The Sacred Profession

Apart from nurses and doctors, no other profession is armed with the germ-butt kicking antibodies teachers develop due to our wide and consistant exposure to each illness de jour. However, sometimes our germ defenses fail us and we succumb to sickness; and tis the season colleagues! I am writing this post through a fog of aches and snot . . . I’ll spare you the details but will pass on my tips for preventing and dealing with illness:

• Drink lots and lots of water. I think this is the number one key to beating off illness. Do your best to get in those obligatory eight glasses and you will be well on your way towards a healthy winter.
• Get your sleep on. When you miss an hour or two of sleep it begins to add up in what is called a sleep deficit. Take some time this weekend (you’ll have an extra hour Sunday night!) to pay some of that deficit off. I realize thus far my tips are painfully obvious but hydration and rest are the cornerstones of avoiding the germs of sick children swarming around you all day long.
• Airborne. I know research shows this stuff has no measurable effect but it totally works for me. Several years ago I went over to a friend’s house for some indian tacos (so so so good) hand-made by his visiting mom. Turns out his mom not only made some darn good fry bread, she was also the principal at a successful Navajo elementary school. I was coming down with a little cold and she absolutely sang the praises of Airborne. We went home that night with extra fry bread, two bottles of Airborne, and a devotion to what is likely a placebo product.
• Shake the kids hands, don’t use Germex but do wash your hands before your eat and at the end of the day. Some of my more cautious colleagues leave off with the hand shaking once flu season gets into full swing. They set out the bottles of disinfectant and demand sick kids keep their distance. I take what I call the “inoculation” approach; expose yourself to the germs to build up resistance. To each his own . . .
• If you do get sick, for petesake STAY HOME. I used to believe I was honor bound to show up to school every single day and I thought if I didn’t the world would literally fall apart. The truth is your students will not only be fine without you they will be less likely to get sick if you keep your contagens at home. We need to help each other out on this one colleagues; if your buddy comes to school sick empower her to get her butt back home. Sometimes we just need permission to do what we know is actually best for ourselves. Don’t be the source of an epidemic, stay home (or at least take a 1/2 day).

What other advice do you have for teachers hoping to avoid or get through school-borne sickness?

The best professional development I’ve had has come from having the privilege of working with outstanding colleagues. Who needs to go to trainings when you have an amazing teacher right down the hall? One of these great teachers is Dianne Allan Garcia who is not only a genius (MIT and Harvard), an award-winning and results getting teacher (crazy percentage of AP Calculus passing rates – think Jamie Escalante), but also one of the most kind and caring people I know. I am so honored to introduce her as a guest blogger on The Sacred Profession . . . Thanks Dianne!

“In my early years of teaching I [thought]….becoming a good teacher meant mastering a set of delivery techniques and knowing all the answers to my students’ questions. In those years it had not yet occurred to me that good teaching hinged upon what I knew and understood about the learners themselves and about how learning happens.”

– Mark Church, teacher, as quoted in Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners, p. 9

When I reflect on my first five years of teaching, I realize that my biggest missed opportunity in helping students develop mathematical understanding and proficiency was the time spent in class going over the answers to problems they had just worked on. I would usually talk through the problem step by step while writing the work out and then ask if anyone had any questions. Meanwhile, students who had gotten the problem right tried not to nod off while they had to listen to it again and students who had made an error had no idea what they did wrong and just copied in the right answer.

A few years of observing math classrooms made me realize that I had to completely reframe my approach to problem review. Instead of getting to the right answer, I now see reviewing problems as a way to uncover student misconceptions, help students understand what they did wrong, and give them an opportunity to practice explaining their thinking. Now that I’m back in the classroom part-time, I’m finding ways to make this happen and watching the magic as students engage in rich discussions about things they don’t understand. Here are some strategies that I’ve been practicing to review problems more effectively:

• Show the answers right away. Remember the goal is not to explain the steps that you did and go through each problem. It’s to figure out as quickly as possible who made errors where and to start talking about them.
• Write and discuss the most common mistake that you saw. Especially as you begin this process, students might not feel comfortable admitting that they made a mistake so I will often walk around as they’re checking their work and then I will say, “Here’s what I saw a few people write for problem x…what’s going on there? What are they thinking? Is this a valid approach? Why? Or why not?”
• Ask questions to search for misunderstandings and encourage the process. I often use questions like: Which ones do you want to review? Who got a different answer? Who solved it differently? I also encourage and praise students who contribute a mistake that they made. I’ll tell them that’s a really common error that I’ve seen or that I made that mistake too when I first tried the problem (sometimes, I’ll admit, I’ve said this even when it’s not true!). Teach your students that the discussion is more important than having the right answer.
• Make mistakes and put up wrong answers on purpose. Unpredictability promotes engagement and critical thinking so every once in a while I will purposely put up a wrong answer and then go through the standard questions (Who got something different? What did you do differently?…and, eventually, what mistake did I make? How do you know?).
• Ask multiple students to re-explain the same idea in their own words. Once you’ve started uncovering misunderstandings and discussing where students went wrong, students should start making connections and developing new understandings. When this happens, I will often call on several students to re-explain the idea in their own words or will ask an analogous question of a few different students to make sure everyone’s gotten it.
• Have students write in words their new understanding, preferably in a brightly-colored marker. After the discussion, I ask them to write what they just learned on their sheet or on a separate learning log. I remind them that writing it out in words is going to help them remember for next time, especially when you write it in marker. (This is not research-based, just my opinion really…and writing things in marker is fun!)

What other strategies have you used to review problems and promote understanding in your math classroom?

Chances are you have heard of the Stanford marshmallow experiment in which researchers looked at the ability of 4 year-olds to delay gratification. The 1960s experiment involved setting a marshmallow in front of  the child and telling him or her they could either eat the marshmallow or wait 15 minutes and get a second marshmallow. Researchers have tracked these children over the years and found that the child’s ability to wait predicted their future success in high school, in college and even in forming stable families, marriages, and careers.

When I read this study years ago I immediately saw the connections for my classroom. Delayed gratification was the key to getting 100% of my students to achieve academically! I taught the study to my students and likened waiting for the marshmallow to choosing to study for the AP or state exam; not immediately satisfying but more beneficial in the long run. I made a poster with the slogan “Don’t Eat the Marshmallow . . . Yet!” for my classroom and passed out marshmallows on the day of the exam. My buddy, Melissa Barkin (whose beautiful classroom can be seen here) designed her classroom motivation system around this study; she put “Don’t Eat the Marshmallow” on all of her handouts and referenced the study often.

This month a new study by the University of Rochester added a twist to the Marshmallow Test (thanks to Melissa for sending it to me!). Children were given the Marshmallow Test after a series of experiences where they were promised a reward if they waited. Half of the children received the rewards if they waited, the other half were told “there weren’t enough supplies” or some other excuse and were not giving the promised reward; then came the Marshmallow Test. Children who actually received the promised reward wait on average four times longer (ex. 12 minutes instead of 4) during the Marshmallow Test than children were not given a promised reward. Researches concluded:

“Delaying gratification is only the rational choice if the child believes a second marshmallow is likely to be delivered after a reasonably short delay,” [study author Celeste Kidd] said. Self control isn’t so important, it seems, if you don’t think there’s anything worth controlling yourself for.”

As someone who teaches students from predominately low-income backgrounds, the implications of this student were as staggering as they were obvious. Students with a history of disappointment – whether from the harsh inequalities of poverty and/or the disfunction of adults in their lives – will eat a Marshmallow if it is placed in front of them because they have learned not to trust an unseen reward. This reality is so obvious and intuitive we have saying built around it: “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush.” If delaying gratification is critical for long-term success how can we help instill this trait into our students if life outside of school (and often inside school) is teaching them the exact opposite?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JsQMdECFnUQ

There comes a moment for all teachers when we realize both the power and absolute horror of parent-teacher conferences. Jonny is misbehaving, we meet with his mom and the next day he is a delight – no problems ever again. Alternately, Jonny is misbehaving, we meet with his mom and completely understand why he is the way he his – Jonny’s behavior does not change and we are traumatized from the meeting.

This past Friday there was a great blog post at Education Week about how to have more meaningful parent-teacher conferences. The article is geared more towards elementary teachers but is well-worth reading even if you teach secondary students. But let’s be honest – the game changes when you have 130+ students instead of 30. Below are my top 5 tips on meeting with and leveraging parent relationships:

1. Start off on the right foot: Identify 30 students who you know will either struggle with academic performance or behavior in your class and as soon as you possibly can call home with a positive message. Build your relationship with these parents by continuing to call home or send brief, positive notes home when things are going well. This way, you build up positive capital for when the time comes you need to make a phone call asking for a change in student behavior. Actually, I’ve often found that by building a positive relationship with parents I actually end up never having to make a difficult call because the student is so grateful to me for calling home with good news that they always behave and do their work in my class.
2. Send home a classroom newsletter: Take a couple of pictures of your students doing something neat (a lab, performance, debate, presentation, etc.) and add to it a caption explaining what when on in class. Include upcoming test and project due dates as well as possible discussion questions to ask students (i.e. “Ask your student about what happened to Japanese-Americans living in the US during World War II”). The newsletter could be as short as 1/2 a page and could even be printed out on the back of weekly grade reports. If you really wanted to save time, assign a student the task of writing the newsletter for extra credit and then rotate the job from month to month.
3. Physically meet your students’ parents: This should happen beyond just the traditional Back To School Meet the Teacher night. Some good ideas include: home visits, hosting an event at school like a concert or art show, attending sporting events and meeting the parents in the stands and after the game, and loitering around the pick-up area after school to see if you can stick your head in a car window or two and make a strategic connection.
4. Hold individual parent-student conferences as a grade team: Some of the most transformative, positive meetings I’ve ever been a part of took place with a student, her parent/guardian and all 5 – 8 of the teachers she had in class. “Come on Abby!” you say, “When the heck do you do this?!?!” Great times are during lunch (because the meeting can’t go longer than 25 minutes) and right after school so the parent can take the student home afterwards. Here is one agenda the meeting could follow: every teacher goes around and quickly says something positive about the student, then one teacher sums up the 1 – 3 issues the student needs to address, the student is then given time to reflect on the root causes of these issues, the parent then comments on what she sees as the root causes, then the teachers, parent and student collectively agree on concerte steps everyone will take to ensure there is change. The meeting ends with one teacher agreeing to email and/or print notes from the meeting that summaries the issues, steps each party will take and a time/place when one or two teachers will follow up (either in person or on the phone) with the parent. I love group parent-teacher conferences!!
5. Bring parents in to the classroom: Either literally as guest presenters, volunteers, observers or through take-home surveys. Surveys can be very helpful ways to gather information about students’ study habits as well as parent’s expectations for your subject.

What else can we do to ensure positive and productive parent-teacher relationships?

In the era of high-stakes exams, our students must develop the ability to sit down, focus and perform on exams under timed conditions. I don’t know about you but I personally find test taking to be an incredibly intimidating task. Our students take exams with real implications for their promotion, their future college prospects, their placement in various academic tracks, and for college credit. It is no wonder many develop a tremendous, and often crippling, anxiety around testing.

I decided to tackle test anxiety after the first year I taught Advanced Placement World History to 10th grade students in La Joya, Texas. When students who passed our practice exams ended up getting scores of 2 on the real exam I was baffled – what the heck happened?!? I KNEW they knew the information and had the skills to be successful. “I just got so nervous Miss,” one said. “I couldn’t think straight and when I looked up I’d wasted 30 minutes so I just gave up,” said another. In my reflection and personal research that summer I dug into test anxiety causes and solutions. Here are some ideas I’ve used in my classroom in the 5 years since to help students reach their top performance on high-pressure exams:

• Develop a pre-exam relaxation routine: (see picture above) Before every exam and/or quiz I would lead students through the routine listed on the poster. We began by standing up and stretching in order to 1) get the blood flowing and 2) activate both sides of the brain by doing some cross body reaching and moving. The next part involves success visualization which is a strategy used by world class altheles like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. It involves seeing yourself be successful at whatever task you about about to do (ex. make a free-throw or putt a ball into the hole) and mentally accessing a place of calm (often mocked as “going to your special place” but it works!). Breathing is also a key part of successful relaxation and is closely linked to posture. I teach students to sit up straight and take deep breaths as they take an exam. This way, they are fully oxygenating their brains by breathing with full lung capacity. When you slump or slouch you sort of crumple or fold your lungs which hinders your ability to take a full breath.
• Practice using real testing conditions: If the exam is timed then time almost everything else you do in class. Use the paper, font and headings (if you can) that the exam will use – make your practice exams look as close to possible like the real exam.
• Teach students the procedural part of the exam a least a month before testing day: What will happen in the morning when they arrive at school? What forms will they need to fill out? What does the answer document look like? Often it is during the time right before the exam when students work themselves up – empower them by giving them a very clear idea of what will actually happen before, during and after the exam. This allows students to feel like they know what’s going on even before their knowledge is being tested.
• Give them a strategy for what to do if they become frustrated: I have students stop and breath as well as check their posture. Another good idea is to take a drink of water from a bottle (if allowed) or pop in a mint or piece of gum. Draw a star next to the confusing question and come back to it after a few more questions or at the end.
• Constantly send and reenforce the message “If you work hard, you can do this.” Students need to believe they have what it takes to be successful in order to even attempt to study or learn material. I explicitly teach my belief that the brain is like a muscle – if you work out you get stronger – if you stick with something difficult, you will understand it better in the end. I teach lessons on role models who showed resilience and I cover the classroom in quotes that underscore the importance of working hard. However, it is also important to teach students the difference between trying hard and effective effort.

What do you do to help students with testing anxiety?