Digesting a Math Conference

I am trying to digest and process my experience from an IB Math conference this past weekend. This was also my first time in a small room with so many other math teachers (Scary!).

Comments, ideas and the like that surprised me or caught my attention:

• Teachers are most scared of "Inquiry" because of time constraints. 
• We discuss "speed" or "efficiency" in a classroom with no clear definition of those terms. 
• We need (successful) Inquiry and Student-Centered classrooms to be modeled, not simply written about.
• Many teachers are concerned about "cheat sheets" and students NOT memorizing.
• Teachers seem to attribute significant importance to memorizing.
• Many teachers talk negatively about student abilities. 
• The IB has goals for students beyond getting high marks yet, many teachers seem heavily focused on (internal/external) assessment results. 
• Teachers seemed hungry for a recipe to "write labs" or to "teach an idea" suggesting discomfort with vagueness. 
• Teachers have a knee-jerk reaction to "why are we doing/learning this" and to "when will we ever use this?"
• While the IB is very aware, I was not aware of the apparent divide or conflict between the IB Learner Profile and the way IB Math is (often) getting taught.

Well there you have it. I will readily admit that I am reading into many comments and conversations making quasi-conclusions based on my own biases and preferred lingo. I have no way of knowing what these teachers classrooms are really like, but still I left feeling discouraged.

If nothing else the conference got me thinking. 

Filing Cabinet

In the spirit of sharing and maybe getting some feedback and at the risk of overwhelming others I have shared my collection of files. So far just the ones in Google Docs... There are a few in Dropbox but they are making their way in to GDocs as PDFs.

Filing Cabinet - Click Here

Teaching to the Test: IB Fever and Numb Face

It has been a busy, busy year. I have been cranking out new ideas and new content left and right... Some good, some barely okay and maybe the occasional "damn that worked pretty good". I dream of my old schedule with only two classes to prep and so much more time to think, to process and to research new ideas. Many teachers have it worse than me, but I am finding four preps the limit of what I can do and feel good about. I have yet to fumble too badly, I haven't forgotten what class I have next or forgotten to prep a class, but there have been a few close calls.

I have never taught in a public school and or truly been a slave to a standardized test, I count myself lucky on that score... This year my wife and I returned to teaching overseas and I deeply wanted to return to teaching IB. I loved the rigor and I loved the depth of understanding needed to receive the highest marks. Yet my experience this year with "IB Fever" has made me want to have nothing to do with the IB. I want to grab the wonderful resources of past IB exams and the syllabus and run away to craft my own course free of the score driven and uber-IB focus that my school has managed to cultivate.

A colleague conducted an informal poll asking other IB teachers "We do so much here, what do you think about getting rid of the extras and just teaching IB and IB prep?" He was referring to sports, mandatory after school co-curricular (such as robotics, math competition, ping pong or rock climbing), ski week and anything else not directly prescribed on an IB syllabi. The overwhelming response was "yeah, sounds great, lets do it."

It made my face go numb to hear it.

Tracking - Shades of Not-So-Awesome

I have arrived at a new school that has an old structure in the math department. We track our math students both by age and supposedly by "ability," starting in 8th grade. There are two levels of math for each age group, the "normal" and the "advanced," yet 90% of the student body are in the supposed advanced class. Added to this pedagogical flashback is the fact that we offer scholarships to high achieving local kids (we're private). We pull some of these kids out of fancy math and science schools only to put them in "9th grade math." We match them with like-aged students not in a class that might challenge these gifted and motivated kids. The result is many shades of not-so-awesome.

While slow to start the wheels of change are beginning to turn. The conversation of how our math program should be shaped is beginning...

So how would you do it? If you could have your choice of how to organize math classes grades 6 and up, how would you do it?

Why Math?

I found this talk brilliant. Let's be honest with our kids. When will they use what we are teaching them? And why are we teaching them the topics that we are teaching? I'll let the video speak for itself.

Amen.

Logically vs. Mathematically

Today in class I overheard, "I tried it logically at first and then I tried it mathematically." It made me laugh a little, cry a little, and I had to force back the teachery knee jerk reaction, "But math is logical!"

The statement says so much about how our students view math and math class. If math isn't logical then we are doing something wrong, but I guess we already knew that.

While the statement made me sad, was this a case of actions speaking louder than words? The students were doing exactly what they should be doing, talking and working out how to solve a problem. Can a teacher ask for more?

Why Smart Boards?

I desperately want to embrace and make use of the smart board in my classrooms, but only if they make my classroom more student-centered or allow me to do things I can't already do given a computer and a projector.

While smart boards are undeniably wonderful eye candy and there are some good uses for them I have recently begun to question the value of the smart board. A quick google image search almost universally shows one person using the smart board and many others watching them... Ugh. That's not what I want my classroom to look like.

Is this photo doctored?
Check out the teachers shadow...

Have smart boards simply become something that teachers expect to have? Are smart boards really changing the way we teach? Are smart boards allowing students to learn more or in different ways? How does a smart board allow a teacher to create a more student-centered classroom? How does a smartboard beat a tablet and projector?

I am not an anti-tech guy, far from it, but I don't want technology for the sake of technology. I want technology that improves on what I can already do or even better lets my students answer questions they couldn't previously answer...

What are you doing in your classroom with a smart board?