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Math Professional Workshops

 I am very fortunate that my school district invests in training teachers. For the past two school years, we have had optional  professional workshops in the winter and summer. There are multiple days with choices available for different grade levels. Last year, they were all separated by grade band. This year, there's more overlap between the grade levels on different days. So yesterday was 3-6, today was 4-6, and tomorrow is 6-8. I didn't realize that I could have also gone yesterday, but it worked out anyway because yesterday was my own kids' first day of the second semester.  I am so glad they made the switch, because previously there was minimal involvement from people at my middle school, and we are the only middle school in the district. So today I got to work with not just teachers from my school, but from all of the elementary schools. It always helps to have additional perspectives from both sides. It also helps that everyone who was there signed up to be there. E
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Progress Tracker Reflections

 Part of setting up my class with the Modern Classroom Project is a progress tracker. This worked well for my CS classes, since I follow the Code.org curriculum and they already have unit and lesson numbers. The biggest problem that I have is that both of my CS classes are around 40 students, and trying to display that many names in a way that everyone can see is challenging. Even with my large interactive tv screen, it can be hard to see everyone. Another issue I had is that I would allow students to keep working on lessons while we were in the same unit, but often I'd have students who'd finish the work a week later than everyone else and be upset that their progress wasn't updated on the tracker. Code is a bit different with mastery checks because students do a project to prove mastery, and I'm not able to limit their access to that. As I'm writing that, I'm wondering if I can set up a multiple choice form for each lesson based on the project they are suppose
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Modern Classrooms - Blended Learning Reflections

I go back to work in 10 days, so I decided I'd start blogging about my thoughts as I prepare to return.  Last school year, I listened to the podcast Truth for Teachers featuring Modern Classroom Project, and I was immediately enthralled. My district has pushed for blended learning, but I've never felt 100% confident with it. I've tried it on and off with station rotation, mainly, but I always ended up overwhelmed. I really liked how the MCP was set up to be basically just a self-paced classroom, which is where I've kind of been settling at anyways. I always (try to) make videos for lessons, because it makes my life easier and it's so useful for students to be able to go back and review the video.  Before going fully into it with all of my classes, I started with my CS class, which is what I usually do when I want to experiment with something that I could use for both CS & Math.  I did make some mistakes along the way, but I'm glad that I tried it out first q
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Would've, Could've, Should've

 That's my favorite song on Taylor Swift's new album. Probably because it's a phrase that won't stop running through my head. I requested Tim's medical records from a few years ago, because I found his journals and in them, he talks about having headaches and the fear that he would die.  Essentially, it's as I remembered it, that the doctors ran a lot of tests but basically didn't find anything other than high blood pressure. He went to the doctors multiple times over the years, and almost every single time, it said that his blood pressure was high, and that he wasn't taking his blood pressure medication. Sometimes he'd forget to take it, but he was also hyper aware of side effects of medications that the doctors would prescribe, and I truly think let the fear of medicine causing side effects stop him from taking the medicine that would help him. Multiple times the doctors note for him to take his medication, and to go to the hospital if he had a sev
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Extended Break

I haven't been in to work since October 17.  October 18 I woke up around 1 am and couldn't go back to sleep, so I stayed home. I didn't think I'd be able to work well with that little sleep. I'm glad I did stay home, though, as that was my last day with my husband. He had a seizure around 5pm that evening, and never regained consciousness. They ventilated him before I was even able to get to the hospital - the paramedics took him out of the house without really saying anything to me after working on him for a while. Once I did get to the hospital to see him, they had determined that he had a cerebral aneurysm and were going to fly him out to the nearest trauma hospital. He didn't end up getting there until after 8pm. They did a procedure to relieve his brain pressure, and he didn't get up to his room in the ICU until 1am. Before the procedure, the doctors said it would be a long 3 weeks of monitoring him, and that if he woke up it would be a long recovery. I
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3 good things from 2020...

  3 good things from 2020... I got to be here for my kids' first day of school. It wasn't a milestone year for any of them, but I've missed the first day for the last few years because my district calendar starts before theirs. My 3rd grader's day starts before mine does so I was able to get him setup & going, and check in on my 8th & 10th graders right after they got started. It really meant so much to me to be able to see them start their school year & talk to them instantly about how their days went. We got a puppy! We got her back in February and she has been absolutely amazing during the pandemic. I am NOT a dog person, I was attacked by a Rottweiler at a very young age and have a lot of anxiety around dogs. But my husband did a lot of research and got us a corgi. She's small dog who doesn't jump on us or drool too much. She's super cute and snuggles with me all the time. I finally got the Planning to Change the World planbook, and have bee
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Planning for Back to School August 2020

Me in my laundry room/office This year has been so different from any other years. SO much uncertainty.  I wanted to be super prepared so I read many, many books and articles and Twitter lists over the summer. I participated in webinars and Zoom meetings and tried to put what I found in one place but my brain doesn't really work that way, so I have some stuff in Google Keep, some stuff in Wakelet, some stuff written down. In the end I still felt unprepared for the first day of school. I have had so much anxiety in the last few days. I did set up assignments for my students before the first day of school. I used Howie Hua's  Math Autobiography  slides, and some of my students started working on them immediately. It's already creating amazing discussions and bonding between my students. The first day of school went well for me. I didn't plan much, I just shared a couple of slides about myself and then had my students do a community circle . It worked out well because it l
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