Professional Development Keeps Things Going

I am a self-confessed super duper fan of Professional Development (PD).  It keeps me fresh, focused, reflective and continually engaged in improving my teaching practice.

Yesterday, as I reflected upon PD that I have undertaken since January, I realized that this has been a wonderfully full year for me in terms of PD.  I am delighted with the conferences and courses that I have chosen and am looking forward to two more.

I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on my year's PD in preparation for my year-end Teacher Professional Growth Plan (TPGP) review and wrap up.

This year, I have attended:

The Southern Alberta Professional Development Consortium (SAPDC) Digital Citizenship Symposium   with guest speakers Dr. Alec Couros and Dr. Maurice Hollingsworth, October 2012

• This was a wonderful day of introspection, discussion and debate about the idea and meaning of digital citizenship.  It gave me a great understanding of the central meaning of the digital world for my students as they continue to grow and engage in this world.  It also helped me to understand the responsibility that I have as a teacher to ensure that my students engage in the world with good character and conscience, whether digital or "real."

Staff Development for Educators Differentiated Instruction Conference, January 2013

Foothills Academy Learning Disabilities E-Course, January to March 2013

Math Connects Conference, University of Calgary, February 2013

I am looking forward to attending:

#EdcampYYC, April 2013

ConnectEd Canada, May 2013

Math Connect Conference - University of Calgary

I never thought I'd willingly attend a mathematics conference and actually really enjoy it.


Today, I attended the Math Connect Conference at the University of Calgary, and listened to Brent Davis, Carol Dweck, Rafael Nunez, Daniel Ansari, John Mighton, Diana Chang (OISE) and Elisha Bonnis discuss mathematics education.  Thought-provoking, interesting, relevant, and timely, it was fantastic.

"How might we engage with one another to improve mathematics teaching and learning?" was the guiding question of the conference.

Carol Dweck discussed the fixed and growth mindset ideas of intelligence, which was very interesting.  I've already ordered her book!

She stated that there were three main guidelines in the different approaches to learning:

1.  Look smart at all costs (Fixed mindset) vs. Learn at all costs (Growth mindset)
2.  Learning should come naturally (Fixed mindset) vs. Work hard, effort is key (Growth mindset)
3.  Hide mistakes, conceal difficulties (Fixed) vs. Capitalize on mistakes, confront deficiencies (Growth)

She also discussed the need for a change in the way that we praise students.  Intelligence praise such as "wow, you must be really smart!" instantly made kids "non-learnersm" they wanted a task they could do perfectly, so as not to look dumb.  Meanwhile, process praise such as "wow, you must have tried really hard" encouraged students to continue to try and learn, and they actually enjoyed the difficult questions that they were given.

Carol Dweck stated that struggle should not be a bad word, that students should be taught to persist regardless of setbacks. Kids should identify their weaknesses and work to overcome them.  We should transform the meaning of difficulty, embrace learning and growth and understand the role of effort and change.

Elisha Bonnis also made several interesting points about math learning and teaching during her talk.  She emphasized the importance of practice; our brains need practice to make connections and new neural pathways.  Elisha also emphasized the need to explicitly teach math concepts in order to give kids the tools that they need to discover and create.  She stated that it was not that students had a range of ability in math, but rather that they had a range of math experiences.

During her talk, Elisha quoted John Mighton, who said that "there comes a point when you decide that either you are stupid or the subject is."  Most students choose to believe that they are stupid, not realizing that their mindset is inhibiting their ability to learn and grow.

I have many more notes that I'd love to share, but instead of making this a regurgitation of my notes, I'd like to suggest that you check out #MathConnect on Twitter for the general gist of the conference.  There were quite a few of us tweeting today and it was great to connect with my colleagues about this important issue in education.

Thank you to the organizers for a wonderful conference!  I can't wait to see what happens next in this conversation.

"I can't do math" - or can I?

I am one of those people who used to proclaim that I "wasn't any good at math," I've even engaged in conversations with my mother-in-law in which we expressed our hope that my son inherited the "math gene" from his grandfather and aunt.   I dreaded the classes in which I had to teach or learn math, and thought myself fortunate to have successfully taught grade 3 and 4 math during my practicums.

As Carol Dweck would say, I've had a change in my mindset.  I no longer believe that I cannot or will not learn math, and I no longer look at a failure in math as an indication that I am unable to understand or "do" math.  This is a new development for me.  During my elementary school years, I was part of a gifted pull-out program, which for some unknown reason, took part during math.  I didn't catch up on what I missed, for whatever reason, and by grade 5, I felt hopelessly behind and confused.  My mother asked my grade 5 teacher to help me at lunch time, which consisted of a stack of worksheets, a pencil and an eraser, and the directive to finish them (alone) while my teacher ate lunch in the staff room.  Needless to say, this was not a successful strategy for me.  If I could have completed those worksheets, I would have done so the first time.  I stopped going at lunch and my teacher gave up on me.

Fast forward (quite) a few years, a few more bad experiences, a few more coping mechanisms and the further development of my own belief in my sub-par mathematics skills.  As I began to teach math, I began to see students who were nervous, anxious, worried, and stressed whenever the subject of math came up.  I saw students complain, moan, and even cry during math class.  It broke my heart. I tried every strategy I knew, rephrased textbook questions constantly and spent a lot of time encouraging students to just do their best. I knew it wasn't enough, but I didn't know what else to do and was resigned to the idea that math was a necessary evil that had to be endured.

I was very nervous to teach math during my first year of teaching.  I was using the textbook and cobbling together my own supporting materials, as does nearly every other elementary math teacher I know.   It was fine, but not great.  Everyone was learning and making gains, but most of my students continued to complain loudly that they hated math, weren't good at it, were bored with it, etc.  Enter the JUMP math program.  You can check out the website for more details (and you should), but suffice to say that my kids began to enjoy math, made huge gains, and started working together in a way that I could not have predicted.  Some of my kids began to loudly proclaim that math was their favourite subject, that they could not have snack yet, they weren't done their practice questions, that this was easy AND fun!

As I learned more about the philosophy of JUMP Math and saw supporting evidence in my own classroom, my mindset changed dramatically.  I no longer think that math is a necessary evil, but an exciting opportunity to try out new concepts, practice, explore, and learn.  I am now a firm believer that any child can learn math and have fun, if they have the right supports, encouragement, and practice.

Dyscalculia and Dyslexia

This week's topic in my LD course is dyscalculia and dyslexia, which has been very interesting and informative.  I learned a lot watching a TVO clip featuring John Mighton of JUMP Math called "Discovering Dyscalculia." I use JUMP Math in my classroom, in a super simple explanation, it's a fantastic program that uses scaffolded steps to help students learn math effectively and successfully.  I should probably write a blog post about JUMP Math soon....


Anyway, one of the other specialists, Mahesh Sharma, spoke about how you can teach most math concepts with a variation of War.  I LOVE THIS!

First traditional variation - Take playing cards, compare numbers, the bigger number wins. That is number conceptualization.  Second variation - Addition war.  Each person takes two cards and adds them together, the person with bigger sum wins.  Subtraction war, multiplication war, division war, fraction war.  You can use playing card to teach any aspect of math, the same time, the visual cluster on those cards help students conceptualize the numbers!

I have been teaching my students to play addition and multiplication war for the past three years, learning it when I was a student teacher at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School.  It's a great game and kids LOVE it.  We started multiplication this month and I have one student who has been asking to play multiplication war constantly because she loves it so much.

According to Mahesh Sharma, the Mathematical Milestones, which aid in later learning of math are:

-Number conceptualizations
Grapheme - Shape of the number or letter (3)
Phoneme - Sound of the number or letter (three)
Visual Cluster - what the number represents (* * *)
-Mastery of facts
-place value
-fractions
-integers

This makes a lot of sense to me and is very helpful as I work with the students in my class to attain mastery over math facts.  I'd already planned to play multiplication war with my kids tomorrow, and know I know that they will be reinforcing their number conceptualization while they do so!

Encouraging, Not Enabling

I have had this blog post percolating in my head for the past two weeks, about the importance of encouragement rather than enablement.

It started when my son Ben, who is four years old, received a pair of hockey skates for Christmas.  "Sure," we said to his Uncle Matt, "We'll teach how to skate!  It'll be fun!"  Fast forward a few weeks and Ben is now the veteran of three "skating" sessions on the local outdoor rink.  The first lesson, an 8 year old by-stander, clearly a veteran of skating lessons herself, corrected my husband, saying "No, you don't teach him like THAT.  He needs to learn how to move his feet first.  Watch me, I'll show you."  Helpful?  Yes!  Embarrassing to my husband?  A little.  Husband comes home and sheepishly does an internet search for "teach your child how to skate" videos.  Second and third times out, Husband takes along a folding chair, so that Ben can push it around the rink.  This has only fair to moderate success, but enough to be encouraging to all concerned. After all, Ben's just learning, right?

A week later, we had a dinner party with a crew of teacher friends, my "Case" group, from the former MT Program at the University of Calgary.  Before dinner, we went skating at the neighbourhood rink.  After watching Ben cry a bit and insist that he "couldn't do it" and cling desperately to my hand as I walked beside him in boots (so I could help more easily), asking for the folding chair that we'd dutifully brought along, my friend Will skated around the rink a few times, zooming in front of Ben once or twice.  Suddenly, Ben desperately wanted to skate really fast, so Will picked him up and skated around the rink with him.  Ben wanted to go again, and Will said, "Then, go.  You know how to skate."  Ben insisted he couldn't and needed Will's help, to which Will replied, "Catch me and I'll take you around again."

By the end of the night, Ben was skating around the rink by himself, no support (or chair) needed.  He'd caught Will (and every other adult on skates) a multitude of times, and was "zoomed" around the rink as a reward.  During this experience, I realized how often we as adults, whether teachers or parents or other caring people, enable children to achieve success rather than encourage them to do so.

I thought Ben couldn't learn to skate without a lot of direct teaching, modelling, and yes, encouragement.  It turned out that all he needed was a bit of a challenge, a bit of success, and the inner desire and knowledge that he could achieve his goal.   I didn't need to do it for him, he needed to do it for himself.  Ben is on his way to being a competent and confident skater, and if he falls down, he can pick himself up.

When teaching children skills, independence and competence are always the goal, but sometimes we accidentally sabotage that by helping kids so much that they don't know how to help themselves.

I am currently taking a Learning Disabilities and Associated Disorders e-course through Foothills Academy, and have also recently attended a Differentiated Instruction conference through Staff Development for Educators (SDE), which have given me a lot to think about.   Through a talk by Dr. Ellen Arnold at the SDE conference, I can see how often our in-class accommodations and modifications can lead to student success but not independence.  Dr. Arnold supports student self-awareness and self-advocacy.  It makes sense for ALL students to understand how they learn and what they need to be successful.  It makes me think of those popular self-diagnosing personality and career quizzes, which are popular because people want to know who they are.

Dr. Arnold uses Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences to help differentiate and find things that students are good at, however, she does not like to give the kids quizzes or tell them which category they are best at.  Rather, she suggests explaining the categories and giving kids the chance to choose the ones that work best for them and give proof to support their choice because it doesn't matter what we see, it matters what they believe about themselves.  I really like this and I think that this is something I need to come back to, after I let it sit for a bit.

It's been an interesting to think through the ways that I unconsciously enable and do things for my students (and my own child) rather than encourage them to figure things out on their own.

Getting Back To It.

I kind of just remembered that I had this blog.  I guess my idea of using this to journal my teaching and learning experiences didn't quite become a priority in the new school year and I need to start changing this immediately!

I just spent an amazing week at Campus Calgary Chevron Open Minds Zoo School with my grade 4 class and my partner teacher, Kathleen Phelan.  It was an absolutely amazing experience, one that will feed my teaching and learning for the next year, and beyond.  It is something that I will definitely be applying for next year!

In just one week, our class "gelled" as friends, had astounding growth in reflective thinking, reasoning, and insight.  They also sketched some pretty fantastic drawings! 

They also got to learn from Zookeepers, see and "pet" a hognose snake, feed a giraffe, look at skeletons of sharks, snakes, and gorillas, and learn how to take care of the people and the world around them.

Truly fantastic.

Generosity

I have a four year old son.  Watching him grow and discover the world around him has been a fascinating and amazing journey, one that I feel very privileged to take part in.

Yesterday, we went grocery shopping.  He often sits in the cart and plays with toys or reads a book, but that day, he decided to bring his crayons and pad of paper so that he could draw.  As I was getting him settled in the cart, he yelled excitedly, "I know!  I can make pictures and give them to people!"  I thought that this was a great idea, and encouraged him to do it.  I thought he'd probably give one to the cashier at the end of the trip. 

What I didn't realize at the time was that this would be a shopping trip in which I was brought to tears and felt incredible pride in my son. 

Immediately, he started drawing excitedly and tried to get the attention of people around us.  "Hey!  Hey!," he started with, waving pictures in people's faces.  Most people completely ignored him, or looked at him briefly and smiled.  I was a little embarrassed and sad for him, and I told him it would be great for him to give a picture to the cashier.  He said he wanted to give them to the people around him instead.  I told him that some people were too busy and tried to redirect him to the cashier.  

He was adamant that he wanted to give his pictures to the people shopping and he kept trying to get the attention of the shoppers around us.  Again, most people ignored him, and as I stood there with him in the cart in front of me, I thought, "Why not?  He just wants to make people happy and share his work."  So I reassured him that we'd find someone who would love a picture soon.  I also asked him to try saying "Hello, do you want a picture?" instead of yelling "Hey! Hey!"

As we continued on our shopping trip, Ben kept drawing and trying to give his pictures out.  We found some very nice people who were happy to accept his drawings, some who were so delighted it nearly brought me to tears.  Every time someone accepted his drawing and we'd started to walk away, Ben yelled "Yay!  Now they REALLY like drawings!" 

It was amazing to see how excited he was to share.  He was genuinely hoping to make someone else happy and was delighted when it worked.  One man was so touched with Ben's offering that Ben immediately gave him another. 

I like to think that my little boy brightened the days of others yesterday, rightly feeling proud of himself for trying something different, something that crossed the unspoken social conventions of grocery shopping (one does not speak to strangers or give them things).  I am so proud of him for his generosity and perseverance.  Even when people ignored him and I felt embarrassed, he kept trying.  It was a great experience for both of us, a reminder that children have much to share and to teach us, if we let them.