Why Flexible Seating?

 

cqdzb4ovyaarejwPeople are social by nature. We work in groups, live in groups and participate in collaborative activities on a regular basis. Schools should reflect our society. Students should be learning how to be a contributing member to society while learning the curriculum in their classes. Using my own frame of reference, almost everything I do is enhanced with social interaction. A simple trip to the grocery store can turn into a pleasant conversation with the checker or perhaps seeing a friend in the produce aisle. At work, I plan curriculum with my co-worker. Together, we get a rounded view of what should be done in the classroom. We also reflect on the day’s lessons and discuss how to move forward. These discussions and reflections are enriching, relevant and offer more than just me working through issues alone. Students in school should absolutely be able to work this way. Not only does it help them academically, it’s a critical life and workforce skill that can only be strengthened by experience. I am piloting flexible seating in my classroom this year and students are enjoying their math class. Please see some pictures here.

According to an Educause article, when they researched this type of environment, embedding choice into classroom seating is essential, given the diversity of learners, instructors and instructional modalities. I see the validity in this statement. Some students choose to sit at desks, others choose a couch. I still have others that need to move to feel relaxed and sit on the Yoga seats. I also have some that sit on the floor.

The Edutopia article states that teachers must give up the power of a seating chart, this was tricky and I did have to amp up my classroom management, especially in 8th grade. I’ve had several talks with students about how their responsibility  and self-governance is important in this type of setting. I’ve also incorporated peer reviews  on our activities. This is helped curb off-task behavior and distractions in the classroom. In our world today, students must have more abilities than being able to recall facts or work a algorithm to a math problem. To be competitive, students must be problem solvers and active members of a learning community. Fostering these social critical thinking skills also strengthens maturity, leadership and responsibility.

 

Follow #harrmath for the latest on what’s going on in my flexible seating classroom.

Sources

Considering Classroom Seating for Students and Faculty in … (n.d.). Retrieved October 8, 2016, from https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2014/3/sei1401-pdf.pdf

 

Delzer, K. (2016). Flexible Seating and Student-Centered Classroom Redesign. Retrieved October 08, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/flexible-seating-student-centered-classroom-kayla-delzer

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Where to now?

 While going through grad school, I was so inspired by what I was learning that I wanted to experience and develop curriculum and lessons for my own classes. I jumped back into the classroom and it’s been the most exciting and exhausting two weeks that I can remember! I am doing STEM integration and am learning how to implement inquiry based learning. I have been in education for 13 years and have taught everything from junior high Math up to Pre AP Algebra II. I teasingly tell people that I am a wannabe science teacher, but I love my content so I cannot make the leap to science. I am a math nerd and am wanting to implement inquiry based learning successfully. This will be a work in progress for at least 2-3 years for the content and methodology to really take effect, but I feel confident that I will get a successful program up and running. When I was introduced to inquiry based education, I thought it was a breakthrough! I had always directly taught so when I read how students are leading the learning and discovering connections on their own, I wanted to do this for math. From my research, inquiry based math is still a developing teaching method for math. I want students to gain algebraic reasoning through question based learning. With today’s information generation, students struggle with asking questions and synthesizing concepts to draw their own conclusions. So many times, I will just reach for my phone and ask Siri for an answer, and our students are no different. My career goal is to gain a rounded understanding of inquiry based education for math, implement a successful program and then ultimately work with teachers, curriculum coaches and principals to implement it into their curriculum.

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image courtesy of stemjobs.com

 

 

As mentioned above, I am passionate about inquiry based learning. With that, I believe reflection from the productive struggle of asking questions is where true learning takes place. As adults, students, and members of society, we should all reflect on our place and what we have to offer for contribution to our peers and our global community. In this course, I’d like to have time to reflect on my own struggles with meaningful inquiry and hopefully gain a perspective to guide students to their own reflective learning. I can tell students how cool math is all day long, but experience making those connections has more of an impact than anything they hear or read from a textbook. I feel that this course will provide me an opportunity to practice reflection and ask my own questions so that I can foster these skills to students to ultimately develop a strong understanding of number sense and reasoning.

 

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image courtesy of writingrhetorics.com

 

 

In addition to inquiry based learning, I feel that we must incorporate STEM/STEAM instruction to all students on the spectrum. The engineering design process accompanied by the scientific method are not concepts meant to stay in the classroom! STEM instruction takes these two and meshes them together where students are participating in multi-content projects and developing their analytical skills. As a member of the present, I am compelled to do everything I can to foster curiosity and interest in these fields to ensure our students are ready for what the future holds.

 

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1 for the money, 2 for the show!

It’s mid June. In 2 weeks it will be around the 4th of July. If you are an educator you know what happens after Independence Day – Back to School mode. Target, Old Navy and whoever else will start popping up on your newsfeed and television offering great savings for the back to school blowout! Why wait until July 5th? Let’s take a look at some back to school apps that will improve productivity and learning in math classes. One is great for the money ($30 paid app vs. $120 calculator) and the second app takes learning to center stage.

I have chosen a student/teacher productivity app and a math app for this review. For the productivity app – I was looking for an interactive journal to use with my students. I’ve chosen to review OneNote. It’s is a virtual notebook that can be subdivided and accessed anytime on any internet ready device. OneNote offers note taking via typing, drawing, recording and inputting documents, images and other files. Our students will be creating Interactive Student Notebooks (ISNs) on paper, but I will incorporate OneNote (and OneNote Classroom) as well so that students will always have a virtual copy at their convenience. In OneNote – I will ask students to do sketch-notes, voice overs, videos and typing notes in their Virtual ISN. This app greatly enhances student learning because of many factors. First – you can draw or sketch out some ideas without paper and pencil. You can color code, comment and highlight important ideas at the touch of a finger. Second – you can record! Before this amazing technology was available – when I tutored students, I always asked them to tell me how to solve a problem. Now – students can record audio on a problem without working it out. This is a great vehicle to foster higher level thinking! Lastly – their notebook will never be lost or left at home again. It’s cloud based. As long as students have access to the internet – their notes are always with them!

I will be teaching 8th grade math and Algebra. Our district has always used TI Calculators and we’ve been using the TI Nspire for the past 8 years or so. I have chosen to review the TI Nspire calculator app for iOS. This is a paid app (currently $30) however – much cheaper than a handheld which can run up to $150. The Nspire App has all of the functionality of a handheld device with additional features (importing images, exporting files, transfer files wirelessly). This app makes real world connections to math possible because we can import images, find graphs, equations, trends and intercepts that mean much more than ordered pairs. Also – it’s in a native format students are used to. Holding a clumsy handheld device with a tiny screen isn’t conducive to a learning environment. In fact – it’s a disruption to learning! Students have to adjust to something archaic and hard to operate.

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Why I chose to go back to the classroom

Why? Because that’s where the most important work happens in education. After inital responses filled with astonishment and exasperation, I started second guessing myself (which I knew not to do, I am a math teacher, we don’t second guess..). Oh my, the discipline, the grading, the not being able to use the restroom when I wanted! But then, I came to my senses. Surprisingly, I enjoy teaching. I enjoy writing lessons, implementing and refining to a quality piece of instruction. I enjoy seeing students engaged, making connections and learning how to find x (math, remember…?). But that’s not why I am going back into the classroom. Being an instructional technology coach for three years has broadened my perspective of the administration of education and the influence quality educators really do have in schools. From the outside, I’ve also witnessed a shift in education. STEM, STEAM, Inquiry Based Math, Technology infused curriculum… the list goes on. Students should not be passive in whole group instruction everyday, they should be empowered! Students should be advocates of their learning. Students should collaborate and problem solve in a peer community to achieve a common goal. How can I foster these ideals? How do we shift from objective centered education to subjective learning? Stay tuned…

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Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That!

​Sure we’ve got technology! Yes, technology does increase teacher and student productivity, when it’s used…

It’s hard to teach students all of the premium tech tools we offer them and prepare for quizzes, tests, COTS,

DOTS, parent conferences and input grades before our 20 minute lunch break while on a pep rally schedule. ​

I cannot give you the gift of time; but the least I can do is offer one place for you to send your students when they ask you about technology. So, when you ain’t got time for that -please bookmark this site, post it in Canvas or make a QR code and refer your students to it when they ask about technology at home. 

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Direct Link  – http://bit.ly/1S2gJ12​ 
Want to embed into your Canvas course? Copy this embed code and paste into the html editor in Canvas:
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Always here for you!~MariaClassroom Technology Designer

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Early Release Goodies

For Katy ISD in Texas, our first early release day is just over a week away. In secondary schools, our class periods are shortened from about 50 minutes to 35 minutes. For me, it was always a struggle to get some teaching and learning crammed in that amount of time. So – if you want to do something other than vocab hangman or jepardy review, check out these sites for some early release day inspiration.

Science Teachers – ABCYA’s Magic Pen seems elementary, but don’t get fooled by the crayons and MIDI music…Brush up on your physics skills. My advice –  practice before rolling out to students, it’s harder than it looks.
**What device can this be used on: COMPUTERS ONLY. Great for SMARTboard activities. This is a flash based website and will not work on Smartphones and tablets.
  
LOTE and Humanities courses   – Radiooooo.com Holy cow this is so cool. Do the Taxi ride, (always preview before rolling out to students) and you share your Taxi ride on Canvas! Check it out.
**What devices can this be used on: Any device with internet connection.
There is also an app available in the App Store
All courses – Lettersofnote.com is a database with images of real letters written by famous people around the world.
Check out Jim Henson’s letter or even see how Stephen Hawking replied to a request from a magazine for the time travel formula. Are you participating in Banned Books Week or doing a censorship lesson? You must read this one!
What devices can this be used on: Any device with internet connection.
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Admire the Nspire?

    From a slide rule to “There’s an App for that!” Mathematicians have striven to make calculations less cumbersome since Pythagoras and his theorem. When Texas Instruments released the Nspire app , many mathletes (i.e. junior, high school and college students) rejoiced at the promise of a robust graphing calculator right on their own iPad.  So did TEA… when they announced that students taking the 8th Grade Math STAAR test in 2015, could use calculator apps on mobile devices.
So what does an instructional technology leading district like Katy ISD do? They pilot it.  
      One of our junior highs took the Math STAAR test using the Nspire App on the school’s iPads. Earlier this year, I was privileged to observe the class using the app. The teacher introduced a new lesson with an interactive piece. Students were using the TI-Nspire app on classroom iPads exploring the concept. While participating in the activity, students were involved in whole class and small group discussions. Students then recorded their discoveries and findings on paper.
So what’s the big deal and why write about it? Good question.

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  1. The teacher thinks it’s a good deal because it’s an instant wireless transfer of Nspire Activities from the Npired website to all 30 iPads. Also, she can project the App on the SMARTboard via Apple TV.  While she is teaching, she doesn’t have to stop to explain how to navigate through the calculator (more about that in #4). Also, if you were a math teacher using the handheld Nspires, remember when we had to update the operating system at the beginning of each school year? You know, that burdensome process of downloading the update, and doing a file transfer from one handheld to another… No need to update the software, the app can be configured to update automatically. She can also make sure her students are on the app using Casper Focus.
  2. A parent would think it’s a neat deal if they already have an iPad, the app is less than a quarter of the price of the handheld calculator. Also – parents do not have to worry about losing the calculator, it’s loaded directly on the device. (Note – it’s not available on the Google Play store yet, but who knows what the future can bring?)
  3. I ( your friendly CTD) think it’s an exciting deal because I remember the days of the TI-73s (and the TI 84s and the 89s. When the Nspires came out they were so advanced, they weren’t even called calculators anymore! They were called – handhelds. I had to go to professional development to learn how to use it. With the Nspire App, no need to take a class. There’s an interactive tutorial and plenty of videos on the internet out there. Another reason I like the Nspire app is that it integrates with Canvas. For example, Ms. Skinner’s students can translate, rotate, and reflect an object on the calculator and send the work directly to Canvas for assignment submission. If you need more reasons on why I like the app, I have plenty, but it’s not about me.
  4. The big deal is what the students think. Students were highly engaged. When asked if they liked the app vs. the handheld calculator, all of the students agreed that the layout of the app is better. Although the Nspire handheld CX is color, the app is on a bigger screen with touch functionality. All students were engaged and working in their groups. They were participating with a hands on activity and they were able to effortlessly navigate through the app. Ms. Skinner didn’t stop instruction once to teach a student how to proceed through the activity. The app is intuitive and students are able to do calculations and graphs with ease.
If the kids like it and they are learning, that’s a really big deal. If you’d like to know more about the app, contact your friendly classroom technology designer.
If you’ve ever used a slide rule, then you have to appreciate modern technology, right? If you don’t know what a slide rule is, Google it and thank your stars you never had to use one in College Calculus!
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Why BYOD does more than transforms your classroom into a charging station and gives you a headache

BYOD BYOD BYOD it’s been used so much lately it’s tiresome. However, unlike trying to make “fetch” happen, students using phones in classrooms revolutionized education. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon or if you know some teachers reluctant, here’s some reasons why we should BYOD.

1. Globalization
Cloud based programs have spread from large corporations to indivial entrepenuars thjanks to services like Google Drive and Microsoft Office 365. Since we work in the cloud, should’t our students be acclimated to this productivity tool also?
2. Information overload
Whether we want it or not, there is a new skill to teach: information literacy With the onset of the internet, information became accessible, abdundant and more oftent than not….skewed. For students to be successful problem solvers, we must model how to search for resources, cross reference and search for creditable information can be obtained.
3. They are on it, might as well put it to use. Do you remember T9 texting? I do. I also remember how popular hoodies where with junior high girls too. My students were so stealthy at texting in the early 2000s they made the hoodies a fashion statement! Instead of them concealing it, get those phones out on the desktop, where you can monitor what’s being done on them.

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10 Tips to make your classroom a BYOD environment
1.        21st century adolescents – many of them own and use these devices outside of school. They have them, we might as well use them.
2.        Tools for learning – making consistent efforts to label the phones as devices sends the message that it’s much more than a toy.
3.        Acceptable Use Policies, align yours with your district to ensure common signs, terminology and consistency will help ensure the policy.
4.        Specific learning outcome – ensure that there is a connected objective to the device. No technology for technology’s sake.
5.        Equity – when using, teachers can pair students up, check out devices from library or use classroom iPads to bridge the digital divide.
6.        Increase access – No need to schedule a computer lab, check out equipment from the library or be concerned with having enough laptops in the cart.
7.        Learning during non-instructional time – once devices are incorporated in class, learning becomes anytime, anywhere, any device
8.         Unacceptable use is dealt with accordingly based teacher classroom procedure.
9.        Enhance the pedagogy – it should  boost engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration or evaluation.

10.     Let it Go – student devices can be distracting and empowering at the same time. It might be organized chaos, but keeping them engaged is keeping them on task. Make the your lesson jam packed with activities. Students won’t have time to play, surf, text, take selfies (unless it’s for an assignment) when an assignment is slotted for just enough time to complete the objective.
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