What I'm Learning From Our Students

     Listening to our Learners and sitting alongside them has recently been eye-opening. I'm learning more about them, how their fears and confidence affect learning, and how taking an interest in them as inviduals is becoming life-changing for me as an educator.  

     Our high school math seniors and I have been experiencing a time of reflection at the start of each week. We share vulnerabilities, times of being especially authentic, reasons to ask for forgiveness, and the need to take time to be more aware and simply present. Each week, we continue to be humbled by honesty shared, fears revealed, and a hunger for being exceptionally genuine. They claim this "different kind of math class" is helping us learn more deeply, make better connections, ask more questions, and be more vulnerable for the sake of learning. It's difficult to convey in words the depth of communication we're experiencing by having this safe place to just be. Little did I know how much this collaboration helps retention and relationship-building. One of the reasons why I believe this has been possible, is the #BlueMind I'm developing after reading the book of that title by Wallace Nichols. We have four posters in our math classroom of water scenes to help us connect, relax, be aware, and experience serenity. 

     This past week, I've worked alongside several 9th graders on our Entrepreneurial Team who have attended our after school help. During this time, they've experienced some refreshing moments of learning while I sat closely alongside them and listened to them as they articulated their thinking and questions. During these moments, they realized and I realized their errors and strengths in thinking. This has enabled me to better understand their gaps, how they think, what fears they have, and how to individualize our learning paths. 

     I challenge you to dare to be more authentic, share your vulnerabilities, and more clearly articulate your uncertainties in order to reach even greater success! I have so much to learn from our high school students. 

Retrieval Practice is Engaging Our Learning!

Thanks to "Make It Stick" and "Small Teaching", we're learning to incorporate regular retrieval of background knowledge, previously learned skills, and the making of connections between the skills. By using daily Distributed Practice, regular Exit Tickets, and daily collaborative questioning, we're seeing our Learners make significant connections between concepts. Some of our Exit Tickets are in paper form, though more and more are done using Google Forms. When our Exit Tickets are in a Google Form, Learners get immediate feedback to their thinking and often have the opportunity to reassess after they've acquired that feedback. Each time they launch our Google Form, the questions are jumbled to keep the thinking fresh and dynamic. Many of our Google Forms use checkboxes that allow for multiple answers. Using this approach, Learners are prompted to think more thoroughly and to include all responses that suit the prompt.

We've seen our Learners make such great connections, assimilating learning, and being engaged in our learning that we've been able to move ahead of our curriculum maps! Our Learners are always encouraged to reassess to demonstrate their highest proficiency on each Standard or Learning Target in our Standards-Based Learning environment. When our Learners reassess, they often experience aha-moments in seeing how our learning is related, connected, or how it's interwoven. "Make It Stick" and "Small Teaching" are inspiring greater teaching, assessing, and learning.