Day 11

 Day 11 Fixing Up Assessment

I did the comment only grading over the weekend. Handed it back and asked them to fix what I had noted.

I had mixed results with this and I think it was because along with the comments I included a grade for each of the four sections of the test. This caused some students to say, “I’m OK with that grade,” and not address the comments that I had made. 

This makes me reflect on a conversation that I have been having with Kaileen and other school leaders about whether students in the 14-18 age range can conceptualize the idea that practice is important and that they need to work on reacting to feedback. That is the real world skill they will need.

Day 10

 Day 10 Sept. 27, 2023 Assessment Day

This was assessment day. They don’t call it a test anymore. As I passed out the test I realized that I hadn’t given a test to a group of my own students since the 2011-2012 school year. When I taught in 2020-2021 it was the pandemic so the experience was completely alien. There weren’t traditional tests that year because it made no sense.

It made no sense on a human level. Putting kids who are in a daily state of low level panic through a test—whether timed or not. 

It also gave us the freedom to stop giving tests. With the upheaval of how we were even getting kids into the school parents did not care at all if their students were taking tests or not.

Day 9

 Day 9

One unexpected aspect of a return to teaching is doors. I’m not exactly sure why we are so assiduous about locking doors in the science wing but every door is locked and closed all of the time. It could be due to some bad break ins that the school had back in 2018-2019 or it could be pandemic related but I don’t know.

For someone coming from a more office-like environment the amount of doors to unlock and go through really threw me off for the first couple of days. It was accentuated by the temperatures and the gross sweatiness of my hands trying to extract my keys from my pockets. But on the way to get in the building I swipe my key card. Use key to open classroom door, key for copy room door, key open storage room, key open adjoining storage room, key open chemical storage room, key open the other classroom, I teach in, then key open the door inside of that classroom to get other materials, go back to the classroom where I teach first and key open that door.

This repeats throughout the day.

Day 8

 Day 8 September 23, 2023

Plate tectonics day and more with S and P waves. I led the students through the plate tectonics questionnaire from the book I used and then I had them get the same information from a 20 minute video that I was hoping would be a good double up. But it was way too hard and I think it just led to confusion.

In my period 7 class there are two students who can’t read beyond grade 2. I worked to organize the rolling cart.

Day 4-7

 So I know I shouldn't start sentence with that but so far this week I've been struggling with classroom management. I've been going back and forth with loose and tight in terms of teaching the students.

 I did something with period 3 and it worked perfectly and then I did the same thing with period 7 and they were all over the place specifically I said I was creating classroom guidelines I really don't want to micromanage going to the bathroom and with. three I said that exact same thing I don't want to micromanage going to the bathroom you shouldn't be needing to go to the bathroom every time or several times during a class and period 3 was able to manage that

I gave the exact same directions. Period 7 and they were unable to manage it. I had multiple students trying to leave and at one point there were seven students out at the bathroom. and as Educators we know they were not out at the bathroom even if they were. hopefully they were not leaving but they were just needed to take a walk.

 Another thing that I've been experiencing is the balance of how much I describe exactly what students need to do and how much I've let them explore what they need to do.

Today I was teaching and I knew it was something really hard like Milankovitch Cycles and then there had to be a lot of talking from the front of the room. I tried to mix it up by using really short videos and then coming in and explain things myself and I'm talking in 2 minutes videos where I would stop at and then I draw on the board. then I would ask them to look at what I was asking them in terms of an assessment and it was just really hard. new line new line

We also talked this morning about an assessment. The current assessment has some matching questions and then some open-ended questions. I can tell you I am completely torn about what to do about Completely torn about what to do about an end of unit assessment. I was brought up on the old fashioned test I totally understand why we have transitioned away from it there are times when I just want to get information about how each student is doing so I have actually thought of as sort of old-fashioned test with multiple choice questions short answer and longer answer at the end I'm not sure what to do about this but it is what I thought about because I want to gather what students know

Day 3

 So hot. Classroom temperature was 85 F.

I finally slowed down a little bit – both because of the temperature – and because I was so nervous I was going too fast.

I started class with a problem solving puzzle – the one where there are a bunch of triangles shown and you ask students to ID how many triangles there are. The challenge being that students need to see that there are triangles within triangles. I wasn’t sure if it would work but it led to a great discussion. I had all the students stand and then have them sit based on how many triangles they saw. I was surprised at how engaged they were.

I dug deep on Friday night into the IEPs, 504s, and just what I could find out about each kid. I combined it with what I had seen so far in class and created a seating chart for each class.

Day 1

 30 August 2023

I was moving in slow motion. Everything I was trying to do was taking four times longer than it normally would have. I was trying to cut up poster board to create 4 inch by 8 inch cards that students could turn into name tents for their desks. Not only was it taking me a long time to use the paper cutter but I was creating all kinds of waste. I couldn’t do the simple math even though the paper cutter had that little ruler that comes on all paper cutters. I finally had a pile of what I hoped was 50 cards but I had an even bigger pile of waste to take with me.

I had been so nervous the night before. My first day returning to teaching was complicated by the fact that my middle child a daughter age 13 was returning to school in 8th grade after a long absence due to a mental health issue so I could not arrive on time for my very first day returning to teaching

I had prepared as much as I could in terms of getting ready for the first day and I had talked to colleagues about what they were imagining doing on the first day. But I was still really nervous when the hour of 9:15 arrived and students started arriving for what was their second period of the day and my first period teaching. things were going well. I had planned things out. I had something on the board projected directing them to pick up things in the back of the room that we're going to be part of what they needed to do for the day. but little by little I noticed that more students were arriving first there were 24 which is what I expected and then others began to arrive I knew that sometimes classes or students needed to be added to classes at the last minute so I thought okay maybe instead of 24 I'll have 27 but the students kept coming and I ran out of stools at the lab benches and I finally did a finger count on my own and there were 32 students in the room

I didn't totally panic but I went next door to the department head and told her what was going on. She is suggested maybe they're in the wrong place and then I said okay let me take a 10 minutes and it's sort of shock to me out of my insanity. so I went back to the class I took a ten minutes and then said those of you who I didn't name your name come on up I finally realized they were supposed to be in a nearby classroom. 

Period three was scheduled for 90 minutes but there was an assembly that was going to happen I nervously work through some of the things I wanted to do. I was later told by my daughter who was a friend with one of the students in the class that I had accidentally called a student Lily when she actually goes by Libby. I did not even realize this I don't remember doing it I fully know that her name is Libby but I am also sure that it happened.

Introduction to The Return Book

Humanity is at a low point. We can’t stop killing each other over arguments.

Bonobos are a matriarchal society who are friendly to each other and to strangers.

Chimpanzees brutalize all of the females in their group and hold grudges across generations.

So I've been thinking about how I could begin this and I keep thinking back to my experience over the last many years I guess since 2017-18 was the last completely good school year where I felt like I don't know what my next steps were but I was on a pretty good path and then of course we celebrated Heidi's Teacher of the Year Award with a trip to the college football final in January of 2019 and it was really at that point where things began to accumulate in a way that began my reflection on what was happening with Humanity. and I know that sounds too grandiose for what I was doing which was being an assistant principal of a high school but if you think back to when President Obama was elected and what students were like in the years from 2008 to 2016 it seemed like there was a general positivity about the world that might be possible. 

 

Now I know of course that horrible things were still happening drone strikes and things like that and even worse. And the proud boys were gaining prominence and people who felt comfortable speaking as racists became more comfortable. But it felt relatively okay and my personal life and my work life felt okay. My kids were young and they were growing. Things were wonderful. Overall it seemed like my life and the world were going in a generally positive direction.

But a lot of things were happening at the end of the 2018-2019 school year there was a Concord High School teacher who had raped a 12 year old and he was getting arrested. but then that summer all public anger turned on a wonderful man named Tom Sica and he was eventually fired. It was as though the public turned their anger not on the rapist but on a wonderful man who had no way of knowing what the criminal could have been doing because the criminal was a psychopath and a psychopath is effective at covering up what they're doing. 

At the same time the public seem to be having an ever-increasing difficulty with their role in public education. The days of parents trusting and administrators were long gone but the ability of them to completely go against teachers and administrators and give them no respect were fully upon us by that point. Over the course of the spring of 2019 on the fall of 2019 I was accused of being an anti-semite, a misogynist, a friend of the teacher rapist and someone who would have defended Owen LaBrie who was a Saint Paul student who forced himself on a 9th grade student when he was a senior. 

 

In the world at large I saw more Confederate flags flying than I ever had before and I don't mean belt buckles and stickers I mean people who had a flagpole in their front yard and had a Confederate flag on it most of these weren't in New Hampshire but seen them as I drove around upstate New York certainly concerned of me. I even saw someone wearing a hat that said 6 million wasn't enough in reference to 6 million Jews being killed in the Holocaust wasn't enough.

Then when the pandemic arrived and we of course could have come together as people we immediately once again And couldn't agree on science. and I'm not saying that we should blindly follow science but the fact that science is something of value and that science is a process was disturbing to see. and it was disturbing to see people not wear masks and not come together and yell at each other. and I suppose the part 

that is making me feel

The worst aspects of humanity have been on display in Gaza over the last few months. As part of that attack human beings killed babies raped women shot women in their vaginas with guns and kidnap people refusing to release them. I think also it's part of getting older I turn 50 last year and knowing that they're only so many more years and thinking that I've taught about climate change for nearly 25 years and I don't know how much change is happening one begins to wonder did they have any effect and so they're certainly points where I get low thinking about humanity and are we going to make it as a species.

Those are the kind of things I've been thinking about over the last several years and to be honest my professional career has been a little odd over those years I moved away from being assistant principal of a high school and into a teaching job that I moved to be in a central office job for 2 years and now I'm in a quasi teaching / central office job.

But the big difference this year—and why I wanted to write about my experience this year—is for the first time since 2012 I'm a classroom teacher in the traditional sense I'm not a pandemic classroom teacher I'm a regular classroom teacher with 24 students that show up every other day and I need to show up for that so I thought that I would write a little reflection every day about how the year is going. and at this point I have about 41 days of reflection so I want to start putting them out.

 What did I accomplish this summer?

Speech to text – not yet edited

This week I performed a humbling task of asking if I could get paid a little bit more for my summer work. I was supposed to work 15 summer days and I've already work close to 30. 

 but that isn't the point of this little article. the point is that when I look back at what I've done this summer there are many days where I know that I worked all day but I can't specifically describe exactly what I accomplished. and it was at that moment that I thought of the idea of a reporter a reporter on some sort of assignment where they have to collect a lot of information before they can eventually write a story.

 in the movie spotlight Michael Keaton's character explains to the new editor that they spend a lot of time looking around for stories and often will take months or years to develop a story That's how I feel about my summer there are lots of days where I was just searching around to figure out what I knew and what I didn't know and how it can make things work and at the end of all my work there will be a one-page report card that we're calling a progress report. there will be a way to enter Behavior information. and there will be a way to analyze data.

 but in the case especially over the report card it is very similar to working for a long time on an article eventually it will go out to about 1500 students each of whom will receive all progress report and that progress report will be one to two pages long and it will be useful to them and to their family but the idea that I have spent most of the summer working to make that happen is well I don't know what it is.

 PowerSchool – a Model of How Not do do PD

Speech to text no editing.

In my more than 10 years working with PowerSchool I have referenced that the training that is given even at the highest level at PowerSchool University can most charitably be described as similar to explaining how the New York Times newspaper works by saying this is the header this is the part where news goes if you turn to page two this is where we put this on the last page we put weather all the pages in between we fill with blah blah blah whatever now you understand the New York Times right?

 or another example of I used is if you bought a brand new John Deere tractor and they the seller brought you out to the Tractor and without letting you ever touch the tractor said and describe what every single part of the tractor did. and then said now you have been trained on the tractor. you've never been able to practice using the tractor you have no guidance on how to use the tractor and you may have never used other tractors in the past. you politely ask as I start to use the tractor am I allowed to ask questions. no, the training is over now 

I have no idea why I remain hopeful that training related to anything power school can be helpful I remember going on a trip with my wife to PowerSchool University in the year 2012 Summer of 2012 and I booked several meetings with individuals because I wanted individual help about how to use our PowerSchool system with hours our dude and when I went to these individualized meetings they said well no go to this training go to that training. and then when I went to those trainings they explain how every single button worked every single click work but they never explained how do you do it for your school.

 so today I do not know why I was surprised to go to yet another PowerSchool related training that was booked for 2 hours on using a behavior plugin and even though it was from Marcia Brenner Associates the trainer used the exact same Power School model that I have been bludgeoned with for now a decade. I happen to look down at one point and it was 41 minutes into the 2-hour training and he was still telling us about how each button worked on the setup.

 I asked a question at about an hour and 20 minutes and said will we see what it looks like for the teacher and I had to log off at exactly 2 hours and I had never yet seen what it would look like for a teacher to enter discipline.

 this seems to me to be something broken within PowerSchool and all of the little satellites the remora fish that feed off of PowerSchool that they somehow lose sight that it isn't administrators who need to understand PowerSchool. administrators do technical operatives do they need to set it up but to always save the user experience the teacher experience until the very end of every training or to not get to it is infuriating.

 another fun part of this training is that I made the mistake of not asking the gentleman for his email. during the training he repeatedly said let me know if you have questions but then when I went back to his email inviting me to the training it was one of those do not reply so I don't know his email. I am 100% certain that if I had asked him for his email he would have given it and I'm 100% certain that he would have responded if I had emailed him but that's not how PowerSchool the system is set up it is not set up to be helpful to the end user 

The Fish

 The Fish

I'm at my desk and looking at this beautiful purple fish made from a 3D printer. I actually have three versions: the Prototype that my daughter made, the second prototype and finally the one that worked. The purple fish is a flat piece of plastic that allows you to wrap old fashioned headphone cords and keep them organized. I asked my daughter who was in 9th grade in the year 2022 as part of her participation in a tech class to maybe make them for me if she had time.

Looking at them now almost brings me to tears because I didn't realize how long it would take her to make them and I only learned after the fact how much effort she had put into making them. 

As our kids get older and I know they won't care about us as much I feel like this was one of the last times that she really did something for her daddy knowing that she could say no but choosing to not. I feel like an important part of growing up is the fact that if I ask her this when she's an 11th grade she'll say I have other priorities and I will totally think that's awesome and I will totally respect her for prioritizing what she needs to do. do my new line the reason that this purple fish nearly brings me to tears is it seems like it is a bridge between my beautiful little daughter Amelia and the young woman that she's becoming.

Standards Report Cards

A long article about education and assessment in math.

http://www.maa.org/saum/articles/wigginsbiotwocol.htm

Grading Discussion in Science from 2008

Grading System Discussion

I think we as a science department should be on the leading edge of this conversation about how we grade. We are in a unique position because by our training we have both the conceptual and mathematical skills to understand grading well. As I listened to conversations on Thursday I realized that many of the statements people were making were simply bad math. Truly just gut feelings draped over a poor understanding of math. And I don’t want to beat up on anyone here—I hope that we can lead on this issue by finding gentle ways to explain how the mathematics of grading work. In addition I think that we can influence the discussion, not to change all grading, but to reexamine why we grade.

Goals:
Review the research on grading (both assessment and evaluation).
Engage in professional conversation to understand the purpose of grading.
Make decisions on a grading system that is “tight” enough to make student and parent understanding easy and “loose” enough to allow flexibility for individual teachers.

Marzano’s Complete Scale Adapted from 0-4 to 1-5
Traditional Grade Conversion (Recommended by Marzano)
I have tried here to faithfully represent Bob Marzano’s recommendations from his books and from a recent conference. He very much approves of the complete scale (see his book Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work) but realizes that in the real world conversions need to be made. So when pushed he said you could convert to the A, B, C type grades. He was even more reluctant to convert further to percentages grades (because his whole approach circles around the idea that 101 categories is not the way to go) but when asked he advised a conversion that included standard intervals.

The second table is one possible way of grading in a competency system. (My idea.) INC until competency is met. The INCs however would only appear at the end of a marking period. Up until then students would see their point scores—so they could keep track of where they were. Point Conversion (reluctantly recommended by Marzano)
5.0
A+
100
4.5
A
95
4.0
B+
89
3.5
B
85
3.0
C+
79
2.5
C
75
2.0
D+
69
1.5
D
65
1.0
F
55

Marzano’s Complete Scale Adapted from 0-4 to 1-5
Traditional Grade Conversion (Recommended by Marzano)
Point Conversion (reluctantly recommended by Marzano)
5.0
A+
100
4.5
A
95
4.0
B+
89
3.5
B
85
3.0
C+
79
2.5
INC
INC
2.0
INC
INC
1.5
INC
INC
1.0
INC
INC

To be clear Marzano’s complete scale does include 9 categories. But just because you are seeing .5s it does not mean that there are other decimals available. In his system there are only 9 categories. His book enumerates each category and the simplicity is that all rubrics can be built from this system.

An Example of Understanding

From 2009. I wonder why I never finished this. It is a pretty good start.

I haven't done a very good job this year of explaining to teachers what real understanding is. With all kinds of distractions professional and personal I haven't done as a good a job teaching my adult students as my teenage students. So here is an example of the true meaning of understanding and what it means.

Let's begin with Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe's premise of a heiracrchy starting at the bottom with acquire and moving from there to meaning making and eventually to transfer.

Acquire--B is not D, kicking a soccer ball is best done not with the toe but with the instep.

Meaning Making--putting letters together into words, many combinations are available, rules change, the instep isn't always the best way to kick the ball.

Transfer--all of those letters can make thousands of words and they can be combined in innumerable ways, knowing all the shots in soccer doesn't necessarily equal a soccer star.

But let's look at an example that might be more helpful. Consider how you learned history. Even if you were in one of those progressive schools think about "traditionally taught" American history.

When you have hit the point of acquisition you know things like:

• Washington never told a lie and cut down the cherry tree.


• Lincoln freed the slaves and was assassinated.


• Jefferson was a great man that lived at Monticello, was a great president and a great Virginian.


• Going to moon was all about going to the moon.


• Dropping the atomic bomb on Japan saved lives and ended a terrible war quickly.

Meaning making

Education and Science from 2008 Never Published

The whole purpose of these posts is to talk about science and education so the week in politics makes for a convenient chance to talk about both.

I'm no fan of No Child Left Behind. But if you try to take the glass if half full approach the program/policy did shine a light on the fact that is is embarassing if all white kids are doing well and all of your poor black kids aren't. The penalties and labels that get associated with schools, in my view, don't help the sitution but helping those students that are already facing and uphill road is a great goal.

That's why I was so happy to read the following quote in Paul Tough's book about Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone.

"The philosophy behind the project is simple. If poverty is a disease that infects and entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we cuan't just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works."

Obama also is quoted in the book as saying, "the first part of my plan to combat urban poverty will be to replicate the Harlem Children's Zone in twenty cities across the country. We'll train staff, we'll have them draw up detaild plans with attainable goals, and the federal government will provide half of the funding for each city, with the rest coming from philathropies and businesses."

And Geoffrey Canada himself said, "If the stars align, there could be a real conversation developing in America about a new strategy on poverty. If it happens, I think it would give Americans a belief again that not only can you do someting, but we should do something--that there's a self-interest involved in helping these kids. In the end, it's going to make America a stronger country."

NCLB pointed out and highlighted the problem. Canada and hopefully Obama are talking about a soultion. I hope for the best.

Science

With the appointment of Steven Chu Obama immediately separated himself from 8 years of terrible behavior toward scientists. And his recent quotes seem to support these views:

He says, "that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology." And he has pledged to do what our scientists have to say even when its inconvenient--especially when its inconvenient.

Timeline of a Job I didn't get

January 2010
My wife saw an ad on EdJobs NH for a position at Souhegan High School. They requested a new Dean of Faculty who could help them continue their mission. They asked for all the traditional things but also a values statement and most interesting--a document explaining how the candidates strengths met the Souhegan mission. It was the most interesting job posting I had seen and the only one in 10 years that I was even mildly interested in.

My mantra throughout my Concord career has been that I would like to advance but I would also very much like to stay in Concord. My wife grew up near Concord, we go to church in Concord, we would like our kids to be educated in Concord. We are currently moving to Concord from nearby Barnstead. So even though the Souhegan opening was interesting I left it alone.

The Non Snow Day Snow Day
In February there was a snow day where it didn't actually snow. This was the day my annual review was scheduled so I decided to drive to town for it. I had worked really hard during the year and my hope was that my assessment job could be turned into a full time one rather than a part time one. The review of my performance was good but there was no way the job could become a full time one.

At this point I began to consider the Souhegan position. I was committed to staying in Concord but I was also interested in obtaining a full time position. I like working all year round. I enjoy using the summer, time off from students to consider how to to help them in a more effective way. Just like

From 2011 on Khan

All,

For the last 2 weeks I have been investigating the Khan Academy. They offer online mini lessons on tons of concepts in math and science. Kim Marshall in his weekly memo brought this to my attention.

Sal Khan, the creator, originally began making videos to help his cousins. The videos were so popular that he eventually gave up his job and formed a non-profit company to work on these videos full time. At this point there are over 2100 videos. Khan's thought is that providing traditional lecture material online allows students to go at their own pace. His model actually turns education all around and posits that students would watch the lectures for homework and then come to school and do what used to be called homework. He is also very interested in the idea of pacing. Students working at their own pace is a key to his ideas about education.

In some circles Khan and his academy have been criticized because they don't teach critical thinking and problem solving. The videos focus more on the acquisition of knowledge than on the transfer of it. But Khan doesn't claim that his videos do any more than that. His hope is that the videos will allow more time for teachers to teach problem solving and critical thinking.

I'm still not sure how I will use these in my own teaching. But at this point I feel like it is worth all of us taking a look at.

`1

Link to the materials.

TED video of Khan presenting his work

Enjoy the weekend,

Tom

I must respond--Competencies

Much to say this week. Here is the first commentary on Competencies. There was an episode of Laura Knoy's The Exchange on NHPR. Here is the link so you can listen for yourself.

Very old. 2009. Could turn into something. 

http://www.nhpr.org/node/27325

One comment:
Competency Based Ed is a new name for Outcome Based Ed. Google Peg Luksik/ you tube/ and she will explain what OBE is all about. It's snake oil folks.

No, wrong. Outcome based education was an excellent idea that we implemented in a poor way. Outcomes were excellent ideas. Measuring how students get to outcomes was not done well. In the outcome based education model a student was told that they met the outcome if they answered a certain %age of questions correctly. This is not understanding.

Competencies are an advancement of outcomes because it means that students must prove that they know a certain amount of material.

In the program Knoy asked if there would be 22 students requesting to do civics a different way. This is NOT what is going on.

Brennan makes sense.

Khan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk

The Khan school has been getting some good and bad press. The positives:

--homework is watch the videos.

--classwork is the old homework.

start with the building blocks

learn math the way you learn anything. do it as long as it takes until you get to mastery

everything that can be taught in this type of a framework--this is key--he is not claiming critical thinking.

red blue green

time--did we benefit because we are fast

His argument is that using Khan Academy frees up time for the teachers to teach the critical thinking--he is clear that his system can only do certain things.

--

Interview

An old one from 2011. Partially done.

I had the chance to interview for the Assistant Principal job at Concord High School the other day. It was a short interview and I was over-prepared. So I wanted to lay out why I think I would be helpful to CHS.

Overall Focus--Student Learning

• Curriculum--I feel that we need to make sure to continue (as a school) to focus on competencies and to focus revising and refining the existing competencies. And where possible we need to examine how we can do this in a collaborative way.
  
• Instruction--The teachers at CHS are excellent but there are always new strategies to consider and especially new ways of planning instruction in teacher groups. It is also has become more and more important to be clear about the goals. Real world skills are being stressed more and more by teachers and politicians and other leaders.
  
• Assessment--How can we increase student assessment of their own work? Not evaluation (grading) but creating a system where students regularly look at the work that they have created and compare it to the goal. When a person is working on re-doing a roof they should regularly look at other roofs that are well installed. Or when working on a writing sample writers might look at exceptional writing samples.
  
• Climate and Culture
• Administration and Support