Algebra 1 plans, post TMC14

I am working pretty hard this summer in my never ending quest to make my Algebra 1 class a place where all students can learn. In 2014/2015, I will be using SBG for the second time and I will be using the second edition of the book I am writing on ck12.org. YouTube videos of my teaching will also be available online. This will also be the second year of our new Common Core Alg 1 curriculum, I don't think I did a great job teaching the 8 Mathematical Practices while I was trying the new curriculum for the first time. My plan for this year is to try to improve that, but it is difficult to find the time with all of the skills that are still required in the CCSSM. I will need to cleverly work them into instruction and classroom procedures.

So here's a quick synopsis of thing I am thinking of doing, some new ideas from TMC 14 will be highlighted, along with where I heard them.

First day, I may start with a slide show about me, this is from John Mahlstedt's Favorite Thing presentation.  I hesitate a little 'cause I don't want it to be all about me, but I do think it could help build connections.

Daily Agenda, always write the date as a math problem, also from John Mahlstedt.

I usually start class with a clicker warm up on the previous days lesson.  I liked Kathryn Belmonte's idea to spiral through previous units in the warm up.  I will still use the clickers, but I think it will help with retention to have old units continue to show up randomly.

I had changed by SBG grading scale from 0-4 to 0-10 for more flexibility in grading.  From general conversations with folks, I think it's better to use 0-4, I just need a better rubric.

I still like my SBG/resources online/YouTube video plan.  A fellow teacher in one of the sessions I went to reminded me that parents will possibly use the videos as a refresher if they wanted to help their child.  I think that will happen and I like the idea.  The same teacher also suggested putting the videos on iTunesU so they could be downloaded if there was a problem with internet access at home, good call.

Just before TMC14, I went to a Global Math Dept presentation on SBG, Matt Owen showed a slide with the list of things students need to have before they can retest

I will be making a modified version of this, but I think it's a great start.  Jessica (@Algebrainiac1) also suggested they fill out a Google form when they are ready so you know they are coming, I will probably do the same.  I also think a list of things they have to do to retest can help solidify classroom procedures.

The discussion in my morning Algebra 1 sessions about assessing functions were very useful.  I plan on doing a much better job of teaching functions this year.

One of my alg 1 classes has a lab associated with it, I liked some of the ideas in Kathryn Freed's intervention session, I will probably put them in groups with whiteboards and let them work.  I will make the groups based on what they need to study from SBG results.

I liked the work that Mathalicious and Illustrative Math are doing to make lessons that are both Common Core and PBL.  My curriculum needs more of this kind of thing and I will be looking those over.  I also hadn't heard about Robert Kaplinsky's lessons, I need to look through those.  http://robertkaplinsky.com/lessons/

I learned about Desmos at the Anja Greer conference at Phillips Exeter last summer.  I used it a little, but there was a giant buzz around it at TMC 14, I need to use it more in my PBL quest.  I think that will be easier when my school goes 1 to1 (hopefully) next year.  I will try a few lessons to get a feel for it.

Just as a general thing, there are a very large number of algebra 1 resources on Pinterest, I didn't realize that before.  Lisa Henry's TMC Pinterest board got me looking and there's a lot of good stuff.

Another My Favorite Things was on planbookedu.com.  I use it, but I don't use the links to the extent that the presenter did.

I need to look through the session pages in the Wiki, I'm sure there's lot's there.

As far as future communication goes, my Twitter skills improved tremendously.  I met lots of people and it's much easier to understand the communication flow.  I have a better idea who to follow and I'm better with lists and TweetDeck.  I'm also more clued in about blogs as well.  Dan Meyer's presentation gave me a better feel for the MTBoS and who's in it.

I thought there was a lot of power in Steve Leinwand's presentation about emphasizing the WHY over the HOW.  I would love to teach math that way, he made sixth grade math sound like the subject I really want to teach.  CCSS alg 1 still has so many skills in it, I think my school is a long way from that kind of teaching as a whole, but I'd like to strive towards it.

SBG, Common Core and Online Class Summary

Okay, so it's been FOREVER since I posted anything.  The end of the year just got nuts.  Along with implementing a new Common Core Algebra curriculum, I am the leader of a new STEM Academy at my high school.  This spring, we worked very hard to get it launched and 45 students signed up.  This is awesome, it's been taking a lot of my time and it will be a major focus during the 2014/2015 year.

This year, I tried 3 main new things in Alg 1.  We are starting Common Core with our Alg 1 class, 2013/2014 was the first year of it's implementation.  Since we were launching a new curriculum, it was a good time to try breaking the content down into standards and using standards based grading.  Our school is looking at proficiency based graduation requirements, SBG seems to me like a natural launching point for that.  I also wanted to make my curriculum available online to facilitate self-study towards mastery of the standards.  I wrote a book using ck-12 and created a webpage with access to classroom materials and practice options.

First, I'd like to talk about the Common Core curriculum.  There is a major emphasis on the 8 mathematical practices and I was imagining a classroom with a greater focus on problem solving and creativity, but in practice, there are still a lot of skills to cover and it's hard to find time for both.  Our department compared our traditional curriculum to the Common Core standards and came up with a list of topics we needed to cover in order to make sure students would have all the skills they would need on the SBAC test.  I converted that into a list of 38 standards to use for SBG.  I also compared those standards to the CCSS.  Here's the document I ended up with.

Algebra 1 Standards List

I like how this course ran, I think it's a nice sequence, I liked the focus on functions, modeling and statistics.  I think it does give students some idea of what math can be used for in the real world and it all hung together pretty well in my mind.  It is difficult to find time for problem solving, though.  What I ended up doing was grading students for trying to think outside the box and I didn't like the feel of it.  I will be revamping how I develop mathematical creativity next year.

I liked SBG combined with the online curriculum elements I developed, but I will be beefing it up for next year.  What I did was give one quiz a week with the recent standards on it.  Each standard appeared on a quiz for three weeks and the students could retake them outside of class up to 3 times.  I think my quiz questions were a little too easy and I made it too easy to retake and master the standard.  I don't think this did my students any favors when it came time to take the department final.  I don't have all the details worked out yet, but my testing will become a little more rigorous somehow.  Watch for this is a future post.

A key part of the SBG system (at least in my mind) is giving the students access to the material outside of class.  Here is the webpage I developed over the course of the year.

Essex High School Algebra 1, Mrs. Smith

The resources page is important here, it has a link to the book I used this past year (being revised for 2014/2015) and the Practice by Standards page.  I used Flexmath and BrainGenie (ck-12 products) to create self practice materials.  This summer, I am using the iPad app "Explain Everything" to make videos that I am posting to my YouTube channel (utubemath) and putting in each standard.  I am always available for help at school, but I am trying to create a way for students to use the internet in a way that teaches them how to help themselves.

Problem-Attic

This isn't particularly new, but I just found the part of it that has Common Core questions.  There is a charge for it, but there are nice multiple choice problems arranged by Common Core standard.

http://www.problem-attic.com/

Statistics Unit

We are approaching the end of first semester and we are finishing our first ever Common Core Statistics unit.  We covered dot plots, histograms, measures of central tendency, box and whisker plots and standard deviation.  We found that the students were familiar with most of this information except for standard deviation.  Next year, I will go through some of the basic concepts quicker and I will spend more time on analyzing data.   I'm thinking more analysis of outliers and more study of different types of distributions (normal and otherwise).  Here's links to some activities that I found helpful

Box and Whisker Lesson

Interquartile Range and Outliers

Standard Deviation Lesson

Summary Activity using pennies

Algebra 1 Curriculum Map

Our department put together a curriculum map for Algebra 1 during our Thanksgiving inservice.  This was our first try, it will become more refined at future inservice meetings.  We are doing a Common Core curriculum for the first time this year in Algebra 1, we also started mapping out our Geometry Common Core curriculum during this inservice.

EHS Algebra 1 Curriculum Map by SmithMath

Common Core Standards list

I am using Standards Based Grading this year, I've taken the list of standards we are using and compared it with the CCSS. I also cross referenced it with the traditional pathway in Appendix A of the standards. Seems to me we've got most things covered, although I think our emphasis will be evolving over time to include more modeling and less skill work.

Algebra 1 Standards List

Looking for other blogs

I would like to follow more blogs about Standards Based Grading and Common Core in Algebra 1.  If anybody reading this is blogging about that, please leave me a comment (or get in touch with me in some way that work for you) so I can follow you.  Thanks :-)

CK-12 Book and SBG List for the Full Year

Ok, the temperature was in the mid 90's in Northern VT today and I decided to just hide in the cool basement and crank out Algebra 1 curriculum materials all day.  Here's a full year version of the book, I'm sure there will be changes later, but this is close to the finished product (Dec 2, 2013, updated to latest versions)

EHS Algebra 1 2013/2014 by SmithMath

Here's the standards list for Standards Based Grading

Algebra 1 Standards List by SmithMath

CK-12 Book, Second Draft and SBG List

When I was making my list of standards for SBG, I noticed that I had left some topics out of Unit 2, Linear Equations.  They are added into this revision of the book ( I deleted this old version from Scribd, see the post just above this for the most recent standards list)

Algebra 1 Semester 1 July 17 by SmithMath

I have also come up with a list of standards that goes along with this book, there are 22 of them.  I sketched out the semester on my electronic planbook at www.planbookedu.com, I think this lines up well if I leave each standard on for three weeks of quizzes.

Algebra 1 Standards Semester 1 by SmithMath

SBG list for Common Core Algebra 1

I am thinking carefully about which standards to use for SBG in our new CCSS Algebra 1 curriculum.  The semester 1 book I wrote incorporated all of the concepts that our department wants to use in the order we will be using them.  The question though, I think it's a very important one, is exactly which concepts do I deem "Standards Worthy"?  I searched around on Dan Meyer's blog and found that he had featured a post by Mathy McMatherson that does a great job of explaining how important they think this question is.  If anyone reading this has any input on which standards they grade in a  SBG 9th grade CC Algebra 1 course, I would love to hear from you.

CK-12 Book

The first thing I'm doing to get the curriculum straightened out is to create this year's ck-12 book.  I had a book from last year, so I'm starting by taking the concepts from last year and moving them around to line up with Common Core.  I'm also adding more statistics, exponential functions and modeling.  As I put the book together, the main standards that I will be using for SBG are starting to line themselves up in my head.  If you haven't heard of ck-12, here's a webinar that will get you started.

CK-12 Webinar

The start of 2013/2014

Okay, so here's how I am going to continue to expand Algebra 1

1. This will be our first year of the Common Core Curriculum. Last year, the dept created an outline of what topics would be covered and in what order. Now, it's time to put that into practice.
2. Last year, I wrote an online ck-12 book for Algebra 1. I am going to realign this book to new CC Curriculum
3. I plan on Implement Standards Based Grading as a first step towards personalized learning plans
4. Continue making information available anywhere, anytime.  Last year, I created a website that I put all classroom materials on, including SMART Board notes from class. I will expand this to include videos of major topics to enhance SBG. The plan is to make it easier for students to retest a topic by allowing them to access the lecture over again on their time. I plan to make videos, I learned how to use Camtasia and a Bamboo tablet at the Anja Greer Conference on Math, Science and Technology at Phillips Exeter and I want to put those skills to use. If I run out of time, I will post someone else's videos.
5. Increased use of problem solving activities. This type of thinking is at the heart of Common Core and I will make greater use of the wealth of activities that have been made increasingly available over the last few years.

End of the year

I haven't posted in so long, the end of the year just got nuts.  I advise two clubs and I've got my fingers in a lot of pies.  It's all done, so now I'm back to communicating.

ALEKS went well, I liked it as a lab activity.  My class has a 40 min lab in addition to the regular 80 min block schedule.  ALEKS was good for reinforcing basic skills and it let students practice the new concepts at their own pace.  They were cooperative about working on it (for the most part) and the lab time was well run.  There was no increase in their final exam grade compared with last year, though.  I think it helped them, but it didn't translate into higher grades.

This was also the first year that I put all of my course materials online.  The part that worked the best was having my class notes available.  I used a SMART Board in class and exported the day's notes as a pdf.  Student used those regularly.  The ck-12 online book was only marginally successful.  Part of the problem was that I didn't have the entire book ready at the beginning of the year.  I had it about 90% done and I finalized each chapter as they year went along.  They didn't particularly enjoy having to download a new version each chapter and they got a little negative about it.  I still think it's a good idea, though.  We are going to be changing our curriculum around next year for our first try at the Common Core and the flexibility of the online book really lends itself to that.  I will have it done at the beginning of the year this time.

Standards Based Grading

I'd like to pilot some technology based implementation of standards based grading next year.  I'm intrigued by MasteryConnect.  I wonder if the Cognitive Tutor program by Carnegie Learning allows for that sort of thing.  I think this would work best with one to one technology.

Carnegie Learning

Our math department is looking at the Carnegie Learning program for Common Core algebra 1.  We like the overall flow of the books, we also like how modeling and problem solving are built right into the philosophy of the presentation.  I also like a quote from the first chapter "Mathematics is the science of patterns and relationships".  They start off with patterns so there is a connection between the course and making predictions with math.  We have a few sample books, we will also be checking out the Cognitive Tutor program.  If anyone has any comments on their implementation of these materials, I'd like to hear them.

Common Core Implementation

Our math department has been meeting regularly to plan our first implementation of Common Core in Algebra 1 next year (2013/2014).  We looked at several different scope and sequence documents, but we've decided to use our current curriculum as a starting point.  We will be removing the units that don't appear in the Algebra 1 CCSS (review of pre algebra, rational expressions, etc) and replacing it with a Stats Unit and a Modeling with Functions Unit.  We will be using the Oconee County Statistics Unit that we found on www.algebra1teachers.com, here's the link

Oconee County Statistics Unit

Mid Year Status

I've changed the name of this blog to reflect what my goals are.  All of my posts have been related to updating my Algebra 1 class to reflect modern trends.  I think education is in the process of a major transformation that has primarily been brought about by the internet.  Information is now much easier to access and it also easier for people to communicate around that information.  This brings so many changes and I think public education has to find meaningful ways to adapt.

The first thing I'm doing is creating central locations online where all of my classroom materials are located.  I am consolidating all of my materials onto a shared drive at my school where all of  my colleagues can have access to them.  I have also created a website for my algebra class using our school's Wordpress platform.  Here's a link:

EHS Algebra 1 Site

I'm a big fan of all things Google, but I don't like how their sites are so tailored to their applications.  I have years of material from my pre-Google doc days and Wordpress gives me greater flexibility in how I present material created using a large number of platforms.  Each day's classroom activities are posted online along with the class notes that I give using a SMART Board.

Our math dept is in the process of transitioning to the Common Core and I feel one the big changes that can happen at this time is that the textbook manufacturers will no longer have so much control over our curriculum.  To that end, I'm writing a textbook using the modules created at www.ck12.org.  Here is a link to the latest version of the book, I pieced it together over the summer and I'm finalizing it a chapter at a time as the year goes on.  I'm pretty happy with chapters 1-5 in this version

EHS Algebra 1 Book

Next year, we will be implementing Common Core based units on statistics and modeling with functions.  I plan on modifying my existing book to match the new curriculum.

It is also very easy for educators to communicate with each other now, that's one the main purposes of this blog.  I post things that work for me and I use great ideas from educators the world over.  This seems very transformative to me and I'm happy to be on board.

I also think technology has the power to help individualize student's education and I'm trying out ALEKS in this capacity.  It's a program that uses the concept of knowledge spaces to find out where a student is at and assesses them on the material they are ready to learn.  I have been using it successfully since August 2012 and I feel it's a step in the right direction.  My students use ALEKS in a very positive way and I think it's helping them master concepts.  It has yet to result in increased grades in my class, but I still think it is helping them.

Something I'd like to pursue next year is Standards Based Grading.  I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do it yet, any suggestions would be welcomed, but I think it's an important step in creating individualized instructions.

Websites for Common Core curriculum materials

Our department is starting to plan for our transition to a common core curriculum, so I am keeping my eyes open for materials.  I've found two recently, one is Mastery Connect (www.masteryconnect.com).  This site creates a common place for people to upload assessments that are categorized by common core standards.  They also provide a gradebook for keeping track of student's mastery of the standards.  The service is free, but there is a charge for some of the more advanced features.  The other site I have found is LearnZillion (www.learnzillion.com).  The site has lesson plans listed by common core standards.  The lesson plans are typically videos and power points.