Algebra classroom meeting and turn-around

About a month ago, the morale of my Algebra class hit a low point.  Here are excerpts from my private journal:

…the  class has been unfocused and terribly disruptive over the past 3 days.  I feel terrible and stressed about my lack of ability to turn this around.  Having students leave the classroom for 2 minutes is not making a difference.  Holding the class for 1 minute after class is not making a difference.  Giving after school detention to individuals is not working, because there are so many kids that are talking when they’re supposed to be working on task.  I feel like I’m chasing one group and then another, and individual students stay quiet only when I’m talking with them.  Today was the worst.  I was about to send a student to the front office when others started to act out because they wanted to also leave the class.  It then became a “us vs them” and I might have lost a third of the class.  Before jumping over this cliff, I stopped everything.  I told all students (including the ones that were lining up to leave the room) to take out a clean piece of paper and write their responses to a few questions like, “what do you need to learn math that you’re not getting?” and “what are some things you can do to help you get what you need?”   The primary purpose of this writing was to diffuse the situation by quietly writing.  The secondary purposes were to give students a chance to vent, but also to identify what they could do to take ownership over the classroom culture.

I read their responses that evening.  They felt I was not addressing their needs because they weren’t understanding what we were studying and they felt we were spending too much time in seminar.  Some said that it was the way I was teaching, and not me, that they were frustrated with.  Some said that it was the other students’ behaviors they were frustrated with.

The next day, I started the period by sharing the messages that I’d heard, what I would be changing, and what I was expecting from each student.  From the facial expressions and the rest of the hour, it was clear that they felt that I’d heard them.

Over the past month, this class’ classroom has gotten better and better.  We have longer periods of quiet work than ever before.  We still have too many disruptions and my lessons still need to be shorter, but students feel heard, are getting questions answered, and I’m working in more variety into the lessons.

Their responsiveness and the notable improvement after that class meeting taught me a valuable lesson.  I’ve learned from my three different classes that a healthy classroom culture is critical to the learning environment. I’m learning to foster a classroom culture where students have voice and ownership of the culture.  I’m learning that students want

Week 1 of my own classes

This week, I began teaching my own classes.  Three new math classes were formed to relieve the overcrowding in other math classrooms.   I began the week with the benefit of having read some of my cohort’s experiences and having experienced my mentor teacher’s start of year processes.  I wanted this week focused on getting to know each other and creating a classroom culture in which students can most successfully learn. I also wanted to develop the culture while learning math, so we studied math in short increments, with frequent process checks to ensure students were looking at how they worked as individuals and as a class.  This is a process that I intend to continue next week as we establish class procedures together.

In one geometry class, I tried a “get to know you” exercise in which students wrote their name and a superpower that they’d like to have on post-its.  The students wrote, spoke, got out of their seats and posted the notes up, and were attentive listeners as each student participated.  In another geometry class, almost half the students did not want a superpower.  I thought I’d introduced the game in a similar way, but this very different group responded very differently.  In one short week, I can see that the first class has more students with high math ability, and the second class has more students with low math ability.  While both classes have similar distributions of 9th and 10th graders, and both have high and low performers, just a few vocal students are making a big difference in the quality of questions and answers I’m getting from each class.

My first assignment was to answer 7 questions about themselves, including who they are and why they needed to be successful in this class.  I got some useful first impressions as students told me about good and not-so-good math experiences.  For those who didn’t participate, I will be getting back to them individually to understand why.  I saw a few signs of trouble writing and spelling, and I’ll be looking into whether these students can understand the written directions they will be getting on assignments and assessments.

I didn’t assign seats to begin with.  I wanted to see who students self-selected to sit by.  With my algebra class, the rowdiest of my classes, I gave a seating chart on day 3.  Because I’m a traveling teacher using other’s classes during their planning period, I am teaching in 3 different room layouts.  The seminar model is the most difficult for me at this time, but I’ll be trying different approaches to make it work.  So far I like adjacent tables of 2 best, so that students can turn and talk with a partner.  I did move one student from the back to the front because he was squinting to see the board.  I can see that he was too shy to sit where he needed to, and I will be asking him about getting glasses.

On day 2, I asked a student to stay after class because of poor choices in what he was saying.  When he did not stay after school, I tried calling home, and found the number disconnected.  I called work, to find out the mom would be coming in the next morning.  I started to get a picture of SES challenges.  While this doesn’t excuse his poor behavior, it does raise some compassion in me.  He’s supposed to come in half an hour before school on Monday.  I plan to have him read my observations of his behavior the past week, and for him to propose a plan to turn things around.  Until an acceptable plan is proposed, he will lose all privileges to talk in that class.  I’ll be calling his mom to establish contact.  I believe it’s vital in the early stages to establish a constructive atmosphere and put a quick stop to destructive comments.