Big Data and Small Data

Congratulations!  It’s the second week of school. You are finally getting into content. You actually know some of your kids’ names. You are currently on top of things, since you haven’t given too much work that needs to be graded yet. You are feeling (a little) less exhausted than you did last week.

So, think way back to pre-service week (sometimes called pre-school). What did you hear the most?

Here is an unofficial list of the words you heard a billion times before school started:

• New
• Procedure
• Protocol
• Data
• literacy
• Differentiate
• Active assailant
• Text
• Struggling
• Relationship
• Focused
• Marzano

I didn’t get to spend pre-service week with you all, but it’s possible at at some schools, the #1 word on that list (in terms of usage) was data.

How to access your data, where does your data come from, how we’re going to move the data, what the data tells us, how to gather data .... That word seems to come up a LOT!

So, let’s think through some of that data and some of the questions that come up with it.

Where do I get data?

Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere!

No, seriously, you can get data from Portal and PM. You can get data from your gradebook. But, you can get data from every interaction with a kid, from every time you read his or her work, from every conversation with a parent, a guardian, a concurrent teacher or a former teacher. You can get data when you survey your kids about their learning styles and Data is everywhere.

What do I do with state and district testing data?

Read it, and try to form an overall picture of the kid. Has he or she been a consistent low reader for several years, or did he or she just have a lousy day or a rough year? Has he or she generally done better in math or in reading?

Remember, all that stuff is actually “autopsy data”. It’s all dead. It was taken months ago and is not longer a current picture of the kid. It’s important to lean what happened last year. But it is JUST AS important to collect more data now, and learn where the kid id now. Today!

How do I get new data?

You should be the prime data-collector for your course. You should get data through tests, quizzes, and projects, of course. But you also take informal data every time you do a formative assessment. You can get valuable, up-to-the-minute, in-the-middle-of-it data by reading quickwrites, listening to turn and talks, mentally noting where kids go during a “four corners” activity, or glancing at their text marking.

Formative Assessment should be taken all the time, ideally every day but at least a couple of times a week. It should only take a minute or two.

If you aren’t a formative assessment ninja, I highly suggest that you start intentionally planning for formatively assessing your kids every day.

Checking their classwork or homework is only useful if the work was intentionally planned as a formative assessment. You want to make sure it’s something they can’t effectively copy from each other. Make sure it’s something that has more than one answer (“What year was the Declaration of Independence written?” “1776”. Bam. Done.) Make sure it tells you about their learning, not just their compliance with your directions.

The two best lists of Formative Assessment Strategies I know are here:

https://www.utwente.nl/en/examination/faq-testing-assessment/60formativeassessment.pdf

Or https://backend.edutopia.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/blogs/edutopia-finley-53ways-check-for-understanding.pdf

Or, check out the Formative Assessments or Formative Tasks in your Social Studies 2018-19 Curriculum Guides. There’s some REALLY good stuff in there (although I am admittedly biased)

Now is the time, as you start working in actual content, to get in the good habit of formatively assessing all the time. A couple times a week. Maybe every day?

How have you been formatively assessing? Where do you need help with data? How many other pieces of data can help you better understand your kids? Now, how can you use all those pieces of information to better teach your kids? As always, I love to hear from you! Email me newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

Seven Dirty Phrases You Don’t Want to Say in the Classroom

In 1972, comedian George Carlin did a now famous/infamous stand up monologue called “Seven Words You can Never Say on Television”. It actually went to court on obscenity charges! The words are, of course, mostly what we consider “curse” words and words that we might hear from kids but we all know better than to say in our roles as teachers.

I’m not going to preach about how you shouldn’t say THOSE words in class. If you are a classroom teacher and you don’t know that already, maybe go talk to someone at your school? Most of your colleagues can help you with that.

I want to talk about seven DIFFERENT “dirty “words (phrases)” that you don’t want to say in the classroom.  It’s 2018 and some things that used to be okay to say in the classroom .. really AREN’T ok anymore, especially in a Growth Mindset classroom  

1. “That kid/those kids CAN’T do this” When you decide for people what they can do, you make it so. Growth mindset is about human capacity for growth. Meaning, EVERYONE can grow.
1. Instead try YET. If your students can’t do something, add a “yet” to the end. My kids can’t write solid thesis statements ... yet. This kid can’t sit still in my class ... yet.  
2. “This is too hard/difficult” When  you or a kid say that something is too hard, you say that  the kid can’t do the thing. You insinuate that intelligence is fixed and that they kids can’t and WON’T be able to do that thing.
1. Instead, try “for now” or “until” Again, add word at the end of that sentence --  “for now” or “until”. Like, “This text is too hard for this kid for now, but we will do blah blah to get the kid there.” or “This task is too difficult ... until we chunk it and explain vocab”.
3. “He/She is smart. He/she is not smart”. Does this surprise you? Usually people think they are giving a compliment when they say this to a student. However, you are reinforcing the idea that intelligence is fixed and that that student got the good fortune of intelligence at birth AND that they should do things perfectly. It implies that effort and challenge are not important, that ability is fixed. When the student inevitably does something less than perfectly, he/she will decide that they are NOT smart and will question his/her whole identity!
1. Instead, try praising effort and endurance Praise the kid when he or she just “knows” the answer for remembering it, but ALSO praise him/her for trying more than once, for struggling, for grappling, and for not being afraid to be wrong.
4. “You are either good at this class or you aren’t:” Well, if I’m not good at it, why should I bother trying? Why care? Why put in effort? I might as well stop showing up. I should stop doing anything for this class.
1. Instead, try highlighting student improvement Praise the kid when he/she gets it right -- and when he or she TRIES (and is wrong). Encourage the kid to get better at social studies, just a little better at a time. There is no need to be an expert right away. But maybe, we can learn a little more each day.
5. “Don’t Make Any Mistakes!” Uh, I don’t know about you, but I’m not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. Every. Day. And I learn from most of them. If I didn’t make any mistakes, I wouldn’t learn anything!!
1. Instead, try highlighting your own mistakes and how you fixed and learned from them.  Help yourself (and your kids) to stop hating mistakes. We want them to stop avoiding mistakes or being embarrassed by them.  Let’s work on owning our mistakes and talking about how and what we learn from them.
6. “I Did Badly on That? I Give Up” Did that lesson bomb? Did that strategy go poorly? Did that parent phone call fall flat? What should I do? Never try that lesson/strategy/parent again? Of course not!
1. Instead, try “How can I make it better next time?” What went wrong with the lesson? Did I forget to plan for how to manage materials? Did it go too long? Did I forget to scaffold? Did I choose the wrong activity? Never throw out the “baby with the bathwater”. Instead, figure out what part is salvageable and salvage it. Then, figure out how to fix the rest.
7. My Advanced Kids Do XYZ, but I’m Going To Be Easy On You. I’m really saying that you aren’t smart and therefore don’t have the ability to do such-and-such. Again, going back to the “Smart/not Smart” part under #2, you just told a whole class that they didn’t measure up and that that class either “has it” or doesn't. And if they don’t “have it”, why bother?
1. Instead, try not comparing class periods, especially advanced to regular. We know that advanced/honors kids are often more motivated. But we know that regular kids who are told they are advanced/honors often rise to the occasion. Give all kids a chance to be challenged. They may surprise you!
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Can you remove some of those phrases from your vocabulary? Can you start speaking the growth mindset in order to make it real? As always, I love to hear from you! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org  And please don’t use either the Seven Dirty Words or the Seven Dirty Phrases... Neither one goes well on work email ;)

So Many Plans

How many plans/procedures have you had to create or learn  so far this school year (even though the school year hasn’t officially started for kids yet!)?

• Opening Day procedures
• Dismissal procedures 
• First Day Plans
• Emergency Sub Plans
• Active Shooter Plans
• Lockdown Plans
• Late Work plans and procedures
• Lesson Plans
• Restorative Circles plans
• Assessment plans & procedures?
• Computer lab reservation procedures
• Behavior management plans

This week before kids come is full of a billion different plans -- and that doesn’t even COUNT when you’re trying to desperately make plans between meetings for your new notebooks procedure and a bulletin board and the rest of your syllabus.

Well, sorry, folks. I’d like to ask your brain to plan for one more thing.

One. More. Thing.

What’s your plan for getting to know your kids?

No, really! The fastest way to start your Best Year Ever is to get to know your students really quickly.

Stay with me. Here is one way to increase your likelihood of having an easy (or easier) year.

Step One: Figure out what you want to learn about your kids. Before one or more of them tunes you out, get them to open up a little. Ask about their interests, personality, and learning preferences.

Try some questions asking about ...

• Whether they have an after-school job
• What clubs/sports/activities they are a part of
• How they learn best
• How many adults in the house  
• What they do in their spare time (hobbies, etc)
• What they do and don’t like about school
• Something you-the-teacher could do to help the student be successful
• Something they are good at
• Something they want you to know or think you should know about them.

Step two: Ask these things to your kids. It’s a whole lot easier when you do it on Survey Monkey or Google Forms or something digital that drops it all in a spreadsheet for you. But it’s also great to have kids do a “Fakebook” page or a mini autobiography or a About-Me one-pager, or any of a million getting-to-know you strategies.

Step Three: Read what they write. I would probably spend a little time reading them the first time. THEN, I would probably pick a couple each day, each period and use them to help me learn students names/personalities.

Why bother? I mean, we all have a ton of procedures and rules and Codes of Conduct  to get through -- nevermind getting to content as quickly as possibly.

SOOOO. MANY. REASONS!!!

• So students learn on day one that you care about them  
• So that you can actually start to get to know them
• So you can actually start to care about them
• So they can start to learn that you aren’t the enemy but an adult who has their backs
• So you can include their learning styles into your instruction, intentionally
• So you can start to identify and grow their talents
• So you can identify needs immediately and not wait until October (or March!)
• So they will work for you
• So they will behave (better) for you

All culturally relevant educators need to build relationships with students. Start on day one. They don’t need the sixth syllabus read-aloud of the day. Take the time literally on Day One and get to know them. Build that relationship and knowledge every day and your year will be so much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Questions? Thoughts? Cool ways you do this? I love to hear! EMail me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy

Welcome Back Goals

Welcome (back) to a great school year!  

Before the meetings, trainings, and To Do lists really kick in, Take a quiet moment of goal setting.

What do you want to do this year to improve yourself, your classroom, your management, your instruction, or your whatever?

If I can be so bold I’d like to suggest that you write it down. Like on a sticky note somewhere where you will come across it, but where it doesn’t have to be common knowledge.

Those of you who know me, know that I think of this time of year as time for New (school) Year Resolutions.

Take a minute, think about a goal or two for the year. If you don’t have any great ideas, here are some common New (school) Year Goals:

• Maybe you want to keep your classroom better organized.
• Maybe you want to cut down on small classroom management issues before they escalate into big issues.
• Maybe you want to test out some standards-based grading
• Maybe you want to improve and increase your content knowledge.
• Maybe you want to be conscious of having kids do more higher level thinking each day.
• Maybe you want to collaborate with your colleagues more (in school or across schools)
• Maybe you want to be more successful at motivating kids who are struggling to care about your class.
• Maybe you want to get better at differentiating (both for strugglers and for high-achievers).
• Maybe you want to do less grading but give more feedback
• Maybe you want to me more conscious of being culturally relevant.
• Maybe you just want to survive your first year with as few cringe-worthy moments as  possible.

Maybe you have another goal?  That’s okay too.

Think about your goals and then think about what you can do to work toward them. Do you need materials? PD? Help from colleagues? A brainstorming session with a buddy? Some master-teaching practices from a colleagues?

Ponder your goal and what you need to do to make it happen. How are you going to raise the bar on your own successes from last year and be EVEN MORE AWESOME???

I KNOW that all of your meetings and trainings (especially mine!) are going to be so fascinating and riveting that you won’t have time to daydream -- but IF you do, write down your goals and your materials and needs and maybe some steps to make it happen.

By Monday, you won’t have time to think straight. So ponder your goals now and put them in writing for yourself. Then, make them happen

What are your goals for this year? I love to hear! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy