What if students did all the work?

This year I have set up my classroom to reflect a little of the Flipped Classroom model. It makes sense to me to have students do their work when they are at school and can ask me questions. So here's what a math class looks like to my students:

This is how they start class:

Once at their seats, they input the answers from the previous day's work into their clicker (which I monitor so I can work with students who are struggling), do an online math fundamentals activity, and then preview the day's lesson on My Big Campus. They take notes in their Interactive Notebooks over videos and PowerPoint files within MBC and then I give a small lesson. Then they practice! Here is what things look like on MBC:

 

I think I'm on to something here, but I'm only getting started. It takes work to locate or create video tutorials for each lesson, create a presentation, make an assignment, and then combine it on My Big Campus in a bundle.

I once read a book titled "Never Work Harder Than Your Students" but I feel as though I still am. I'm really good at sixth grade math now, so why am I still working so hard at it? It's time to delegate!

Why couldn't students investigate online content to help teach others a concept? Why couldn't they start to identify the subtle difference between multiplying 0.4 x 0.6 and multiplying 0.4 x .006? Why can't they create their own tutorial videos? Presentations? Assignments? Assessments? MBC could be used as their own digital portfolio demonstrating all that they know.

Will I be brave (or crazy) enough to even attempt this? What about my little guys who don't want to write a complete sentence? How will I be able to get them to create step-by-step instructions on how to add mixed numbers with unlike denominators, when they don't even know how yet?

This could be crazy. This could be the greatest teaching of my career. This could fail miserably.

Let's do it. I'm not afraid of failing.

6 Reasons I Heart Teacher Evaluations

It's true. I love evaluations. As a kid, I loved tests- I loved the challenge of trying to get each and every problem correct. Never once did I think about failing. So I have to admit, I love the new teacher evaluation system that is being put into place in my school district. Here's why:

1. I want to improve. This is how I am at everything. Maybe I'm weird, but I always want to get better. I want to lift heavier weights, overcome my latest parenting mistake, shoot better in basketball, keep my house straighter, and yeah- be a better teacher. I want to have better lessons, more authentic learning, and provide more useful feedback for students. I think I'm already a good teacher, but 'good' isn't something to aspire to.
2. I want to be held accountable. I have an "accountability partner" for my everyday life that I meet with every Monday. He cares when I screw up and calls me out. When I think about doing something that is dumb, I often think about having to tell him. Usually that keeps me in line. My administrators should do that too. It's not because they don't like me- quite the opposite, really- they want me to be the best teacher I can be.
3. I want to show my students how to improve. I want my kids to improve and I hold them accountable for being a student. As a teacher I should model how to do that. I expect my students to respond to evaluations I give by improving themselves. Now they will have a model to follow in this area.
4. I want to work with amazing teachers. First off it's important to note that I already do. My circle of "teacher friends" from my school district include some unbelievable educators. Most of the teachers I work with are really good, but they aren't great. Yet. Just like me, I want to move from good to great. Already I've seen teachers in my building quit or cut back extra-curricular activities, come in earlier (one might even say "on time"), and be more assertive, prepared, and productive in our meetings that don't have adminstrators present.
5. I want my work to be acknowledged. 7 and 7. I have worked 7 years in my same position and have 7 evaluations to my name. (That's 4 in years 1-2, 3 in years 3-5, and 0 since.) I work hard and do great things in my classroom. My adminstrators should know about it and acknowledge it. Stop in, tell me I'm doing a good job, thank me for the hard work and time I've invested.
6. I want someone to care. Have you ever felt that you can pretty much do whatever you want once you close your door and it's just you and your students? I have. I would much prefer to know that someone cares enough about me and the students to come in and verify that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Imagine if I treated students this way- I'm going to assume that everything is going right until one of their parents contact me. That would never work! 

Is the evaluation system perfect? No. And neither am I so I'll deal with it. Should our pay be based on these evaluations? That's another post all its own!

I want to be a great teacher. I want someone to show me where I can improve. I want to be evaluated.

Parenting Like an Olympian

Here I stand, in sweatpants and a sleeveless tee, standing guard at my own bedroom door. Silent and stoic I refuse to give in. But it's 1:45am and I'm tired. My opponent is giving it their all. It's the turning point in the game. The next moments are crucial to victory and both sides feel it.

Me vs. 3-year-old. For the gold.

Lilly, my eldest of two daughters, has spent the last week basically refusing to sleep at night. She fears us being gone, especially mommy. And Allison is tired. So tired. The kind of tired you can see in her face and hear in her voice. It's time for me to rescue my damsel. My task: let her sleep.

We've tried reasoning with Lilly, threatening her with turning her toddler bed back to a crib, and even putting a baby gate at her door. Tonight's method: putting her back in her bed without saying a word, as many times as necessary. It's a plan that should work in the long run, but may take time to take effect.

I didn't anticipate the kid's fortitude.

At bed time it took about an hour and putting her back in her bed more times than I could count. She finally succumbed to sleep around 9:40. She was up again at 10:45, 12:40, 1:45, and sometime again later. At 1:45 I wasn't sure if I could stay with the plan. I wanted to speak, to say something to her to tell her how tired I was and that she had to go to bed. I wanted to YELL!

But then I thought of Team USA.

Yes, that Team USA.

I could relate to them. They claimed to be the next "Dream Team", an unstoppable force of all that is good with America. I had began the night with a similar resolve. I was going to be more patient than my kid could stand and she would give in to sleeping. Lilly was no Nigeria. She was giving me the Spain or even Lithuania treatment. Lilly thought she had a chance. For a moment, I thought she might, too.

Then I started thinking like a champion; like an Olympian.

If you watched most of the Team USA basketball games you likely noticed a trend. The games were usually competitive during the first half, but USA pulled away in the third quarter. The competition thought they could win, but Team USA knew they would win. The US team was bigger, faster, stronger, deeper, and simply better than any other team. They knew if they followed the game plan gold would be theirs.

Almost a week prior was our "first half" where Lilly came at us unexpectedly with this whole no sleep thing. Allison and I were reeling. We survived, really.

But now we had a plan for victory, we just needed to stick to it.

At 1:45am I decided to think like an Olympian, to know that I have what it takes to win. The plan will work.

Survive first. Make a plan and battle through to victory. Some days will be easy, a Nigeria game, but some nights you'll have to fight off a tenacious Tunisia in order to win. You can do it.

The Apple...

"The apple never falls far."

Image credit to Darren Crabb, edited by me.

Many old sayings like this don't make any sense or hold true that often, but in my experience as a teacher I find it to be highly accurate. Kids who make smart choices at school usually have parents that have done the same. Parents that have made poor choices in their own lives generally have kids who tend to make poor choices.

When I was a kid my parents would usually take a "parents only" trip once a year. I remember that I had a gift to open each day they were gone and that made everything easier for me. My Aunt Danna remembers how I stubbornly refused to go to bed. She has reminded me on several occasions about my stubbornness that I displayed on those days I stayed at her home while my parents travelled.

Aunt Danna was just sharing a funny anecdote, but I found parenting advice.

As we started back to school this week we did everything we knew to do to prepare the girls. We started taking them to the sitter for half days a couple weeks in advance and upped it to full days a few days before our first teaching day. The result- Lilly (the 3-year-old) EXPLODED the night before our first day!

Thursday was the first 'teacher day' and Allison came home exhausted and stressed. She is navigating the beginning of the year without her stalwart teammate who retired, plus a new principal and head secretary. Things have been challenging for her. We had dinner with my parents, got things together for Friday, and put the girls to bed. Allison went back to school to "cross her t's and dot her i's."

Then the storm hit.

See, Lilly has a fear of thunderstorms that baffles us. Allison and I enjoy a good storm and even have a couple of thunderstorm CD's we use to fall asleep to.

Lilly woke up and scurried into my lap. Allison was on the way home. Things were just getting started at the Casa de Smiley circa 10pm. By 11 we had spent some time in the basement waiting out the tornado warning and were putting the girls to bed; Gwen willingly but Lilly not so much.

She was scared. She was hungry. She had to go to the bathroom. She wanted us to pray with her again. She wanted us to stay in her bedroom. She wanted anything but to be alone, and would get out of bed every. time. we. left! At one point I had to ask Allison to take over because I was at wits end. A little after midnight she was asleep and we quickly followed suit.

Just after 4am Lilly came into our room again. By 5 I thought she might be asleep but it was time to get my workout in anyway. Not too long into my workout my crying, sleep-deprived, and frustrated angel of a wife came out and asked that I did something with Lilly because she was at her breaking point. I laid Lilly down next to my workout equipment and finished my exercising.

Fast-forward to Friday night and the same things happened at bed time. Lilly slept the night on the floor of our bedroom. A frustrated post on Facebook by me received several suggestions and one "sounds familiar" comment from the aforementioned Aunt Danna.

I was every bit as stubborn as Lilly. I drove my Aunt Danna batty with my refusal to sleep. I'm sure I did the same to my parents, too.

I remember my parents letting me in their bed a few times as a kid when I was scared. Their patience with me helped me overcome and develop my own coping strategies.

Suddenly, I feel relaxed about this. This behavior by Lilly won't last, it didn't for me. My patience as a parent will dictate how well this turns out, just like it did for my parents and me.

The apple doesn't fall far. And for that, I am thankful and encouraged.

Module 6 - Digital Citizenship

For my grad class I had to do some learning about digital citizenship. I chose to follow Option 1 where I developed an action plan for an issue regarding digital citizenship. The issue I emphasized is cyber-bullying.  Here is my action plan:

Digital Citizenship Action Plan on Prezi

I also had to review the book for the class. Here is my writing in regards to it:

A New Culture of Learning by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown

This book looks at the large picture of learning as a culture. Thomas and Brown speak of the history of education and then counter it with what is changing in our modern society. Ne of the recurring themes of the book is the shift from gaining knowledge to learning. Historically, gaining knowledge was seen as the way to educate people so that is how schools and teaching was designed. The Information Age has put more of an emphasis on tacit learning over knowledge. Knowledge is just a click away, but using that knowledge in new and creative ways is what must be learned today. This tacit learning is just starting to be developed in schools though.

I couldn't agree more with the main point of this book. My colleagues and I refer to this movement as changing from "teacher-centric" to "student-centric" classroom environments. I think I like the book's idea of moving from teaching environments to learning environments. Technology has made gaining knowledge so easy it isn't necessary to know as much as we once did (although I would argue that we know much more than humans in the past). Education's entire purpose is changing to one where we must teach students how to learn.

All of the course materials point to this same idea of the major shift in education. The Information Age has redefined education. We have looked at tools that can be used in classrooms to teach students the skills necessary for modern society. We answered the question "Is technology redefining education?" and the book supports what I included in my response. Society is changing because of technology and education changes when society does.

I would recommend this book to my colleagues. Many of them are already on board with the changing tides of education in regards to technology, but there are many that I don't think understand how or why. This book does a good job of explaining some of the historical context as well as a brief glimpse of what will be done in classrooms. There are some practical applications that can be taken to the classroom. It is written with a positive outlook that will encourage teachers to move forward with their craft.  

The Flipped Math Classroom

Do you want to learn how to "Flip" your math classroom? Here is a mini-course I have developed that will teach you what a flipped classroom is, how it can be implemented, where you can find the tools you need, and will get you started flipping your own room!

Chick-fil-A? You don't say!

This couldn't sum my feelings up any better. I'm not one to get heated up over these types of controversies and here is why: I am a sinner. My anger is sinful. My greed is sinful. My pride is sinful. My lustfulness is sinful. My words are sinful. My gossip is sinful. I am full of sin. Absolutely full of it. Who am I to judge?

I know the bible speaks of homosexuality, but since I'm not attracted to men it doesn't impact me. I have plenty of my own problems. You know what the bible speaks about a lot more? Love. I recently read through 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John and was astounded by the focus on love. As I read it, I thought "Wow, John really doesn't think we get this whole love thing." He's right. We don't get it.

So I'm going to sit this debate out.

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."