Book Creator, Take 3!

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

IMG_2924It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  As the semester winds up (exams!) and then winds down (winter break!) it’s become a good time to give my students some creative opportunities to reflect on what they’ve learned throughout the year.

Last week, my Algebra students wrapped up authoring their own math eBooks in preparation for upcoming semester exams.  This is my third lap with this Book Creator project, which is tucked into this iTunes U Course if you want to give it a go with your own students.

If you’d like to read about how this project came to be, check out lap 1 and lap 2 before reading on.

What I did differently this lap:

Screen Shot 2015-12-01 at 6.45.12 AM1. With new Algebra TEKS came new eBook topics.  Rather than only providing students with a standard or learning target on which to base their books, I chose this time to give each student group the TEKS/target as well as a representative problem set.  Before we even talked about authoring a book, student groups worked together to solve specific problems that varied in difficulty, but were rigorous enough to set clear expectations about the problem-types that would be appropriate for their eBooks.  In the past, students often defaulted to too-easy examples.  Additionally, some students misunderstood their math topic and wrote books that missed the mark a bit.

2. Each class was provided with exactly three copies of each sample problem set, and I distributed these resources randomly.  That meant each student was both assigned a random math topic as well as a random group comprised of exactly three students.  Students who mutually agreed to trade papers (and therefore math topics and student groups) were permitted to do so.  Some groups of three mutually agreed to become a pair and a lone-ranger, giving rise to multiple books on the same topic.  I believe giving students choices helps them own their work, so I remained flexible as they worked through these logistics themselves.

3.  This year, I very intentionally framed the project as a “community service project.”  The ultimate goal of creating this collection of eBooks was to provide peers with multi-media review resources beyond typical textbooks and worksheets.  I think students heard and owned this message.  Instead of viewing the eBooks as being a nifty iPad “graded project” with a checklist to complete, students considered their audience, and designed the books with the goal of meeting the needs of their peers.

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This is what three days of sub plans looks like. #NCTMregionals #MTBoS

4. Students worked on the majority of this project in my absence!  While I was at NCTM Nashville, my amazing sub interviewed each student group daily, and took extensive progress notes for me.  Even though I missed seeing a lot of the process in person, I felt very connected to students’ progress through these notes!

Every year, I see the quality of these eBooks improve!  Student tutorial videos were the best yet, and most student groups took my advice and included a problem set as a self-checking “quiz” at the end of their books.  With emphasis on sound mathematics for meeting the needs of the intended audience (their friends!) I was proud of their work… and so were they!

Here is a ThingLink housing the .ePub files for the eBooks thus far.  Missing books are being revised and resubmitted, so stay tuned!

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#NCTMregionals #MTBoS Nashville

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

IMG_5460My brain is still on overload from the NCTM Regional Conference in Nashville.  I can’t count how many times I engaged with Twitter/blogger faces in 3D whom I’ve respected virtually since I learned about this Twitter/blog thang.  What a thrill to connect and learn from each other in person.

Add to this thrill, having the opportunity to help new-to-Twitter folks at the #MTBoS (Math-Twitter-Blog-o-Sphere) booth in the exhibit hall as well as in Twitter-themed sessions.  Watching the A-Ha sparkle in the eyes of folks as they signed up for Twitter and entered the #NCTMregionals and/or #MTBoS hashtag(s) for the first time was… awesome!  Once your eyes are open to this parallel Twitter-math universe, you just can’t look away.

IMG_3074When I was invited to be part of the opening keynote session nearly a year ago, I think I turned my head to the left and the right and asked, “Who… me?”  To be counted among the likes of Graham Fletcher, Robert Kaplinsky, Laila Nur, and Andrew Stadel was an honor I can’t really articulate. Add to that being valued as a 5-person team by the hugely respected organization that NCTM has been throughout our careers and well… I’m just blown away that I had this opportunity is all.  “Thank you” falls short… but… thank you.  (Catch the HOMEWORK I assigned in my portion of the keynote, as well as a recording of the entire opening session thanks to Mike Flynn here.)

So many take-aways to share… but I’ll try to be concise here and focus on three biggies (to me).

(1) Teaching lessons that are problem-based is a good thing. If I had a dollar for every time I heard “3 Acts” or “Dan Meyer” I would have walked away from this conference with a killing.  I really wish I would have kept a tally.  From Graham Fletcher and Michael Wiernicki’s Apple-Cube-Balance task, to Robert Kapinsky’s In-N-Out Burger task, to Andrew Stadel’s Swing-Wrapping task, to Dane Ehert’s Elevator-or-Stairs task (and these are sessions I went to – I’m sure there were more!) the message was both consistent and clear:

                    • Give kids the chance to formulate their own questions and mathematical need for information that has not yet been provided.  Provide only the information students ask for.
                    • Give kids the opportunity to work SILENTLY and INDIVIDUALLY for a few minutes first to avoid being bulldozed by the boisterous leader-types in cooperative settings (we love those kids, but the quiet ponderous kids deserve mathematical think-time too).
                    • VALUE students’ noticings and wonderings… even if some are a little off the path *you* want them to travel.  VALUE even some of the silly and/or non-mathy responses… kids need to feel safe in their educational space, and we do not want to crush them when they speak out.  Speaking up in math class can be tough for kids, so WE need to help guide them to apply their wonderings to MATH.
                    • Provide students with an “iterative framework” to structure and guide their thinking.  I saw the one Robert shared in the framework link used in several sessions.  As a teacher with my own classroom, I appreciated Dane Ehlert’s extension on his framework, which includes a “What it might look like on a test” extension problem post-task, as well as a few “Big Ideas” prompts – practical additions I believe students would appreciate!

 (2) Teachers I spoke with aren’t doing “3 Acts” EVERY LESSON, EVERY DAY. I think it’s important to address “mathematics in real-life” from the perspective of math TEACHERS.  I had more than one conversation with folks who are trying to implement problem-based tasks such as “3 Acts” structures and strategies.  We had some keeping-it-real discussions about how often and how successfully we’ve implemented these tasks, and my conclusion is this – not one of us has this type of thing mastered yet.  We’ve had some great student experiences, and others that fell flat.  We’re willing, but not always able, to execute as we’d like.  One colleague went so far as to say, “You’d be disappointed if you came to my classroom” because of the “traditional” teaching that often happens.  Another teacher pal said, without any self-condemnation, “I still do a lot of traditional things in my classroom as well.”  

In “real” classrooms, balance as well as variety seem to be the name of the game.  Geoff Kroll's NCTM 2015 SessionGeoff Krall’s session title, “Fumbling toward Inquiry: Starting Strong in Problem-Based Learning” gave us permission to continue to grow in this type of teaching while acknowledging “real-life” teacher challenges.  This colorful slide from Geoff’s session gave me some #MTBoS Affirmation that my classroom may resemble that of many of us who want to press forward, with intentionality and variety in our teaching techniques… while functioning within some inevitable structures of public education (namely, time-pressures and high-stakes testing, both at the state and district level).

In this sample planning calendar slide, BLUE days signify direct instruction, GREEN days signify problem-based lessons, and those RED days… you guessed it… benchmarking/state testing days.  To me, Geoff showed this slide with equal doses of reality and tongue-in-cheek humor, but I found a strange comfort in his acknowledging these challenges nonetheless.  

Robert Kaplinsky explicitly stated in his session that doing 1 or 2 tasks per unit can be a “sweet spot” and starting a unit with a task can be particularly powerful.  Robert also said (I’m paraphrasing here, but not by much) that he’d rather we “suck” at implementing a task that has already been tested and vetted BEFORE being shared freely in the blog-o-sphere than “sucking” at a task we may have put together from scratch that (we may not realize) begins with a “sucky” problem that was doomed from the start.  I appreciated this advice tremendously, and I think it’s worth sharing with colleagues who may take their first stabs at tasks like this… because developing “good” ones, as Robert said, can take a “long-a$$-time.”

IMG_5401 (3) Real-life in-person interactions strengthen our virtual-professional relationships.

I met SO MANY PEOPLE whose work I respect and who have inspired me in so many ways.  Talking in person only grows that connection.  I wouldn’t hesitate to reach out to any one of the #MTBoS members I had the pleasure of getting to know better this week.  The SINCERITY of our passions and desires to improve and bring others along on the journey was undeniable.  A shout-out to my roomie Laila Nur for refreshing conversations about instruction, standards-based grading, leadership, and life!  So glad to have connected with you!  Additionally, it was great fun to find out just how alike we are (in pretty much every way) Julie Reulbach!

I’ll admit it… meeting Tweeps in person left me a little star-struck more than once 🙂 but the truth is we’re all normal people with genuine hearts for teaching math and serving our students better.  Getting there requires all of us to continue to work together… because the smartest person in the #MTBoS… IS the #MTBoS.

That being said… though we have the #MTBoS at our fingertips 24-7, there is tremendous value in bringing people together for math-fellowship in person.   Are you attending professional conferences?  Will we meet at a future NCTM?  I hope so!

Want to read more about #NCTMregionals Nashville? Check out this reflective post by Tracy Zager. Here’s another follow-up reflection from Jonathan Schoolcraft.

See you in the Math-Twitter-Blog-o-Sphere.

 

Sessions I attended at #NCTMregionals Nashville:

3- Be Your Own Professional Development – Michael Pershan

29- Get Your Model On: Mathematical Modeling in the Elementary Classroom – Graham Fletcher and Michael Wiernicki

93- Using Appropriate Tools Strategically: Aligning Technology Choices with Mathematical Goals – Amanda Thomas

104- Model with Mathematics Using Problem-Solving Tasks – Andrew Stadel

133- 3 Act Math: A How-To – Dane Ehlert

152- Tweet, Connect, Repeat—Discovering Unlimited Resources in Limited Time – Julie Reulbach

176- The Math Department I’ve Always Wanted: Twitter as My PLC – Michael Fenton

19- REPEAT: Motivating Our Students with Real-World Problem-Based Lessons – Robert Kaplinsky

229- Empowering Students with Rich Online Algebra Activities – Christopher Danielson

252- Desmos and Modeling: A Mathematical Match Made in Heaven – Michael Fenton

277- Fumbling toward Inquiry: Starting Strong in Problem-Based Learning – Geoff Krall

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Match My Line: @Desmos #ActivityBuilder Style

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

My students “discovered” slope-intercept form in class last Friday through a paper-pencil graphing exploration that had just the right frustration level to get them talking, exploring, and revising until they “got it”.  While we didn’t have a lot of time to come back together and formalize y = mx + b on Friday, I felt like they’d done enough to tackle Michael Fenton’s “Match My Line” today.  Last year, my students accessed each Desmos graphing task from a ThingLink.  This year, with the birth of Desmos Activity Builder, students tackled each challenge with a smoother living-in-Desmos work-flow.

Before we visited student.desmos.com, I gave a brief assessment using ThatQuiz to be sure we all remembered last Friday’s discoveries.  Initially, I had planned to use “Match My Line” and then let students play a linear “Polygraph” activity… but we never got to the Polygraph.

Did you ever just wish another teacher was in the room with you to witness that this-is-actually-happening kind of lesson?  That was today!  After circulating with a goofy grin on my face for longer than I should have, I had the sense to grab a notepad and jot down some student comments I heard as they worked.  I lost count of how many times students threw both hands up in the air as they said these, and many other comments, out loud:

IMG_2813“See?!?  I’m smart!”

“I didn’t know we could use decimals!”

“I GOT IT!!! I GOT IT!!!”

“… I missed it!”

“I’m almost done – I feel so smart right now.”

“Got it!  Perfect!”

“OH! I did it wrong!”

“This is making me SO MAD… wait… BANG! GOT IT!”

and my favorite… as the bell was ringing to dismiss for the day…

“This should be our lesson every day.”

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Desmos Activity Builder – Not to be Missed!

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

Screen Shot 2015-11-04 at 5.21.22 PMHas it ever been so simple to create and share interactive math lessons that rock?  The Desmos Activity Builder is inspiring math educators all over to take lesson ideas to new levels.  Head on over to Twitter and search for @Desmos and/or #ActivityBuilder… and you might just bump into exactly what you’re looking for… or at the very least, something BETTER than what you’ve done before!

Screen Shot 2015-11-04 at 9.27.08 PMI recently used this Dilations activity shared by Andrew Stadel along with my own Dilations Nearpod lesson with students, and that was all it took to get hooked!  Inspired by Andrew’s work, I whipped up this Reflections exploration to see what it was like to create my very own Desmos Activity. Screen Shot 2015-11-04 at 9.23.46 PM

 

Screen Shot 2015-11-04 at 5.21.57 PMIt’s quite easy!  Go here and select “Start Building an Activity”.  The sky’s the limit – mix “Graph”, “Question”, and “Text” options to create a Desmos journey, and share it on Twitter using the #ActivityBuilder and #MTBoS hashtags.  You know that lesson topic you dread? Or the one that kids don’t “get” or “see”?  Could Activity Builder help?  Creativity is key, and let me tell you, there are already quite a few creative people out there making great stuff.

Screen Shot 2015-11-04 at 9.17.43 PMLooking for something specific?  Want to share activities you’ve made? You should check out the Desmos Bank.  P.S.  I can’t wait for my students to experience this activity by Michael Fenton in a new Desmos Activity format!

Have you seen this?  I can’t. Stop. Clicking.

Also worth mentioning is this nifty “overlay” option of viewing student work – super cool.

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

#WODB Nearpod Warm-Up #VariablesBothSides

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Cathy Yenca
WODB

#WODB Warm-Up

If you haven’t used Which One Doesn’t Belong? with students, you might be missing out on some pretty awesome dialogue.  The idea that there isn’t just one cut-and-dry answer makes justifying one’s choice a safe challenge.

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Rookie Mistake…

Students have been solving multi-step equations and had this Nearpod for homework last night. They knew coming in to class today that some equations have no solution and others have infinitely many solutions.  Since I already saw their Nearpod HW data and work (which included correct equations as well as typical distributive sign mistakes) we started class with a #WODB Nearpod warm-up to get things rolling.  With scrap paper handy and iPads nearby, students worked in pairs to solve the four equations.  Going into an activity like this, I think it’s important that students know that there isn’t just one right answer.  Simply ask students to take a stand, and be ready to justify the choice.

IMG_2577My favorite part about any task that promotes communication and reasoning is just walking around the room to listen to my students.  They take a stand.  They change their minds.  It’s so tough to choose just one equation!  They make mistakes.  They try again.  And… they know they will be held accountable.

Once students solved the equations and made a choice, they entered their choices and justifications through an Open Ended Response question in Nearpod.  I anonymously shared student choices and we talked about each one.  A lot of great correct thinking… and quite a bit of great incorrect thinking to straighten out too.  Fifteen minutes well spent!

Here’s the quick Nearpod so you can try it out.  If you use this #WODB warm-up with your students, I’d love to know how it goes!

Here are just a few student responses from today:

Screen Shot 2015-10-07 at 6.16.55 PM

 

 

 

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

You Don’t Teach

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

Okay, let’s be clear.

I *DO* teach.  A lot.

But students don’t often know how to articulate that *how* I’m trying to teach may differ, at times, from some of their past math-class experiences.

They might not know exactly how to say,

“You teach by having us discover stuff on our own before you just tell us a formula.”

or

“You teach by having us talk to one another and work to be ‘patient problem solvers’ rather than just telling us what to do next.”

or

“You teach by answering our questions with other questions designed to make us think, or to encourage us to test stuff to see if our theory works or falls apart.  You don’t own all of the knowledge in this room, and you want us to own it, and not be afraid to make mistakes along the way… because that’s how learning happens.”

or

“You teach by discouraging memorization and ‘tricks’ that really have nothing to do with understanding math, even though I really… REALLY want you to tell me tricks.  Deep down, I’m a young learner who just wants you to tell me something that will work, all the time, for every problem.”

“You don’t teach” actually means, “Teacher, you’re doing a great job of being ‘less helpful’.  I’m frustrated, but when I put the pieces together and form my own meaning from all of this, I’ll really, REALLY understand it.  And I may even thank you for it… but probably not this year.”

I was a bit down in the dumps last week after some student comments like this, accompanied by some test grades that were less-than-desirable.  I take it to heart when my students don’t succeed.  But I have to remember that they’re still working on it.  They’re not there (here comes that ever-important word) YET.

New TEKS (Texas standards), new books, higher expectations… growing pains are inevitable.

But we’ll get there, even if we’re not there… yet.

Thanks to the #MTBoS and particularly my pal Kyle Pearce for encouragement and empowerment to keep pressing on… because I’m not done… yet.  We’re just getting started, and we’ll get there!

A timely post from Kyle can be found here:

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Gettin’ Into The Groove Hodge-Podge… Featuring Classkick

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

I can hear the announcer at our high school’s football game as I type on my iMac here at home.  So nice to be getting settled in to a “new” house that is closer in to the city, our schools, and the general action of this fine town… especially as far as traffic is concerned!

You’d think spending WAY less time in Austin traffic would somehow afford me some time back… and yet, sitting down to reflect and exhale has still been tough to do.  I have to grant myself some grace, as it’s still September… and things will settle down… right? 🙂

This is year two with new TEKS for me (Texas standards, for those who follow the CCSS or other such standards).  Last year, Texas students in grades K – 8 took on new, more rigorous math standards, and new textbook resources.  This year, Texas students in high school math courses are enduring the same transition.  It’s a blessing to have had half of my teaching schedule impacted last year (my Math 8 students) , and the other half this year (my Algebra students), versus having my entire teaching schedule shift all in the same year.  Lesson planning and designing new resources and assessments is both exhausting and refreshing.  So that’s how I feel this fine Friday – exhausted and refreshed, if that’s even a thing…!  That means, it’s time for another hodge-podge post!  So… what’s new, you ask?

IMG_1322This week, my students went pretty bonkers over an app I’ve been meaning to try, as it seemed to have great potential for problem-solving.  I didn’t even realize it’s been almost exactly a year since Dan Meyer blogged about it until I began drafting this post tonight, but that’s where I first heard about Classkick.  It’s an iPad-only freebie that allows students to work at their own pace as the teacher looks on from his/her own iPad screen.  As students work, the teacher can see real-time thumbnails of student work… from each and every student.  Kiddos can raise a virtual orange hand to ask for help (the little icon appears on the teacher’s iPad) or raise a virtual green hand to ask the teacher to check their work.  The teacher can provide written feedback in real-time on the screen as well… which totally freaked out my students!  They wigged OUT (in a good way) when I started giving verbal feedback from across the room while my writing appeared in ghost-like wonder on a student’s own screen simultaneously!  And… you wouldn’t believe how hard a group of 8th graders will work for even the *chance* that they might receive a digital sticker from me on one of their work pages.  I am not even being the slightest bit sarcastic… I really mean it! 🙂

What was interesting to me is… with a class of 31 students… there was NO POSSIBLE WAY that I could thoroughly check EVERY student’s work on 4 problems, in detail, in the time it took them to try the problems.  (Sheesh, even a second glance at the screenshot I shared above includes some interesting misconceptions that I wasn’t able to address during class… and this only shows work from FOUR students!) That didn’t seem to impact their motivation… just the *chance* that they could receive written feedback, or a digital sticker, seemed to keep them gung-ho about dare-I-say pretty typical multi-step equations problems (consecutive integers, for example).  What was even more fascinating is, if students so much as witnessed me giving a nearby peer a sticker or written feedback, they were as pumped about using Classkick to solve some equations as though the feedback had been given directly to them.  The novelty of it all made the room buzz, and they even begged to do homework using Classkick!  While I wasn’t quite ready to grant that request on the fly, I later learned through interactions with Classkick on Twitter that it can be used asynchronously as well.  If I wanted to go and give detailed feedback to every student on every page of digital work, I could do it right now, and they’ll see it all the next time they log in with the code they got from me in class today.  (BTW… there is NO teacher prep to get kids to log in to Classkick – it generates a code, you share the code with the kids, and they appear in your class.)

If you give Classkick a try, I’d love to hear about it!  Granted, it will be overwhelming.  All of the kids will want your immediate digital attention.  And that’s okay.  Don’t *NOT* use a tool because of your own limitations as one human being.  Give it a try, give as much feedback out as you can muster in the moment, and decide afterwards if giving more feedback later (asynchronously) is worth it… or if you just grant yourself grace to do what you can in class, and know that this is one experience among many when your students will be providing you with a formative work sample.

I haven’t tried a seemingly nifty feature that permits students to anonymously give one another written feedback.  It’s only September, and I feel like I need to get to know these folks a bit more before giving them that kind of power.

Next week, I’m looking forward to giving Zeal.com a try.  The folks at Zeal were kind enough to give me a private tutorial over the phone this past week, and I think their platform has great potential for progress monitoring!

 

In other news, it was a thrill to recently be interviewed by the folks at NBC in this back-to-school feature!  Having a reporter from New York contact me out of the blue was quite a compliment!


Thanks to Lisa Johnson’s visit to my classroom during one of Eanes ISD’s iLeap Academy site visits, she kindly featured my students and some classroom strategies in this Edutopia article, which was published today.

 

Honored to be included in this article, which includes many ways Nearpod can be used effectively for professional development and in the classroom.

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

First-Two-Weeks Hodge Podge

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

Today may be the last day of summer vacation for some.  Others of us have already been rocking and rolling for two weeks with a new crew of students.  So many ideas and resources have crossed my path that I’m not sure where to start.

So… in no particular order:

  • There’s a Desmos Activity Builder.  I know… my jaw dropped too when I first heard this news.  Did you know there’s already a Desmos Activity Bank with over 1,000 teacher-created activities…?!?  I can’t wait to use this!
  • Zeal.com is an option for K-8 “Exit Tickets” that I hope to use with my RTI math students first, so I can learn the platform before using it with a large group.  I used Zeal last year to track student progress and give them a novel way to “compete”, but the platform has been updated quite a bit in the past few months and I hardly recognize it!  It’s completely free.  Anyone using this?  How do you use it?  I’d love some classroom feedback!  I’ve also seen Kyle Pearce share about using KnowledgeHook’s Gameshow platform, and I’d like to compare it to Zeal.
  • I keep hearing that folks are enjoying ClassKick.  I haven’t used it yet, but the idea of seeing student work in real-time sounds like a plus to me… though seeing 30 students’ real time work simultaneously sounds a bit overwhelming!  Nevertheless, I can’t knock it until I try it.  When I do, I’ll share back.  Anyone using ClassKick in math class?
  • I recently gave Atlas Learning’s Apollo a try, and I feel like I have a lot to learn.  In Apollo, there’s a random student picker that my students enjoyed.  Student faces quickly scroll horizontally across the screen, and as the “picker” slows down to choose the “winning” student, kids go crazy (in a good way)!  The chosen one’s prize is control of a virtual pen, and in our case, the privilege of writing the next line of work in an Order of Operations problem.  As a student digitally writes, the rest of the students can see the work on their own screens too.  I understand they also have the option to go back and watch the problem being worked again in a digital-movie sort of way.  Novel indeed, but I couldn’t see how this was any more beneficial than handing a dry erase marker to one student and sending them to the board as everyone else watched.  Anyone else using Apollo for math?  Maybe I am missing something, so I’d love to learn from your experiences!

In other news, Texas Education Agency updated their calculator policy for state testing this week… now students across the state are permitted to use tablet graphing calculator applications during STAAR testing like Eanes ISD students did in our pilot last year!

And, in my spare time, I’ve been preparing for this.

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Tech Access Day 1 Needs to Be a Priority

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

CNdtvb1UkAAI0TyWeek one of a new school year – check!  If you’re back-to-school with students, I hope your year is off to a fantastic start.  This will be year four of 1:1 iPads for my students and me, and I still feel like I have a lot to learn.  I love how having access to technology empowers my students and me, but also keeps the learner hat firmly in place on each of our heads.  There will ALWAYS be a new tool and a better way of doing things, so we’re committed to learning together for the long haul.

This year has had a different start for me than prior years.  In the past, we have had “iPad Roll-Outs” several weeks into school.  That was a HUGE bummer, because getting to know students’ mathematical strengths and weaknesses through non-tech tasks had been so inefficient.  And… nothing says downer like giving a paper-pencil pre-test during the first week of school – blah!

Well, not so this year!  The majority of my students took advantage of the opportunity to KEEP their school-issued iPads over the summer, and have had them from Day 1 of school.  Additionally, most of the students who did not opt to keep their school iPads have personal phones, so most students who did not have access to school iPads yet were still able to take part in class activities.

We’ve been working through foundational ideas, like number properties and order of operations, and using tech tools for class tasks and homework has been so valuable.  I have never started a school year knowing so much about my students’ prior knowledge.  Many students have had homework nightly in ThatQuiz.  They crave the feedback.  They want to know what the class average was.  We’ve used ThatQuiz homework to practice AFTER a review lesson has occurred.  We’ve used ThatQuiz homework to pre-assess BEFORE a review lesson took place… then we duplicated the quiz AFTER the lesson, took it again, and celebrated our progress.

And no one seems to care that none of this is going in a gradebook.  We are focused on learning.  We are focused on growth.  At first, the question, “Is this for a grade?” happened often.  Now, they aren’t even asking about that.  They just want to know how they did, how the other classes did, and, when given the chance to try again, if they did better.

I am swimming in feedback and data, and it’s helping shape my teaching, communicate with students, and with parents.

How important is it to have access to devices on Day 1 of school?  Now that I’ve experienced it, for me it’s HUGELY high priority.

 

Posted in Algebra 1, Pre-Algebra | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Summer of 2015 Summary

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Cathy Yenca

IMG_2019Non-boring summers are my favorite, and this summer has been anything but boring.

We bought a fixer-upper closer into town and have been attempting to fix it up (or hire good people to help with that process… things have not always gone as planned on that one *ahem*.  I’ll save the contractor woes for other online forums and venues, don’t you worry…!)  iPadpalooza #iplza15 in Austin in our very own Eanes ISD kicked off the summer with a punch of PD. Travel to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to visit family and co-present with @mryenca, @techgirljenny, and @sjgorman at ISTE #ISTE2015 was a blast.  Vacationing in Orlando and having the famous Harry Potter butter beer did not disappoint.  Presenting at iPadpalooza South Texas #iplzaSTX in McAllen ISD and vacationing on South Padre Island further provided that perfect balance of PD tech-geeking and milking summer vacation.  Life is good.

As I enjoy the view of the south Texas beach from my balcony, breathing in the salty sea air, I thought I’d post all the materials from the sessions I presented and co-presented at summer conferences this year.  If you’ve never visited this blog before, this chunk of resources summarizes much of what’s been happening in my 1:1 iPad middle school math classroom, and hopefully empowers you to try something new in the 2015-16 school year.  If you have been kind enough to visit this blog before (thank you!) you still may find this post to be a nice one-stop shop of ideas.  Click on each image below to access each jam-packed Smore or Tackk.

May these dog-days of August provide you with rest and refreshment as you gear up for a new year and a new batch of kiddos!

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