I took last semester off (bank leave), so Monday will be the first day teaching students in about eight months. What did I do during that time? I worked on the three R’s: resting, reading, and redesigning my classes.

Resting

I have taught a full load of classes every semester (and nearly every summer) since I started at College of Sequoias back in 1994. I did not think I needed a break because I did not feel the burnout that many teachers discuss. I love my students and I treasure working collaboratively with many colleagues at the college. However, about two months into this break I felt full of energy in a way that I have not felt in a long time.

What to do with all this energy while I am not in class?

Reading

I started reading … a lot! I have read 45 books since January 1. I read a few fiction books and baseball related books for fun, but I focused mostly on books dealing with math, creativity, and business leadership. Books in these categories always have lessons that can be incorporated into our classrooms.

Two books that had a big impact on me this year were Carol Dweck’s Mindset (Amazon link) and Jo Boaler’s Mathematical Mindsets (Amazon link). Dweck has a chapter for teachers and coaches that was enlightening, along with chapters on what the mindsets are, ability & accomplishment, business mindset and leadership, and how to change mindsets.

I’m a big believer in the power of classroom atmosphere and the impact it can have on students, especially on their attitude, motivation, and persistence. While developing a growth mindset may not be the magical solution for all students in mathematics, making students aware of some of the key tenets can do no harm. Math ability is not an innate talent, it can be grown through effort. Students with a fixed mindset believe that you are either smart or you are not, and choose not to try rather than giving their best effort and falling short because that would label them poorly. I want my students to understand that we learn even from failures. They can increase their mathematical ability with full effort, persistence, and an open mind.

I plan to be careful with my language in the classroom – praising students effort rather than their intelligence.

We all know that math has been a difficult subject for many students, and they often tell us about how they are not a “math person.” I plan to use what I read to break the connection to past struggles and launch my students on a new path to success. Based on this I added two questions to my Day 1 survey to make students aware that they (and others) can learn material that is difficult and achieve accomplishments that they felt were not attainable.

Give an example, in detail, of an area in which you once had low ability but now perform well.

 

Tell me about a person that you saw learn how to do something you never thought that person could do.

(I’ll share more about my revamped Day 1 survey in a later post.)

Redesigning My Classes

Besides incorporating what I learned about the growth mindset into my classes, I have made a few other major changes to my classes.

• Statistics
  I have made the commitment to go “early and often” with inferential statistics, devoting 20 of the approximately 60 class sessions to inferential projects. In week 2 I will spend one day on estimating a population proportion through simulation and sampling, and a second day on estimating the difference between two population proportions using resampling.

  I am also going to be using the flipped classroom often, opening up time for peer instruction and group activities using Learning Catalytics.

• Elementary Algebra
  In my daily class I will continue to use my game design based approach with a couple of tweaks. Students who level up and pass one of the exams in the first half of the course will be able to take an optional midterm cumulative exam in order to earn more points.
  Students can also earn points by completing a real-world mathematics project in which they will learn about any math related topic of their choice.

  In my class that meets twice a week I will use a traditional approach, but the online homework assignments and quizzes will have increasing weights as the semester progresses. I got this idea from reading James Lang’s Small Teaching (Amazon link). I’ll share what I have learned/incorporated from that book in a future post, but I will tell you know that James Lang is a must-follow on Twitter (@LangOnCourse on Twitter).

  I am planning on incorporating the use of Plickers in my course. Students hold up a card with answers A through D corresponding to the orientation of the card and I scan their answers with my iPhone. Think of clickers without the students having to have any technology.

I’m looking forward to a great semester, and I am looking forward to learning from you as well as sharing what I am doing with you. Please leave comments or questions, and let me know if you’d like to be friends on Goodreads.

– George

I am a math instructor at College of Sequoias in Visalia, CA and the author of an algebra textbook and co-author of Interactive Statistics with Michael Sullivan (both with Pearson).