#EdublogsClub 6: Challenge Accepted

This year I took on the exciting challenge of being a founding staff member of Cedars International Next Generation High School (CINGHS).  CINGHS is a public STEAM academy that is fully committed to Project-Based Learning (PBL).  Since our staff is small, I accepted an expanded teaching role.  I got Math Certified last summer and agreed to teach both Math and Science classes at CINGHS.  This year, I’m co-teaching an Integrated Physics and Engineering class, I’m teaching an Algebra 2 class, and I’m assistant teaching an 8th grade Math course.  Having multiple preps at a PBL school is very challenging.  To get a taste of how much needs to get done to manage these courses, you can go here.

In addition to my main teaching responsibilities, I’ve also agreed to be the campus testing coordinator for STAAR and for fun, I am our school’s mascot (@TheCedarsRaptor) at many of our students’ games. I’m also applying for several grants so that our school can quickly acquire the resources we need to be a first class STEAM Academy.  Here is the top 10 list of things I’m doing to make this year sane and enjoyable:

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #10: Stay organized.

I have a file box that keeps all my activity sheets, rubrics, formula charts, etc. for my two main preps for an entire trimester:

I also organize my web browser bookmarks to make all my project documents accessible within 1 to 2 clicks.  Staying organized means I don’t waste energy looking for things.  Staying organized is one of the ways I maintain a home field advantage in all the places where I teach.  

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #9: Eat Brains (read, ask questions).

Last year, I went bananas on a project to type out all my book notes and this year I am reaping the benefits.  All my book notes are here.  Whenever I wonder about how to do things better, I just search for the topic in my book notes and gather a couple ideas until I feel comfortable enough to try something new.  I’m always looking for more books to read carefully.  If you have any recommendations, please share via comment.  

I’m also fortunate to work with a highly talented and creative staff.  I brainstorm and vet new ideas with my co-workers.  If I see students are really into an activity in another class, I take a peek and learn what I can.

I learn from educators outside my school through Twitter Education Chats.  The schedule for these is posted here.  I use Tweetdeck to organize my tweets into columns dedicated to specific hashtags in order to participate effectively in Twitter chats.  My favorite chats are #pblchat and #edchat.

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #8: Maintain a happy list.

This year I started maintaining a happy list.  It currently has 60+ items on it.  It is wonderful.  Just seeing the length of it as it grows makes me smile.  Maintaining the list helps me to feel grateful and light.

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #7: Maintain a hack list.

Whenever I discover how to do something better, I add the thing I figured out to my hack list.  This list reminds me of solutions I’ve already figured out, it keeps me creative and on the lookout for new solutions, and it builds the belief that I’m tricky enough to solve all the problems I encounter daily.

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #6: Maintain a To Do List that makes Big Goals (Operations) visible everyday.

My current To Do template is divided into these sections:

  • Operation Treat Yourself – things I do to take care of myself
  • Operation De-Entropy – things I do to slowly clean my house day by day
  • Operation Brown Belt / Stay Fit – daily fitness / karate to do’s
  • Operation No Work Weekend – things I do during work week to keep weekends work-free
    • Algebra 2 To Do’s
    • Physics To Do’s
    • 8th Grade Math To Do’s
    • Other
  • Operation KIT – staying in touch with people I don’t work with
  • Operation Adulting – errands I run unrelated to school
  • Operation Einstein – going above and beyond so my 2017 Einstein Scholar application won’t be sad
  • Operation STAAR – things I do as campus testing coordiance

Within these sections are numbered lists.  Items are PINK if I plan to do them today.  They are GREEN if I am working on them now.  They are BLUE if I won’t get to them today.  They are BLACK if I completed that item.  I enjoy making the colors change as I complete items throughout the day.  At the end of the day, I copy the list into the next day’s To Do page, delete all the BLACK and turn priority things PINK.  I am on Day 28 of this To Do list and it’s the longest I’ve ever kept a New Year’s Resolution (the reason why I designed this To Do system).  My 2017 Resolution is to live each day without regret.

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #5:  TEMPLATE-FY.

Whenever I get the sense that I’m creating a document that I might use again in the same form or similar form.  I create the document as a template first and put it in one of my Template folders: IPE Templates or Algebra 2 Templates.  Having many templates has helped me to complete my lesson preps (and do other things) MUCH FASTER.  

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #4:  Train and rely on student officers.

Each of my class periods has 3 class officers: a facilitator, a time manager, and a grade manager:

  • The facilitator starts my class by going over the daily agenda while I take attendance.  They also facilitate some class discussions and act as the main activity leader on days when I need to miss class.
  • The time manager tracks the time till the end of class and announces how much time we have left to complete activities.
  • The grade manager uses task completion charts to remind students in person and via email to turn in late work.

Having well-trained class officers is pretty amazing.  I get to lead activities with a team of teachers that includes teachers and students.

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #3:  Prep lessons roughly a week ahead of time.

I’ve started planning lessons earlier in order to free up weekends for things other than work.  In addition to this benefit, prepping early means I can create things with very little time pressure.  I have time to draft lesson activities, visuals and handouts and then revise those over a couple days.  I have time to make keys and to try out activities and make tweaks to optimize the activities.  This tweaking window is pretty sweet.  Knowing I have time to revise lessons, frees me up to create quick rough drafts of lessons.  During the quick rough draft phase, I feel free to try out new things and repeat old things that have worked.

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #2:  Exercise regularly.

I row on a rowing machine nearly everyday.  I’m in the middle of a long term project to row to the moon.  Every morning, I make coffee and then I row a 5K.  Then I get ready for work, walk my dog and head to work.  I also try to attend 3 karate classes a week so that eventually I can test for my brown belt (maybe in 2017?).  Exercising regularly helps me burn off stress and keeps me pretty healthy.

 

Challenge Accepted Habit #1: No Work Weekends!

I complete enough during the work week to dedicate my weekends to relaxation and to my hobbies.  I sometimes work on the weekends if I feel like it, but I complete enough during the week so that I don’t have to.  Having the freedom to take weekends off is making my work schedule feel very sustainable.  This is first year of teaching where I’ve managed to do this regularly and it feels AWESOME.  I spend my weekends napping, reading, solving puzzles, watching basketball games, practicing karate, going on dates, treating myself, etc.  By Monday I am completely refreshed and ready to take on a new week.  Knowing I have a work-free weekend coming up, helps me stay motivated and focused during the workweek.  

#Edublogsclub Prompt 5: Free Web Tools

Here are the free web tools I’m currently using most to manage my life and teach my students:

All the Google Apps (Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets,  Google Slides, Google Keep):  My favorite features include:

  • Explore (in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides): I use this feature to search for Creative Commons images and drag these directly into documents and presentations.  Many of the images have clear (as opposed to white backgrounds) so they are easier to layer on top of other objects.
  • Pivot Tables (in Google Sheets): I use this very powerful tool to summarize complicated data sets.  For example, if students fill out a Google form to provide collaboration scores on their teammates they will generate several rows of data for each student.  Pivot tables will consolidate that data for each student and will give several options for how to combine the data (via averaging, summing, finding max/min, etc)
  • Conditional Formatting (in Google Sheets): I set conditions in conditional formatting that automatically change the text/cell background colors.  One use of this is to set up rubric charts with hidden scores.  Yellow squares denote partial credit and Green squares denote full credit.  Hidden under the conditional formatting are actual scores that I can use later to calculate their project grades.

  • Alternating Colors Formatting (NEW in Google Sheets):  I use this to make my grade sheets easier on the eyes.  I like how the alternating colors of each row are preserved even after I sort the data in my grade sheets.
  • Sharing (in all Google drive apps).  All docs I co-create with my co-teachers are made in shared Google drive apps.  I have no idea how we produced collaborative docs before this feature.  I know we used to live without it but I’ve blocked those dark times from my mind already.
  • Shared To Do lists (in Google keep):  When I’m collaborating with several people on a project, I’ll sometimes setup a checklist in Google keep and share it with them.  This app works in web browsers and also has a mobile version.

Evernote: 

  • I use this app because it allows me to update several notebooks which are accessible online and off-line on all my devices.  The interface is very simple and user friendly.
  • I draft most of my blog posts in here.  I also maintain my 2017 Daily Resolution To Do Lists in here.

 

Desmos:  This is the iPad graphing calculator that my students use the most.  It also works in web browsers.  Some cool features include:

 

Coach my Video:

  • We use the free version of this app to advance videos frame by frame and gather timestamps at each frame.  My students and I used this to analyze the motion of runners on a 100 meter track and the motion of marbles moving through a Rube Goldberg dervice.  For more about that, go here.

 

PhET Interactive Simulations:

  • Dozens of simulations featuring concepts in physics, biology, chemistry, earth science and math.
  • Each simulation is linked to a bank of lesson plans.
  • Some of the simulations are starting to become available in HTML5 format which makes them accessible to my students iPads.  If I ever won the lottery, my first selfish act of philanthropy would be to make a large donation to the UC Boulder program that maintains the PhET’s so they could convert all the sims into HTML5.
  • Some of my favorite sims for teaching Physics include: The Moving Man, Wave on a String, Energy Skate Park, and the Circuit Construction Kit.

 

BONUS TOOL: Tweetdeck

  • I use Tweetdeck to organize tweets into columns dedicated to specific handles and hashtags.  This helps me to participate in Twitter Education Chats with other teachers.  The schedule for these is posted here.  Without the column organization, I would be too confused by the mad jumble of tweets in my Home page to participate effectively in the Twitter chats.
  • I also use this tool to schedule future tweets.  Last year I undertook this hobby project to tweet a blog article related to my notes on various teacher books everyday for an entire school year.  I used Tweetdeck to schedule a long series of these book notes tweets in advance.  For the complete list of book notes articles, you can go here.