Never Smile Until 2nd Quarter (and Other First Day Myths)

I think the "never smile" rule was one of the first things my cooperating teacher told me before our first day before student teaching. That and wearing ties. But who made that up? Why is it still perpetrated? Here's a list of reasons I think to save our smiling for the 2nd Qtr.

1ST DAY CHECKLIST
Alienate students.

Inspire dread at the thought of coming to my class.
Ensure students don't think I care.
Build a connection between cold personal interactions and negative atmosphere toward learning my content.
Quench any fun.

I don't know about you, but I have a better time teaching the more I smile through the day. I cannot imagine getting through weeks of school forcing myself to keep a straight face in the midst of the silly things kids do and say. For another perspective on "never smile," here's a post middle school principal +Shawn Blankenship wrote a couple years ago. "Never Smile Until Christmas"

What about some others?

1. KIDS DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING THE FIRST DAY

Correction. They don't want to hear a lecture and produce a worksheet the first day. Of any days, the first day should perhaps be the MOST engaging. The first day of school is a time for first impressions for you just as much as for the students. Most of us would go out of our way to seem extraordinarily amazing and interesting on a first date or job interview - why don't we pull out the stops for that first experience for our students? There'll be other days for book cards.

Today in AP Stats, I'll be taking advantage of the massive crowds of schedule-changers and ID photo takers to provide a captive audience for my students' first attempts at data collection, and Algebra 1 will be developing linear expressions for modeling toothpick figures (although they won't know that until day 2)

The best example I've seen that wasn't content related is my friend Beth. She brings a whole duffel bag of stuff in and shares the experience of each trinket with her students. It really sets the stage for establishing a safe environment for sharing in her classroom.

2. I'LL NEVER LEARN ALL MY STUDENTS NAMES

Are you a "hit the ground running" teacher? I'm sure you probably cover more content than me, but at what expense relationally? Spend time in activities the first day that get you and your students talking to each other and saying each other's name. Keep up the deliberate name-learning activities for several days.

3. NEVER GIVE HOMEWORK/ ALWAYS GIVE HOMEWORK THE FIRST DAY

I think this one is hyper-contextually subjective. If you're teaching an honors, AP, or upper-level course, or intend to be super-dedicated and habitually with when students can expect homework, I think it sold be completely appropriate. If you're doing it to seem tough and shock some kids into changing their schedule, my opinion is that kids usually see through the ruse.

4. YOU MUST DISCUSS EXPECTATIONS AND PROCEDURES AS A CLASS

Definitely. Early and often. But going back to #1, find a way to make a game of it; get kids moving around.

Are there any others you've heard? Any you disagree with?

Teaching Argument Writing...for Preschoolers! (and Anyone Else)

I had the pleasure of attending a two day training over the summer with the Gateway Writing Project about teaching argument writing and how we can use it to support the need for evidence-based writing in the Common Core ELA and math standards. 

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• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.1 Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.
• CCSS.Math.Practice.MP3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Although the requirements for thinking abstractly and putting together objective, argument pieces are not introduced until grade 6, the foundation of vocabulary, thinking and process of gathering evidence, making claims, and evaluating warrants could ideally begin in earlier grades as students write explanatory pieces.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me quickly define for you a warrant and a claim as from this book by George Hillocks, Jr., Teaching Argument Writing, Grades 6-12.

"Warrants may be common sense rules that people generally accept as true, laws, scientific principles or studies, and thoughtfully argued definitions." (Hillocks, pg xxiii)

Claims are the statement or value you are trying to prove the evidence supports. (Hillocks, pg xix)

But What Does That Have To Do With Teaching Preschoolers?

I had the pleasure of spending so much time watching my children, 3 years, 8 months, and 2 years learn and play this summer, so most of what I'm processing as a teacher right now is through my lens as their teacher this summer. Also, if you can communicate an idea to a 3 year old, you know you're set for the intended audience. :)

Of course, I wasn't sitting down with my daughter this evening and discussing vocabulary with her - we weren't even writing anything. Our exposure to argument and reasoning was during story time before bed.

Breaking It Down

We read Pinkalicious: The Princess of Pink Slumber Party, which recently came from the library.

The plot of this story doesn't really matter. You just need to know that Pinkalicious has a slumber party, and one of the friends ends up having a fear of falling asleep at another house.

Pinkalicious gets the girl to imagine various sounds and smells around the house are from a happy guardian dragon.

We met the dragon and I thought, "Interesting time to test some reasoning," so, very naturally, in my best inquisitive voice, I asked Lucy, 

"Do you think this is a mean dragon, or a nice dragon?"
"It's nice."
"How do you know?"
"Because its smiling!"  ::she points to the dragons mouth::
"Ah, and so usually when people are nice, they smile."

We continue on the story, and I'm happy to report, the little girl has no problem falling asleep.

Connecting to Terminology

Lucy did not produce an entire argument on her own, of course, but would you even expect that of all your middle schoolers or 9th graders? With some scaffolding questions, she was able to show the bones of some basic reasoning, however.

Claim: In response to my leading question, Lucy's claim is that This is a nice dragon.
Evidence: When I asked Lucy how she knew, she easily pointed out that the dragon was smiling.

In the experience of my own classroom with something like classifying functions, the process has been the same. I might ask, "Is this a quadratic function," to which a student at first may only respond, "Yes," but after I ask, "How do you know," she will often be able to point out a defining characteristic from a table, graph, or equation.

Warrant: As defined by Hillocks, a warrant is often something generally known. Kids learn quickly that they can usually trust adults or other kids that are smiling. Lucy left this off of her "argument," but warrants are the bones that support claims.

While warrants in an English or Social Studies class may be a little more subjective, I think STEM subjects generally have a stronger leg to stand on when picking out and using warrants. I explained warrants to a colleague today in the math office as being the properties and laws our students (often) write down and (rarely ever) use in their problem solving.

In the Classroom

The first several times you attempt argument writing with your students, I think it may end up looking and feeling a lot like my conversation with Lucy. I think that has to be okay.  Use guiding questions in pre-reading. Support them with definitions and clarify/refine their usage of warrant/ claim/ counterclaim. Restate their conclusion so they can have a chance to analyze if it "sounds" right once they've heard it outside of their own head or from their paper.

Tech Integration Tip: Try New Things With One Class At A Time

You've got a new piece of hardware, app, or website you want to try out in your classroom. You've thought through some of your students' potential difficulties, what could potentially go wrong, and what you can do to mitigate those problems, but there is still an element of the unknown until you or a colleague try it out in the context or your own district or school.

"Pilot!" you think, excited to see what may come of your idea. But who pilots for the the early adopters in your building? What about the late adopters who are slow to adopt a tool until they've seen it work in their classroom?

Where Do I Start?
Pilot for yourself! I got the idea of using my own classroom as both experimental and control group from a university study on clickers I found while working on an action research plan in graduate school. The professors wanted to incorporate and investigate the use of a student response system (clickers) for generating feedback for their students, but had trouble getting colleagues to participate in their study.

To get as large of a test/control group population as they could, the professors each had half of their students acting as control and half acting as experiment groups for a portion of the semester. Having students in the same section serve as both control and experimental groups in the course of the study mitigated variables of individual student achievement, hour of the day, day of the week, and individual teaching style. It boiled the clicker study down to this question:

Is there a significant different in these students learning using clickers to generate immediate feedback, or not?

What's that mean for my team and my classroom?
I'm sure my data team has not been alone in the past in wondering when we collect data on common assessments if the differences in student scores were the result of any of several factors, including but not limited to teaching style, hour of the day, and students in the class. These are all factors that in comparing two sections of the same course are important to consider.

Establishing (and rotating) experimental and control classes within your day eliminates all of the uncertainty of what those other factors may be contributing and narrows your focus to (as close as possible) ONE single variable.

Can it be replicated?
Once ONE of the teachers in your subject area or data team have had positive results using a new technology or strategy, others can have confidence in trying it out for themselves, in their own context.