Reflection #14

I can't believe it's been five months since I have actually written about something. I was having a hard time budgeting my time between work and family, so I chose to spend less time working at home. Anyways, I've been wanting to write about a bunch of things, but I'm going to start with a reflection on the last department meeting I ran. I really miss teaching and these are as close as I get to planning lessons now, so I look forward to these meetings. I try to remember how they felt as a teacher when I'm planning so they don't get too boring. No one wants to be talked at for an hour and fifteen minutes after teaching a full day, so I try to avoid that at all costs.

We started off doing an activity that I used as a practice or review in the classroom. I stole the idea from a PD I went to and the author called it a "Partner Worksheet." The idea is that each pair gets 2 sets of questions or problems that are totally different, but assess the same concepts. I chose to use US Presidents for the meeting because I wanted the teachers to experience this like students would...not being able to get all of the answers easily. They worked on their individual problems for a couple of minutes while I watched. (During that time I realized the math department does not have a strong history background.) I then allowed them to work together to try and help each other find more answers. Most of them were able to get a little further then. Finally, after another minute or so, I gave one final hint: both sets of questions have the same 5 answers, just in a different order. Almost everyone was able to improve their answers at this point. I gave them all the correct answers so they could check and we discussed how this could work in a math class. The discussion and progression from very few answers to most answers was awesome. I really hope the teachers realized how well this worked since they couldn't see it from my perspective. I think next time I will record the activity to use as a demo.

After that activity, we had a discussion on a departmental grading policy. They have never been required to have any type of common grading before, but I feel it is extremely beneficial for all parties to have consistency in grading. This has been an ongoing discussion all year, with the goal of having a departmental policy set up for the start of 2017-2018. I asked all of the teachers to share their thoughts, and everyone in the room added valuable opinions to the discussion. I purposely didn't interject anything until everyone had a chance to speak, so no one was influenced by my opinions. By the end of the meeting, we were able to develop a policy everyone was at least okay with for next year.

Our math department meetings have each been very different this year and you could use a wide range of adjectives to describe them. Looking back, this one was definitely the one that looked most like what I envisioned department meetings should look like when I started this job. We did an engaging activity that can be modified to work in any class, had an open and honest discussion regarding grading and policy, and came to an agreement on how we should move forward.

Perhaps the best part of the meeting was side-bar discussion we had on defining and grading formative assessments. There were very different opinions on this, especially with respect to homework and we had to end the meeting agreeing to disagree, for now. Everyone felt comfortable giving their opinion whether it was similar to mine or not. One teacher told me "I'm going to have to completely disagree with you." I left the meeting feeling like things are starting to fall into place for my new role. These are the exact type of discussions I want to be able to have in our department and I want all those involved to feel comfortable giving their thoughts. Plus, this gave me a clear direction for my professional learning over the summer: to study up on the research on formative assessment and homework.

I just found out our Envirothon team won a state title today, so I have to go celebrate now!