I'm done! Now what?

This year, I find myself with a good deal more of autonomy in my classroom.  With this newfound freedom, I'm more motivated to use data to drive instruction (funny how that changes when it's not forced), and focus on greater differentiation for the huge range of understanding I see in each of my classes.  Some of my fifth graders are ready to move on quickly and need very little instruction and practice to really master a concept.  Others are struggling with automaticity with addition and subtraction, making fraction and decimal operations even more challenging.

Self reflection has led me to realize that I am doing a much better job of assisting struggling students and need to give more attention to those students who are excelling and quickly getting bored.   After talking with colleagues, parents, and students, I've arrived at the following possible ways to further engage and enrich these students:

• An independent research project on the Fibonacci numbers, the Golden Ratio, or something similar.
• Activities from the 6th grade text
• A connected project per unit or standard
• Purchasing a couple of copies of something like this: The Cartoon Guide to Algebra
• A student brought this to my attention.  She's been working out of it with her grandma and asked if she could work out of it when she has finished her work.

I have several things that need to be worked out.  We have limited technology, so an independent research project is somewhat tricky.  Also, while any student could potentially have the opportunity to work on an enrichment or challenge activity, the reality is that some students will likely never get there, and this could cause some resentment (or maybe motivation?).  How is this work assessed?  If it is not for a grade, will students want to do good quality work?  Should it connect directly to the standards or is this a good place for some "extras?"

I really want to avoid giving additional or different practice and would like for the work to be challenging, interesting, engaging, inspiring, and worth while.  It is also important that the work be largely independent or collaborative among students so that I can continue to provide remediation for other students.  It would be wonderful if this work could be ongoing and long term so that students pick up where they left off.  What do you think would be the best way to drive these students forward and facilitate a greater love for math?  What have you tried in you classroom that was effective (or not)?

Brain Breaks and Perspective

This fall, my district is offering the Studying Skillful Teaching course through Research for Better Teaching and I have been lucky enough to attend.  It has offered an opportunity to meet many pre-K through 12th grade teachers in my district, and "talk shop" with a group of math teachers on a fairly regular basis.  For the most part, the course has reemphasized many important ideas in sound professional practice, such as backwards planning, using wait time, and cultural sensitivity.  Although it took some time, it, like most courses of this nature, has left me feeling inadequate.  This post by Tom Rademacher sums up my experience pretty well.

"The struggle isn’t just inevitable, it’s important. It shows us where to get better, where to adapt, where to throw out the old answers and come up with some new ones. There’s no better sign that things are going poorly in a room than a teacher who always thinks everything is going just fine."

I refer to this post from time to time to remind myself that when things go wrong, reflection and adaptation are my course of action and it's all part of the struggle.  It's just that sometimes, it all feels like too much.

Jim, the instructor of the RBT course, has been wonderful about emphasizing the idea of matching, that is to say finding strategies that work for the particular students in front of us and for our respective styles as educators.  He rejects the notion of "best practices" as one-size-fits-all solutions for classroom success.  This is all helpful and reassuring, but I still cannot escape the nagging feeling that I should be doing more.  And it's not just RBT that makes me feel that way.

Twitter is home to a fantastic community of math educators (Math Twitterblogosphere), where I can turn to help process challenging situations in the classrooms, get answers to pedagogical questions, and just generally geek out about teaching math.  It is through this network that I learned about Notice and Wonder, 101qs, and engaged in an amazing discussion about whether 2 X 7 should have really been written as 7 X 2 when considering the number of lenses in 7 pairs of glasses.

But here's the thing: as much as I love engaging with this community (and learning new things in RBT, or in general), I sometimes need to take a break because it magnifies the feelings of inadequacy.  You see, I arrive to work early, stay a little late, bring a bunch home, and spend a great deal of time communicating with students and families, correcting, planning, and generally working to make my classroom an amazing, positive, and inspiring place for my students.  I engage with online learning communities, read math teaching books for fun, and absolutely love what I am doing.  And it leaves me wondering how any one teacher can employ all of the engaging strategies and improve learning outcomes so effectively and efficiently.

How come a handful of my 87 students are failing, despite many attempts at differentiation and remediation?  How can I better include more strategies from my RETELL course to reach my English Language Learners?  Why are some students still not finding a common denominator to add or subtract fractions?  Why are some students using the handy foldable to help them add and subtract decimals (for the love of all that is holy, line up those decimal points!)?  Where is the balance between conceptual understanding and skill development?  How do I move on when some students are exceeding the standards, and other are not working at grade level?  Now that we've noticed and wondered, when will we have the time to do more with our "wonders"?

Sometimes, I need to step away from Twitter, put down the math book, and remind myself that I'm doing the very best that I can in this moment for the learners I have been given the opportunity to educate this year.  The day I stop learning from my mistakes, adjusting my practice, and growing professionally, is the day I should hang it up.  Thankfully, that day is no where on the horizon.  Hopefully, I will learn to be more inspired by those educators who are able to answer most of the questions posed above and remember that none of us really feels like we have it all together.