It’s back to school time!!
Here is a compilation of posts that will hopefully help with all of your “Back To School” planning. I thought that putting them all in one place would be helpful. Happy planning and welcome back to school!
Blog posts appear in the order they were submitted.
From the archives! Collections of blog posts about first days from past years.
Due: Sunday, August 20th, 6AM
Recently, Fawn wrote a post on Classroom Management that I really enjoyed. As Fawn pointed out, Michael is right, we don’t talk enough about this! Because sometimes, we do pick the right task, and are doing the right things, when something goes wrong. How do you handle that? What are your policies that help your class run smoothly? What are your go-tos? How do we engage the student that doesn’t like our class, or is disrespectful? When do we contact parents and what do we say to them? What resources have helped you that others could turn to? I’ve been teaching for many years and this is still hard for me. So, let’s write this week for each other, and especially for the new teachers out there. Because this is a topic that is not often covered enough, especially in a positive way!
Helpful tips:
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Thanks so very much to @DruinOK for getting this all started and Jessica, @Algebrainiac1, for creating our awesome logo!
The FIRST DAY is SO EXCITING! Even though I am not ready to go back to school yet (I still have so much I wanted to get done and …. SUMMER), I love thinking about the first day back. I can’t wait to actually meet and interact with the amazing young learners that I will get to work with this year. Their enthusiasm for learning is at a high the first days of school and I am excited to harness that and turn it into amazing math!
I do not go over my course guidelines the first day. I would rather spend that day getting to know my kids, having them get to know each other, and playing with math! I have found that it is better to go over one guideline every day or so in the first few weeks, as they naturally come up. I usually say, “Refer to this place in your syllabus.” in response to a student question. This reminds students that the syllabus taped in their notebooks is a great place to look for important information that they may need.
Sarah Vanderwerf is a thoughtful educator and you should definitely follow her blog if you don’t already. Basically my entire first day is coming from her! Last year I did Sarah’s name tents and I loved them! I think my students liked them as well because later in the year I learned that some students had shared part of their name tent on Snapchat. I also noticed some of them kept their name tents in their notebooks. Even though replying to name tents took a lot of work the first week, getting to know each of my students better was worth it, especially if they appreciated it as well. I also did Sarah’s 100’s Task later in the week last year. But I loved it so much I am doing it on the first day this year!
Our first day has very short class periods, only 25 minutes long, so I don’t have time for much. We still have almost two weeks until school starts so my first day plans aren’t firmed up completely yet, but this is what I am thinking.
This year my math department decided to “office” together. This means that we took a classroom and converted it into an office for the math teachers to hang out and work in. We then go out into shared classrooms to teach every period. The classrooms are shared and don’t belong to any one teacher.
I was a bit leary about this idea at first. I try extremely hard to get as much work done as possible in during the day and didn’t know if sharing an office with 7 other math teachers would be very productive. I also love my classroom! I have lamps, and supplies for my students and a giant old school boom box where I can play tunes while they work.
However, it turns out that I LOVE being in the math office. We have these super cool desks that we designed in two “islands” of three teachers each. I am sitting in the back so I can’t see the door. I requested that location so I could get more work done – turns out I’m too social. Bonus is that I’m next to our “micro-mini” kitchen! My island is named “Camp Frock N Bach” as it contains Julia Finneyfrock (who just started writing a blog!), and Russ Campbell. I love them both so we are having a blast! Julia also posted about our awesome office (and even better pics) so go read her post too!
Students come in occasionally for help, but it really feels like an “adult” space. I left teaching for a couple of years to work in business and it really feels like an office! We have a lunch table in the back, a small refrigerator, coffee maker and microwave. We share ideas and talk math frequently. We are even going to start making crock-pot lunches on Wednesdays. It’s actually been a blast because I feel like I have adult time, which can be rare when you are teaching all day.
I want students to be less stressed before math tests. I do not want them cramming the day before, asking me how to do every review problem because they have already forgotten, then asking me for more review problems to work. I want students to connect the ideas not only of the current unit, but of the previous math ideas that are also incorporated into the current material. I would love if students saw math as connected ideas, rather than “a long list of procedures” to be memorized. I want students to learn conceptually, not procedurally.
This is tough to accomplish, as many of their math classes have been taught procedurally. I used to think that they would be so happy to have me as their teacher! I throw the rules of math class out of the window, and help them discover concepts on their own! However, I found last year that this was not the case with many of my students. Many were uncomfortable with the fact that I was disrupting their flow. These honors math students have been successful for many, many years learning the formulas and practicing, practicing, practicing until it was perfect. And their grade was perfect. They didn’t want to struggle to “discover the formula”. Struggling and not knowing make them feel insecure. Instead, they wanted the formula right away – so they could have more time to learn it, practice it, and get a jump start on tonight’s homework! They did not want me wasting their time. I kept telling them this was not the best way, but they did not believe me. So instead of telling them this year, I am going to have them read the research for themselves.
For the first day this year, the students will enter the room and then write their thoughts to these questions. (questions are a work in progress)
I will then give them a Plickers survey to find out their thoughts on math as a class. I use Plickers the first day because a few students will not have their technology ready. 
We will briefly discuss their answers and then I am going to show them this four minute video by Jo Boaler.
I need to ask them to write after seeing this video. I’m still working on that and would love any thoughts or suggestions.
For homework, I am going to have them read excerpts from Make It Stick, The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown.
This fabulous book talks about how people learn, and what you can do to make learning stick. It is full of real life examples and specific strategies. The ideas and strategies are summarized in one of the last chapters of the book. After having them write and discuss how they think they learn best, I am going to have my students read some excerpts of this chapter, then discuss it as a class. This should benefit them not only in math class, but in most of their other classes as well.
The next day in class, students will pick out what they felt was the most important ideas from the reading and share them. From this, they will decide on a learning goal for the year. I then had them fill out a Google Form to record their “one thing” they wanted to try from “Make It Stick”.
I will keep doing discovery and conceptual learning in my classes. I am also replacing “massed practice” with interleaving practice and lagging homework this year. I am hopeful that having knowledge about how people learn will open their minds to this new style of homework. Winning over their mindset is half the battle!
This is all still a work in progress! And if you want to join in on the planning, I’d love to have you! I will also be talking about my first day plan at the Global Math Department Webinar this Tuesday evening at 9pm EST. Please join in the conversation! I hope to have it more polished by then, as I start school August 17th!
Julie Reulbach
The Files:
The amazing Meg Craig made a booklet foldable that is the entire activity in one! I love collaboration! (I pretty much copied hers for my one sheet). 🙂
I Speak Math 