Friday Five: 5 things I learned this week

Every Friday I try to take a few minutes out to consider what I have learned this week. This time around I feel that this was a particularly rich week of learning, but I will stick to the five outstanding items that come to mind.

1. I met up with about 20 teachers from around the Greater Bay Area for the first of two meetings about the use of technololgy in our independent schools. At first I questioned my role in this group as I was the only content-classroom teacher there and I don't easily consider myself a "technologist" per se. But as the day progressed and moved away from introductions, I did find that I had ideas and experiences to contribute (particularly my experience with Twitter and student blogging). So I learned that I am not merely a "classroom" teacher once again.

2.  I learned about www.wallwisher.com .  We used this site to place virtual stickies on a wall to figure out our tech interests and how to best group them. I saw this as a very useful tool for my 7th and 8th graders. For example, we could reach the end to an unit and use Wallwisher to brainstorm a list of topics covered and questions we still have. I could also post a question and the students could post their answers. Using the Smartboard, we could review all this as a group. I see great value in this!

3.  I also learned about www.mindmeister.com . It is somewhat like Inspiration in that you can create mind maps, but it is web based and collaborative in nature. We used it to take notes on our own discussion. Like Wallwisher, I can imagine using this in class as a review tool in a collaborative sense.

4.  I have almost learned the "Iron Fan" Kata 2 in my current blue green karate belt. This is a very complicated kata and while I don't do it well yet, I do have a good sense of what is involved. I once again learned that with perseverance and the ability to break down a task to smaller components, I can learn very complicated things. I continue to believe that this is the nature of human spirit and that ALL my students can and should experience this in their schooling.

5.  This week I learned about the incredible tragedy in Haiti. I relearned a creole word "Kombit" meaning "collective effort for the good of the community". I know that Haiti is plagued by a terribly corrupt political and economic system. I also know that they are showing remarkable "kombit" as they try to deal with the destruction all around them. I watch their story on CNN and CNN iPhone with compassion and sadness. Yesterday I followed the story of a 11 year old girl who was trapped by one leg. The dilemma was whether to wait for heavy equipment to come (not very likely) or amputate her leg. The look in her eye was intense and fierce. I thought of my own son, 9 years old, and what he would do in a similar situation. By the evening, though, perhaps because of the CNN report, appropriate equipment did arrive and she was freed. It is the spirit of "kombit" that I want to ponder on this weekend.

How do I help or hinder this same spirit in my own classroom on a daily basis?

Friday Five

As always, I try to figure out five things I've learned (or, at this point in my life, "re-learned"). I believe doing so gives credit to the fact that we are all "life long learners".

1.  Possums are vicious predators of chickens. We barely saved one of our hens, the stubborn one who would not go into our urban chicken coop last night.

2.  Chickens are dumb, dumb and dumber. When the possum attacked, she basically stuck her head in a bush and allowed herself to be de-plumed and bitten up. She did cry out, though.

3.  Writing 32 letters of recommendation for my 8th graders can be made easier if I only do 3-4 at a time, take a rest, even a nap, then return to the job a little later. When I re-read them, I was happy with the level of detail and positive compassion.

4.  No matter how hard I try, there will be detractors. 8th graders will misinterpret things. Science says so. Experience says so. They struggle to find saliency in human interactions. I struggle less (far less), but I will still come up against their poor interpretations. And some parents will just get tied up in knots.

5.  Working with a teacher in Texas on his 10th Grade Alice in Wonderland blog Project is great fun! Thanks, Christian.

Oh, and a gratuitous photoshopped pic I liked this week:  

Friday Five

On this Friday let's take a few minutes to sit and reflect on what we have learned.

It might just surprise us.

1.  I learned how to make a simple Christmas Disco Dancing Elf to accompany an otherwise boring lesson on unit rates. I did this on JibJab and membership only cost $12 per year.

2. I learned that while I can teach 8th grade all day, university at night, and then participate in an inquiry group from 6:30 to 9:00: it comes with a cost, both physically and mentally. Ice cream did partially over come this, but not enough.

3.  More troops to Afganistan! Bummer.

4.  There are more than 40,000 people using Food Banks here in San Francisco. There are about 192 SF Food Bank locations. Dial 211 to find out where they are.

5.  Social linguistics is an incredibly interesting and complex area that I want to study as I continue to think of my inquiry project about classroom discourse.

What did you learn this week?

My Friday Five

If we reflect on what we have learned in a week, it can be pretty darn amazing.

This week I learned:

1.  That the SF Bay Bridge is nearly unpassable at this point in history when trying to cross @ 5:30. Now all the traffic reports make sense to me (My commute inside of SF is less than 5 minutes, no traffic).

2.  My student benefit from slightly reducing the homework load, giving them up to 20 minutes a night of math work, hopefully no more. I can't control the texting, IM'ing and FB life, though.

3.  I learned that 3/4 + of my students have a very positive impression of math class and my teaching style. The other 1/4 are not necessarily uncomfortable, just more cautious.

4.  It can be hard but illuminating to look at videos of the class. I was impressed by the calm nature of the class, the student focus and level of academic acumen is high, very high.

5.  I learned of a way of thinking of teaching as "marching into confusion, then marching out". I like this way of thinking of teaching: if everything is always crystal clear via teacher explanation, then the student doesn't experience what it really means to be a "life long learner".

My Friday Five

1. There is not particularly easy way to explain subtraction with negative numbers, but chip boards and the concept of opposites at least help;

2. Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize without having done much other than change the tone of our country and while I'm happy for him, I worry what this means for our future;

3. Bird migration is being monitored via radar and that even tiny little birds migrate, especially at night. I used to think birds did not fly at night (unless they were owls)

4. I will be teaching my second University course this semester on Math Teaching Methodology and this might turn into a permanent gig.

5. Our students confuse causality with correlation in science and I am not satisfied with that.

My Friday Five

My Personal List of FIVE Things I Learned this Week:

1. My beloved Algebra 1 text book, College Prep Math has created amazing Smartboard Notebook files that I can use freely. Congrats!

2. My rooster is going to crow every morning around 6:30, whether I like it or not.

3. Brian D., SFS science teacher, and I make a great team.

4. Dr. Jeff's Blog on the Universe

5. Positive energy out attracts positive energy to return.

What does your list contain?