasure of listening to Steve Leinwand give a presentation to our IU where he addressed these issues and some actions we can take.

I wish that I could adequately summarize all that he said, but I’m sure I will not do him justice. He started by showing what math used to (and in some cases, still) look like: drill and kill, no context, variables, variables, variables! (He also used this as an opportunity to share his distaste for Algebra 2, but that’s a different discussion) All of this, among other factors, has created little growth, little real-world preparation, and absolutely little preparation for the CCSS math practices. We know this from the math anxiety, illiteracy, poor test scores, tons of remediation, and large amounts of criticism. So… what do we do? The same thing of course (NOPE!). “If we continue to do what we’ve always done, we will continue to get what we’ve always gotten. If, however, what we’ve accepted is no longer acceptable, then we have no choice but to change some of what we do and some of how we do it” (from Steve himself).

He went on and showed all kinds of examples of how we can change, which were all very Dan Meyer-esque: introduce problems with pictures and video, introduce data sets by only giving a few numbers, show pictures, numbers, or representations and ask “What do you see? How do you know? Convince me? Prove it.” All of these tasks followed a similar pattern: show the students just a little bit and let them hypothesize as to what was coming next. The data set he provided was particularly impressive to me because I wish I would’ve thought of it. He showed us a few numbers and had us talk about what patterns we saw, what numbers we thought will fill the rest of the set, and what it represents. Then he showed us a little more and we found a new pattern and took new guesses. Then she showed us a little more and so on and so on. Throughout this process, whenever a new pattern arose, we’d talk about it at length. It wasn’t just, “Nope that’s not right, let’s move on,” it was taking our responses and running with them. It was focusing on the students’ responses, giving them some ownership, and letting them run the class. He did this with every example. He never knew what our responses would be, he didn’t know where we would lead the conversation, but he was always prepared to facilitate a meaningful discussion based on our answers.

As I watched and listened to him, I couldn’t help but think, ‘This is not for everyone.’ I know that I could do that for geometry because I’ve taught it for 6 years, but I probably couldn’t do this for algebra 2 and definitely not for calculus; I’m just not that comfortable with the material. I have a feeling that many teachers would agree with this. So the question is, if the goal is to implement strategies similar to these build the quality of our lessons, how do we build up our teachers so that they can do this? I experienced one option, go to training sessions and presentations like Mr. Leinwand’s. Would another possibility be to allow teachers to teach the same course year after year so that they become comfortable with the material so they can focus more on the teaching strategies and less on the concepts themselves? And obviously, throughout this entire process, there needs to be plenty of follow-up.

That last part is what concerns me the most. Even in my short career I’ve sat through plenty of programs and initiatives in my district that started strong and then fell through within weeks. I know all kinds of strategies that our district bought into, but no one has ever checked to see that I’ve implemented them or that they’ve made a difference among our students. Sure, research shows that certain processes are more effective than others, but if they don’t get implemented what’s the point? This is actually how Mr. Leinwand closed his presentation. He said to the hundreds of teachers that all of this was pointless to 80% of them because they will go back to their classes and continue to do the same thing after being jazzed for a few hours. He called everyone out and no one argued with him because we all knew that he was speaking the truth. We need to be held accountable. The items he discussed would greatly improve the classrooms in my building, in my district, in the state, and in the country. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard and keep in mind that we need to do what is best for these kids. We need to prove Mr. Leinwand wrong by sharing, supporting, and most of all, taking risks. Even though we’re spread out geographically, with the common core more than ever, we’re all in this together. We’re all teaching the same thing, let’s make sure we’re all teaching it to the same high standard. Let’s collaborate, communicate, and inspire each other to go out on a limb and try something new.

“But… that’s scary. And a lot of work.”

Yes, yes it is. We will need to change, which is never easy. Some of us are stuck in our ways and fear that which is different or refuse to believe any changes will be effective. This also creates a fear of failure – that’s what our colleagues are for. Fear of failure creates lack of confidence. Lack of confidence lends itself to excuses: there’s not enough time, these kids don’t want to learn, they don’t care so why should I, Yeah but… etc. Without proper leadership, there will not be proper accountability or proper support in place. We can overcome these potential setbacks with the proper items in place. We need to envision the possibilities and work towards them rather than work against them. Great things can happen in the right place with the right people.

Mr. Leinwand provided plenty of specific examples of how math instruction can be taken to the next level, and if you’re interested I can try to provide you with some of that information. However, what I summarized above, in my opinion, was the most important part of his presentation. Simply increasing the rigor and relevance of our instruction is easier said than done. In order for it to happen, many other items have to be in place in order to create a supportive network of educators that share a common goal. If anyone believes that they can do it isolated in their own room, they are mistaken. We need to exercise our creativity, take risks, and collaborate for the purpose of increasing the quality of education we provide. Let’s get our students informed, engaged, stimulated, and most of all, challenged. After all, which class would you rather be in?

Special thanks to Steve Leinwand for sharing his insights. 

Mumford and Math

I'm a big fan of Mumford and Sons. I only started listening to them last year, and quickly moved them to the top of my playlist. When their new cd came out a couple of weeks ago, I of course purchased it as soon as I could and it really is as good as everyone says it is. Two quality albums in a world where technology and catchy tunes are considered good music these days is uncommon. I began doing some research as to what makes them so good.
It turns out for their first album they sat and wrote each song, one by one, until it was perfect. Apparently it took a great deal of time and effort and produced some frustration at times. In the end they produced exactly what they wanted: an album with every song exactly as they envisioned it. For the new album they started to write songs in a similar fashion. However, this time around, they quickly realized how long it was taking to perfect every detail in each song before moving on. They changed their writing style for a bit at this point. They played a game: each member went to a separate corner of the house and wrote as many songs as they wanted, not worrying about the details, not worrying about the overall quality if it was 'album' worthy, not worrying about anything. They just sat, wrote tunes, and wrote lyrics. After the 10 minutes they each came together and shared what they had come up with, picking the ones that they thought were the best. Then, as a group, they perfected each song.
I've never heard of any group doing something like this, and it intrigued me. I got to thinking about Sir Ken Robinson and what he would say about this. Talk about creativity! Then I started to think how this could be implemented into my profession. It was clearly a good strategy to use in the music business when all of the members are experts in music. Would the results be the same for a group of expert teachers?
Now, I don't consider myself to be an expert teacher by any stretch of the meaning. I make mistakes on a regular basis, I teach poor lessons just like everyone else; I approach everything I do with an open mind thinking about how I can improve upon my job. But still, what would happen? I decided to put it to the test. During our department meeting today we gave this process a try. Here's how it went down:

1. We started by writing a couple topics down that fit into one of these categories: something I wish I could teach, something I have difficulty teaching, something I feel uncomfortable teaching. We came up with linear programming, simple harmonic motion, and law of sines/cosines.
2. I let each of my colleagues choose which one they wanted to work on (it ended up that half went to simple harmonic motion and the other half went to linear programming).
3. I asked them to write me a full lesson on their topic within 10 minutes, ignoring the details but simply by establishing a framework, opening, closing, etc. As a department we will fill in the details to create a high quality lesson.

I did this for a number of reasons. For starters, I was curious. What would be the outcome of this exercise? Would we really have some of the best lessons we've ever written or would they be just as good as what we've been doing for the past x-years. Secondly, I wanted to get my department communicating more about things over than 'do you have a worksheet/test for that?' I want us to be a social, collaborative group that feels comfortable bouncing ideas off of each other and willing to actually work together. Finally, I wanted to expand some people's comfort areas and get them to think outside the box. I'm not quite sure how each member plans their lessons, but I imagine its safe to bet they don't do it in 10 minutes. I'm also willing to bet that they don't do it with no materials in front of them, using purely what's in their head. I purposely did not tell them the details of this plan ahead of time because I did not want them bringing content maps, lesson plans, or textbooks to pull from. I wanted them to be creative. I wanted them to make the connections between the math and figure out a way to show it to their students. I wanted them to teach a concept in a way that made sense, not because a textbook said to do it a certain way. I feel that all too often we teach to what the textbook says, rather than teaching to the kids. This mindset bothers me and I wish to change it. For example, why aren't the trig functions, the unit circle, and the graphs all taught simultaneously? Sure, that's A LOT of information to through at the students at the same time. But doesn't it make more sense to show them how its all connected? Rather than most textbooks which have them in different chapters? You wouldn't have to go into huge amount of detail right away, but you could at least illustrate why it all works out the way it does. I wanted my department to take part in this exercise because I want all of us to be able to think about what is really going on in each of our subjects/topics. I want us to focus more on trying to develop good lessons and focus less on the material. By putting a time limit on the planning, I'm hoping that forces some creativity. By getting rid of the pressure of coming up with the details, I'm hoping that we can relax a bit and come up awesome introductions and summarizers and work together for the rest. I think that this can have a really positive impact if everyone approaches it in the right way. If anyone looks at this as a pointless exercise and doesn't venture out of their comfort zone, then it will turn into a quick way to produce the same mediocre lessons that have been teaching. I'm hoping for a positive experience and to try this again in the future, or at least to have members try it on their own when they get stuck. We shall see what happens.

Quick Question (well, maybe not quick)

How does one approach fellow educators whose view on education is this:

Rather than this:

Last night, Mr. Pershan tweeted something interesting: "What's a question about teaching that you wish you knew the answer to?" This got me thinking a little bit. And then this morning I thought more. My original response was "Is it possible to get all levels of learners to see, understand, and appreciate the interconnectedness of all math topics?" I tried to think of Mr. Pershan's question from my current standpoint, knowing what I know now as opposed to what questions I might've had my first year teaching. This morning I thought of the above question. Its something that I've struggled with ever since I made the transition myself. On a regular basis, across subject areas, I run into teachers that stuff facts and notes into students' brains and expect them to just regurgitate them. To me, that's not really the point of education. Sure, there are certain pieces of information that we need to learn and remember and use exactly as we learned them, but the majority of education should be learning how to problem solve and apply what we learn to new situations. I always have students tell me they're never going to fly on a plane that is landing at a 5 degree angle at an altitude of 3000 feet, so why do they need to know how much distance they need to land? I don't really have an argument for them; they are most likely correct. However, I don't teach them how to solve this problem exactly the way its written. I teach them the trig. functions and how they relate to the right triangle, and they THINK about how it can be applied to various scenarios. I hardly ever give the same type of problem more than once because all too often students use the same steps to solve everything. I'm trying to break them of this habit. I make it very clear to my students at the beginning of the year that I will teach them how to think because currently they don't know how; they only know how to read directions. After a few weeks, they start to get it and they start learn how to apply knowledge to all kinds of situations. They think outside the box rather than look into the box for steps 1, 2, and 3. Its an amazing transformation to witness, and the growth I see from the beginning to the end of the semester is quite awesome.

Back to my original question, how do I transfer this mindset to teachers that don't share it (or how do I make teachers realize this isn't what they're doing when they think they are)? Maybe that's not my job (but when I want what is best for students, its hard to ignore these things). After all, I'm not claiming to be 'Johnny Know-It-All' on this topic. I can do it with my students mainly because I've been teaching the same course for 6 years and have been able to perfect my lessons to reflect this process. I'm sure if I taught a new course next year, it would take some time to develop lessons that develop this mindset in students. I certainly don't have all of the answers, but I feel that I'm able to identify what I consider good teaching from bad teaching (and I have more than 2 years experience). In this 'team teaching' that I'm doing with my colleague, he is showing me all kinds of stuff that I never thought about in his lessons (there are times I feel I'm learning as much as the students). I've always been open to criticism, and that's why I've been able to change my teaching style. I was lucky enough to have a fellow colleague of mine take me under his wing and help me get my students to where they need to be. Combine that with the math twittersphere and blogosphere and its been a super fun process; doing all kinds of research and applying them to my teaching has been more beneficial than parts of my college education.

Maybe that's the first step: recognizing that there needs to be a change. I'm open to it, and I know others that are too. But what about those that aren't?

Note: the first image was taken from Mr. Pershan's parent night notes (@mpershan)

Sir Ken Robinson

Last night I had the amazing opportunity to watch Sir Ken Robinson speak at Millersville University. I left speechless. If you are unfamiliar with his work, please go here and here and here.
There are so many thoughts running through my head at the moment I'm not exactly sure I can write anything that will do his talk justice. I'm wishing I would've wrote this post last night when I got home instead of sleeping. I do want to highlight just a few points that Sir Ken made that stuck with me and will cause me to rethink my classroom and department.
1. How do you run an organization that is adaptable to change and flexible? One that is creative? One that keeps up with change and stimulates change? Public education needs to be this way. One point that he made, and that I agree with, is that schools are all about conformity. All students take the same classes at the relatively the same time and are expected to get the same grade. Schools need to allow students to explore their interests and creativity so that they can find their element. This will require schools to adapt to the students it educates rather than the students adapting to the schools they attend. There are many steps that need to be taken for this to happen, and its certainly not something that will happen overnight. Can we as individual teachers do anything to support this process, even if the governing bodies do not officially embrace it? Sure.
2. NCLB is actually leaving everyone behind. Standardized testing is causing teachers across the country to mold their students into machines, learning processes but not thinking about what is going on. Usually, this is done in the most boring way possible. When students are looked at as data, they revolt. When they are looked at as individuals, they succeed. A political policy that was supposed to help education and increase our students knowledge is, in reality, taking away from their education because they are being forced to learn about things that they see no value in. They are not able to express their creativity because they are limited to what's on the test. Combine this with the decrease in public education funding and you lose those courses that engage students and stimulate their creativity and you keep the courses that are cut and dry.
3. We are reducing our funding for education increasing our funding for the correctional institutions. 1 in 31 people are in, waiting for sentencing, or being rehabilitated by a correctional facility. Not that those two statistics are directly related, but its interesting to think about.
4. Personalizing education helps people realize their talents. Every attempt to personalize education has failed. Standardized tests de-personalize the educational experience. This was really the subject of his entire talk.
5. By narrowing the curriculum, we are implying that life is linear; that we all will follow the same path. In truth, life is organic; its constantly changing and adapting to surroundings. Let's teach our students how to make these adaptations rather than telling them what to do and where they should be. Let them discover what they are good at and what they are interested in, and let's foster it. If we tell them what to learn and how to learn it and don't move off of the curriculum that is set for 'everyone,' how will they ever learn their place in life? There are plenty of people in the world that are good at what they do, but don't truly enjoy it. Let's have our students graduate ready to pursue a career that they are good at AND love.
6. Myths - 1. Only special people are creative. 2. You are either creative or your not. 3. Special things are required to be creative. 4. You can't teach creativity.
7. As teachers, we are like gardeners and our students are our plants. Gardeners don't grow plants; plants grow themselves. Our job is to provide the optimal conditions for growth. Beautiful analogy.
8. The risk we take in margenalizing our students is greater than the risk of letting them be creative and grow.
9. "I'm not what's happened to me, I'm what I chose to become" - Carl Young

Of course, these are not my original thoughts. They are all from the great Sir Ken Robinson. He said so much more and was extremely informative and insightful, but these are just a few of the points that stuck with me and will guide my classroom from now on.

Nay-Sayin' the Nay-Sayers

This week I've been participating in a 1-2-1 initiative training session in my district. All of our freshmen are getting their own laptops, and its my job incorporate them into my lessons effectively. I'm not a huge fan of technology for technology's sake, but some of the tools we've looked at could add some significance to my lessons. It'll be interesting to play around with it throughout the year. I'm sure I'll post an update in the future.
Anyway, this morning we got into a discussion on project-based learning versus the 'old style' of education. The obvious question of 'Which is better?' was posed, and everyone agreed that the PBL style would be much more effective. When our presenter, Tom Gaffey from Philadelphia School of the Future, asked how many of us have tried it, less people raised their hands. When he asked why we haven't, what our roadblocks were, this is where the discussion got started. Many of us began talking about pros and cons to planning and executing these lessons, and the end product was very positive.

Now, I'm in a unique situation in that I've taught the exact same courses for the past six years. I've tried to use this to my advantage. Rather than teaching the same thing every year, I've tried to add or modify a PBL unit to the course every time I go through it. 

Whenever I take part in these discussions, I often get the feeling that teachers really do want what's best for their students, and these presentations motivate them to put the proper pieces in place. But once the show is over and the presenter is gone, temptation to resume the status quo emerges. It took me many years to overcome this feeling, and it still lurks at time. I understand that the time factor in planning is tough, but that is why you start small. Lack of motivation among students is present in every math class (it's what we do!), but PBL lessons have a 74% chance of generating more interest among students (I made that up, but they will help!). State exams and standards aren't going anywhere, if anything their gaining momentum, but we need to work with them not for them. This is the excuse that bothers me the most, and I know there are people that will disagree here.

The example we looked at today was teaching slope through building a set of stairs. Mr. Gaffey explained how he had his students find someone in the community that needed a set of stairs built and his students did the work for them. He taught them everything they needed to know to construct them correctly and tied the notion of slope into his explanation (I immediately thought of Dan Meyer's competition idea). To me, this is an awesome idea! He even admitted that his students did no better on the state tests than others. At this point, the conversation got interesting. I could tell some in the room began questioning the significance of the lesson. After all, if it doesn't raise scores, but takes more time, what's the point? I've got stuff to cover, we've got to push through the content. On the contrary, Mr. Gaffey made the point that his students gained a valuable learning experience in problem solving and construction among other things. He took it from concrete to abstract and had the students attention the entire time. So, yeah, it took longer, but the benefits far outweigh that. I would love to have an entire course (or all courses) structured in this way. If I get through the entire curriculum, GREAT! If I don't, who cares? If my students learn the majority of a curriculum really well along with other topics, then whatever I miss can be made up later. If my students have the opportunity to get a ridiculously awesome learning experience, I'm going to do anything I can to make that happen. It's not easy, but then again, if it was everyone would be a teacher, right?

I wish I could find more educators that shared this mindset and had a better opportunity to collaborate for this type of planning. I believe great things can happen if education is done right. There are many things that work for our students, but we need to ask ourselves if what we are doing is whats best for them.

Piece of Cake Upside Down

I recently re-watched one of the few good math movies made - 'Stand and Deliver.' I showed it to my students and they were (surprisingly) interested in it and loved it. Some of them learned shortcuts to their 9 times tables and a new way to think about positive and negative numbers. I, on the other hand, watched it from a new point of view.

I haven't watched this movie since I've become a teacher. Previously, I watched it from a student's perspective and purely for entertainment value. Now, as a teacher, I realize there is some deeper content here. There are some things wrong with the clip above. The claim that their students cannot learn because of where they live or because of their status is bogus. Mr. Escalante gets it right when he says 'students will rise to meet your expectations.' I think there are a good amount of teachers out there that don't fully believe this; they think kids will be kids and there's nothing that can be done to help them. They are who they are and there are all kinds of excuses for the teachers not to teach them. Escalante owns up to his responsibility, says he could do more, and he follows through with it. After watching this again, I began thinking about my classroom. Do I set a high level of expectation for my students, and continue that expectation throughout the semester, or do I eventually cater to their level? Can I get them to do more for me and for themselves in order to help them realize their true potential? Is there a way for me to give them the ganas they need to be successful not only in my class, but in their lives? If I answer in the negative to any of these questions, what can I do to change? I plan on seriously reconsidering my first week of class and my management techniques to empower my students with ganas. Yes, I teach math. Yes, its an uphill battle before they even walk in the door on the first day because of that. Yes, stereotypes say that I am a boring nerd. I don't think that I can settle for any of that and I don't want my students to either. I need to find a way to change their opinions, change their mindset, and change their opinion of their ability level. I need to gain their trust from day one and show them that they are capable of whatever they put their mind to. I feel I do this to a point with some students, but not as many as I'd like. I also realize that this is a Hollywood interpretation to a true story, but there is a lot to be said for it. I could go on and on...