This is my monthly "Day in the Life" post for September, since today is the seventeenth. It is a Saturday -- one of two months this school year when the 17th falls on the weekend. (Here Day 28 refers to this upcoming Monday, since my next post after today isn't until Tuesday.) And there are plenty of things to discuss and reflect upon today, despite it being the weekend.
First of all, we've definitely entered DEVOLSON -- the "Dark Evil Vortex of Late September, October, and November" as defined at the following link:
https://www.weareteachers.com/5-ways-of-coping-with-devolson-the-dark-evil-vortex-of-late-september-october-and-november/
(Kelly Treleaven is the creator of the term.) At my school, there are no more days off for teachers until Veteran's Day, although there will be a student-free day for professional development in October. So while outside of school, this time of year is associated with the NFL, playoff baseball, pumpkin spice, and Halloween, for teachers this time of year is a vortex.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking ahead to progress reports. Last year on the other blog, I mentioned how this is one of a growing number of districts where the semester is divided into thirds, with progress reports given one-third and two-thirds of the way through the semester. Theoretically, the progress report days should be on Days 30 and 60, but in reality they are slightly later in the 30's and 60's. (Last year, my magnet only had progress reports in the 60's, then labeled it by the misnomer "end of the first quarter.")
I still like to use the name "hexter" for one-third of a semester -- the name can refer to either "six weeks" or "one-sixth of a school year." (The name was originally coined to mean "half of a trimester.")
In theory, there are supposed to be "curriculum team" (CT) teacher meetings for both of my classes, Integrated Math I and III. But I've only ever attended CT meetings for Math I, my primary CT. There was supposed to be a meeting for the secondary CT ("CT2") last month, but it was cancelled due to early year confusion with the calendar. Then yesterday's CT2 meeting was also cancelled because Math I decided to have a second CT1 meeting instead.
I guess I don't mind. I have three Math I classes and only two Math III classes, so Math I is my priority (and I've even made it my focus here on the blog, with the "Math I" label). And there's not really that much to discuss in the Math III meetings anyway. There is a strict pacing guide to follow, and the teachers regular share quizzes and tests with each other. I will give the Chapter 2 Quiz (transformations of functions) in class on Monday.
We'll come very close to finishing Chapter 2 in time for the first hexter progress report. Like all chapter tests, the Chapter 2 Test will be divided into two parts -- paper and DeltaMath. The paper test will be given before the grading window closes, but not the DeltaMath part. The only problem here is in deciding when to do the Chapter 2 notebook check -- I'd like to collect them after the test is completed so the students can use them to study, but I want to include them in the progress report. The solution is to collect them after part 1 of the test -- the assumption is that any studying for the DeltaMath part of the test is done by doing DeltaMath problems, not referring to the notebook.
So that takes us to Math I. Our meetings are led by a "teacher on special assignment" -- and I should be very grateful for his presence. After all, it was the creation of this TOSA position (and this former classroom teacher's promotion to that position) that ultimately opened up a teaching spot for me -- had it not been for the TOSA, I'd be stuck working at a charter middle school right now. He tells us that he's working with us because Math I (like the old traditional Algebra I before it) is a gateway class -- so many students fail it, yet success here is critical to the student's path in math and other STEM classes.
While Math I has a pacing guide, it isn't followed as strictly as the Math III pacing guide. Still, I wanted to follow the pacing guide for several reasons. First, the Math I guide places the Chapter 1 Test a week before the Math III Chapter 2 Test. This will allow me to collect the Math I notebooks a week before the Math III notebooks and get them all graded before progress reports, as opposed to having to grade I and III on the same weekend just days before grades are due. (Last year with my tiny classes, I found it convenient to give tests in all classes at the same time -- but now with full-sized classes, it's important to avoid having to grade 170-180 students' work in the same weekend.)
Also, the Math I guide has quizzes nearly every week (unless there's a test or another assessment during that week). I want to have a strict "no food" policy in class, but this leads to arguments with students who find it suffocating to have a "no food" policy. So my compromise is to hand out Red Vines candy on days after quizzes to high-scoring students -- on Mondays, since the quizzes are on Fridays -- and then allow food in the classroom on those days. Still, one student this week arrived to my fourth period class with a Chick-Fil-A bag (on a day other than Monday) and had just taken it for granted that I'd allow him to eat in class -- to such students, 90+% of all teachers let them eat as much as they want in class and a small minority of teachers ever forbid food.in class, even though almost no K-12 teacher in the 20th century ever allowed students to eat in class, except at parties once or twice a year.
(An aside -- a few years ago, I subbed at a continuation school, hosted at an adult school. Each room had a sign, posted by the adult school, that food was forbidden except for one party per semester. Yet students were eating in that classroom all day -- and if I recall, one guy told me I was the first teacher who ever tried to tell him that he couldn't eat in class!)
And third, this week I began Lesson 1.3.x, on the laws of exponents. I was looking forward to singing one of my old songs -- the UCLA fight song parody, specifically the verse on exponent laws (as opposed to the verse on unit rates), and I was planning to sing it on Wednesday and Thursday.
OK, so far I've mentioned three reasons behind my pacing -- to hurry up and give the Chapter 1 Test just to avoid being swamped with work to grade before progress reports, to hurry up and give quizzes every week just to avoid arguing with kids over food in the classroom, and to hurry up and reach my favorite songs. What's missing here is what should be the most important factor regarding pacing -- how much the students are learning.
There are three ways to pace any math class. The fast way is to make sure that all chapters are covered by the end of the year, even if some lessons are covered briefly or not at all. The slow way is to stop and avoid proceeding unless the students show understanding -- after all, it's better for the students to learn a little something than a whole lot of nothing. There's also a middle path -- cover the lessons and repeat the basic lessons if the students aren't getting them, but move forward over certain lessons as well. It's a compromise between breadth and depth of understanding.
Originally, I thought that the pacing guide represented the slow path -- at least at first. After all, there are eleven chapters in the CPM text, but only three are covered in the first semester. So we're slowing down to make sure that the students understand Chapters 1-3 of the text. The tests for Chapters 1, 2, and 3 are given just before the end of the respective hexters, which is convenient for progress reports.
But so far, the pacing guide appears to represent the fast path. Of all the Math I teachers, one or two others, like me, began Lesson 1.3.x this week. Two teachers, including both of my next door neighbors, reached Lesson 1.2.x, on functions. And one or two teachers are still in Lesson 1.1.x on equations -- more time was spent there on reviewing negative numbers and fractions.
The official pacing guide had a "Mock Chapter 1 Test," ahead of the real Chapter 1 assessment. During the first meeting on Monday, the TOSA suggested making it into a group test instead -- and counting it as an actual part of the grade. The test follows the middle path, covering up to 1.2.x. Then yesterday, I was told that I still can't give the test yet, because I hadn't explicitly taught group norms or roles yet (as given in the CPM text -- the roles of "task manager," "resource manager," "facilitator," and "recorder").
And so yesterday, I divided the Math I classes into groups and had them choose their roles. For the most part I grouped them based on their current seats, but I had to change many seats around so that each group contained three or four students (with frequently absent students placed into groups of four, so that there will be at least three kids in each group who regularly attend class). Then I tried to have them work on a question from Lesson 1.2.1 in groups -- only to have many of them have trouble accessing the CPM online text. (Like many science classes, now our math class has only an online text.)
Oh well, at least the students have their groups and roles. Their test won't be on Monday, so they will have at least one more day to show me they can work together in groups before the team test. But this now means that the pacing guide is now in shatters.
It's clear that the students need more time to proceed through the chapter. The students are struggling in all three lessons -- equations, functions, and for those teachers who reached it, exponents. (That they'd have trouble with equations and exponents is understandable, but I'm surprised that they're having trouble identifying what is a function, or what is its domain or range -- tasks that require no addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division.)
But now I'm wondering what I should do about pacing -- and specifically, the three private reasons I stated above for wanting to follow the originally guide. First, I have no idea when Chapter 1 will be completed -- at this rate, it might even be after progress reports. But I don't necessarily have to wait for the end of the chapter to collect the notebooks -- for example, if the team test is next week, then I can just collect the notebooks after that test, which will be still be before I collect Math III notebooks or do progress reports.
Second, as far as weekly quizzes and food days are concerned, recall that before the year started, I considered having Hero Quizzes that covered review material, or even basic material. Once I saw those weekly quizzes on the pacing guide, I dropped my Hero Quiz idea. But now that we're going more slowly than the guide, there's room for Hero Quizzes once again. Thus whenever we reach the end of the week and the students aren't ready for the next full quiz, then declare it to be a Hero Quiz. Then all students can earn a Red Vine and have a food day the following Monday.
That leaves us with the songs. I was fortunate to find Alex Milanese's song on functions, but now I'm wondering what to sing about next week. Indeed, the Milanese song includes almost everything the kids are learning about functions, and now I'm stumped as to sing. While of course I can repeat songs as needed, I still like to have one new song per block period.
Moving forward with the pacing, there's one key time by which I'm hoping we're back on pace -- the week of the district benchmarks. The first assessment is just before the end of the second hexter, so there's likely to be Chapter 2 material on that test. And Chapter 2 is on linear functions and slope -- perhaps one of the most difficult chapters in Math I. It's not the sort of chapter I'd want to rush the week before the district assessment just because we spent so much extra time in Chapter 1. I'm hoping that our TOSA will tell us what to do about the district benchmarks in our next CT meeting.
In this post, I want to discuss my class demographics, in hopes that by now the classes are stable. There were still some class changes this week due to students switching schools -- or did they switch? Two guys dropped my class to transfer to other districts at the start of this week -- and by the end of the week, both had returned to my class! (This happened once last year as well -- a student moved from our magnet to the main high school, only to return a week later.) And I might be on the other side of this phenomenon as well -- a new guy appeared in my fifth period, only to leave (for his old school?) a few days later.
I've decided that the focus period for the blog will be fourth period Math I, as it's my largest class. My roster has 37 students -- which is tough, as there are only 35 desks in my classroom. But one student is a special ed student who attended my class only once -- on Day 2 -- yet remains on my roster.
As far as racial demographics are concerned, the vast majority of the students are Hispanic/Latino, resembling the surrounding city. According to Aeries, one student in this class is white, and there appear to be two mixed-race students (one white/Hispanic, the other listed as "other Asian/Hispanic"). I do have a few full Asian students and black students in other classes, but not in fourth period.
(Speaking of ethnicity, one of my neighbor teachers, in addition to Math I, teaches Ethnostats -- the class I taught last year. She asked me for some materials to help her teach this class. This week, I told her about last year's https://www.lathisms.org/ website for Hispanic Heritage Month. She also informs me that with no district benchmarks in this class, she might go even more slowly than in Math I.)
Since there are four group roles according to CPM, yesterday I divided the 36 regularly-attending kids into nine groups of four. The one tricky thing involves special ed students -- three students are often pulled out by a paraprofessional, so it's convenient to group them together (so, in case they are pulled out on group test day, they can work on the test during the pull-out). But then this group needs a fourth member, and so there's one guy who will be left out of group if the others are pulled out. There's also the 36th student who must sit at the side table rather than a desk (and this isn't the same as the guy who's grouped with the special ed students, so he must move during group assignments).
Of course, I'll make further changes to both the seating chart and the groups if something changes (such as one student leaving, the "ghost" student appearing for the first time since Day 2, and so on).
There's one thing that I'm still worried about -- am I making good connections with my students? Last year, I wrote that I often had trouble connecting with my seniors, many of whom had established prior relationships with the more experienced teachers. This year, now that I have freshmen, I want to try to connect with my students more. If I remain at this school, these are the kids who might take future classes with me as upperclassmen. The question is, will I be the sort of teacher whose classes they'll want to take and enjoy, or will they seek to avoid my classes in the future?
The one thing that I definitely want to reduce and/or eliminate is arguing. If I'm the teacher who argues a lot, then no one will want to take my classes in the future.
But unfortunately, arguments have crept up lately, especially in my two toughest classes -- second period Math I and fifth period Math III. Second period's argument was over the aforementioned food rules, while the fifth period debate was over two students going to the restroom at the same time -- I only let one out at a time, but neither realized the other was out because my restroom log was full. (As for fourth period, the behavior is class is right in the middle -- they're better-behaved than second and fifth periods, but not as good as first or sixth periods.)
What can I do to reduce or eliminate my arguments in these two classes? Well, in the case of fifth period, I can use a weekly larger restroom log. In previous posts, I mentioned that I allow my students nine passes per semester, or about one every two weeks. So if all my students use up all of their passes, then we can expect about half of my kids to use a pass per week -- about 88 students. Thus I will print out a weekly restroom log with room for 88 students. While this might not eliminate all arguments, it should at least reduce arguments over not knowing whether there's one student out or two.
The food argument is a bit trickier -- but more important, as these involved the freshman classes. Here I want to separate with "forbidding food" with "arguing over food." Once again, most of my teachers I had back as a young student in the 20th century forbade food -- but they were able to ban food without arguing over it. This is what I must do -- find a way to convince a student to put their food away and not bring it to the next class (unless it's Monday).
On the other hand, if a freshman decides that the mere banning of food (as opposed to arguing over it) is suffocating, and chooses to avoid my classes in the future in favor of teachers who allow food, then there's not much I can do short of allowing food in my class too.
Of course, many students enjoy the songs I sing in class -- but music isn't enough to sustain a class if I'm spending the rest of the time arguing. Reducing and eliminating arguments are the only way to make the class more enjoyable, survive the vortex of DEVOLSON, and set up the students for success this year and beyond. I knew going into this year (a typical year) that it would be more difficult than last year (an unusual year at the tiny magnet school), so I must rise to deal with these challenges.
