It's on like Donkey Kong!

This post is dedicated to Stephanie Hart.

Top Figure: Schematic of Phylgebrics classroom: 8 work suites, 2 teachers at 2 doors during passing period. Work suite icons match icons on attendance board.
Bottom Figure: 1st Period Attendance board with student names blotted out.

Main Entry: at·tend·ance board
Function: noun
Definition: a laminated board (see bottom figure) used as a tool to efficiently record attendance and gather notes on group work
Eatamology: I came up with the first version of this while student teaching at Austin High as a survival tool. One of my Uteach mentors – Sharon Ploeger suggested that I laminate it or cover it in a sheet protector and write on it with transparency markers to save paper. Last year, Tara Craig (former co-teacher) helped me to improve upon the board – she might still be using a version of this board for her classes.
Dates: Fall 2006, Fall 2008

When I was student teaching, one of my first classroom management challenges was surviving the first 10 minutes of each period. During this time, I had to learn how to simultaneously start a lesson plan, welcome kids into class, and record and electronically log in attendance. When I first started, my brain was not ready to multitask at this level so I had to develop tools to cheat my way through it. What I eventually settled on was a seating chart with student names and spaces underneath each name to record a week’s worth of attendance. This enabled me to take attendance fast enough (using spatial patterns) that I could log the attendance before a riot broke out in my IPC class.

In my current class, I don’t have a seating chart – I have a work suite chart but the principle is the same. The rows in my current work suite chart are arranged in the order of 1 continuous zig-zag around my room. I have adjusted my eyes and brain to recognize all my students by sound and by sight from several different angles – some by only a tiny piece of the backs of their heads. During the passing periods, I stand by one of the doors and log the attendance of people I see walk past me and students I hear come into the room. Then I do a visual sweep and log as many people I can see from my door while simultaneously monitoring students in the hallway until the passing period ends.

By the time each period starts, I have nearly all my attendance recorded on the board. I complete the last couple details by asking students from teams with missing members if they have seen those students on campus so I can preemptively mark them tardy or absent before they come through my door. Then I verify my attendance with my co-teacher who records the attendance on his own set of boards (we each have a set – 1 board per period). Finally we log the attendance into Skyward well before our groups finish their warm-ups which are due 10 minutes after they enter class.

At the end of the week I scan all the boards and upload their images into documents for future records. Then I clean them off with nail polish remover and set them up for next week. I actually have 2 sets of boards. I keep the previous week’s boards unerased for one week. This way I have a hard copy of the previous week’s attendance and group notes so I know how to better facilitate issues that arise in groups when team members are absent several times.

This is why Stephanie Hart was really foolish to challenge to me to an attendance contest. I think she’s doing this to remind herself to log her attendance quickly, accurately, and consistently. I hope this "contest" really motivates her to improve her attendance logging skills. However if her goal is to beat me at this game – I hope she’s a gracious loser and that her inevitable defeat won’t negatively impact our friendship.

Presentation Days are not sacred

Students presenting and doing other meaningful things on presentation day. Students faces have been happy-faced to protect their identities.

Main Entry: pro·ject pre·sen·ta·tions
Function: noun
Definition: a culminating event during which students present their work to panels that include parents, teachers, engineers, scientists, former and current students, professors, miscellaneous experts, etc.
Eatamology: This entry will focus on a specific thing I ate out of Kevin Gant’s brain about what students can do when they are not presenting. He told me and modeled for me that students do not need to watch all the other teams’ presentations – instead there are many other more meaningful things they can do during that time. See below. I also mention an observation I ate out of Merced’s brain in 2007 that suggests that teachers maybe need to stay away from some presentations too.
Date: July 6-10, 2009 and 2007.

Now that I’m setting down to actually write out what goes into a good presentation day – I’m realizing there is a lot that goes into it. There are strategies to assemble good panels, to help better prepare your students for presentations, to prevent single team members from monopolizing a team presentation, and more. There are enough things to occupy several blog entries – so that’s what I’ll do with this topic. This entry focuses on everything but the presentations. Mainly – what should students do when it is not their team’s turn to present?

Kevin blew my mind last summer when he matter of factly said that presentation day is not sacred – there is no reason for all teams to sit quietly and watch every other team’s presentation. For most projects, sitting through all the presentations is tedious for a teacher – it’s even more tedious for a typical teenager – which creates classroom management problems. Then he modeled for me a presentation day where teams had the option to either watch other team’s presentations or do other things such as: complete the evaluation for the training session, continue preparing for their team’s presentation, continue working on their team’s project, etc. It was easy to see why this way was better. The teachers spent less time shushing restless students. The students spent more time doing things they found personally meaningful.

Now I run all my presentation days this way. Teams who are not presenting have several other things to do to keep them occupied while they wait their turn. They prepare for their presentations, finish their products, catch up on their assignments, complete collaboration evaluations, etc. Some students even opt to watch a couple presentations to help them prepare for their upcoming presentations.

I even came up with other things for me to do than watch the presentations. I actually love watching the presentations – but more and more I am opting to not be on my classes’ panels because students give much more detailed presentations when their panels consist completely of outsiders to the project. Merced made this observation years ago and I’ve observed enough to believe that he’s right. As soon as a project insider joins the panel, the students omit a lot of detail because they often assume that the entire panel has the same level of inside info as the insider. To keep the level of discussion high when I am not on panel, I give the panelists lists of good questions that are aligned to the content in the projects. I ask the panelists to use these questions to gauge the level of preparation of each presenter. See below for an example.

Related tools: Here’s a link to a set of instructions I gave to panelists who were assessing presentations for the Stuntkid project: link. Here’s a link to the scorecard I ask the panelists to complete to assess my students’ oral communication skills: link.

Osu!

This picture has all the people mentioned below. Sensai Joy (far left) is addressing the class. In the first row (far left to right) is Sempai Barbara, Sempai George, and Sempai KJ. In the 2nd row, Summer is the blonde yellow belt.

Main Entry: Osu
Function: Exclamation
Definition: Exclamation that means “striving with patience”
Eatamology: Predominantly eaten out of the brains of Sensai Joy, Sempai George, and Sempai KJ. Also I think I ate this out of Summer’s brain. She’s my partner, the person who convinced me to join Sun Dragon, and the one who told me that the idea of “osu” was meant to be practiced inside and outside the dojo. According to my journal, the first time I applied the idea outside the dojo was on June 28.
Date: June 9, 2009, June 28, 2009, various dates until present

On my first day of karate class, I watched a more advanced class before my class begun because Summer was attending that class and she was my ride. When I heard “Osu!” repeatedly throughout the class I thought everyone was saying “Us!”. That made me think that the dojo had really tight (cult-like?) team chemistry. Later that day I found out what it meant, the correct pronunciation, and when I was supposed to say it. Whenever an instructor asked me to do something, the correct reply was “Osu!” followed by my best effort to do whatever technique they requested even if I had no idea how to do it. Even when I truly had no clue, faking it wasn’t too bad as long as I copied the people to the right of me (we often line up by rank in class).

Truth be told, striving with patience is hard for me. Striving is easy. I strive all the time. It’s the “with patience” part which is hard because I am very impatient especially when it comes to acquiring skills. When I was student teaching my lack of patience with myself nearly drove me out of the profession. I wanted to become as good as teachers with 5+ years of experience in a couple of weeks. I felt it was absolutely criminal not to learn the skills that quickly because my students were losing precious learning time while I was floundering.

Four years later, I have acquired many more skills that relate to my career. I no longer feel sorry for the kids that have to take my classes. However, I still find many chances to be impatient with myself because I am lucky enough that I often get opportunities to try out new things and I work for a school that encourages me to innovate and take risks. Sometimes the new things I get to do are things I really have no idea how to do until I actually get down to doing them.

Last summer I was feeling overwhelmed by one of these opportunities. I was collaborating on a professional development session for teachers with a team of educators who were spread out throughout the state of Texas. As we were getting started, I really started to doubt myself – I thought I had accepted a job with logistics that were way over my head. Heading into one of our planning meetings, I remember having a moment of clarity and “osu” came up. I thought we can do this and the best way I can support the team was by striving with patience. That meeting turned out to be very productive. During the meeting whenever I felt myself clenching up with frustration, I took a breath, thought osu, asked myself what were some logical next steps, waited until a couple possibilities came into my head, and then I used the ideas to help move our team forward step by step. By the end of the meeting, we laid the groundwork for our session and we set up shared tools (Google docs and presentations) that enabled us to continue collaborating after we commuted back to our home locations.

Since then, I have had many chances to apply this concept. I don’t want to describe all of them in detail because this entry is getting too long. However here are some general observations that are really important to me. Applying the idea of “osu” has helped me to treat my body and my mind with a little more patience (I’m a slow learner when it comes to my vices) and a lot more respect. It has also helped me to view others, especially my students and my colleagues, with a lot more patience and respect. I now have room in my brain to appreciate and perceive them all as learners at different points on many different learning trajectories. Having this wider view is a lot more hopeful and helpful than perceptions that merely focus on the details of the current moment.

Wall of Awesome

Main Entry: Wall of Awe·some
Function: noun
Definition: a wall set aside for displaying awesome student work
Eatamology: Merced (co-teacher in 2007) and I first dreamed of the Wall of Awesome during a weeklong New Tech Training session in Bloomington, Indiana back in 2007. We dreamed of a place to display student work that satisfied rubric criteria that was more advanced than Advanced criteria. We got so busy with our first year at MNTH that we never implemented in idea. This Fall 2009, Banks (current co-teacher) and I figured out how to implement the Wall of Awesome – see below.
Date: Summer 2007, Fall 2009

At MNTH, most project products are graded using 3 column rubrics. The three columns are Emerging or Unsatisfactory, Proficient, and Advanced or Exemplary. Students can earn up to high B’s by completing all the Proficient criteria correctly and up to high A’s by completing all the Proficient and Advanced criteria. This is a simple scheme when students complete ALL the proficient criteria BEFORE attempting the Advanced criteria. Often they don’t do this. Instead teams often partially complete items from both columns and assigning A’s and B’s becomes much less straightforward.

Banks and I figured out a solution to this. We do not allow teams to view the Advanced criteria unless they complete all the Proficient criteria several days before the final product is due. Teams that apply for the Advanced rubrics also have the option to apply for the Awesome rubrics. Both Advanced and Awesome rubrics allow teams to earn up to 100% on their final products. Awesome is more challenging than Advanced. Teams that apply for Awesome have to attend invitation-only workshops on enrichment material in order to complete all the Awesome criteria. Teams going for Advanced can complete the Advanced material based on workshops and learning activities accessible to all teams. Although Awesome is more challenging than Advanced, we do not give out extra-credit points to teams that complete the Awesome criteria. Instead, we reward these teams by creating slides of their team members and their work that hang up on the Wall of Awesome for the entire year.

Having an application process for Advanced/Awesome rubrics has encouraged many teams to avoid leaving project work until the day before major deadlines. Many teams who apply for Advanced/Awesome rubrics choose the Awesome rubric even though they know it’s harder. Some students who have already made it on the wall have set higher goals for themselves in the course because they believe they should be awesome if they are on the Wall of Awesome.

Work Suites

Main Entry: work suite
Function: noun
Definition: a section of a classroom that is set aside as a work area for a single project team
Eatamology: Last year, I finally decided to officially mark the 8 work suites in my room using parody prints of Ugly Dolls in famous paintings that I created in Notebook. Kevin Gant and Michael McDowell, two very talented and wise New Tech coaches, have often stressed the importance of displaying the group contracts in places that are easily accessible to teams. Tara Craig (co-teacher from last year) and I started hanging up their group contracts within their suites. This year, my current co-teacher Mr. Banks added his own personal touch to each work suite by hanging up PVC pipes to hold the know/need-to-know charts and team contracts for the teams that occupy each work suite.
Date: Summer 2008 (First time It sunk in my brain that group contracts must be constantly visible – I probably heard this as early as Summer 2007 but it didn’t sink until 2008) Fall 2008 (work suites adorned with ugly doll paintings and group contracts), Nov. 15 2009 (Banks installs PVC pipes to hold contracts and other team docs)

Having designated work areas for different teams is a key part of the design of my classroom that helps me to facilitate PBL teams. I do not use individual seating charts because all my students work in teams. Instead, I assign work suites to teams of 2 or 3 students that consist of 2 or 3 adjacent work stations with a team set of textbooks. Within the work suite, the students can sit wherever they like.

Each work suite has a place that holds the team contracts and know-need-to-know charts of the teams that occupy that suite. In our newest scheme, the group contracts hang above the work station that is in the center of the work suite. Since 4 teams from 4 different periods share the work suite, the group contracts are color-coded (pink = Period 1, goldenrod = Period 2, green = Period 3, blue = Period 4). When the teams start each period, they flip the pages in the work suite displays until their team contract is at the front of the display.

Having the group contract in an accessible place makes it easy for me to reference the team contract whenever I am coaching teams to refocus or to peacefully resolve conflicts. The group contracts always set nice starting points for these conversations. If they are not detailed enough to solve the problem at hand, I ask the teams to add addendums to their contracts that include strategies and new agreements to solve current team issues/conflicts.

Some of my high functioning teams reference the contract on their own when their teams hit bumpy spots and high points (during high points, my teams celebrate and these celebrations are documented in their contracts – the idea of team celebrations was eaten out of Michael McDowell’s brain). Sometimes I scaffold reflections on their contract into their work days by adding prompts in their warm-ups that reference agreements in their team contracts. Having the group contracts close at hand, makes it easy for my teams to complete these reflections.

Moustaches

Phylgebrics Teachers, Mr. Banks (Algebra 2) and Dr. T (Physics), sporting moustaches on the Stuntkid Presentation Day

Main Entry: mous·tach·es
Function: Noun
Definition: a strip of hair above the upper lip. Also, an example of presentation flair (a prop that helps inspire students during presentations).
Eatamology: Eaten out of my co-teacher, Mr. Banks brain. The moustaches matched the Stuntkid theme of our Stuntkid project. He started buying moustaches in preparation for presentation day – so I matched his purchases so all our students could present with moustaches.
Date: First purchase date: 10/31 or 11/1/09 Presentation dates: 11/4/09-11/5/09

Banks and I have lots of brainstorming sessions where lots of crazy ideas are proposed, discarded, polished, etc. I thought the moustache idea was just going to be one of our crazy daydream ideas until Banks starting buying moustaches. It turns out that they weren’t that expensive at Party City.

The kids kept asking if it would be extra-credit to wear moustaches. We did not give out extra-credit for wearing moustaches because the moustaches were not about grades. They were about having more fun while presenting. Some of the students wore the moustaches throughout the day and it created a positive buzz throughout the school. By mid-day, our principal was wearing a moustache. Some students improvised and used the moustaches to create goaties, large eyebows, and unibrows.

It was a silly idea – that turned out to be brilliant. So far, I think the Stuntkid presentations are the best presentations I’ve ever facilitated because of the mustaches and another strategy (which I will describe in a future blog entry).

The Bank of Phylgebrics

Main Entry: Fake Bank
Function: Noun
Definition: Fake banks hold fake money earned by project teams. Teams use the fake money to purchase materials for their projects.
Eatamology: Originally eaten out of Bert Bassett & Ruth Burrell brains (two very creative teachers from the first Think Forward Cohort). These teachers helped me to begin brainstorming this scheme while they were developing a similar point scheme for an integrated middle school math/ELA project. Since then, my co-teacher (Mr. Banks) and I have implemented the idea in our current project. We are developing tools and rules to manage the bank as we go along.
Date: November 5, 2009 to present

We were going to create fake money with Mr. Bank’s face on it because it’s a shame to not cash in on a name like Banks. Due to lack of time and our tendency to conserve paper whenever it is at all possible, we went with an online banking model. The Bank of Phylgebrics is a Google spreadsheet that is embedded into one of the pages of the Google site that holds our Rollercoaster project materials.

To protect students’ information, there are no individual grades or individual names in the Bank. Instead, the bank holds team names and team dollar deposits (these deposits are similar but in many cases different from the actual grades of the assignment/assessment scores generating the cash). Teams earn cash by completing team assignments and by helping individuals in their teams to submit individual assignments. All individual assignment scores are converted to cash via rules that involve team averages.

Teams lose points for not following classroom norms regarding tardies, materials maintenance, appropriate use of technology, respectful behavior, etc ... The tardy fees are motivating our students to apply positive peer pressure to get their peers into class on time and to live by classroom norms. The cleaning fees are keeping most of the work suites in our classroom in very good condition throughout the day. Even though the money is fake, being able to charge cleaning fees whenever I clean up work suites is very therapeutic for me. I did not go to graduate school to become a maid. Now I’m a part-time maid who makes a lot of fake cash – this is more fun than it sounds.

Teams use the fake money to buy materials. In phase one of the Rollercoaster project, our teams are buying marketing packages that they will use to sell their rollercoasters to teams in a different course at our school, PLTW Principles of Engineering (POE). Because our teams will not be given any face-to-face time with the POE teams, having a good marketing package is crucial to selling their rollercoaster designs. The bargain package allows teams to use text-only Google docs to market their designs. The standard package allows teams to use Google docs with text and pictures. The deluxe package allows teams to use Google docs or Google sites with text, pictures, and embedded simulations and videos.

Teams that succeed in selling their rollercoasters will earn a lot of fake money which they can use to buy the materials to build their prototypes. Also the rollercoasters that are selected by the POE project managers will be rendered in Autocad Inventor and will be built on an impressive scale by POE teams. These models will be mounted to the walls of one (or maybe two) of the POE classrooms.

Teams that fail to earn enough money to buy the cheapest package (bargain package) will go into fake debt and will be charged an overdraft fee (the overdraft idea is all Mr. Banks – it’s harsh but very real world).

Some of our teams are very motivated by the banking scheme. We list team balances in order of highest to lowest balances so the teams near the top are working very hard to stay within the top 5 or 10 teams. Some teams near the bottom are being much more assertive about going through processes that penalize (and eventually fire) non-contributing group members. I think this is happening because the fake budgets create fake stress. Since the grades are different from the budgets, it’s possible for students to earn A’s in the course based on their own efforts and still have very poor bank balances because team averages are being used to generate the balances.