Suzanne Alejandre

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Feedback for 140+ [repost]

originally posted August 9th, 2014

During our recent EnCoMPASS Summer Institute (#ESI14) Fawn Nguyen‘s comment that she’ll have 140 students this year, started me reminiscing. I, like Fawn does now, taught in southern California and having at least 140 students was normal. I usually taught 5 of our 6 class periods (at times I could have “sold” my sixth period but resisted it!) and classes could be as large as 36 students. That could mean 180 students but usually my load hovered around 150. It’s my normal mindset to think in terms of those numbers.

During #ESI14 we were talking about giving written feedback on the Problems of the Week (PoWs) either using the My PoW Work as a Teacher option of the PoWs or the EnCoMPASS software option and both of them can be daunting experiences if you are faced with 140 expectant students. Why didn’t I get feedback? When are you going to look at my work? Why did you write to her and not to me? Those are a few of the questions I can imagine students asking between the time they submit their work and when I promised they would have feedback … and, of course, the worst are the sad faces!

Here are some ideas I have for keeping sane!

Feedback Buddies
[During the Institute we talked about Revision Buddies (page 175 in Max's book, Powerful Problem Solving) and this idea can be built on it.] If you’re doing problem-solving activities in pairs, for any given problem give feedback to Student 1 of the pair. This cuts the amount of feedback in half for any given problem [70].

Group Buddies
If 70 is too great a number to handle, consider grouping pairs of Feedback Buddies and having groups of 4. Give feedback to Student 1 of the group. This cuts the amount of feedback in quarter for any given problem [35].

With either of the ideas for Feedback Buddies or Group Buddies, you would give feedback to Student 1 for Problem 1 and then Student 2 for Problem 2, etc.

Random 7
I’m thinking that if Fawn has 140 students and she has 5 class periods then she as 28 students in each class. I’m also thinking that she might use groups of 4. So, what if she used a Fast Random Number Generator app to come up with 7 students who would be receiving feedback on the PoW. She would give those seven students feedback and that’s how the groups would form to have conversations about her feedback and how they should use it to revise/improve their work. [If she happens to prefer groups of 3, then that would be Random 9 instead!) [35]

Random 3
This might be a way to start just because it’s VERY manageable for the teacher and it can be used to introduce the idea that you’ll be giving feedback and it might lead to conversations about what the process is and what the expectations are. Once the students have submitted, randomly choose 3 students’ work from any one class. (I wouldn’t pick a low, medium, high submission — I would do it randomly … or … I might not even pick one of my students’ solutions but instead lift a solution from the Teacher Packet and use it to generate your feedback!). [3] or up to [15] if each class is different.

In April, 2017, I joined Max Ray-Riek to talk about effective forms of written feedback. "We want [the students] to think more about the problem," says Max. "That's our goal in giving feedback: to say something to the student that makes them want to return to the problem and think again." You can view a short video on Heinemann's site: https://blog.heinemann.com/giving-feedback-to-students

The Quiet Game [repost]

originally posted September 5, 2011

Although I’m not preparing to start up my own classroom tomorrow, my thoughts still wander to what I “would do” and that brought me to reminiscing about The Quiet Game. Since being introduced to it in the early 90′s I’ve seen it in various settings and this morning when I googled “cooperative learning squares” I found other names for this game and the most common appears to be broken squares.

If this interests you my full instructions are here:

http://projects.ias.edu/pcmi/suzanne/thequietgame.pdf

With the game/activity or any like it I think it’s important to have the culminating conversation. I asked my students to consider “offer and receive” vs “grab and take” — how are they alike? how are they different?

It takes time and effort to introduce and establish a classroom environment with these characteristics:

* during group discussions students

take turns

explain their own thinking

listen to others’ thinking

paraphrase others

respect differences of opinion

justify their own reasoning

revise their original conjectures

* during transitions from one activity to another students

watch for signals from the teacher

listen to directions

pay attention to the amount of time and pace themselves

follow classroom routines including know the designated place for handing in their work

move about the room as directed and then as expected

accept consequences when disciplined

I tried not to assume that students would know how to behave in my classroom. Playing the QuietGame was one way to introduce some of these expectations. Each time students reacted differently but it gave me an idea of where they were and what I might need to provide to help them develop a sense of community in my class. Most important for me was the culminating discussion.

Sunday, June 30, 2019

Unsilence Students' Voices [repost]

When I decided to write an article with the title Unsilence Students’ Voices I thought long and hard about using the word “Unsilence”! Every time I typed that word the text editor underlined it in red reminding me that it was not a “real” word. Was I rebelling against that red underlining? Maybe! I decided that it expressed what I wanted to communicate and so I went with it. The article was published on pages 14-16 in the journal of the California Mathematics Council, the CMC ComMuniCator. CMC leadership kindly gave me permission to provide access to the PDF for viewing/downloading:

Unsilence Students’ Voices, September 2012, CMC ComMuniCator

On October 29, 2012 I received an email from Karen Cowe and she wrote, “You knew that one of these days I’d come knocking.” … “This will be the last Ignite! for me, so it would be great to finally get you up there!” I decided this was my opportunity to use what I had been learning from watching Annie, Max, and Steve (at that time my Math Forum colleagues who had each done several Ignite talks). One way to cope with the pressure of finally doing one myself was not to tell anyone at the Math Forum what I was planning to do!

On Saturday, December 1, 2012, mission accomplished! I presented an Ignite! talk on the same subject as my journal article at the California Mathematics Council - Northern Section (CMC-North) conference held in Asilomar, CA. It can be viewed on YouTube here:

Ignite: Unsilence Students' Voices

After that experience I thought of the connections between my experience of watching and learning and how that might play out in a mathematics classroom. There are students who are reluctant to participate at first and it may take time before they are ready to perform. Are they watching? Are they learning? When they’re ready, will they perform? I believe they are and they definitely will. And, as I talk about it in my own performance, if we create classroom environments to help unsilence their voices, there is even more of a chance that our students will perform!

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Tips on Finding What Might Seem Lost

Recently NCTM created a new page on their website that you now reach if you type in http://mathforum.org. From that page they've linked to:

Problems of the Week
some Notice and Wonder resources
some Ignite YouTube videos
the Year Game
archives of

Ask Dr. Math®
Discussions
Teacher2Teacher

Although, these resources/pages are not linked from their new page, these URLs continue to function:

PCMI@MathForum - http://mathforum.org/pcmi/ redirects to: http://projects.ias.edu/pcmi/
EnCoMPASS Project - http://mathforum.org/encompass/
Powerful Problem Solving (by Max Ray-Riek) Companion Site - http://mathforum.org/pps/

If you have bookmarked other webpages that use the domain "mathforum.org" you may find that you are redirected to "https://www.nctm.org/mathforum/" rather than the page you're expecting. One way to view those pages is to use the Wayback Machine! Here's the Wikipedia link to read more about how this digital archive works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayback_Machine

Suzanne's Mathematics Lessons (last archived October 20, 2017):
http://web.archive.org/web/20171020042356/http://mathforum.org/alejandre/

the first webpage I ever wrote - July, 1995!

http://web.archive.org/web/20170619073234/http://mathforum.org:80/sum95/suzanne/tess.html
Tessellation Tutorials

http://web.archive.org/web/20170509165832/http://mathforum.org:80/sum95/suzanne/tess.intro.html
Understanding Algebraic Factoring

http://web.archive.org/web/20170112140533/http://mathforum.org:80/alejandre/algfac.html
Leonardo da Vinci Activity

http://web.archive.org/web/20170311150418/http://mathforum.org:80/alejandre/frisbie/math/leonardo.html
Multicultural Math Fair

http://web.archive.org/web/20161216092900/http://mathforum.org/alejandre/mathfair/index.old.html
Student Led Conferences Interdisciplinary Project

http://web.archive.org/web/20160715175508/http://mathforum.org/alejandre/frisbie/coyote/interdisciplinary6.html

Know, too, that if you've bookmarked a page that now redirects, try the Wayback Machine page to see if you can locate it!

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Max Ray-Riek: Ignite

Retirement is treating me well. So far I've

cut my hair!
joined a gym and now go there with my husband and younger son on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays - slowly I'm learning their routines - some things I can't do yet but it's a process!
agreed to continue working with PCMI TLP (Park City Mathematics Institute Teacher Leadership Program) for at least two more years so that we can fully transition the archiving I started in 2001.
finished Hidden Figures (for me that book took more undivided attention than I could normally manage - so full of interesting details).
been helping Annie promote the CMC-South and (soon) the CMC-North Ignite YouTube videos from late October and early December -- all on the CMC YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/cmcYouTube

This morning I stumbled across Max's Ignite video from October 24, 2014 and I watched/listened to the full 5 minutes and then decided to tweet the link in case other folks found themselves with 5 leisure minutes on a Saturday morning/afternoon. Then I thought, I should gather all of the Ignite links of Max's that I know about and put them all on one page for handy referencing. Max has such interesting, valuable, and useable things to say about learning.

Enjoy!
~Suzanne

April 15, 2011

Why 2 > 4: A Proof by Induction

https://youtu.be/h00Ux1qx2zw

April, 2012

Fun with Trig Identities

https://youtu.be/lyMxShEtLKI

December, 2013

"Keep Your Head Up and... Listening is Hard”

https://youtu.be/hjCghWJBEDY

April, 2014

"Teaching Isn't Rocket Science. It's Harder.”

https://youtu.be/CK6irLio-4c

October 24, 2014

"Concept, Method, Procedure (The secret formula for math success)"

https://youtu.be/mUKbL_OL_-Q

November 8, 2014

"Look, Mom! I'm a Mathematician!”

https://youtu.be/La8tQY9ZoTo

December 6, 2014

"Math Teachers: The Key to Ending Racism”

https://youtu.be/QjQJpRvBzD0

April 15, 2015

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Teaching”

https://youtu.be/CxWpfVD182A

October 21, 2015

"Three Reasons Not to Listen to Me Talk About Technology in Algebra Class”

https://youtu.be/Lr2tQDutByI

November 11, 2015

“Max and Annie’s Minnesota Adventure”

https://youtu.be/lRlxZnUScxk

December 12, 2015

"Tweet Me, Maybe?”

https://youtu.be/5fvGN5njHno

April 15, 2016

“The Revolution Will Be Blogged”

https://youtu.be/j28BHpIzFzg

October, 2017

"What Gives Me Hope”

https://youtu.be/xicL0VbcrHw

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Step 2: #phonespockets

My guess is that some folks

are still trying to remember to try the #phonespockets idea for 5 or 10 minutes and then listen and then try it again the next day or a few days later.

have done #phonespockets one or two times but still could do it more to get more comfortable with the idea of really listening to themselves

have become comfortable with #phonespockets and are ready to reflect

Here's one other short [5 minute] activity to add to the mix!

[@maxmathforum] Why 2 > 4: A Proof by Induction
[@MFAnnie] Ever Wonder What They'd Notice?
[@MFAnnie] Hidden Decision-Making in the Math Classroom
[@SuMACzanne] Unsilence Students' Voices

[@maxmathforum] Keep Your Head Up and... Listening is Hard -- let's save it for last!

As you watch the Ignite videos and also reflect on your private audio recordings:

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

For now let's continue using the #phonespockets hashtag.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Step 1: #phonespockets

In October after presenting "Tips on Managing Feedback" with Erin Igo (@igomath) at the NCTM Regional in Atlantic City the time seemed right to start a Twitter SlowChat. We had picked a hashtag to use but I hadn't really done my homework -- turns out that initial hashtag was already in use.

Now having gone to three NCTM Regionals (Atlantic City, Minneapolis, Nashville) and two CMC conferences (Palm Springs and Asilomar) the time seems right to get the SlowChat rolling! Thanks to James Carr (@jjc578) for retweeting what Michael Fenton (@mjfenton) had tweeted on October 22. It was a great reminder that it's time to get things started.

Let's start the SlowChat just by actually doing this several times over the span of two weeks. Ideally, each person participating will get more and more comfortable with the idea of audio recording for (no more than) 10 minutes once a day AND finding time to privately listen to the recording.

NOTE: I think the experience of doing this alone at first is VERY important. I think of it as a similar idea of encouraging students to take ownership of their learning. You're not relying on someone else to help you listen to yourself. YOU are listening to yourself and YOU are allowing yourself into your classroom.

Step 1: Record yourself and listen to the recording - do this several times or maybe even daily!

Step 2: If you have thoughts to share use #phonespockets to tweet about

logistics of managing to make 5-10 minute audio recordings
what you're noticing and/or wondering as you listen to your recording and/or what you want to try the next time

Step 3: Once #phonespockets is more routine, we'll switch to using the more reflective #2vs4ratio [more on this in a couple of weeks]