Teacher Hacks: Orange Juice and Copiers and Dares, Oh My!

This week's #SundayFunday post is tips and tricks for teachers.  Here are a few of mine:

• Drink orange juice.  Seriously.  I started drinking orange juice daily three years ago and have only been out sick one day since then.
• Sheet protectors are your best friend.  I put reference material for activities I want to reuse in other classes in page protectors to deter students from writing on them.  Or give students a dry erase marker and then they CAN write on them!  Sometimes I buy the super cheap flimsy ones so that I don't feel so bad cutting them to encase half sheets of paper.
• For me, color coding by class isn't worth it.  We have so many schedule changes throughout the year due to midyear enrollment in support classes or serious student conflicts that require students to be separated that by the end of the year, a student may have been in three different class periods of mine.
• Sometimes you're going to do things you completely disagree with.  Like starting class with a timed fluency prompt every single day for three months.  I did this and I hated every second of it.  I had a class that felt so far out of my control that I didn't know what else to do.  All I knew was that they needed a more rigid procedure for the start of class than what had been in place.  So we did pages and pages of fact family fluency worksheets.  We set goals, met them, and set new ones.  We met those too, and so set more goals.  I tried telling myself that this was okay because the kids were happy about meeting their goals and setting new ones.  It was okay because one girl told me that until that day, she thought that any number minus zero was equal to zero.  It was okay because the kids understood the routine and by the end of the year, that class was running itself.  I hated every second of it, but it took 7 minutes at the start of class each day to take and correct the prompts, and then my students were focused and ready to spend the remaining 49 minutes of class working on real math tasks.
• Learn how to empty the toner box in your school copier.  Often, all it needs is a shake and then it's good to go for a few more jobs.  And don't forget to tell someone.  Believe me, they'd rather be bombarded with reminders that the toner box needs replacing than complaints because the supply order was put in too late.
• Speaking of copiers, learn what yours can do.  If you can print directly to your school copier, figure out which tray the copier automatically selects paper from for print jobs.  For example, if you know that the copier sends print jobs through Tray 3, then put your precious colored paper in Tray 1 or 2 when making copies so that you aren't interrupted by a print job that uses up your colored paper.
• Still on the subject of copiers, when you need to use whiteout, make a photo copy of the page after using the whiteout but before writing over the spot.  It's so much easier to write smoothly on the photocopy, plus the walk down to the copier gives the whiteout time to dry. 
• Number lines!  Put a number line (or two) in your classroom.  I used to think my eighth graders were too old for this, but after referencing the invisible number line above the whiteboard behind me too many times to count, I finally put a real one up.  One of the best decisions I've made.  Kids use it ALL. THE. TIME.
• Do you have tile floors?  If so, it's likely that your tiles are 1'x1' squares.  Use this as a reference.  I do all the time to help students make sense of a measurement or estimate.  I also use the tiles as a grid to practice human transformations ("Translate two tiles forward and rotate 90° clockwise") or inverse operations ("Move two tiles forward.  Now what's the inverse?  How do you get back to where you started?").
• Know which scraps of paper are worth saving.  No one wants a cupboard full of construction paper reminiscent of Swiss cheese.  But those laminated pieces you trimmed lengthwise off of a poster you printed on cardstock?  They make great straight edges.  Or bookmarks for an INB.
• Dare your students to be kind.  I keep a bowl of dares on my desk.  Each slip of paper contains something like, "I dare you to compliment one person in each of your classes today" or "I dare you to sit with someone new at lunch today."  Kids love the challenge, and I love the kindness they spread.

I hope you found these useful.  I can't wait to hear about some of your teacher hacks!

What About Furniture-Free?

A while back I read this post about Furniture-Free Living.  It came at the end of a snow-day-before-an-already-long-weekend mini vacation, most of which I spent sitting on my couch.  And I felt, well, bleh.

You see, when I'm at school, I'm always moving around.  Or at the very least, standing up.  In fact, my students used to joke about how they had never seen me sit at my desk, and it became a sort of competition for them to see me sit down.  So after four days of lazing about on the couch, this article piqued my interest.

Though the article focuses on health benefits (i.e. more movement, better posture, fewer toxins, etc.), it also mentions how we have furniture specifically designed for certain activities in a particular room.  And I got to thinking about my classroom.  What are the activities I hope to see going on in my classroom?  And does the furniture in my room support those activities?

My classroom is filled with 30 traditional student desks - you know, the ones with those unbearable attached seats.  I've got my teacher desk, a couple of bookcases, a rolling cart for the projector, and a small square table with two chairs.  Plus my treasured window sill - a ledge that is large enough to act as a standing desk for the kids who need it.  But let's focus on the 30 student desks, because that's the furniture that my students use most.  What activity do those desks support?

Well, the article says you do work at a desk in an office.  And I'd agree that students do work at their desks in a classroom.  But is that the best purpose of our classrooms?  Shouldn't the main activity in our classrooms be learning, and not just working?

Now, working is not inherently bad.  Far from it!  It reminds me of this quote that comes to my rescue when I fall into the trap of doing too much for my students:

The ones who do the work are the ones who do the learning.

However, what kind of work is encouraged by these desks?  Independent and isolated come to mind when I see desks in rows like the picture above, though that may not always be the case.  Collaborative work comes to mind when I see desks arranged in groups.  But, as we all know, until we teach them to work together in groups, students often still treat their joined space as a place to work individually surrounded by some of the world's most fascinating distractions.

I'm not sure what the alternative is.  I'm not about to convince my principal that it's in the best interest of our students to remove all the desks from my classroom, because I don't believe it is.  But I do question how to use furniture to make learning the most obvious and most important activity to happen in my classroom.  I know furniture isn't everything, but it's part of it.

Quote Posters

I can never get enough of browsing through quote posters.  Here are a few new ones I made for this year.

 

I cut mine out along the black outline and glued them to 8.5x8.5 squares of black cardstock.  In the download, there's an alternate version of the MLK quote with a different color scheme - I couldn't choose which I liked better, so I made that one a double-sided poster so that I can decide later.  I'm really happy with how they turned out!

View/Download: Quote Posters

An Introduction to Volunteer Service for Students

As someone who has had a passion for service and travel for as long as I can remember, I have contemplated full-time volunteer service for quite some time.  And while I haven't yet taken the plunge into long-term volunteer service, instead being happily employed as a teacher, I have accumulated months' worth of service trips in both the U.S. and abroad (namely Central America).  Take a look back at some of my journal entries from middle school all the way through college to see how this goal of mine intrigued me from a young age.

Translation: I loved the social work at Sanangel [School].  Because of that, I would choose a program or look for an opportunity to work like that.

 

And as much as my family supported my volunteering exploits and service trips, conversations with my mom always went like this:

"When are you going to get a real job?  You can't just volunteer for the rest of your life!" - Mommy dearest

I wish I had known people who were real Peace Corps Volunteers, real AmeriCorps Service Members, real Jesuit Volunteers when I was in middle school and high school.  Sure, I read about them because I was interested, but I didn't know any.  And I didn't know who to talk to about it.  I wish I had an experience like this when I was in middle school.  Peace Corps Volunteer Ashley Baek describes how her 7th grade teacher brought in a returned Peace Corps Volunteer as a guest speaker and how this experience instilled in her a desire to one day serve in the same capacity.

How many of our students are unaware of this path?  How many of our students are curious, but don't know anyone to talk to?  How many of our students have the desire to serve, but like 9th grade me, don't know the next step? 

I read through Ms. Baek's article and a few others and discovered the following: through World Wise Schools, the Peace Corps offers opportunities for teachers to connect with Volunteers.  It may be as simple as email correspondence, as personal as writing pen pal letters, or as involved as hosting a Volunteer as a guest speaker in your class.  Engagements such as these not only broaden your and your students' worldviews and knowledge of other cultures, but may also inspire them to serve their communities in some capacity and introduce them to a lifetime of humanitarian adventures.

This year, I'd like to take advantage of this opportunity to connect with a Peace Corps Volunteer.  I'm determined to find out more to be able to present my students with opportunities to learn about alternative career paths and our global community.

Organizing Nonstandard Attendance Records

Part organization and part classroom management, this #SundayFunday post explores how I maintain attendance records for students attending after school academic support.

I am typically with students every day after school.  Some are there for Academic Support in math, while a few just need a quiet place to do homework, and others are waiting for their friends, for rides home, or for practice to start.  Then one day I had half of the boys basketball team hanging around in my room before their game.  Another day, I had twice as many kids in my room who were not even my students as ones who were currently part of my class rosters.  And it got to be too much.  I was regularly ending up with an "afterschool class" that was as big as my actual classes!  I ended up doing way too much classroom management and not giving nearly enough support to the students who were truly there (whether by choice or by assignment) to work on math.

My solution: create an Academic Support sign-up sheet to (a) limit the number of students I had after school each day, and (b) help me keep track of whether or not students who were assigned Academic Support were actually attending.

This sign-up sheet served its purposes!  Here's how.

(a) Limit the number of students

First of all, there are only 8 spaces to sign up on any given day and I made it clear that if a student's name was not on the list, then that student would not be allowed in my classroom after school that day, even if they were assigned Academic Support.  I also emphasized that if a student writes their name on the list, I expect them to be in my room after school because they are potentially taking the place of a student who was unable to sign up due to the 8-name limit.  If a student did not attend as scheduled, I wrote myself a note and made a point to talk to the student the next day to find out why.

Evan and I needed to have a little chat...

Additionally, I required students to write their names if they were going to stay after school before the end of the school day.  This minimized the number of students who would just "drop by" at the end of the day to wait for their friends or because they didn't feel like going home yet.

(b) Keep track of attendance

Certain students are assigned Academic Support according to school policy (failing average, missing assignments, etc.).  These sign-up sheets served as my attendance record for any given week.  I also created an unweighted "assignment" in my digital gradebook where I recorded the date and time during which a student stayed for Academic Support with a brief note of what they worked on.  Students who were assigned Academic Support either earned "100" for attending or "0" for not attending, while the rest of the students were excused from the assignment.  Students and parents were able to access this record and my notes with the rest of the student's actual course grades.  Because the assignment was unweighted, it did not calculate into the students' averages, but kids always felt good about seeing "100" when they attended (or panicked when they saw the "0" for not attending).

Finally, I keep the previous weeks' sign-up sheets in my binder of Parent Contact sheets.  Besides standard contact information likes names, phone numbers, and emails, my Parent Contact sheets include a checklist of scenarios in which a parent wants to hear from me about their student.  One of those is a request to be notified when their child attends Academic Support.

I section the binder by class period and organize the contact sheets alphabetically by student.  The last section of the binder contains all the Academic Support sign-up sheets from previous weeks with Q1, Q2, Q3, or Q4 written in the top right-hand corner for easy viewing if I ever need to go back and verify that a student did or did not attend Academic Support on a given day.  Having the Parent Contact sheets and the Academic Support sign-up sheets in one place is super helpful when I need to check which parents requested a note confirming that their child attended Academic Support or when I need to reach out to a parent about their student's habitual nonattendance.

This sign-up sheet was a life-saver for me!  On Friday afternoons, I file the current week's sheet in my binder and take out a new sheet for the following week (I keep extra copies in the back pocket of the binder).  All I do is write the dates and cross off any day that I am not able to have kids stay after school, and voila!  A piece of tape and it's posted on my classroom door for easy access Monday morning when my students get their Academic Support notification!

UPDATE: The Parent Contact Preferences sheet (modeled after this one from @mathequalslove) is also available through the link below.

View/Download: Academic Support Sign-Up Sheet

Exponent Rules Open Middle Challenge

Here's a puzzle I made for my Algebra 1 kiddos last year.  I got the idea from Sarah Carter's Function/Not a Function Open Middle Problem (which I've used in class with great success, by the way).  Check that out if you haven't seen it.  I started out trying to create an open middle problem that could be solved using the number tiles -4 through +4 since I had already printed, cut, and laminated them from Sarah's files.

 

I had the students work in pairs or groups of three to balance the equation.  It was DEFINITELY a challenge for my students.  I think that having the number tiles really helped because students could pick up, move, and switch the numbers around without needing to erase, scribble out, or keep track of which numbers they'd already used.  If you try this (or a similar problem) with your class, I definitely recommend printing number tiles for kids to manipulate.

This problem was challenging, so if you'd like to work up to it, search for other open middle problems out there to practice properties of exponents.  Bryan Anderson has some posted on the Open Middle website and on his blog that I'd like to try with my pre-algebra classes this year.

I wish I had photos of the kids working, but this was before my blogging days so all I have is my blurred out answer key pictured above.  Click on the picture to see the solution.  You'll just have to take my word that the kids were really into it.  At the end of class, I had some ask to stay and work on it instead of going to their next class (so hard to say no to that!) and had a few come up for lunch to keep working!  None of my students figured it out during class, but the students that came back to keep working finally got it!

I've uploaded the files below.  If you have access to a printer that prints on 11x17 paper, that file has two copies of the puzzle per page.  If you're printing on regular 8.5x11, the puzzle takes up two pages so you'll need to tape them together.  Again, the number tiles included in my files are sized and formatted to match the ones I already had from mathequalslove - I take zero credit for those! 

View/Download: Exponents - Open Middle Challenge

The M.A.T.H.E.M.A.T.I.C.S. Behind a Successful Student Poster

I love the S.C.I.E.N.C.E. Behind Successful a Student posters out there.  You know the ones I mean?

 

The problem is that I don't teach science and I couldn't find anything out there for math. So, naturally, I made my own.

 

Some of the letters and phrases stayed the same.  And of course, some are new since there are more letters in mathematics than there are in science.  Here it is:

The M.A.T.H.E.M.A.T.I.C.S. Behind a Successful Student

Make an effort

Education is not a spectator sport.  Try your hardest every single day.

Attend class daily

Learning is a process that requires your patience and active participation.

Try new things

A step out of your comfort zone is an opportunity to learn and grow.

Help others

Everyone learns differently.  Use your unique talents to achieve your best and encourage others to do the same.

Engage your mind

Learning is more fun if you have a positive mindset.

Minimize distractions

The more you focus on achieving a goal, the more likely you are to achieve it.

Ask questions

Learning is a process of discovery through cycles of questions and answers.  Be curious.

Try again

Perseverance is the key to success.

Integrity is important

Do the right thing, even when nobody is watching.

Challenge yourself

It is okay to make mistakes.  You may not know what you can do until you try.

Safety comes first

Creating a safe learning environment is the job of everyone in the class.

Feel free to download using the link below.  There are two versions: a 1-page poster and a 2-page poster (for those of you who don't mind some cutting and pasting in order to get a larger version).  My 2-page version fits quite nicely in the window of my classroom door!

View/Download: The M.A.T.H.E.M.A.T.I.C.S. Behind a Successful Student Poster

A Learning Experience

Get ready, folks.  This is a long one.  But totally worth it!  At least read the part about brushing your teeth (You're intrigued now, aren't you?  Or should I say, are you?  Please read on!).

I was a straight-A student, though I'm not sure it means much.  Here's why.  I worked hard enough to get As, but by high school I had learned that I didn't need to do my best to get an A.  So I stopped working so hard.  I "studied" for tests, but not to the extent that many of my friends did.  And my mom always warned me that I was going to get to college, the work was going to be harder, and I wasn't going to know how to study.

Fast forward to my freshman year in college.  With classes like Honors Psychology and Introduction to Oceanography, I had a lot of memorizing to do when it came to tests.  Luckily for me, I'm great at memorizing.  I was the cool kid who could recite over 250 digits of pi and once stayed inside during recess so that I could write from memory 12 stanzas of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven for extra credit on a quiz.

Anyways, I continued to seem to be a very successful student.  I graduated college without ever having a single failing learning experience in my entire school career.  And let me clarify what I mean by a "failing learning experience."  I don't simply mean that I never failed a test or a quiz, because most tests are not what I would consider learning experiences.  I mean that I was never unable to grasp a concept as well as I wanted to on the first try.  That's not to say I was an expert at everything I ever studied - far from it!  But I always managed at least a basic understanding without too much effort.

Outside the classroom, I had similar success.  I played a handful of instruments and was selected to All-State for band.  I played sports year-round, and while I didn't qualify for States individually, I would go as part of a relay team.  I wasn't really great at any one thing, but I was good at a lot of things.

As a teacher, I have always said that I believe failure is part of learning.  But I had never really experienced it, and to be honest, I didn't understand exactly how failing at something feels.  Until now.

I've been driving for 10 years.  Driving back country roads, busy city streets, 13-hour drives for college service trips.  I have no traffic violations and consider myself a good driver.  It's something I know how to do, and I'm comfortable doing it.  Now imagine my excitement when my mom gets a truck - standard transmission - and I get to learn something new!  I'm going into this pretty confident.  I mean, I already know how to drive, so I have some background knowledge.

I'll spare you some of the particulars and just say that I did not have the same success I'd had all my life (What?  You already guessed that?).  At one point, after stalling out twice, unable to find the balance between taking my foot off the clutch and giving it gas, my mom said to me, "Don't you feel the catch in the clutch?"  "No, I don't," I answered, trying not to get upset.  She tried explaining to me again what to do.  I tried.  And stalled out.  Again.  And she asked me, again, "Don't you feel it?"  At that point, my frustration in not being able to go and not being able to feel whatever it was I was very obviously supposed to be feeling led me to tears.  And I could vaguely hear my mom trying to console me, and then trying to explain the mystery of how to drive this thing a different way.  But I couldn't really listen.  I didn't want to listen.  I was so frustrated that I didn't want to think about driving.  I didn't even want to drive my own car - automatic transmission and all.

I have this ability to separate myself from a situation and really look at it objectively in the moment.  So even through the tears and frustration, part of me was genuinely excited about this failed learning experience that I was in the midst of having.  Because it was new to me!  I had never failed at anything like this before.  I had never been frustrated to the point of tears, to the point of tuning out everything someone I know cares about me was trying to tell me.  And now I knew how some of my students must feel at times.

How many times have students sat there, trying their hardest to figure something out, but be unable to do so on their own?  And sometimes, by the time I get to them, they are frustrated to that breaking point where they don't even want to hear me explain it differently - they just want to be done.  Now I knew how that feels.

How many times have students shut down because of a simple choice of words we use when we talk to them?  I later explained to my mom that the question, "Don't you feel it?" made me feel like there was something I was supposed to feel.  And when I didn't feel it, I felt like an idiot.  Instead, if she had asked me, "Do you feel it?" I could have responded that no, I didn't, but without feeling like I was a failure for not being able to.  Don't implies some sort of expectation, while do seems to me to be purely a question of curiosity.  Don't believe me?  Try this exercise.  (Side note: would you feel differently right now if I had said, Do you believe me?)

Do you brush your teeth twice a day?  Do you floss your teeth everyday?  (Seriously, answer the questions.)

I'll tell you what, I don't.  I brush my teeth once a day.  But I do floss everyday (you can even ask my dentist!).

How do you feel answering those questions?  (Really, think about how those questions made you feel.)

Maybe you're a superhero with superior hygiene habits who never misses a scheduled teeth brushing.  But even if you're like the rest of us, who are sometimes running late in the morning or are too tired at night, and only manage to brush our teeth once a day, you probably don't have strong feelings about these questions.  Maybe more of an awareness of your actual daily habits.  It's so normal to you that these questions make you feel like you're just answering a survey.

Now consider these questions.

Don't you brush your teeth twice a day?  Don't you floss your teeth everyday?

Obviously your answers to these questions are the same as your answers above.  But does that mean you were asked the same questions?

How did you feel answering the "Don't you..." questions?

I'll tell you what, I feel bad now when I have to answer that no, I don't brush my teeth twice a day, because now there is that expectation attached that I should be brushing my teeth twice a day.  And even though I already know that twice-a-day brushing habits are preferred, I now feel guilty that I'm not doing it.  All because of how the question was worded.

This post is turning into a novel, so I'll wrap it up here.  I view my failure in learning how to drive standard as a successful learning experience because of my reflection on how I can use that experience to be a better teacher.  I feel as though I better understand the frustrations that some students have when they just don't get a concept.  I better understand the need for a mental break (and physical relocation) during those times of feeling completely defeated.  I better understand how phrasing questions and instructions in the positive translates to more openness and responsiveness in another person.  I am so grateful to be able to reflect on and recognize these things that will help me to be a better teacher.

And for those who may be wondering, I have not yet managed to shift out of second gear, but I am happy to say that I'm still learning.

Inspired by...

I've been a huge fan of Sarah Carter's blog at mathequalslove for years.  Seeing as she's the reason I'm finally here trying out this whole blogging thing for myself, I thought I'd model my first post after one of my favorites of hers: Things Teenagers Say.  I mean, how can you not smile reading some of the gems kids say!  Alas, (who knew I was the type of blogger to say "alas?"), it is still summer and I am not around many kids, so here are some of the most memorable from years past.



[I had three students named Christian who all spelled their name differently - one of them gives me his yearbook to sign]
Student A: Ms. Ess, will you sign my yearbook?
Me: Of course.
Student B: That's actually my yearbook.  See, it has my name.
Me: Really?  That's your name?  I've gone the whole year thinking your name was B when it was really A?
Student B: Yep.
Student A: (covers up the name on the yearbook) So how do you spell your name then?
Student B: ... C - h - 
Student A: Wrong! 


[class competition to see who could recite the quadratic formula from memory to the most people]
Student A: I took a video of myself saying it to my dog.  Does that count?
Student B: Is your dog a person?
Student A: Yes.

[in regards to state testing - not sure how I should take this one!]

Ms. Ess, look! This is the first time I ever thought I'd see something I've actually learned on this test.

 

[seeing the flower arrangement on my desk]

Whoa, Ms. Ess, did you meet someone?!

[well, I do love math...]

Ms. Ess, I hope one day I meet someone who looks at me the same way you look when you talk about math.