This year has been a really busy school year (my excuse for not blogging since August). I got married (eeee!) moved cities, as well as started a new grade and division. Lots of change, lots of new, lots of exciting. I have a group of ladies I connect with on Twitter and we call ourself #plngelato (because we are teachers that support each other and we all love delicious gelato). We have a challenge to blog once a month (better late then never) and this is my December edition.
My husband is great for being honest and pushing me to be all that I can be. We were having a conversation the other day about how I am much more relaxed now as opposed to at the start of the school year. He said to me, “You know it was more about you when you were stressed and tired then it was about the kids”. My first reaction was to berate him and tell him that he doesn’t know what it’s like and how difficult my class is… instead I took a deep breath and thought about his comment. Was it me? It was… I was trying to move mountains and push my students and myself beyond what we were capable of. I was expecting too much from myself and from my students which caused me to constantly be disappointed, frustrated and exhausted.
I am sure many other teachers out there would want to smack me if I say “it’s you, not your students” so I won’t :). I just want to share with you my experience.
The school I taught in for the past 3 years was a bit of an anomaly. All students who were in grade 4, were achieving at the grade 4 level or higher. This is not the norm in most schools, nor is it my experience this year. In September of this year (at my new school) I was teaching as if all students were at the same level, I was expecting all students to listen and work hard. I forgot that each student is an individual and I needed to treat them as such. I forgot that as teachers, we need to start where the students are and work from there. I wouldn’t walk into a grade 1 class and expect them all to understand calculus, that would be unrealistic, so why was I expecting grade 4 level work out of students who were struggling? It’s a much smaller extreme, but still a fault of the teacher. I was worried that it would reflect poorly on me if I wasn’t hitting all the curriculum outcomes, but as my teaching partner told me “You have to reach them where they are, not where they are supposed to be”.
After a month and a half of beating my head against a wall I started to change. Not necessarily intentionally, but I started to change the way that I was looking at student needs. I use a spelling program (that my amazing teaching partner Adrienne Zenko showed me) that differentiates learning for all students. Each student gets words at their own level (as determined by the program) and they sort the words into meaningful groups which allows them to learn word patterns. I noticed that students were engaged during the time when they were doing spelling practice. Students were actually focused and would ask to create new and inventive ways to practice their words. What was the difference between this and the other activities I was asking them to do? It was at their level. They were capable of working independently and were seeing success.
Another area that I saw success was in math. I use an amazing math program called JUMP math which goes through each concept in very small incremental steps, allowing students to fly through the parts that make sense to them or get extra support for the sections they are struggling with. There is also enrichment for students who are understanding that concept and would like to explore the topic in more depth and breadth. As with the spelling program, students were achieving at their own level, they were independent and were experiencing success.
As January fast approaches, I feel it is time to make a resolution. In 2015 I will treat each student as individuals and make sure that they can all experience success at their own level. I will not take where they are working now as a reflection on me as a teacher, instead I will measure their success through the progress they make this year.
What is your New Years Resolution for your teaching practice?
Paige, I love how you really thought about George’s question and started to reconsider what you can do to better meet student needs. Students want to experience success, & we want them to do do, & so it makes sense that students seemed the most interested/engaged in activities that allowed this to happen.
I’ll admit that I’m always alittle bit unsure of structured programs, although I don’t know either of these ones well. I can see with the spelling one how the students (and you) have challenged both “thinking” and “learning.” How does the math program allow for thinking and application of skills? How do we provide these higher level learning opportunities while also differentiating to meet student needs? I’ve been thinking about this second question a lot in the past couple of years, as I can see how to address various levels of knowledge in the classroom, but how do I get all students to think deeply (at the level they’re at)? I’d love to hear any thoughts you have about this. You’re giving me more to think about!
Aviva
Thanks for the comment Aviva! I agree with you that I am not a huge fan of structured programs if we just take them as is. I hardly ever use a program without adding a little “Paige flair” :). The spelling program I use is called “Words Their Way”. It tests where students are deficient in their spelling (for example, they may not know how to properly use the igh blend) and so the words they are given are based on where they need support. Students then sort the words according to the rule they are learning and then they apply the rule to new words. I mostly use the program to get the words and then I create other activities for students to do using those words.
The math program is called JUMP. It was created by a Canadian Mathematician. I love math and really enjoy teaching it, so normally I would never use a program and have given up on the big publishing companies math texts. The reason I like jump, is that John Mighton (the creator) is an amazing mathematician, and knows the progression of skills, far better then I do. He breaks skills down much further then I would when I was teaching them. This allows me to see where students are struggling so I can catch small mistakes as opposed to try and re-teach the entire concept. JUMP also provides extensions so that students can go beyond the curriculum and attempt more difficult problems that use the same skills they just learned. He also explains how to make bonus questions so that students who understand can challenge themselves. Once students see a few bonus questions, I also have them make their own bonus questions which demonstrates to me that they understand the concepts and are able to extend their own thinking. The great thing about the bonus questions is that students use numbers that they are comfortable with, so they are getting those higher level thinking opportunities within a range they feel comfortable in. Students are also motivated by the bonus questions, because they feel as if they are doing something that is more challenging then they thought they could achieve. The JUMP program is also amazing at building confidence. Last year I took a survey at the beginning of the year and the middle and end of the year as to the students feelings regarding math. At the beginning of the year, most students were not keen on math with a few that were very keen. By the middle of the year, all my students were saying that math was easy and they really enjoyed doing math.
I agree with you that we need to challenge all students at their own level. It took me until November to really understand each child’s level, which seems like a lot of the year is wasted, but from now until June, I can hopefully reach them at their level and push them on to the next.
Thanks again for your comment. It is important that we question what we are doing in the classroom to achieve the best outcome for students, so I appreciate you asking questions and making me really think about if what I am doing is best for my class.
Thanks for explaining more about how you use these programs and why you do what you do. I think it’s so important for us to think through these “why’s.” I don’t know enough about either program that you mentioned — although I have heard of both — but I do love how you add your own “Paige flair” to even the most structured of programs. This “flair” really seems to help students move beyond knowledge and rote learning to real thinking and application of ideas.
In terms of math, have you ever looked at the work of Cathy Fosnot, Marilyn Burns, and Marian Small? I really like their use of open-ended problems with multiple entry points (regardless of student needs). There is lots of math thinking in the work that they do (which I love). Jonathan So (@mrsoclassroom on Twitter) has done a lot of work on math, especially in the area of fractions. He shares many of his resources here (https://sites.google.com/site/sojonathan1/mathematics), and they would definitely align with your new focus on differentiated instruction. I don’t know how these resources parallel with JUMP Math, but I thought that I’d share them.
I’m excited to read future blog posts and see where you and your students go!
Aviva
Hi Paige and aviva, happy to share anything I have. I am personally not a fan of jump as it is far to procedural and teacher talk instead of student talk but I do agree with mighton’s thoughts on developmental learning. However, he doesn’t practise what he preaches. He is a firm believer in teacher shows student learns and for me that is what has been wrong with mathematics education for awhile now. I am more in kids explore, teacher guides, ask questions, class debates, teacher reiterates student thoughts and then through student talk teacher brings out the math. I would suggest reading Cathy Fosnot’s work, Cathy Bruce, Marion small and Mariyln burns. Also the nctm guidelines are great too. Let me know if I can help in any way.
I agree that JUMP is procedural and I don’t always follow the program in that aspect. I usually just read the lessons ahead of time to see what way he progresses through the steps so that I can use that in my mini lessons. I have used Cathy Fosnot’s materials before and I did really like it. The only hesitation I had with my group this year is that they have VERY low resiliency and low confidence with math. When I started the year, I would have 4-5 students crying during math when they were trying to work through problems that were at their level. Because of this low resiliency, I thought it would be best to give the students confidence first and teach them some skills so they felt more confident with math. That being said, I definitely push them to share and create their own ways of solving problems (My “Paige Flair” that I talked about earlier), but I try to keep them within their comfort zone for now until I feel that they are really confident that they are able to “do math”. We play math games and we do math trails to find math in the real world. Maybe I am wrong not to push them further in their mathematical thinking, but my first priority with my class this year is to get them to love math and to enjoy thinking mathematically. Using the JUMP progression has given my kids confidence and they seem to be able to transfer those skills to real world problems (which I believe is the end goal). As the year progresses I may try to add in more of the units by Cathy Fosnot, so that students are exposed to several ways of learning math. Thanks for your suggestions, I will definitely look into Cathy Bruce, Marion Small and Mariyln Burns to use as the year progresses.
Paige,
A great reflection which will serve both you and your students well. Have a great new year.
Shaye