Students are actually requesting new blog posts!

This illustrates my greatest strength, as well as the largest obstacle of my teaching career. I excel at building positive, encouraging relationships with my students. Even students who do not do well in my classes will often come to me for support, even after they have moved on; some even after they have graduated high school.

My students this year have become so comfortable with me that they have set aside the proper classroom decorum of respect for teacher and learning environment in favor of a casual environment that often distracts from the appointed topic. Although I have turned all of the desks to be forward-facing, I have been trying to continue with the boys separate from girls experiment. Changes need to take place however. The learning environment is more important than the experiment.

I’m not saying the experiment is unsuccessful. In fact, the separation has proven valuable, but I am beginning to think that the key to keeping students engaged is to keep them distracted. Regular change is the theme of the day.

Proximity to the teacher, not the front of the room, determines the participation level of the students. When I teach from the front of the room, the students in the front tend to answer more questions, but when I teach from the back or center of the room (a luxury afforded me by the magic of powerpoint and a remote control) the students in the group I am closest to answer more questions and get more involved in the discussion.

Boys are generally, but not exclusively, more difficult to manage. The talking level of the boys has increased significantly since moving them to the back of the room. I still spend much of my time in the front of the class and the talking in the back is greater than when the girls were back there. It quiets down when I stand back there, but I can’t be there all the time. The girls talked quite a bit when they were back there, but it was not as much as the boys.

I told the students today that I needed 36 front row seats and I would just set them in a semi-circle, but I don’t think that will happen. Realistically, I think I should put the boys in the front, where I am most of the time, but teach from the center of the room where I can influence the most students at once. I can continue to use the powerpoint and remote so that I can be close to the students, but still use the board frequently as well.

I don’t know that I would recommend that everyone do this, but, if you are thinking of groups, you might try the gender separation. My Principal asked me if I thought it was helping and I said that I am certain it is not making it worse.

I went around to each group today and talked to them about helping each other and encouraging each other. I told them that if there are students in their group that are underperforming then they need to work together to get them up to speed. I still offer tutoring a couple of days a week and the lab is open every day, so I reminded them of that as well.

I made one change to the groups in my first period class, due to people transferring in and out and there are a couple of students perpetually absent, just to balance them out.

Group dynamics have been researched endlessly. Different studies have come to different conclusions, but most say that small to medium size groups work most effectively. I have my chairs in groups of 6 (4 – 6 students in each group), which allows me to split the groups into two “3′s” is necessary. The students are motivating and encouraging each other.

The next question is how effective the groups are at helping each other understand the material. In grading the most recent test, I found that some students don’t seem to be reading the question. So how can I get the students’ encouraging each other to transfer into permanent knowledge?

I could see this coming, because he was increasing in his vocal exuberance throughout the week. Friday he disagreed about something and burst out in his obvious displeasure. He wasn’t angry, but it was clear that he thought something was unfair. The mouth dropped. The overly obvious gasp was accompanied with several “wha, huh, wha?” and then he continued to talk about it in his group loud enough for the rest of the class to hear. Finally, I told him that he needed to learn when to stop.

I relay this story fully aware that some of my students may read this and will know exactly what I am talking about. I don’t want to embarrass the student. I had a couple of options. I could have ignored it (it would have stopped eventually and it could have been overlooked). I could have pulled him out and talked one-on-one about his behavior. He made a public show, so I chose to as well. I am hoping it was a teaching moment and that he learns that we all have to learn when to stop.

I wonder how this would have played out if I had the traditional rows and the genders mixed. His group-mates were actually telling him to stop, but he wasn’t responding. I don’t know if the fact that he was in a group of all boys encouraged his outburst (regardless of what they were saying to him) or if the peers calmed him a little.

I am certain that we teach more than our subject matter in the classroom. Social behavior and group dynamics are an important part of what I am doing here. On the other hand, a part of me thinks I should have let the group handle it at least a little longer than I did.

Another interesting dynamic is the group set up. My students have become more comfortable with me and with each other faster than I can remember ever happening before. The benefit of the groups is that students are able to talk and work together more easily. My students have already been helping and encouraging each other. Having the students teach to their group has already shown some benefit. On the other hand, the group setting also makes it easier for students to talk at inappropriate times.

My next step is to encourage group accountability and motivation among peers.

Perhaps this is obvious, but boys learn differently than girls. I’m going to do some research on this and review the literature that is already out there, but I’m pretty sure boys and girls are different. They act differently. They learn differently. Girls are more often labeled as shy and introverted in the classroom (particularly in math) and I have long been an advocate of girls success in mathematics. Boys, on the other hand are more often labeled as ADHD or hyperactive and inattentive. Some  propose separate learning environments entirely, but I am wondering if separate groups  within the same classroom might provide some results.

Speaking of groups… Research varies on the most effective size of learning groups, but it fairly consistently supports the idea that groups of peers create a learning environment that cannot be otherwise duplicated. I recently read about a ministry method where a small group is developed with a facilitator teaching a lesson and then an apprentice repeats the same material to the rest of the group. The apprentice is strengthened by teaching and the rest of the group benefits from hearing the information twice. Why not apply this in the classroom? I have created groups based on gender and these groups will remain consistent for the entire course. After the initial lecture, the students will take turns re-presenting the lesson to their group. Each student will benefit from teaching their lesson and the rest of the group will receive the information a second time. The students will take turns so each student will present about once a week.

This blog will be a working record of my progress and I invite the comments of my students, parents, peers, and others.

For me, the difficult parts were finding a video on TeacherTube that wasn’t entirely lame and choosing one of the great Google add-ons that could directly apply to my class. I tried GoogleDocs because I thought it would be a good way to give students access to extra review worksheets. However, the mathType software we use to insert equations into Word documents does not work within Google. I also thought of creating a group, but that seemed redundant for my purposes. Scholar and knol look very interesting, but the resources are college level. Finally, I decided that one of the goals I have for this year is to help students connect math to the real world. So I created a link from my page directly to the GoogleNews with a search for ‘math’ already completed. Students will look at this and journal or blog about how math we learn in class is being applied in the real world.