Podcasts for PD

I've never really been a podcast gal. BUT lately, I've learned that it's about finding the right ones. And I've been thinking about how just listening to something can keep that topic on your mind all day, or sometimes all week.

There are a couple of AMAZING podcasts that I listen to regularly, and I wanted to share just how amazing they are.

1. Cult of Pedagogy: Just trust me. If you don't add a single other one, add this one. Jennifer Gonzalez is a former MS ELA teacher, and she has a way with words that will encourage you, challenge you, and inspire you in your journey as an educator. SOOO many amazing episodes. Her post was also how I heard about pineapple charts. We've implemented them digitally in our district in one of our PD groups, and it's so cool to be able to watch someone teach LIVE from across the county! (She also speaks to why we need to see each other teach, which I highly recommend.)
   
2. November Learning: Our district has been working for the last 2 years with Dr. Alan November and his team. His podcasts are few and far between, but the quality of information you'll get is incredible. I recommend starting with his talk with Dr. Rob Evans on Managing Change. #gamechanger
   
3. House of #EdTech: So many resources and great interviews! Start with Limited Tech? No Problem, or EdTech & Formative Assessment.
   
4. Truth for Teachers: Quick episodes, especially great for short errand runs or loading the dishwasher! ;) #107 on growth mindset is great, and I can't wait to listen to #115: "Goodbye Teacher Tired" that was just released.
   
   There are soooo many more. Other lists here and here.
   Also be sure to check out #PodcastPD on Twitter!
   
5. (for BONUS points) My fav podcasts for fun? Thanks for asking!
1. Harry Potter and the Sacred Text
2. Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History
3. Hidden Brain
4. Love to Sew
5. Levar Burton Reads

Promoting Productive Struggle & Implementing Formative Assessment Lessons

We had an amazing meeting yesterday with our district's Math Design Collaborative yesterday for training on implementing FALs. One of the resources we went through was this article of 8 Teaching Habits that Block Productive Struggle in Math Students. It's kind of a what-not-to-do guide to teaching math. I also like that they paired it with this infographic poster of what to do instead. 

Our district is involved in a 3-year initiative with SREB, and I really couldn't possibly be more excited about this. Our best teachers have been selected (2 per school) to participate. We have teachers from every grade level 6-12, and from all types of schools. (Even our alternative school is participating!!)

During year 1, we have 8 days together as a group, and yesterday was Day 5. PD focuses on how to implement Formative Assessment Lessons (FALs), which are housed at map.mathshell.org. 

Now, when I was in the classroom, I was aware of this website, but hadn't implemented any of the lessons in their entirety. (To be REALLY REALLY honest, I had just stolen a few tasks and card sorts, and not used anything else.)

I had NO IDEA that all of the resources on this website are research based and are most effective (by far!) as complete lessons. 

Here's the basic idea, but you'll really get a better picture by reading through one of the scripted lessons. 

• FALs are separated into 2 categories:
• Concept Development (named based on content)
• Problem Solving (name based on context)
• Concept Development FALs are meant to be used one-half to two-thirds of the way through a unit. The goal is to figure out what kids know, what they don't know, and then use that to guide instruction (both through the remaining part of the unit, and to change how you teach that content next year). Sometimes these FALs also work at the beginning of a unit to review prerequisite content and guide the transition into new content. 
• Problem Solving FALs can be used any time during a unit, and are structured around really great problems with plenty of arguing potential. ;)

Here's the basic process to go through a FAL (I'll use a concept development FAL as an example, because so far it's the one I've worked with the most)

The day before the FAL: 

• Give the pre-assessment as an exit slip.
• That afternoon, sort the pre-assessments into 1,2, & 3 point piles (1 - little to no understanding, 2 - demonstrates some understanding, 3 - demonstrates understanding). Then use these piles to create homogeneous pairs of students (so the top 2 kids are paired together, then the next highest 2, etc). This isn't a formal grading process. 
• Once pairs are developed, and while the results on the pre-assessment are fresh in your mind, choose (or create) some feedback questions from the script. They should be based on the major misconceptions, obstacles, or gaps in learning you observed on the pre-assessments. 
• Make sure you have all materials & cards prepped and ready.

Day of the FAL:

• Follow the lesson script through the whole class intro, collaborative activity, sharing & whole class discussion, and then administer the post-assessment. 
• Whole class intro: usually involves white boards and some powerpoint slides. During this portion, you're just reminding kids of the work they did on the pre-assessment, and not "teaching." Just ask them some guiding questions to get them to notice differences in each other's responses. 
• Collaborative activity: when students work on activity (usually a card sort) in the pairs you designed based on their pre-assessment. Just give the time allotted in the script, and let go of the idea of completion. Just let each pair get as far as they can in the time given. During this time, project the feedback questions developed the day before.
• Sharing/Whole Class Discussion: usually involves some time to combine/change groups and compare answers, then a return to the whiteboards to discuss as a class. 
• Post-assessment is "graded" (but not really) the same way that the pre-assessment was, so that you can measure growth for each class.

My personal favorite FAL? Right now, it's Generating Polynomials from Patterns. 

Students use dot patterns to develop polynomial expressions for the white, black, and total dot patterns and WOW do they have to do some serious work with this one! It seriously challenges the advanced kiddos without being inaccessible for lower-achieving students.

Second runner up is Applying Properties of Exponents. I had a huge "AHA" moment with this one. How many times, when we're teaching laws of exponents, do we pretend like addition and subtraction of terms just cease to exist for a week or two? I'm definitely guilty. Here are the first few cards from this FAL so you can see what I'm talking about:

But if we choose not to shy away from types of problems that aren't immediately simplified using one application of one exponent property, our students are all the better for it. And this FAL does a phenomenal job of facing those obstacles, misconceptions, and gaps in learning square in the face.

Each of the FALs is designed to promote productive struggle in students. Each one is also designed to promote valuable, serious mathematical discourse. And that's something we should all strive to include more of in our classrooms.

And don't forget about the What-Not-To-Do and What-To-Do-Instead for Promoting Productive Struggle that I mentioned in the beginning of the post from the MIND Research Institute blog! 

Paper.li - Keeping up with the internet

There is just so much "out there" in the interwebs. 
Articles, tweets, ideas, pins, blog posts...

I use Bloglovin to keep up with the blog posts, but I only read through every couple of days. Which means some things fall through the cracks. Not to mention, it's only grabbing content from blogs I've already found. 

So I stumbled upon Paper.Li. 
I think someone must have tweeted it out with a #MTBoS hashtag, because I can't think of another way that I would have actually paid attention to it. But ever since, I keep finding new public paper.lis to follow! 

Basically, paper.li lets you build a newsletter out of tweets, articles, or basically anything out on the internet. It's really just a content collector. But I really like it because other people have built paper.lis that align with my interests. (I could build my own, but I feel like the ones I've found online are already so great that I don't need to.)

I keep the links on my bookmark bar, and when I get a free moment, I browse through a couple. I've found some new blogs to follow, and plenty of great ideas. Here's the list from my bookmarks bar:

The Math Education Daily

Math Daily

#Mathchat Daily

Teaching Science and Math Daily

Desmos Daily

Educational Technology Daily (Fridays only)

ELL Daily 

If you know of a great one I didn't list, please let me know! I really love finding new ideas, and this format just works for me. It kind of reminds me of Flipboard, but I never really found it useful because I didn't take the time to fill in all of my interests/fav blogs/etc. I like that with paper.li, I can just flip through everyone else's pages!

Content Literacy in Secondary Math

Wow - this blog's gotten a bit dusty. But here I am. Let's just pretend it's been 5 minutes instead of ... too long. 

I've been asked to work with a small group of teachers regarding content literacy strategies. We'll be meeting in groups of around 7 teachers (all math and science) during their planning periods. The school's improvement goal this year is to improve student performance on the ACT and English 2 state exam. The idea is to support that goal through implementation of some new strategies & some serious changes in expectations for reading and writing across the various content areas. 

I'll admit, I haven't done much work on this subject in math, but I'm excited to learn some new techniques and get to researching! Obviously, if we want students to have meaningful discourse and justify their thinking, we need to promote academic language and writing in our math classrooms.

Of course, my first thought was to check the TMC and GMD archives, but I didn't find very much. If you know of something I missed, please comment below!!

One of the articles I found listed 10 ways Literacy Can Promote a Deeper Understanding of Math.  I found it interesting that most of the items listed are things we do naturally in math class, but that it's important to formalize verbal explanations on paper. I thought a great "baby step" was to take discussions and put them online, which encourages students to write, edit, and read other responses. 

I also reached out to our county's SIOP & Differentiation coach. She does a training every semester on specific strategies for math to help our EL students. She has some incredible resources - check out her blog and resource site!

A couple of my favorite resources from her site are the Glossary of Strategies & Activities and the Bloom's Question Stems for ELs.  These resources are meant to support EL students, but the idea is that they're necessary for ELs, and beneficial for all students. I think so many times, it's easy to forget about this population within our schools. However, I'm trying to remember that ELs represent a microcosm of our larger student population when it comes to struggles with literacy and academic vocabulary. 

Link up any math content literacy resources/articles/etc you've got below! 

My Favorite: Trello #MTBoS Blogging Initiative

Warning: This post is LONG. If you hate reading & just want my favorite thing, go here and explore. Or scroll ALL the way down. Have fun. 

Time to circle back to prompt #2 from the MTBoS Blogging Initiative. 

Here's the prompt: Our week two blogging challenge is to simply blog about one of your favorite things.  Called a “My Favorite,” it can be something that makes teaching a specific math topic work really well.  It does not have to be a lesson, but can be anything in teaching that you love!  It can also be something that you have blogged or tweeted about before.  Some ideas of favorites that have been shared are:

• A lesson (or part of one) that went great
• A game your students love to play
• A fun and/or effective way to practice facts
• A website or app you love to use in class
• An organizational trick or tip that has been life changing
• A product that you use in your classroom that you can’t live without!

My favorite thing lately is Trello, and it fits #2, 3, 4, & 5 on the list above!

Trello will change your life if you let it, I promise. ;)

I'll walk you through what it is, & the amazing education potential, and then I'll share the ways I like to use it. 

What is it?

From the Trello site:

Trello is the free, flexible, and visual way to organize anything with anyone. Drop the lengthy email threads, out-of-date spreadsheets, no-longer-so-sticky notes, and clunky software for managing your projects. Trello lets you see everything about your project in a single glance.

Trello is really the ultimate organization tool. You can very visually organize projects, lesson plans, ideas, or even use it like Pinterest. It's easy to collect and organize and reorder ideas, attachments, and links. It's incredibly easy to use on any device. Sharing is easy. Updating your progress on items is easy. And it connects with IFTTT. (Can you tell I love it yet?!? haha)

Trello has 3 parts: 

1. Boards (think like a Pinterest board - these are general topics, like Unit 1) 
2. Lists (columns, or sub-boards, such as topics within a unit)
3. Cards (individual pieces of information, like activities for a specific topic)

I should mention that cards can include labels, color coding, due dates, attachments, links, comments, pictures, and can be assigned to certain people. 

Trello is free as long as you're ok with solid colors for backgrounds instead of custom pictures. Here's the link to the welcome board shown so the hands on peeps can understand what I'm saying. 

Ok, so what? Why should I care?

Trello has infinite potential! 

In my personal life, I have boards for grocery lists, organizing quilt projects in different stages, keeping track of what's in the freezer (we do OAMC in my house), keeping track of chores & other good habits, gift ideas for family, and so much more. My husband is shared on several of these, so he can add/edit as needed. I'm a list girl, and Trello helps me keep all my lists electronically.

Professionally, I find new ways almost every week to use Trello. 

Here's the rundown. 

• Professional Development Approval & Progress
• My dept shares a board to discuss PD opportunities we will offer. We attach handouts, make to-do checklists, and communicate approval of funding all in one place. As each PD session moves through various levels of approval, its card progresses into new lists on the board, until it's finally sent to True North Logic, our county PD software.
• Brainstorming, & To-Do Lists
• categorized, with attachments or links as needed 
• I use this board as my "thoughtbox." 
• Future blog post ideas, activities or foldable ideas, etc. stay here until I get to them. 
• I have "Resource" Boards for various math topics
• the lists are things like "quadratics" and each card is a link or idea
• I also have a list of places I like to look for questions, activities, etc.
• Sorting, ordering, etc activities. 
• Example: Exponential Equations Warmup
• Students drag & drop matching cards together into a new list.
• I use Trello the same way I like to use the Post It Plus app (blog post for that is here). Trello has the advantage of being possible on ANY device, including Chromebooks. Post It Plus is iPad/iPhone only.
• I want to make some ordering activities too - FDP, integer ops, etc. 
• This is totally graph/picture/equation compatible - you just need a screenshot for the card image. 

I also use Trello to collect my favorite things - very much like Pinterest. Here's the link to my Review Games board. Most ideas are from other MTBoS blogs. 

Trello even has inspiration boards for you to look at, to get an idea of what it's capable of, in specifically education-related ways.  There are some really cool ones - I especially like the project board & classroom newsletter. 

Have fun exploring!

A Quick Update & Summer PD Links

Well hi!
It's been a long summer, but quite a lot has happened in the meantime. 
Here's a run-down on the personal stuff that's been going on:

• I spent most of the summer working on creating PD sessions. (Links to follow below)
• I also worked for my county on a technology team and a curriculum team. 
• Every other spare moment was spent quilting. *Sigh of bliss*
• My husband and I spent time converting the guest room into a sewing studio.
• I got a new job (EEEP!) on weekends teaching quilting classes. (I'm Sew excited! HEHE)
• 2 weeks into having a sewing studio, I found out my sister would be moving in with us. She got a job in NC in the same county as me teaching 5th grade, so she moved up from Florida on a Friday just in time for the first workday the following Monday!
• And of course there has been plenty of room decorating and resource finding over the summer. 

Whew! I've had students for ONE FULL WEEK now, and I (almost) forgot how FUN getting new students is. I love it. 

Ok. So let's cover a couple of quick links I've promised first. 

Here are the links to Livebinders I used to present at PD sessions over the summer:

• Interactive Notebooks
• Standards Based Assessments
• Games & Stations for Secondary

While we're busy linking up to resources, have you found me on Pinterest? Most of my brainstorming and resource collecting happens there. Follow me to see and share what I find. I also post all of my interactive notebook through Evernote each year. Here's the link for my Math 2 notebook this year. 

This year, I was also fortunate enough to begin participation in a technology team, which means I get 10 iPads just for my room this year! I'm so excited to start using them with my students. 

Androgogy - How teaching adults is different than teaching kids

We have had quite the day in Pinnacle training today - the morning was full of app-smashing, and I can't wait to start developing some lessons to share using what I've learned.

This afternoon, we had the pleasure of listening to @Judyjudymoore talk about how to teach our peers what we've learned. (Well, to be honest, that last sentence may have given the wrong impression. It definitely wasn't a sit-and-get type of session. She's much better than that. But you'll get the idea.)

I wish she could go back in time to talk to all of the people that have ever presented at PD at my school and district level. She started by asking us how many of us have ever gotten "quietly violent" during a PD session because of a speaker either:
a) talking about something they have no clue about
b) wasting your time with cute-sy games that serve no purpose but to fill time
c) reading powerpoint slides to you

The major point of the session was this. The biggest difference between androgogy (teaching adults) and pedagogy (teaching children) is that adults instantly connect everything they learn to previous eperience. Children don't have this experience, so when you teach children, you're more focused on helping them to learn facts/gain understanding that will build to future topics. With adults, the time they spend is much more precious. When teaching adults, the focus needs to be purely what they can use, and how they can relate it to what they've done before.

It's all in the way you present the information.
The reponse to "This is the coolest app I've ever seen and you should use it" will be significantly different from "If you decide to use this app, you'll get 20 minutes of your planning period back everyday just in the time it will save you."

Adults zero in naturally on connecting new information to how it can be used. When we see something on Pinterest, we don't just see it without context. We intuitively see that decoration in our home, or those labels in our classroom. We internalize new inputs. And we need to make sure that PD sessions allow teachers to do just this with the new information that we're providing.

Practically, what does this mean?

1. Time to discuss, and brainstorm aloud (in groups, and individual brainstorming time)
2. Making sure there's a specific take-away so that the information can be used SOON, rather than a list of possibilities and vague potential. (For example, allow time for participants to look up a specific topic for their classroom on pinterest and find a foldable, rather than showing them that Pinterest has lesson ideas on it) Bonus points if this implementation/play time happens during the PD session, rather than afterwards. 
3. Adults tend to be self-directed learners, so if you can get them to buy-in to the idea, AND get them started, they'll be able to take it to the next level later, and be intrinsically motivated to do so. 
4. Try not to lecture - have discussions, and ask what THEY want to know, then follow that path. 
5. Don't read powerpoints or handouts to participants - use them so participants don't have to take notes. 

I'm so glad I got the chance to hear all of this before presenting in August - I have 3 sessions in our county Teaching & Learning Conference, so this was perfect timing.

Reflecting on SAMR, Blooom's, & App-Smashing

I've been in PD sessions ever since school ended last Friday - for a technology team for my district.
I'm loving all of the possibilities for my classroom, and the potential for how it will change the way I teach.

This morning, we worked tirelessly on app-smashing across all grade levels and subjects.
Here's a glipse at the apps I've been using most:

• Popplet (paid for by the district)
• Explain Everything (my favorite so far) (paid for by the district)
• Evernote
• Skitch
• Tons of math manipulatives (Constructor, Geoboard, Number line, etc)
• Quizlet
• iBooks Creator
• MathPad
• Educreations
• iMovie
• Pic Collage
• TopNotes
• Tellagami - deleted because now they're requiring money for everything. BOOOOO. 

Basically, you use these amazing "core" apps to create the most amazing, engaging presentations that can include just about anything - all students created. 

Part of our assignment was to read and reflect on this article:

App Smash: The Ben Bloom Fist in the SAMR Glove

Great read. The big points for me:

• You don't need a billion apps. Pick 10 or so really functional ones. 
• Start with the end game in mind. "I want students to make a video" is not what you really want. You want students to explore a topic or teach a topic to their peers, and share it with the world. 
• Let your students be creative, and they'll get more out of the experience. Reflect using SAMR.

I'm so excited to start using some of this information for my specific content. Right now I'm just trying to process all of the possibilities swimming through my brain. 

And just because I know you could use a laugh, here's some of the random stuff we worked on this morning to become more familiar with the apps. (Keep in mind this is just rambling - so we could play around with the features while recording.)

Let me know if you've done any math app-smashing before - I'd love to hear as many ideas as possible!