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#DBC50Summer 26/50: Shift This

/ Alicia Ray / 7 Comments

You know the saying “It’s all downhill from here”? I just spent the last little bit in an internet time warp looking up what that meant. It’s one of those rabbit holes. There is discussion online (apparently, a LOT of discussion online) about whether this is said in positive or negative connotation. I’ll spare you the details, but I choose to see it as a cyclist who has made it over the highest hill in a race, meaning things will get easier from here on. That’s what I thought would happen when I reached halfway in #DBC50Summer. I’d reached the top of the #DBC50Summer hill and could see the “end” (waaaaayy off in the distance). It’ll be easier now that I’m halfway, right?

Things. Are. Definitely. Not. Easier.

I am continuing to be stretched and challenged as an educator to truly know my educational beliefs as I read these books published by Dave & Shelley Burgess! I’m having to be more thoughtful about creating an implementation plan for these books that is realistic and attainable, while still making big waves. (Because, you know, Pirate ships do that – Pirate Pun, check!)

Book 26 was an empowering book! I’m currently ready to run through the halls yelling to the top of my lungs that I’m making changes and I want everyone on board. I’m ready to use my word from Lead Like A Pirate and be relentless in not accepting the status quo from teachers or students that I have the pleasure of serving. Shift This by Joy Kirr was so incredible that I have actually read it TWICE since last night. With that said, just go ahead and get your copy now! Seriously, it’s that good.

shiftthis

Here’s a little tidbit about me. I don’t like confrontation, in any form. I very much dislike arguments. I am a people pleaser (Yes, me too, Joy!) If someone confronts me face-to-face, I typically just bow out of the conversation with the quickest escape route I can find. If I do manage to find the guts to stand my ground, it usually ends with me stumbling over my words and tears. Mine. It’s embarrassing to be honest. If the confrontation is digital, I avoid that person like the plague until it blows over (or an appropriate amount of time has passed).

This book equips me with so many options for coaching teachers, and dealing with the dismissal and pushback that will likely happen (which in my eyes feels like confrontation – remember I take everything personally even though I shouldn’t). Finding a teacher’s comfort level in making changes in their classroom is so important. Allowing teachers to be in charge of their own changes makes change seem less intimidating. That leads to a higher success rate through sustaining said change. Thanks to Joy, I now have 4 scaffolded levels of change for topics that are very near and dear to my heart. These topics include:

  • Classroom Environment
  • Classwork
  • Homework
  • Grading
  • Social Media
  • Student-Directed Learning

Each of these includes small changes that feel “safe” while making a ginormous (yes, I’m choosing to use that word) impact on student empowerment and lifelong learning. I could easily see where I was in regards to the sliding scale of shifts on each topic and could find a shift I can make in the new year to make an even greater impact. I love that Joy repeatedly states that this was not an overnight large-scale change! She mentions frequently that the changes she has implemented in her classroom are from YEARS of small changes. I also respect that Joy speaks about the next step she is going to make as well! It shows that she’s not done growing and changing, and I appreciate that so much!

This book is like taking a snapshot into Joy’s classroom, seeing it from Point E to Point L, with the understanding that the story was already in play (Point A to Point D) and it continues to evolve now (Point M to Point “Retirement”). I’m sure even at this point, Joy is making small shifts for the her school year and that’s incredibly powerful to me!

I have got to meet this lady. We share so many educational philosophies and through my first reading of the book, I spent the majority of the time standing on her soap box with her, agreeing with every passionate sentence she wrote (sometimes even agreeing out loud). I would love to sit and discuss these beliefs about student empowerment, grading, homework, etc with Joy! There would be a lot of nodding. That’s for sure!

The second time I read the book, I read it through the eyes of an instructional coach. I could literally place every teacher I work with on the sliding scales included with each topic and can see what small change could be made in the coming school year. I want the teachers to be comfortable with the changes because, as Joy says, “Whatever you do has to work for you. If you are not comfortable with something, the students won’t get out of it what you hope for them.” Through discussion and reflection (both with students and within themselves), these changes can be tweaked to meet the needs of their classrooms.

Here are some quotes that I absolutely loved from the book!

 

 

 

One of the things I love most about the DBC, Inc books is that the resources shared within the book, and readily available after reading the book, are abundant. Joy’s book is no different. She includes links to all kinds of goodness via tinyurl.com in her book! I’m looking forward to diving into these links even more, as I know they will provide “a-ha” moments beyond what I read (which is already impressive).

As I mentioned, I can seriously make an implementation goal for every single section within the book. For example, in regards to grading… I have the luxury of not assigning grades to students as I am the media coordinator but I do provide feedback. Joy makes me want to shift this to have students select the work they’d like to turn in for feedback. That small shift gives students choice and allows me to see their best work. I appreciate that!

The implementation goal I choose to complete is related to social media. As I read the section of the book about social media shifts: lurking, then sharing I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Joy and I have very similar stories about our first experiences on social media. (I, too, came home from a conference and spent hours checking out the hashtag when I got home, Joy!) I have reached a point in social media where I’ve been thinking what’s next? as I already share my own content and blog and get new resources and have an amazingly supportive Professional Learning Network (PLN). Joy gives me the next step though, and it is so obvious for it to be the next step (couldn’t see the forest for the trees kind of obvious)… hand it over to the students. Give them the opportunity to blog and tweet out their own content! The best part about this… my principal and I just had a similar discussion this week in which we’ve decided to generate a social media team of students who will get the ball rolling with student-led blogging and social media. We’ll get to see the school from the eyes of our students, and we’re both so excited about what this will look like at the end of the year! The initial social media team will work out the kinks, set the parameters (with some guidance from the principal and I on policy and student safety) and teach other students how to write a blog and share on social media. This group of students will also fulfill one of the implementations from Your School Rocks, which was to create a school hashtag (we had one, but I didn’t put two and two together, so I’m sure the students hadn’t either… now the new one will be clearly stated and shared). We are allowing the students to use their voice by sharing their hashtag ideas for our school, then vote on their favorite to select one! It’s going to be awesome!

I am excited with and empowered by this book! You should visit Joy’s website which has incredible information, including the resources for the book, blogs about shift stories where teachers have shared their stories about their own small shifts leading to big changes, and podcasts with Joy including The Wired Educator. The community on Twitter uses the hashtag #ShiftThis (Be careful with that one, ha! Joy has a funny story about that!) and the chat will resume on August 21, 2018 at 8:00 pm EST! We will meet (almost) every Tuesday night after that. I have the privilege of moderating the chat on December 4, 2018 about Shifting Mindsets! True to Joy Kirr fashion, she is shifting how she moderates Twitter chats, so click here for more information about that small shift! I’m expecting it to lead to massive impacts!

As always, the flipgrid is wide open for global collaboration! Share a story about a small shift you’ve made and how it impacted your classroom. If you should need a password, use DBCSummer to access the grid. A massive thank you to Andrea Paulakovich, a superstar educator from Kansas, for sharing the genius idea to open a global collaboration space for every DBC book!

Book 27 is Unmapped Potential by Julie Hasson and Missy Lennard, the Purposeful Principals! I just purchased this book at the beginning of July, so I’m thrilled to read it for the first time! Look for the blog soon!

 

#DBC50Summer 25/50: Teaching Math with Google Apps

/ Alicia Ray / 5 Comments

I love the fact that book 24 and book 25 in the Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc line up came out back-to-back! These two books flow well together as they both discuss that the most important thing in math isn’t the answer itself, but is found in the process of finding the answer. When students ask, “when am I ever going to use this” the answer is now clear, no matter what concept being covered…the critical thinking skills developed in math will be used every. single. day.

Book 25 is the third book published by DBC for Alice Keeler. (The first two released were 50 Things and 50 Things Further, both co-authored with Dr. Libbi Miller.) Alice co-authored book 25 with the late Diana Herrington. Sadly, Diana passed away unexpectedly on May 17, 2017, just a few weeks after the release of their book. Diana’s love of teaching math and her passion for making math fun for students lives on in her words in the book. Teaching Math with Google Apps is book 25, and marks the halfway point in #DBC50Summer!

googlemath

Choosing from any of the Alice Keeler Google Apps books will result in a beautiful read. These pages are printed completely in color and organized in such a way that the content is easy to navigate and understand. Teaching Math with Google Apps can be used as a cover to cover professional development read, or as a quick reference guide (I’ll be using it as both)! In this book in particular, the sections of reading are color-coded in the top corners. I personally enjoy a good color-coding system, so this immediately spoke to my heart. I also love that Alice & Diana brought in some familiar faces to contribute! We get to hear from Shelley Burgess (co-author of P is for Pirate and co-author of Lead Like A Pirate), John Stevens (Table Talk Math and co-author of The Classroom Chef), and Denis Sheeran (Instant Relevance).

There are so many amazing tips, tools, activities, examples, and templates included in this book! The complete list of links is available when you purchase the book. That list of links alone is worth every penny! There are examples and templates for elementary through high school math classes, so there’s something for everyone here!

Some of my favorite activities within the book are Pixel Art using Google Sheets (I know, right? Genius stuff! It’s like a digital color by number), utilizing all that Google Forms has to offer through the implementation of self-graded quizzes that offer students immediate feedback, and using the Explore feature in Google Apps to make math relevant to students through maps, shopping, and can even be used to complete a scavenger hunt to find math “in the wild”.

Alice and Diana suggest using Discovery activities to learn collaboratively. Another idea they have is to put the beginning of the lesson in the middle. So think about this… typically students come into math class (or any class) and we quickly review (those who got it yesterday are now tuned out while those who didn’t get it yesterday are already frustrated), probably go over homework (waste of time – both the giving it and the going over it), and then start your lesson for the day 10-15 minutes later having wasted valuable class time. Diana challenges us to switch that up? What if we put our beginning in the middle? What if we didn’t go over homework (or give it for that matter) and we start with an extension from the day before? And… wait for it… they do this collaboratively so those that excelled yesterday have the opportunity to refine their knowledge by peer tutoring those who struggled yesterday. Their peers, those that struggled, get to hear the information from a different perspective and will likely have more understanding. Meanwhile, the teacher is monitoring and asking questions. After completing the extension activity and discussing it as a class, you transition into the day’s mini-lesson and allow students to discover the math using activities in Google Apps rather than telling them (Alice & Diana give the example that we typically TELL students the Pythagorean Theorem… why not ask the students what it is? They have Google! Google will tell them!) This shift in teaching and learning even sounds as though it would flow better. Makes much more sense to me anyhow. Great thinking, Diana!

Some of my favorite quotes from this one are listed below. (Y’all, Alice Keeler has a way with quotes, by the way. After meeting her in June, I can hear her saying some of these in my head now. I can hear the conviction behind some of these quotes and even if you aren’t really sure if you agree, you’ll find yourself nodding along, because the passion in her voice makes it so that it’s the gospel truth.)

“No matter the medium, design for student engagement.”

“Teach like YouTube and Google exist.” (one of my favorite favorites) Going hand-in-hand with that one, Alice says, “I have a rule: Do not tell students things they can look up.” [see Pythagorean Theorem statement above]

“Glitter, scissors, and glue should not be abandoned. Sometimes technology is not the best tool. While work can be created on paper…the work can still be submitted digitally…insert an image”

“The conversation becomes a risk-free learning zone – and that’s where the magic happens!”

“It is important for students to approach a problem with strategies rather than procedural steps. Strategies help them make connections when confronted with new situations.”

My implementation for this book is two-fold.  There is an activity (and template, woo hoo, get the book and you have access to the template, too) in the book where students take a selfie and upload into a collaborative Google Slides presentation and share a couple of things about themselves. I want to do this during my first media class with my 6th grade students. It introduces students to Google Classroom, Google Slides, and allows me to get to know the students’ names and faces as well. Secondly, at some point in time this year (and knowing how much Alice loves her spreadsheets, she would recommend sooner rather than later), I want to complete the Google Sheets activity included in the book where students will discover how to input data and manipulate Google Sheets. Using Google Sheets more will only help my students in the long run, so giving them a strong foundation with this template on the basics is a great place to start. I’m excited to see where this takes my students, and the staff! This book is specifically geared toward math teachers, but there’s so many activities here that can be adapted across the curriculum that I would truly recommend this book to anyone! The back of the book even has some Google tutorials for those moments when you’re reading and think, I have no idea what they mean by revision history. Detailed information with a beautiful screenshot is included here as well!

As usual with books co-authored by Alice Keeler, there is a vast world of information on her website. Go to alicekeeler.com and knock yourself out! Check out the hashtag #GoogleMath on Twitter for more. You can also subscribe to the Google Math Newsletter here! Don’t forget that if you want that link with ALL the resources, templates, examples, and other amazingness included in the book, you need to purchase a copy for yourself! You can do that here! Finally, you can always contribute to the flipgrid using the password DBCSummer (if it asks for one). Andrea Paulakovich had the brilliant idea to create a space for global collaboration around each DBC book, and I love it! Please share your thoughts there! We always include a prompt, but that prompt isn’t required. If you have something better in mind, share that! We just want to learn together in that digital space!

***One of Diana’s visions was to create a scholarship fund to encourage students to go into STEM fields. There is a gofundme page here or you can donate directly Fresno State in memory of Diana Herrington. These donations go toward an endowment at California State University Fresno for students who want to teach math! Diana’s passion for math lives on! Any donation is appreciated!***

Well, we’ve reached the halfway point! Next up is a book by one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever “met” (well, met virtually…on Twitter, but I will meet her face-to-face one day, I hope)! If you want to know how to make small changes for a HUGE impact, check out book 26 in #DBC50Summer: Shift This by Joy Kirr!

 

#DBC50Summer 24/50: Table Talk Math

/ Alicia Ray / 4 Comments

You may remember from previous postings that before I became an digital learning coach/media coordinator, I was a fifth grade math teacher. I was initially hired to teach fifth grade students, and I taught math three times a day to three different classes. I loved it. Unfortunately, looking back I now realize that I was also a horrible math teacher. Other than the working problems on the overhead for the vast majority of our class time, I had another deficit. I was always good at math. Scary good. Because I never really struggled with math, I didn’t understand when people said they “weren’t good at math”, or when math didn’t come naturally to them. I thought doing 15 problems in the workbook would solve the issue. I didn’t realize it was a lack of mathematical reasoning and problem solving that was getting in the way for my struggling learners. I wish so badly that I had known about the resources in book 24 to help students see that math is fun and 100% applicable to their lives!

<proudly standing on soap box>

My least favorite utterance: “Oh, I’m glad you teach all of the math because I can’t do fifth grade math.” Really? Why would you even utter those words? As a grown (wo)man, you’re admitting that fifth graders can do more advanced math than you are capable of doing… yeah, that’s not impressive to share. Lose that sentence from your lexicon, please. While we’re at it… the whole “I’m not good at math”… let’s lose that one, too!

<stepping off soap box, #sorrynotsorry>

tabletalkmath

Book 24 is Table Talk Math by John Stevens (yes, THE John Stevens that co-authored The Classroom Chef with Matt Vaudrey) and it is an incredible read! I love that it is a quick, easy read, full of wonderful information and stories about John and his family! I find that this is another book that strikes me more as a parent than as a teacher.

There are several key points I’m taking away from this book. One is holding conversations with your child. I am so guilty about giving my daughters answers rather than asking them questions. I get so tired of hearing “why, mommy” when I’m at home. My sweet girls get the worst of me. I’m sure several of you that are teachers AND parents can identify with that, too (and if not, please tell me you can because it’ll make me feel like slightly less of a failure… thanks). By the time I get home in the evening (yes, evening), I’m exhausted and dreading helping with homework (thankfully my daughters’ school has an amazing principal who doesn’t allow homework beyond reading and a couple math problems), getting showers taken, supper, and bedtime. I’ve been with students all day (and I love them, don’t get me wrong, buuuut), all I want is some alone time or time to converse with an adult, and the girls want my undivided attention. This, in turn, makes me a bit snippy toward them – my patience is lacking by 5:30-6:00 in the evening. I’ve got to do better; I’ve got to BE better for them. They deserve the same time and devotion, no… they deserve MORE time and devotion than my students get from me. I am their mother! I love how John shares the stories about his children, and how he changes from “Mad Dad” to “Math Dad”. I want to transform from “Mrs. Ray” to “Mom” with more finesse each day, allowing them to have the best of me. These relaxed discussions about math are a great way to move forward with this.

Another key point is that kids should struggle and have to explain their reasoning once they reach a decision. Our kids (personal or professional) should have to think! John constantly reiterates that the answer is not as important as the process to get the answer. If we have the kids explain their reasoning behind their answer, it shows the mathematical processes happening “behind the scenes”. Oh, and timed-tests… no bueno. Research proves it’s ineffective. Stop doing it.

Finally, the piece of knowledge I’m taking away and implementing are the tons of resources John shares within the book! I’ve got to be honest and say that I’m actually cheating just a tad on this one because I’ve already shared the resources with our math teachers, as of just a few minutes before writing this post. But you know what? There are 50 books and I’m pretty sure you’ll allow me to already have one implementation complete as we move into the 2018-2019 school year, right? Please?! (And if you’re a stickler for it being implemented “in the school year”… I started back to work today as an 11-month employee and sent the email with several of the resources in the book after reading and before blogging, so technically, it’s being implemented in this school year. Boom! Also, I have a back-up plan.)

Some of my favorite resources from this book are below:

John Steven’s Would You Rather Math is a phenomenal example of authentic choices students make, both as students and adults. These choices require (gasp) math!

Andrew Stadel‘s Estimation180 website gives multiple examples for estimating, showing a benchmark then allowing students to determine an upper limit (maximum) and a lower limit (minimum) before estimating. The exact amount is listed on the website for the students (read: adults like me) who can’t handle not knowing the precise answer.

Fawn Nguyen‘s Visual Patterns website is amazing! Giving us examples of patterns and having students find the next, or “nth” term in the pattern shows sound mathematical reasoning. I love that some of the patterns can actually yield various answers.

Another site that can showcase various answers is Mary Bourassa‘s Which One Doesn’t Belong! As long as the student can give reasoning, accept the answers!  This site is a great conversation starter! I love the idea of debating answers, and that this site can be used with all grade levels!

Finally, the Fraction Talks website, created by Nat Banting, is one that I will be using with my personal children regularly! I love the use of flags as fractional representation! Building a strong understanding of fractions will help as my girls, and students, get older and begin having to see fractions abstractly.

At my school, I am in charge of putting announcements on the TVs each day. Another implementation for this book is to use these websites as part of the TV announcements! Selecting one problem each Monday and Wednesday (or Tuesday and Thursday), students can discuss math at lunch with their peers (we have a TV in the cafeteria that runs announcements all day, as well as one in the school lobby before and after school). I’m looking forward to hearing these discussions and providing math teachers an opportunity to capitalize on these conversations without sacrificing class time.

I highly recommend purchasing this book, especially if you’re a math teacher! The resources are tremendous and as a former math teacher I found myself nodding along many times. If nothing else, the footnotes provided by John Stevens are hilarious! I love his personality! Feel free to visit his website at tabletalkmath.com and join in on the conversation on Twitter at #tabletalkmath. Finally, one of my very favorite blog posts written by John is the explanation of the cover of Table Talk Math. You can find it here titled “7 Reasons to Judge Table Talk Math By Its Cover”. Clever, right?

As always, join in the flipgrid conversation using the password DBCSummer! Many thanks to Andrea Paulakovich who had this genius idea that flipgrid could be used to conduct a global book reflection on all DBC, Inc books! The space is there if you’d like to use it, and likely isn’t going away, so start sharing!

I am so excited to reach Book 25! Released immediately after Table Talk Math, Alice Keeler and the late Diana Herrington knocked it out of the park with Teaching Math with Google Apps! And oh yes, it is that good! If you are a math teacher, and you are a Google school, and you don’t own this book – you should fix that now. Right now. Check back for the blog soon!