 You guys can all see my screen Yes all right so I know the title of this is finding and altering implementing finding altering and Implementing low floor high ceiling tasks in a middle school classroom That's what I worked a lot on this summer and that's what I've been doing a lot of in my classroom this year, but I Do a lot more than that So I just wanted to be clear that there's gonna be a lot more than I'm talking about today That is the first thing I'm gonna talk about since it is the title of today's Meeting, but I I just want to be really clear moving forward that there's some other things. I'm gonna talk about so This is what I'm gonna try to cover today. I apologize for the slow start As you can see there's lots of pieces and I was hoping to just like keep it moving Sort of like my class is actually about the same length development so I was just going to try to be like my class and I try to keep in my classroom 40 minutes is how long Periods are and that's it's a pretty daunting time period Especially for some middle schoolers So we're gonna talk about local heisting tasks, of course But then I'm gonna talk about my personal vision as a middle school math teacher And then I'm gonna talk about the most important thing that I took away from PCMI this summer And and I'm gonna share with you how I do classroom 360 which PMI called vertical non-permanent spaces and I'm also going to share about How I'm trying to refuse to lecture this year and that's With the help of technology, of course And if we have time hopefully I can show you a couple amazing things on the web that You may know about and you may not know about And if you don't know about it, they're pretty awesome So the first thing I want to do is just introductions and a short little discussion basically answering these five prompts So maybe I'll give everybody like a minute to get their responses ready and then maybe Elizabeth. Can you Like call on people to share out Okay, I'll kind of go in order of how I see I don't know if everybody's video shows up the same order as mine And my spring that that's I guess the order I'll go in so Irene you'll be next I'm Liz McGrath. I actually teach at SUNY Broom, which is a community college in upstate New York I teach mostly remedial math. So it's lower than algebra to trig that I taught in high school for the last 14 years My school is since it's a community college in school, it is a very diverse We have a lot of that transfer up and come up from inner city areas. That's kind of fun And I am loving winter and wishing I had more snow And I'm so excited that Sam's here to do this talk. I've been looking forward to it. All right Irene Hello, can you hear me guys? Yes, yes, okay Okay Last year I taught adult ed students Right, I went to meet Manhattan Adult Learning Center to teach adults and then I went back to my middle school So it was surprising that the way adults learn is this like the same as middle schoolers And now I'm teaching six seven eight's kind of a lot of work Because I have three preparations. I have to do regions and then I have to do sixth grade math so really this low ceiling to high ceiling, you know Being able to solve problems is really a need for me because I'm dealing with three different things and it drives me crazy And It's like I thought it would be easy because I was like, oh, it's gonna be good because I'll be learning three things But I realize is not the opportunity of learning three things It's like eating you it's like exhausting you because of the preparation and the pressure and You're doing three different things at the same time and it drives me crazy. Oh, which worksheet and I'm going to use this time Oh, wait, wait, I put this. Oh, what's the next class? Oh six seven eight It drives me crazy. This is not a good way to really give a teacher a loading And now I realize how those teachers, you know What difficulties they're coping with when they're given three different things and teaching them I don't know. They'll be able to really teach with you know, hi With high quality. It's not you cannot have high quality teaching when you have three Or you have many things preparing before you teach it drives you crazy Thank you. Thank you Thanks, Irene Jen When my name is Genesis Monday, I teach at Wagenheim Middle School, which is in San Diego We teach mostly seventh, but I also have a group of accelerate seven and integrate one and Think about my school is that they're finally putting air conditioning so I'm looking forward to when we have summer time and we get to stay in our classrooms and it's nice and cool and The one thing about myself is that I'm teaching at this middle school that I actually went to as a middle schooler. So it's pretty neat Awesome. Thanks, Ian. Hi, everybody. I'm Ann Paralletti. I teach in South Jersey outside of Philadelphia and I teach seventh grade math Something about my school, I this is the first school I've taught at I've taught in Boston and I taught in upstate New York Actually, that's how Liz and I know each other In upstate New York But this place where I teach now. It's the first Actually taught students who were super well behaved and really want to learn it's it's amazing They come to school and they all want to learn and they say thank you after every lesson even when I yell at them So it's magical and it's it's so exciting and I have a great group of kids this year And I'm just enjoying it because you know some years are harder than others, but this is a great year And then a little thing about myself I went to PCMI in 2015 and 2016 and I applied to go again this summer So I'm just you know going to wait to find out if if I'm accepted in but I'm so excited about the thought of spending another three weeks doing this because I love it Awesome Tracy I'm Tracy Jackson. I am in San Diego. I teach eighth grade math integrated one and New this year integrated two online. So that's been an interesting Journey for me to try to create a collaborative problem-solving based class Online so discussion boards and things like that. So that's been my that's been my baby this year That's where most of my time goes Well, thanks Tracy Diana Diana McLean and I teach seventh and eighth grade math at in Los Angeles, California and Something else about my school is that there is a lot of challenges outside of my classroom that affect my classroom But I'm doing my best Well, Brian, I teach at the International High School of Prospect Heights in Basically central Brooklyn. This year. I'm actually teaching 12th graders computer science It's a interesting change of pace My school is also all English language learners which is also sort of one of the inherent challenges at my school and I'm interested in this low floor high ceiling task thing because I've been pondering how to implement stuff like that in a computer science classroom too, so Christina, I don't just the video show online. Can you hear me though? You can't hear me, right? Okay, that's good. I don't know what the thing is was zoom it didn't work the first time when we did this small group stuff either but um, so Christina Jimenez, um, I'm at in San Diego also It looks like we have some good San Diego representatives. They see my room. Yeah, I see another math for America person So I'm at Albert Einstein there. I teach sixth grade math there It's an international baccalaureate school With six through eighth, so that's the middle school something about myself I don't think I actually told this to like almost anybody was there But during PCMI I was pregnant. I just had a baby 12th 12 days ago So adjusting to that and like being a mother and all so that's like a big thing for me Awesome. Congrats. That's so exciting Marissa Hi, I teach in Illinois actually in the Illinois Iowa border called the Quad Cities I teach freshman mostly. I do honors math two and then just regular integrated math one Something interesting about my school is we have a really high refugee population for some reason I don't know why they come to Illinois, Iowa, but Hey, that means that I have a lot of students or a good chunk of students who like never had school until they came here maybe this year a couple years ago or We have a like about 50 different languages spoken in my school So it creates a challenge, but it's also fun to work with those kinds of kids and then about myself I don't like Elizabeth. I was enjoying winter and now it's like 50 degrees here for some reason and it's really messing with me So I'm sorry if I sound a little under the weather Feel better soon Marissa Naira so I'm Naira. I teach with Sam at bar in the middle school. I teach six seven eight accelerated an algebra so and I vote I was a PCMI last summer Mmm, that's it. So I I work with Sam most of the time so that's it and Naira probably wins the prep award because she has four preps Wow Thank you Hi I was on the wrong screen Okay, you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, sorry I went to attended PCMI in 2013 and I live in San Diego I'm my high school teacher in San Diego unified and I know Christina and Jen through the math America program down here Jen I'm still working Together on another program and we have shared a lot of information and she's been really Helping me keep up a PCMI follow-up activities. So I really appreciate that this year I'm On loan to San Diego State University in Sweetwater high school union school district and We got a grant for only about 23 months to work With Sweetwater developing the discrete math curriculum and we're piloting helping the teachers implementing the curriculum So hopefully this when this ends in September the curriculum will be available for any district It's good to stick to you. It'll be an open source curriculum through the California Department of Education I'm very excited about that And if anyone is interested or have you know knowledge about discrete math Or even you know, not discrete math, but student thinking in general. I really appreciate any Resources that you know of Thank you Awesome. Thanks, and finally our presenter Sam All right, so I teach at Brenda middle school with Naira. I've taught there my whole career Which is not super long so 13 years um I teach sixth seventh and eighth grade I teach an algebra class as well Something about my school is that like I really love it. I feel super lucky to have been in one spot for my whole career Yeah, like I'm very happy at home as well, but like I'm really happy going to work every day. So it's really nice and something about myself is that I am also a I have like a one and a half year old and I'm really digging being a dad. So that's that's something else So I'm gonna get right into it because I know I want to respect everybody's time and I did Work really hard on this and I really want to try to get to everything So the first thing is I just want to be really clear that Elizabeth or PCMI like no one has double-checked all of like this PD or even looked at it So if I say something during the PD that you really don't agree with or like strikes you as Just something that you really don't agree with please take it out on me and not PCMI because This this PCMI really helped me grow as a teacher, but this PD is mine. So once again, if you don't agree with pieces of it or the whole thing then Then I'm the person you need to complain to and write angry emails too So I was gonna try to pull some people in to signing up for PCMI, but unless I'm mistaken I think every single person that at least shared out What already attended PCMI so I won't go into details about that But if there's somebody that's logged on right now and watching or somebody that's watching this PD later There is a link to the website and PCMI is an amazing three-week experience And you should definitely apply Okay, so let's get right into the title right altering low floor high ceiling tasks so I'm just gonna go ahead and show you an example of a Low floor what I consider a low floor high ceiling task that I altered for my students And this is one that that they have not worked on so I start with a warm-up and The the point of this warm-up is to sort of front load some knowledge or make sure that my students Remember some things that they possibly would have forgotten and in this case That would be the area of the circle and the volume of a cylinder and then more specifically. How are they related as in? Hopefully when they start to look at pictures of circles and pictures of cylinders they can see the relationship between the two during this part of class I really push my students to their resources to find answers and I am one-to-one in my classroom with Chromebooks And and I really try to show my students all of the knowledge that is on the internet for them to find so during this part a lot of my kids are searching up images circles and And cylinders and maybe they're even writing down formulas and They're just really reminding themselves of some of that geometry that they need for this lesson or this This stimulus actually so here's the the the stimulus. So I I have like I guess all of you guys probably now, too. I have like an online version of my textbook And I like to go in there and screenshot Things like this little bird feeder here And I use the what you notice what you wonder That I got from any feather and I know a lot of a lot of people use those prompts to sort of promote discourse Before my students get into this low floor high ceiling task While the students are while I'm facilitating the discussion I have three kids live scripts The discussion so once again, we're all one-to-one Chromebooks in my class. I Open a Google slide. I make this on a Google slide and The Google slide is shared with the entire class to view and then I give three students the special setting to be able to Edit that Google slide, which means that they can type in it This is actually something I know a lot of people said they they're in MFA And I'm sure a lot of you guys go to all sorts of professional developments I mean the fact that you're here on Saturday morning Looking at your computer listening to me shows that you like learning and figuring seeing new stuff And one thing I noticed at MFA is that we do a lot of live scripting When we do discussions, so I really stole that from from how we do discussions at MFA and it's really cool And it works out really well. We're gonna look at an example of a finished one next But what you notice I love in case you don't do what you notice and what you wonder That's the low floor. So it really levels your class as in Every kid can notice something here. You just need to be really clear and transparent about your expectations and my expectations are like So chill like you can notice that This is green and I noticed there's an arrow going up and down, right? But somebody will notice that there's 24. I am and somebody will say oh, I think 24. I am means 24 inches Someone will notice that this is h and a a Excuse me a measure that we don't know. That's why we're using a variable. So if you If you push and facilitate the discussion, right? A lot of students will notice things that Maybe like seven or eight years ago. I would have Like been dismissive about like once again, like if somebody said Uh, the bird feeder is green at the top. I feel like eight years ago. I would have been like, yeah But let's talk about math. Um And I don't do that now, right because that kid is looking at the bird feeder and The whole class is concentrating on this stimulus and talking about what they notice and when we're done with what you notice we move on to what you wonder and um That's a little different than what you notice because these are things that you're once again wondering about um, and you get a really good discourse From the students and then depending on what I want to do. I'll be completely honest. So um I feel like i'm pretty good at the The low floor And then I think i'm pretty good at the high ceiling which i'll talk about how I do that in a minute But um, what i'm not great is like having wide open tasks yet So I do want to be very honest with you guys about that because I feel like low floor high ceiling is also tied into That idea of open tasks and um, I feel like my tasks are not like Wide open by any means yet as you'll see on this slide because I really wanted my students to be able to Be able to make this Sorry, I use this equation to figure out all of the different possible volumes based on um The amount of bird seed in this case that is missing So this piece is optional right depending on how open you want it to be Um for this class. I really wanted them to be able to like collect a bunch of different data based on the measure of h But one thing I want to point out for this problem So like this to me is a very like uh common core problem in that I feel like when I first started teaching It would have been 24 inches and then they would have told us like h would have been the height of the bird seed and um during the course of the discussion, it's really clear that that h is the Amount of bird seed that is missing in the cylinder. Um, so that really That's a really I feel like the most important thing I get from the what you notice what you wonder um discussion That the stimulus is very clear and everybody agrees on the facts that that are given Before we go into the problem So next, um, I wanted to show you another one. So this is an actual google slide for my students. Um, this one is um, just an a word problem from the book Except I don't have the problem right so renau is starting a babysitting business She's spent 26 dollars on science for advertising She charges an initial fee of five dollars and then three dollars for each hour of service Um, so then I think the book has like a question next right like how much Would how long will it take for renau at a payback or 26 dollars or I don't even remember what the question is because Um, I don't really care. I'll be honest. Um But my students as you can see I have three different Boxes down here for the three different students that are live scripting The reason why I do three students is because my students are not the fastest typers And it um really takes the pressure off of them because they know They're recording a comment and they have like maybe a minute or two before they have to record their next comment So you can see that um, I made sure that we noticed all of the major information that we need from this slide before I let the Discussion move on to what you wonder so we noticed how much she spent 26 dollars We know that she charges three dollars every hour And we know that five dollars is the initial fee and even though the students didn't live script Every single thing we talked about we definitely made sure that all of that stuff Was very clear to all the students in the room right to each other What 26 dollars spent on advertising means in the real world or in in terms of this problem Um, next we move on to what you wonder Um, so here's sort of fun. Um, because the kids will wonder Funny things like why is she charging such a low rate? Why is she doing a babysit? Why is she starting a babysitting business? Um, I know they typed area here. Um, I'm not really sure that we're they were trying to type but um But we definitely I remember having a good discussion about profitable and what it means to be profitable During this part of the class Um, the last part this slide said what questions can we make and I do that sometimes is in what you notice You are gathering our information What questions can you what what you wonder like what are you curious about? But what questions can you make is like what actual math questions can you create? That can be answered from this stimulus um, so they start with you know some pretty simple stuff like plugging in plugging and chugging type of problems Um, and then as you can see five and six were my target for this lesson and I didn't I didn't say those questions the students did but I'll be honest that I did have to sort of like, um facilitate the discussion to make sure that somebody said Um those two statements, um that how could we use this information to make an equation? And also how could we use it to make an inequality? so those were Once again, like my my targets for that, um discussion I wanted to make sure all the students could take that word problem and model it in equation form So here's how to get started in case You don't do any low floor or high ceiling tasks I think the honestly the easiest thing to do is just go to the story problems or um Or better yet if you have like a newer textbook that has Lots of things once again, like a digital version. You can screenshot. Um, try to get some of those images and Other stimuli to that can promote your students creativity when When working on these types of problems And then just don't use the question, right? So just give them like the data from the problem without the question I really once again like to use that what you notice what you wonder for my whole class discussion And I think that's really key beforehand And then once again, I like to use the warm-up to help students remember key information And sometimes if there's like a specific thing that I want to make sure they they're all going to do off of this stimuli I'll do like a whole like more of a procedural Like problem set like maybe three to five problems even before the warm-up or after the warm-up that once again is sort of like Priming their brain in the right direction that I want them to be thinking. Um, I guess the What I would consider mathematics that efficiently lends itself to Figuring out this type of problem um So yeah, so that's how I'd like to get uh It's how I would suggest to get started in case you haven't done this and I'll be honest like when you guys when we share it out I remember a lot of you guys from this summer, of course And I know a lot of you guys for returning participants. So some of you guys may be better at this than me I just want to be very clear about that as well um So I think level two of these is like having um, like really knowing my kids and having multiple pushes prepared And when I say push, I mean like pushing that ceiling higher and higher So for instance, um Like on the last problem where they were Using rinoa's babysitting business to create an equation um That you know, like perhaps i'm going to push them to graphing that next or I would like you to graph that and interpret three data points on that graph So I that so those pushes are pushing that ceiling higher and higher for students that Are prepared for more and more Use visual patterns You could use the website visual patterns or you could just use visual patterns that you find And other stimuli that don't have numbers or variables. So similar to the bird feeder problem. It did have some numbers on there And it also has some variables, but sort of like that like it's an Stimuli that the students can use Um, and I think it helps them attach to reality right away. Um And then the third one is like open it way up and once again, like i'm not really there yet I'll be honest, but I've watched a lot of videos I think somebody may have their microphone on cool. Okay. Um, here's why to do those low floor high ceiling tasks So if you if you're like on the fence about it and you're not sure Um, if I should try it or not I suggest trying it, right? So once again, they're great at promoting that class discourse, which Is I think still my weakest part As a teacher like when I reflect on videos that I take of myself and and just on my days I think that's still what i'm i'm worse at Um worst at excuse me, but I think it is one of the most important things like so I know I need to get better at it Um, these problems are super easy to differentiate So once again, like get that low floor and then if you're if you have the time prepare those pushes Um, and it's really easy to differentiate these problems Um, many of the students are least comfortable doing any problem that has english So I know I heard like brian say he's got english learners. Um, I think it was um marissa said that she's got like I don't know man. She said 50 or 500 like a ton of languages at her school. Um And so I think most of us have a A portion of english learners. Um And they get really yeah, they just they They can sometimes I feel like be really actually proficient at english even if they're english learners But for some reason inside of their math class when they see english Their filter just flies right up Um You and your students will be able to like make cool connections between all of the the stuff that you're you're doing um And not just the stuff that you're doing like the the year you're teaching them But you can make all these cool connections back to two years before and and maybe uh, if you're Teaching eighth graders you can touch back on ratio reasoning all the time which is like huge in sixth grade um also important in seventh grade And then the last one is like probably what your administrators want, which is like those smarter balanced tasks at the end of the year are super difficult and But like probably more importantly for us because we're like The cool math teachers, right? Um like fun math problems are difficult And you need to to help your students like build up the perseverance or the grid or whatever word you want to use um To do those problems and and I think these low floor high ceiling tasks are a great way to to help them Build that confidence and that perseverance to be able to to get through them All right, so we are already 30 minutes into it plus the delay. Um And i've only gone through the first part So I was thinking maybe everybody look at these discussion prompts real quick But I don't think we'll have enough time for too many people to share out. So maybe Um Christina has a question over in the chat Oh awesome Uh, yeah, sim. I just uh, I wrote it to everybody. Um, but I mean it's mainly to you I just asked if you use this structure for your whole class or just the first part of class And if you find yourself using it daily once a week or you know, just how how often that's an awesome question Thank you. Sorry. I don't I'm not good at this technology stuff. I will be completely honest The zoom I should say, um The I have so we are black periods and so I see my students, um for Tuesdays like a weird day, but basically the other four days are black periods, but I see my students every other day um So basically I do these once a week Um, and I get inside of an hour and 40 minute period and we dedicate probably like To the whole thing probably an hour Right like from the warm up to the discussion To my students going up to the boards and actually working on their problems um Yeah, so I know I I think I said like I'm I'm not great at this yet, but I think just to be super specific I think the the piece that I'm working on most and concentrating on improving most is the discussion part. Um I think I'm really good at targeting those warm-ups or those problem sets to sort of Once again, like prime their brain in the right direction. Um And then I think the discussion sometimes it just feels like a little Like it's like I'm either pushing it too quick or it feels too slow and it's just like grinding um But then once my kids get up to the board like um, like some magical stuff starts to happen And and some of the later slides talk about all that as well Did that answer your question Christina? Yeah, it did and I'm curious about like the the board part, but it sounds like that'll come up naturally Yeah, for sure. I mean just I mean Honestly because we're out low on time, um Is there anyone that has another question or something they really want to share out on? I just don't want to I just don't want to look it up and and see that an hour and a half has gone by and see I got through half of this stuff Diana Um, I just I'm having like great success with popsicle sticks And I know that sounds really silly, but I put each of their names on popsicle stick But I don't draw the popsicle sticks So we do like a what do you notice wonder in your group? And then I have One student per class like pull the popsicle stick and then that person can share out something they heard or said So I'm not calling on students and that's that's so huge like all of the stress of like, oh my gosh McLean's gonna pick on me. It's like nope. It's completely random. I'm not in charge and that's working really well Is there anyone else that would like to share a strategy or or anything else? All right. Well, I I'm not hearing anyone So I'm gonna assume that we're all good and I'm gonna move forward in the presentation And I'm going to ask Elizabeth or Diana To at any point tell me if somebody has a question in case I'm missing it again. I apologize for that Christina. That was an awesome question Okay, so here here is like Here's I want to really open up to you guys, right? So this is where the presentation starts to flip So all of this stuff does tie into low floor high ceiling tasks. Like I really think that Um, as I'm sure most you guys agree like a classroom is like a giant living organism and everything is like connected So these are all connected to low floor high ceiling tasks But I am going to sort of shift into like I guess What I feel I have to really share with you and hopefully I don't know. Hopefully you just feel like this was time well spent. I guess So, uh, I just want to be clear that like I'm gonna This gets a little bit hippie-dippy because that's just sort of how I am So students that feel cared for will have a higher degree of participation with lower effective filters Students that have a sense of inclusion inside of your mathematics community will develop the perseverance to work on these tasks Getting your students up to the boards will increase engagement and help you provide feedback to them And finding new ways of providing the necessary information that your students need in order to make discoveries Will help your students with low floor high ceiling tasks So those are the things I'm going to talk about next and I just wanted to be clear about how I think that they are all connected to Low floor high ceiling tasks or just learning in general in your classroom So, um I don't know if any of you guys have developed a personal vision for yourself as a mass as a math teacher Or just as a teacher in general because I know like brian. Once again, it's doing computer science, which is mathy, but um I mean science is in the title So I know that a lot of us teach other subjects. So maybe just as a teacher in general Um, I did this for myself and it does change. Um But I find it like really powerful. Um So and you don't even have to share it with anybody like I think honestly, this is the first time I've shared it with like Definitely the first time I've shared it with like uh, like officially at like a meeting or something like that. Um And I find it really powerful and it grounds me and it just helps me sort of like how diana said There's a lot of things outside of her classroom that uh affect her teaching. Um I find that if you if you carve out a vision for yourself, it really helps cut all of that Nonsense out and it helps you just concentrate on what matters every day So my personal vision is to bride unconditional love for my students while engaging them and exploring mathematics furthermore to provide opportunities for my students that they would not have if I were not in their lives So the first piece is exactly what it sounds like the same unconditional love that I have for my family members Um, these relationships are very different than relationships with your family because you're stuck with your family forever But like, um The most amount of time I have with one of these kids is three years And that's a pretty rare example where I get to have a kid for sixth seventh and eighth grade It has happened and it's pretty special. Um, but it's rare. So these are temporal relationships Um, but I do view them as extremely authentic and that unconditional love is real. Um Now it's not enough for me just to be like their dad because that's not Who I am and that's not my role in the classroom. Um, so I do provide that unconditional love But that second part of the sentence is is completely true, right? Like we are doing math all the time always and I'm like not I'm like not even that cool. Like we don't do like um, like I'm a middle school teacher Excuse me, right? And like I don't do like those little foldables or Like we don't do art in my class. Um And I'm sure like right now some of you guys are like you need to do foldables You need to do art in your class and you're probably totally right. Um, but I just want to be clear that like I I do provide this atmosphere of unconditional love. Um but I'm not like a teacher that has free time and plays movies and stuff like that because I I have seen those types of teachers and I do think that they are they really care for their students But they're not doing anything academically for their students. Um And the second sense is just what it sounds like, right? Like as in, um Yeah, like when they're with me for seventh grade, um, I hope that I push them to apply for a couple programs that Maybe their other seventh grade teachers don't push them to apply for or help them Get into community college for the summer to take a free math class or a free art class or whatever So literally just to provide opportunities for my students that they would not have Um, I guess another way to say that is just go like above and beyond what I'm asked to do as a teacher Um, I just wanted to share that I did go to UCLA for grad school And professor cooper taught me about the culture of care. Um, I know I use that phrase unconditional love He uses the the term culture of care. There's a link to his article here. Um He's an amazing amazing person he did this article with uh, I think professor chigui and And it's just it was really cool and it really helped me see that I need to Attach academic expectations to my students Um while showing them care. So it's like I have to use this care Almost as a vehicle to deliver academics Um and make my students like perform um All right, so this I think christina Um, I think I don't know if this is christina's first child, but if it is I think this video is gonna hit you really strong um, and then I know there's Some younger teachers and some teachers that don't have children yet. So I think Um, hopefully you really like this My wife and I had our first child a year and a half ago And I've always been very nervous about how this would affect me as a teacher Will I still be as good of a teacher now that I have my own child? Will I still go above and beyond offering opportunities to my students? Will I be able to figure out this delicate balance between work life and family life? and Will it make me a worse teacher? But what I found is the opposite It's made me a better teacher than I ever thought I could be It's made me Realize how important each of these children are Now I have my own family and my own child And I see an even greater sense of importance for teachers to show Care for their students And then watching your child night after night Through the food that you just prepared for him on the floor and then laugh about it We'll make you a much more patient teacher And any teacher that wants to spend their career in middle school Understands that patience is the most important thing Because we need to see all of our students just like our own children graduate middle school prepared for high school and the world beyond All right, so I made that video using spark video which Is a really cool app that actually diana showed me and taught me how to use and you can I do it a lot to make Story problems for my kids or what you notice what you wonder Like prep problems for my kids when I go to the grocery store or I'm out like basically anytime I see something that I think I could relate to class I pull out my phone I take a bunch of pictures and then I make a spark video on it um This is I asked my kids just these three questions. What do you like about class? What do you not like about class and what's something funny? uh Or interesting or another comment about the class and once again because of time I'm just going to play one of these but I really liked what kelvin said And my least favorite thing is that the work is too easy The So I don't know it's sort of hard to hear but kelvin said I feel free Um, and that just made me feel really nice All right, so, um Once again for time maybe we'll just Take a minute to prep and just I'll ask like two or three people if they're comfortable to share out Um, here's a couple things to think about If you're comfortable sharing I guess I've never really thought about it as my teaching vision, but since I teach a lot of their medial courses My biggest goal is to get my students to not be afraid of math anymore I'm dealing with non-traditional students. Sometimes they're coming back to school after 40 or 50 years And they are in our lowest level course, which is teaching them arithmetic Working with fractions and they are terrified of coming in and I've had so many students by the end of the time Just by encouraging them and exactly what sam's saying showing them caring and that i'm there to help them and they get through the course And they are just So relieved and so excited that they're not scared of math by the time they leave my course And I think that's one of the biggest things we can do is make sure kids aren't scared of math Sam just in the comments people want to make sure that they'll have access like you'll share this slide the slide deck with them I assume a little bit this whole is this whole thing going to be posted Yeah, we're gonna post the whole video and then if you want to send me your slides We'll actually post just your slides so people can read through those as well Yeah, and then there's that's good because there's lots of like live links in the slides in case people Look more at some of these things Is there anybody else that Feels comfortable sharing. I know this is like Maybe not what you're expecting to have to think about on saturday morning Um Okay Yeah, I just want to share about a caring thing. Yesterday Like seven of my students came back to school after three years. I taught them There were eight graders so they were able to go to specialized high school and Sometimes you wouldn't know if the students really grateful or what you've showed them It will just come to you like later on Oh miss spirit, too. I am so thankful to you now. I am I'm in a specialized high school and I I think I have a lot of opportunities and way back when I taught in the Philippines like 20 years ago, I have already students working abroad as engineers as teachers as You know different profession in middle east and they would Message you through facebook So sometimes we would just feel so sad that How are these people, you know, not even saying hello? Hey, hello, but you know, there's a time when They feel like oh, they realize that oh because of this teacher the care The hard work that she did for us. I would not be here because of that person so Sometimes I feel like These students are so grateful like, you know, your current students like after Working so hard for your lesson plan and so prepared and then no one would thank you at the end of the day But you would not always get the thank you message You know right after you teach them you would get it later on When they are so successful Thank you I was just going to say off of what Liz was saying and also what Irene was saying in terms of teaching being more of A perception and an environment and how you create that environment I don't think it's exclusive just to the math classroom But as you were saying sam in terms of just letting them know you care Is really an important piece in our classrooms because they may not even get that at home And so in many cases the school is a safe place and if we can make it a safe place to learn All the better and so I think it's mainly about a perception Letting the students know that you care but also not coddling them So that you're they're building a thicker skin. They're not going to be thin skinned individuals when they're done with your class So, um, so that's one of my perceptions of of a classroom Um, I really like how you said sorry christina and then you'll go I just really like how you said and not coddle them and that's um Like I show unconditional love the same way my parents did and it was like Like I moved out like I went to college. I moved out. I'm on my own That was the goal of my family and there wasn't there was a lot of love in there, but like Um, like I totally agree with you on that. I just wanted to say that that was really good christina. Sorry Yeah, no problem. Um, I uh, so Especially being in middle school I feel like I've heard a lot that And it's true that relationships are more important than the content that you teach and I've heard a lot of people say things like Um, don't think I teach math think I think I teach students Do you know what I mean? Like just that perception of like your focus is on Transmitting something and building a relationship with the individual as opposed to just carrying out your content And I mean that's been a big like I've heard that for years But it's been one of those things that it's taken me a lot of time to like really like infuse into my teaching teaching, you know Kids before teaching content. I think for single subject teachers. It's a big deal You know, like I think we go in because we love content also because we love kids But I think You know just shifting that focus has been a really big thing for me and as part of my philosophy philosophy now Awesome. Thank you, man I'm really I'm reminded a lot about um, the discussions around growth mindset too. Um, especially with like the high expectations trying to get students to I don't realize that their hard work is important. Um The process and not just like getting the right answer sort of thing so fostering that sort of Thinking is really important to me as a teacher Thank you All right, I'm gonna move forward once again due to time Okay, so at PCMI we would do um morning math and you can see like a little Sample this is actually from math with Daryl, but it's a It may actually be the same exact problems. Um And We all know how intimidating doing something new and or difficult can be Um, and we all know how this feeling can be exacerbated when there are various levels of knowledge amongst the group I was going to sort of go into more detail here, but I think Almost everybody's been to PCMI I think there was a couple people when they introduced didn't say they attended PCMI maybe just one So real quickly in case you haven't been there We do actual math sets in the morning and um, the math sets are are difficult They're they're fun and they're really cool, but they're they're definitely It's not like we're doing so me as a middle school teacher It's not math that my middle schoolers would do right. It's it's it's math. It's more appropriate for math majors um So the vision for morning math and the program in general is super positive And it's meant to like minimize the feeling of intimidation despite the fact that you're working on like really difficult math Or what I view is really difficult math. Um Um Excuse me. I value my experience that I brought from math for america los angeles Because we do math with daryl and it is a very similar format. The problems are super similar and the format is um Format vision for that program is the same as then to like minimize that idea of intimidation and math should be fun And you're exploring these problems together in a group and it's not there's no There's no expectation over what you finish. Um, which is really cool, too Um, so anyways, so I do morning math. Um, and it was difficult and I had like those feelings of intimidation like I'm too embarrassed to ask for help. Um You know like all all those things and I just I really thought like if I feel this way, um, what do my kids feel like? In my room because I'm a math teacher and um, I didn't major in math. Um, but I uh I've been doing math for a long time math was always this the course in school that I felt most comfortable in And Yeah, so like if somebody that has all of that math confidence can feel so Um Intimidated, I guess it's the word I keep using. Um Then what does that kids feel like because man the levels in my room are like crazy like Compared to the levels inside of morning math. Um Yeah, I mean I have I have students that still don't understand. Um, the relationship between addition and multiplication. Um Yeah, so I don't know The levels are all over the place. Um, so hey, I made another spark video talking about this And in PCMI, I thought I really understood my students And could relate to what they were going through on a daily basis inside of my classroom doing mathematics I felt I had built good community And that all of my students were very comfortable doing mathematics inside of my classroom And then I went to PCMI morning math and there's me on the left And there's my table mates on the right a middle school teacher with no math degree matched up with many high school teachers that majored in mathematics To me this math was very challenging and at times it seemed almost impossible, but This experience paired with quality reflection time allowed me to grow as a teacher This opportunity allowed me to realize that even when my students have one-on-one help They can still feel isolated in the classroom Even when I show my students how much I care and create structures for them to learn That is not always enough for an individual to feel included in a mathematics community My experience at PCMI has shown me that it is my responsibility in the classroom to make sure that every single student feels included I now see that providing all of my students the sense of inclusion Is a fundamental structure inside of my classroom that cannot be ignored Okay, um, I just wanted to real quickly say this um I think about every three to five years I look back like three to five years and I think Like wow, I was doing something completely wrong. Um, I Think goodness have never looked back and thought like every single piece I did was incorrect um, but I do always like reflect back at least at this portion of my career and I always um Find that I'm I'm growing a lot and changing a lot So I guess I just wanted to share that because I'm sharing a lot of like things I feel really strongly about right now in 2018, but um I'm sure if I'm lucky enough to do like another PCMI reconnect in 2021 There are some it's going to look a lot different and maybe there's even pieces of this that I'll be very critical of Now when I have the chance of reflecting and looking back over time um These student testimonials, I'm not even gonna play them. Um, they're both actually negative testimonials about my class They're they're not like super like mean or anything But these are two students that showed that they still don't feel a complete sense of inclusion inside of my classroom Even though that has been like a super heavy focus point for me this year is to Make sure that every single kid feels included and feels like um I'm doing everything that I can within my power to make the environment One in which they feel comfortable learning um so I was wondering if I guess is a good time to stop and chat but also if anybody wants to share out about any of these things and I know a lot of you guys have been in math for america and um Yeah, I'm just wondering or sorry not math for america, but PCMI and also math for america. Um, but From PCMI I was wondering what your guys feelings were from morning math and how you reflected on that Took it back to your kids or just in general or maybe outside of school a time you felt intimidated Yeah, it might be helpful to know that um, the invitation for this presentation only went out to PCMI alum So everybody here has been to PCMI. Oh, awesome. Thank you. Yeah, sorry for not sharing that with me. No, no, no I should have It's called PCMI reconnect. I guess I should No, no, but Yeah, it's good to know You know, we do like to be inclusive and we've talked about Opening it up to people who've never been so they can experience this but we haven't we haven't done that yet right Sam Yes, this is gail. I live in Norfolk, Virginia. I didn't get a chance to introduce myself I was at PCMI 2012 2013 2014 And I've since retired But I wanted to tell you that when I worked I worked in an urban middle school with students who felt very unsuccessful in math um and What you're saying really does work You just have to be persistent with it And in the very beginning nobody wants to share what they notice because they think they don't notice anything So you're on the exact right track About asking them those questions and getting them to supply questions to problem When they start feeling like oh, I own the math their math doesn't own me It makes such a difference It just takes a long time and by middle school They have already learned these behaviors of um I I don't know I can't do it So you have to break all that down and I really appreciate everything you're sharing today even though i'm retired I still enjoy listening to it I appreciate that Did anyone else want to share? Um, I could share if that's all right Definitely um So with um with math for america san diego I would say that and you know, uh, jen and train just let me know what you think on this I I think we're it's the math that we have done is really really rigorous Pretty much all the time And I know that when I joined in the first two summers worth were all about Um constructions and geometry and honestly, I had never learned constructions in school at all Like in high school and college nothing So I felt very much like intimidated pretty much for two years in a row um Like like that. I didn't deserve to be there kind of a thing. So um, just That just really connected me to this experience and pcmi. Um, I felt did a really amazing job of of like Minimizing that kind of stress that you can have So and I liked that it was okay at pcmi not to um know everything Like I even remember asking in a zoom session Should I be researching matrices right now because I haven't used matrices in forever and people told me no No, you should really kind of like figure it out organically and that's valuable. So I like that a lot Awesome Thank you. I want to share excellent yeah, uh I was I felt the same way like When I was doing that and I could not get the answer right away. I was trying to ask questions And I was thinking of my students who were left out when I was giving them problem and I think maybe this is only an idea that We should establish a an environment that is so friendly for the children or for the students And so that they will not feel judged like oh, you know nothing or You know less like sometimes, uh, I think all of us felt that I don't know if any one of you would disagree that we had that feeling sometimes When we could not solve the problem with the rest of you know The the members of the team we felt like left out, right And I don't know if you agree with me that if we have that feeling we You feel isolated and sometimes We lose confidence and suddenly But when somebody would work with you I think being able to monitor that you are not, you know, you are working with somebody that Or being aware if you are the facilitator Make sure that you don't see anybody like working by himself so that That person would not feel isolated or deaf alone even with our kids We know if the student is not with role working with the other kids in the In the team they feel isolated and they would just act up just you know as a reason Because of not being able to catch up So I don't know you have you give your comment about that if anyone of you has not felt That kind of feeling that you felt left out Irene I really appreciate that I was just saying like in the comments Like it's so much easier to offer help than ask for help and if students can recognize that that's really powerful Cool. So I'm gonna move forward just because of time. I apologize if there's somebody else that that was just about to start talking um The next part of my presentation, I know somebody asked was uh is is about getting your kids up to the boards, which I honestly think is Directly tied in to doing low floor high ceiling tasks. Um So here's just a little spark video that I made once again I've been teaching for 13 years And I've definitely had some classes that felt like going to the dentist's office Well, maybe not as bad as having your tooth pulled but definitely as painful as a cleaning One solution I found is getting my students up out of their seats and at the white boards Sometimes I have them working in teams of four and sometimes they just work with a partner My students thrive on the social aspect of getting up and going to the boards with their friends for somebody new Having your students go to the boards will allow you to see your entire classes work In a shorter amount of time and at the same time it will allow you to focus on the students that need your attention And at a bare minimum my students get to get out of their seats and up at the boards I'm a chance to move around a little bit All right, so um classroom 360 is the first Time I heard of this. I think Ed Compost was the guy who talked about it like CMC North I think is where I saw him And at PCMI they called it non-permanent vertical spaces It is amazing. So, um, I actually just have whiteboards all over my My school we had a bunch of bungalows on our campus that were Marched to get torn down So I asked my principal if I could bring my power tools in and take them all down And put them in my room until the district could come hang them up And I did that and it only took like six to eight months for the district to come hang them up But whatever so now my classroom is full of whiteboards. Um So literally the entire class can get up and do a problem like every single student can work It is um, this is not my classroom that you're looking at. This is actually a picture from the internet. Um, but this uh My classroom has like even more space like the kids are not not this tight. I'm very lucky. I have a she I have the largest classroom on our campus And I think I use it in the right way So I really love getting my kids up to the boards to do these low floor high ceiling tasks and to do all sorts of other stuff Here's a quick example of what it actually looks like in my room. This is a video from last year Right, so um, that was a video of the class that I had the hardest time engaging last year. Um and I would go up to the board and lecture For like a planned like five minute lecture literally I would try to get it down to that short And a minute into it. I would look up and I lost him all um And as you can see, it's not like perfect by any means there was like probably seven or eight students that looked disengaged because they were sitting and and not They didn't look like they were doing anything other than sitting and watching. Um, but the engagement went up I would say from like 20 to 80 percent Which is like a huge shift when I just started getting them up to the boards last year Um Oops, that's not what was supposed to happen. There we go. So anyways, um These vertical non-permanent spaces if you don't have them do it do it as soon as possible Um, Diana was nice enough to put a link right here for a good product that she uses that is not super duper expensive Um, but don't spend your own money man Like advocate for your kids that don't even say it's for me It's for your students because it is go to your administrators and and make them buy these for your classroom and I also heard that command strips are really good if you're going to get these ones because These are like, um, basically thick laminated white boards that you're going to hang on your wall um But they're nice because they're lights and you can put them on like anywhere Um, and I think you can get them with coordinate planes too, which is really nice I need to actually get some with coordinate planes Um, use structures and have clear expectations There are lots of structures to use. Um, PCMI definitely demonstrated a few different structures this summer to us One structure I really like is um a group of four Each kid has a different color marker and when I come by to check with the group I'm going to ask You about another student's problem and that's just one structure that I use that's definitely not the structure I use every day, but that's a really nice one So once again each kid different color marker and when I come up to your group and I have a chat with you I'm going to ask you about someone else's work. Um Buy an inexpensive pack of microfiber cloths. Once again, I got that from diana um The whiteboard erasers that your school buys or you buy it like staples or whatever they fall apart super fast They don't work that good buy those microfiber cloths and don't don't like try to get like a really expensive pair just or pack just Make sure it's microfiber and see what's least expensive and get those They're really nice because you don't have to spray the board. You can just wipe it and it goes back to like perfectly clean um Buy a set of erasable coordinate planes um because your kids have graph and you want them to be able to graph Um, so like if you're going to go for this make sure you don't just have whiteboards up there But have graphs up there too because you don't want to be like man This would be fun to do up at the boards, but I can't because it's graphing. Um A good tip I got from ed compost is store the markers tip down gravity matters and that will get a little more life out of those markers Um number six. I really like. Um, I actually got this from avid which Um avid's cool, but it's definitely not the silver bullet Um, but anyways avid taught me to like just ask questions and don't wait for answers So like when you're facilitating when they're at the boards Like one of the worst things you can do is get stuck in one spot Or at least I feel like right now one of the worst things you can do is get stuck in one spot So ask that question that you think is going to provoke the thought that that student needs And then keep walking to the next group and then just keep going around because you're going to be right back to that student If you're doing it if you're moving fast enough You're going to be back to that student within minutes And you're going to be able to ask him that question again and see what he thinks now Um, or perhaps you can see that that question provoked the thought that you wanted and that student has progressed further in the problem Um, or maybe you notice that the student's not that didn't think about the question And you need to dedicate another minute of conversation to that student before you move on um Number seven is a little confusing maybe so build capacity with patience, but make your goal very transparent So my goal is for me to like not have to be in the classroom And that is transparent to my students like as in the knowledge is in the room And it's on the internet and inside of their textbooks And I don't even need to be there And that is my goal And this board work it helps me get to that goal of making my students realize They completely own their education and they don't need teachers And I know that's like a scary thing for teachers to hear Um, but it takes a long time like the truth is they need teachers for like at least until the end of high school Probably until the end of college. I don't know But they do need teachers because they're not ready to learn on their own yet But that is the goal right for me at least And then number eight is a phrase that I use a lot Because some of my students just don't get started. So I say like just start and the worst case scenario is you're wrong And and usually I say next sometimes like like like it doesn't matter like it doesn't matter if you're you're wrong or like I don't care like this This isn't a test and we're just doing problems at the board And then I like to follow like with someone will help and I like to say like someone will help not I will help um Because once again the knowledge is in the room the help is there just start get some stuff up on the board And literally the worst thing that can happen is that you're incorrect and I'm I've been saying that for a semester and now we're in second semester and it's starting to show Like some of the students are really starting to to Internalize that feeling of like it we're just practicing math and Being right or wrong is not the most important thing Sort of going back to brian and and the all the growth mindset stuff, which i'm totally like I drink the growth mindset kool-aid 100 percent In that like you praise the process right and the process is going up to the boards in this case and and trying some stuff And you don't praise um, you don't praise the product, which is uh, I guess in this case a correct problem um, yeah, so I will play maybe one clip here Um, so as you can see jackey really likes going up to the boards. I had like out of all those student testimonials I had so many that's like their favorite thing was going to the boards um So it looks like for time wise. We are Pretty pretty close to the end. Yeah, christine quick question Um to students when they're posting those testimonials just do that with iPhones or how did they get them to you? Okay, so I used to do like a weekly like that weekly written and what I convinced my class this year that that to do for me is um to do them the same thing but do them on video because um, it's just so much more enjoyable for me to sit on my couch and watch like Goes in a row of my kids telling me what they like and don't like about class then sitting and reading um their their little um notes and then also a lot of times on their notes I can't I can't read their handwriting and I'm um I'm having a hard time interpreting what they're writing because those are usually things that I try to do quickly in class So anyways to answer your question I use my iPhone and like a kid goes and does like I like ask a kid and I rotate um Like hey robert. Can you go do my videos for me today? And he goes like into the corner of the room and calls kids one at a time and they they respond So it's once a week then or it's more frequent than that? No, it's it's I'd say like once every two weeks Okay, yeah, thank you Like worst-case scenario. It's once a grading period which is one a month. We do grades every month But yeah, I think it's uh, it really helps me and it's really fun. Um, I used to use a program called let's recap um, that uses their chromebooks, but it was just Um, I just found that this to do it like that was way easier more convenient for me um Does anyone have any questions or comments about going to the boards just because I want to make sure that um I get through this this next part And then the last piece I think most of you guys know about because you're at PCMI, but I just want to run through a couple things on the web Sam, how often do you have them go to the boards? Okay, boards every day. So like, um, Tuesdays are short periods As in they're only an hour long But every other day is an hour and 40 minutes So there are occasional Tuesdays where we don't get up to the board But that's pretty rare. That's usually like a Tuesday where I'm assessing them and giving them like a long assessment where it's like Yeah, maybe some students only need like 25 minutes But like I do have some students that like to really take their time on an assessment and they'll they'll use the full hour and they're not like Those students that are like dragging their heels like Or whatever they're like actually engaged in making sure that they get every problem, right? Um during that hour. Yeah, I try to do it every day, man. I think out of all of these things. That's the most I think it's like the most powerful honestly out of all of these things like getting your students up at the boards. Um I think that's what I've gotten the most bang for my buck with And sam just to follow up like there's pressure to have like these open tasks at the boards Like is it always a super open task or? Oh, no, we do like procedural problem sets at the board We do. Yeah. No, we just I try to like um Yeah, so like we'll do like an open task. Let's say like on thursday and friday And then like monday and wednesday they may go up to the boards and um like my Seventh graders have been practicing still like I want to make sure that everyone understands that five minus 12 is negative seven And then like once again, like this is the new mr. Kaplan and it's like everyone means everyone And like i'm just differentiating and making sure like i'm not dragging the whole class through things They know every day, but like i'm going to make sure every kid in that class knows that negative seven minus eight is negative 15 Right. Um, which is not like super hard, right? And i'm good at teaching that and it just takes some kids like literally a month To develop their own algorithm to do that But as we all know like if those kids go to algebra and they think They they can't do x minus six x like they're in big trouble, right? And I view that as like a really big thing and and fractions is another one of those skills where like I'm going to make sure every kid can do it. Um And I really stick with it and the boards are a great way So for example, like last week, I would do what's called a progress check Which is three quick questions to see who can do this thing or not the kids that That need help they go to the boards and practice for 20 minutes And the other group um worked on like uh a separate activity So I split the class and then I go and I help the kids that are still struggling on that integer addition and subtraction While the other kids have like a more As you'll see actually from my next couple slides. They have like Completely self-directed like something that they don't need me for Yeah Are there any more questions? Cool. So i'm gonna sort of whip through this real quick. Um, sorry for speeding up Irene had a question. Oh, sorry Irene. Go for it in the chat about what you do before they go up to the board for Whiteboards for work to make sure you don't have any disciplinary issues Oh man, I'll be honest like you're like okay if you have Like a bad situation in your classroom like bad community and like you feel like animosity between you and your kids um Then like I would concentrate on a lot of other stuff that this like I would concentrate on the front half of this PD and not so much structures to get your kids up to the whiteboard like um Uh, like you I don't have those issues. I just want to be completely honest Like I I feel like my classroom is super warm and I don't have discipline issues Like I have middle schoolers that act like middle schoolers every day, right? Like they do they have impulse control issues and whatnot, but like I don't I don't prep Heavily for any of this stuff. I guess the one thing that I make sure I always do in my classroom is I make my expectations super clear Like I'm really transparent And I'm really patient and that means that sometimes I repeat my expectation to the same student like three times Um, because they're not meeting my expectations, but I do find that like um Maybe with my sixth graders that two minutes of transition up to the boards is chaotic But once I've done two laps around the room every kid is working Um, so I would I would say as a teacher if you're worried about um, like behavior Uh, the advice I would give you is move just keep moving like once you get them up to the boards Keep moving keep moving keep moving. Um, don't stay in one spot because when you're looking at the board in one spot Um, your back is to a lot of kids Um, I don't know if I answered I just uh answered your question completely Irene, but um, that's the advice I have Do you have a follow-up question Irene? Oh, yeah, Sam. Would you mind sharing what those expectations are? Yeah, right. So like it depends on the day. Um, so Uh, I'll think literally right back to the last class I taught right so I I did a progress check And then like about 12 students were still struggling on adding and subtracting integers And I said my expectation is for you guys to go up to the board Pick at least seven problems each from this problem set and get them up at the board And when I come by I'm going to not just ask you what your Answers are but what you were thinking about to arrive at your answer Um, because the way I teach this is I I teach them a really simple model that I call start direction distance model And then I actually asked them to form their own Algorithms to do that integer addition subtraction um based off of Being able to conceptually visualize what's happening with that integer addition or subtraction Um, and then once again like I just then I circle right and I say that back to if you can and then right Of course like half the class is how many problems again? How many problems and it's also written for them I use the google classroom Um in my class so every all the directions are are up for every piece Um, but like yeah, they're middle schoolers. They don't read the directions or they read them too quick And I repeat the same thing multiple times And I just keep going in circles until I make sure that every student has done You know what I feel because I'll be honest. I think I said seven problems And I want to say about half of those students After I did like two laps I looked at them and I said, how do you feel about this? Like do you feel more comfortable? Do you feel like like you need to practice it more or do you want to sit down and work on something different? And they were like I feel good and I think um, I want to sit down and work on something different And they did right so also I guess I have like clear expectations, but then I do alter Um those all the time when I'm facilitating in my classroom I did that answer your question Are there any other questions about um the boards because this is actually a really important piece of My class, I think it's definitely something that at least last summer PCMI was pushing I felt like it was pushing us heavily to try to do Yeah, um based on Yeah, that's good and uh, you have students really good students. I have students like They judge each other right away upon seeing the question like as fun seeing the answer like oh, that's so wrong Oh, you're so dumb like these things would suddenly just pop up so What I did last I had a very difficult class And I have to tell them this is what your this will be You know the standard behavior when you're doing this When somebody gave an incorrect answer, you will not say you're sorry. You just say oh, I have a different answer Just say different answer. Don't judge the student And then you are not judging each other. So these little things I think They help because students don't know how to conduct themselves sometimes in a setting like that They don't know because no one teaches them at home because when they get home I have you know students living in a shelter house You know, I have students when they get home. The families are not there I have students like their parents are working two jobs. So no one is teaching them like they are in authority So I I teach in brooklyn is new york. So They are really challenging and I have to really set a standard behavior whenever we have an activity And I'm so happy for you that you have, you know nice kids But in my case, I really have like I have a standard behavior that they should be, you know Doing when they're doing any activity like even though they're holding manipulatives, you know When I do it that with manipulatives, they just suddenly you will just see things being thrown up on air So what do you do with this? You're not going to throw it These are the things you're going to do with this. You have to really like what you said Expectation clear expectations, but with their behavior So It has to be accompanied always with their behavior aside from the clear expectation of what they're supposed to To produce or what they're supposed to do In terms of you know the content or the process but in terms of behavior It's always accompanied with the kind of students we have But thank you for you know that sharing is it's really you know Reminded me with a clear expectation about what they're supposed to do clearly because sometimes when we give Unclear unclear instruction or direction It can also cause chaos and discipline issues Oh, did you tell us to do that? No, it's not there in your direction. It's also caused that Yeah, definitely And I would say like that the the long the video that you saw of the classroom last year in my actual classroom Like once again, I'd say like I had 20 of those students and after I got them up to the board I had like 80 of them And so I would say that like if you Have like a class that's in their seats And you feel like you're not reaching like even half of them then I would say like Try it try getting them up to the boards because Let's say you go from half to like 65 percent of your class. That's a that's a big improvement But you are right like there are students that Like for instance in that video of that class there are students that it was day after day of of Yeah, they they would make choices that disappointed me But then also I would say last year was the first year I did it and this is the second year I did it And it feels a lot better Just like everything else in teaching. So hey, I just want to whip through because I know we're like out of time already I'm sorry for for going too slow guys So the last piece is just refusing to lecture So you can see me on the left. You can see them on the right I really got this idea also from PCmi and that there was just so many people around me with the ipad pro and the apple Apple pencil is what it's called So I bought one and I bought the pencil and I've been making a lot of my own videos I've also been using YouTube to make videos And then I've also just discovered this new program Maybe you guys have heard of it called ed puzzle And I can take my videos or youtube videos and I can um add questions in them So basically the video stops and asks them a question And I use those just as like um just to make sure they're watching right so let's say um, I'm explaining um a right triangle Right and I and I set it up abc And then I say c is the hypotenuse of the right triangle Then I would pause the video and I'd say which side is the hypotenuse of the right triangle And there'd be three options ab or c and they have to answer before they can continue watching And then I get all that data so I can sort of see like oh if the kid got less than 50 percent or Or whatever my expectation is then there's most likely they were just like playing the video and their mind was in another place Um, so I do this because lecturing at the boards my kids just seem so bored of it also Um, those lectures are out there. They're already on youtube or I can record a nice one on my ipad and um, and it's there forever Um students love them because they can access them over and over again Um, the the big issue is that the same same way that students don't listen to you at the board sometimes students don't watch the videos or they The same way that students look at you while you're talking at the board, but aren't really processing They can also look at a video while it's playing and not really process it so it's definitely not like a silver bullet, but um I've stuck with it all year. I have not done one lecture at the board Um, the first two weeks were a little rough. My kids were not happy Um, which is funny, but now it's it's working out really well I use the application dos serri on my ipad. It is a free application um Yeah, so I I don't even know. I think as a time I'm not even going to play the sample of my lecture It just sort of shows you what it looks like if you've ever been to con academy before it's similar to what those videos look like Um, if you don't pull videos off at youtube, I encourage you to there's there's a bunch of them out there Some of them have really nice production value and a lot of them are just People like you and me talking at a whiteboard, but they're good math teachers doing decent math problems in a decent manner um so Yeah um And then these two kids are just going to talk about how they like the videos and I think one of them says they like it because Um, they can watch it as many times as they want, which I think is Something really good about those. Um, I'm going to actually blow through this discussion real quick and I just want to make sure that That I want to really end with this, right? So if you're not one to one with technology um like push your administrative team to get that for you and um Yeah, I know like people I don't know if you guys think I teach at like a magnet school for gifted and talented or something But I teach in the pico union area of los angeles. I teach at a neighborhood school When I first got hired we had 3 000 students We are now at 800 So I am at one of the classic los angeles neighborhood schools Which has been dominated by encroached encroaching charter schools in our area And our population has shrunk from 3 000 to 800 So we are not a rich school and I do not have And students that come to my school come there for the most part because their parents Don't um realize all the school choice that they have And and and my school is great. I love my school. I'm going to stay there forever They're going to bury me at my school. Um, and we do good stuff I'm not the only teacher there that cares. There's tons of caring teachers. It's a good school But I do want to be clear that like most of the parents in our neighborhood that are Know the systems that they use magnets or they use Charters for the most part We have a massive percentage of newcomers at our school Real quick, uh games are engaging, but they are the easiest they are like, uh, dangerous Okay, so there is one game that I like called ratio rumble if you google it It'll take you right there. I'll fix that and put a link in there Um, I know you guys all know about desmos because you're all pcmi people But one thing I do that maybe you guys don't do on your tech is arithmetic practice There's a link to a really basic arithmetic practice webpage that my parents are my students use excuse me And they love it and there is no lasers. There's no rocks blowing up like it's not a game It's just arithmetic practice. We do it once a day for five minutes every single day and my students love it Um, if you have not seen which one doesn't belong it is not the sesame street version It is a great discourse tool and a great way for you to Um, really, I guess promote Class discourse. I know diana does it a lot more than me So she could probably talk about that if we have a few minutes at the end Number six, I do use a lot. That's visual patterns by fawn win Once again, I think most of you guys know about that website But if you don't please check it out, it's amazing and the last one is kahoot. Um, kahoot is super popular at my school I don't use it a ton. Um just because Um, whatever just because there's only so many minutes like what I always need is more time with my kids I'm always like that's cool. But um, like my class is Packed right now and every minute is used. Um, but it's a cool way to assess your kids Formatively, um, and it's really engaging for the kids So we did it We did it. I'm a little late, but we got to the end Um, if you guys look the last slide in case you guys want is going to be like a bunch of references and links to stuff I'll try to add maybe even a few more before I email Or I guess it's a google site so I can change it whenever. Um But yeah, thank you guys so much. I apologize for going over 10 minutes Thanks, and this was fantastic And I apologize if you guys were expecting an hour and a half of low floor high ceiling tasks So I know I talked about a lot of other stuff, but I promise like I don't know. I just wanted to like uh Take this opportunity to like share with you guys the things that I really care about like as a math teacher And I think they're they're just like things that I talk a lot with my department about and I don't know for a while. I was thinking about becoming a principal like I got my administrative degree, but um I really don't want to do that And I really just want to teach forever But I want to feel like I'm like one of those math teachers that Affected more than just their kids, which is super powerful. Um, so I guess I appreciate all of you guys Taking the time to listen to some of my ideas and hopefully Um, yeah, hopefully this had some effect on you as a teacher This is great. Thank you so much sam I was going to ask for a few things uh to help us get wrapped up This will take us probably one or two more minutes. We need to get a group picture So sam if you don't mind turning off the screen sharing so we can um get everyone's picture And just fix your hair really you know fix your hair so we can get a a group pic. I'll do like a screen grab um And if you don't have your camera on you want to be part of the group picture You can just turn your camera on otherwise you can just leave it the way it is Okay. All right now. I think we should all probably smile Hold on one second All right ready All right. Thank you. Um, the other thing is um If you have a twitter handle just type it into the group into the group chat and we can see each other's twitter handles and find each other um If you are interested in presenting we're going to have a 10 minute teacher sharing just like we do at pcmi We're going to do it online on march 3rd If you're interested type in the word present in the chat and you will get your name And contact you and work you in for a 10 minute teacher sharing on march 3rd. That's a saturday morning. Just like this Um, the next session is on february 10th. Henry Pichotto is doing reaching the whole range And if you want us to register you you can just type in register me for um the february 10th Next pcmi teacher outreach session And um, if you are applying to pcmi this summer just type in 2018 in the chat window And we can find each other because I applied to uh pcmi for the summer And i'm curious to see if anybody's familiar face is going to be there Um, it's so much fun to see everybody. Thank you so much. Liz. Was there anything or aisha? Is there anything that you guys needed before we all turn our uh zoom's conferencing off Could I ask a question at some point too before we all get out? I think um the question if it's for sam we're going to save it until everybody's allowed to leave Not for sam. Okay. Um, just super quick. I posted something earlier in the chat and it it says random It's just like a friend of mine is publishing stories by teachers And so i'm not sure if people were able to see that in the chat But there's like a link there with all the information and will we have access to this chat after this act too? I believe the chats are reported, but i'm not 100 positive. I know when I record it through zoom I know it's recording the screen. I hope it's recording the chat, but I act honestly I haven't walked through it enough to know if it did or not Um, but I did see those you might want to post those on our facebook page I don't think i'm even part of our facebook page. We have one. Yeah, there's a tlp alum facebook page I will have to join that. Thank you. Okay Also, we can Save the chat if you click on the more button And then save chat. So there is a way to save the chat specifically. It looks like Yeah, okay. Thank you. Awesome All right, well, thank you so much everybody. I know we ran over but this was just fantastic Um people that have come in the past have always said we feel re-energized when we come So again, we have another one on february 10th as amos saying with henry Be looking out for a registration form. Some of you already pre-registered. It was valuable on all the previous ones And uh, we'll talk to you then. Thanks so much for sharing your morning with us Thank you guys. Thanks everyone. Hi everybody