Teacher Summer Camp aka the MfA Summer Think, Part 2

Like almost all of the teachers & moms that I follow on social media, I cannot believe that it is already August. Luckily here in New York City we still have more than a month of summer break left. I didn't want to much time to go by before reflecting on the rest of my MfA Summer Think experience. 

My first splash session was on creating our Teacher Bucket List. Not only was the session being facilitated by the amazing Brian but the description had me hooked right away - "Close your eyes and envision your perfect lesson. Eliminate all limitations placed on you by your school, administration, the DOE, and just dream. What are students doing? What are you doing? What does the room look like? Are you even in a room? What do you feel? How do the students feel? This workshop will make space to explore such imagining. Join us in rethinking our teaching, classroom, schools, and careers possibilities. By dreaming big, together, we will reflect on what matters most to us and create our Teacher Bucket List: a list of things we want to accomplish as a teacher before leaving the profession. The list will be concrete and aspirational, and get us to imagine what could be beyond what’s in front of us. It will reflect what matters most to us and the teacher we hope to become in the years ahead. All are welcome."

Check out my list on the right, which I have already started to use as I begin thinking of my 2023-2024 goals, which I hope to write about in the coming weeks before the new school year starts.

My second favorite splash session was on KenKen Meditation & Exploration where we did KenKen together & talked about ways to use it with our students.

My other splash sessions included How to Color War Your Classroom where we did summer-camp-like activities & games that we could use with our students to infuse camp joy into our classrooms and as someone who has never gone to summer camp, I loved the vibe it gave me and was inspired to try some new things in my advisory this upcoming school year.

Lastly, for my last splash session, I broke out of my algebra comfort zone & connected with my geometry roots in Fun with Flags! where I used a compass, ruler & Desmos (always) to play around with geometric constructions, which is something I do not do a lot of as an Algebra 1 teacher.

In addition to all of my sessions, some of my other Summer Think traditions included getting stamps in our Summer Think passport, starting our days together as a whole community and practicing mindfulness, doing math together and meeting new people in the MfA community, MfA pizza (obviously),and closing circles and ceremony. Considering that this was my 6th Summer Think, I also signed up to (potentially) help plan out next year's Summer Think, which I think would be a nice way to step up my MfA Summer Think game. Lastly, on a side note, our Deep Dive group has reconnected together via What's App because we had gotten so close over our three days together, which is just another reason why I am #MfAProud and so lucky to be a part of the amazing community of STEM teachers.

Teacher Summer Camp aka the MfA Summer Think, Part 1

Growing up, I had never been to summer camp. I have, however, participated in the Math for America Summer Think every year since 2018. The Summer Think is a three day conference every July, affectionally known as teacher summer camp, and this year's Summer Think was probably my favorite yet! The theme of this year's Summer Think was Exploring the Joy in Teaching & Learning and I can say with certainty that every single session I attended not only made me think & reflect on myself as a teacher & as a learner, but every single session did indeed, bring me joy.

The Summer Think is set up such that there are community activities, multi-day deep dive sessions, mini splash sessions, social hours, community time, circle time and, of course, pizza. As typical with MfA, I wanted to sign up for almost everything, but alas, I don't have a time-turner. I wanted to take some time today to reflect on my sessions, seeing as they are still fresh in my mind, so hopefully I will try my best to get my thoughts down, while my son currently naps next to me.

Exploring Our Identity as an Act of Resistance, Celebration & Joy

My three-session deep dive workshop was probably the highlight these past three days. Originally, it was my second choice, but I am so grateful that this was my workshop. Our time together centered on exploring our identity and making connections to anti-racist and anti-oppression work. Some of the ideas we explored were safe vs brave spaces, check-ins community agreements, collective values, circle practices, ice breakers, story telling, and freedom thinking. The facilitator was wonderful and truly the group of fellow MfA teachers that I was with made our time together magical. We laughed together, we cried together, we shared our stories & listened to other's stories. My biggest take aways from our time together was that at the heart of the math that I teach, are the human beings that I get to share ten months with every year. I already do circle work with my advisory, and this workshop reminded me how important that time together is. After only three days together, I became so much closer to the teachers in my group, which is part of the magic of the MfA Summer Think and none of us really wanted our time together to end. This deep dive was a big part of what made this year's Summer Think probably my favorite one yet & I am so grateful to be a part of this amazing community of STEM teachers who not only appreciate our content, but understand the deeper part of what it means to be a teacher.

Well, my son just woke up from his nap & I have to pick up my daughter from summer camp soon,  so it looks like I will have to stop here for now, but I hope to reflect on my splash sessions sometime next week, because they were also joyful and a big reason why the MfA Summer Think is one of my favorite parts of being #MfAProud

Here were my splash sessions, which I hope to write about next time...

Teacher Bucket List

How to Color War Your Classroom

KenKen Meditation & Exploration

Fun with Flags!

Summer Break 2021: MfA Summer Think 2021

It's been one month since the 2020-2021 school year ended, and after this past school year, teachers (and students) have never earned more of a break.  As someone who does much better with a set plan or schedule, I originally wanted to set out goals for each week of the break, but that didn't happen, so instead we are just going with the flow and enjoying actually being flexible.  Personally, I have been keeping up with my daily morning workouts (although not waking up at 5am to get them done has been lovely).  And I have been bringing my daughter to weekly toddler soccer groups, toddler dance class, toddler gym classes, the local pool, and the library, as well as our usual playground dates.  I've also finished seven books so far this summer (and am currently working on #8), attended the MfA Summer Think Conference, and am reading Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics.  Since I only have about ten minutes before my daughter wakes up from her nap (and we get ready to go to the pool again) I wanted to briefly check in about the MfA Summer Think conference & Building Thinking Classrooms book.  I know I won't have enough time to write as much as I would like to, but something is better than nothing.

Earlier this month I attended my third Math for America Summer Think Conference.  The conference was virtual this year and the themes were healing, recovery & transition and finding a way forward.  What makes Math for America such a great professional community is that it is run by teachers for teachers, so the Summer Think Conference was inspiring, practical, and good for my math teacher soul (as is almost every MfA session I have ever attended).  This year the sessions I participated in dealt with how to begin conversations around race and identity, reflecting on instructional practices during remote learning, reflecting on social emotional learning during remote learning, the difference between being burnt out & demoralized, and reflecting on assessment during remote learning.  Five years ago I applied to MfA for the first time, and despite getting an interview, I did not get in & I was heart broken.  I was starting at an (almost) new school (literally), teaching three different grades, and was the only math teacher, and was so discouraged to have made it so far only to not get in.  A year later (after applying again) I found out on the last day of school that I had been awarded a Master Teacher Fellowship.  Fast forward four years later (plus one daughter and a pandemic that would forever change education), to this year, I applied for my Master Teacher II+ Fellowship, and am so honored to continue to be a part of this amazing organization of math, science & computer science teachers for the next four years.

Unfortunately it is time to wake up my daughter from her nap, so I'll have to stop here for now.  I do hope to write some more some time this week, especially about Building Thinking Classrooms, because it is absolutely amazing and had really got me thinking about how I have run my class in the past and things I hope to change for the fall, and I want to be able to process & think through things on here.  But for now, mom-life (and pool time) calls and as much as I love my job, it's summer break ;) 

My Teacher Summer To-Do List

One of my favorite things about summer, by far, is not knowing what day of the week it is.  It truly is bliss!  But as much as I love not knowing whether it is Monday or Friday, I know that I am better when I have a to-do list to keep me organized, so here are some of the things I have done so far this summer, and some things I am working on...

Math for America Summer Think
Last week I attended my first Math for America Summer Think, which was inspiring!  The theme this year was "Identify Your Why," and we did a lot of reflection on our many "whys."  I got a lot of ideas from the Deep Dive and Splash sessions I attended:

• Why are we learning this?
• Why is independent learning empowering to students?
• Why can't you talk about 'social stuff" in math class? and
• Why do we need to listen to our students?

Being an MfA Master Teacher this past year has spoiled me from other professional learning because every time I participate in a MfA session I leave with new ideas about math and about teaching, and it inspires me to try new things in my classroom.  I am so grateful that I get to be #MfAProud!

Brilliant.org

Sadly Brilliant.org is not doing a 100 Day Challenge again this year, but I have been inspired to work on their Problems of the Week each week and I was even inspired to get a premium subscription.  I enjoy working on their math and science problems just for fun.  I really want to find a way to use this resource more in the upcoming school year.

Khan Academy & Teacher Training

I have been using Khan Academy in my classes for a few years now, and want to use it more effectively in the upcoming school year, so this summer I have decided to do my own summer math learning and work on all the 8th grade math & Algebra 1 skills, since that is what my students work on.  My goal is to finish all those skills and then slowly move my way up the math ladder, to refresh myself on higher level math, since teaching and learning goes hand in hand.  Plus this summer Khan Academy is doing online Teacher Training to get ideas on how other teachers use it in their classrooms, and I am about half way done with that and have already gotten some new ideas from it.

Learn Promethean

Unfortunately I learned about yesterday's Camp Promethean too late, (plus I had my Educating All Students exam yesterday to finally get my SBL certificate after 6 years), but I hope to check out their resources sometime before we go back to school.  Last year was my first year using a Promethean Board, but unfortunately we didn't get much training with it, and even through we figured out a lot, I know there is more we can be doing with it. 

EdPuzzle Certification

One of the resources that I knew about (and was reminded about at the Summer Think), but never really used was Edpuzzle and it turns out they have online professional development too, which I would like to check out before September.  Since getting my Google Certified Educator certificate last summer, I really want to bring in more tools and resources into my classes next year.

Jumpstart Basic

Speaking of technology, I also signed up for the JumpStart Basic technology course through The Cult of Pedagogy Classroom.  Although I am excited about this one, I am a little worried I might have signed up for too much this summer.

OSYD & Algebra for All

Next week I have Restorative Circle training for grades (6 - 12) at the OSYD Summer PD Institute and then the following week I have my Algebra for All elective on course on creating access points through the use of tasks.  Unfortunately there was a mix up with registration and I wasn't able to sign up for the second course, but at least I will get my new document cam thanks to the A4A teacher technology grant I applied for in the Spring.

Apartment Organizing, Fit Girl 28 Day Jump Start & Dave Matthews

So not everything has been work-related this summer (although from the look of this post they are) but some non-work things I have been working on this summer include hiring an amazing professional organizer to help me declutter & organize my apartment... we worked together this past week and my apartment feels brand new and I am completely inspired to keep up with it.  I also joined the Fit Girl 28 Day Jump Start Challenge to get my butt into gear physically, and my husband and I went to not 1, not 2, but 3 Dave Matthews Band shows and finally got to hear our wedding song played live, which was nice.  I also finally got to see Ocean's 8 (which I enjoyed) and have read three books so far this summer.  Oh yeah, and I figured out how to free up literally half of my MacBook Air storage, so not only is my physical space more organized, so if my digital space, which I am really happy about! 

Yep, you really gotta love being a teacher in the summer ;)