In this episode, I’ll reflect back on my first year of implementing the Modern Classrooms Project with my freshmen Algebra 1 class and share some exciting news!
Resources talked about in this episide:
Podcast Transcript
In this episode, I’ll reflect back on my first year of implementing the Modern Classrooms Project with my freshmen Algebra 1 class and share some exciting news!
Hi, my name is Erin and welcome to Teaching Math in a Modern Classroom! I am a high school math teacher in my 12th year of education. For years I had been feeling frustrated and defeated when it came to differentiating my instruction to meet ALL of the needs of my students. I was able to differentiate my lessons in a way that helped most of my students but not all. I knew there had to be a better way than direct instruction and practice.
One day, while scrolling on my phone, I decided to download some random podcast episodes. The first one I listened to was titled How to Create a Self-Paced Classroom from the Cult of Pedagogy podcast. I was in awe as I listened to Kareem and Jennifer talk about the Modern Classrooms Project and knew this was the direction that I wanted to take and my journey as a Modern Classrooms Project teacher began.
If you are feeling the same way, I hope this podcast will inspire you to give Modern Classrooms Project a try! Each episode, I’ll share my journey of implementing this research-based teaching model and what I’ve learned along the way.
After I recorded the last episode of this podcast, I did not expect that there would be an 8-month delay, but here we are. If you taught during the 2021-2022 school year, I don’t need to tell you how challenging of it year it has been for teachers and students. I am incredibly grateful that I was implementing the Modern Classrooms Project with my Algebra 1 students during this school year. I am happy to report, that all of my Algebra 1 students passed their second semester. I am extremely proud of their hard work and perseverance during a challenging time.
What went well
So let’s talk about things that went well. My students LOVED self-pacing. Now there were definitely moments when they struggled with being a self-directed learners but overwhelmingly at the end of this year, it was one of their favorite aspects of the class. They loved that if they were absent, they knew that they would be able to pick up where they were.
They also enjoyed the daily Do Nows and feeling like they had a place to share information with me. I loved this too for many reasons. I had a couple of students who would draw me a quick little picture or tell me about their pets or siblings or about how their game went.
I asked for my students’ feedback in December and they requested we have more days where we did stuff together as a class. With this in mind, for the second semester, every Friday (when we were not giving an assessment) we did a full class activity. I used this time to review current content or review previous content to help my students prepare for their state mandated End of Course assessment. Sometimes we would do games using websites like Blooket and Quizizz. Other times I would use Desmos to deepen their understanding. I am also a big fan of card sorts and cut and paste activities. Students really enjoyed this time and I loved hearing students collaborate more often with each other.
What I will do differently next year
There are a few things that I will do differently moving forward. I didn’t use a public tracker because my administration was not a fan of the idea. I love the idea of a public tracker as a way to help students collaborate with each other. If Student A is stuck on lesson 3 and sees that Student B has mastered lesson 3 because they are currently working on lesson 5, then Student A can ask Student B to work with them and be a thinking partner as they try to work through some examples. They can see what lesson each student is at and use that to help them without having to ask the class “who’s completed lesson 3?!” Now using a public facing tracker effectively is definitely based on how you present it to students. Its is not about ability, it is about progress!
This past year, I graded every practice and skills check. I think, moving forward, I will only grade skills checks. I will still make it mandatory for students to practice prior to completing a skills check but I will not take it for a grade in the gradebook. I used a lot of self checking practice assignments this year, and I will continue to use those. I think that they are incredibly helpful to students to receive immediate feedback.
Some of my videos are too long. For high school aged students, research suggests that the maximum length of an instructional video is 9-15 minutes. After implementing this with high school freshmen, I would recommend that you try to keep your videos under 6 minutes. Trust me, I know what you’re thinking – HOW do you teach ____ in under 6 minutes!? I will answer by saying this, you can have more than 1 video in a lesson. You can take a topic and break it up into multiple lessons, AND (this next one is key) not every video has to be a must do assignment.
As a math teacher, I felt like I needed to do multiple examples of all of the different ways you could do something. As I make future videos, I will do 1 to 2 examples for the must do video and then, if needed, make a should do video going over more examples. That way the video is there for students who need more examples, and students that understood the concept after one example are not bored watching more examples.
While we are on this topic, another thing I love to do is have my students that are ahead of pace create a video of themselves working out an example and explaining it to their peers on FlipGrid. This is an easy Aspire to Do activity on their teacher end and then as the year goes on, you have a collection of student videos that can help students review as it comes time for end of the year testing!
Exciting News!
Now let’s talk about some exciting news. Since the last time we spoke, my husband and I have decided to move across the country. We are originally from Massachusetts and want to be closer to family. My husband accepted a job in March in Boston, and we moved him up there in April. I followed after the school year was over in June. I spent my summer unpacking from our move and mentoring educators during the Modern Classrooms Project’s Virtual Summer Institute. I loved working with educators that are new to this model and even got to be a panelist for the Designing the LMS workshop! Did you participate in VSI this summer? Let me know in the comments!
I have accepted a job as a high school math teacher! I have recently learned that I will be teaching Algebra 1, Geometry, and Honors Geometry. I plan to continue to use the Modern Classrooms Project model with my students. My new school seems very supportive of the model and are excited to learn more about it.
Connect with Me
Did you know I have a YouTube channel? This is where you can find ALL of the videos I am using in my classroom. If you are a math teacher definitely check it out. It is my goal to help as many math teachers that I can. Teaching in a pandemic is hard, and this is just one way that I can help my fellow educators!
I upload my YouTube videos to EdPuzzle to assign to my students. This means that you can search for my videos in EdPuzzle and be able to pull up the videos that already have the questions embedded.
Are you a secondary math teacher struggling with student engagement? If you haven’t already, please visit my website, www.erinsessentialequations.com to download my free “Strategies to Keep Students Engaged in your Secondary Math Classroom” resource!
If you want to learn more about the modern classrooms project check out their website at modernclassrooms.org.
Connect with my on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @ErinsEssentialEquations.
Are you a High School Algebra teacher? Join the High School Algebra Teachers Facebook group to collaborate with other educators!
While I didn’t publish as many podcast episodes as I thought I would when last school year started, I have thoroughly enjoyed creating these episodes and sharing my experiences with you. I hope to be to continue to share my journey with you this upcoming school year. My next school year will begin in September, so be on the lookout for new episodes in the fall. Subscribe to stay up to date.
Thanks for listening!
