Making Math More Like Science

This is my second time teaching Grade 7 Science, and once again I am blown away with the simplicity of the material but how it "blows our brains" as my students explain. As a class we have spent days talking about The Particle Theory. These 5 postulates have caused us to question everything from why does it take longer to make a cold tea than hot to the fact that we are made of the same stuff of dinosaurs. What would seem like 5 simple rules has caused all students in the class to question, explore and expand their thinking.

Having taught math for the majority of my career, I am used to parents and students feeling that the same enrichment and challenge only comes from the exploration of material beyond the curriculum. We have to leave the material of Grade 7 so that a student can become equally engrossed and inquisitive about the material as their peers. However, from observing my Science students I challenge this full heartedly. As we explore the same concepts of Science, each student is driving their thinking forward from their own questions. No new material is being presented to them, but they are using their current knowledge to ask questions and see how they can apply this thinking to the world around them. The difference I see from this and a math class is that math does not encourage student driven questions. There is a sense that an order must occur in the learning of material and that the teacher should guide it. I want to put this thinking in the garbage this year and make it so that math and science are structured in the same manner; the presentation of foundational concepts and the time for students to explore and make connections on their own.

This will be a challenge. I know from personal experience that students are taught to ask questions in science since these exhibit wonder and excitement about the material. Asking questions in math class could have a very different reaction from peers and the teacher. It could indicate an inability to grasp the concept, not able to focus on the prescribed task or "not what we are thinking of at the moment". Students, and parents, are trained to learn, practice and then perform rather than the science of learn, question, explore and perform.

To do this I have made my students first math project to be one where they need to ask their own question where proportional reasoning is the base. How far they push and go with the ideas is up to them. My last blog post goes into more details of the project. However, over this past week I am more convinced that a great exploration and student driven activities are necessary in math classes to develop the math students my high school coworkers are hoping to have come their way. They are wanting to have the thinkers, and not just the calculators.

Transitioning to Standards Based Grading: The Evaluation

I am currently on a journey with my teaching partner to transition our Grade 7 Math and Science classroom into a Standards Based Grading (SBG) classroom. We are the only ones in our Middle School program doing it, so I have been very grateful for the ideas and feedback from others through the #SBLchat on twitter, online conferences and other teachers blogs.

This post is my reflection prior to handing back the first standards based written evaluation (test) to our students and their parents. So far, I am feeling pretty good. 

Due to the recommendations of others, at the start of the unit we handed the students out the list of the three standards that we were exploring as well as the success criteria for each. Since I am in Ontario, our success criteria was identified to be one clearly stated expectation for each of the categories (Knowledge, Application, Thinking and Communication). This way we ensured that each standard had a balance between the categories. 

Click here for this document. 

Students, with the standards in hand, didn't really get too excited. I however told them how excited I was... and they gave me a round of applause for my enthusiasm. Needless to say, that by presenting them with the standards at the start made no difference than in the past unit. So we continued on, completing activities in class, formative quizzes, challenge by choice stations and weekly homework. Each weekly quiz had a standard at the top so the students could gauge their development and understanding. The one difference that did occur was when the written evaluation time was decided, the students were not asking "Miss, what is on the test?". They all were aware of the standards as it was identified in each assignment, activity and homework problem that they did. 

Prior to the evaluation the students did a reflection identifying how they felt about their understanding for each standard (Working on, Proficient and Mastered) and they created their own review based on their reflection. The students appeared fairly confident and not stressed. 

Click here for this document.

As for me, I was very happy. Since having created the standards and how clear they were for the students, they were also clear to me. Instead of having "Fractions" be the title of the evaluation where before I would have been stressed to create an evaluation that was challenging, reflected the standards, but also would allow the students to show their understanding, having the standards, the creation of the evaluation was easier. I knew exactly what kinds of understanding I was needing to look for. Since there were no "marks" for each question, I could have standards appear in multiple questions, allowing me to see the understanding of my students thinking in diverse problems. At the end I was not trying to determine the "weight" of each question based on the marks out of the total, but now I could create an evaluation that focused on the student showing understanding.

Now that the evaluation has been written, the next part is if the students and parents will understand the feedback. One challenge has been that we don't use percentages, but instead use levels where 3 is meeting the expectations. Parents, struggling to understand how they child is doing, try every which way to convert the level into a percentage, which they understand since it reflects their upbringing. Our the evaluation we have given a level, but also shown where that level came from. This is done through a table at the back outlining the success criteria under each category that the students were provided at the start of the unit. Parents now will be able to see what specific idea/skill/method of explanation their child is working on/proficient/mastered. 

Click here for the evaluation.

Our next step is for the students to complete a reflection upon the return of the evaluation, emailing home this reflection, and then going through the evaluation with their family. We are then asking parents to give us feedback to say if they have a better understanding of their child's understanding and next steps. Hopefully this feedback (in an anonymous survey) will help us identify our next steps for supporting our students and parents to transition into, what we are hoping will be, a growth mindset evaluation process.

Next post will be looking at the parent feedback. I have also been testing out the FreshGrade mark book software and I will also be sharing my thoughts on it.

After reading this, if you have any ideas or recommendations for me, please comment them below. This is a growing stage and all feedback is helpful.