Summer Plans

Well, the Summer of 2017 is almost 2/3 done, and it has been very productive.  My son did 4 hours of summer enrichment classes (STEM, video production, engineering) for the first 4.5 weeks of summer, so that was 4 hours of work time I got each day while he was at school.  I had one main goal for this time that I got to work:  entirely revamp my AP Calculus class; I haven't been happy with how I've had the class structured the past couple years, and student success has been inconsistent, at best, in my eyes.  I needed to change.

This coming year will be my 18th year of teaching, and my 17th year of teaching AP Calculus (I was out of the classroom during the 2015-16 school year in a district instructional coaching role).  In that time, I've had some tremendous successes with my students, but it's getting farther and farther away.  I haven't been able to place a finger on it fully, but it just seems that over the past 8-10 years, we've struggled more and more to retain and deeply understand content as well as be fully prepared for the AP exam in May.  This past year when I returned to the classroom, I put a giant magnifying lens on the course as we progressed and made note of hangups and areas I feel I could do a better job as their teacher.  Then, this past spring, I restructured the course in a way I think will help students make connections better and retain information longer.

The intention is to introduce all the topics up front so the themes and interconnectedness of derivatives and integrals carry throughout the course instead of putting all of our focus on derivatives, and then integrals.  That's step 1.

Step 2 is redoing all the previous HW assignments to put more emphasis on connecting the 4 foci of AP Calculus: Verbal, Numeric, Graphical, Algebraic.  I want those connections to be happening as often as possible and also not be in their own little silos.

Step 3 will be recreating all my lessons and activities.  I want (no, I NEED) to be more consistent with student discussion and discovery as well as consistent tech integration.  I use technology a lot in my teaching, but the students aren't using it in their learning as much as they could or should.

Step 4 is to lay this all out across the year so that there is a smooth pace to everything and we're able to strengthen our skills as the year progresses.
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Step 2 is complete as well as Step 3 for the first two units.  That's where another big change is taking place in this course:  Grading for Learning (or SBG as it's more commonly known).  Our high school has made the commitment to have every course grading against a rubric and department standard beginning with the 2018-19 school year.  This past year, all of our departments created Department Priority Standards that aligned with external subject standards.  We could have as many as we felt necessary in our department, and then individual courses would then take a handful that fit the course.  However, the rubrics we would create for each Priority Standard would be universal; any course that used that standard would use that rubric.  We came up with 5 standards for our department:  Expressions & Functions, Equations & Inequalities, Visual Representations, Conjecture & Conclusion through Reasoning, and Models & Structures.  My AP Calculus course will use all but the Equations & Inequalities.

Each of my assessments will assess these four standards, which are tied to the four representations I want to stress each unit.  I was struggling at first with how I wanted to format my assessment, as I really wanted to try a format suggested by my assistant principal who had done something similar as a teacher at a previous school.  And then it hit me: use the rubric to create the assessment, not the other way around!

On the assessment, students will progress through the four levels of achievement: Beginning, Developing, Proficient, and Advanced.  During the day of their assessment, they will get checked off after completing a 'level' correctly, and then work through the next level...for each of the four standards.  Where they get to by the end of the period is where they are AT THAT TIME.  There will be reassessments, but my grading will be done as soon as students leave the classroom, and students will know where they are currently at.  Yes, some students will only be at a developing or basic level at the end of a period; I want students to get an accurate, and not inflated, measure of their current level of understanding in AP Calculus.  That is where I feel I was failing them recently, that they thought they knew it better than they did because they scored well--even though it took them 2.5 hours and a dozen questions to me during the assessment.  Here's the template I'm planning to use:

Yes, it's in 11x17 format.  After showing my original assessment to my wife (who teaches in the science department at our high school), she mentioned that it may help students to be able to work 'across' levels of understanding while waiting to get checked by me.  That led to the 11x17 format, or Placemat Exam style as I like to call it.  No staples, no multiple sheets.  Just two standards on the front, and two standards on the back when you flip it over.  I know it's not as exciting as the mazes, word searches, and connect the dots that they grew up with at restaurants, but maybe if they get crayons to use on the assessment, they'll be happy! :)

Sorry that this post got a little long, but it's been a while since I sat and wrote, and maybe I can get back to doing this on a weekly basis.  Who knows, maybe Sundays will be a good time for me to reflect on the week that was, and the week I hope is soon ahead!  I'd love to read any feedback you may have in the comments below.

Also, long live #MTBoS!!