Participating in a Twitter Chat

Twitter and Twitter chats have been transformational for me the past few years.  I want others to have the same amazing experiences that I have had.
I have many colleagues who have attempted to participate in Twitter chats and have felt overwhelmed.  I admit that depending on which chat you are joining some of them can be extremely overwhelming.  In an attempt to help my colleagues (and anyone else who may be reading this) feel less intimidated by the chats, I created some screencastify videos during one of my favorite chats, #msmathchat.

*Disclaimer: I did not script these videos (that will be clear when you watch them).  I thought about what should be included ahead of time, but I was also trying to participate in the chat which was more difficult than I thought.  Nonetheless, I think the videos will be helpful.

Preparing before the chat:
I like to have both Twitter and Tweetdeck open for chats.  This video explains more about my pre-chat rituals.

The start of the chat:
Chats typically start with introductions.  This helps you know who you are talking to.  If you find someone who teaches the same course as you it is a good person to follow on Twitter.

Participating in the chat:
Think of the chat as a social gathering.  They can range from small to extremely large gatherings.  It is not a whole group, wait your turn, type of discussion.  There are many side conversations.  You do not need to read everything that is a part of the chat.  You can jump into any side conversation at anytime.  Ask questions. Express agreement. Sometimes you will find that as you are typing someone posts exactly what you were thinking.  Don't let that stop you from posting.  It is ok to say the same thing.  That is what connects us as a group.

• Always include the hashtag so others see your tweet.
• Moderators will label questions with Q1, Q2, Q3...  You should label your responses A1, A2, A3...

Responding to Others

If you watched the video you understand the disclaimer above.  But here is the thing about about Twitter, blogging, and social media for teachers, if you wait until it's perfect it will never happen. It is an easy and informal way to share all of the great ideas and resources teachers have. No one is judging.

If you have any questions or there is something else you would like me to explain in a screencast, just use the comment section below to let me know.  I look forward to "seeing" you in a chat soon!

This site claims to have a complete list of Twitter chats for education.  I'm not sure if has them all but there is definitely something for everyone.

Purposeful Popsicle Stick Picking

I am so excited about this idea.  Before I explain it let me give you a few background links.
After reading Tracy Zager's book Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had I created these posters and hung them in my room.

On the wall before the posters it says Mathematicians... and then these are all in a line following that.  

Can you picture it? Great!

Then during the first week of school I asked students these questions about the posters and we used them to set goals.  

I have done goal setting in the past.  Not necessarily regularly because it is one of those things I'm bad about following through with.  The goal sheets get put to the side and at best I would pull them out later in the year and ask how we did with our goals.  I don't know why it hard for me to follow through with goal activities, but it might have something to do with the fact that the goals always seem to be grade oriented.  Meaning what students will do to get a good grade.  I am not a big fan of grades.  I get why we have them, but students (and parents and sometimes teachers) lose sight of learning.  It all becomes about the grade.  

I want this year to be different.  The goals were multiple choice.  9 choices that are all focused on what mathematicians do.  The students had choice in what they wanted to work on, and I only have 9 goals to focus my instruction around - not 26 or 80 personal goals to meet with students about.  This all kind of came about this week and I was loving it, but I didn't really have a next step.  Until this morning.  

Colored popsicle sticks.  How many teachers have those popsicle sticks with all the students names on them?  Before you call on a student you pick a name out of the popsicle stick cup. Sound familiar?  

It is so brilliantly simple.  I could not be more excited.  Here is what I have done:

Each student's popsicle stick is color-coded based on their goal!!!

Here are a few notes on the making of the sticks before I share my plan for them:

You can get colored popsicle sticks but I could only find 6 colors and I needed 9.  It is possible to dye them but I wanted to make sure the colors were different enough to tell them apart and was worried dye would not do that.  I simply took washable markers and colored the tips.  I tested colors until I found 9 that were different enough.  If you line up the sticks you can run the marker over multiple sticks at a time.  It did not take that long.  

For the most part the color on the popsicle stick matches the background paper of that poster.  Because I didn't know I was doing this there were some repeat background colors so the sticks don't match exactly.  If you decide to do this and don't have the posters yet I suggest a different background color for each so the sticks can match (ur maybe that is only important to me).  

Here is my plan for using them:

Just a heads up, this section is still just a big ol' brainstorm. I don't have my book with me. (Can you believe it?  How did that happen?) I plan to look through all of my highlighted goodness in the book, and I will update and add things as ideas come to me. I just want to jot down some starting ideas.

Whenever I pull a stick I can be purposeful in the language I choose to invite the student into the conversation:

• Ted, why don't you take a risk and tell us about the strategy you used or where you got confused.
• Jane, since you are working on proving (or reasoning) why don't you share your reasoning and we will be skeptics and help you see if we need to fine tune anything.
• Seamus, where did your intuition tell you where to start and how did you verify if it was correct?
• Livy, is there anything about this work that is troubling you? (I remember this question even without the book.  I loved it so much. It's a great question to get students questioning, especially after I make incorrect statements with confidence to push them to question me.)
• Milo, let's put your work under the document camera.  We will give you feedback as to whether it is clear and makes sense to see how you are coming with your precision.

What I really like about some of these questions is that they not only help the student remember the goal they are working on, but now the class becomes supporters of that student and their goal.  We are all helping each other.  We aren't critiquing your reasoning because I understand it and you don't and now you feel like I am better than you.  We are a team and we want you to help you reach your goal just like you help us.  It feels different, even as I write the questions.

Of course, there are certain activities in my classroom that lend themselves nicely to focus on certain goals.  Not that I would only call on those that have that goal, but for those who tend to not participate or the sticks that are left in the cup, it is a good way to draw them in.  I was going to list some examples for you but I don't really have anything that isn't already in Tracy's book.  You can go back and look or buy it and read it for the first time.

Also if it is an activity I am using specifically to focus on one area, like connecting ideas or making mistakes (reflecting on what we can learn from them or why doesn't that work type of questions) I could use the sticks to create groups.  I would pull the names of the students who are working on that goal and they would each be in a separate group.  The the rest of the sticks I could pull randomly.  The people who are focusing on that goal could lead the discussion.  

Like I said, this is a brilliantly simple idea.  I am sure that your brain is already coming up with questions you would ask students or ways you would incorporate these sticks.   Go back to the chapter you are reading or your favorite chapter and think about these sticks as you read.  I want to know all your thoughts and ideas.  Please use the comment section below to share.  I am so excited to see what we create together.  

If you are interested in my other  Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had blog posts you can find a complete list here.

Setting Goals as Mathematicians

Before school started I created posters based on Tracy Zager's book Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had.  Here is a link to the posters.  I decided I wanted to draw my students attention to these posters.  So on day 2 of class asked my students to read the posters and answer these questions.

Link to document

• What stands out to you the most? Why?
• I was curious as to what they would say.  I love everything about these posters, but maybe something in particular would resonate with a student.  
• Give an example of something on the posters that you have done.
• I wanted them to start to realize that they are already mathematicians and they already do many if not all of these things.  
• Pick one of the things on the posters that you would like to work on this year
• Typically when students are asked to create goals they say they want to get As, work hard, or study more. Having these characteristics defined should make it easier for us to monitor and track this goal.

This activity took about 5 minutes and here is what I learned:

As much as we talk growth mindset and learning through mistakes this is not the message these students are hearing. (I blogged about this a little while ago.) I need to work to create a classroom where value is placed on the process and not the answers. And in 7th grade I think it is going to have to be extreme in order to offset the effect that letter grades (their first time getting them) will have on their perspective.

Showing work and explaining thinking is seen as busy work.  "If I have the right answer why do I have explain it?" If the students are just working independently to find a solution that will not be discussed or have talked something out with a group sharing their explanations verbally, then it possible that showing work is busy work.  I am going to have to go back to Tracy's book again.  The chapter on reasoning and proving really helped me to see the mathematician view of these and I want to be sure to share that perspective with my students.  

How true is this one? My daughter starting talking to me about text to self connections in first grade.  Then I learned about text to text and text to world (she is a little teacher and likes to make sure I know my reading skills).  Seriously, let's start bringing this to math. I think an exit slip might be where I start with this one.

Yea! I am excited to have discussions about these this year.  This is why I loved Tracy's book so much.  There are key parts of being a mathematician that we need more of in the math classroom.  We need to trust and doubt ourselves.  Don't assume your answer is right (or for those lacking confidence, wrong).  Finding a solution is not an end to the problem.  There is still so much work to be done.  I absolutely love that students noticed and questioned these aspects of being a mathematician.

As for our goal setting, the top 2 responses for what students want to work on were taking risks and asking questions.  I think this example shows that for many those two go hand in hand.  I plan to use this as a launching point next week for creating some class norms that will help ensure we have an environment where students feel safe asking questions and taking risks.  I'll keep you posted.


If you are interested in my other  Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had blog posts you can find a complete list here.

Mathematicians...

Have you read Tracy Zager's book Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had?
If not you definitely should.  After reading it this summer I created these posters for my room.  It is the key points from each chapter written in student friendly language.  My plan at this point is to hang them up.  That's really all I have at this point.  It's good to keep the bar low so I can actually follow through with this goal. 😜  I hope to refer to them throughout the year as it fits with conversations we have in class.  I will continually add to this blog as I do so that I can reflect on how to use these posters effectively in the future.  If you use them I would love to hear about it in the comment section.

Link to the document with all posters.

Link to the document with all the posters for UK, AU and other maths people.

UPDATE: I asked the students a few questions about what was on the posters.  I wrote about it here. 

If you are interested in my other  Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had blog posts you can find a complete list here.

Finding Fun

As I continue to work my way through start of the school year reflections, I have blogged about my anxiety as a teacher and as a parent.  Now it is time for a little fun.

Fun? What is that?

Oh, fun is something you used to know.  It must feel like a distant memory.

I don't think we have time for that. There is too much to do.

I'm not sure at what age the shift happens, but by seventh grade I can tell you there is little time for fun.  It has literally been taken out of the schedule.  My school now has 20 minutes once a week for what we call homeroom, a scheduled time to connect with students and help them connect with each other,  oh and also cover topics like drugs, alcohol, bullying, character values, etc. Woo hoo, fun.  

The way I see it I have 2 options.  I can give in to this fun-sucking schedule and become one of those stressed out teachers that always looks cranky with the weight of the world on their shoulders as I wait for systemic change, or I can take charge of that which I can control: my classroom.

Now don't get me wrong.  I am extremely passionate about math and we have fun with it every day.  I think that my enjoyment and wonder of math rubs off on my students.  But I want more than that.  I want non-curricular fun.  The inside jokes that bond us together as a class.  The memories that will be written in yearbooks.  The nostalgic moments that we will look back on fondly.  

The challenge as a middle school teacher is that most of my students find most of their humor at other people's expense.  The sarcasm and mocking stems from the fact that middle school students have such low self confidence and are trying to find their place.  Every. Single. One.  Don't be fooled by confident middle school students.  They put on a good show, but every joke cuts deep and is internalized in ways that will impact who they become.  

This is why finding fun is so important.  But those stressed out teachers are right, there isn't time, at least not much.  The key to daily classroom fun is it must be simple (or you can't keep up with it) and it must be authentic.  Each teacher has to find their own style.  You can't fake fun or follow someone else's lesson plan for it.  So ask yourself: what do you find fun? 

I start each lesson with a math cartoon or funny gif.
My brother and I enjoy debating foolish things, usually food.  It drives my husband crazy, but my students love it. It often comes up when we are doing Estimation 180 tasks because they involve food.  Candy corn or pumpkins? Tough call.  Red Vines or Twizzlers? Redvines, obviously.

I never wear plain socks. In February, when there are no holiday breaks in sight, I start up fun sock Fridays.  The kids love showing me their fun socks.

Of course music is another great way to lighten the mood.  Since we are talking socks, here is a good one (the music starts about 30 seconds in):

 And then there is the foolishness that was the welcome to this blog.  Like many teachers I use bitmojis as if they are my team teacher.  Biti me is everywhere.  I was out of class an unusual amount last year and when I was planning for a sub, yet again, I got the brilliant idea that I would make Biti me talk.  It would be just like I was there (FYI it was nothing like I was there.  The students found it creepy and funny at the same time.)  So for those of you wanting to do the same, here is how it is done.

• Get Bitmoji: website, App Store, Google Play, Chrome Web Store
• It will walk you through creating your Biti self
• Download Chatterpix
• As far as I can tell it is just for iPad and iPhone
• It is free.

The Bitmoji must be saved as a picture on the iPad to access it from Chatterpix.  I do not have Bitmoji on my iPad, but I do have a folder in Google Drive with my favorite and most used Bitmojis saved as pictures.  I can then open drive on the iPad and download the Bitmoji pics to the iPad.  I also have Bitmoji in my email and can email them to myself and open them on the iPad.

In Chatterpix, select take a picture and you can choose the Bitmoji from your camera roll.  Chatterpix is very intuitive and user friendly.  You select where you want the mouth to open by drawing a line and record your voice.  Once you have created a talking Bitmoji, download it back to the camera roll.

From the iPad you can either upload it back to Drive or upload it to YouTube.  That way you can access it from a computer.  I chose to upload to YouTube and insert it in a Google Presentation.  Now that you can insert videos from Drive either option would work well.
A few tips:

When I was on my iPad, I remembered this fun (and free) app called Sock Puppets.  I forgot how much fun it is and might have to add it to the mix this year. 

#truestory

I don't care what grade you are in.  That is just fun, right?  

Like I said, it has to be simple and authentic.  If these ideas don't sound fun to you, don't use them.  Kids can smell contrived fun and won't buy into it.  I would love to hear what you do to add fun and memories to your classroom.  Please use the comment section below to let me know!

Keeping Parents in Mind

It is here!  It is finally here!  My baby will be going into kindergarten this year!

(In case you are not familiar with the Brian Gordon's work, he has chronicled the life of every parent in his comic.  If you are a parent you need his books.)

This year all three of my children will be in elementary school. (The same school with just one drop off point.  No big deal, I have just been waiting 5 years for this.)  As much excitement as I have for this school year, I have the same amount of anxiety.  Let me explain.

My daughter is going into third grade.  She has struggled with anxiety and perfectionism.  Her inability to focus compounds it.

My son is going into first grade and academically he is above grade level in most areas.  It took him all of kindergarten, however, to make one friend who will now be in a different class.

And then there is my baby.  He had an IEP for speech because he was unable to get words from his brain to come out his mouth. He does talk now, but I still see him know something once and never again.  He is impulsive and everything is a game.  He is extremely determined and my husband and I are still waiting to see if he will use his powers for good or evil.

Pernille Ripp, in her keynote at SITA, spoke about her daughter that was born prematurely.  They spent the first few years of her life waiting to see if there were any issues with her brain development.  She spoke about how important it is for us, as parents, to share these stories with the teachers.  How will teachers know if we don't tell them?  I will definitely be following this advice, but with hesitation.  How much do I tell?  When is the appropriate time to share?  How will I come across to the teacher when I share this information? Too involved? Not trusting the teacher's abilities? Caring parent (I hope)?  

This tweet is a good reminder to teachers to keep the parents in mind. As a teacher, I don't want any of my students' parents to hesitate or not reach out to share their thoughts, worries, concerns, etc. Last year I came across this article in Education World.  It is a simple invitation to parents and gives them an opening to share whatever is on their mind with the start of the school year. I decided to try it.  

Here is the email I sent home to parents:

The first few weeks of school are full of activities that allow teachers and students to get to know each other.  As the month goes on I will start to understand your child as a learner, identifying strengths, weaknesses, learning styles, etc.  I would like to tap into the greatest resource available to me, you.  You know your child better than anyone (including them).  So, if it doesn't add too much stress to your life, I would like to give you a bit of a homework assignment.  I would like you to tell me about your child in a million words or less.  You can share anything you want with me.  I will share important information with the other VIP teachers (ELA, science/social studies) unless you specifically ask me not to.  It can be as long or as short as you want. 

• You can email it to me.  
• You can write it on paper and send it to school with your child.  
• There isn't really a due date, but in case you are like me and put things off until the last minute, try to get it to me by Sept. 15.

I want to thank you in advance for your support.  I think this will really help me understand my students, so I can best support them and help them to feel connected at DPMS.

The response I got was amazing.

Many parents wrote back.  Some wrote a few sentences, others a couple pages.  It gave me a much clearer picture of each student.  (FYI: I did have a student who was born prematurely.)  What I loved about the responses was that I was able to see the child through the parents' eyes.  They see the strengths, the flaws, the consistent struggles year after year, the new struggles, and it is all shared with so much love.  I printed the responses and I would read through them again from time to time throughout the school year.  When I was so wrapped up in a student's behavior issues, I could read the note and be reminded of the person that is within.  I had a student share issues she was having with her parents and feeling like they didn't care.  I pulled out the letter her dad wrote at the beginning of the year so she could feel the love that seemed to have gotten lost in day to day living. I will definitely be sending this message again this year.  My goal is to remember to send it when new students come throughout the year.  

Even if they don't respond, sending this invitation to parents accomplishes what John Steven's tweet encourages.  Parents know they are my partners in education and that I care about their children. 

Forever Caught in the Space Between

It is August and therefore time for me to turn all of the great summer professional development ideas into reality in my classroom.  I am energized, excited, and overwhelmed all at the same time.  This will be my 5th year back in a math classroom (I use the word back because I had an 8 year "break" from it while I taught Computer Literacy).  I was introduced to #MTBoS about a year and a half ago and it exploded my teaching and life in the most wonderful way.  My professional development this summer has consisted of a 3 day training with the Enhanced Learning Maps project, rereading books from the US Math Recovery Council, SITA (a local educational technology conference), Summer Spark, Building Math Minds Virtual Summit, and an online book study of Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had.  It sounds like a lot now that I am writing it, but since returning to the math classroom I feel like there is so much I want to learn about development of math learning and effective teaching.

Part of why I took on so much this summer is because I struggled last school year.  I am a good teacher.  I can make this claim because I was recognized this past year by the Greater Green Bay Chamber Partners in Education with a Golden Apple Award.  I realize you most likely do not know what this award is, but where I live it is an honor.  Even though I am a good teacher, I struggled.  When I look back on past years of teaching (especially those first few) there is so much I would differently now that I know better.  That is the point of all this professional development, isn't it? To do better.  There is one student in particular that I see around town.  I worked with him one on one with an intervention program we were piloting.  He and I both struggled for a semester and then our time together was over.  The following year I started working with the US Math Recovery Council and now have a much better understanding of the help this student needed.  Unfortunately he had moved on to high school and I am left with regrets.  I am sure you can relate.  That is why there are so many posters like this:

This is actually the quote that I referenced when talking to a colleague last year.  My biggest struggle is that with all of this great professional development and wonderful supportive community on Twitter, I now know better.  A lot better.  The problem is I am struggling to do better.  Since I know many people are reading the book I am going to use Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had as an example.  If you haven't read it yet, you should.  It is amazing.  It is a comprehensive labor of love in which Tracy Zager has pulled together research, mathematician viewpoints, and classroom examples of everything those of us who love mathematics want for each of our students.  You can feel the love and passion when you read it.  It is everything I want for my classroom.  I want to be the teachers in this book.  I guess that is kind of the point.  It is the name of the book.  As I reflect on all that I learned in the book, these questions come to mind:

• Where do I start?
• How will I remember all that I want to do once the school year gets going?
• Last year as I improved some areas, others that I had been doing well fell away.  How do I prevent this from happening again?
• Do the math teachers in this book see themselves as the math teacher they wish they had?
• Does every day in their class look this good?
• Do other teachers feel as behind as I do?
• How long will it take me to become this math teacher that see in my head?
• Will I ever get there?

I can already tell you the answer to the last one.  It is no.  I will always be growing as a math teacher.  I will be better than those first few years, but I will always be learning new things and gaining new perspective.  In terms of Tracy's book, I will always be becoming that teacher.  I won't be the math teacher I had, and I won't be the math teacher in my head.  I will forever be caught in the space between.  I wonder if it was a purposeful word choice by Tracy.  Becoming (noun) process of change, as opposed to become (verb) to change or grow to be.

The reflection for me, and anyone else who is reading this, is to remember that this is a process.  There are many things I want to try/implement/create/do in my classroom this school year.  It is ok if I don't get to all of them.  It is ok if they don't go well.  I cannot solve all of the problems in one school year.  I need to have the same patience with myself as I do with my students.  There is no such thing as perfection. I can't compare myself to other teachers. I need to do what works for me and feels right in my classroom. We are each taking our own journey.   

With all of that in mind, I am ready to start another school year, reflecting on what I want to do differently, but at the same time acknowledging the great teacher I already am.


UPDATE: I have been moving a little closer to the teacher I want to be. 
If you are interested in my other  Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had blog posts you can find a complete list here.