Taking on Too Much

As usual, I have overwhelmed myself. Theater is my second passion. It is the only thing I love as much as teaching. I grew up on stage and when I went to college I transitioned back stage to stage managing. I got involved with the theater here last October and did every show since. This past weekend, my most recent show "The 39 Steps" went up. The show only had a cast of 4. How hard could it have been? THE HARDEST SHOW I HAVE EVER DONE! I was staying at school until 6:30 then going to rehearsal until 10 or 11 every night since the beginning of the year. I. Am. Worn. Out. On top of that, I'm organizing our field trip in April (over night to DC), heading a committee, and trying to be the best teacher I can be. Now I'm just trying to get caught up.

Over the last few weeks we have...

• Taken our first mastery test
• Started SMG
• Finished Real Numbers
• Started Exponents/Scientific Notation

Thoughts on SBG...

Personally, I love it. I love that the kids are in control of their grade and I can see where they need more work. Unfortunately, my students are not retesting!!! What in the world!? I can't understand it. I really can't. I'm not giving in though. Progress reports went home today. I sent letters home two weeks ago to kids who haven't retested. Maybe that will get the point across...

Thoughts on SMG...

I LOVE IT! Sign up for the spring competition. My kids are so engaged. They are coming in every day asking if it is an SMG day. Some of them are being safe and only investing in one company (usually Apple) and only a few shares (20-30). Others have invested EVERYTHING and have invested in Michael Kohrs, Nike, Kraft, Johnson & Johnson, Under Armour, etc. I love hearing them come up with different companies to invest in. The conversations about why they should or should not invest while they are interpreting graphs is awesome. I'm so impressed. I have 5 teams in the top 10 in the region right now. So proud.

I, on the other hand, am in 185/194 in the adult division. I clearly need to start looking at their portfolios and investing in what they are. #fail

Real Numbers

Real Numbers are hit or miss. This year we couldn't get the whole rational/irrational concept, but they can estimate irrational numbers and change repeating decimals to fractions like it's their job. WHAT!?

Exponents/Scientific Notation

As usual, they know the rules, but get tripped up because they still don't know integer rules. Sigh. 

I have added multiple foldables and activities to my TPT store. INB Pictures coming soon.

• Foldables for the rest of this notebook and the upcoming unit
• Getting organized
• Getting back on track
• Sharpening my saw!

Initial Thoughts on SBG Year 2

Last year I attempted standards based grading, but I didn't have full buy in from my administration, I absorbed 4 classes into my already existent 4 classes 9 weeks into the school year, and I transferred districts mid-year to stay sane. Needless to say, it was not a success. Fortunately, I did implement it enough to identify some flaws and decide how to fix them. Three weeks into the year, I have given an SBG quiz, SBG test, and we are now in the retest process. Here are my initial thoughts:

1. It's hard to explain. To anyone. Students. Parents. Teachers. Colleagues. Nobody gets it until they see it in action. They think I'm crazy. "But where's my grade?" they say. "How did I get an 'M' if I only got 6/8 right?" they ask. "How has my child had five quizzes and 7 tests in two weeks of school!?" "You give 100's for kids who don't get everything correct!?" "That's so much work!" etc. etc. etc. Even after giving my first test back, my kids are still floundering with the concept. I expected that, though. I'm hoping by the second test we have a better understanding.
2. Grading is easy. I'm not just looking for a correct answer. I'm looking at the work. It makes it easy to know if they get it or they don't. I can look at my set of 8 integer addition and subtraction problems and see that they are using multiplication and division rules for the signs. I can look at fraction problems and see that they know to find a common denominator but are doing something weird with the numerator (you don't want to know), or that they can get the answer as an improper fraction but changing it to a mixed number is a skill that has yet to be mastered (scary). It causes me to reflect. It causes them to reflect. They are already getting good at looking at their work and telling me where they went wrong. That's an excellent start and a great skill to have.
3. It does not inflate their grades--or destroy them. I was concerned that by taking the Mastery=100 Developing=65 No Mastery=0 approach I would be inflating some and destroying others. My grades are about where I would anticipate if they were receiving traditional grades because classwork and homework are graded as usual. Nobody has a crazy high grade, and the kids with low grades haven't been doing any of the other work either. They love that they get to go back and retest. Some of them hate it and say it's too much work--they're the same ones who don't do my homework or classwork though, so I'm not surprised.
4. It's not as hard to keep up with as I made it last year. I made myself a spreadsheet this year to write their achievement levels. So much easier than making them comments with the grade in PowerSchool. That was insanity. Also, by using the M, DM, NM scale rather than 1, 2, 3, 4, it is more clear cut where they fall and it is easier to enter into my grade book. *sigh of relief*

I love it so far. It will grow on the kids as they realize how it works. My principal loves it. He was on board before I even brought it to his attention. I'm looking forward to seeing it pan out this year.

Meanwhile, I uploaded new foldables for the real number system, cube roots, square roots, irrational numbers, and repeating decimals to my TPT store today, so be sure to check it out! :)

#MTBoS Challenge Week 4

It's week 4 of the MTBoS challenge! Here's my 3-2-1.

3 Strategies I used this week

1. Interactive notebooks are the root of my class. I love INBs. So far I'm doing well at keeping up with them. Usually I am so scattered and use them on and off. I'm hoping I keep up!
2. Fist to Five keeps me in tune with how well my kids understood what we did for the day. We are working on being honest when we do it, so I think it's a little skewed when the kids give me their evaluations right now. We'll get there.
3. SBG I gave my first SBG quiz AND test this week. The kids and parents are trying to get used to it, and they will. It will just take time. I'm going to spend Monday going through the test and explaining to them the retest process. Hopefully when they see their SBG score compared to their traditional score they will understand better. SBG post coming soon.

2 things I bought this week
1. More composition notebooks. I live in a different town from where I teach. The town my school is in was completely out of composition notebooks everywhere, so I picked some up for my kids to buy from me instead.
2. New khakis. ALL three pairs of my khakis ended up in the washer with something neon pink at the end of last year (along with all of my other light colored things) and the dye transferred. I finally got some new ones. Yay! :D

1 Thing I'm grateful for this week
Good friends. I have the greatest, most supportive friends out there. They're there when I had a good day to celebrate and when I've had a bad day or I'm feeling overwhelmed to support me and keep me going. I don't know what I'd do without my support network, especially being so far from my family.

WOW: Workin On it Wednesday

Today I am linking up with Middle School Math Moments for Workin' On it Wednesday.

Workdays start next week. I spent today and yesterday in workshops about Standards Based Grading and the Stock Market Game. I have most everything I need ready to go for school, but here is what I am working on:

• My top priority right now is my ISN. I'm revamping some foldables and overall redoing how I am approaching things. Check out a sneak peak below.

• 7 Habits Curriculum: We have a 50 minute "Patriot Period" (flex period basically) each day and for the first quarter, we will dedicate 25min of this period to re-teaching the 7 Habits. I've been working on getting the 8th grade curriculum together.

• SBG update: The session I went to today was super helpful and I think I will have a much easier time this year. I'm updating my trackers to read "mastery" "developing mastery" and "no mastery" rather than a 1-4 scale. More on this later.

Summer is Fading

I woke up Friday morning and realized I only have a week left of summer. My stomach sank, and my boyfriend foolishly told me that I've been doing school work for the past month, "so what's the big deal?"

 Sure, I've been neglecting my apartment's organization (though I've kept the important parts clean, there is stuff EVERYWHERE right now), and done nothing but plan, prep, and re-plan for school to start, but there's a difference between me doing it on my own time and when I'm at school and doing it because I have to. I don't know what it is, but I will sit all summer and prep for the next school year like nobody's business, but as soon as school actually starts, motivation goes out the window. What's up with that?

So anyway, I talked about power standards in my last post and updated my data trackers and I Can statements then bundled. They can now be found in my TPT store YAY! :) I also updated my vocab because I changed from giraffe to dots and chevron. I'm going to hold out on posting about the other things I've been working on for Monday Made It tomorrow :)

Now in the next week I am hoping to at least get my first semester or first marking period of my INB completed. I have to get cracking on the 7 Habits curriculum for 8th grade too. So much to do, and so little time! AHH!!!

Click the image to see this product in my TPT store :)

Word Walls and Power Standards

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I spent yesterday at a training about Power Standards. The idea is simple and something that I think a lot of us overlook--focus on the most important standards, and tie everything else into them. Now, I could sit and easily tell you what standards in the 8th grade curriculum are most important and which are not hit upon as much, but I never took into account the relevancy in the real world or how heavily the standard weighs into other classes (science) or the following courses.

Using a spreadsheet the county prepared for us that had all of the standards in it and coding, we ranked the importance of each standard in the real world, in future grades, and on the state test, whether it is useful in only math, in two subjects, or in multiple subjects, and what level of RBT it is. each response had a certain number of points attached, so the formulas ranked the standards in order of importance according to our responses. It color coded the top ranked in blue, the bottom in red, and everything in between in a shade of purple. From there, we were able to identify the Power Standards, Complementary Standards, and Remaining Standards.

I love this idea. I could have told you months ago that there is no reason for me to spend a month on the real number system. The NC EOG only has 2-3 questions on those standards. My problem is that I'm a perfectionist and I want my kids to master each and every single standard. In reality, I would much rather them master things like systems, linear equations, functions, Line of Best Fit, and the Pythagorean Theorem and have a decent grasp on everything else because that is what is most important in 8th grade, in the real world, in their science classes, and in future math classes. 

Now, I had already mapped out my year, but after doing this, I wanted to do it over. Now my units are centered around the power standards, more time is focused on those standards than things like differentiating between rational and irrational numbers, and I can see my power standards cycle back through different units as complementary standards. I have a nice little flow chart set up for my first semester using sticky notes. Of course,  I color coded--Power Standards in green, complementary in blue, and remaining in pink. If this works out, Systems will be covered before Christmas in a perfect world and definitely by the end of the first semester. I'm fine with moving my scatter plots unit to the second semester if it means having systems done in the first half of the year. I like this because I can pull systems through the rest of my curriculum to keep it fresh for the rest of the year. In a perfect world, the two weeks after Christmas are completely open for reviewing, reteaching, and retesting.

So what does this mean?

Redoing all of my I Can statements and data trackers. In the long run, it will be totally worth it. I just wish that I would have had this training before I got all motivated and decided to start planning my year. Look for new data trackers coming soon in that case. Sigh

The good news is, I haven't started my INB yet, so I don't have to start that over.

New Products!

INB Frayer foldables for all 8th grade vocabulary. Cut them apart, fold each in half, and you can fit 6 to a page in your INB. Alternatively, you can just keep them attached, or cut them and use them as flash cards. There are places for the student's definition, your definition, examples, and counterexamples for each one. There are over 150 words included. This file is available in my TPT store here.

 Word Wall posters to go with the Frayer's. There are a few words or terms in there that I did not include in the Frayer models because they were not things with definitions (for example, I use V/C to teach solving equations rather than the traditional algorithms). Three per page. Cut apart and use on your word wall or agenda board. This is available on my TPT store as well.

You can get both of these files bundled together as well.

Purchase today to get 20% off!

New Products

Just a quick update before my classroom reveal tomorrow *squeals of excitement*

I put together a set of I Can statements and vocabulary words to use for a Math Focus Wall or Word Wall. They can both be found in my TPT store.

Vocabulary

I Can statements with Learning Targets 

I Can Statements without Learning Targets

I Can statements directly align with my Data Trackers. There is a set with and without the Learning Target numbers. Vocabulary is color coded by unit to match the I Can statements as well. I'm excited to get these laminated and added to my wall :)

I also put together a chart for my kids to keep track of whether they have mastered something at a glance. This will go in the front of their data notebooks in class.

#MyFavFriday Data Tracking 2.0

Ok, I'm going to give this another whirl. Maybe I can keep up with it this time.

I was home bound last week due to an unknown plague, so naturally I decided to take it easy by getting ready for next year. I'll be back in 8th grade teaching traditional math--no Math I HOORAY!!!! Even better? My best friend will also be teaching 8th grade math right next door, so I really couldn't be happier :)

I posted last summer about data tracking. The system worked well until I switched schools and positions and wasn't able to keep up since it was mid-year. It worked well for the kids and for me, but I needed to do some tweaking. I wanted to really narrow down the learning targets so they were specific and I needed a better way for myself to keep track. So here we have Data Tracking 2.0!

I started by mapping out the curriculum in the way I want to teach it. We use the Big Ideas book at my new school, and their sequencing just makes no sense to me. After I decided what order to teach things in, I isolated the standards and wrote I Can statements for each. The units are big and will more than likely have multiple tests and quizzes per unit, but I am ok with that.

First...The student edition.

This is the same format as last year, but with the new skills and sequencing. Students will rate and date at the beginning of the unit. 4 is they can do it without ever making a mistake and could teach someone else, 3 is they aren't perfect but they usually don't make a mistake, 2 is they know how to get started but get stuck sometimes, and 1 is they don't know how to start at all. They use the far right chunk to graph as a bar graph. Each time we test or quiz they rate date and graph in a different color. The goal of course is growth. This helps the students, their parents, and me see exactly where they need assistance. It's great for parent conferences and has reduced the number of kids who come to me saying "I need help." "With what?" "All of it." *blank stare from Miss A*

The new part (which I love love love!!) is the teacher half of the data tracking. 

This is printed as a two-sheet spread that goes into a three ring notebook. Student names across the top, learning targets down the left, and their score from 1-4 goes in the box. Since this is SBG, the grades change based on performance, so be sure to use pencil! Since they rate and date in their folders, I am still able to look back if necessary for parents/admin/students/myself to see how they have progressed, but I just have their current level of proficiency/understanding in my grade book. I think this will make things much easier!

This is available as a bundle in my TPT store here. 

Made 4 Math Monday: New School, New Ideas, New Products!

I have switched schools! I moved counties and went from teaching 8th grade and Math I to teaching 6-8 enrichment/remediation. I have no curriculum, no guidelines, just freedom for creativity and to target exactly what these kids need. I actually get to differentiate and be creative? WOAH! Crazy!

I'm still doing a mastery based method, but not like I had done in my previous school. 6th and 7th started off with adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers. 8th started with the real number system.

Monday--Teach
Tuesday-Thursday--Games, task cards, teacher time, AM
Friday--Fast Fact Friday and quiz

Fast Fact Friday is similar to multiplication facts. For 6/7 I used Super Speed Math Fractions from Whole Brain Teaching. They are given 100 fractions and have to write them in simplest form in 2 minutes. For 8th grade I gave them fractions with denominators of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 20 and they had to memorize the decimal equivalent

Quizzes are only 10 questions. If a student receives an 8 they move on the next week. If not, we reteach. So this week, about half of my 6/7 graders will be adding and subtracting still and the other half will be multiplying and dividing fractions and mixed numbers. As I expected, 8th graders need more time with the real number system. Repeating decimals are just so hard!!

I created these products to add to my TPT store:

Whack-a-Fraction: Addition and Subtraction
Students deal all cards out to players (2-4). Players flip the top card at the same time in an "I declare war" style and solve their own problem. We played where the first person to correctly solve their problem (must be checked by all other players) won all the cards, but it could also be played with the highest or lowest value winning.

Find it in my store here

Fraction Sequence Addition and Subtraction Version

Students select a card, solve the problem, and place a marker on the answer on the board. The first player to have two sets of five in a row wins. Can be played with 2 players or two teams of two players. 

Find it in my store here

C.U.B.E.S. Problem Solving Strategy Posters

Posters to reinforce the CUBES method for solving word problems. There is one poster that spells out CUBES with the corresponding strategy for each as well as individual posters for each letter.

Find it in my store here

T.E.A.M Group Management and Group Jobs posters

Posters for T.E.A.M to help manage cooperative groups so everyone is on task and has a role to play in their group.

Find it in my store here

I will be adding multiplication and division versions of whack-a-fraction and fraction sequence soon.

#myfavfriday Data, Data on the Wall, Whoo's the Wisest of them All?

SBG is going just swimmingly! I love it and the kids are really doing an excellent job at looking at their scores, seeing exactly what they need help with, and getting the extra help they need.

I wanted some way to show who is showing proficiency/mastery. I thought about charts and graphs, but that's just too difficult when you teach 4 classes of kids. My solution?

First off, how funny is it that my first two blocks just slapped them up there and my third and fourth blocks put them up very orderly?

Every time  a student scores at a proficient level (2.5-3.5), they will receive a sticky note. They put their name on the sticky then put it in the box that is for their class on the wall. When a student receives a 4 for a topic (mastery), they receive an owl (I had these lying around and needed a use for them. Unfortunately, I did not have nearly enough and there should be more in the Green and Purple boxes). I'm thinking at the end of the marking period we will have a pizza or ice cream party for the class with the highest percentage of topics proficient/mastered (not sure how I'm going to calculate that yet, but I have time). I still need to put the title up, but it will say "Data on the wall, Whoo's the Wisest of them All?"

I want to do something more if you gain proficiency or mastery for all topics on a unit test. Since we are using Star Wars on our rubric, I'm thinking "Master all Units you will" and I'll give them Yoda outlines or something. Not sure. Anyone have an idea?