A few messages from “Here Comes the Boom”...

A few messages from “Here Comes the Boom”...

If you haven't seen this movie, let me give you an extremely abridged synopsis: Scott Voss is a burned out former Science Teacher of the Year. Early in the film, the principal announces that, due to budget constraints, they will be cutting the music program and thereby eliminating the position of dedicated Music teacher, Marty Streb. Through a series of events, Voss decides to moonlight at as UFC fighter in order to raise enough money to save the music teacher's job.

I have mixed feelings when watching movies about education. On one hand, I enjoy them because I can relate to the funny, inspiring, or poignant content; on the other, I a tendency to become incredibly irritated since most of these movies have scenes that require a huge suspension of reality. So, for now, let's just choose to let those irritating scenes fade in light of the positive messages we can glean from this (in my opinion) HILARIOUS film:

We can be each other's heroes. Now, I don't believe we need to go so far as to take up UFC fighting, but what about letting a fellow teacher know that what they do inspires us? Our profession, by its very nature, tends to isolate us from each other. We need to remember that we are all part of the same team with the same goal: to educate our students. Sometimes it feels like we've gone a few rounds in a UFC fight. So, if we notice a colleague doing something well, let's acknowledge it.

Photo by Tracy Bennett - © 2012 CTMG

We accomplish more as a team. Being part of a team helps each member achieve more than they could alone. A team provides the support we need when we want to back down. A team provides the forum for generating new and improved ideas. A team provides the momentum necessary for following through with challenging commitments.

Photo by Tracy Bennett - © 2012 CTMG

The movement of one person can affect an entire system.
We don't always have the luxury of being a member of a high functioning team. But we can still move forward with the important work of inspiring our students. If you feel alone in your endeavors, remember, someone is always watching. You may be the catalyst for change right where you are. Keep moving forward, and eventually someone else will join you. It can be a long road, but as long as we're headed in the right direction, it's worth it.

Are you curious?

I surely did not think that this Friday we would be picking up tasks to grade from all of our 7-12 school sites as part of the district final.  However, in December, a team of teachers decided just that for our end of semester assessment!  Teachers at the pull out day agreed they wanted the test to cover key concepts, have a balance of DOK and rigor, and include questions that show student thinking.  The team, through their discussion, boldly took the step to require a task in our semester district assessments to ask questions that would show student thinking.

So, you’ve given the test, now what?  You may have graded the task already on your own, so you feel you already know how your students did.  However, do you want to know how other students at your site did on the task?  Are you curious about  how other students in the district did on the task?  You have the opportunity.  Come be part of the discussion and norm grade exams with us.  We will hold norming sessions from 4-6pm at Miller MS rm. 452.  HS week 1/25-1/29, MS week 2/1-2/5.  You will be compensated with snacks and a timecard.  Come for an hour and see what it’s all about.  We spoke to an RUSD teacher who participated in norm grading sessions in another district.   “It totally changed the way I taught!”  Show up to a norming session and listen to the discussion around student thinking.  While you may not grade your own students’ work, I believe it will change the way you see your own students.

Sticky Collaboration

Recently, I visited a 7th grade SDC (Special Day Class) math class and observed students huddled in groups of four passionately discussing variables.  I was intrigued.  I moved a little closer to one group and heard a student say “No, my post-it should be our group summary.”  Another student in the group responded, “But, your answer doesn’t describe what a variable is; all your answer says is an example of solving for a variable. Your answer doesn’t work for my example on my post-it note, so we can’t just use it.”  The productive discussion lead the group to a response that all were happy with, and so one student wrote their group response in their center of their shared paper.

These students were working on what the teacher described Sticky Note Collaboration.  The idea is for the teacher to pose a question for the students to respond to.  (This works best when the question is more of a generalizing a concept idea rather than a ‘how to’ idea.)  Then, the students independently write their response on their post-it note.  Once students have written their response, they move into groups of four.  Each student reads aloud their post-it note and then sticks it to the corner of the group summary paper.  Once all members of the group has shared their post-it, then the group collectively discusses the commonalities of their responses and creates a group response.  After a short time of the groups working together, each group selects a student to read aloud their group summary.   

What I liked about the activity:

Students were using multiple SMPs in this brief 10-15 minute warm-up activity.  By having the student individually create a response, students were being asked to make sense of the prompt (SMP 1).  The students shared ideas and generated a general response and in order for students to do that, they had to critique the reasoning of others (SMP 3).  The students had to be precise with the vocabulary and language of their answer (SMP 6).  All this was done with the teacher providing one high level cognitive demand prompt and a well executed structure of interaction with students.  At no point did the teacher tell them a response to the question.  Instead, the students did all the thinking, comparing, analyzing and reflecting to determine a well constructed answer to a mathematical question.  

Sample Sticky Note Collaboration (7th Grade Math, SDC)