Week 10

This is week 10. The end of quarter 1. The first 25%.

We're really moving quickly this year.

I spent a lot of time yesterday talking to the principal about my assessment-related revelations regarding reading skills. We discussed ways to formalize strategies for reading, and decided that the most important part of reading a difficult technical text is being okay with not really knowing what is going on, at least through the first reading. In fact, we decided on a thrice-read procedure. The first read-through is rough, just to get an idea of what is going on. The second time, write a one-sentence summary for each paragraph. The third time, go back and underline evidence supporting your paragraph summaries. All-in-all, it's a nice way to formalize a process that I might do without thinking, every time I read a technical text like a journal article.

Today is the Halloween Party, which will be ... interesting. It'll be a fun activity in management, candy, and loudness.

I got my 15 miles in last week, plus a good weightlifting on Sunday. This week, I'm going for at least 15, but spread over 5 days instead of 4. Possibly. I'm really achy after yesterday's run, so I may reject my initial plan to run a fast mile before going to the gym this evening. We'll see how well I can stand after the Halloween Party. In addition, since I have early-release Thursday (4 PM) and Friday (1 PM), I think I'll even get in a swim as well!

To finish, I wanted to share the responses I got yesterday, the day before we started glaciers, when I asked students to write down one thing they know about glaciers. Do you know which are true and which aren't?

1.    I know that glaciers are very big but move very slowly.

2.    They are made of compacted ice.

3.    Glaciers are a type of a water reservoir. They have ice and can be found in cold areas like Antarctica, Greenland, Alaska, North and South Poles.

4.    When wind erosion occurs, it can knock glaciers down.

5.    Cold, deadly, big, cause weathering.

6.    Cold, can affect ships in a dangerous way, very hard to break, they are near polar bears and penguins, move slow.

7.    They’re big mountain-like things that carry bits of frozen fresh water.

8.    That it is cold. And I don’t know anything else.

9.    Cold, mechanical weathering, freezing and thawing, frozen sticks.

10.  Cold, made of ice, move very slowly, cause weathering, erosion, and deposition, starting to melt because of global warming, can cover land, formed in Ice Age (I think).

11.  I know that they are formed by big chunks of ice that’s made by frozen water.

12.  Cold, Arctic region, ice, usually surrounded by water or the ocean.

13.  I don’t know anything.

14.  Glaciers move slowly. Glaciers melt into the oceans making them deeper causing it to flood land.

15.  When melted, the amount of water in oceans increase. Animals live on them. Melting due to global warming.

16.  One thing I know about glaciers is that it is formidable and can move things around. I also know that it is very cold and is made of ice.

17.  I know that glaciers are big chunks of ice. Also that they are melting because of global warming.

18.  Glaciers are huge ice blocks in an arctic area that if melted it can cause bodies of water to rise and eventual things like hurricanes.

19.  I know glaciers can form boulders of ice, I know that glaciers are up to -74 degrees C cold.

20.  Glaciers are huge chunks of ice, they cause weathering, erosion, and deposition.

21.  Glaciers are part of abrasion, glaciers are in cold areas, glaciers are ice.

22.  Glaciers are HUGE chunks of much more bigger pieces of ice – icebergs.

23.  Icebergs fall from glaciers.

24.  I know that glaciers are similar to ice and form in caves.

Dinosaurs

The trip to the museum was AWESOME. The kids were extremely engaged, and got as excited about dinosaurs as I had hoped. The IMAX about penguins was surprisingly entertaining. Some other groups had drama, but I like to think that I had an easier time because I am so excited about everything. That is probably at least partly true.

Of course, it was very stressful as well. As co-trip leader, I was 50% responsible for making sure every student ended up safe and back at VMS at the end of the day. There was a lot of counting kids, counting kids, counting kids.

My favorite moment of the day, though, was on the bus ride there. We had just driven through the Lincoln Tunnel (SO happy I don’t commute to NYC), and the kids noticed a man peeing on the side of an underpass. Of course, they all get excited and giggly about it. It’s early, and I’m tired, so I respond with, “That’s what happens when you don’t go to college.” And the best thing happened: a small, quiet, special ed student stands up, and shouts out the window: Get an education!

Best job in the world.

I was supposed to meet with a parent that afternoon, but she never showed. Fortunately, her daughter showed a huge turn-around in behavior the very next day. I hope it doesn’t end immediately after her birthday party this weekend, when she has or hasn’t received sufficient gifts from her mother. I have to figure out how to keep her engagement up even when there aren’t gifts riding on her behavior – maybe point out how well she does when she tries (hopefully, yesterday’s quiz grade will support this).

The rest of the week was especially busy, will a ton of grading, lesson planning, and one less day of work due to the trip (and Friday’s half day for PD).

My running goal was 15 miles this week. I did 3.33 on Tuesday (pretty fast and hilly), 3 on Wednesday (sloooooow and sore), 5.67 on Saturday, and I’m hoping for a final 3 on Sunday to make a solid 15. I can do it.

“Science educators are thus charged with two tasks: not only must they help students learn the correct, scientific theory at hand, but they must also help students unlearn their earlier, less accurate theories.”

IA #1

We had our first IA this year, and I'm proud to have written the exam, and I'm proud to have taught these students. Although the grades are lower than last year, the mastery in most topics is actually higher, and it is only the new reading portion at the end that brought the grades down. Since I'm very busy (less so than last week, but there are last-minute preparations for tomorrow's field trip to the American Museum of Natural History), I'll paste a piece of the formal assessment reflection that I had to do.

Things I learned about writing a critical reading portion of an assessment:

What misunderstandings are revealed in the data?

There was huge variation in results between the 6 questions, which will be addressed separately. A lot of the questions were poorly written, which contributed to some “unfair” questions.

A: Question A had strong mastery compared to the other reading questions (68%). It asked students to infer that the crust was being described in a quotation that described very little thickness and habitability. Students who answered correctly either cited the thickness or the habitability. Most students who answered incorrectly cited the line, “one half the thickness of…”, but saw the word ”thickness” and assumed it was referring to the thickest layer, either the mantle or outer core (depending on which source was used).

B: Question B had the highest mastery – most students were able to identify which was the thickest layer. The biggest source of error is that the question asked students to answer “According to the first picture,” but it wasn’t clear exactly where they were supposed to look. Many students answered according to the table, which gave a completely different answer – and is actually a more challenging question. Had the table not been there, or if the question more clearly directed students to the diagram of the layers of the Earth, mastery might have been higher.

C: Low mastery – 42%. Most of the wrong answers were C, showing that students were only looking at the “Top” column, not realizing that the “top” and “bottom” columns were referring to the same variable, and could be compared. Students needed to take 13.1 from the bottom of the inner core and subtract 2.2 from the top of the crust. Instead, most students used 12.8 from the top of the inner core, choosing answer C.

D, F: These questions had the lowest mastery (31% and 23%), but I believe they are bad questions. Question D is a mistake – in a previous version of the reading, the quotation was in an extra paragraph, but I removed the paragraph in the interest in making the reading shorter. The quotation was actually not in the reading at all, so the only context the students had was the word “indirect”. Additionally, even if the paragraph had been included, the paragraph doesn’t give good context clues. Although it would have helped, I don’t think it would have been a fair question anyway. Question F required knowledge of the definition “indirect evidence”. Most students answered with the results of indirect evidence (specific details of the core’s composition).

E (36%): This question asked students to add up the different layers on the table. Students had difficulty reading the table, and question were all over the place. Some students showed in their answer that they chose the layer closest to 890 km thickness, rather than adding up previous layers.

What gaps in the instruction of the standard contributed to these misunderstandings?

Reading activities haven’t been process-based. Lessons have mostly been about what IS the correct answer, not HOW it was found. As a result, students have practice copying correct answers, but not following a process to find it themselves.

What will you do to help students achieve mastery?

§  Reteach “deep reading” (interpreting a phrase or sentence that doesn’t necessarily make sense right away)

§  Practice staircase readings more often – 2-3 times per week, with more detailed process discussion

§  Include non-standard graphs and tables as practice, with real-life data related to course content, and practice analyzing quantitative and qualitative data

So, I learned a few interesting things, and I can't wait to improve them for next time.

I got some good running in this weekend (6 on Saturday and 1.5 on Sunday), but I lost my softball game. Tim and I have been enjoying our myriad of engagement gifts with such activities as: cheese-eating on a new slate board with new cheese knives; drinking wine out of new stemless wine glasses; eating a T-Bone with our new steak knives; and more!

Amazing

I had the most amazing weekend. It was a weekend-long celebration of mine and my sister's engagement.

The first two nights were dinners with lots of food and lots of drinks and lots of family. Those were okay. It was Sunday that was amazing.

A bajillion people with a bijillion gifts showed up at my parents house to share in the celebration. There was an open bar, a sushi bar, and a salads-in-martini-glasses bar. I partook in all of these things with great enthusiasm. I also got to share the day with my best friends from high school, some close friends from college, and some other long lost friends. Also, tequila shots. It was amazing.

I got a little bit of running in, as well. I did a hilly, hilly four miles and Saturday, and an equally hilly two on Sunday. Monday's run got blahed, so I went swimming instead. I forgot how much I love swimming. It's peaceful and challenging. The only problem is that I hadn't gone swimming in weeks, so today, I'm sore in all the wrong places. Ouch. Ouch, in a satisfied way.

A good workout is the kind that leaves you googling triathlon training schedules. I'm definitely doing the NYC Tri next year

School this week is stressful and busy. We had our first day of IA#1. It's a week to test my patience (because if we take to many dollars, the kids shut down and it affects test scores) and my bladder (tomorrow, I teach/duty for 6 hours straight). The first day went without a hitch, but time will tell...and two days until science! My kids are going to rock it this year. I just have to tie up a few loose ends that became evident after the diagnostic, mostly on objectives that were covered, but not in that much depth (e.g. what is salt water vs. freshwater). And they will ROCK slope. I guarantee it.

Conferences

Yesterday's planning meeting was unlike any I'd had last year.

For the first half hour, I proposed my idea to redesign the 5-8 science curriculum. It will take a lot of work, but I have a plan. And if it goes according to plan, it will be totally worth it. It will take two years: one year of reorganizing, and one year of pushing it from NJ standards to national standards. The result will be considerably more rigor. The cost will be my designing of 16 interim assessments by next year.

And the principal's response? That sounds like a great idea! Write a proposal. So I will.

We spent the next 5 or so minutes talking about my professional development goals: building relationships, CFUing.

And then for the next 10 minutes, she asked me for advice on time management during IA week (next week), which was put into a one-pager for today's staff meeting. I'm kind of a time management celebrity around here.

I decided this would be a light training week for me. This was a result of some solid running the last couple of weeks, and some extra obligations this week. After Tuesday's awesome 3.3-miler, I've been resting. I'm hoping to do 2 longish runs this weekend, but nothing until then.

I've been busy with, among other things, last night's parent-teacher conferences. I had to meet with parents of 9 students who are currently failing my class, at the halfway point of the first marking period. Overall, they went well, and I was extremely more prepared than last year. This year, I took the advice to have a conference binder, which includes all student's grade reports, with missing/make-up work attached to the reports of those failings students. I was able to hand the parent a packet of work to make up, quizzes to correct, and topics to study for today's test.

And today was the big diagnostic exam, a week before the first IA. I've only completed about half the grading, but they look good. The average will be about 80, which is about the same as last year, but the test is significantly more difficult (especially the scientific method content, which is arguably the most important). The kids are experts on slope and volcano identification. I'm doing something right.

I came across a really inspiring video clip. One of the international figures that we've studied at length at circle is Malala Yousafzai, a 16-year-old Pakistani women's rights activist who is so good at public speaking that she was shot by the Taliban. And she still speaks. She recently appeared on the Daily Show, and after watching only a 2-minute clip, I felt re-inspired to go to work every morning to educate children. This is where I'm supposed to be.

10,000

Detention started out a little rough, like it always does, and then cooled off pretty quickly, like it always does. Try herding 20 angry cats. You should check it out some time. Eventually, they all end up where they're supposed to go, but there's definitely some collateral damage. Many dollars were lost, and a few tears were shed.

Last night at Relay, we spent a lot of time talking about difficult conversations with students and their famillies. This is a PD I've had several times (including at last Thursday's staff meeting, in preparation for our conferences tomorrow), but I definitely learned one or two things. The most important thing was to steer each conversation towards mutual interest. That is the goal, because everyone is invested in mutual interest.

Today, I had a moment that was so perfectly aligned to last night's discussion, when I violently steered a conversation towards mutual interest. I was a little cranky today, and had just pulled a student out of line (maybe my first time yelling all year?). The conversation went something like this?

Teacher: WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU HAD TO TALK IN LINE.

Student: It wasn't me, it was another student.

Teacher: WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU TALK THROUGHOUT CLASS?

Student: I don't know.

Teacher: WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT?

Student: I don't know.

Teacher: YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED IF YOU KEEP TALKING THROUGH CLASS.

Student: ??

Teacher: DO YOU WANT TO SUCCEED?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: DO YOU WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: Where do you want to go to college?

Student: Uh, Kansas? Texas?

Teacher: To play football?

Student: Yes.

Teacher: To get into any of those programs, you need to do well in school. And to do that, you have to stop talking to your peers. Do you understand?

Student: Yes.

Mutual interest success!

Of course, today's exit ticket, I realized, was not aligned to anything. I did a slope reteach today, adressing positive and negative slope calculation. This year, the kids are MUCH stronger on slope, but only about 50/50 on calculating negative slope. So, we dove into calculating positive and negative slope today, and the exit tickets, that were supposed to assess their progress, asked them to calculate a simple positive slope. So I had to change it last minute. The results still look good, though. I can't wait to see the IA results next week, and send them to my old IL to show her how much I improved.

Friday night, I invited a couple of colleagues to my parent's house for Shabbat dinner. There was a lot of food, a lot of wine, and a lot of fun. On Saturday, I had Relay all day, which involved a lot of snacking, so my 5-miler afterwards was not fun. It still got done, though, which felt good. I'm up to about 13 miles per week, including 2 workouts (a tempo and a small set of intervals). Besides, my legs are feeling good. Except for the whole teaching part. Then my legs are still tired.

Sunday was kickball, and my team lost. It was all my fault. I was mistakenly called safe at 1st, as our tying run crossed the plate, and I was HONEST. I admitted that I got tagged for our 3rd out. This set us back 1 run and spoiled the momentum, so we finished the game a couple of innings later down by one.

I've got a nice fast and fun run with a colleague today. I can't wait - the weather is beautiful.

This blog just reached 10,000 page views. Congratulations! Keep up the good work!

Theoretical Curriculum Planning

I think my heart lies in curriculum planning. I’m sitting at Relay right now, discussing the Next Generation Science Standards (kind of like Common Core, but for science), and I’m so excited. I just want to sit down with the NGSS and the NJ standards and the North Star Assessments and plan. I want to redesign the entire NSA science curriculum, grades 5-8. I want to sit down and organize it, and make everyone start from scratch next year. I’m sitting in class, mentally drafting an email to the principal asking how I can go about redesigning the science curriculum for the entire North Star middle school system.

I’ve had some great lunch dates this week. I had a repeat lunch date with my favorite student from last time, who has been MUCH better in my class. I even spoke to her mom on Tuesday, talking about the behavioral improvement, a full two days before our second lunch date. Besides, lunch was fun. We talked about amusement park rides and about the relative merits of various candy bars (she prefers Laffy Taffy – no wonder we don’t get along).

I also started a weekly lunch meeting with 3 new-to-North-Star students, and one who was new two years ago, and all 4 are in 7^th grade. The major objective was to have one of those new students make some positive friends. She wants really badly to fit into the NSA mindset, but shuts down immediately when she is challenged. We hope that by having her make friends who are going through the same struggles, but who respond differently to adversity, she will start feeling part of the community and make the leap to accepting the way we like to do things.

This week, I awarded myself 10 points towards my number 1 professional development goal to build relationships with students.

I also got to share my strengths with the staff. At my weekly planning meeting, my principal wanted to pick my brain about best grading practices. I was able to share ideas that were given as resources to the rest of the staff. I rock at grading because I love data. I’m only in this for the data.

Lastly, I have proudly finished the process of rewriting and formatting our first interim assessment (IA). I am really proud, but anxious to see it grow up.

I had a great running week, two. In addition to 1.5 on Monday and a fast 3 on Tuesday, I threw in some intervals on Thursday. Now, if I can drag myself out for a run after class today, I’ll be proud. Bonus points if it’s more than 5 miles.

Weekly Detention Updates

It's detention. They're quiet now. Let's take a moment for reflection.

This morning I met with another science teacher to give her some tips for her lab. I think the best advice I gave was: It will get easier. You'll keep working just as hard, because as you get better, your standards get higher, but there's less stress about it. The swings between best class and worst class are smaller. You notice that, in November or December, you suddenly start sleeping better. It gets better.

I wish I had heard that advice in my first year.

I am similarly upset by my bad classes (in fact, I had one today), but "bad" is wayyyyyyyyyyyy better than it used to. Today, I had assisted with PE (our PE teacher broke his ankle), and had difficulty resetting the class before science. It ended with a pretty hard reset, and an exhausted and discouraged class pushing through mechanical weathering.

I went to Atlantic City last Friday...and fell asleep at 9:30. Whoops. Fortunately, I ended up about breaking even, so it was all good. I even managed a good 6-miler after I got home on Saturday afternoon. I'm pretty happy building up my long runs again. It feels good and I feel strong.

We lost our kickball game. Sports are much less fun when I'm not winning (except running, I never win at running).

Yesterday, even though it was supposed to be a rest day, I threw in an extra run. It was only 1.5 miles, but I'm hoping I can get into a routine of running more days than not. I've been pretty weak at consistency since getting back to school (sometimes I feel like consistency at work and home are mutually exclusive), but I'm going to change that. Running at least 4 times a week. But still not allowed to track miles. I want to track miles so badly. But, no.