Mastery

If I can keep up with my 3 days ahead of schedule, then I will keep Wednesday as my catch up day (before I get started on next week's work. Since I have no catch up to do today, I'll take a moment to blog.

In the last few days, I've discovered a couple of things:
My kids are brilliant.
I'm pretty good at this.
My feet hurt.

Each one shouldn't be too surprising, in my third year teaching, but I am taken aback yet again.

A big challenge I have is that my class is short. As my lessons get stronger, 55 minutes just doesn't seem long enough.

Yesterday's lesson was on purpose and hypothesis. This year, I tried something new with hypothesis. I wanted the kids to learn the standard middle school hypothesis format, which is the if/then/because format. A hypothesis could be: If I drink coffee, then I will stay up late, because coffee has caffeine. (I don't drink coffee. It tastes icky.) The students have no problem making educated guesses, but were having difficulty determining how to use the format correctly (I was getting a lot of: If I stay up late, then it's because I had coffee, because coffee has caffeine). This was a little unexpected for me, and left me with a first class exit ticket average of 74% (very low for a first objective), so I figured out a better way to explain it. The second class scored a 78%, which is not much better, and much lower than what I saw last year, when my expectations were a little simpler.

By the last class, I had figured out a hypothesis template: If [test], then [desired outcome/purpose], because [explanation]. This had the desired outcome - an exit ticket average of 90%. Woohoo! While I didn't see mastery from everyone, especially in my first classes, I was able to redesign my lesson in a way that worked.

This morning, I made a poster which has the hypothesis template on it, and did a mini-lesson in the morning. It was received well.

Since the lesson is so short, the kids don't have a lot of time to practice. Both today and yesterday, there was only 5 minutes left for independent practice, which means either 1) Kids do 1-2 questions and we discuss; 2) Kids do 3-4 questions and I show htem the answers; or 3) Kids do more practice but we don't go over the answers. I chose something between 1) and 2), which is nowhere near enough practice. Fortunately, my kids are brilliant, and fill the gaps on their own. Even though exit tickets were weak, their homework was looking much, much better. I guess the practice on their own was enough.

Once again, today, we were short on practice on independent and dependent variables (there was almost none), but we did exit tickets anyway, just so I can get a number. Well, that number is 88%. Yeah, my kids are rock stars.

In being unclear on my expectations, I've noticed that students are using their notes for their exit tickets, so it is a little more "open book" than I had expected. I think this going to work for me, actually. It will keep me honest in making more skill-based objectives, because I really would rather have them identify an independent variable, than to memorize the definition. Additionally, it gives me the ability to see whether they are having difficulty performing the objective (write a hypothesis, or identify a variable), rather than just having forgotten which variable is which. On the back end, this means that I will have to put more of a focus on memorization on their own time (which will be assessed during Oral Drill and Excellence) and on studying before summative assessments.

And, what makes me most proud yesterday, is that I actually went for a run. I had a cramp, and I felt like my feet were on fire, but I got in my 3.29 miles. It was slow. It was ugly. But I now know I'm capable of running after school (at least, early in the week). My feet still hurt, but I can think it's on purpose. I've promised myself that I am not tracking miles through the end of the calendar year. I think this will help keep my head fresh, so I can start training for a half marathon next year. For now, I'm just focused on getting in miles, getting a little faster, and relaxing after school.