Step 1: Groups

 Picking up where I left off at the end of the previous post:

The first thing I needed to do was figure out how we were going to set up the groups for the discussions.  This had to have the flexibility of working for students in class, working for students if we ended up at home working remotely, and working for students who were not at school because they were sick/quarantined.  

So, the decisions that were made:

(1) Groups would change for each unit, and each group would ideally have four students.  This was big enough to have different ideas about how to attack a problem, and small enough to work in a remote setting.  It was also influenced by the fact that there are four main topics in each unit.  More on that in a later post.  

(2) Each group would have their own chat room. We have the GSuite for Education in our district, and Google Chat was perfect for this.  The students could share photos of their work if necessary, and quickly start a Google Meet for just their group without any previous setup needed.  In particular, joining their group on Google Meet worked out really well for the students who were quarantined, and was a good place for the entire group to share information after school and on the weekends. And while we never fully went remote last year, I could see that the chat rooms would have been great in that setting as well.  Also, I was a member of each chat room, and while it did mean my phone was receiving a lot of notifications, it also meant I could more easily keep track of how the groups were doing, how much and how well each member of each group was contributing, and so on.

(3) Each group chose a "table captain".  These were the students to whom the work was actually assigned, and they were responsible for sending the information out to the group and submitting the work done by the group.  This gave the students some leadership opportunities, as well as ownership of the work that was done.  The first unit of the year was a bit rough, but once everyone saw how things worked, it was smooth sailing from there.

With this part prepared, I moved on to creating the platform for working through the discussion exercises.  This will be the subject of the next post.

I Want a Repeat of Last Year

I want a repeat of last year.

No, that's not a typo.

There were so many good things that made the 2020-2021 school year one of the best years of teaching I've ever had, and I want them to happen again.

First, my attitude going into the school year was, "bring it on".  I spent about an hour a day during the summer of 2020 planning more intentionally than I had in a while.  I contacted teachers I know across the country to see how they were planning to work with the circumstances and still run their classrooms through discussions.  Some had great ideas, and I drew on them for inspiration to create the best possible environment in my classroom.  Others had already thrown in the towel in June and had chosen survival mode from the beginning.  I ignored them.  We get one chance, one year, to work with each group of students.  I wasn't willing to throw away the opportunity, covid or no covid.

I then worked to build a system of instruction that was "location independent", meaning that if we ended up being in school five days a week, or four days a week, or ended up working in a hybrid model, or ended up working remotely, the system of instruction would not change.  It had to have student discussions at the heart of it.  We all know that this is how learning happens best, and therefore I simply couldn't let that go.  It had to be as close to gradeless as possible, as I had seen the positive impact of this over the last couple years.  It had to be flexible so that if we changed from one format to another (in school to hybrid, for example), little to nothing would need to be changed in the class.  It had to be able to be used by students who were quarantined, meaning they could still participate in the discussions even though they weren't at school.  This wasn't going to happen by accident.  I needed to be intentional.  I needed to be focused.  And when the year began, I needed to be calm.  The students were already anxious enough.  They needed reassurance, directly and indirectly, that things were going to be ok.

What resulted was so much good stuff that I'm keeping a lot of it.  Most of it, actually.  And this year, I'll be applying the same ideas to teaching honors geometry, which is on my schedule for the first time in over twenty years.

So, over the next few posts, I'll be detailing the system I put in place, along with other things that were absolutely critical to making last year one of the best.  Hopefully, you'll get some ideas you can use.  If nothing else, I'm hoping you'll grab onto the mindset that was required to allow my classes to thrive last year.

You get one chance, one year, to work with each group of students.  Make the most of it.