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This post will make more sense if you have already read Joe Schwartz’s  (@JSchwarz10a) thoughtful blog post about two experiences he and I shared at TMC 17. I’ll wait here while you go read it.

 

 

Back? Good.

Alright, let me share a couple of reflections first. Joe is one of the many delightful folks whose acquaintance I would not have made if I had not taken the plunge into this online world of collaboration. He and I met in person in Minneapolis and had a really in depth conversation about parenting, especially with regard to tech use for children. His words have echoed in my ear this year and my wife and I took on the challenge of a smart phone for our 14 year old. My son does not know it but Joe is one of the reasons why I was able to sort out my protests and come to the decision to give him one. So, in addition to my life being improved by Joe’s friendship, my son’s life is improved by Joe’s wisdom.  Anyways… This summer I got to spend time with Joe again at meals (especially a LOVELY dinner at the oddly named Cowfish) and at a session run by David Butler (@DavidKButlerUofA) called 100 Factorial. As Joe wrote, he and I were in a group of four with Jasmine Walker (@jaz_math) and Mauren (Mo) Ferger (@Ferger314) We worked on a problem called skyscrapers (you can find a cool online link here ) and we were all full engaged. Now, I knew jasmine and Joe already and knew Joe was a primary teacher. This fact did not cross my mind during the time we were working on the problem, but it sounds like maybe it did for Joe based on his blog post. That evening about a dozen folks all descended on Cowfish for dinner and I was sitting near Joe and Jasmine. I won’t repeat the story of our conversation, Joe covered it well. What I do want to do is think out loud about my perception of the conversation and try to get into Joe’s head a little bit as well as getting into my own head. Early in the conversation I mentioned to Jasmine that I had the impression that she might be ‘mathier’ than I am. I tend to be a little self deprecating in this area, I have three degrees and they are all from College of Education. I have no formal math degree but I took a load of math classes in college and have taught a load of them in my 30 years of teaching. I know a few things and I am pretty quick at making connections, if I do say so myself. However, I also know that I am TOO quick to make certain conclusions and this caused some trouble in the Skyscraper game and I am also a bit too quick to throw in the towel if I don’t see at least some sort of pathway pretty quickly. I don’t need to know an answer right away but I do need to have some sense of where to find the answer to help me be persistent. As Jasmine and I were trying to ‘un’ one-up each other (Edmund Harriss (@Gelada) was sitting next to me and he joked that this was the opposite of a pissing contest) I was also wrestling with the question Joe had out on the table comparing the Exeter problem sets with the puzzle we played with that afternoon. Looking back, I fear that the banter with Jasmine about who was less ‘mathy’ may have been somewhat hurtful now that I see the feelings Joe laid out in his blog. If that is true, I am deeply sorry. What I DO remember distinctly about the conversation was that I described different initial reactions to the lovely problem sets and the creative puzzles that Prof Butler laid out. In the problem sets there is a reassuring (or distressing, I guess) sense that these are MATH problems. That there is some MATH technique or formula that will be needed to nudge me down the road to success. With the Skyscraper problem, it was clear to me that this was an exercise in LOGIC. MATH thinking strategies certainly are handy and helpful, but this problem did not yield to an algorithm (or if it does, I am not nearly clever enough to know it) but it did yield to persistence and communication. Joe talks about wanting to overcome some old residual fear or discomfort to go ‘play with the big kids’ on the Exeter problem sets. What I hope he recognizes is that he WAS playing on that stage, it was just in the cafeteria with Skyscrapers instead. I have had conversations around Exeter problem sets with students and with other teachers. They have been great conversations but they were certainly not more memorable than the feeling of diving in and and conquering the Skyscraper problem. Joe was an integral part of that problem-solving team and he caught a couple of my mistakes when I jumped to quick conclusions. We are all on a continuum of comfort and confidence in different problem solving scenarios and Joe’s thoughtful and honest blog post serves as an important reminder to me to try and be more aware of these feelings in others as a new school year begins.

Joe told us this summer that he has retired from his daily gig and is now doing a variety of consulting jobs. He talked about how some folks collect baseball stadiums over the years, visiting ballparks around the country. He talked about the idea of doing that with classroom visits now that he has a more open calendar. I would LOVE it if he carries through with this plan, it would be great to hear his perspective. I would welcome him to my school with open arms but I would also be slightly anxious and a bit nervous about it. Would I still seem like ‘one of the big kids’ if he saw me in action? This kind of anxiety, I think, is probably a good thing for me. It keeps me on my toes. I want to make sure that my students have a meaningful experience in my classroom and one of the ways I can do that better is to imagine that I was also crafting an experience for someone like Joe.

This school year I will be teaching four different courses – Geometry (2 sections), Discrete Math, Calculus Honors, AP Calculus BC. My Twitter feed is being bombed with first day plan posts, so I will jump in here as well. Sitting by a pool, so this I’ll not be lengthy.

Note that our first day has 25 minute classes and a long community gathering.

In Geometry I have started the past three years with a dramatic introduction to the handshake problem. It generates some fun guessing and conversations right off the bat. We are also able to revisit this problem in various forms during the year. I think it is a winning first day activity.

In our Calc Honors class I will take students out in the hallway with some wheels chairs. I will have a segment of hallway measured for length and we will have some races pushing these chairs down the hall. This, I hope, will generate some conversations about average speed tat we CAN calculate and all sorts of instantaneous information that we cannot. This should be a basis for distinguishing between secant and tangents over the first days/weeks of the course. Plus, it is fun to run down the hall!

In Discrete I am going to use a fantastic quote that I read this summer (you can find it here )  I think that this might generate some fun research and some fun conversations about magnitude.

In Calculus BC I want to start with a deep dive into a conversation about linearization and approximations. I have gathered some fun ideas on twitter about how this conversation can unfold. I hope it leads to quite a bit of noticing and wondering about accuracy and when/why that accuracy falls apart.

I am kind of embarrassed that I forgot one of the best highlights of the TMC17 conference. A while ago I received a tweet from John Golden (@mathhombre) asking if we could have a video chat about calculus. He was putting together an idea about a resource for his calculus students and wanted a variety of perspectives. Well, after a series of attempts we finally settled on a group chat on Saturday night. It was pretty loud everywhere on the lobby level so I offered my room as a quiet refuge. I had the joy of chatting about calculus with John, Jasmine Walker (@jaz_math), Edmund Harriss (@gelada), and David Butler (@DavidKButlerUofA) You can find our conversation here

 

I was SO flattered to be asked to do this and it was such a blast to chat with these four lovely and brilliant people. I told John on Sunday that I was jealous of his students. My apologies for having this wonderful experience slip my mind when I posted earlier today.

At our church this past Sunday one of the members of the congregation gave a thoughtful sermon about what it means to keep the sabbath. At least that was the primary framework of her conversation. Much of the time was spent talking about learning to take care of herself and what that looks like. Is it listening to a sermon at church? Is it staying home to garden instead? Is it taking a long walk? Is it listening to an inspiring TED talk? Naturally, there is no universal answer for this, but it sure got my mind spinning thinking about what it means for me to take care of myself.

I have engaged in a number of twitter exchanges recently sharing podcast tips. I have become hooked on a number of them and I listen while walking/jogging outside. I listen while I am on my Airdyne in the basement or on the treadmill in the basement. I was listening to Marc Maron and Randy Newman talking to each other just half an hour ago while eating my breakfast here in the airport (I am heading to TMC17 today!) Last month I was visiting my last hometown in New jersey and I went for a long stroll in a park where my wife and I used to walk as a pit stop on the way to pick up our son from day care. At the urging of an old friend – again, through a twitter conversation – I unplugged for that walk. For about 30 minutes I was strolling through this park, remembering cool fall days walking with my wife, listening to the sounds of the park and the neighborhood. It felt energizing. However, I have to admit I have not unplugged like that for another walk or run since. As energizing as that silence felt, I also recognize that I draw a great deal of energy from taking in ideas/content/entertainment through my podcasts. I tend to have music on in my house most of the time I am there. My wife and kids bought me a hammock for Father’s Day. I always bring a book with me to the hammock. I wonder (worry?) if I am just hiding from silence and from being with myself this way. I justify it by recognizing how much I enjoy being tapped into a number of conversation. By recognizing the joy I find when something I hear about that seems brand new suddenly starts popping up all around me. I am excited that I have been spending more time and energy listening to new music again due to my summer DJ gig (which I hope will turn into a fall one as well!) However, I also worry that this is making my time and mind feel even more crowded. I worry that I should put that aside and be quiet. I worry that I should be goofing around with my daughter at home more often instead of curling up with a book while she plays in her room or watches a show on TV. I justify this by thinking that I am ‘taking care of me’ by indulging in books, music, podcasts, exercise so that I can be better at helping others – wife, kiddos, students in the fall, etc.

I am in the last few weeks of summer here and I have taken on a teaching overload for the upcoming year. I’ll be teaching five classes with four different preps. This is on top of being a department chair. I think that the looming concern about what this will feel like has also made this past Sunday’s sermon more meaningful. I mentioned earlier that I know that there are no universal answers to this question, what I am worried about is that I am not clear about what the answer is in my particular situation.

I work better when I set specific goals. Last fall I was waking up early three or four times a week and going for long walks before coming home to wake up my wife for coffee in the morning. I think that I want to commit this fall to picking one day each week, Monday feels like a good choice, to making sure that I go out on this walk with no earbuds. Take a long walk or jog with the silence of an early morning in my ear. Keep my mind clear thinking about what the upcoming week holds. By putting this in writing, I am convinced that I am more likely to carry through with this plan. At the very least, I will feel vaguely guilty or embarrassed if I cannot carry through on this commitment. Not a BIG game changer, but at least this feels like a start. I will check back in on this after the school year is in gear.

As always, feel free to join in the conversation through comments here or by poking at me over on twitter @mrdardy

 

Yesterday was graduation day here at my school. I am pretty sure that this was my 31st high school graduation ceremony – mine and 30 years as a teacher. I think that I did not attend my little brother’s graduation for some reason or other. At least, I do not remember it if I was there.

There are always waves of joy/sadness/pride/regret that run through me on graduation days. I saw some alums and had lovely conversations with them that made me happy. One joked that his Calc 3 class at McGill was easier than his BC Calc class with me. I think that this is probably a compliment in the end. Some students went out their way to find me to express gratitude while others certainly showed no inclination that I was on their list of people that they wanted to talk to on graduation day. Every year ends with the good feeling that there are students who I have made connections with in or out of the classroom. Young people who appreciate that I was part of their lives here. Every year also ends with the disappointment that there are some students I was not able to connect with. Students who were frustrated by my class, did not connect with my goals or my classroom strategies. Students who will not remember me fondly – if/when they remember me at all. This is both a cause for sadness/frustration and motivation to recharge soon when I think about next year and plan for how to reach a broader set of students where they are.

I had a conversation with a colleague recently that made me reflect on graduation feelings and helped me make sense of them. My family moved in the middle of August 2016 from the boys’ dorm where we lived for six years and into a house on campus that the school owns. Since school was already looming when we moved, we did very little in the way of yard work to make the place feel like our own. This past week, my wife and I were able to spend a notable amount of time working outside and trying to make the place feel like ours. I was talking to a colleague at brunch and mentioned that I felt satisfied about the work we had done that morning. While I do not find any zen-like sense of peace and serenity while doing yard work, I do find a sense of satisfaction in looking back after two hours of work and seeing a recognizable change in our flower bed. When talking at brunch about this I contrasted the work in our flower bed with the work we do int he classroom. It feels pretty rare that we see noticeable change in just an hour or two in the classroom. The sense of satisfaction and pride I felt on graduation day when reflecting on the successes I have had is certainly deeper than my satisfaction about the flower bed, but it takes a great deal more patience to get to that graduation day feeling.

 

Apologies to anyone who tried to follow the links on my last post. I am still learning the ins and outs of google forms. I have gone back and corrected the problem, so you should be able to view the question form if you are interested in doing so.

In my last post I was reflecting on some of the important differences between students based, in part, on their age and experience. Thinking about that since the post, I also realize two other important differences between my Geometry classroom and my AP Calculus BC classroom. In our school, Geometry is the last class in our curriculum where there is not a distinction available for Honors credit. Starting in Algebra II, kids get sorted out and those students who don’t see math as ‘their thing’ or simply want to back off a bit in my subject area can. This creates rooms, in both the honors track and the non-honors track, where there is more homogeneity in interest level. In my Geometry class there is a wide divide in interest/background/ability/age in the same classroom. In my Calculus class there is a more level playing field. I think that this goes a long way to explaining some of the data I received this week. The second major difference is that, due in part to the fact that new students enter our school at every grade level, there is a more noticeable age difference in my Geometry class than in either of my other classes. I have students from grades 9 – 12 in Geometry. In my other classes I have only juniors and seniors. I think that this leads to a real difference in the social environment in these classes.

Our school asks each teacher to administer course evaluation forms to all students. The format that the school developed asks many questions, almost all of them Likert scale questions with space included for short answer explanations. I appreciate the emphasis our school places on seeking student input but I have developed the feeling that too many students just glide down the page circling essentially the same answer to questions and they are reluctant to write much down. Some have stated that they are concerned that their teachers recognize their handwriting, but I suspect that most just aren’t that terribly invested in the process. We spoke about this extensively in our last department meeting and one of the conclusions we reached was that we will administer some form of course evaluation at the end of each of our trimesters next year. After all, if the goal of the feedback is to improve the students’ experience, then telling me what to change in May does not have much weight to students who are leaving my classroom in another week. I am kind of embarrassed that I have not come to this conclusion by myself, but at least I am learning, right? I did do two things differently this year. I wrote my own surveys for each of my three classes and I administered them electronically in the hopes that I would get a little more detail from my students. If you are interested, you can see my surveys here for Geometry , here for my Discrete Math elective , and here for my AP Calculus BC class . There are not many differences between them, but I did tailor a bit for differences in the classes.

Here are screenshots of the pie-charts generated on the Google forms. First the response of the Geometry students to the group seating decisions I made this year.

Here is the response of the Discrete Math Students. One of my sections was small enough that we stayed in one group together all year. The other section had rotating groups for two of the three terms of the year.

 

Finally, here is the image for my Calculus team

 

I think that there are some interesting things happening here. I had the chance to talk to my Discrete class and they were willing to share some interesting insights. I think that the comfort level with rotating groups is closely tied to a combination of comfort level with the material and with each other. My BC kids all came from AB the year before and many of them were in the same AB sections. They know each other and they are confident with math. My Geometry kids are a wide blend of ages (grades 9 – 12) and backgrounds (a good number are new to our school this year) so there is not as much cohesion. My Discrete kids come from all over the place. Some just finished Algebra II, some had a year of Precalculus. Some had part of a year of Precalculus before switching over. Some are brand new to our school. There is a good degree of camaraderie in the classroom, but there is not a consistent feeling that everyone is on the same page. This is something I need to be more aware of and a piece of classroom culture that I think I can help improve next year. During my conversation with them yesterday, we focused on two topics. The first was group assessment – I have some group quizzes and we have a group final each term. We had all eleven people working together and they seemed to appreciate that, but felt that I needed to trim the number of questions since debate/discussion took some time. Duly noted. They also seemed to largely feel that rotations are okay, but maybe they should change after more than a week. I am thinking that they may change at the beginning of each new chapter. With our new schedule at school next year, this might work well.

I feel good looking back at this year. I took the plunge and moved from static seating in small groups to dynamic seating that created broader networks of communication among my students. I personalized the feedback I ask for and I feel that my students took these questions seriously and shared some remarks with me in a pretty honest way. I have a lot to think about this summer (as always!) but I feel that I am moving toward becoming the teacher I want to be.

Yesterday morning as my daughter, dubbed Lil’ Dardy by Christoper Danielson, and I were walking to the dining hall we had a delightful conversation. I shared it with a couple of folks who urged me to write it down to remember it. I feel that this platform is probably the most permanent one I have access to, so here goes.

We have two cats, one is named Olympic and one is named Titanic. Here is a picture of them.

The black one is Titanic and he is the subject of our conversation.

We have a neighbor cat across the street who closely resembles Titanic. The neighbor cat, my daughter has dubbed this one Mr. Whiskers due to his long white whiskers, was sitting on his porch Monday morning. Lil Dardy says that she likes Mr. Whiskers because he makes her think of what Titanic will look like. She said he looks like Titanic five years from now. I proposed that, perhaps, this was a Titanic from the future who traveled in a time machine to look after his younger self. Lil Dardy responds by telling me that scientists are working hard on building a time machine. It would be great, she informs me, for kids who don’t like school. They can just skate past their school days in the time machine. She then gets serious and says ‘Dad, I’m sorry but I think I like science more than math.’ I assure her that this is not an insult and I follow by asking why it is she likes science so much. Her quote was pretty great. ‘In science you think of something and then try to make it true.’

Pretty great conversation to start my day.

A while ago I wrote a post over at onegoodthingteach.wordpress.com (link here ) about being proud of my students on a day I was away. I have been engaged with a local leadership group this year that has had me away far more than I prefer to be. I have routinely received positive reports from my colleagues about how my students handle their responsibilities while I am away and I have always tried to share these comments with my students.

I was reminded of the importance (and joy) of this recently by two events. My blog post got a belated reply from a fellow named Josh. He linked to a post he had written on this idea. This was an important reminder not to take it for granted that my students know how much I appreciate being able to leave and knowing that some good math might still occur. The second reason is linked to my leadership program. The group in our area works with business leaders, teachers, college students, and high school students. I was asked to host one of the college students recently. The young woman who was my guest is a math major in the education program at her college. She sat in on three of my classes that day. Unfortunately, she had to leave for her class before my Geometry group met. The feedback I got from her was wonderful. She remarked on the conversations that my students were having and on the level of ideas that they were willing to wrestle with. I was SO pleased not only to hear kind words, but specifically to hear her compliment the discourse in my classroom as this is a big focus of mine. The best part though, was being able to share the remarks with my students the next day. I think that they just shrug it off a bit when my colleagues say nice things, like, maybe, they are just supposed to be nice. However, there was a more tangible reaction when the words of kindness came from a stranger, especially one who is studying math in college.

The fact that these two events happened in the same week was pretty awesome for my flagging energy level and it was a reminder of just how fortunate I am.

I’ll also be posting this reflection over at onegoodthingteach.wordpress.com

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