Individual Student Conferences:
It's hard to believe, but we have made it to the halfway point of this unique school year! Typically in high schools it would be what is known as "regents week" where students only have to come in if they are taking a regents exam. Even though I teach a regents course, since I have never taught in a high school, I have never benefitted from this mini-break. However, since 6th-12 grade have been fully remote since November, I was able to make my own version of "regents week" for my 7th & 8th graders. I decided that all of my math classes would be asynchronous this week, and I would schedule one-on-one check-in conferences with my each of my students during our regular class time.
Our periods are only 45 minutes long, so I estimated I could meet with about 7ish students/period, meaning I would be able to meet with all my 8th graders this week and most of my 7th graders this week. I normally teach students math on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, however this week, due to the SHSAT (which I went into our building to help proctor) on Wednesday, I would only be able to meet with students for three days. I explained what this week would be like for students and last week, instead of the usual weekly check-in on Google Forms, I had students complete a mid-year reflection on Google Docs, which would be used to guide our conferences. My goal with these individual check-ins was to have a personal conversation with each student about how math class was going for them, what they were proud of, what has challenged them, and what is something they would like to accomplish before the end of the year, as well as letting them know their current grade in our class, and ending with some concrete next steps for each student.
I used Google Classroom to let individual groups of students their check-in date & scheduled asynchronous assignments to be posted during our normal math time, including EdPuzzle videos, eMath handouts, and Desmos activities. Each math period this week, I (and my co-teacher, in our ICT classes) would join our usual Zoom link, and then invite students in the waiting room in for their conference. We still had some students log in not on their day (as well as having some students not log into Zoom on their day) and I took individual notes during the conference. So far the conferences have been going well. Most students have a positive feeling towards math class so far this year, and have enjoyed the projects that we have been able to do. A number of 8th graders shared that working with functions is something that has challenged them so far this year, while 7th graders said the same thing about percents.
Something that stood out to me about this experience are definitely the tech issues that some students have been struggling with this year. Sometimes, when I would invite a student in who was in the waiting room, they would get booted out of the meeting, or when they were trying to connect to sound, they wouldn't be able to. These were things that I knew were happening, but are easy to forget when I "admit all" in the beginning of our usual math classes. Also, I wanted to make sure that I was being equitable with my time for all students, and not "rushing" the conferences for students who were "doing well" and spending more time with students who were not.
I plan on finishing these individual conferences with students on Monday, and next week I hope to give out an anonymous survey to students to see how they felt about them. I hope that they felt listened to and supported during our time together, and feel empowered to take on the rest of whatever this school year will bring. Hopefully next week I can share those results.
One of my professional teaching goals that I set for myself this school year (see below) was to work on individualizing/personalizing my math classes, which I believe would fall roughly under the Agency, Ownership, and Identity dimension of the TRU Framework. My initial plan was to have these type of individual conferences more frequently, but I am grateful that this is at least a start.
Being a Teacher-Mama:
This school year has been unlike any other, for obvious reasons. But beyond learning how to teach remotely, asynchronously, blended, flipped, synchronously, and with a host of brand new technology, something that has also personally shaped my thoughts on teaching this year was becoming a mother. Even though my daughter is only 15 months old, watching her explore her world and learn how things work and take in everything around her, has made me want my teaching to be more "like that." She is always playing and trying things out. She doesn't sit still. She is happy. She is learning. And she loves getting read to and "reading" books. I hope she never loses her curiosity. I hope she never loses that passion.
I wonder, as a teacher, how can I spark & support that sort of curiosity and passion in my 7th and 8th graders in mathematics?
Too often I make decisions about what sort of activities I do in my classes based off what I have done in the past, and more often than not, by the the time students come to me in middle school, they already have their own feelings about school and math, and not always, but too often that spark is greatly diminished. So I always want to keep in mind what can I do, to bring that spark back, and help ignite it into a flame?
Something else that is on my mind now, as a teacher-mama, is "Am I being the teacher that I would want my daughter to have?" Am I showing up with energy for my students on days when I might be tired? Am I showing up with passion & excitement for doing mathematics? Am I listening to what my students are telling me? Am I treating my students as individuals? Am I creating a classroom (virtual or not) that is inclusive? Am I laughing with my students? Am I choosing activities that make them think? Am I making it ok for students to make mistakes and be human? It's so easy to get overwhelmed by the day-to-day, never-ending work-load of teaching, but we have to remember that at the heart of what we do is our students. Every decision we make, both on small and large scale, affects them, and they need to be the reason that we do our very best every, single day. Each and every one of my students is someone's daughter or son, and our future and we owe it to them to help support, guide, nurture, and even on days when they are stressing us out, teach them.
