Summer Math

 I'll be teaching math this summer to rising seventh and eighth graders. I've been thinking about the lessons I'll employ. Since it's summer camp, I want the lessons to be lots of fun, and thanks to the fact that I'll be working with small groups, we'll focus on lots of math talk, math modeling, and real-world problem solving. 

Healthy remote learning and teaching

News articles make me wonder if some families are struggling with how to handle remote teaching and learning.

Some of the worries relate to compliance rather than good learning. For example, I read a comment by a scientist made about her son's learning--she said he was way behind and that the work piled up. It may be that all that work is not just-right learning for that child. She mentioned that his learning disability, a disability often connects with good energy and intelligence which left me wondering if the parent was more concerned with compliance than education.

How can you ensure that your child is happy and successful with regard to remote learning?

Family cohorts
If possible, I recommend joining with one or two other families so that you can help one another. You could possibly find a neighbor or one of your child's classmates that you are willing to safely get together with to provide your child with playdates and study support. Family cohorts can help one another with childcare and study help too. If you are uncomfortable with in-person family cohorts, you could set up one or a few online family cohorts--perhaps you find two friends for your child to regularly meet up with online to complete homework, read together, or simply hang out.

A positive schedule
Consider your children's at-home schedule and then create a good family remote learning schedule. I believe that schools should offer families a somewhat steady week of learning opportunities that stay mostly consistent. Families can match their schedules with the school schedules. A typical family schedule might include the following:

• Breakfast at 7
• Online learning/practice 8-12
• lunch 12-1
• After lunch reading 1-2
• More classes 2-3
• Playtime 3-5
• Dinner 
• After dinner family time
• Before bed reading 

Ideally schools will create your child's schedule with at-home schedules in mind. Also, I do think that children should not be expected to complete school work with the exception of reading after 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. creating more time for play and family time. 

Study spaces

Rethinking the layout of your home to provide spaces for each child to store their study supplies, log on to the computer, and listen and interact with lessons is important. Setting up those spaces during the summer is a good idea.

Reasonable, engaging study efforts

It is important for family members to review a child's weekly learning menu. If there are assignments or learning sessions that seem unreasonable, it is important for families to contact teachers to see if those learning events can be enriched or modified. Parents also may want to suggest replacement learning ideas. For example, if you have a very active child, you may want to exchange a math fact sheet for sidewalk chalk facts. You can simply take a picture of your child's efforts and send them in rather than the paper/pencil worksheet. Keep the focus of the assignment in mind, and if you can make that focus more interesting and meet the same goal, why not suggest or try that.

Goals and goal talks

Make time to sit down with your child to discuss their learning goals. Educators should share clear goals with families. Talk about how your child can work towards that goal on their own and where you might be able to help. For example, for almost every student, daily reading is integral to learning success. You and your child can discuss their learning and what they need. It may be that your child listens to a book on tape each day for 30 minutes, reads with a parent for 30 minutes, and reads short passages or books on their own for 30 minutes. You can't read too much--lots of great reading is an essential skill and wonderful goal for remote learning. 

Speak up; ask questions

Typically ,in school, educators are always changing the learning experiences to make those experiences well matched to students' needs and interests. If you're confused about learning goals, reach out to the teacher to ask questions. 

Childcare

Parents who are working may need to hire some extra at-home support. Ask a family member to help out, coordinate care with other adults in the home, or seek local emergency childcare help. I do believe that families should receive a stipend during the pandemic to help out with this. In Massachusetts, emergency child care was available during the spring. Many of those slots stayed empty. I'm not sure why this happened, but I hope that kind of childcare will be available again in the fall should we move to remote learning.

Maximize the benefits of learning at home with the following actions:

• Look for ways to strengthen your family life with a positive weekly routine including chores, healthy foods, good bedtime routines, limited tech time, lots of reading or listening to books, playing math games together, watching terrific videos and films that connect to social studies' themes, and exploring the natural spaces around you.
• Read, read, and read some more--children rarely read enough, and the ability to elevate the time spent reading and the quality of the books your child reads is awesome. School librarians are invaluable resources for this initiative.
• Boost social skills by finding safe ways to get together with family members and neighbors for positive social events.
• Learn about your local community via reading and exploring places. Many local museums are now open, but you have to make an appointment. Since the learning is virtual, it's likely that you may be able to make appointments to visit these museums at various times throughout the week.

Become tech savvy

This is a good time for every member of the family to develop their tech skills and abilities in safe, productive, and engaging ways. Advocate for your local school system to offer tech classes for whole families so that everyone is able to learn how to use the expected tech devices and tools together. To become tech savvy will serve you well throughout your life.

Learn with your children

Join online classes with your child to learn as they are learning. That will help you help your child.

Remote learning doesn't have to be onerous. Instead, it can be an opportune time to elevate essential skills, family life, and child-centered learning success. Educators are there to guide this journey in ways that best support you and your children. While we would all like to get back to school as we know it, in-school teaching with pandemic limitations will be difficult, uncomfortable, and ineffective for students and teachers alike--the pandemic limitations do not match who children are, how they act, and the ways they learn. Since remote teaching is the best solution, it's time to think about how to make that successful for you and your children. 

Building capacity; what are you goals?

How will you build capacity for future endeavor and success?

What will you do?

I read multiple comments by educators who are clearly honing their virtual teaching/learning skills this summer. I was inspired by their efforts and comments. I was also reminded about how important it is to continually build your capacity for better teaching, better learning, and better living.

It's easy to simply talk about this, and it is more difficult actually developing a pattern to make it happen. This is even more difficult when your goals may be different than your colleagues. For example, one of my goals is an all-for-me goal, and as I write, I realize that it's important to gather a team of others who share that goal.

Overall, I have the following goals this summer, goals that match the pandemic limitations.

Greater intimacy
I want to build my personal relationships with greater intimacy and by that, I mean deeper, better conversations and support for one another. Often we're in a rush, and this is a time to slow down and think about who these people are, the promise our relationships hold, and how I can support and develop these relationships with strength.

Strong family culture and positive relationships
I'm going deeper with my research related to quality relationship building--I know that deep, meaningful, productive relationships lay the foundation for good living and good work. I want to understand this with greater depth and will read, reflect and write about this over the summer.

Anti-racism
I'm focused on the book, White Fragility, this summer via reading, reflection, and connecting with others via an online book group. I want to translate this learning into better anti-racist living, teaching, and advocacy.

Brain-friendly math teaching and learning
I will read and study Boaler's book, Limitless Mind, to understand how I can boost brain-friendly teaching and learning in math and across all disciplines.

Tech skills finesse 
I am going to finesse my skills with a number of tech tools and skills that I'll forward with students and my grade-level team in the fall. I'm excited about sharing this learning with students as I know it will empower them to be awesome learners, self advocates, and successful, happy people.

Health
As always, I'm striving to put health and fitness high on the priority list. I tend to negate this in favor of other goals, but I know that this is very important in order to keep up with my wonderful, energized colleagues, family members, and students--I want to be in tip top health as I love having good energy to enjoy all that life has to offer. 

Difficult Decisions: Teaching 2020-2021

School year 2020-2021 will include many difficult decisions. In times of need such as this pandemic, many are looking for support. Teachers, by nature, typically want to be as supportive and helpful as they can be. Teachers' will to help others can be challenging at times since teachers might wear themselves out which greatly weakens their ability to teach well.

What's a teacher to do?

Safety First
First, it is important to acknowledge that there will be difficult decisions ahead in school year 2020-2021. In difficult times, people think first about their own survival and welfare, and sometimes they might not think about what you need to be healthy. You have to be your best advocate by making sure that your health needs come first by way of a safe environment for teaching, safe protocols, and taking the time off that you need when you are ill.

Sadly, a few grocery store and nursing home workers died during this pandemic because safety procedures were not in place to protect their lives. Teachers have to make sure that those safety procedures are in place in schools to protect their lives and the lives of those they work with and teach.

What is the mission?
As some lead efforts in schools during the pandemic, they may allow their ambition to trump mission by making choices that look good, but are really not that good when we consider our mission as educators. It is critical that we keep the mission up front at this time in school life--we can't just do things because they look good or feel good, instead we have to think deeply about what really matters for these children's lives today and into the future, and what matters for our professional mission as educators.

Educators are not babysitters. Yes, we are in the business of child care--we want the children we teach to be well cared for when they are in our midst, but our primary job is to educate, and how can we do that during a pandemic? That's a question many school communities are grappling with right now. Our own school community is facing that issue with initial conversations and debates about how we should frame the start of next year. In my opinion and the opinion of many, I believe we need to face this situation with the following hierarchy of priorities:

1. Safety first
2. Relationships next
3. Engaging, empowering education following that

How can we maximize our strengths as a teaching team to reach our mission?

Once we define our mission going forward, the next job is to think about how we can maximize our strengths as a teaching/learning community to meet our mission. When we do this we have to think about both short term and long term goals. A lot of time and effort has been invested in identifying standards that create a strong academic foundation for students. I don't think we should lose sight of that. If we continue to focus on a mission of establishing children's strong academic, physical, and social-emotional learning foundation-we will continue to meet students' needs today and into the future. This is a good goal, and then within each grade-level or discipline, it will be important to think about what that looks like for their teaching/learning program. 

What efforts will be put at the bottom of the list?

By putting some efforts at the bottom of the list, we focus our efforts in positive ways. For example, our team will not prioritize field trips or special visitors in the fall. We'll reconsider these valuable parts of our teaching/learning program again midyear when we see how things are going. Our school assembly will likely be eliminated at the start of the school year unless we do it virtually so that children at home and children in school can watch the presentation virtually. Some of the fun collaborative learning activities and games will also be put at the bottom of the list and reconsidered midyear to see if we might fit those in later in the year. Teaching/learning efforts such as math talk and math model making will be prioritized since those are valuable learning efforts that sometimes don't get the time they require during a typical year, but with the likely limitations the pandemic will bring to school year 2020-2021, these activities can be prioritized in valuable ways.

What processes will be used for decision making?

Decisions made with good process will result in the best decision making. It is important to involve multiple perspectives when it comes to these decisions. Inclusive process that regards the view point of all stakeholders will result in the best decisions.

Long Term Value

We have to see the pandemic for what it is which is a relatively short term event--we should not squander funds, but think deeply about what investments will support both the short term and long term goals. How can we make decisions that will profit our school community for the long run while facing and meeting the short term needs too?

In the system where I work, there's already been a lot of positive big picture thinking with respect to the 2020-2021 school year. As a teaching team at the fifth grade, we've already discussed our priorities and possibilities in this regard. We have an initial framework in place and look forward to focusing on the details as part of the greater teaching/learning team. Onward. 

Next School Year

Every Friday I like to organize my thoughts for the week ahead so that I can relax a bit over the weekend. We all know that teachers that are all work and no play are not as ready to teach well. So with this in mind, I want to express my overall plans for school year 2020-2021 so that when school ends next Wednesday, I'll be able to take a break, relax, and have some fun.

Safety
As with every year, safety will be a first priority with school year next year. To prepare, I've organized the classroom well for a safe set-up. I've also ordered new masks, and will work with colleagues to think about a list of safe share routines that we'll use for online and offline projects beginning at the start of the year.

Relationships
We'll use a Google form to collect important family/student/colleague contact information and preferences. Having that information handy from the start of the year really helps us to stay in touch with students, families, and colleagues from the start. We'll also update our website and continue our practice of weekly newsletters too. I want to talk with colleagues about our protocols for relationship building and communication because we know that good relationships lay the foundation for meaningful and successful learning.

We have to get to know one another in positive ways to build good relationships with students, and we'll likely start the school year with our traditional Three Words Project that is one way to get to know students well. We'll use other activities that build team and relationships too.

Learn the Tools and Protocols
The focus of the first days of learning will be to learn the main learning tools such as the class website, Google Classroom, Google apps, Screencastify, and more. Making the time to teach the tools well, sets student sup for terrific learning all year long. While students learn the tools, they'll make a TeamFive movie, set up digital portfolios, learn to make math models, write stories, choose digital books, and begin their book lists and reflections.

Special Projects and Events
We'll likely rethink the roll out of the year's activities to match the fall teaching/learning protocols and schedule. We have a great year of activities and learning goals. We'll likely teach the units that match limitations first and save the more active, collaborative learning experiences for later in the year.

Professional Learning
Over the summer, I'll use multiple sources to hone my skills related to multiple tech tools. I'll also dig into the book, White Fragility, and think about how I'll use that learning to update the teaching/learning year's efforts in order to create a more equitable, inclusive, and teaching/connected learning community.

Now it's time to stay the course for the final days of school, and then take a break to energize and ready for a positive teaching/learning year ahead.

How lesson planning has changed during the pandemic

I heard colleagues tell school committee members and district leadership about how much time it takes to plan lessons for remote learning and teaching. I was happy to hear them say that because I've experienced the same thing. Every lesson has to be rethought and revised for virtual learning.

For example, today I am teaching small groups of math students geometry. I am attempting to make every lesson an interactive, problem solving lesson that elicits math talk, model making, and knowledge/concept building. Yesterday, I rethought and revised lessons related to quadrilaterals. First, I reviewed the state standards that lie at the foundation of this learning/teaching:

Typically I teach these standards via a number of drawing lessons that I lead from the front of the room, but I don't have that luxury now so instead I considered the many ways I could teach this online. I opted to transfer the lesson to an interactive Google slideshow. To create the slideshow, I made it so that while students discuss the properties of quadrilaterals, I could act as their secretary typing in the the information. Later, students can move each shape into the right circle space in a Venn diagram as one way to classify, compare and contrast the figures. Later, students will have a chance to review the concepts and information on their own via watching a video and practicing drawing the figures online via GeoGebra or by hand. This lesson prep took about two hours by the time I considered how to teach it, created the materials, and linked the activities to the students' learning menu for easy access.

Many teachers are comparing this transition to being a first year teacher again. That's because a first year teacher has to put about an hour to two hours into every lesson and that's what we are doing now as we transfer our teaching to remote learning. For the previous lesson which focused on the properties of lines, I had to spend time researching geometry drawing tools. After searching for a few hours, I found GeoGebra and then I had to learn how to use the great tool. Learning new tools is part of the challenge here too.

I modeled drawing the figure above with GeoGebra as students drew their own similar figures at home. Then we looked for and identified line segments that are parallel, intersecting, and perpendicular. We discussed the fact that learning geometry, in part, is learning to see and discuss what you see. We also discussed the professions that rely on geometry. 

I think that this work we're doing to create a better blended learning environment will serve us well in the long run, but in the meantime, I want to advocate for educators to receive the time they need to make this transition successful. Good teaching will not be a matter of handing educators preprepared lessons, but instead a transition to helping educators develop the skills, knowledge, and mindsets they will need to use the best tools, plan optimal lessons, and teach well via remote learning as well as in real time.

Lessons from Remote Learning

As we engage in remote learning, there are lots of lessons to learn. I want to apply these lessons as we move ahead into 2020-2021 with flexibility and an open mind to what might be expected.

Explicit Teaching Matters
Most students simply don't understand how to do something without explicit practice and coaching. For example, I've noticed that some children did not really understand how to use the learning menus we have been using all year at school, but now that use of those menus is critical, it's clear that I could have done a better job explicitly teaching how to use those menus so that all children understood. Those that struggle definitely needed more time to practice and more coaching. I want to remember this as we embark on the use of those menus with new classes. The lesson for the year ahead is to move forward slowly with more explicit, step-by-step practice with an eye on the learning skills and attitudes we want to foster as well as the strong working relationships we want to build. 

Responsibility Matters
Students who were somewhat irresponsible when it came to having their supplies, completing their homework, and showing up for class on time are doing the same with online learning. In school, it was a bit easier to ignore that behavior, but with online learning this behavior is much more of a problem. This demonstrates to me that it's best to notice and work on irresponsibility right away--don't just let it continue. There are all kinds of positive ways to support and coach student responsibility and that coaching is integral to student success. Thinking about next year, it will be very important to convey upfront what it means to be a responsible student with regard to both virtual learning and real-time learning. We will have to prioritize what it looks like to be prepare for lessons, be on time, participate, advocate and practice. 

Deal with Issues Sooner than Later with the Whole Team
As in the two previous descriptions, issues that weren't as worrisome in real time are exaggerated during virtual school. Families who don't respond were worrisome at school, but even more worrisome during virtual teaching because we don't have the student contact. The same is true for student issues that you may have been worried about, but now seem greater since you can't provide the daily real-time interventions that seemed to be helping out. In some cases, I wish I had dealt with some of these issues in a bigger way when we were in real time school since I see how these issues are more problematic in challenging situations like this at-home learning time. With the future in mind, I believe we have to be more proactive about issues such as these. For example, we have to anticipate that some families may need greater support with child care, parent coaching, food access, and tech support. Rather than wait until these issues become a problem, preparing resource and support lists, sharing expectations for the year ahead, and establishing strong family-school teamwork from the start of the year will be essential. 

Always Think About What Works Best
In some cases, the at-home learning has been advantageous to students. Some who were challenged by small, crowded, noisy classrooms seem more relaxed and happy learning at home. Others who were always waiting their turn as quicker, more boisterous students spoke, now are getting more words in due to the virtual learning routines. The math talk, in some cases is deeper and more targeted, given the way virtual teaching conversations occur. I want to think about these positives too and how we might integrate them into real time school. Starting the year with an explicit focus on the primary skills, attitudes, expectations, and relationship building will be essential next year. Then once we spend the first six weeks focused on that learning, we can branch out to personalize the schedule more to meet the many varied needs and interests of the students at our grade-level.

Collaboration and Consideration are Essential
Starting with the essential components of the schedule, we will have to work together first to create a schedule. Aspects of the schedule that may work best include the following:

• Set times for faculty meetings, PLCs and student service meetings first.
• Teams work to set times for the kind of schedule they'll need to serve the needs of all students well. This schedule, coordinated with special educators, will include finding the right mix of grade-level meetings, homeroom meetings, small group teaching, and coaching sessions. 
• The roll-out of the curriculum will need to be planned perhaps front-loading the fall with the kinds of learning that can easily be done in a mix of at-home and at-school learning.

Realistic Expectations

My at-home learning/teaching schedule right now is a bit too intense and choppy. Thinking ahead, I want to think with colleagues about what the right mix of online student/colleague meetings, at-home practice, time for prep and student study review, and professional learning will be. If you make a schedule that's too intense, you'll burn out quickly, but if you make a schedule that's too sparse, you won't be meeting the needs and potential students hold for wonderful learning. 

Best Practices

I also want to think about best practices. As my colleagues and I forward many lessons, clearly some work better than others. Some aspects of online/real time teaching success include the following:

• Student at-home/in-school work station with markers, pencils, paper, a computer, headphones
• Teacher at-home/in-school work station with teaching materials, paper/pencil, tech tools, and more.
• Consistent, predictable weekly routine so students, families, and educators know what to expect.
• Consistent, predictable lesson routine including preparing, greeting, lesson introduction (make it sticky), discussion, practice, share. 
• Patterns for student practice whether it be at-home or in-school.
• Patterns for student study review and response. Feedback is essential to sustaining student motivation and development.
• Focus on units of study with varied learning experiences including online, offline, hands-on, paper/pencil, video, reading, collaboration, games, and more. 
• Setting goals that are motivating such as project celebrations, project share, environmental/community positive impact. . . . .
• Patterns, protocols for family-school connections--protocols that create strong ties yet set good boundaries work best
• Working as teams to maximize team members' strengths and needs.

There's always lessons to learn, and these are a few of the lessons to learn from remote learning. I'm sure that in time, I'll add more to this list.

Remote Teaching and Learning: What's Working

Remote teaching and learning for young children is not ideal, but it's what we have right now and we're making the best of it. The areas that are working include lots of personal, small group, and whole class coaching. We're working with families to help students meet standards-based learning goals in a number of meaningful ways.

Math Standards and Problem Solving
With a focus on math talk, reasoning, and problem solving, students are learning the standards that remain for the grade level. About 85% of students are regularly taking part in the online practice exercises and virtual small group math meetings. We're reaching out to the remaining 15% in a large number of positive ways to help them access the lessons and get more involved. We understand that some families are facing greater challenge than others during this time for all kinds of reasons.

Global Changemakers Project
It's an all hands on deck strategy to coach a number of small groups to complete this interdisciplinary project that includes independent reading, research, writing, and composition as well as small group meetings and a final digital project. This is a grade-level signature project that we've engaged in for years. Remote learning has created all kinds of project development to assist students' online research and project completion.

Homeroom Meetings
Each homeroom has a weekly meeting to touch base and share learning. This week's meetings will focus on the fifth grade play.

Fifth Grade Play
This has morphed into a virtual performance that will become a movie that includes a wide range of student talents and interests. The final product will entertain the entire school community.

Global Cardboard Challenge
The June focus will be the Global Cardboard Challenge with a focus on STEAM teaching and creativity.

Science and Social Studies
Via mainly videos and hands-on learning activities, students will explore science and social studies standards with family members as time permits.

Reading, Writing, and Creativity
Students are encouraged to keep up their reading, take part in a grade-level read aloud, and learn and share what interests them in a number of ways.

While not ideal, we'll stay the course through the next few weeks to help students meet the grade-level expectations and be ready for the Middle School years ahead. Onward.

Reflections on Virtual Math Teaching and Learning

One math group worked on the concept of equivalent fractions with the lesson above. Using Google tables has been helpful for these virtual lessons.

I am finding that teaching math online to be a positive intellectual challenge. To date, there has been some good movement ahead including the following:

• Creating a number of small teaching/learning groups from our 69 fifth graders.
• Offering each group two 45-minute virtual lessons a week.
• Creating an online menu that students can use to guide their meeting preparation, attendance, and practice/project work.
• Including special educators and teaching assistants in the meetings and working together to teach the lesson, monitor the chat, call on students, and respond to questions.
• Having students work with paper and pencil at home as they engage in the lesson.
• Focusing the lessons on making meaning with math talk, model making, and problem solving.
• Inviting students to attend as many extra meetings as they would like to gain greater repetition with learning specific skills and concepts.
• Utilizing the MA standards outlined as a framework for this teaching and learning.
• Opening up each session with a positive greeting and time for questions and ending the meetings with similar time for questions.
• Building each lesson on the learning that came beforehand.

There are still some challenges to meet including the following:

• Finding ways to engage the very small percentage of students who are not regularly taking part in virtual school. I have to think about this more and try out some other ideas. I'll work with my colleagues to figure this out.
• Creating more efficient patterns for monitoring students practice efforts. This week I started with a decision tree Google Form which, I believe, helped students to make good choices and be aware of what was expected. I may try that next week too. 
• Looking for ways to build the virtual lessons so that students are inspired to keep those lessons going via drawing, building, making, or exploring the concepts in interesting ways.

The plus side of virtual teaching and learning is the ability to focus in on students' math talk, problem solving, and questions with greater attention than in the busy, active classroom. The downside is fewer lessons and less ability to respond to questions and learning needs throughout the day and the reality that some families are better positioned to provide learning support than others for a wide range of reasons.

I'll continue to make the exploration of deeper and more meaningful math instruction as one motivating factor to propel me forward for the next eight weeks of virtual school. This is one way to maximize a silver lining of this stay-at-home time virtual learning event. Onward. 

Virtual Teaching: Eight Weeks Ahead

This is what the top of our weekly learning menu looks like. The banner is updated regularly to motivate students and keep them up to date with the learning and teaching. 

For the next 8.5 weeks I'll be in virtual teaching mode. What does this mean for my students and me?

Fortunately I work with a great team of teachers, and we've created a good weekly pattern for virtual teaching and learning. Essentially each week includes a number of small group and whole class meetings for each student as well as projects and practice related to the many subjects students study.

With regard to math, my goal is to engage each child in at least two 45-minute math lessons a week. The lessons will provide the foundation for the follow-up practice exercises and activities. If students want to attend more than two meetings a week, they are welcome to do that. The focus of the lessons will be math problem solving and math talk related to the standards set by the system and state.

I'll also coach a team of students as they study a global changemaker with depth. There are many educators involved in this interdisciplinary project that will result in some kind of special, virtual project that children can attend in their cars such as a drive-in show or watch with their family members in the comfort of their own home. Whatever the final project will be, it will be special.

As far as science, we're promoting a number of hands-on, Earth-friendly, hands-on explorations that students can do at home inside or outside to learn the standards set for fifth grade. For example, this week and next week, students will learn all about composting, and then their job is to make a composter for their home or yard.

As far as social studies goes, we've shared some movies and videos that help to teach the standards in engaging ways.

The key to keeping the students and families engaged is to stick to a pattern that's easy to follow and easy to respond to. The pattern is shared on a weekly menu that includes a news banner at the top of the page (see above). The news banner includes highlights of students' efforts plus links to engaging videos and other learning activities. We update the banner regularly.

Today was a good start to this eight-week leg of the year, and then we'll likely spend that last half week engaged in celebrations of one kind or another. We can do this.

School Days Spring 2020: Thinking Ahead

I love to combine physical work with good ideas and plans to think about. So today as I do the labor of making backyard and container gardens, I'll think about what needs to be completed to have a positive end to this school year and a positive start to the next school year.

Academic Progress and Growth
Our team will continue to promote positive academic progress and growth with two main focal areas including math achievement and the fifth grade signature biography project. The biography project includes reading, research, writing, and presentation. My colleagues have morphed the project to an online study event and our extended team of grade-level teachers will coach individuals and small groups ahead with this project. The other focus is math. Students have made terrific progress overall with math this year, and I'll focus on the areas left for deeper attention in the weeks ahead.

Closure
Fifth grade marks the final year of students' elementary years. The end of the year is marked by many special events. We'll likely hold on to some of these events whether school is open or not. Parents are busy working on yearbooks. I suspect we'll have some kind of car parade "clap-out" and a virtual fifth grade play/performance. I expect that parents may move the traditional pool party and picnic to late summer, if possible, to bring students together prior to their start at Middle School. Many people are involved in these decisions, but no matter what we do, we will certainly celebrate these wonderful fifth graders in unique and positive ways.

School Year 2020-2021
We'll have move-up day virtually or in person depending on state decisions made. I can imagine a virtual move-up day when fifth grade teachers meet with all upcoming fifth graders, and then move into Google Meet's new breakout rooms to talk to our homeroom students. We'll send a move-up letter with suggestions for summer study as well as an introduction to the fifth grade program.

Later in the summer, I'm sure that our teaching team will  meet on one or more occasions to discuss the year ahead. We had a great year this year, so I expect that we'll forward many of the same projects and activities that we included this year.

Classroom Set-Up
I left the room in fairly good order in March so I expect that I'll do some more work on the room at the end of the summer before the new school year starts. We'll have to think about how we'll help students retrieve their materials from this year. One idea I had was that students visit school one grade at a time at the end of the year if we don't return. That way we can say good-bye, play a game, clean up the room, and have some closure. That may be possible. Time will tell. If not possible, we'll probably have to invite fifth graders back at the end of August to retrieve their supplies and learning materials if they want.

This creates some structure for the thinking and doing in the days ahead. Onward.

Teaching Math Virtually

I've been teaching math virtually this week, and there is has been some true joy and positive challenge.

What's working?

Small Groups
We've divided our 69 fifth graders into about 8 small groups. Each group is scheduled to meet twice a week. The small groups really lend themselves to good math talk and learning. The group sizes vary and because we know the students well, we've been able to group the students in ways that lead to positive group dynamics.

The Welcome
As students enter the chat room, I greet them and we all talk a bit of topics such as cooking, playing outside, and other easy topics of interest. I make sure to make time for questions before we start.

Attendance
I take attendance for two reasons--one to see who showed up and also to make sure I say each person's name. I generally have them respond to a simple question such as what's your favorite number, color, food. . . .This provides simple recognition to all who are there.

Two or More Teachers
We have two or more educators in each small group session so that at least one educator can keep an eye on the students and the chat room while the other(s) one focuses on the lesson.

Lesson
The lesson is created on one Google doc and generally includes models, charts, and questions. The lesson is a scaffolded discussion. I use the same lesson with each group, but generally the lessons move in different directions or stop at different points along the scaffold depending on the group. Sometimes the lesson includes a game.

The challenge at hand is to better the virtual teaching by creating lessons that focus on the topics we want to cover that engage and involve all the students there, and ideally lessons that students want to replicate and continue on their own time.

This is a positive challenge for these COVID days. Onward.

What's the focus? COVID-19 Week of April 13, 2020

Similar to days at school, it takes self coaching, a positive outlook, and clear objectives to teach virtual school well.

Clear Objectives 
This week's virtual school teaching has a clear objective. I'll engage small groups of students in study related to many fifth grade measurement standards. The lessons are scaffolded so that small groups can take it as deep and high as they're able, but I won't rush the groups since the main focus is to get together to talk math and problem solve in meaningful, collaborative ways. In addition to the small group math meetings, students have a menu of math activities to complete. I'll check in on those efforts each day to see who is completing the assignments and who is not. At the end of the week, I'll reach out to families of students who are doing much less of the work than others to see what's going on and how I might help.

The objective of the homeroom meeting this week will be to check in on each other, exchange stories, and exchange titles of favorite movies. And the objective of the grade-level meeting will be to learn about the systemwide fifth grade signature project, the biography project. We've been doing this wonderful project for years, and this year it will go virtual, in part, or in entirety depending on how long we'll be out of school.

Our Professional Learning Community (PLC) will meet to discuss a myriad of issues related to upcoming virtual teaching/learning, student support, and typical school efforts and decisions for this time of the school year. The faculty meeting will likely inform us of upcoming efforts and areas of need or sensitivity. We'll likely discuss shared questions and efforts.

Positive Outlook
It is going to be a busy week of virtual meetings, and what is most important is that I have a positive outlook. Similar to school, I find that when I greet the children with a big smile and saying their name, their shoulders drop, they become more relaxed, and a positive exchange begins. To be able to exude that positive energy, similar to real-time school, I need to have a healthy routine and best possible energy. Virtual teaching and learning demands exceptional listening skills too, and this takes good energy, wait time, and attention.

Self Coaching
My self coaching will focus on staying the course with a positive daily routine that includes a healthy breakfast, attendance at a large group of virtual teaching/learning meetings, time to review students' daily learning efforts, and time to get outside, engage in home projects/chores, and healthy meals with my family. Good coaching for self or others demands best possible energy.

Not unlike the investment it takes to teach well at school each day, virtual school demands the very best of you. I'll give the week the best possible energy, and then the following week is a vacation so that will give me time to reflect on the week's efforts and better those efforts for the week after that. Onward.

Bring your value

Virtual school has realigned teaching teams in many ways. We had a good sense of place and what to do in the school community, and now that's been challenged. How do we transfer or revise our roles and efforts for virtual school, and how will that impact our teaching/learning in the days ahead?

Bring your value
The first priority to think about how you might bring your value to the new virtual school equation. Most of us have a good idea about what that value is within the real time school community, but what does that value look like in virtual school? For me, my value is the individual social-emotional attention I can bring to my homeroom students through virtual class meetings and online exchanges related to questions, encouragement, and information share. For my grade-level math students, my value is to bring those students engaging practice opportunities, meetings that bring us together to talk about and learn math, and personalized response with regard to review and response related to student learning efforts.

Make it count for today and into the future
I want my virtual school efforts to inform my real-time school efforts into the future. So I'm using this opportunity to dig into a number of fifth grade math concepts and think about how I might teach those concepts with greater depth and success in the future. I've created a number of math talk/problem solving opportunities for students that I'll be able to use now and into the future. I'm also trying to learn more about some of our online math programs so that I might use those programs well in the future to support students' math learning and proficiency.

Collaborate with colleagues
Our system administration is using this virtual school effort, in part, as a way to promote and strengthen teamwork. Educators are responding by setting up interdisciplinary and cross-school grade-level meetings to discuss curriculum initiatives and virtual teaching activities, goals, and challenges. Educators are also reaching out to one another to share learning activities, ask questions, and provide supports. I value the administration's focus on collaboration because I know that this COVID-19 event is hitting all of us in different ways and we need each other in order to provide the students with a holistic, positive, and helpful response.

Create a plan; bring some structure
I'm finding that it is critical to create some kind of structure for virtual school because if you don't, home becomes your work place alone or your work place is lost at home. During the next few days, our team will put together a schedule for the next couple of teaching weeks. After that, our efforts will depend on what state leaders decide with regard to reopening schools or continuing remote learning. Time will tell.

Virtual School Continues: April 3, 2020

Yesterday I experienced a huge dip with regard to "virtual school" since I received directives that were worrisome and burdensome. After hours of processing the information and trying to make sense of it all, I reached out to the administration with my worries. I received words of support which helped me to make sense of the directives putting me back on track to forge forward with "virtual school" which is the attempt to continue the 5th grade learning program online. I am relieved to be at this place, and will use next week's teacher preparation time to review and revise the process to meet students' interests and needs in an even better way. What will I do to prepare?

Analyze efforts to date
I will make time to analyze the students' virtual learning efforts to date by reviewing the many, varied study opportunities they chose and completed. This will inform next steps.

Virtual Lesson Planning
I will plan a number of "math talk/problem solving" lessons that help student to review information taught and begin to learn new information. I will also plan a number of virtual math game lessons. I tried both of these types of lessons out this week and they were well received. I'm looking forward to continuing this virtual study with students the week of April 13.

Virtual Learning Schedule
I will work with the many teachers on the grade-level team to put a schedule in place for student-centered virtual learning. For every meeting and lesson, we'll make sure there are at least two educators there. I hope that this schedule will last for several weeks rather than just one week. This will add structure to teachers' and students' days which is good.

Revise the Learning Menu
I will respond to the suggestions administrators made for updating the learning menu to provide an easy-to-follow math menu with daily assignments and choices.

Teacher Meetings
I'll plan to attend a large array of teacher meetings as one way to plan and prepare with the broader team to support our wonderful fifth grade students and their families at this time.

This will be a full week of work that will hopefully result in a positive teaching/learning plan for the weeks at home and, perhaps, weeks back in school in May and June. Time will tell. Thanks to all who supported me on yesterday's bumpy path. I'm on the other side and ready to go on Monday when "virtual school" resumes.

Virtual Teaching: The Days Ahead

We've made a good start to our virtual teaching/learning days. Now that we are headed into the second phase of this at-home school, what's on the agenda?

Continuation of the Virtual Learning Menu
Next week on Monday and Tuesday, students will continue working on their virtual learning menu. I'll use the time to analyze who has been doing what to inform the weeks ahead.

Teacher Preparation Days
The system has set aside next Wednesday and Thursday for teachers to gather virtually to discuss next steps for the virtual school menus we are offering at each grade level. I plan to listen carefully to the many ideas shared and incorporate the overall focus and identified objectives/plans into the curriculum for the week after that. I expect that these plans will include a return to virtual math talk meetings and one class meeting a week.

Easter Holiday and Family Celebrations
We'll likely plan some virtual celebrations with creativity to celebrate the holidays and support one another.

Virtual Teaching/Learning
Then on the week of April 13, we'll return to the virtual world of teaching and learning. Onward.

Teaching Virtually: What's on the Learning Menu, April 2, 2020

Today's schedule includes virtual teaching, meeting, meeting, virtual teaching, meeting, virtual teaching, planning, prep, and response. It will be a busy day. Fortunately, my muse, the children, will energize me throughout the day with their bright minded questions, participation, and ideas.

One challenge of the virtual teaching/learning time is coordination. An NPR piece once described schools as "little cities." I think this is a good description because schools do act like small cities since schools are densely populated with a large variety of services at play. To transfer that busyness and great amount of varied services to the virtual world is no simple task. The reality is that we cannot transfer all that we do in real time online, but we are attempting to transfer the services and objectives that support students social-emotional learning as well as deepen their academic skills, concept, and knowledge.

The objectives of today's work include the following:

Small Math Meetings
The goal of the small math meetings is to solve multi-step math problems via collective conversation, model making, and numerical expressions and reasoning. Basically a small group of students and teachers gather to talk and do math.

Team Meeting
Our grade level team will meet to draft our weekly newsletter and plan the virtual week of teaching and learning ahead.

Class Meeting
One student will lead our virtual class meeting and each child will bring a mystery object to the meeting. Each child will read through clues about the mystery object and then another student will guess what that is. One child requested this activity months ago, and it's good to know that we finally have time to partake in this enjoyable, community building activity.

Math Meeting
A few math teachers, the math coach, and a school administrator will meet to discuss the 5th to 6th grade math transition process. We will have to alter the process somewhat due to this lengthy time at home and the cancellation of a number of typical math assessments, lessons, and discussions.

I'm sure that I'll be ready for a nice lunch at 2pm after this long day of back-to-back teaching and meeting sessions is over. The goal is to stay focused and positive as we make the best of these unusual stay-at-home days. I'm fortunate to be able to meet these days with health so far and the tools and ability to follow through with these tasks. Onward.

How to run a virtual math talk

I created this virtual "white board" using a Google doc. I created the fractions, then screenshot each one and inserted the in the document which allows me to click and move them around. I used the table feature to make matching fraction bars. Students were able to access the document and together we matched fractions to the correct models, and after that matched other equivalent fractions. 

For the past ten days or so, I have been learning to prepare and lead a virtual math talk. I offer what I've learned for any of you who are trying to do the same. I also welcome your suggestions, questions, and idea.

Choosing the topic
I have looked to multi-step MCAS problems, YouCubed activities, NCTM games, and multiple projects and math activities from the past to choose topics. Since my students were engaged in fraction study when school ended, I have chosen to focus all activities on fraction study.

Small Group Lessons

Google table is a great tool for making math models. This
model shows that 2/3 of the floor is a red and white
carpet that equals 9 square feet. Each cell equals
a 1/4 square foot area. 

At the advice of a parent, I've made these small-group lessons with 8-12 students in each lesson. I have grouped the students in multiple ways including similar skills, differentiated skills, availability, ability to use tech tools and more. I am experimenting with lots of different groups structures to see what works best.

I was able to use Google draw to show how we
"scoop count" to figure out the perimeter. We also
discussed how to use equations to figure out
the perimeter. 

Preparing the Lesson
I have set up each lesson on a Google doc or Google presentation. I found ways to make those documents and presentations interactive so that when I open up the share and editing privileges, students can partake in the lesson too. I use Google draw function when working on those Google "white boards" to demonstrate the lesson content, skill, and knowledge.

Each lesson includes models, numerical expressions, algebraic expressions, real world context, and extensions for children who want to continue the learning.

Two Teachers at Every Lesson
Typically each lesson has two educators--myself, the classroom teacher, and a teaching assistant, special educator, or another teacher. This is very helpful because the second teacher can monitor the chat, students involvement, and how the lesson is going. I recommend this.

Communicating the Lesson to Students
Our team has set up a virtual menu that students consult for their daily study. On the top of the chart we have a schedule. In the schedule, we list the links to Google Meetings as well as the lesson links. To prepare for the lesson, students open up the lesson link and look over the lesson. If possible, when interacting with the lesson students have two windows open--one is the lesson and one is the Google Meet.

The schedule looks like this. Students simply click Google Meet links and lesson links to take part in the lessons. 

Lesson Order

1. I welcome students and ask if they have any questions.
2. I remind students to have paper, pencils, and something to color with available.
3. I ask students to have both the lesson screen and the Google Meet screen open at the same time if possible.
4. I take attendance, by saying each name. Sometimes I list the names in a table and ask them their favorite color during the roll call and color in their name cell with their favorite color. 
5. Then I introduce the lesson problem. It is a back-and-forth between the teachers and students after that as we discuss and solve each part of the multi-step problem or learning sequence. 
6. Upon the completion of the lesson, I introduce the optional extension and make time for student questions.
7. I end the lesson with positive statements about students' learning. 
8. I ask all students to log off, and then I spend a few  minutes at the end of the lesson reviewing what worked and what could be better next time with the collaborating teacher. 

Problem Areas

1. I am contacting families of students who are not attending the meetings to try to figure out why. So far that has been helpful and I have been able to get reluctant students to enter the meetings.
2. I am finding better ways to engage the students in the lessons by reflecting on each lesson.
3. Each lesson is 45-minutes long which seems just right for fifth graders. I try to plan the lessons so that I have a good amount of time between each lesson to review the lesson and do other follow-up/prep work. It takes about an hour to prepare for each lesson now as I get used to this venue. 

Positivity

We have had some great math talks. It is difficult to have talks like these in class since my class is typically filled with lots of students so this has been a positive aspect of the virtual math talks. Of course, a difficult part of this has been the fact that the virtual classroom is not as easy or rich as the real classroom with all the learning tools we typically have. 

I welcome your questions and suggestions as I move on with this. Trying out these virtual lessons has been both challenging and rewarding. I am learning a lot and hopefully the students are learning too. Onward. 

COVID-19: Teaching/Learning Ahead, April1, 2020

We will spend the entire month of April at home. There is a chance that we will go back to school in May--time will tell.

In the meantime, and similar to real time school days, I have to bring some shape to this at-home, virtual teaching and learning. What does that mean?

Monitoring Students' At-Home Practice
Students are working at home on three main online venues including Symphony Math, IXL, and Khan Academy. The job is to complete Symphony Math first - about 2/3 of the students have done this and 1/3 are close. The next job is to choose to master either IXL or Khan Academy. After that,  students may choose to master the platform they did not master or go on to sixth grade Khan Academy. In the days ahead, I will carefully review students' efforts in this realm and then use that information to alert their families of students' progress, and encourage students with messages about specific next steps. Overall students are doing a great job at this.

Monitoring Deeper Learning Tasks
Students also have a menu of deeper learning tasks including online Google Form practice tests and tests as well as a number of hands-on projects that have a range of completion choices. I will create a grid to check off who has done what with regard to these tasks. Then I will use that information to decide how to move forward with the deeper learning task menu. The goal is to continue to support students' deeper learning in engaging, meaningful, student-centered ways.

Math Assessment
I am going to ask students to take a formative assessment at home if possible. I would like to see what the results of that assessment show me, and will use that information to inform future virtual math meetings and math support.

Virtual Math Meetings
Overall the initial virtual math meetings have been successful. I will analyze who attended, who did not attend, and then use the information from the at-home practice, deeper learning task, and student assessment to decide how to move forward with these groups with the focus on engagement, meaning, and joy--I want these math meetings to foster math talk to inspire students to continue their math study in ways that creatively relate to the real world.

May Math
No matter whether we go back to school or not, I will use the collection of April efforts, connections, and observations to inform May math study with the goal of helping every student reach mastery with fifth grade standards in engaging, meaningful ways. This is a positive framework to follow in the days ahead.

Today's Main Events

8:00 Virtual Math Talk with small group of students: Fraction, Mixed # Addition & Subtraction
10:00 Two Truths and a Lie Game and Class Meeting with my Homeroom
11:00-12:00 Lesson planning, response
12:00 Lunch break
1:00 Virtual Math Talk with small group of students: Fraction Values
Late afternoon: touch base with family members, prepare dinner, engage in some entertainment i.e. games, reading, genealogy research, movies. . . . .