Embracing the Growth Mindset

My main goal this year has been to reflect on my teaching and make sure that my lessons and instruction was encouraging my students to think and problem solve.  About a week ago I began the proportions unit with my Accelerated class.  As I planned for this unit, I found a lot of great activities through the Math Assessment Project.  Looking through these lessons, and planning cause me to really think about what mindset I had been growing my my classroom.

The more I work on interactive lessons, problem solving and project based learning, the more I realize that for the past several years I had been teaching my students to be robots.  I was putting them in a box with 60 foot walls and only allowing them to think linearly. The had to show their work my specific way, the “right way”.  But as I approached this unit, I realized that as a student, even though I was always “good in math”  I was usually that student that approached the problem in a different way.  I was squashing that student in my own classroom.  

So with a little apprehension, and fear of the repercussions of their future success in other teachers classrooms, I have approached this unit from a completely growth mindset.  I wasn’t going to focus or even directly teach the correct proportional way to solve these problems, but we were going to discuss what proportionality meant, and look at many approaches to solving.  It was going to be about their thinking and approach to getting a clear understanding of what proportal relationships are.  

Today I just taught solving proportions using the math shell lesson, and the students came and presented their approaches to solving 3 separate problems.  Some did use the “correct proportional cross product” method I had been accustomed to teaching, but so many of them present beautiful explanations and approaches that showed they understood how a proportional relationship worked, but solved it in a different way.  The conversations were so excited.  They were eager to share their method, some even presented ways I would never have thought of.  

I have been coming off a bit of a low point in teaching this year, feeling like my methods were not getting through to my students.  But today I saw so much thought, enthusiasm and validation in my students.  And I realized this is what I got into teaching for, to engage and excite them to find a path to problem solve.  I feel like today i learned just as much, if not more, from them than they did from me, and it was wonderful.  

Riding the Waves

I’ve taken a break from the blog over the past several weeks, trying to come back from hitting a major low in the ups and downs of teaching.  I started the year off inspired from my summer school experience, working with the math leadership council, and all the great project based learning lessons I had been finding and planning.  I went into chapter 2 of the book, the dreaded fractions with positives and negative feel motivated and optimistic.  I worked on student centered lessons, discourse and visual models.  In class students were drawing, talking and representing operations with fractions. All seemed to be going great…. Then I assessed them.  To say it was horrendous would be putting it mildly.

I was so discouraged.  I, We, had all worked so hard on this chapter. I analyzed their work and kept seeing a common thread, negatives, they didn’t know what to do with the negatives.  So for the past several weeks, I have spiraled reviewed the material as we progressed through the next chapter.  But I had lost my drive and excitement that I started the year with.  I was feeling defeated, like all this planning and work wasn’t having a positive impact on the learning of my students.   I have really been struggling with this over the past quarter.  

I keep plugging away, looking for hands on lessons, encouraging error analysis but inside I have felt defeated.  I truly want to change the way they view math.  I want them to love the exploration and discovery in the process.  I want the lessons to be as exciting for them as I think they are.  But I have barely been treading water.  I have been lucky this year to be working with a grade level team, and talking through all of our struggles and successes has helped to get me through this low.  Yesterday I received a letter in my mailbox that has helped me to get some of my spark back.  It was from one of my summer school students, thanking me for working with him this summer and making math “fun”.  

I think what I have come to realize is that this h=journey is going to be full of highs and lows.  Some of my lessons will be amazing, and others might flop, but most importantly I need to fight that urge to slip back into the easy routine of lecture.  I need to challenge myself to be better and keep searching and trying new things, just like i am always challenging my students to persevere and work through the struggle.  So while currently I feel like I’m currently at the bottom of the wave, the next one is right behind me waiting for me to catch it.