Throughout my teaching career I have seen so many students
enter my high school math classes with a firm belief in their ability (or lack
thereof) to do math. I can’t count the
number of parents who have sat down at conferences and opened with, “Well, I
wasn’t any good at math, so it makes sense my child struggles.” I have always been saddened by this attitude
and felt the negative self-fulfilling prophecy was undermining students’ learning. I tried in vague and individual ways to
address this, but never took it to a formalized, systematic level to maximize
the impact.
I have also always struggled with the apathy many students
feel toward mathematics. It is often
something “to get through” on their way to something bigger and better. I think part of this is how students have
felt about mathematics, but I also believe it is about the disconnect of
classroom mathematics to the real world.
While I have always felt my mathematical Achilles heel is practical
application, I know my students need it both to engage deeply with the content
and to improve their attitudes and overall learning. Again, I wanted to make changes, but never
felt successful in my attempts.
After reading Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of
Success (2007), I found myself nodding a lot and agreeing with her
research. I had always felt many of her
findings, but never really articulated them.
However, I still didn’t really see the immediate application to my math
concerns. I was just stronger in my
beliefs but no closer to a significant change in my classroom. However, when I read Jo Boaler’s Mathematical Mindsets (2016), I began to
see ways to change my instruction to be explicit and systematic about improving
my students’ learning and attitudes about mathematics.
One key moment for me was when Boaler described how math is
perceived as a performance subject with right and wrong answers. This was a stop-point for me-it made so much
sense to me but I had never thought of math in that way. Yet, I believe this perception is the key to
addressing both of my concerns. If I can
turn math back into a collaborative, logical, inquiry experience with multiple
paths to solutions, I might be able to change some of my students’ minds and
re-open doors for their future that they felt were closed because they “weren’t
any good in math.”
This was the moment where I finally saw some tangible ideas
that showed me how the changes I wanted to make might look and gave me some
ideas how those changes could truly impact learning. This is where my genius hour project finally
took shape. I hope to create inquiry
tasks for each unit in order to cultivate more positive attitudes about
mathematics and deepen the learning of the concepts. I have several articles and research studies
to read on deep learning that I hope will also give me ideas and insight into
how to improve my instruction.
I still worry about my own lack of knowledge with real world
applications, but I am willing to set that aside to move forward. I have decided that I have been willing to
incorporate technologies that I didn’t fully feel comfortable with and learned
along with the students, so this will be the same. I can’t ask my students to be uncomfortable
and take risks if I am not willing to do so myself and model it openly. Standford University’s YouCubed.com will be one source I turn to
for ideas, as well as the wealth of teaching ideas available on edutopia.org.
The additional element in all this research and change is a
new look at grading and assessment. After attending the three day FIRST institute
conference this summer which focused on grading and assessment, I believe we
have to look different at how, when, and why we assess kids. Boaler also addresses this assessment issue
as being overwhelmingly negative and not motivating for most students. Our math department has made some change in
assessment by moving to mastery with retesting options and clearly identified
standards, yet students still equate the scale scores with a letter grade. I hope to work with my department on ways to
continue to move away from scores which demotivate and move toward constructive
feedback. I could envision a system
where students track their own progress through the objectives and control
their own paths to learning. After a
summative exam, I want students to reflect on their learning process and
progress. I think so many of our
students consider themselves powerless in education-they have fixed mindsets
about what they can do (and have done) to improve their learning. If they are empowered to choose learning
paths on their own, they may begin to see their own success as a direct outcome. However, I need to always be sure to
emphasize growth and progress or this will all just be another grade chase with
no real change beyond some superficial elements.
I am still struggling with the exact “product” of my genius hour project. I have two or three different ideas
that I want to implement, so I need to decide if I am going to phase in the
changes (measuring success as I go) or if I am going to make a major,
multi-faceted change. As I start to work
out the actual details, I think the best plan will appear. I also will be sitting down with my
department to talk about what they plan to do in response to Boaler’s book as
we read it at as a summer book study. We
may choose a department approach that will address some of my ideas which will
improve impact both in scope and design (more heads are better than 1!)
