Now it's 2014, any progress on changing how the math looks? Is it 1985? Is it 2003? Is it 2014?

So last June I made the simple declaration that math homework was going to look different than 1985 in my room (It's 2013, shouldn't HS daily homework look different than 1985?).  I set up some ideas and defined a mission of my vision going forward.  I was looking at a 3 prong approach to practice (homework): weekly practice, projects with milestones, and combo of workbook/text problems (1-2 times per week). 

 

Now we are done with 3/4 of the school year, so how does homework look in my room?   Is the "time-machined math teacher" from 1985 comfortable in my room, or would he/she think it is a futuristic math room?  What year is my room?  (I will answer those questions at the end)

But first - how do the three prongs look like currently?  First, I did start by having weekly practice on IXL Math and Khan Academy.  I felt the review and feedback would work well.  For high schoolers I quickly discovered that IXL was not going to work with me, it is too rote for my students and myself.  Khan worked better and for the first semester I used it as part of the homework, I asked for 2 to 3 focused 20 minute sessions.  Khan would e-mail me each class with a report, which worked okay.  I still found it hard and time consuming to track what my students had done (and that is the kiss of death for me personally).

I continued to keep pencil and paper homework assignments small (about 6 questions) and completely review.  We moved to two times per week with review homework, but the move from daily homework to just a couple of assignments really made me wonder about the value of it.  Over the past few years I have changed my classroom to a point where we do not cover homework questions (it is all review material), we do not grade together (everyone has the answers) and the expectation is for the student to complete and turn homework into a slot by my desk (no stopping class to collect or ask are you done, occasionally I mentioned that "You should turn in your work").  I have just found taking homework questions, grading homework and collecting took too much precious class time.

So as I lowered the homework amount I really reflected on whether this homework had real value, so I let the homework become de-emphaisized -- I did not ask for the work or follow up with students about it.  This underemphasis was quickly picked up by the students and then I had the students who wanted to do well doing the work, and the others would "learn through tests and quizzes."  I discovered a lower limit with regards to homework, without it student performance started dropping (I really was truly surprised!).  So we went back to occasionally mentioning of the homework, making minor pushes for it and 'making' students do it; now student learning is back up.



Second, I had mentioned a workbook to get some practice on concepts and skills in my original post.  The goal of the workbook was practice, but I was concerned about the rote nature of worksheets.  What I needed was more time in the classroom to integrate problems in the course of the 44 minutes to keep students skills "in-practice."  Plus I really did not have the budget for workbooks.  So instead of a workbook, I flipped the first semester of Algebra 1 (Playlist 2).   And it has worked alright!  I plan to continue this next year and expand it into other courses.

Finally third, we continued our large scale projects.  I have slowly (so slowly) added more milestones, but this part of the change will have to continue into the summer and future school years. (Pay Day Loan Algebra 1, Stocks Algebra 2 and Constructing a house Geometry)  The long term goal with the projects is to have them become a larger part of the curriculum and make them tie better to direct mathematical concepts, for example teach area of a parallelogram through the house project versus lecturing on it and using it in the house project.  This PBL idea for math is still slowly, glacier-ally slowly happening.  (Though in my Physics class we have add a year long class project very successfully, our school is driving towards have 10% of our energy generated on site done by the class.)





So "Has it worked?" is the wrong question, is it making my room 2% better per year is a more appropriate question.  And yes, my room is evolving and getting better.  The projects are good and I am adding milestones (success).  The flip lessons were a great start in flipping and have worked well (success).  The on-line component has been too much work and has gone from a major weekly component in the first semseter, to once per week,  so we are back to paper/pencil homework 4 times per week. (in process). The on-line part will take more reflection this summer.

So what would a guest see in our math room?
 
The typical class now looks like this:  students enter and immediately start the warm-up on the board (usually using expo markers on their desks), we spend the entire period working on math, the room is loud with everyone working on problems, some helping others, some getting help from me.  We hit the recent concepts, the problems that have been a struggle, some easy, some hard.  (No homework help, no grading, no working on tomorrow's assignment - it's homework).  A quick lesson is presented  - where students are often ask to work problems as the lecture is happening.  We work on math for nearly the entire hour, I am guiding the room versus lecturing to it.  We recently received a grant for a new quad smartboard, and instead of just replacing the current board, we moved it to the back of the room - so we have 2!  Now I am trying to keep one student or 2 on the back board at all times, I am constantly having students do the work.  I simply prowl the aisles looking to assist while always remembering to "be less helpful."


Twice a week we have short recursive summative assessments of nonnegotiable mastered material (quiz), once week we have a test on current material and once every 2 weeks we will have a project day.  So 3 days per week there is some sort of recursive assessment, we never test on one concept, or one unit.  The class, the assessments and the homework are always set to make a Juda graduate ready for college and the world.



So is the "time-machined math teacher" from 1985 comfortable in my room, or would he/she think it is a futuristic math room?  What year is my room?  (the end is near....)

A teacher whether from now or 1985 would see plenty of action, practice is done in a variety ways, students always working, very little lecture, and no emphasis on pencil/paper homework.  They would be slightly uncomfortable with how much the students do, or how little I do.  It would be the project days where students justify the math, make assumptions and conclusions and chase projects that would make a time-machined math teacher confused. 

But alas that is only one of ten days, maybe next year it will be 2....

It's nearly 2014, does my HS daily homework look different than 1985? Update time!

Any time you try and change it is hard work.  And changing homework to this century is slow, changing is just hard.  What I mean is that I am trying to make sure my class looks distinctly different than a math classroom of 1985 (previous post).  And with today being a snow day on the last scheduled school day of 2013, I can state that it is the end of 2013 for my classes.  (Whether I am dedicated or simply lame for working on a snow day is up for debate though.)   And while the year is about 1/2 over I cannot say I am 1/2 way on making my class(es) like I would like.  There are a lot of times it still seems like 1985.

So I committed to not being the same.  I decided to have 3 elements: weekly practice, projects with milestones, and combo of workbook/text problems (1-2 times per week).  So I am half way through the year, and it is time for a mid-term check (I suppose I could grade myself - but I hate grades, progress does not move strictly by a clock - and that is what grades measure.  Plus I would be brutal on myself with respect to a grade.)

The first prong of my trident was weekly practice being on online sites where feedback is immediate - since my budget for the move was basically zero I defaulted to Khan Academy.  And this has actually worked okay, the problem was getting the students on problems that they needed to practice.  Initially they spent time on things that were "too easy."  But once things are mastered they moved to topics that were more "grade-level."

When I committed class time for Khan , which included the initial set-up and time for practicing during my precious class time the results were good.  The big problem is how to check that students have done the time and staying on schedule. 

Again small school teaching is different, I have 8 different courses in 8 hours.  That can sometimes be a little overwhelming, and Khan did a new roll off of there site in August, too late for me to get comfortable with using quickly.  (Yes - these are all excuses)   So I have been stuck with seeing where students are at certain times,  And because that can be cumbersome I have found myself in the last month falling back to assigning 6-8 problems from the text in a couple of my preps (mainly Algebra 2 and PreCalc) - just because it was easy and I have found myself to be too busy.  (Have great excuse here - won Solve for Tomorrow Contest).   

I have found Khan to be good for my students who need more practice.  Students in my lower Algebra groups etc.  I think that has been better than average.  But all the courses above Algebra 1 the progress has been choppy at best.  I have given credit like homework, it has been less than 0.5% of their grade.  (I believe a grade is a representation of their total math ability - which is why I use assessments versus homework to demonstrate mastery.)

So the mid-year evaluation of the on-line work, is well, a work in progress.  I plan to commit a class period during January and Febuary to see where that leads.  (We have progressed pretty well in the curriculum so that is a move we can do).  I need to figure a better system to record the students progress.  I am leaning to weekly emails where they tell me there point total, and weekly change.  Or I could just do a daily check during the class period, but I really want to make the students own their learning.   The big thing moving forward will be to double or triple the time so I am close to my goal of 20 minutes, 3 times per week - a solid hour outside of class per week of targeted practice.  

 
The second tine of the trident is large multiple answer projects with milestones.  I have started my large projects that I have used in the past with more milestones and hopefully a higher level of expectation.  Algebra has started a Pay Day Loan project, Algebra 2 has Stocks and Geometry has started the House Project  (Google sketch up in Geometry, youtube video). So far the quality of work is better than years past.

I think adding more milestones has helped with the quality of work.  I have worked at adding milestones that still make the student be a "critical thinker" but allows them more feedback, more often. The key remains that no one flunks a project - everyone needs to deliver.  Just like the world, if the boss (me) does not like the quality the employee (student) reworks/revises.

The last part of the trident was the workbook/text book combo.  This was the fuzziest part in the beginning and the part where really little has changed from last year to date.  I am working from targeted worksheets much more this year versus just using the text.  That has seemed to work - but that is a "gut-feel" opinion, I have no data to support the opinion.  And I always feel there really is no difference between worksheets and the text book. 

The last part with the textbook was "moving" low level things out of my class (flipping & outside reading).  And some of that has been done by flipping my Algebra 1 course.  I spent the end of my summer completing a self-paced course called FIZZ -- which really helped me.  But I have not done any text reading yet, which can be an important college skill.   I also find that making videos is much more work than doing the equivalent in class lecture.  So I am doing a mixture of videos outside of class and lecturing inside class. 

Has it worked?  Well, again there is progress, but it is slow.  But I always stick to my line that I just want to be 3% better every year - cause in 5 years you are 15% better which is huge.  And 3% is achievable - because it is not a pendulum but a slow steady climb of a hill. 

So in the new year, the second half of the school year, I want to focus on the on-line portion and the flipping portion.  Those are the 2 items that seem to have the largest return.  And just try to be a sliver better each day.  I also have agreed to present this homework change at the Wisconsin Math Council conference in May, so I really would like to show "more" progress than I currently have had.

And while I don't think my room screams 2013 - it definitely is no longer says 1985.

It's 2013, shouldn't HS daily homework look different than 1985?

So it is 2013 and homework looks the same as 1985.  As a math teacher I believe there is value in practice, if you don't use it you lose it.  As a math teacher I know students need feedback on their work, so it is improving them - homework done carelessly does not help.  As a former student I know I only wanted to do the minimum (I am one of the weird educators who wasn't your "good" student), thus unchecked homework is usually done carelessly.    And finally as a small school teacher I know I do not have time to review student homework and give feedback on a daily basis, there just isn't time.

So what to do about homework.  In the last few years I have simplified to a 2 prong strategy, first only assign work that leads to improvement of the student and second don't assign the concept taught that day until Algebra 2 (students need to see a concept more than once before they practice alone).  The only reason I start assigning some new material the same day in Algebra 2 is to prepare the students for college math (depending on the professor you need to be able to "learn on your own").

So 1985 - no cell phones, no internet, very few computers in schools (heck my school still had typing class with typewriters) and math was done by paper/pencil ; fast forward to today: cell phones are more powerful than the scattered computers of yesteryear, internet with no wires, and math is done (typically) with paper/pencil - or projects are done on word processors (a really nice typewriter).  The math teacher of 1985 is completely comfortable with how we are doing it today in most classrooms, even if you are progressive - a good hunk of your daily practice, homework, looks just like 1985.  Why?  It is mind boggling that it is still the same.

So I am not going to be the same.  I am going to make the practice different.  Now my room was pretty different already, I only assigned 5-8 problems per night and used projects as a large part of their out of class work.   I am now looking at a 3 practice components: weekly practice, projects with milestones, and combo of workbook/text problems (1-2 times per week).

Weekly practice will be on online sites - where feedback is immediate (such as Khan, perhaps IXL, or along those lines).  This will replace daily homework, thus giving a lot of control on when, what skills a student practices.  I will use some metric from the online site to give credit - it will be standard based.  I will use the same system where this cannot be more than 2% (with written practice) of the student's grade (on a 70% scale).  And just like I have done in the past - it is required to be finished per my Homework FAQ.  The target is 20 minutes, 3 times per week - a solid hour outside of class per week of targeted practice.

Next is projects with milestones.  I have had large projects in the past, such as a Pay Day Loan project in Algebra 1, Stocks in Algebra 2 and Constructing a house in Google sketch up in Geometry (youtube video).  The problem is that large projects need multiple milestones, I had too long a span of time between the milestones and will add more steps (so students fall into my Homework FAQ guidelines when work is sub-par).  The key to projects is no one flunks - everyone needs to deliver a good project.  Just like the world, rework/revise.  Projects are about 12-18% of grade depending on class (leaves 80-86% on summative assessment).

Finally the workbook/text book combo.  I am currently looking for ways to move low level things out of my class (by flipping, out of class reading/note taking, etc) and doing a combo of text reading (needed for college) and using worksheets on low level things may have a fit.  This is the foggiest part of the plan.  I feel like I cannot completely get rid of written homework, because it will be an expectation at Technical colleges and universities.  It would be a disservice (I think) not to include some pencil/paper.  But these problems will be checked & scored, requiring rework.    We will use our text for some warm up, along with some note taking.  I think some homework will be to write procedures out and conceptually explain why.  Again - really not sure yet.  But for sure this falls into the same 2% (with the online). 

Will it work?  I see some pitfalls with the notes because I have not been good at checking student's notes in prior years.  I see some pitfalls on grading the work, but how I schedule due dates will be critical.  But one thing is sure, I am not going to be the same, welcome 2013 - or at least 2003.