Last year, Mr. Bonneville and I collaborated on a project to get his honors freshmen a chance to play around with the Desmos graphing calculator to create a thing. The thing was ideally going to become a keychain, but really their thing just had to be a thing they were proud of. Last year's reflection is worth the read, just to get caught up on how cool their created things really were. 

This year, Mr. Bonneville got another one of the honors freshmen teachers, Mr. Oberhauser, on board, and now six sections of students would be creating their own products. As I prepped for the lesson, I thought about last year's work and how it could get better. I mean really, the products from last year were quite phenomenal. the morning of, I wheeled in my Airwolf3D printer and got all set up, assuming that I would be doing the same spiel as with the previous group of students. After being introduced as the guy who knows about 3D printing, I asked how many students were done with their Desmos graphs; all students raised their hands. OK fine, I thought, there is still more to help with. "How many of you are done with your work in Tinkercad?" About 90% of hands when up. In each class, regardless of which teacher's room I was in. Oh, and the other teacher who was doing this for the first time? He gave his class the project a month ago, and they were all done as well!

Great. So... you don't need me anymore.

At first, it was a major bummer. After all, I love teaching, especially in an environment like what Mr. Bonneville has created. His students are respectful, challenge and support one another, and their work ethic is phenomenal. So yeah, it really deflated me to think that all the work had been done, and what remained for me was... the guy who printed.

Here are a few of their creations:

No, I didn't know what Ravenclaw was.
Yes, I am that out of touch.

What really struck me through all of this as I had a chance to reflect was how a teacher one year ago asked me to come in and work with his students through the entirety of the project. Skip forward a year and that same teacher is now so comfortable with it, as are his students, that my contributions are for more of the technical elements than the instructional shifts. 

Isn't that my goal as an instructional coach? Isn't that what we want to happen on both the teacher's side as well as the coach's side?

I do, and I'm going to keep working on being an unnecessary element in the learning process, the learning environment, and the student products. It'll take a while, so I know there is job security, but I am seeing progress and it is a whole lot of fun.

Thank you to Airwolf3D for making a printer that can withstand the printing of 210 student products. Thank you to Tinkercad for creating a product so accessible. And thank you to Mr. Bonneville and Mr. Oberhauser for taking a risk that generated so many powerful products from your students. 

​If you want to see some more amazing products on Desmos, take a look at these:

This student really wanted everything to be perfect, so she worked and worked and worked to make it so. When I came up to her, she asked if it would print clean or not, to which I wasn't sure. I suggest the possibility of dropping a background on it to make sure everything printed in tact, but warned her that it would be a lot of work since each crevice had its own shape. I was thoroughly impressed when she sat up a little and told me that "it doesn't matter if it takes a while, I want to be proud of my work."

​Folks, the kids are alright.

Happy "Becoming Unnecessary" Fishing

If you haven't been following my blog journey, I'll break down what has been happening for the past few weeks. 

After visiting math classrooms around the district (we ended up seeing over 90 lessons over 8 days, scattered around other duties, spread over 4 weeks), Paula and I decided that we needed to switch things up. We had seen some good instruction, gained some new ideas, and wanted to find ways to spread the wealth that we had gained. While we had sent out emails to let people know we were available, there just wasn't the demand to have us come in. I get it (I think): having a coach come in takes a lot of time, means you're going to do a lot of planning, and it's really more work than it's worth. So, instead of sending out an invitation for us to work together, Paula and I requested to give teachers the "day off" from teaching.

​This is the email template we sent out:

As you can see, my role is to support the Integrated Math 1 teachers and Integrated Math 2 teachers, while Paula's is everything else. This helps, because we can focus our attention on specific areas and gives the teachers someone more direct to work with.

Once we sent the email out to department chairs, we waited. And waited. And then it came, slowly but surely, a few teachers replying back with the desire to take us up on the offer. After all, they're getting the day off! No planning, no delivery, no stress; just showing up to work and watching.

Well, you see, that's where things get fun. Call it evil or call it tricky, but either way, the real goal was not to "give the teacher a day off" but to give the teacher an alternative perspective on a lesson they were planning to teach. For each teacher who said yes to us coming in, we worked with them on the following points:

• What standards do you hope to address?
• What learning do you want to take place during the lesson?
• What do you want to see modeled during the lesson?
• What do you not want to see modeled during the lesson?
• How would you have taught this lesson if I wasn't showing up?

Sidebar:

One thing I have learned since taking on this role as a math instructional coach is that many, many math teachers don't write lesson plans. Sometimes, and no judgment here, they just... wing it. I know. Crazy. But so true. And then I saw this tweet from Jen Poole.

Why is that? Have we become so complacent that we don't care about the preparation for a lesson? Have we given up on our students, our craft, our profession? And who is writing 2+ page lesson plans on a daily basis?!

No, I don't think so. I think it's because we fall into patterns and comfort zones, and lesson planning is something that can perceivably be trimmed from the to-do list because "I've taught this before" or "I already know what I'm doing." 

One thing I find helpful in the lesson design process is the methodical intent behind each facet of a lesson. Wondering about how we can best pivot from the warm-up to the objective of the day to the lesson and keeping students' attention and curiosity at the same time is a challenge, and not one that can effectively be executed by winging it on a regular basis. Another is someone to bounce ideas off of. While Paula bullies me into doing things and taking on new tasks (thanks, btw), she is also a fantastic sounding board for how a lesson might flow, what a better prompt may be, and how to get just a little more out of students. 

​After we received the feedback from the teachers, it was to the planning board, where we found a new and risky way to teach whatever was paced out to be taught. I broke away and began planning my IM1 or 2 lessons and Paula planned hers. The first place I would always look was the MTBoS search engine, which I strongly recommend you check out. Every single lesson I was about to teach had been taught (imagine that) by someone in the search engine, and there was a handout, a template, a presentation ready to go. No, I didn't use something from the engine each time, but knowing it was there gave me a different way of approaching it. It broke me out of my bubble, which is even more important the longer you've been in the profession.

After the lesson had been designed, I sent it off to the teacher to see what he/she thought of the design. Is that what you're looking for? How would you make it better? Is there anything you would recommend I change? 

As promised, we would come in and do everything, which included making copies and all instruction. However, the sneaky part was that we knew it would be hard to watch someone else teach your students in your classroom all day, so we offered to cede the floor. After all, those are my kids! If the teacher wanted, we would co-teach a period, or even give them back their class and let them try the lesson. This wasn't always used, but it was always offered, and the results were well worth the effort. What has happened more often than not has been the teacher jumping in and helping the students with the activity, the problem, and even the lesson itself. 

Overall, the experience has been:

humbling. You, the regular classroom teacher, gave up a day in your pacing to let someone else teach. That says a lot about who you are and how comfortable you must be to try something new. Thank you.

humbling. Kids are still kids, and sometimes they couldn't care less that you're some district office coach, that you have some things to share, or that you're trying something new. The baggage they come with outweighs whatever you bring in. I needed that, so thank you.

uplifting. We have a district full of teachers who are ready to take risks and try new things. No matter which teacher we collaborated with, the mood was always respectable and positive, leaning in and learning with each other rather than "hearing from the DO."

invigorating. I'm not sure you realize how hard it is to not be in the classroom. I enjoy kids, I love the energy they bring, and I feed off their desire to learn. So when people are jealous of me being a coach while they're in the classroom, they need to know that the students are where it's at. 

If you are a TOSA, no matter the grade level or the content specialty, I strongly encourage you to offer your teachers the day off. Yes, it is a lot of work, and you end up going home exhausted, out of breath, and hungry, but it is so worth the effort. If nothing else, there is value in reminding yourself what it is like to be a classroom teacher, to stay relevant, and to feel the energy of a classroom full of students.

In case you miss them, here are my reflections from most of the days I have gotten to teach in this round, which include all resources I used for each lesson:

Parallel Lines and Transversals
Triangle Congruence
Triangle Sum Theorem
Pythagorean Theorem
Angle Addition Postulate
Stats 3D Printed Dice
Geometric Transformations
Barbie Zipline

Happy "Day Off" Fishing