Wednesday, August 10, 2016

New School Year Goals and Resolutions

In an effort to try to write something a little more cohesive, I am adopting a MTBoS prompt from Teaching Statistics because... well... it was what I came up when I googled it.  There were many that I liked but I am going with "What are your New School Year Goals or Resolutions?" because it seemed easy and very relevant.  For some context, next year I am teaching a "Concepts of Advanced Algebra" class and 4 sections of AP Computer Science Principles.

I've got 6 things here for my goals and resolutions:

  1. Bring enthusiasm each day. It can be tricky when students (or teachers) are tired and frustrated but If I am not enthusiastic and interested in what students are doing in class, there is no way I can expect students to be excited.  In CS50 they do this by playing energizing music as students walk in every day - I can certainly do that this year.  Also this year for CS I am planning two events - a puzzle-a-thon for first semester with a little SWAG and food, and then a hack-a-thon which will also have food but also allow students to get a solid head start on their AP CSP projects.  In addition to events like these, I am planning to do a field trip in each class.  Last year these trips really energized the class and were highlights for students.  While these events can bring enthusiasm, I also want to be "head cheerleader" for students in my classes. 
  2. Create a family in my class. I suppose this is an extension of "bring enthusiasm" but Jose Vilson talked about using the words "love", "care" and "respect" on the first day to start explicitly building a community culture.  Next year, I am planning on doing the first week of school with culture building activities in all classes to start ensuring everyone gets to be part of the family.  In my math classes, I have always done grouping myself but in my CS classes this year, I told students they could pick one person to work with... I hope I don't regret that.  For the most part, in my math classes students have always been reluctant to switch groups because they "love their group" but then find that there are other "groups to love" out there too. Hopefully giving students a little more choice here doesn't create too many cliques in the class.  If it does, I can always try out Sarah DiMaria's "draft" technique! 
  3. Be a teacher leader.  I am hoping this happens through a pending leadership grant with KSTF by doing a "lunch and learn" series this year.  If not, I will need to consider different ways to do this.  This year I am in a "PLC of 1" which means that leading in my PLC isn't really going to happen (since I am the only one in my PLC).  In KSTF we have also talked about "educational communities" and I know that this year I might want to consider leading in other ways outside my school/building such as contributing to MTBoS more, step up in the MN-CSTA, or with code.org.  I would love to do more with alignment with our middle school in CS, but I am not sure if that is really something that is desired in my district.  I also think I would need to do a lot of research about K-12 alignment in CS to be able to start this conversation.
  4. Facilitate better wrap-up discussions/reflections.  After reading the 5 practices, I felt like I was getting pretty competent at facilitating these conversations for math tasks.  But in CS, I had a hard time transferring the same process to the discussions.  So here's the plan:
    1. I think I can still use the same process as a teacher, but I need to think more intentionally about ANTICIPATING and SEQUENCING protocols that students develop.  
    2. Observe other teachers who use Socratic seminar or other discussion techniques to try to learn from them.
    3. John Dewey said "We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience".  Between code.org and my own math curriculum I have spent time developing, I have a fair amount of good experiences for students.  Now I need to get students to reflect more on these experiences.  I am interested in doing this through exit tickets and through weekly reflections. I also want to do more re-learning in my CS classes and will need to figure out a way to make these re-learning experiences valuable (rather than busy work) for students. 
  5. Expand my own understanding of CS.  I need to wrestle with some CS ideas further myself to be able to teach them better to students.  Once again, here's the plan:
    1. One way I hope to do this is to go through Harvard's CS50 course more myself.  With any luck, I will have a student go through the course simultaneously which will help hold me accountable to this goal. 
    2. Take on Eric's challenges after code camp.  At code camp, our leader, Eric, gave me a challenge to create a list manager for myself in JavaScript and HTML.  These kinds of challenges should help me be a more proficient programmer AND also learn some HTML/CSS since I know that is the next extension for my students after we learn JavaScript on studio.code.org
  6. Be open to newness.  Being open to newness has never really been an issue for me... I really should have this read "Implement new ideas well and share out what I learn".  This year, I want to do these "new-to-me" things in my classroom.

    1. Try blogging in the classroom with CS - Right now I want to have students do one blog per quarter.  Initially I was thinking about having students subscribe to ACM's list of articles about CS/tech developments in the news.  Then students would need to choose one each quarter to summarize, research further, and discuss impact of the technology.  I want to give students more choice in my class as well so I might expand this to include a list of 5-10 different prompts that students could write about in a class blog.  These might include having students reflect on an activity in class in an articulate way, have students talk about CS vs. coding, research a career in technology, talk about the impact of a feild trip, etc.
    2. Use the Fab Lab/Maker Space with microcontrollers.  Last year after seniors were done we did a little with the maker space in our school.  I am hoping to expand that even further next year and add a project that uses microcontrollers. So, here's the plan:
      1. I went to a SparkFun conference on microcontrollers and saw a lot of extensions for coding with physical computing.  Students are always freaking out about if they are learning the right "language" or not.  At SparkFun, I saw how the language doesn't matter - it is the big ideas (recursion, logic, loops, arrays...) that students need to know that can transfer to nearly any language.  In the end I am going to have students make a kinetic light sculpture with the micro controllers and possibly other FabLab equipment
      2. I am still having trouble understanding what the "vision" is for our school's Fab Lab/Maker Space, but I am determined to make sure that all of my students have access to these tools.  So, after the AP test, I really want students to see how all of the FabLab equipment works AND make something with the equipment.  Last year I had students make their own monopoly pieces with the 3D printer.  Although we ran into some hardware issues, it went well!  I am hoping to repeat that next year.  I also hope to use what I learned as a FundForTeachers Fellow to have students create their own designs and cut them out of paper with our laser cutter.  
    3. Rock a new Concepts of Advanced Algebra Structure.  I have really struggled with what I want to focus on this year in math since I have a math class to teach all by myself.  I wanted to Exeter math, Desmos Activites, Project based learning, abolishing grading, portfolio assessments... the list is probably longer than that.   What I landed on was the following:
      1. Incorporate more social justice into math class.   Again, this is something I have always been interested in but have never found the energy to convince others to do it.  So, this year, I think doing social justice is my best chance I have at hooking a class of traditionally struggling math students.  While Exeter is interesting to me, that would be a BIG reach for my students.  They aren't going to be doing homework at night so if I went the Exeter route, I would have needed to have students do the problems in class (one work day, one group day???) but I think this group could sit and do nothing for 50 minutes.  I think a little more structure with Social Justice and interactive notebooks is a little more do-able.
      2. Commit to Interactive Notebooks.  I haven't really committed to these in the past - I have done some here and there but next year I want to go big or go home with these. 
      3. Use more Desmos Activities in math.  Desmos activities really got going last year but I was teaching geometry so it was difficult to implement.  Also, next year I'll have chromebooks which will be easy for me to implement. 
      4. Do 2 lessons that integrate computer science.  I will be using Bootstrap for the first time during first semester.  Still trying to think about what I will do second semester to integrate CS into math. 
      5. Do number talks.  Did them last year, love them. 
      6. Make it a no-hands classroom (without cold calling - more on this later)

While doing this, it has dawned on me that I have never stopped thinking about school since summer started AND at the same time haven't begun to think about school since the summer started.  Doing this forced me to get a little more practical with all of the hypotheticals for next year.  While these 6-ish things seem like a lot... some of them are new and others are just a re-commitment to what I have been doing in year's past.  Hopefully I can keep these up next year!  I am wondering what other resolutions teachers have out there for #Blaugust!

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