Is the teacher here today?

As the students pass each other in the hall one of them asks, "Is Mr. Z here today?" The reply they get back is not what they expected. "He is here, but he is not here." How is this possible? Did Mr. Z master Quantum physics?

My daughter was sick with a stomach virus and I was unable to get to school to teach my Geometry and Algebra 1 Classes. I was getting worried about the time. My class was behind in the schedule and I felt that I could not afford to slip a day. There was a test scheduled for Geometry and Algebra 1 on Wednesday. I was planning on using Tuesday as a review day to get them prepared for the test. How was I going to still give the test on Wednesday if I could not be there to review?

I started to think about the resources available to my class. We have a moodle class set up where we share information. I posted a copy of the answer key to the review so that the students could view it in class. Was this going to be good enough? What else could I do?

My daughter was sleeping so I felt comfortable using my laptop and being on line. I sent a quick message using Moodle to all of the students in my class.

MR. Z [06:35 AM]: For Tuesday.
- Please check your Pretest answers in Moodle. Be Careful #6 is missing 4 lines of symmetry.
- Test is Wednesday! You may bring one sheet of paper with your own notes.
- When you are done checking the pretest, work on TUTOR.
- If you have any Questions please send me a message.

Thank you
Mr. Z

As the students entered the class they logged on to the computers and received my message. Some students started to message back some questions. How was I going to answer them? I took control of the teacher computer in the classroom and sent a message to one of the students to turn on the smart board. I used skype to link the video camera and document camera on the computer to my laptop. Great! I could see the class. I could see what they were writing on the smart board. I was able to write back on the smart board to mark up what they were doing.

They could even hear me with the speakers on the smart board. I did not have a microphone on the computer at school so they could not speak to me. This turned out to work very well. It forced the student to type or write their questions. For some of them this allowed them to answer their own questions or allow another student to answer the question.

So far today I have given the test to 3 of my classes with 2 to go. Not one student has complained about not being prepared or has asked to have the test moved out a day. The real test will come when I am done grading the papers. Did this review work?

I had several comments back from students saying that they enjoyed this format of review. Was it the way all of them could ask questions at the same time? Was it just because they got to see my house and my dogs? Was it because I could not hear them and the level of noise in the class was larger?

End of Year Portfolios - Fear the Question...

I just completed reading my students' end of year portfolios. I had them do a writing assignment about their best and worst experience in a math classroom. I was disturbed by some of their papers.


They explained their fears about answering questions in the classroom. While the details of the incidents were different there were some common threads. One student spoke of raising her hand, being so excited that she knew the answer and the teacher called on her, the answer bursting out of her, and then the laughter of the other students when they herd her voice. She vowed never to raise her hand again. Another student spoke of being embarrassed by a teacher when he gave the wrong answer. He said that he preferred to stay silent and never answer another question.

How did I go a whole year with these students and not see the fear that they had of the Question? I knew that they did not like to answer questions. I would call on them by name. I would call on the students at random. I would call on them when they did not raise their hand. All in an effort to get more students involved. But what could I have done to remove the fear?

I thought that I tried to make the classroom a safe environment. We had class rules.

1. Prompt. - Be on time and in your seat.
2. Prepared. - Be prepared. Bring your book, notebook, calculator and pencil.
3. Polite.- Respect school and others property. Be courteous and respectful. No profanity.
4. Participate. - We value everyone’s opinions and knowledge. Everyone is expected to be attentive and share their knowledge freely.
   

High school can be a scary place. I think that next year I will need to do more to build a community of respect in my classroom. I will try to give more opportunities for students to have a chance to speak about math in the classroom. If they can speak about math with each other, maybe they will be more comfortable speaking about math in front of the class.



How do we as teachers help students with the fear of the Question? What do you do in your classrooms to address the fear students have of answering questions?

I have the assignment Mr.Z, but the computer won't load the file!!

This year I started doing math presentation in my Algebra 1 Class. All of the students have a PC in class, and most have access outside of class to a computer. So I allowed my students to present their projects using what ever tool they thought would work the best for them. For the most part this worked out ok, but some students had issues with program compatibility.

Some students had various versions of M$ works or other programs and when then attempted to load them at school they did not work. Some groups had issues when they tried to merge a groups files together that information was lost.

I think I finally found a possible solution. docs.google.com. There is a great presentation at K12 Online conference 2007 on using google docs in the classroom. I have started to try this with some of my students and it has provided us with a great solution.

Students can now edit the same presentation at the same time from different locations. Their files are stored on the Internet so floppy disks getting erased, or USB keys getting lost are no longer an issue.

There are only a couple of downsides to worry about. If the Internet goes down or you don't have high speed access, you can't use google docs. It is not M$ office. It does not have ALL the features of a full M$ office suite, but for what is needed for classroom presentations, or reports it works well.

I plan on reporting back here if I find a feature that it is lacking that prevents us from using the tool. But for now it just works.

Moving towards a flat classroom.

As I was listening to the comments of David Warlick on the k12 Online Pre Keynote talk I have started to understand some of the changes that have been happening in my classroom.

My classroom has been flattening out. Knowledge in the traditional classroom flowed downhill from the teacher to the students. This is no longer the case. The flow of knowledge has been shifting to a flatter model where the knowledge can flow as easily from the teacher or any student to anyone else. This is the start of a flat classroom.

In teaching math I used to believe that my goal was to make sure that all my students gained all of the knowledge in the curriculum guide. While I also new it was important to teach my students how to learn, I can now see how I should change the way I think about my classroom.

My new goal is to create a community of learners that are able to acquire the knowledge needed as defined in the curriculum guide. I can now see that if I help to create a strong community of learners that achieving the goals of the curriculum will be much easier. Also that as the world changes my students will be able to support each other and acquire knowledge to solve new problems.

Students Acceptable use of Computer/Internet Resources

In my first post I discussed how automating the POD (problem of the day) has helped my students with instant feedback for them and for me, the teacher. As I reflect on the tools that I have put into the hands of my students, I am also concerned about their appropriate use and potential misuses.

While our school has an acceptable computer use policy, I am concerned about teaching my students to be responsible cyber citizens. In searching to see what other teachers have done, I am concerned about the typical punishment that is attached to the policies. The most typical punishment seems to be the removal of computer and Internet privileges.

The removal of these privileges has me concerned about how effective they might be. They could also impact the potential learning for the student. Take for example the POD feedback discussed in my first post. While I have not ruled out the removal of students computer privileges, I don't think that should be the only or first reaction to inappropriate computer use. I believe that a teacher should first use their own classroom management tools; pulling a student aside and discussing the conduct; having a discussion with the students parents; teacher detentions; and then possibly school suspensions.

I like the basic rules that budtheteacher speaks of on his wiki. The idea of guidelines instead of rules seems much easier to understand and implement. I have borrowed the rules from that site and adapted them for use by my own students.

Here is my first pass at some Computer/Internet rules for my classroom spaces.

1. Students using computer Internet resources are expected to treat moodle class spaces as classroom spaces. Speech that is inappropriate for class is not appropriate in the moodle classroom spaces. While we encourage you to engage in debate and conversation with other students, we also expect that you will conduct yourself in a manner reflective of a representative of this school.

2. All conversations, posts, messages posted to the moodle class space are logged and subject to review by the teacher and school administration.

3. Students who violate the agreements here shall be subject to the classroom rules of the teacher and all school policies.

4. Student blogs are to be a forum for student expression. However, they are first and foremost a tool for learning, and as such will sometimes be constrained by the various requirements and rules of classroom teachers. Students are welcome to post on any school-appropriate subject at any time, outside of their classroom requirements.

Why this blog?

I started this blog to discuss using technology in the high school math classroom. This is the first time I have a classroom that has one computer per student.

It is Day 18 and there have only been a couple of major technology failures. Having a backup lesson for when the technology fails is a must. But besides the failures their have been some good success's. My plan is to use this blog to share what has worked well and to look for ideas for ways to fix those things which were less than optimal.

Automating the problem of the day.
When students enter the classroom they have learned to log on to their computers to start their problem of the day (POD). I currently setup the problem of the day in moodle as a quiz. I have set it up so that the students' answers are checked after they submit an answer. They are allowed to go back and correct any problems that are incorrect. Their final score is based on the number correct minus a small penalty for any incorrect tries.

This has allowed students to get feedback quickly on how well they are doing. They are also able to keep trying until they get it correct. This has help to reinforce the students when they are getting the correct answers and allowed them to learn when they may be doing something incorrectly.

As they students complete the problem I am able to view all the students scores and the time they used to complete the problem. This has allowed me to adjust the start of my lesson based on how successful they were on the POD.

Overall I think this has been a very effective way to use the computers to provide more feedback and allow me, the teacher, to adjust based on the performance of EVERY student.

In the future I hope to also be able to use the same tool with exit and pacing questions. The only thing that is keeping me from doing this is the time required to setup all of the questions. I expect that as I get better at entering the questions that it should take less time.