#SummerList Update

Almost two months ago, at the end of May, I blogged about my #SummerList.  Sadly, with less than one month still to go, I can't say that I've accomplished much from the list, other than most of the books have been read. :)  I find it very interesting to see how my #SummerList actually changes once Summer is officially here.

Books:

• What's Math Got to Do with It by Jo Boaler - I bought this book over Memorial Day weekend and read it at the beginning of summer.  This is also going to be our next #EduRead book, so feel free to join in!  My big take-aways from this book include:
• Making mistakes helps our brains to grow.  I need to incorporate more error analysis in my classroom and use those mistakes to provide feedback and growth.  I would like to learn how to use "My Favorite No" with AP Stat as well as more student grading using the AP Rubrics.
• Students can grasp high-level concepts, but not if they are given low-level work.  I think I often suffer from the "Curse of Knowledge" and try to rescue my students before they really have the chance to grapple with the concepts.  After 15 years, I know where struggles will happen and I have structured some lessons to help students over those hurdles.  However, in trying to help, I think I have coddled too much and created a learned helplessness situation.
• Talking and discussing mathematics with your peers is vital.  I totally agree with this and my students are often asked to discuss their methods.  However, I need to also add in more written explanations and reflections.
• Self assessment and Peer assessment are tools that need to be used more.  I am going to try more self-assessment this year (see previous blog post) and would like to use the AP rubrics more this year for peer assessment. I want to use strategies like "Two Stars & a Wish" to provide students with peer feedback. (By the way, if you have a great method to organize all the paperwork that comes with AP Rubrics, please let me know! :)
• Never Work Harder than Your Students by Robyn Jackson - We read this book in our Twitter Book Club several years ago, but I felt the need to read it again this summer.  It is a great book with lots of practical advice, although it can be very overwhelming.  
• How to give Effective Feedback by Susan Brookhart - I have not re-read this one yet
• Accessible Mathematics by Steve Leinwand - This was a very quick read and gives you 10 practical instructional methods that you can use in your classroom right away.  For me, the biggest take-away from this book was about the daily skills quiz.  This is something I plan to implement this year.
• Make it Stick by Peter Brown, et all - This book was recommended at Best Practices Night by Daren Starnes and I'm very grateful that he did a brief talk on it!  This book started out strong, but did lag quite a bit for me in the middle.  However, Chapter 8 makes the laggy parts worth it!  The main idea is the science behind learning and what strategies have been proven effective and what has not.  Make It Stick was our #EduRead book this month and I really enjoyed these chats.  I've already blogged about my big take-away's but here are the big ones:
• Retrieval Practice is necessary!  I plan to create retrieval opportunities through short 10-minute quizzes that spiral through the curriculum, exit tickets on one learning target to help students be more successful on chapter/unit assessments, and opportunities through class to stop what they are doing and answer a question without looking at their notes. It's important to note that retrieval practice can occur without a formal quiz structure... flashcards, Chalk Talk, writing down a list of things you learned (without looking at the text/notes), etc are all forms of retrieval.
• Mix it up!  When we do massed practice of one skill, it feels effective, however, as any teacher can tell you, when it comes to the final exam and everything is mixed together, kids really struggle!  I need to develop activities that have that mixed practice throughout my course.
• Reflection is powerful!  I already knew this because I spend a lot of time in reflection.  However, I don't think I ask my students to reflect as much as I should.  I need to explore the use of Learning Logs in my class.
• Practice like you play and play like you practice!  This is something I did not do well this year.  My students spent a lot of time discussing and justifying their answers verbally, but since the AP exam is written, their practice did not reflect in their "game play".  This year, I want to do more written explanations.
• You must practice!  One of the things that I really need to stress to my students this year is the importance of practice.  I think too many students look at a review worksheet or practice assessment and think, "Yup! I know that one!", but never actually sit down to practice answering the question.  Then when assessment day (or AP Exam) comes, they struggle to write a complete and concise response.  
• Rethinking Grading by Cathy Vatterott - This book was the ASCD book of the month and I highly recommend it if you are looking at Standards Based Grading.  The book starts out with some history behind grades and grading, but then in Chapters 3 & 4, she really delves into the nitty-gritty details about how to change your classroom practice to incorporate SBG.  The book doesn't go into all of the theory like Marzano's work, but is a practical guide for teachers to dip their toe into the SBG waters.  
• Rethinking Homework by Cathy Vatterott - Similar to the book above by the same author, this book also starts out with the history of homework, then gets into more practical strategies.  My favorite chapter was Chapter 4 about effective homework practices.  Homework has been a struggle for my entire teaching career and I don't think I've ever been completely happy with how I've handled it. 

Other Things on my List:

• Better integration of the Chromebooks (1:1) - Yeah, so this hasn't happened yet.  I still want to explore the Chromebooks for formative assessment (Google Forms, Kahoot, etc), but after seeing my AP scores this year, my main focus will be "back to basics" as listed above.  I like technology but I don't want to integrate tech for the sake of tech.
• Work on more Free Response writing - Still working out in my head how this is going to look this year :)

Stuff NOT on my List:

• This was the first summer in many years where I did not travel or attend any conferences in July.  Don't get me wrong, I spent most of June traveling, but July has been pretty low-key.  However, even without traveling, I was able to get a lot done:
• At the beginning of July, we rented a dumpster in order to do some major deep cleaning of our house.  After 10 days, the dumpster was full, several loads had been taken to Goodwill, and we again had an upstairs that we enjoyed spending time in!
• Spent time with family and friends, including several days with my sister, who lives on the east coast.
• House repairs... I really don't like being a home owner most days and this week is one where lots of repair people will be in and out of my house.  Today, the plumber is coming to run a water line to my fridge... so excited about having an ice maker! :)

How is your #SummerList progressing?

#SummerList 2014

Time to think about my summer goals and put them down on "paper". :)

I really hate the last couple of weeks of school. I know that's weird, but there's nothing more I can do to really make much of an impact on this year and I'm eager to start thinking about next year. The best part of teaching is that every year we start with a clean slate. However, in order to get to that, I have to do some other stuff first...

Organize! I did not do a very good job of filing papers this year, so I have stacks of papers that need to be filed away. While I'm at it, I want to clean out old files and recycle things that won't be used again. My home office is a disaster area at times, especially when it comes to paper. I'm really bad about bookmarking pages, never to go there again, so I tend to print off neat ideas and file them for "someday". Problem is, some of my files date back to the early 2000s when I first started teaching AP Stat! I need to dig those out and see what I want to incorporate this year.

Professional Growth! I have several books on my to-be-read list, but that may need to be another blog post :) I also want to catch up on my blog reader, spend time on pinterest, and work on my professional growth in general.

1:1! As I said in my previous post, I'm revamping my classroom for Chromebooks, so I want to work on ways to integrate technology in a meaningful way. I really don't want "technology for technology's sake"... I want the technology to enhance and improve the instructional experience in my classroom.

Active Learning! I fell away from this a bit this year and I'm sad. I even had students comment that 2nd semester wasn't as fun as it could have been. Snow days really stress me out when it comes to pacing and I made decisions to do more direct instruction as a result. I want to bring back more student-centered activities to my classroom. I need to do some research on other AP Stat webpages of neat hands-on activities and go through all of the resources I've accumulated over the past 14 years as well.

Formative Assessment! This has been an ongoing goal for several years and sometimes I'm doing okay, sometimes not. One thing I used successfully this year was the Red/Yellow/Green cups, but I did not use Exit Slips as much as I should have. I really want to incorporate more informal writing/reflection because often I feel like the kids are getting it, but they really aren't. I need to be better at utilizing the strategies that I've researched over the past few years.

#Made4Math! With summer here, it's time again for #Made4Math! I need to look at my classroom this week and see what needs to be done and start brainstorming ways to make my classroom more functional.

TMC14! 'nuff said! :)

What's on your #summerlist?

My Summer To-Do List

Oh my gosh, it's now July!!! Back to school aisles and sales are popping up all over and I have NOTHING done!! So, thanks to some inspiration from some blogger/twitter friends, I decided I had better put my to-do list down on "paper". There is just something satisfying by crossing things off of a list!

You will note that my to-do list is not something that easily lends itself to crossing off items. Most of these are a work in progress that will continue through the year. The idea behind this list is to help me focus on what I need to work on, rather than the nitty-gritty details. Some (most?) of these will not get done by August 15th, but I can make headway on putting together a plan for them.

• Read. I am working on UbD, but have several others in line as well, including some on Habits of Mind. Need to do some personal reading too:)
  
• SBG. I need to figure out how to make it work for AP, which isn't as skills based as Alg2. I also need to do some minor tweaks to Alg2.
  
• WICR. I really want to work on incorporating Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, and Reading in my math classes. I usually start off the year fairly well, but need to keep this going throughout the year.
  
• Active Learning. I did this in AP and was mostly pleased with how it worked. I need to do some revisions in AP and increase this component in Alg2. I am in the process of going through and finding labs to add to my binder of ideas.
  
• Warm-Ups. This year, I really struggled with Warmups and I really need to go back to them. In AP, I think I am going to do formative assessments using parts of AP problems. I'm not sure on Alg2 yet.
  
• Cumulative Work. This has been a goal for several years, but it often goes by the way-side due to time crunch. I want to make a consious effort to have assessments and assignments that have previous knowledge involved.
  
• Technology Integration. Supposedly we will have access to laptops in our new building, so I would like to beef up my class website to be more of a learning portal. I would like to integrate tools like Flubaroo (Thanks Fouss!), G-Docs, Wiki, etc. However, until I have full confirmation that this technology really is going to be available, this is kind of low on my priority list.
  

I'm sure there are more things to add. I've worked a bit at most of the ideas listed, but I don't have anything concrete yet, which is a bit frustrating. I have a jumble of ideas floating in my head and lots of dreams of what to do, but the nitty gritty details just haven't settled down yet. *sigh* I need July to go slower than June did :)