I am so excited to share my experiences this week using the Modern Classroom Project. This week I share how each lesson is set up in my class, how Unit 1 is going, and some of the hiccups I had a long the way.
Podcast Transcript
Hi, my name is Erin and welcome to episode 2 of Teaching Math in a Modern Classroom!
Last year while scrolling on my phone I decided to download some random podcasts episodes to listen in my car on the way to work.
The first one I listened to was titled How to Create a Self-Paced Classroom from the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. Listening to Kareem and Jennifer talk about the Modern Classrooms Project, gave me so many ideas for my own classroom and my journey with becoming a Modern Classrooms Project teacher began.
This summer I participated in the Virtual Summer Institute through Modern Classrooms Project. I got to work with a mentor and they helped me create my first unit using the Modern Classrooms Project.
Here is what happens each day in my class:
- In the first 5 minutes students complete a social emotional check in called a do now. On the do now, students tell me how they are feeling that day, if they are on pace or not, and their goal for the day.
- I collect the do nows from students after I enter in class attendance.
- Students then work on their lessons. If a student is starting a new lesson, they will get the notes sheet from my bulletin board and begin by watching the instructional video.
- The time limit for an open computer is 20 minutes. The only windows or tabs that should be open on a computer is our school’s LMS and the video.
- Students then complete a practice assignment for the lesson which I grade for feedback.
- Students then complete a skills check. If they demonstrate mastery on the skills check then they move on to the next lesson.
I began Unit 1 this past week and it is going really well. Just like with anything new, I did have some hiccups along the way. My school is one-to-one, meaning that each student can receive a Chromebook from the school, free of charge. However, they just began issuing Chromebooks to students this week, if they returned their Chromebook agreement form. The majority of my students did not have a Chromebook for most of the week. To combat this, I allowed my students to use their phones to complete their videos.
As you can imagine this came with its challenges. I am using the same phone policy as Kate Gaskill – students that are behind pace need to put their phones in my class phone holder. Students that are on pace or ahead of pace are able to keep their phones on their person. I spent a lot of time this week reminding students that they could use their phones to watch the instructional videos but they shouldn’t be on snap chat or texting at any point during class.
I was able to borrow a few iPads each day from a fellow teacher that has a class set, for students whose phone had died throughout the day or for students that didn’t have phones.
I quickly learned this week that I needed a better organization system for my skills checks. I decided to use a milk crate and hanging file folders. It has been a great way to keep my skills checks organized and to keep the completed skills checks of my students organized.
After teaching in a pandemic since March 2020, I was excited to SEE my students’ work. I decided to make it mandatory for students to show me their practice assignments for feedback before they are able to take a skills check. I may need to rethink this. I spend the majority of class time grading practices for students and talking with them about their work on their practice assignments – this is not a bad thing, however; I felt like I was sitting in my desk most of the class. I want to be moving around the classroom more and spending more time with groups of students. I think for my next unit, I may try to incorporate more self-checking practice assignments so that students do not need to wait for me for immediate feedback.
Our unit 1 is all about expressions. My students are currently learning about polynomials. Something I noticed this week is that my students are not reading what is posted in our LMS. Some lessons require students to complete a practice assignment on Savvas Realize (our online text book). Many of my students were not reading the directions in our LMS and were skipping this step completely. To combat this, I displayed my schoology page on my board and reviewed the directions for the on pace lesson each day. By the end of the week my students were definitely starting to understand the procedures for our class and why we are a modern classroom. My students are telling me that they are loving this way of learning. We have our first quiz next week, I’ll let you know how it goes!
If you want to learn more about the modern classrooms project check out their website at modernclassrooms.org.
If you want to see my classroom set up you can follow me on Instagram @erinsessentialequations
Subscribe to hear my weekly updates.
Thanks for listening!
