A Quick Update on Year 11

Wow, so where has the time gone?  I am surprised (and a little disappointed in myself) for not writing on here more this year.  Even though I was teaching less classes and students this year than the year before, this year brought a lot of new opportunities for me...

• I taught two sections of 8th grade Algebra 1 and one section of 7th grade.  All of my 8th graders took the Algebra 1 Regents, and all my 7th graders took the NY State Common Core Math Test.
• One class in each grade was an integrated co-teaching class with some co-teaching challenges in the beginning of the year.
• My 8th graders were the first group of 6th graders that I ever taught, and to date, the only group of students I have had for three years in a row.
• I unofficially became the 8th grade coordinator which meant coordinating fundraising, planning a senior trip, coordinating an 8th grade t-shirt, ordering caps and gowns, and planning/making a graduation happen, all of which I have never really done before.
• My elective this year was also Memory Makers, which made the middle school yearbook, which, again, was something I had never done before.
• My school started an National Junior Honor Society chapter, and I was the chapter advisor.
• This was my first year of Math for America Master Teacher Fellowship.
• I participated in my Algebra for All cohort sessions.

So this year was busy.  Tuesday was our last day of school, but I went in yesterday and today to inventory all of the math manipulatives (which I have wanted to do for three years now), organize all of the CMP3 textbooks, and finish cleaning up my room.  I will say that even though I haven't been good writing on here, I did keep up with #teach180 on Twitter for the most part, which I am proud of.  

I do want to hold myself accountable and write more on here in the next couple of days, so here are some things I would like to go deeper into:

• Reflecting on my EOY student survey & Algebra 1 Regents data
• Glows & grows from this past school year
• Curriculum planning for next year 
• Assuming I will be the 8th grade coordinator again next year, being more organized with everything including my Memory Makers yearbook elective & the NJHS
• My experience with having my students research & present Math Chats this year and how I might be more organized with that this year
• Now that I have inventoried all of the math manipulatives, thoughtfully plan out how I will use them nest school year
• Read A More Beautiful Question, which I found in my school's book room today  
• Last summer I participated in Brilliant.org's 100 Day Challenge, but unfortunately, they are not doing it this year, but I want to do something to explore math content-wise, so I will look into either their Problems of the Week or Khan Academy 

Like I said, I kind of regret not writing more on here this year, but now that summer is here, I hope to relax and reflect on here a little bit so I can re-charge for the new year.

Glows and Grows from Year 10 and Goals for Next School Year

Here we are at last, the last "week" of school ("week" being actually only 1.5 days since we are off today and our last day is Wednesday). What a year it has been!  Busy for sure, but we made it.

Wednesday will mark the end of my tenth year as a teacher, which kind of blows my mind because I can still very clearly remember counting down the hours until I was no longer a first year teacher, and now fast forward a decade, and here I am.  I had my EOY meeting with my AP this past week and I thought it would be fitting to share my own glows and grows from this past year, and my goals for the upcoming school year:

Glows:

• I survived planning, teaching and assessing 5 classes across three different grades, not to mention planning and running an advisory, and an elective class
• 100% of my 8th graders passed the Algebra 1 Regents exam and the mean score was an 87.  I had these students last year in 7th grade too, and I was proud to see them graduate this past week... they will definitely be missed.
• Facilitating one of the challenges at the STEM Family Fun Night at the NY Hall of Science last month was a lot of fun and something I am looking forward to continuing in the future
• I enjoyed mentoring a new teacher (and a half) this past year (see Grows below)
• I included more Mathalicious, MAP, and Desmos work in my curriculum this year across all three grades
• I followed through with my assessment schedule this year, starting with a Baseline, three Interim Assessments, and an End of Year exam, in all three grades, all with exams I created using released 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Algebra 1 Regents questions (see Grows below).  Although we haven't gotten the state test scores back yet, I know all my 8th grades did well on their Regents exam. 
• I participated in the Spring 2017 NYC Teaching Lab Demonstration Cycle and am considering applying for the Teaching Lab Fellowship
• I shared at the Chancellor's Conference on Designing Instruction to Challenge Students in January 

Grows:

• I was consistently behind in grading, giving student feedback, and updating my bulletin boards this year
• I feel like I did not do a good enough job supporting my lowest level students in class this year.  I taught both the 6th and 7th grade ICT classes this year (with a co-teacher) and it was challenging to support my lowest students during our regular class time.  This is not something that is exclusive to teaching at a G&T school, but it was definitely a challenge for me to give every student what they need (including my time and attention that they all deserve)
•   Although I enjoyed mentoring a new teacher this year (and then another new teacher half way through the year) it was hard spreading out my time equally, especially when we only had opportunities after school to do so.  Trying to keep up with my own planning and grading and then making the time to support my mentees was a challenge.  Also, both of my mentees were not math teachers, so although I could share with them my own experience, content-wise, I'm sure I wasn't as helpful as I could have been.
• Our elective schedule was fuzzy this year at my school.  We were supposed to have smaller cycles, but ended up having one long first session, and then one short cycle at the end.  I did the National Math Club for my first cycle, and then Photography for my second, and with everything else I was planning for, these (as well as advisory) were never a main priority since they were not everyday classes.  Although we did reach the Gold Level in Math Club again, we didn't participate in any math competitions this year (last year we went to two) and didn't participate in the St. Jude's Math-a-thon.  In advisory, we also didn't do a service learning project this year and student-led conferences were only OK.  Although I did the best I could, I know I could have been doing more in each of these. 
• I didn't do as much cross-curricular collaboration this year as I would have liked
• Even though I followed through with an assessment cycle, I don't think I used the data from it as effectively as I could have
•  I only went on one trip this past year, and it was only with my 7th & 8th graders, to see Hidden Figures through a DOE promotion

Goals for Next School Year:

• To continue my 100% Algebra 1 Regents passing rate, with a higher mean score, or at to at least have no score lower than an 80
• To use data more effectively, by using Student Profile, EOY Student Survey data, and possibly SchoolNet.  I am also thinking about adding another interim assessment into my assessment calendar.
• To give my students more effective and timely feedback on their work
• Better curriculum planning and homework, especially focusing on the the Common Core Math Shifts - focus, coherence, and rigor
• Use Math for America Professional Development Resources to support our small professional learning team
• This summer I will join the Algebra for All initiative, and I hope to be able to bring things back into my classroom
• Be more strategic and thoughtful in planning with my grading system to make sure that I plan for equal opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning
• Possibly find outside teachers to collaborate with on projects
• Embed more inquiry problem solving into my curriculum using Illustrative and NRICH tasks.  I also hope to have my students participate in Global Math Week in October and the Global Math Challenge in November.
• Lastly (for now) I would like to continue to work on becoming a Google Certified Educator, which is something I started doing last year, but didn't follow though

EOY Student Survey & Reflection, Summer Goals

Is there anything more perfect than waking up that first morning after the last day of school?  I did respond to two work emails this morning, but I was in bed, so totally vacation mode ;)  I didn't want this day to go by without me reflecting on my year and setting some goals for the summer.  There are nine weeks between now and when we go back  to school and I want to make them count, so here it goes...

EOY Student Survey & Reflection
I gave my students an end-of-year survey as their last homework assignment.  I didn't know if we were going to have access to computers during the last two days of school, so I didn't have them do it in class.  The feedback I got from them was useful, however, only about half of them responded, which is a potential flaw in my data (yes, I am still in the mindset of our last 6th grade unit on statistics and data analysis).  Based on the students who responded, some of my noticings include:

• Overall my students feelings about math are mostly positive now compared to the beginning of the school year
• Most of my students consider themselves mathematicians, but not all
• Most of my students felt like they learned a lot this year
• I need to work on finding more challenging work, as most students felt neutral when asked if they felt challenged in class this year (hopefully my Gifted classes at Hunter will help with that this summer)
• Most of my students felt that this class connected to their lives, but there is room to grow there
• None of my students who responded felt disrespected by me
• Surprisingly, my students overall felt I gave them good feedback on their work, which is ironic because I always feel like this is an area that I need help with
• Overall my students felt that I had high expectations for them and most students felt comfortable enough to ask questions in class
• Not unexpectedly, the favorite projects of the year were the Coke Project and Data to Make a Difference projects for 6th grade and the Gameathon project for my 7th graders.  What this means for planning for next year, is how can I do more of that memorable, rich work with my students?

Again, only about half of my students responded, which kinda sucks, but was expected since I was a homework assignment and not classwork, but I feel good about how this year went and what I can work on for next year.

We also reflected on the year as a staff during our PL time on Monday, with questions adapted from Elena Aguilar.  We reflected on this year, the summer, August/Fall, and next school year.  My biggest goals center around preparing to flip my Algebra 1 class, and setting a stricter tone in my class, not that I wasn't strict this year, but since this my first year at the school, I feel like I let some things slide that I normally wouldn't have because I was still getting a feel for my school's culture.  Next year, I will be more confident in how I want my classroom to run using what I already know as an educator and as a veteran teacher at my school.  As it looks right now, almost all the 7th & 8th grade teachers besides myself will be new to our school next year, so consistency will be important, and I am optimistic that I will be able to rise to the challenge.  

Summer Goals

As for summer, here are my goals...

• I would love to keep blogging on here, at least weekly, to stay in a productive mindset.  I know how quickly it is to get lazy, and don't want to fall into the trap and wake up and having it be Labor Day.  Specifically, I would love to have my unit plans and IAs done for all three grades before we go back, which is a lot of work, but will make my life so much easier next year.
• Personally, I have been studying Spanish on Duolingo and I am currently 46% fluent.  I would love to be at at least 75% fluent by the time school starts back up
• On my professional summer reading list is Flip Your Classroom and Mathematical Mindsets as well as just-for-fun summer reading books
• Become a Google Certified Educator
• Rock my MfA interview next month
• Get something productive out of my Gifted Education classes at Hunter.  The summer institute is 6 weeks long and I plan on taking the CST as soon as I can after that
• Create a Donors Choose project for some iPads for my class next year