Is Compacting the Answer?

There are a number of things that the average classroom teacher must deal with regardless of location and circumstance.  We have our state or national government telling us what students in our class must master to graduate, we have mandates from our districts for what is going on in our classroom, and we have (for the most part) increased student populations creating and overwhelming amount of children per classroom.  With the vast number of things that are increasing the pressure on teachers as well as trying to work with struggling kids, providing for children with learning disabilities, and entertain students in ways we never thought we would have to how to we find time for everything?  Is it possible that compacting curriculum could ease the pressure on the classroom teacher by allowing the gifted learners the opportunity to achieve higher while allowing the struggling learner the opportunity to have more time and attention from the teacher?

Compacting

Compacting is the idea that we pretest the students in our classrooms before each unit to see what they know and do not know about the upcoming material.  If a student struggles with the material (as most should since you haven’t taught this yet) they move at the same pace you would normally teach.  If a student can show aptitude that meets your definition of mastery you would compact their curriculum.  All this means is that the student would not need to be retaught all the things they already know, but would be given an individual enrichment project based on their individual interests that they would work on while the rest of the class learns the material they have already mastered.  If a child masters certain topics but not others you would have them work on their project only during the concepts they have not yet mastered.

I can almost hear complaints from where I sit typing this out right now.  This seems like a logistical nightmare.  Kids wandering everywhere doing something or another while you are trying to hold class for the kids that need to learn.  The bottom line is that there will not be a significant amount of children being compacted at a given time.  If more than a handful of kids have mastered concepts you are about to teach them, you might think about upping the rigor of your class rather than compact them all.  Some classes may have a few kids while some may have zero children being compacted.  If a child who has had their curriculum compacted decides to distract the class instead of working on their individual project, they can come on back and work on the stuff they have already mastered for the day.  You can then talk with them about the choice they made and they can decide to choose to work on a project that works them in a way that will not distract the class or they can be bored out of their minds while they relearn old material.

Putting it into practice

I’ll be honest when I say that I have not tried this out in my classroom…yet.  I’m going to try it out with one student this upcoming school year and really try and keep great records on how things go.  I want to prove to myself that this can work and that it’s what’s best for the students in my classroom.  I’m excited by the opportunity and I’ll try and report back on what is going on with the lucky child.

People and Places

There’s a really good chance that next year I’ll be teaching at least one strand of history that I have little or no experience teaching.  Because of the way scheduling works out this summer, I’ll probably have a couple of my normal social studies classes as well as a Texas or US history course.  I’ve taught Texas history before, but it has been a few years now.  With Texas history being the most likely subject for me to teach next year, I decided that some of my summer reading should be to brush up on my Texas history.

Before school was out, I printed off a copy of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) from the TEA and just read over what I’m expected to cover in my classroom next year.  Just rereading this document helped me rediscover all the things I’ve taught in the past about Texas history.  As I read, I realized that my main shortcoming the last time I taught this material was that I didn’t emphasize the people the state would like me to cover.  The concepts of the material I think I did really well covering though.  I decided to really emphasize the people this upcoming year and made a point to remember what they did for Texas history.

My next step was to dust off my old Texas history texts that I constantly referenced a few years ago.  My favorite of them was called Passionate Nation by James L. Haley.  The book was recommended to me by a colleague who taught Texas history with me a few years ago.  The book does a great job of putting history in understandable terms and creating a narrative story of what happened in Texas at that time.  The main character is Texas, so they don’t go into a lot of the causes for exploration but rather focus on the people and places of Texas.  As I’ve read through the book, I’ve been highlighting the people and their stories from my list of TEKS so that when I get to that spot in history class next year I can be sure to emphasize the stories of these people.

Our department has also chosen to really do our best to link US history and Texas history as well as help the US history teachers out by trying to really teach the civil war well so that the kids will come in with a really great knowledge of that landmark era of US history.  One of the ways I’m going to try and link these two histories this upcoming year is through the idea of a love story.  I went to a training this year where they talked about US history as the “greatest love story ever told” where the states all fall in love with each other, develop a relationship, get married, attempt to get divorced but the judge says they must stay together and work it out.  The divorce is the Civil War era and the working it out is the Reconstruction Era.  I really like that theme throughout the story of US and Texas history, so I’m going to see if it resonates with the kids.  It could be a really powerful idea for connecting knowledge if it is used by both Texas and US history classes in back to back years.

I really love history and I really want my students to love history.  It breaks my heart when I talk with students or adults that had a really bad experience with a history class and ended up hating history from then on.  Hopefully I can do my part in creating students that love history and want to better understand the great history of our state and country.

Summer Plans

The end of the school year is here.  This was signaled by the 6th grade taking their annual field trip.  In previous years we’ve gone to a roller skating rink, but since the past few years we’ve had some fairly major injuries we decided to take them to a local water park.  My comment was that now we’re trading possibility of serious injury for the possibility of drowning a middle school kid, but everything went fine.  With the end of the school year, my brain automatically starts to plan for summer break and what I’m going to do with my time (outside of family time, which is a given).

  • Planning for our pilot project next year.  A few teachers on my campus are going to be trying standards based grading as well as some other parts in Mark Barnes’ book Role Reversal.  We’re going to be meeting soon after summer begins to try and plan for next year and see how we can support each other through this major transition in the way we teach.
  • Getting ready for Confratute.  I’m going to be heading to the University of Connecticut in July for some training in gifted education.  There are a number of things that need to be planned.  I need to read up on the course options for my time there as well as some sights to see on my days after.  I also need to figure out how I can help Haley to be successful since she’ll have a four month old and this will be the longest we have ever been apart from each other since we’ve been married.
  • Updating my reading list.  I’ve done my best to collect an overwhelming amount of books to be reading over the summer about a variety of topics.  At the beginning of putting this list together I was trying to borrow as many as I could, but I’m running into a few books that I had to order.  Some reviews to come (assuming I read as much as I plan on this summer)

I also have a number of projects that need to happen around my house this summer.  It should be a busy summer and hopefully a productive summer.  Any ideas for any other ways I can fill up my short summer break?

Ending Well

The end of the year is always a difficult combination of looking forward to next school year, trying to end this school year well, and being exhausted from the school year.  This year I have tried so hard to use the end of the year to try things out to see how they will go in future years.  

A few of the teachers in my school (myself included) are going to be going to standards based grading next school year.  Monday of this week we spent some time touring another school that has an iPad in every student’s hands and talked with the teachers and staff about how they incorporate technology into their school day at all times.  It was the second time I had visited this school and I was so impressed by the way their students acted with technology as well as the culture of the school.  After meeting with the principal of the school it became evident that they have some unique advantages such as working at approximately 60% capacity, but none the less it was an eye opening experience.  When we met after lunch our group began to talk about standards based grading and how we could best implement it in our classes next year.  We met with various technology related staff as well as an assistant superintendent, so we felt a lot of pressure as well as excitement.  In the end, we all left with some action items and we able to begin the process of moving forward.  We were also let know that we will be using Blackboard for the online content in our classroom next year.  The last time I used Blackboard was in college and it was not a well thought out piece of software, but I’m going to try and keep an open mind as we go through training next week on it.

In the second half of the week I really tried to incorporate some of the ideas in Mark Barnes’ book Role Reversal.  I tried to use mini lessons and allow the kids to have choice and opinions.  I’m realizing that one of my weaknesses is letting my level of exhaustion determine the amount of time and feedback I give my kids during each class period.  In the future I need to know that this is a weakness of mine and push through.  My kids are also not used to this method of teaching, so there was some confusion and misunderstanding of how class was going to operate.  I think by setting expectations from the beginning of the school year next year I’ll better be able to mold my classroom into a place where kids are motivated to learn on their own and I can give them constant feedback about how their learning is going.  I’m really looking forward to planning this summer on my own and coming back together with my colleagues and collaborating on transforming our classrooms.

I’m also working on increasing my work related reading at the end of the school year.  Right now I’m working on Daniel Pink’s book Drive.  I would say that at the halfway point of this book I can see exactly how Mark Barnes used this text to drive his classroom.  I’ve really enjoyed seeing motivation through the eyes of science. I’m fascinated by different perspectives on everyday events (which is why I love the show Mythbusters) and this book has opened my eyes.  I’m looking forward to finishing this book and then moving on to a few other books this summer.

Confratute Bound

Yesterday evening I got confirmation that I received a scholarship to go to the University of Connecticut’s Confratute.  Better yet I found out that one of my colleagues also got a scholarship to go as well so I’ll have some company.  I really can’t wait for this opportunity to network with people in the education field and to attend such a highly regarded professional learning event.

As I did the first time I heard the name, you might be thinking what is a ‘confratute?’  Taken straight from their website:

“Confratute is a combined CONFerence, and an instiTUTE with a lot of FRATernity in between. Confratute is geared toward providing educators with research-based practical strategies for engagement and enrichment learning for all students, as well as meeting the needs of gifted and talented students.”

Speaking from the perspective of a gifted and talented teacher, if this event can live up to what it claims it could be revolutionary to my growth as a teacher.  I don’t doubt that any of these claims are true based on the people that I’ve talked to that have been and rave about this program.  Oddly enough, I’m also really looking forward to the atmosphere of living on a college campus for a week and spending time getting to know others attending.

Speaking as an outsider looking in, there are some things about the confratute that I’m struggling to understand.  I’m trying to understand the schedule for the week, but it’s not the most user friendly thing to look over.  There are tons of classes, but there are also references to a strand that we’ll take so I’m not sure exactly what my schedule will look like for the week.  I’m also relatively uneasy about driving through the Connecticut countryside, but with my trusty iPhone I’m sure everything will go fine.

I’m not worried in the least and I’m anticipating what valuable resources I can learn from such an event.  Did I mention I’ve never been to the state of Connecticut?  This is going to be an awesome experience!

Survive and Advance

It’s getting to that time of the year that two distinct things happen to teachers: survive and advance.  No, I’m not talking about the ESPN 30 for 30 film of the exact same name.  Rather, I’m talking about the mindset of teachers during the last months of the school year.  I’m finding more value in this state of mind this year because I’m trying to force myself out of what I’ve always done during this point of the school year.

Survive

In the past this part of the school year has been completely about surviving from day to day.  The units that I’ve taught in my social studies classes haven’t been re-imagined in years.  We do the same things as we did last year (which happen to have a higher number or videos in them than most units) and bank on the fact that its the end of the year and we all need a break before the final six-weeks madness.  Generally speaking, there are fewer administration walkthroughs being done and less attention being paid to the details of the school day.

This school year I’m trying a new approach.  I’m using this time to test out things I’m interested in using more for next school year.  I’m creating differentiated lessons, trying new technologies, and reading more books than I ever have before and it’s caused me to stay on my toes.  My kids enjoy the trial and error process of new things and aren’t beaten down by the way my class always operates.  I’ve also been able to redesign the way my classroom will operate next year (thanks to a certain book given to me by my principal) and being able to connect with people who have tried something similar and incorporate similar attitudes has been refreshing.

Advance

To a point I am talking about moving on to the next school year.  I’m looking forward to a number of changes next year.  First my family will be growing by one in the next month.  Second, hopefully I will not be coaching next year and can really embrace my role of history department head.  Third, my wife will be transitioning to a stay at home mom role next year and all the changes that will bring along with it.  I’m also planning on attending a conference this summer through an educator grant I may be getting and making myself aware of all the growth and learning opportunities available to me through Twitter, co-workers, as well as my local library.

All in all, I’m enjoying a season of the school year I never really have and I’m excited about the possibilities for what changes will occur in my teaching style in the coming months.

Reinventing Me

I’ve recently found out that when I became a teacher my head was filled with a lot of assumptions about the career of teaching.  First was that this path for my life would be more stable than my previous life as a youth minister.  That was quickly debunked when my district began laying off teachers during my second year.  The next was that teaching “gifted kids” is easier than teaching lower kids.  While there are fewer traditional behavior problems, I would say that I have just as much commotion in my classroom now as I ever did before…it’s just a different kind of nonsense.  I’m just now getting to the point where my latest assumption is coming to the surface.  I thought everyone who teaches was in it for the kids.

Let me back up a few steps before I continue.  There are a lot of people in this world who teach and have their kids interests at heart.  I appreciate teachers that genuinely want what is best for their students even if it makes them feel uncomfortable and isn’t what is easy all the time.  Thank you so much if you are one of these people!

This week has felt like a whirlwind to me because people have been having conversations with me that haven’t normally been had.  I’m going to be piloting a new program for our school next year, finishing up a re-evaluation of our G/T program on a district level, been informed that people are excited at the professional development I’ve signed up for this summer, and have been used as an example by multiple people in the district.  I’m not saying all these things to brag about the job I’m doing.  I truly feel that my teaching career is in its infancy and I need to grow into a better teacher on a yearly basis and I think this is where all the situations above stem from.  I feel like most of my peers in the teaching world are fairly set in their ways and would like nothing more than for the district to leave them alone so they could teach in the same tired methods they have in years past.  I understand that not every training (and there are a ton of trainings) that I’m told to go to are the most useable content in the world, but must we always prejudge the content of trainer before listening to what they say?  For so long we’ve seen new ideas, opinions, and research as a means to “evaluate” us as teachers instead of seeing it as valuable feedback that can transform our classrooms into something so much more than what it currently is.  Meanwhile the people in our schools who crave new best practices, evaluate their progress as a teacher, and seek differing opinions of what is good and bad practices are looked at as revolutionaries.  Somehow we’ve gotten to the point where pushing ourselves to be better than we were last year makes us an ‘overachiever’ or ‘pushing the envelope’.

Hopefully I never get too old to learn something new.