Summer Reflections part 4- Scheduling

When I was feeling bad initially about my AP Chemistry scores this year, my assistant principal in charge of our really weird wonky schedule said to me "don't jump right to the schedule".  I didn't, in fact, I didn't think about it for first few hours of my thinking about it.  I'll say at the outset too, that I don't think the schedule is the sole or main reason for my failings this year.

Let me outline the schedule.  We are an alternate day block schedule Tuesday through Friday that means that:

• On T/R we have "L" day classes
• On W/F we have N day classes

That means 8 classes in that time frame of those 4 days of the week, meeting twice in that time for about 82 minutes each class session.

What about Mondays?

On Mondays, which we call Mastery Mondays, students might have one of those eight classes at some point, there are a few classes in our school where that is the case, my APES class next year is one of those, which means it will meet 3 days a week instead of 2.  Most of their schedule though is in "Lab" classes which can best be described as supervised study halls.  They might be in a "Science Lab" which means in a classroom with a science teacher, working on their own on whatever projects, HW, studying, etc that they need to do.  For a teacher like me that prefers they don't have a ton of HW, that would be great, since they could get a lot of it done each week on Mondays.

Most students have 2-3 of these "labs" (yes, quotes, because that isn't what labs should be in my science brain!) on a typical Monday, which means they should have 3-4 hours of studying/working time at school, with access to their teachers.

I'll say right now that even though it seems I'd like this, I have disliked it since it was initially discussed and am still not a big fan.  I will again put out the disclaimer that I don't think this is the big gest problem for me this year. It didn't hurt the other teachers at our school, they all rocked out the AP tests, and according to administration, most everyone outside of my department really likes the Monday schedule.  I can respect that and don't expect things to fit my expectations and wishes.  But here are the rough stats/facts for me:

• I have 20% less class time with my AP students than I had the year before, each and every week. That was my choice as department chair, because that was what I traded to get our CP (non-honors) Chemistry and Biology I classes 3 days a week.  To make that happen we agreed to do Honors 2 days a week and AP Chem and Bio 4 instead of 5 days.  There have to be tradeoffs... (I don't know the impact on honors yet, we don't have the data back).
• The class average on AP Chemistry from 2015 to 2016 dropped 12.4% . Again, strict passing was the same, but 4s and 5s were basically wiped out.  (I'll also note that perhaps my strongest student did not take the exam this year, but that student didn't take any of the AP exams)

Again, this is not the sole reason if it is one at all, and I know that even under this 20% drop in time, I still have more time than a lot of teachers across the country.  But I feel it might be a part of the issue, or at least needs to be mentioned as a possibility.

Summer Relfections part 3- The issues

So rather than being my normal rambling wordy self, I'm going to essentially put down bullets of my own self-critique for this year (and in general I suppose).  I talk about implications in part 5, which I may not get to today...

I left the actual paper I'd brainstormed on at school, but here are the high (low) points that I can recall:

1. I fear I may have been guilty of unconsciously projecting low expectations for some of my students.  (I don't want to explain too much in a bullet list, but basically I mean that since I allow in any kids who meet the prereq classes, I fear that some of them may sense that I know they are struggling and internally I suspect they may not get 3s or above) This is the most damning one to me, so I'll lead with it.  I'm trying to get my my around it with a lot of thought, prayer, and planning.
2. As mentioned in part 1, I fear my leniency with deadlines led to complacency among my students, turning in labs late, waiting until the last minute to do HW.
3. Homework, yeah, for the last couple of years, my philosophy has been that none of my university college teachers checked HW, they assigned it, and then let the chips fall where they may.  I did the same, had them check their own work in solutions guide, then gave a cursory glance that they did it, gave them points on the test for it. (more complex, but again, bullet list).  That led to a lot of students waiting til the last minute, on test day, therefore not asking questions when we were on the topics.  
4. Daily quizzes (actually usually every other day) were short, graded in class, based solely on HW and nightly reading.  They were also almost always universally awful. I didn't use this information quickly to change practices as one should with formative assessments, and I don't think my students took it very seriously, just took an F on it and went on as their point value was low.
5. Coddling- If you would have told me at any point in my teaching career that I was coddling students, I would have raged. I believe strongly in having high expectations of knowledge and problem solving, but have usually been willing to bend on timelines, etc.  I think I did waaaaaay too much of that this year and think that led to students taking advantage of that, rationally so, and therefore, not doing their best.
6. Overly Encouraging- I know, that sounds ludicrous...teachers should be encouraging, I believe strongly in building students up.  Actually, what I really believe is what one of the previous year's students said to my prospects for next year, "taking them apart and putting them back together". In other words, making them realize that being smart or working hard like they've always done isn't good enough.  This year, I think I was too encouraging, leading them to believe that it was always ok....sometimes it ain't ok, sometimes a little panic and worry is a good thing.
7. Labs--I think we did too many/and or spent too much time on them this year.  We did 17, which is one more than the minimum required, but as many have noted, the labs are sort of incidental, students can do well on the test without those labs.  I love the labs, but I think we've definitely been doing them wrong and spent too much time on them.

Those are what I call systemic or philosophical issues.  It's hard for me to fathom, but I think my student-centered approach has backfired and needs revamped substantially.  I have some ideas on that that I may cover in part 5 of this reflection if I get there.  Part 4 is coming with another big possibility that I didn't mention in this list...

Summer Reflections pt 2- Results and philosophy

While I'm not personally ashamed (maybe a little) of this years scores, I don't want to post my overall results for fear that students will figure out what their peers made who might not want to share them.

I'll say this though...they were disappointing in many ways.  While I had the exact same percentage of students "pass" as I did last year, the numbers of 4s and 5s were almost non-existent.  To be clear, I teach at a STEM school, one might think that these were students really into AP Chemistry (another discussion!), and my expectation going forth is that every student should get a 3 or above as a minimum, and I'd like to shoot for at least 50% of them getting 4s and 5s.

Before the rockstars of AP chemistry teaching jump in and say how low these expectations are, let's stipulate that I probably don't approach the class philosophically the same way you do, nor am I looking for the same outcomes you are.  I don't tell students they can't take my class and I don't hard recruit any either.  I'd say out of this years graduating class of around 120 or so (I don't have the actual numbers), that only 6 or so took AP Chemistry, Out of the top 12 students, only 2 took AP Chemistry, even though many are going into science related fields.

There could be many reasons for this, first and foremost might be that I'm a little abrasive and sarcastic.  I don't really think that is it as I connect with most students really well despite (or because of) this, but I recognize that I might be part of that.

The biggest thing in my mind is that students hear their peers say how hard it is and how bad their test scores are on exams and those students who have been raised (and are still hearing everyday) that GPA matters more than anything avoid the class.  The irony is that most of my students make As and Bs despite the crazy rep, but there are always students that are going to major in Chemical Engineering or Biosystems or something that don't take AP Chemistry because it might hurt their GPA.

So be it, I never try to talk a kid into taking it, because it is hard, stressful, a lot of work,etc. and I want them to make that decision on their own (or well, with their parents).  In fact, I anti-recruit every year, just to make sure that students take it because they need it or really want it, not because they'd like to take a class with me or because a friend is taking it, it won't be worth it then, I'm not that amusing...

Back to my evolving philosophy, I've always held that I wasn't going to worry much about the exam results.  I've always considered my job teaching AP Chemistry not to replace their college class, though I try to teach it at that level, but rather to make sure that when they get to college, they rock out that A and don't get weeded out by college Chemistry I and II, which plenty of students do.  The scores were always sort of incidental to me.

But here's the thing that hit me hard this year...just because that is my philosophy doesn't mean that is what all of my students expect.  Many of them want to opt out of college chem, they are taking AP classes for three reasons- it looks good on transcript, can boost GPA, and it might save them money in college.

And I'm letting those kids down, with my philosophy and style of teaching...

Summer Reflections pt1-Background

As I indicated on Twitter this week, I was disappointed in my class AP scores this year.  We haven't gotten our state test scores back yet, but I fear there may be a somewhat similar let down there as well.

For any teacher worth their salt, when there is a drop off in performance of students, they sit down and try to analyze things, which I have done a lot since Tuesday, a lot of thinking time and a couple of hours of sitting down and actually writing down thoughts.  But since this will be a darn long, rambling (knowing me) serious of thoughts, I figured I ought to give some background since I haven't blogged in 10 months.

This coming school year will be my 17th, my 16th teaching Chemistry.  I've taught in schools of 4600, and in schools of 70, public and private, urban and suburban.  Now I teach at an amazing magnet high school of 600 or so students 9-12. While I have numerous things I'd like changed about my school (who doesn't?!?), it is a truly outstanding place, one that I hope I can spend the next 20 years at to be honest.

Prior to coming here 4 years ago, I taught at an urban high school that I also loved for very different reasons because it was a very different school.  After teaching there my first year, I realized that I really needed to adapt my teaching style from the sort of stand up, lecture, work problems, do labs, rinse and repeat style.  A big part of that is that my students there had a really hard time doing much real work outside of school, largely because of their home situations and other distractions.

This made me dive full bore into more "progressive" styles of teaching, and in the 6 or 7 years since then I've read dozens of books and hundreds of articles on new ways to do things in the classroom.  I've been presenting PD in my district for several years on flipped and student centered classrooms. For my Chemistry I classes for the past 5 years, I've been all in, full-flip, standards based grade, inquiry labs, retakes, everyday grouping, etc.  Last year our school had the highest achievement scores in the district, so that must indicate that something worked right about it.

Even though I'm at a really innovative school, I've always felt a bit like an outlier because of this.  The bulk of the teachers at my school are hard deadlines, lots of out of class work, no retakes, zeroes for missing work.  What this functionally meant for me is that students (who I think like me a lot, I'm the favorite for a few) often leave my work til last because they know I'll be flexible where others won't.  I still hold really high standards for knowledge and problem solving, but I care a lot about stress loads on my kids, I've almost always been willing to move a test date for their projects in other classes, or other tests, etc.

For a year or so I've been having the feeling that my methods might not be right for this school and the students that I serve here, and so the rather poor performance on the AP Chemistry exam this year was just more fuel for that fire.  I'll speak more on that in the next post, but I want to be very clear that I'm not blaming students for the poor scores...these are kids that rocked out other AP classes, I'm taking the bulk of the blame on me.

part 2 to come shortly!

Glenn 2.0 and a slight reversion to 1.0

I haven't blogged or really even tweeted a whole heck of a lot about education stuff in the past year (since last November).  To be honest, last year was a catastrophic year for me, my health was hit, my ego and self confidence were hit, my sense of value to my school, students and the whole education profession tanked pretty hard.

So I made a very conscious decision to try to do something very different from the norm for me of late.  That was to not rant, and to some degree, to not be an advocate that I had tried hard to be for a few years.  It wasn't healthy for me, mostly because I approached it in a lot of the wrong ways, overestimating my voice and importance (common in egotists like me).  So I have at least attempted to be as I frame it, Glenn 2.0 (really I think I'm on at least version 10 at this point, but I digress).

It's been somewhat hit or miss, some things still get me upset, I just shut up or try to vent very calmly to those I trust.  Sometimes I swing and miss terribly, but I don't think I've really done a full Glenn 1.0 meltdown for a couple of months at least.  I've had a few people even ask me if I was on some medication, though I hope they were kidding.  For the record, I'm not, I'm just, at the risk of being more political/religious than I dare most of the time, trying to be more like a book I read this summer called Unoffendable (by Brant Hansen, I recommend it). I am certainly not unoffendable yet, but while I believe intent informs actions, sometimes actions can help affect intent, and so I'm working on that.

It is so hard though...every time I read my twitter feed, which is mostly Edu stuff of course, I get aggravated, mostly at progressive educators who think they aren't dogmatic, but it reality are just dogmatic about different things.  As always, the rebels don't really want liberty, they want people to do things their way.  Such is our nature I suppose.

On the plus side though, not worrying about all of the extra stuff has given me a more coherent focus on my classroom.  I still have other duties, many more than I would wish, but just freeing up mindspace for my kiddos. (Yes, I know people hate the fact that I call students that, but I'm going to do it anyway.)  I am trying to get back to the creative yet focused and competent teacher that I really feel like I haven't been the past few years.  That is a work in progress.

What inspired me to write today was some of the attitudes of some of my favorite and most capable students at my school.  I teach at a STEM Academy, and whatever you think of that term and its buzzword status, that meant something to me when I came here.  It means a little something different now as I try to dismount from my high horse, but it does mean though that we have a fair number of students for whom science, math, etc are priorities for.  We have a lot who don't care about that stuff and a lot that they or their parents just wanted something new.  On the whole though, we have a great student body to match some pretty amazing teachers.

I teach Chemistry I, AP Chemistry and Intro to Organic/Biochemistry to students that range from 9th to 12th graders, some really great students.  Of late I've noticed that a lot of them want to be Biomedical Engineers, Chemical Engineers, Materials Scientists, etc...a lot more than I think was the case in years past, to go along with those that want to be Doctors, Vets, Pharmacists, etc...  One would think that would be an amazing boon for the classes I teach.

The hurtful truth though is that remarkably few of even those students want to take those upper level classes in Chemistry, less than 5% of our students.  Glenn 1.0 (who was cynical and snarky unlike sweetness and light new Glenn) would say that maybe that is because of who teaches IOB and AP Chem (me!), but if I'm not being a sad panda, I don't think that is really the case.  Generally speaking, I have a couple of kids taking it because of me, not in spite of me, so I don't think that is wholly the case.

One might also think that it is because those classes are really hard.  That's true to some degree, but that doesn't stop them from taking a host of other AP classes at our school, ones that ostensibly might have less to do with their future success in science related majors.  I don't think the percentage of kids making As and Bs in my classes are any different than those classes, even if the work is hard. I don't think it about success on the AP test itself either, because last year was our most successful in that regard, and I only see that going up.

It hit me hard today though in conversing with a couple of my best students.  They said they probably wouldn't take IOB (my Organic class) because it didn't have an Honors or AP designation and would thus be a drag on their GPA.  I've heard the GPA complaint for years for AP, because, yes, it is more likely that you might get a B in there than another class, but never really worried that much about it.  I mean, if a kid is that foolishly worried about GPA, let it be.

But the IOB thing really drives me nuts, because that was a class that I made specifically to help students at our school.  I was tired of students going off to college thinking about Medicine or Chemistry as a major and getting buzzsawed by Organic Chemistry I and II there.  That is a real thing, that really happens.  No offense to some of my friends in other disciplines, but as someone with a degree in another subject aside from Chemistry, the introductory or 2nd year classes in that non science major was not going to keep anyone from majoring in that.  Organic might...heck, to be serious, Chemistry I and II do for many students.

How did we let things get so messed up that a student would give a rip about that minuscule a difference in GPA (which would still be 4.0 unweighted, I hate the weighting system almost as much as I hate GPAs)?  Do students really think their high school GPA matters anywhere outside of that 6 months between fall and spring of their senior year when they are applying for colleges and scholarships.  I say this as someone who graduated 2nd in my class in HS...you know who cares about that and how much difference in made in college for me?  You guessed it....exactly not a darn person...

I know that kids want to get accepted and they want the scholarships (or need, I get that, really I do), but seriously kiddos, what matters isn't getting INTO college.  What matters more is being able to get THROUGH college.  And for those of you with dreams of being doctors, engineers, or scientists, even if you have to take Chem I in college because they don't accept AP results, why, why, why would you not want to be ready for that?  Or maybe even more important, wouldn't you rather figure out in Organic Chemistry in high school that maybe you don't like science enough to go through with that degree?  That is better than figuring out 2 years in that you can't hack it, and the main reason for that being that you didn't prepare yourself.

I'm not saying that a student has to have their whole life planned out and decided in HS, that's ludicrous.  But I genuinely don't understand a student like the one from a couple of years ago that wanted to go to MIT, but said they weren't going to take AP Chem because MIT didn't accept that credit.  I was pleading with the student, trying to explain that by not taking it, they probably wouldn't be ready for Chem I at MIT, but they just blew it off.

This all of course just sounds like the rant of a teacher who wants more students in their class. That's really not the case, I generally like my class sizes, and if we don't get 20 in Organic next year, I'll be ok with canceling it so I can teach something else.  I just want my students to be successful, I want them to learn, to love to learn, to challenge them and have them challenge themselves.  To not take something just because it makes a transcript look good, but because it is beneficial and needful.

Sorry for the rant for the folks that came here...a slight reversion to the 1.0 version of me, but I'm not mad about it, just sad and disappointed.

Conflicted

What I am about to say is semi-heretic in some of the circles I float around in online and on twitter, and to some small degree, even at my amazing school.

I like to lecture...

I'll compound my blasphemy with the comment that

I'm pretty good at it...

This came up to me because while I run full flipped Chemistry I class and for the most part flipped intro to Organic class, I do a lot less in my AP class and sometimes I lecture for a bit in my organic class.

I had a terrible teaching day a few days ago and just went home defeated.  I've been sick for a couple of weeks and all sorts of craziness is going on at school and at home and it has been a rough slog of a year in many ways, but still, this day was one of those that just makes you want to reconsider your profession.  Not from any bad behaviors or anything, just a bad day that it felt like no kids learned anything and I wasted their time and mine.

So in partial personal response to that, when I had those same classes two days later, I shifted away from my usual very student centered model to that more traditional teacher in charge day.  I lectured for 20-30 minutes in my first class, and you know what?

It felt great...

I understand and know all of the arguments on the other side of that, I've made them myself, often vehemently:

• Just because you "covered" the material doesn't mean your students learned it
• Students tune out after X number of minutes of lecture and you went way over that
• Students need to be in charge of their own learning

Again, I've drink that kool-aid on a daily basis, even whipping up batches for other teachers pretty often.

But I think sometimes we forget what can occasionally be the simple effectiveness of direct instruction, live, in front of a class of students.  I'm not saying that every second of class should be eaten up that way, I'm not saying that pre-recorded content is useless (I've wasted a lot of my time if it is!), or that every student learns best that way.

Some students do though...some students want the chance to ask questions immediately and get an immediate response.  No manner of discussion threads or managed messaging or emails or comments on videos or voicethread will do that, and as a flipped classroom teacher, even though I spend most of my class every day answering questions in small groups or for individuals, which I believe is more effective than for a whole group, there is real power in answering a question for the whole group, all at once, in the moment that it was asked and they were most confused.  There is power in capturing that moment at the moment that it happens.

No that doesn't have to happen during a lecture and probably shouldn't most of the time.  But it can, and it is great when it does...

My title of conflicted is a bit overblown because I'm not really conflicted per se.  I know that there is no real pedagogical silver bullet and that being a "pure" flipped classroom teacher or constructivist or 21st century educator or student-centered classroom facilitator or whatever the hot new thing of the day is doesn't really matter.

What matters is having a variety of approaches and methods in your toolbox and using the right tools at the right time judiciously and with discernment for the betterment of the students.

And sometimes, that might be a good old-fashioned, sage on the stage teacher delivering content lecture!

New Year Resolutions

Summer is essentially over already, my mind, like the eye of Sauron, has shifted focus back to school. Actually it never really left as I spent most of June working on school stuff.  It was a good summer though, couple of short but good trips with the family, a raft of books read for pleasure, learning, and work.

To be honest though, aside from going back to 5 hours of sleep instead of the 8 I get during the summer, I am ecstatic about the new school year. Our MakerSpace is getting started up and I really think that considering the amazing kids at our school, this is going to blow the lid off and take us from a quirky, high
performing school to a truly exemplar school for innovation.

Last year was an amazing year and I fully expect this year to be even better, but as hits me every few years, I overdid it a lot. And with the new stuff I'm doing this year, there is a real chance to overwork myself into uselessness pretty quickly.  To that end, here are my new (school) year resolutions, and hopefully I can stick to them better than the plan to lose 40lbs.

1. Concentrate on my classroom and school (mostly)- The last couple of years were the first where I really branched out a lot and got involved in a lot of things and issues philosophically with regards to education.  I actually love thinking about the philosophies of old school vs new, SBG versus traditional, and really diving into the issues of education nationwide.  I love it and will probably continue to read up and and think about it.  But last year in particular I think it had me lose a lot of focus on the things going on in my classroom.  I love teaching because of the kids and don't really want to leave the classroom, and won't unless money makes me have to.  But I need to put a tighter focus on my practice and the needs of each of my kids above all.  Ultimately, these education debates will still be fought 20 years from now and my kids need me this year.
2. Stop being dogmatic- Over the past few years I've spent a lot of time transforming my teaching, making it more student centered, switching to SBG, focusing on the whole student aspect of things.  In short becoming a new agey sort of teacher which is pretty funny to those that know me personally.  but this past year, as I noted in some earlier blog posts, my strict adherence to the ideas of SBG, flipped, TLAP or whatever thing I was pursuing at that time really made me feel like I was in a teaching strait-jacket.  I'm going to let the philosophical ideas guide me but to restrict me.  No one is checking up on my pedagogical purity and it doesn't serve any real purpose.
3. Ignore Twitter sometimes- This one is weird, because I can safely say that I would be a vastly different teacher without my interactions on twitter the past few years.  I've learned more about changing my teaching practice there than at anything else.  No PD has mattered as much, no rah-rah conference has motivated me as much.  But the fact of the matter is that sometimes on twitter I just get mad for a variety of reasons, ranging from people straw manning and overreacting to things, the witch hunts against people that don't believe the things, and especially, oh most especially, the pithy, airy, motivational quotes that mean absolutely nothing real.  I know I could eliminate a lot of these things from my feed, but at the same time, I want to be challenged in my assumptions, I don't just want an echo chamber of like minded people.  I already know not to feed the trolls, but I have to learn to avoid the things that detract from my emotional reserves a bit too much.
4. Set aside time for my family- I am actually a great one for setting aside personal time for myself.  Having burned out before, I know that my own sanity revolves around remembering to pleasure read, to play a couple of video games most days, to hang out with my friends.  But since carpool with my
   whole family for hours every day, sometimes I go read a book to get away from the fighting that is inevitable when you have 3 boys separated by 4 years total.  But one thing the summer really solidified for me is that it isn't just about quality time, it's about quantity as well.  I've always been a big believer that I have to watch how much I work at home because it takes away from my boys, but I haven't held as true to that belief these past couple of years. Not this year!
5. Don't change too much- I have a tendency to discover something new over the summer and want to upset the whole apple cart of what I do.  Instead, I've decided that this year, I'm going to focus on a major change in just one of my preps and some minor "tweaks" (I hate that word...why did I use it...) to my other classes. Not that I can't think of a hundred ways to make those classes better as well, but I'm going to triage and try to master one thing instead of dabbling in 20. 

Of all of those things, I suspect that the last one will be the hardest, but I am really going to try, I've laser focused on that one class the past few weeks, knowing that the others were fairly successful last year and there is only so much of me and my time.

All of that said, I cannot wait to get the kids back in my room(s)...every year here at STEM has been amazing so far and I have even higher expectations this year!