{"id":48,"date":"2017-10-16T00:49:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T00:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/?p=48"},"modified":"2017-10-17T13:37:58","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T13:37:58","slug":"help-ive-got-voices-in-my-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/2017\/10\/16\/help-ive-got-voices-in-my-head\/","title":{"rendered":"Help! I’ve Got Voices in my Head!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Does anyone else feel like they\u2019ve got two different voices in their head competing with each other? Ok, so now that you think I\u2019m completely crazy, hopefully you\u2019ll read on so this question makes more sense.<\/p>\n

I find myself flip-flopping between favouring one voice one day, and the other voice the next day. For the purposes of this story I will call these voices \u201cOld School Guy\u201d and \u201cNew School Guy\u201d, and their back and forth goes something like this\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cCome on, Old School Guy, teaching math needs to move into the 21st<\/sup> Century. You need to be doing Problem-Based Learning<\/span>, flipping your classroom<\/span>, and using tools like EdPuzzle<\/a>, Quizlet<\/a>, Khan Academy<\/a>, \u2026 (he continues on like this for about 3 minutes)<\/em> \u2026 YouCubed<\/a>, Kahoot<\/a>, and Quizizz<\/a> in order for your students to learn better and get more out of their high school math experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWell, have you ever considered that the reason we\u2019ve taught math this way for this long is that it works for most students? Ever heard the old saying \u2018if it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cHA! You just said it works for \u2018most students\u2019 which means it\u2019s NOT working for a considerable number of students! Is it possible that the system isn\u2019t \u2018broken\u2019 per say, but may have several cracks in it that need our attention? What if you just tried ONE of these new approaches to learning in ONE of your classes? Ever heard the old saying \u2018don\u2019t bite off more than you can chew\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cHa ha ha\u2026 Have you ever considered that introducing these new approaches could make things worse?\u201d<\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of research that says it won\u2019t, but I grant you, I guess it could. But is that a reason to not try it at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cOk, ok. What about time? If I try your new fancy tactics it\u2019s going to take me a lot longer to get through certain topics, compared to previous years. Now when June rolls around, I\u2019ve run out time and I\u2019m passing my students on to the next grade level missing core knowledge needed for success at that level.\u201d<\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cBut isn\u2019t it better for students to learn some concepts REALLY well and make a personal connection with them, which improves retention in future years?\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWe all want good retention, but you still haven\u2019t answered my question. How do you plan on filling in the gaps caused by us spending more time on certain topics?\u201d<\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWanna know a secret? If you set it up properly, using PBL and\/or various classroom tools will take the same amount of time as if you taught a concept the way you always have! If you structure the time properly, the unit that used to take three weeks to cover will still take three weeks, you just have to be willing to give up some of those favourite lectures of yours and instead be a guide for your students while they figure out some of this stuff on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 (opens his mouth to speak)<\/em><\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cAh ah ah, I already know your next question \u2013 \u2018how does assessment work if I\u2019m teaching this way\u2019?”<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cCheater… Stop reading Mike’s thoughts. You know you’re supposed to stay in the right hemisphere of his brain and I stay in the left. No crossies, remember?… Ok smart guy, how does assessment work if I\u2019m teaching this way?”<\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cSimple… you are the teacher, you decide! Obviously you will be observing their progress each day, but you can have paper-pencil assessments on certain days in order to \u2018check-in\u2019 on their knowledge level. You could do daily exit quizzes, have them fill out reflective journals… you can use any number of techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cAlright, alright. You are very convincing. I think I\u2019m going to give this a try. Now, where\u2019s my time to research and develop a project like this? Or try all these new educational tools for myself? You can\u2019t expect me to teach a full course load, coach a team, be a good husband and father, AND develop something like this from scratch. ARE YOU NUTS?! Where\u2019s my time to do this?\u201d<\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cWell you can always create it during the summer! :)\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 (Gives the deepest of death stares)<\/em><\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cOk, seriously. If you\u2019re looking to try PBL, you don\u2019t need to start from scratch. There are so many resources available on the internet. There are lots of projects that many teachers are currently using, and you can use these as a starting point and modify them to fit your specific needs. As for the ed tools, you will have to spend some time familiarizing yourself with these to see which ones work best for your practice, but once you do this, your students are going to be much more engaged. Remember what I said earlier about not biting off more than you can chew? Maybe just try one tool in one class and see where it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cOk, so Google finds hundreds of PBL resources for me with a single search. When do I have the time to go through all of them to find what works best for me?\u201d<\/p>\n

(At this point, I feel like Derek<\/a>\u00a0(@ddoucet<\/a>) would somehow jump into this conversation and say something like \u201cYou don\u2019t need to search through hundreds of resources, just start a Twitter Chat and ask the other Cohort 21ers for help!\u201d\u2026 Alright, back to the convo\u2026)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

New School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I don\u2019t have an answer for you. Time is the unsolved mystery in education. Yes, going through a new process is going to take time, but if you\u2019re going to give this a try, don\u2019t give it a half try. Don\u2019t just dip your toe in the water because when your new attempt fails, the fault will have been yours. You need to give this a full try. Dive in head first, get messy, get uncomfortable, and if it fails after that, then go back to your old ways, but I\u2019m telling you, it’s NOT going to fail. You\u2019re going to see that the time you put in beforehand is going to pay off in ways you can\u2019t imagine! And you\u2019re going to be better for it and, most importantly, your students are going to be better because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old School Guy<\/strong> \u2013 \u201cOk, but what about\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And on and on this goes. Is anyone else out there having a similar internal struggle? I feel like the right approach lies somewhere in the grey area between these two guys’ philosophies, but where exactly? That’s a lot of grey.<\/p>\n

\n

(picture courtesy of comicvine.com)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does anyone else feel like they\u2019ve got two different voices in their head competing with each other? Ok, so now that you think I\u2019m completely crazy, hopefully you\u2019ll read on so this question makes more sense. I find myself flip-flopping … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215,"featured_media":49,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classroom-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/215"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/66"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/michaelmoore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}