Reflections on Conferring

Conferring is purposeful helping aimed at developing students' capacity for learning. Conferring is more than merely providing information. I think of it like this: 

Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day (helping)

Teach them to fish and you feed them for a lifetime (conferring)

I taught a lesson about conferring recently with my pre-service mathematics teachers. Here's what we did, how it went, what I'll change for next time, and what we learned.

Advice for Getting Started with SBG

One of our teacher ed grads emailed one of my colleagues in search of SBG resources for a pre-algebra course he's developing for next year. He wrote:

When I had you for ____, you graded our assessments using a form of standards based grading. I remember receiving a paper back that listed what standards I had mastered and which ones I still needed to work on. I have wanted to try using a standards based grading system ever since I saw it in your classroom. Would you have any resources that you would be willing to share with me?

My colleague replied with several tips and resources, including Matt Townsley's growing list of scholarly articles SBG. He also Cc'd me, and while I was drafting my own response I realized it might be better to write it as a blog post. So here it is, for what it's worth: my list of suggestions and resources for getting started with SBG in the math classroom.

TT-TNG (F14 edition)

Teaching Tips (from) The Next Generation

Presenting the inaugural edition of... Teaching Tips (from) the Next Generation: a summary of semester-end blog posts written by graduating secondary math teachers at Grand Valley State University.

They share their greatest areas of personal growth and their most powerful teaching strategies from their recently completed student teaching experiences.

• Mr. Snyder: http://snydermathgv.wordpress.com
• Mr. Burdick: http://mitchellburdick.blogspot.com 
• Ms. Jamison: http://learningtoteachorteachingtolearn.blogspot.com
• Ms. Rickard: http://lovetoteachgv.wordpress.com
• Mr. Taylor: http://dataylor92.wordpress.com 

(I will continue to add more as they come in. Last update: 12/1/14 at 12:55pm)

Guest Post: The Value of Social Media for Teachers

The following is a reflection written by one of my preservice elementary mathematics teachers (@hollikathryn14) in W14, wherein she summarizes what she learned from an hour of professional development time spent with #MSMathChat on Twitter.

For some background on the assignment, see my post: Professional Growth for (New) (Math) Teachers.

When I read her reflection, I was inspired. I thought she nicely captured the power of looking to social media for professional development, and I hoped that her experience and perspective (pre-service teacher, and Twitter newbie), might inspire others to give it a try.

She graciously granted her permission for me to share this with you. And so, here's Holli's reflection on her first #MSMathChat experience:

Professional Growth for (New) (Math) Teachers

(Note: I wrote this post for my preservice teachers looking to complete their required professional development experience for my course(s), but then I thought: why not make it general enough to share with the world? I have also tagged it under the cognitive coaching label because it parallels the structure of a coaching conversation: reflect on your goals, set a focus for growth, articulate an action plan, implement it, and reflect on what you have learned.)

Looking for meaningful professional development? Have you tried Twitter? If not, I hope this post might help you (a) decide where you want to go and (b) learn about some social media options for getting what you need.

First, if you haven't already, I suggest you spend a few minutes brainstorming what you want to learn more about: 

• What are some of your strengths? 
• What are some areas where you want to learn more? 

It can be hard to hold yourself still... try setting a timer.

Look back over your list: What stands out to you? What are your priorities? What do you most want to learn more about? Set some goals for your professional growth.

Reflecting on Your Professional Learning

(Note: This post was created as a continuation of the post "Professional Growth for (New) (Math) Teachers", but it is general enough to apply to any recently professional learning experience.)

---

How do you reflect after a professional learning experience?

You might begin by responding to a few good questions, like: 

• How has your thinking changed? 
• What is important for you to remember from the experience? 
• How does what you learned align with your personal goals?
• Who else needs to learn this?

That last one is huge! If you have a blog, consider writing a post so that your learning becomes public and permanent.

If you don't have a blog, maybe it's time to start one? If so, help is available.

Here are two nice options for framing a written reflection:

Option 1: What, So What, Now What?

• What have you learned?
• So what? How will that impact your practice? 
• Now what? What do you want to learn next?

Option 2: Mirror the Reflecting Conversation structure from Cognitive Coaching.

• How did it go?
• How do you know?
• Why is that so?
• How did you grow?
• How did this help you know?

Hey, congratulations on your new learning!
Now... what's next for you?
 

Reflecting on your Coaching Session

When I supervise student teachers and teacher assistants, I use cognitive coaching to frame my classroom visits. Students fill out a pre-observation action plan, using their goals for professional growth to identify a focus for the observation.

After the observation, we use a coaching reflecting conversation to reflect on the lesson and construct new learning. Students then reflect on the process by writing a blog post on the subject.

They are invited to use one of two formats for their written reflection:

Option 1: What, So What, Now What?

• What? What are some of your main takeaways?
• So what? Why are those important to you? 
• Now what? What are the implications? How? When? Who?

Option 2: Mirror the reflecting conversation framework.

• How did it go? (Were you successful? How do you know?)
• Why was it so? (What caused it to go that way?)
• How did you grow? (What have you learned? How will you apply this in the future?)
• How did this help you know? (Be meta-cognitive: Reflect on the process.)

Here are a few sample posts from a few of my students to show how this might look.

• From @rwhite21793, a post titled: Reflections on My Teaching!
• From @KelseyJohnsonGV, a post titled: First in-school Coaching Observation 
• From @DominicTaylor11, a post titled: Fun Classroom Management?
• From @KalieGVMath, a post titled: What? So What? Now What? (Round 2)

So, how do you go about reflecting on your teaching?  

How Am I Doing? EDI 331, W14

In EDI 331 - Mathematics Teacher Assisting, I engaged each of my students in a one-on-one Cognitive Coaching session aimed at setting goals for their teaching practice this semester. I have found that setting goals focuses my efforts, and I make an effort to set two or three explicit goals for every course I teach.

Well, I have been having my students blog about their teaching goals, so I thought I might take some of my own medicine and share mine too. So, without further adieu...

My goals for EDI 331, W14 are:

1. To provide home workshops that are relevant, useful, and engaging.
2. To make sure our in-class workshops connect with the home workshops and extend them in a meaningful way.
3. To foster appreciation for the math-twitter-blog-o-sphere as a means of professional growth.

If it's not graded, I won't do it

One task all faculty at GVSU are asked to do every February is prepare an annual Faculty Activity Report (FAR). This entails compiling a complete list of our efforts for the past calendar year in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service.

Our procedures are a bit more involved than this...

One piece of our FAR includes a reflection on trends we have noticed in our student evaluations of instruction. A colleague who had read my teaching reflection invited me to share the following in the hope that others seeking to make sense of and respond to student evaluations of instruction might find it useful.

I'm not grading this

I asked my students to turn in a draft of the Cheesecake Task last week. But when I sat down this weekend to prepare to write feedback on their tasks, I hit a snag. Simply put, the work was not good, but their self-evaluations were off the charts high. How could this be?

 Before I started inking comments, I decided to sort the stack into two piles:

Pile one: Almost got it, needs minimal feedback. 
Pile two: Needs a lot of work (and lots of feedback).

Pile one had 5 papers in it. Pile two had 19.

Ugh.