Assessments (the good, the bad, and the ugly)

One of my students made an interesting comment to me last week. They had taken their test on information from a diagram and naming things such as lines, planes, rays, etc. Needless to say all of the classes did not do so hot. It brought a lot of their grades an entire letter grade down. The test wasn’t multiple-choice like the rest of their tests. Brad* asked why the test wasn’t multiple-choice. “The ACT is multiple-choice and that’s what we are trying to pass to get into college. In football if it’s going to rain at the game we practice in the rain. That way we are prepared for the conditions.” He has a great point! If the ACT is the multiple-choice test that gets them into college why shouldn’t all tests be multiple-choice to give them the practice to pass? My counter statement was, “how do I know you really understand the material and didn’t plug in all the answers.” My goal for my students is to be proficient in geometry. I have already had a student guess on a test and get about a 50%. Now if I give a multiple-choice test I make sure to say show your work or it doesn’t count.

My mentor teacher had a way of grading assessments that I had never seen before but it made a lot of sense when I heard her explanation. The only grades in our class are tests. We give the students a test on each standard when we cover it. This allows us to pinpoint exactly what topic that students didn’t understand. We also don’t grade on a 100% scale. During my school career, teachers gave tests that had about 20 questions on them and if you missed one you got 5 points off for every question you missed. I think it’s kind of ridiculous that if you scored between 0-60 you failed and you had to get in the small window of 90-100 to get an A. My mentor’s way of grading is based on above proficient, proficient, basic, and below basic. There are usually 9 questions on a test ranging in difficulty (3 easy, 3 medium, and 3 hard). If this was to be graded out of 100% and a student missed one question, they would get an 89 so a B. I believe that tests should reflect a students’ mastery of a concept not how many questions can they do in the class period and miss the least. By demonstrating they know the basic concepts (so easy questions) they should get a passing grade, C. To get an A, students should demonstrate a deeper knowledge or problem solving skills, aka solving harder problems.

The math department also has made common assessments for Algebra I and Algebra II. Apparent,h last hear the math department threw the assessments together and none of them were good. The teachers didn't even use them last year so the main focus this year was to improve the assessments and use them. They have just collected data from their first test. I am not there for the departmental meetings because of a class conflict so I'm not familiar with what they talked about. The data is a great way for teachers to see how they compare to other teachers. Teachers can compared teaching techniques they used if their class dirk really well compared to another teachers class. I read an article during inservice last week that said teachers are more likely to change their teaching techniques because of common assessments!

These are some of my revelations I have been having on assessment. This has triggered my action research topic which is focused around standards-based grading. I’m not sure if I want to compare traditional grading (participation, homework, tests, projects, bell-ringers) VS standards based grading (just tests). Or just focus on my experience with standards based grading (something I’m not familiar with). Regardless I think both would change my views on assessments and grading so I’m excited to see the outcome!

*Names have been changed

Classroom Community

My geometry class is a pretty small classroom compared to the rest of the periods. There are 10 students. It is a good mixture of high achievers and lower achievers. There are some talkative students and then those who you have to force to participate. Overall, it hits pretty much both ends of the spectrum. I know I'm not supposed to pick favorites but they are the most well-behaved and engaging class out of all the classes I observe. I would say that students are comfortable getting up and presenting problems or work in front of the class. We have gotten in a habit of doing a daily problem that the students are randomly chosen to go to the board and explain. I do have this one student James* who I constantly have to prompt to get his work started. He will not do his work unless you stand over his shoulder. It depends on the day to whether my students are energetic or quiet. Some days they are tired and don't really participate. If the class starts out energetic then they do as well. I can tell there are outside causes that affect their personalities or behavior on a certain day.

The desks are spread out in groups of 4 around the classroom. This class works well in groups and isn't off task or talking too much. If they are not focused on a particular day because of someone in the group it is easy to move that student to another group because of all the extra seats. I haven't had any discipline issues in this class. I have one student has been absent several times since school began. It is hard to get her caught up on what we learned when she misses sometimes every other day. Lately, we have been focusing on a short lecture and then individual and group work. I usually monitor the room, answer students' questions, and question the students on their process. This is my 1B geometry class that I will teach until May! :)

*Names have been changed

Motivation in Math?

Motivation is one of the struggles I am facing while teaching. How do you get the students who hate math and think they aren’t good at it to pay attention and participate in class? I have one student Cory* who has said plenty of times that he doesn’t like math because he isn’t good at it. He won’t pay attention 80% of the time and he draws in his notebook or worse sleeps. When I wake him up or constantly try keep him focused on his work, he pays attention but doesn’t try to understand what we are learning and this shows on his tests. When I have one-on-one time with him and teach the lesson he understands it. But I can’t do this for every lesson! There isn’t enough time and it isn’t fair to the other students who pay attention and want to learn. I have talked with another teacher who says that when he takes Cory’s notebook away and says he can have it back after doing so much work, he pays attention. While doing the Tin Man Project, Cory was the most involved I have ever seen him. He wasn’t doing the math portion but he was measuring and doing the hands on activities. I have learned that I need to find hands on activities for him to be motivated to learn. This is sometimes hard and takes longer but I have to find a way to incorporate it in my class if I want him to pass. I also have found some things that interest him like games and World of Warcraft. So maybe if in incorporate students making an avatar or something he would be interested. I learned about a program called Voki over the summer in TPTE 586.

I subbed one day last week in the morning and taught Algebra I A (repeater Algebra). I have a student Carrie* that for some reason I think doesn’t like me. She will give me dirty looks and when I tried to explain how to do two-step equations she said I wasted her time and that was pointless because she wasn’t going to understand it. This class has 20+ students with large personalities and behavioral issues. That day my name was being called so many times to help students work problems. I noticed Carrie hadn’t begun working on her assignment out of the book. She had her head propped up by her hand and was staring off into space. She wouldn’t acknowledge or look at me when I said her name. I went and got a book for her and turned to the page she should begin working. I tried talking to her from the side so I wouldn’t be confronting her face on. She still wouldn’t talk, look at me, or acknowledge that I was even talking to her. At that point I was the only teacher in the room and had to turn my focus to the other students calling my name. I had no idea on how to motivate her to do her work. I couldn’t turn to my mentor because she was out of school that day. I’m pretty sure that she just had a horrible morning or something because she usually doesn’t act that way.

These are the two types of student motivation I have been dealing with. Students who don’t pay attention and want to do their work and students who have had something occur in their life that effects their motivation that day. I’m in a Title I school which means most of the students have free/reduced lunch. I know there are probably more important things going on in their lives that make them not want to focus on math at 8:30 in the morning. It’s hard to get ever single student motivated to want to learn a much disliked subject but my job as a teacher is to find something that does. I am going to focus on finding:
1. what interests students
2. ways that relates what we are learning to something beneficial or has a real world application

3. creative ways to teach rather than worksheets

Any Ideas?

*Names have been changed

Tin Man Project

This past week my geometry class has been studying surface area and volume. I tried to find an interesting and hands on project because when finding surface area or volume you are basically plugging numbers into a formula. The students were great at that but I don't think they actually understood what surface area meant. So I found this tin man project on another teachers blog!

For about two weeks my mentor teacher and I had been collecting other peoples "trash" aka toilet paper rolls and small boxes. (Big thanks to everyone who gave me supplies!!)
The materials included:
1box- prism
4 toilet paper rolls- cylinder
1 balloon- sphere
1 paper cone- cone
scissors
tape
glue
ruler

I had been excited about this project for a while and it worked out perfectly that this day would be my evaluation day! My mentor teacher allowed me to plan and teach this project all by myself. She said that she would be in the classroom and help out while I led it. Unfortunately she got sick and I got a text the night before saying that she wouldn't be in class the day of the project. After I mild panic attack I realized that I could do it by myself and the students would be great (I told myself over and over).

I was nervous about doing group work with my classroom because I had never done it before. Fortunately my first class is very well behaved and worked amazing together! I only had a couple of students complain at first about their partner but once they started measuring they got into the project and moved past that. All of the students were on task and sharing the roles equally. Some measured while the other plugged the numbers into the formula. They all used their creativity!! Some were standing, sitting, flexing, tall, short, or even had earrings!

Only a couple of groups had enough tin foil to cover their robots. We talked about why and discovered that tin foil crinkles up so this was less material for them to use. Many of the students didn't realize that the tin foil needed to be carefully and precisely put on the robots. Many of them wrapped the prism like a gift. This left material overlapping which we discussed that this wasn't calculated in finding surface area.

I think doing hands on activities with students helps them better understand how math is used in the real world. I believe they now have a better understanding of surface area. Working with 3D shapes in class helped them visualize a base or side. They had seen problems on a worksheet that are kind of hard to picture a 3D figure on a 2D piece of paper. My students are used to being told exactly what to do. With a topic like surface area, there is pretty much only one way to solve a problem. By giving them freedom to measure things how they wanted, it helped them problem solve. While students were covering their tin man they realized they had to be very precise. I let them figure this out themselves because if I had told them, they wouldn't have understood exactly why. This presented themselves with a challenge that they had to work through and come up with a solution. This idea of perseverance and problem solving is my goal for my classes this year.

I had them fill out a reflection sheet which asked questions like what was the hardest/easiest part and what would you have done differently next time. Overall, the project was greater than I could have ever imagined. Their robots are displayed in our classroom :)

Debbie Cakes and Mighty Bones

 

Eye-opening Incident

I was teaching my second block of geometry about perimeter and area of 2D figures. The day before we had found perimeter and area of regular shapes like rectangles and squares and they were doing great. Then I introduced irregular shapes where students had to do multiple steps to find the answer.
Here is an example:

Some of them shut down at this point. I began to explain the way I am used to solving the problem which is separating the shape into shapes that you can take the area of by using a formula. I drew a line making two rectangles (one 5x5 and another 3x2). As soon as I did this one of my students JC* starts to say Ms. Callahan that is way too much work. I just finished off the rectangle and took the area and then subtracted the bottom right square. The other students immediately liked his way of solving the problem much better. From that point on we started solving these problems by finding the entire area and then subtracting if the shape wasn't too difficult.

This was an eye-opening experience for me because I was used to doing it the way I liked however this way may not connect with students. If JC hadn't explained the way he solved the problem I probably would have never said anything. Because I have never taught geometry before I didn't know how to explain how to work a problem in more than one way. The rest of the day I continued to teach both ways of solving this problem and an overwhelming number of students chose JC's way. This incident taught me to be prepared to explain something multiple ways to students and also to ask students how they solved a problem because sometimes they may have found a way that I had never thought of.

*student's names have been changed