I Made It Through the First Week!

Wow, the title of this post makes it sound like my first week was extremely long and difficult.  It was not; it was actually the total opposite - I had a terrific first week!  I love my new schedule and my new students.  Actually my students are not all new to me - I've had about half of them for the past two years of summer school.

First I thought I would share a few pictures of some new things in my classroom this year, courtesy of Sarah Carter - if you haven't read her blog yet you really should - she's an amazing, creative teacher.

So I started out the first day, Tuesday, by going over my classroom procedures and expectations, but to kill two birds wth one stone, I created a Nearpod presentation so my students could not only learn about my routines, but so they also could learn how to use an application that I use quite often throughout the school year.

The next day, Wednesday, I had them get familiar with a couple of other activities that I use on a regular basis, QR code scavenger hunts and Socrative.  I set up a super easy QR code scavenger hunt where the problems were just multiplication facts, just so they could get the hang of how scavenger hunts work.  In the past, students thought they could just go to random problems or just work their way around the room without using the answers as clues as to where to go next.  Hopefully this will prevent that mistake the next time we do a QR code scavenger hunt for real.  The Socrative activity was another super easy set of questions just so they could see how to get into my "class", what the different types of questions looked like, and to see the feedback they get after they answer the question.  (I also do a lot of "Space Races", but I'll save that for another day.)

We finished up with everyone joining my Google Classroom and completing the first assignment which was an "All About Me" Google Slides - I gave everyone their own copy which had 10 slides of questions to help me get to know them.  They had a lot of fun with this one and some students got really creative with the images they chose to go along with their answers.  My homework this weekend is to read through all of them!

Thursday was probably not their favorite day because I gave them a pre-assessment.  I wanted to find out if they have the prerequisite skills that I feel they should have in order to be able to start learning the 8th grade curriculum, such as their basic multiplication facts, integer operations, exponents, one- and two-step equations, and basic graphing skills like plotting points and naming coordinates on a coordinate plane.  I haven't finished grading them all yet, but from what I've seen, I have my work cut out for me this year!

When they had completed the pre-assessment, I had them create bookmarks for all the applications we will be using throughout the year to avoid the 5-minutes or so spent searching for the applications each time we use them.  I also taught them how to shorten the bookmark so that it's just the icon without words so they can fit more on their bookmark bar, and how to make a folder on their bookmark bar for all the math applications.

I think they probably liked today, Friday, the best.  I started out class with a presentation about growth mindsets which consisted of 6 short video clips. I had been telling them all week about how mistakes are OK, mistakes make your brain grow, mistakes show that you are trying and learning, etc.  The first video was Jo Boaler explaining the scientific research about this so they didn't just think I was making it all up.  Then I had a few cutesy cartoony videos about growth mindset.

The video I felt was the best was basically an analogy between brain growth and building a rope bridge across a really high ravine.  The first time across was really difficult (just like learning a new concept), they made some mistakes along the way (one man slips as he's walking on the rope), but the more times they crossed the ravine the easier it became (they showed the two men adding more and more ropes to the bridge they were building which I related to the brain cells being connected), and then after many times across they finally had a solid foundation (they had added wood planks to walk on).  I watched my students as they watched the video and everyone was really engaged in it.

The last two videos had everyone laughing.  One was about learned helplessness - two people were on an escalator and it stops moving.  They both freak out and get frustrated that this has happened when they're obviously trying to get somewhere important (they're both dressed up in business suits).  They call out for help and look for a cell phone to call for help.  A repair man finally arrives and his escalator also breaks down.  We discussed how if this had been an elevator, their reactions would have made sense, but because it was an escalator they could have easily just walked up the rest of the way, but the thought never crossed their minds because they're so used to the escalator doing all the work for them and they aren't doing any thinking for themselves.  The solution to their problem is so obvious but they're just not looking for it.  One of my new slogans came from this video - "Get off the escalator!" - I think I'm going to make a sign to hang up in my classroom that says this.  Anytime I see one of my students saying they don't understand something before they've even attempted the problem, I'll just say "Get off the escalator!" to them.

The final video was about determination and perseverance.  A dog hears the toaster oven 'ding' and cleverly pushes a chair up to the counter, climbs up onto the counter, opens the toaster oven, and pushed the tray with the food out onto the floor so he can eat it.  I used this to discuss how they also should be determined to learn new concepts and persevere instead of giving up.  So my slogan from this video is now "Be the dog!"

After the videos, I had my classes do the 1-100 group work activity that I got from Sara VanDerWerf's blog.  The kids loved this and were so excited to try to beat their scores and beat the other teams.  I loved watching them working so well together.  After we finished the three rounds (by the way, only one team figured out the secret that the position of the numbers went around the paper from one quadrant to the next), we discussed "What good group work looks like" (also from Sara VanDerWerf) and I pointed out the things I had seen while they were working. When we got to number 2 ("They don't get distracted. They don't notice what other groups or the teacher is doing."), I told them I could have been doing a little jig in the back of the room and no one would have noticed.  I only hope the group work the rest of the year looks as good as today's did.

One final thing I almost forgot to mention was the new Do Now routines I've started this year.  I want to help my students develop better number sense, and I found a great list of math routines.  The one I tried this week was the "Number of the Day".  The first time I gave them the number and asked them to write 3 different expressions, each with a different operation.  The next day I stepped up the challenge and asked them for 3 different expressions, each with 2 different operations, and none of the expressions can use the number 1 (I found the first day students were making this way to easy by just adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing by 1 - I wanted them to think of more challenging ways to write the expressions).  There were a few students who just couldn't come up with an expression with 2 different operations, so I told them it was OK to just use one operation - we're going to work on this.  Then there was one student who made my day today - her expressions showed she was thinking outside the box - she was the only one who included parenthesis, exponents, and negatives!  She really impressed me!

All in all, I had a great first week of school!  This is my 7th year teaching and it was the first opening day that I didn't have the customary opening day butterflies!  I'm really looking forward to working with my new students this year.

My Observation

Today, my supervisor came in to observe me. My lesson was focused on practicing converting between scientific notation and standard form. I introduced this concept to my classes on Friday, but with a snowday on Monday, most of the students forgot what they had learned after the three-day weekend. I had my work cut out for me!

I started by having everyone sign into Showbie and look at the comments I made on their classwork from Friday. Many of them still needed a lot of practice to get close to mastering this concept. Next, they completed the Do Now, also in Showbie, which asked them what type of exponent a really, really small and a really, really large number would have, positive or negative. Then they had two problems to complete and submit.

The next part of the lesson was where the fun came in! I had 12 stations set up around the room for the students to visit. At each station, they used Aurasma to view a Tellagami video (Gami) that I created, with the avatar reading a word problem to them, asking them to convert a number from scientific notation to standard form, or vice versa. I tried to make each word problem something that would be interesting to them, like the number of burgers sold at McDonald's, the amount of the national debt, the age of the Earth, or the speed of the fastest computer. The room was filled with the sounds of the various accents of the avatars reading the problems, and students moving around the room solving the problems. My supervisor walked around the room too, looking over the student's shoulders to see the Gamis. 

When they had completed all 12 stations, they scanned a QR code on the SmartBoard that led them to a Google form survey. The first question asked them how they were doing with this concept, ranging from "I totally get it" to "I'm totally lost" (only one student said they were totally lost). The second question asked them which fact they found the most interesting - not surprisingly, the McDonald's fact won. The third question asked what was their favorite activity that we have done so far this year. QR code scavenger hunts won this one by a landslide! (Guess I'll be doing them more often!)

If the students finished the survey, they could start a Versatiles activity that I created for practicing scientific notation. Since we had a 2-hour delay today, classes were 20 minutes shorter than usual, so only about half of the students actually completed all 12 stations and got to the Versatiles. My supervisor sat down with several of the students to see what they were doing and they explained to him how to use the Versatiles.

When we were just about at the end of the class, I asked them to put their iPads back in the cart and grab the homework from on top of the cart on their way out. As one student looked at the homework, he said, "This'll be a piece of cake!" That was like music to my ears!

As for my observation, my supervisor was impressed with the technology being used in my classroom, and how comfortable the students seemed with using it. He also said he now totally understands why I'm teaching a professional development class on using iPads!

Environment-friendly, Teacher-friendly Showbie!

Penguin courtesy of Carol Redmond
  http://www.carolredmond.blogspot.com    

QR code scavenger hunts occur about once a month in my class. I love watching my students in action - they are all very engaged in solving the problems they "find", and searching for the next problem to solve. Originally I had my students solve the problems on paper, which got turned in for me to grade. Today's scavenger hunt was entirely paperless (well, OK, I did print out the pages with the penguins and the QR codes to hang up around the room).

Enter Showbie. I have developed a crush on Showbie! It has made my life so much easier! 

In the past, workflow was a big issue. After the first few scavenger hunts on paper, I tried going paperless by having my students solving problems from the QR code scavenger hunt by opening the PDF in an annotation app such as neu.Annotate+ PDF. From there, they would email me every. single. problem. separately. Either my inbox would be stuffed with student emails, or the email system would somehow get hung up and I wouldn't receive any of the emails for several days. What a headache! 


Now, when they scan the QR code, they choose to "Open in...Showbie". They can annotate right there in the Showbie app (in the photo, the student's work is in the black ink). When they tap "Done", it goes right into their folder for me to review later. Then I can grade/comment on it and it goes back into their folder again so they can see it when they go into Showbie the next day (my annotation is in red ink).

I should also mention that I have been putting the "Do Now"s in the shared Showbie folder too. Students go into their folders and grab a copy of the Do Now, annotate it, and tap Done to submit it to me. 

Besides making me a happy teacher, Showbie is hopefully making some trees happy too!

[Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store for this complete Multiplying & Dividing with Exponents QR code scavenger hunt.]

QR Code Scavenger Hunt

Click here for template

Last night I threw together a quick QR code scavenger hunt for adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers. I asked my students to bring in their own phones or tablets, but I ended up with only about half of them with devices. Not a problem -- I had them work in pairs! Students were able to use the template I created for them to help organize their work. There were 8 QR codes / answers hanging around the room. They could start at any QR code and scan it to get the problem. They would sit with their partner to solve it. When they had their answer, they looked around the room to find that answer on one of the QR code signs. Then they scanned that QR code to get the next problem. They continued around the room, scanning and solving, until they finally arrived back at the QR code they started at. They all were engaged in this activity and did a great job solving the problems. What I like about this app-tivity is that it is self-checking -- if they get an answer that isn't found on any of the signs, they either made an error, or simply forgot to simplify their answer. What they like is it gets them up and moving around, using technology, and working with their friends.



This app-tivity is sooooo easy to create! I use the QR Beamer app to type in a problem and create the QR code. Then I save the code to my camera roll. In Word or Pages, I type one of the answers at the top of the page and insert the picture of the QR code at the bottom of the page (make sure the answer doesn't go with the problem that the QR code brings up when they scan it -- mix them up). Scan all the codes you create to make sure they work. I also like to create a worksheet for them to show their solutions to each problem. Make sure to explain to your students that they must use the "clues" to lead them to the next problem, and that they cannot just go to any QR code they want to. 

My First Year with iPads

Our middle school got our first cart of 30 iPads in the fall. I was sooo excited to finally get to use them with my students in October! I had spent most of the previous summer researching and investigating how I could integrate them into my lesson plans. I knew they would be very engaging to my students, but I wanted to use them in a way that would increase their learning, not just because they were "cool".

The first few times I let my students use the iPads, it was just to "play around". I wanted them to explore and get comfortable with them before I attempted to use them in a lesson. Some students had already worked with one, but there were some who had never held one before and needed a little help to get started.

Stupid as I am, one of the first lessons I used the iPads for was during one of my observations with my assistant principal. Fortunately, I teach three sections of the same Pre-Algebra class, so my first class was a trial run. There were a few glitches, so I tweaked it a little for my second class. I spoke to my assistant principal after the second trial and told her all about the small fine tuning I had done to the lesson since I had sent her a copy of the original lesson plan. She observed me during my third run-through. There were still some minor issues, but overall she was very impressed that, for one, I had even tried to use such a new piece of technology for my observation, two, that I had made revisions as needed, and three, that all the students were highly engaged in the lesson. This gave me the courage to move forward and try to incorporate the iPads in more of my lessons!

Here are some of the other "apptivities" I have tried out with the iPads:

• QR code scavenger hunts 
• Bingo
• ThatQuiz
• annotating PDFs with neu.Annotate+ PDF
• Nearpod presentations
• Educreations
• Explain Everything
• iBooks

Oringinally, I thought I had to find "math apps" to use, but I have found that finding good creation apps is much better! Math apps have a very limited use, whereas a creation app such as Nearpod can be used for just about every concept in the curriculum. More bang for your buck (even if they are free)!

I should add that my experience this first year was not limited to using just the cart of 30 iPads that my school purchased. We also initiated a BYOT policy this year, so the students have been able to use their own smart phones or personal iPads in the classroom as well. Some days when I could not reserve the iPads, the students would use their own devices and they would share with a partner who did not have one. This worked out well, especially for QR code scavenger hunts (see photo). In the case of bingo, I had paper bingo boards for those who did not have their own device.

One thing I have learned is that iPads cannot replace the paper and pencil. Some students just prefer to do their math work on paper, which is fine. If I have a lesson planned where students will be annotating on a PDF, I always bring along several paper copies just in case someone would prefer that method. I also found that paper and pencil works much better for assessments. I tried an assessment using a QR code scavenger hunt with students solving equations by annotating on a PDF, and it just led to frustration for many of the students. (I retested on paper the next day and used that as a learning experience for me and practice for the test for them).

I have had so much fun planning lessons with iPads this year, and can't wait for next year! I am also planning on teaching a profession development class on incorporating iPads into the content areas in the fall to share my experiences and knowledge with my colleagues.