Personalized Unit Process: Equations and Inequalities

Have you been thinking about personalized learning, but not sure where to start? Are you unsure if you think it’s actually better for your students? I just wrapped up my first truly personalized learning unit (and yes, it’s February) on Equations and Inequalities in my high school Integrated Math 1 classroom and wanted to share EVERYTHING with you, including my results!

Timeline

18 instructional days

Process

1. Give a Pre-Assessment

This is a short and targeted assessment to see what students know. Download mine on Equations here.

2. Create Groups

The evening I gave the pre-assessment I sorted my students into 3 groups.

A - Students who had no idea what to do even on one-step equations

B - Students who knew the basics (one and two-step equations), but made some numeracy or on multi-step equation errors.

C - Students who showed complete mastery

Make a slide or doc with the grouping so you can display it and communicate it clearly to students.

My personal experience: In one of my classes of 38 students, my breakdown was as follows. Group A, 18 students. Group B, 14 students. Group C, 6 students.

3. Find Material

You need to find accessible and engaging materials for all three groups. I think this is the part that deters most teachers, but the internet and websites like Khan Academy and IXL have made this pretty easy!

My personal experience: Group A would be working with me so I didn’t need to worry about their material as much (we did a worksheet one problem at a time on white boards). Group B worked on multi-step equations first on Khan, then practiced on IXL. When they scored an “80 smart score” on IXL they earned “credit” for that assignment by placing a sticker on our class tracking board. I assigned Group C material for the next unit and encouraged them to work at their own pace using their tools (the internet) to help. Blow is a picture of my assignment log in my google classroom.

Google Classroom Assignment Log

4. Display and Teach Expectations

Make your behavior and work expectations clear to students. Have accountability for the work and consequences for misbehavior. Below is a picture of the slide I showed to students to make sure I was communicating my expectations clearly.

5. Teach Unit

Decide on your pacing for the unit. My school is on a modified block schedule so I did the split only on block days. On the other days we worked as a whole class due to my chromebook issue (24 chromebooks and 38 students in class).

Group A (students with me): They had a white board and we went through a worksheet one problem at a time until they showed mastery. Then they switched to working on the computer

Group B: Started on the computers working on our Khan and IXL assignments. When they scored an “80 smart score” for that assignment they got a sticker on our tracking board (shown below) which then correlates to their grade. When the groups switched, they worked on a worksheet and I checked their answers.

Group C: Stayed on the computer the whole time. I encouraged them to get as far into the next unit as they could. These are mainly students who are highly motivated and on-task workers. I didn’t have any behavior or work issues with them.

Assignment Log Tracker

I had Groups B and C move to the back of the classroom and move their chairs to the other side of their desks so I could see their computer screens while Group A came to the front to get instruction from me.

Groups B and C in the back with screens facing front, Group A in front working with me on a worksheet

6. Assess

The moment of truth! How did my students do? I’m about to share my data with you! But first, you have to understand my situation…

I teach two periods of “at grade level” 9th graders. They all passed 8th grade math. They received the personalized learning unit described here.

I teach four periods of “below grade level” 9th graders. They all failed 8th grade math, some also failed 6th and 7th grade math. They received regular whole class instruction for the entire unit (since none of them new how to solve equations on the pre-assessment).

My personalized learning unit students had an average score of 74.9% on their summative assessment for the unit. My regular whole class unit students has an average score of 60.1% on the exact same assessment.

While both groups can’t truly be considered “equal” since they have very different starting points, I find this data to be intriguing and supportive of the personalized approach.

7. Reflect

Was personalized learning better for my students? Was it better for me as a teacher? Is this reproducible for future units? How could I improve this unit? How could I improve this process?

So many questions after trying something new in your classroom! Here are my big takeaways of this personalized learning unit:

1) I think my students felt more respected as learners.

My students enjoyed knowing that they were getting the help they needed or the freedom they wanted to work where they were. I feel like our classroom culture grew more positively over the course of this unit and they could no longer make comments like, “I already know how to do this” or “You never taught me this.” Personalized learning removed that barrier in my opinion, freeing up more time and mental availability to learn content.

2) I feel like I lost some productivity.

It’s hard to monitor students when half are working with you and half are on the computers. Not many students finished all of the assignments on the computers and I expect more than a few were “wasting time” when their groups were on the computers. This may be a cost of personalized learning, but do the benefits outweigh them?

3) I would like to try it again.

Our next unit is systems of equations and it’s new to every student so I won’t have as well defined gaps in learning to create different groups. My plan is to group students according to how they do on formative assessments and split the class that way.

I feel proud and accomplished that I tried something new and excited that I even saw some success! Stay tuned for more on my journey!

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4 Ways to Reduce Teacher Stress

August through Mid November 2017 were some of the most stressful and discouraging months of my professional life. I had just moved from California to Colorado, went back into the classroom after being an instructional coach for three years, I was teaching a slightly new content (Algebra 1 to Integrated Math 1), and did I mention I was back in the classroom after 3 years of not having to lesson plan and grade? The adjustment to a new state and a new school was harder than it had ever been (even though I’ve changed schools two other times in my career). My happiness was plummeting and it was manifesting itself as resentment toward my job and if I’m being honest, my students, which is NOT the kind of teacher I know I am. Something had to change. And thankfully the weeks following Thanksgiving break have been my best weeks! So what did I do differently? Check out 4 lessons I’ve learned about how to reduce the inevitable stress we all face as teachers.

1. Abundance Mindset

Have you heard of scarcity vs abundance mindset? If not, I would encourage you to listen to episode #163 of a podcast called, Confidence on the Go, by Trish Blackwell or do a google search on “Abundance Mindset.” As teachers, it’s easy to feel like there is never enough time. Have you ever had the following thoughts…

I’m never going to get all of this homework graded in time

I don’t even have tomorrow’s lesson planned

I don’t have enough time to go to the gym

I have so much to do I can’t even cook dinner tonight

I certainly have! But that is scarcity thinking. When those thoughts jump into my head, I have been choosing instead to combat them with an abundance mindset by taking a deep breath and saying, “I have an abundance of time.” It’s helping me not feel so stressed and get my priorities in order.

2. Make Time Off, Time Off

How many times have you had grand plans of all of the unit and lesson planning and organizing you would do over winter break only to feel crushed when you “didn’t get to it?” What if you allowed your time off to actually be time off? Sure there are a million things I could do over a break or 3 day weekend, but I would miss out on the things I want to do for myself.

This Thanksgiving I had the whole week off and I decided not to do any work. It was actually kind of hard and I was tempted to keep planning, but I also knew I needed to rest and do things I enjoy. When I went back to work after Thanksgiving break, I felt so refreshed and I knew I was a better teacher for my students after putting myself first during my time off.

3. Be Present

I find mornings as a teacher to be particularly stressful. You have to get to work on-time, make copies, prep for an activity, etc. It’s easy to let those to-do list items get the best of you and then you feel rushed and stressed when the students enter. Not a great way to start the day! To combat this, I’ve been using this app called Headspace to lead me through a 3 minute guided meditation each Monday (and sometimes other days as well) before students come in (but after I’ve made my copies). It has really been helping me feel present and ready to be my best when students come in.

There is also an organization called Mindful Schools that does mindfulness training for teachers to use either personally or with students in the classroom. I encourage you to check out a training.

4. Set Boundaries

Make yourself a priority. It will make you a better (and much happier) teacher in the long run. Plan your planning time, but also plan time for YOURSELF. Practice good self-care. I’ve experimented with a few different planning boundaries this year and my current plan has been the most successful for me.

My Lesson Planning Boundaries

Saturday

- Grade my 5 question weekly Formative Assessment and enter grades.

- Lesson plan Monday only.

- Do whatever I want to do that weekend: Explore my beautiful state of Colorado, hang out with friends, practice calligraphy, or just Netflix and chill.

Monday

- Stay after school to roughly plan out the whole week.

- Get as many lessons planned as I can for the week.

During the Week

- Plan the rest of my lessons during my prep periods.

- If needed, stay a little late another day only if planning for THIS week.

Nothing is set in stone, but having these boundaries has REALLY helped me find a better work-life balance this year! I encourage you to find a plan that works for you. This does sometimes mean that you might not have the most amazing lesson, but you will have a good enough lesson plan and most importantly, you will still have your sanity.

What are your tips on managing teacher stress? Leave a comment below!

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How Am I Doing?

This week we’re finishing up week 12 of the 2017-18 school year! And most importantly we’ve made it to November! All teachers have heard the line, “if you can make it through October, you can make it through the year” and it’s so true!

A great post came out the other day on Education Elements blog titled, “Six Examples of What Personalized Learning Looks Like” and it really got me thinking. In the post, author Janice Vargo reminds readers of EE’s four core elements for personalized learning:

1. Targeted instruction
2. Data-driven decisions
3. Flexible content
4. Student reflection and ownership

And so I began reflecting. I feel like I’m doing a good job with elements 1-3, but have completely been forgetting element 4: Student reflection and ownership. Her post included pictures of how other classrooms encourage student reflection and ownership and it really got me thinking about how I can adapt this for my classroom.

At my previous high school in California I taught the HMH program, Math 180, which makes personalized learning pretty effortless. In order to encourage student reflection and ownership with that program I had students track their online progress on an Incentive Chart for everyone to see (public accountability does wonders for high school motivation!). Why haven’t I done this with my practice this year?! I needed this blog as a nudge to remind me!

I plan on purchasing the incentive charts and filling it out with the online assignments across the top and names down the side. Each time a student completes a task I’ll have them post a sticker on the chart (my colleagues at ESUHSD had great buy in with emoji stickers so I’ll have to give them a try!). The incentive charts help with the student ownership, but I still need to work on the reflection piece. Stay tuned for updates!

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Starting Stations in the High School Classroom

I would consider today my first attempt at stations with technology. I’ve done stations before with paper worksheets, but wanted to give it a try with technology now that I’ve got Google Classroom up and running (plus it saves paper and they get immediate feedback!). I did not personalize the stations in terms of content today, every student got the same assignment, just to see how it would go. I have 40 students in my Integrated Math 1 classroom, yup, you read that correctly, 40 lovely freshman in one relatively small classroom with 24 chromebooks. Today I tried a most basic approach: back two rows, get chromebooks and move your chair so your screen is facing the front of the room. Front two rows get a worksheet. I had the worksheet group do the front page on their own and we walked through the back page (more challenging content) together.

Google Slide shown to students to clarify expectations during transition

After twenty minutes, we switched.

Google Slide shown to students to clarify expectations during transition

As with all things in the classroom there were hits and there were misses.

Do a few practice problems together as a whole class. I put up one of each problem type I had assigned them on IXL for us to do together as a class before chromebooks were passed out. I would highly encourage you to consider this as well.

Do all of the problems you’re asking your students to do. I’ll be honest. I didn’t. And my students got to a section of problems we haven’t covered leaving them confused, frustrated, and therefore… off task.

Be prepared to help with log in issues. Today was the first time my Math 1 students logged into IXL, so I was prepared to be on hand to help and sure enough they needed it. I think we will have to practice this a few more times before it’s operating smoothly. Make sure your other students have an engaging enough assignment that they can get started by themselves while you’re helping the computer group.

Utilize the small group aspect. I was able to take my class of 40 and make it a class of twenty to work on the printed worksheet together. It was great! I was able to get many more students involved in the conversation (and no one could put their head down!).

Enforce expectations. If you read my earlier post about Day 1, you’ll remember my computer agreements that I had the students sign. We read through them as a class again today and I was on the lookout for phones and music. It just took making an example of the first student for everyone else not to try it. I saw one student on his phone early on, asked him to sign out and grab a worksheet. I made sure everyone heard me when I told him he’d lost the privilege to be on the computers for a few weeks until I felt like he could handle it again. No one else took their phones out while on the computers.

Reflection

Next time I do stations I’d really like to make it more personalized and have groups of students working on different content. As we prepare to finish the unit next week I think this will be very do-able! I also need to follow up with students next week and give them feedback on their online performance so they know I’m aware of their work pace.

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Personalized Learning and ELLs

Do you have students who speak marginal or maybe no English in your classes? I do. In California I was very used to having Spanish speakers in my classroom and my Spanish is okay enough to communicate with them (and their parents), but this year in addition to my Spanish speakers I have an Afghan refugee and an African refugee who speaks Kirundi and a little French. It breaks my heart when I can’t communicate with these students and make me so guilty when I know I’m not giving them the education they deserve.

I wish I could take credit for this idea of how to integrate Personalize Learning with ELL students, but I can’t. In fact it came from a student who was using his tools to help himself learn. Once I got google classroom synced with Khan academy and students were logged in to complete assignments, I walked by my Afghani student to see that he also had google translate open in another window to translate the prompts into Farsi. Genius! Although I know it will take him much longer to complete the assignments, that’s fine. He is advocating for himself and I can tell he’s feeling accomplished. Not to mention less prep time for me!

I encourage you to show your ELL’s how to use online learning and google translate to aid in their understanding as well!

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Day 1 with Personalized Learning

I rolled out some online activities in 2nd period today. They are slightly ahead of all of my other classes and we have a good rapport built so it felt like a safe place to start exploring. I told them I had never had a chromecart in my classroom before so that’s why it’s taken me awhile to get started with computers, but that I was ready now and excited.

Side note: Early in the period one student said, “Ms. I definitely thought you were in your twenties.” And let me tell you, this thirty-one year old was thrilled to hear that! However, shortly thereafter we launched the computers and the same student said, “It’s okay Ms., computers can be really hard to navigate if you didn’t grow up with them.” Dagger! He thinks knows I am older than computers! I laughed all day.

Every one of my students knew how to get into Google classroom. It was very second nature to them. I had printed all of my different Google classroom codes ahead of time to leave up in the classroom and I just pointed them toward it. Having students add to our class was effortless!

Before students arrived, I had created a google doc that had a simple table (pictured below) with links to practice on Khan academy. Then I shared this google doc as an announcement on our classroom homepage.

Here are some of my major takeaways from Day 1:

• Have students sign a computer agreement. Here is a copy of the agreement I had students sign in my class outlining my expectations of how they will use the computers.
• Check the document settings before you link a google doc in your google classroom. Students went to click on the links in the google doc I shared with them and the google “access denied” page came up. Turns out I didn’t have the “anyone with link can view” setting on. Note to self!
• Make scratch paper mandatory. I didn’t do this the first day and I’m glad I learned the lesson quick. I might even change this to a journal so they can also track and keep their practice problems. We need to encourage our students to use computers as an educational tool, not just for entertainment and that is going to require we coach them on how to be students behind a computer.
• Make headphones mandatory. I have been fortunate to be in a lot of classrooms over the last 3 years and teachers who make headphones mandatory during computer time are far better managed than those who do not. It encouraged students to actually listen to the instruction if they are unsure  and it helps drown out other classroom noise and distractions to allow for more focused work time.

Once the kids left I was able to log into Khan academy and sync with Google classroom. This was EFFORTLESS and SO easy! Thank you Khan and Google! Now all of the students who registered in our google classroom have Khan accounts and I can assign them work through Khan Academy and track their progress with reports!

Reflection:

I was going back and forth on the computer agreements, but I’m really glad I did them. It felt a little awkward going through them with the students and a little overly strict, but from what I’ve seen in classrooms, students struggle to be responsible online learners. They are so used to the computer being entertainment, immediate, and for multi-tasking. It’s hard for them to use it as an educational tool; to listen, persevere, be patient, and be focused. They need boundaries and they need coaching on how to do this, that is our job as we take on education technology in our classrooms.

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