teaching

First, it was grit. Now, it’s urgency.

Posted on by Mark Isero

 A few months ago, I read a New York Times article about character education and got excited about teaching my students about the importance of grit.

I think my students have gotten the point — that failure is OK as long as you work hard and never give up.

Today in class, I introduced a new word: urgency.

We don’t have time to waste. The first semester is almost over, the AP test is in May, and pretty soon, my students are out of here and on to college.

There is significant work to do.

Teaching urgency, however, is not easy. First, it must be unanxious. If I’m running around, stressing out all the time, telling my students that things need to be done now-now-now, and giving them the impression they’re horrible, that would be sending the wrong message. After all, part of learning is struggle; the other part is joy.

At the same time, teaching urgency means demanding hard work all the time, every single day. This is the hard part for me. My students already think they’re working hard. Some say they’re working harder than ever before. The problem is, they need to work even harder. I need to be a better and more consistent cheerleader.

I also need to find out a way to accelerate learning. My students and I are putting in a lot of time (maybe not enough?), but the improvements haven’t stuck yet. While it may be hard to see growth from one day to the next, it’s also clear that more growth is necessary — and quickly.

How do you teach urgency? Do you have ideas for me? 

teaching

Why “Your Homework Is Due Tonight” is working, #2

Posted on by Mark Isero

 If homework is supposed to be done at home, then it should be due at home, too. That’s the premise of “Your Homework Is Due Tonight.”

This year, I’m having my students turn in their homework the night before it’s due. So far, it’s working. In a recent post, I wrote that checking homework during class is too late, takes too long, and leads to conflict and negativity.

Here’s another benefit: Extensions aren’t really extensions.

Let’s say a student has a situation and needs more time to complete an assignment. There are two options: (1) Don’t allow any late work at all, (2) Allow for extensions in extenuating circumstances.

The problem with #1 is that it’s often too punitive. The problem with #2 is that it makes the student fall behind. While finishing up the assignment with the extension, the student is not fully engaged in what’s happening in the classroom right now.

When homework is due the night before class, however, extensions take on a new meaning.

It happened today. My students’ essay is due at 10 p.m. tonight. Two students texted me to ask for an extension. One had a basketball game, and the other had a family engagement. “I don’t think I can finish it on time,” they wrote.

I texted back, “By when can you have it?”

One wrote, “11 p.m.,” and the other one wrote, “Midnight.”

Amazing. Even if I had given them until the morning, the students would not fall behind.

What’s great about “Your Homework Is Due Tonight” is that it’s creating a due date before the due date. Instead of setting up one deadline — which introduces a pass/fail dichotomy — it allows for mistakes and imperfections along the way. It gives me a sense of who’s struggling and a chance to intervene.

It also switches my role as a teacher. Instead of sending the message of “you didn’t do the homework, and there’s nothing you can do now,” it says, “I see that you’re behind, but there’s still a chance for you to catch up.”

Most important, “My Homework Is Due Tonight” organizes time and allows for a shared classroom experience. Homework is done at home. When students get to class, there is no question about homework. We all know where we stand, so we can all move forward.

Please let me know what you think! 

teaching

The good and bad news of Grammar Week

Posted on by Mark Isero

 Last week, instead of doing a new AP Practice Essay, my students and I focused on grammar and proofreading.

Their assignment: Choose an essay they’ve written this year and then eliminate as many errors as possible.

Here are the ways my students received support:

  • I read each student’s essay and reported the total number of errors to find and correct. Important: I didn’t identify the errors on the essay.
  • Next, their peer reviewer and online writing mentor read the essay and identified potential errors.
  • We also devoted 30 minutes in class to find and fix errors.

Grammar Week had some good and bad news.

The good: Some students dramatically reduced the number of their errors. One went from 42 to 7. Another went from 56 to 15. This pleased me and sent a message that hard work and precision can lead to grammar growth.

In addition, the average number of errors decreased from 25 to 11. That means that my 23 students fixed a total of 322 errors in their essays.

One more piece of good news: One student had zero errors, and another six had fewer than five.

The bad: There are still way too many errors. You just can’t have 11 errors in a five-paragraph, two-page essay. The AP readers are going to eat them alive.

Although some students showed evidence of working hard, some did not. I was flabbergasted that one student had 42 errors at the beginning of the week and then 40 at the end. Another student dropped from 18 to 14, a minuscule improvement. My feeling is that many of my students still need to learn better work habits, a stronger sense of grit, and a heightened sense of what’s good enough. Too many people (me, their online writing mentor, their peer reviewer) are working too hard for my students to be working so little.

Here’s the worst part: That’s 11 errors after substantial revision. Remember that students take their handwritten draft through a week of revision (with peer and adult support) before turning in their essay. This Grammar Week was an additional revision process. Exactly how many errors exist on their original handwritten draft? I’m scared to broach this subject. It might be too painful.

Despite the bad news, I’m doing what I can do as a teacher to help my students with their writing and grammar skills. This is a process, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I just wish that results would come more quickly and more easily.

It’s impossible to tell which efforts (Grammar Camp? individual grammar coaches? online writing mentors? peer reviewers? time in class? one-on-one conferences with me?) work best.

Looking at the data, I find that in-person intervention has worked most effectively. Students who have grammar coaches or go to office hours to conference with me do better than those who rely on online support alone. This observation is good to note, but then it leads me to the next question: How exactly am I supposed to get 20 minutes of in-person support every week to every student?

Stay tuned (for my next idea): Virtual one-on-one conferencing using Jing. 

technology

Online video chat with students, Take 2

Posted on by Mark Isero

 This semester, I’m trying to do online video chats with my students to discuss literature — and to encourage them to read over the weekend.

Last Sunday, over on my class website, iseroma.com/live, we used Tinychat, which didn’t work very well. Most of our time was spent getting students online and able to hear each other in real time. Tinychat wasn’t a viable solution.

Tonight, we switched things up and tried ooVoo, which worked much better. Nevertheless, several students reported trouble downloading the ooVoo plugin. Others could barely hear their peers; others had trouble with their microphone.

Online video chat just isn’t easy. It relies on people’s tech knowledge and equipment. And talking to students in a group online has different rules and expectations than in a classroom. We’re just beginning to figure out those norms.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of frustration. My primary outcome — to get students to read over the weekend — is definitely being met. But I don’t know whether this is worth my students and my time on Sunday nights.

For next steps, I’m thinking of making things a little simpler. I’ll stay online for one hour, the first half for students who’d like to video chat and the second half for students who prefer text only. It’ll be interesting to see which students choose which platform and how the discussions are different.

Do you have any ideas for making online video chat work better? 

teaching

Teaching time management to students

Posted on by Mark Isero

 For my library science class, I have a 15-page research paper due in a month. No, I haven’t started yet. But at least I know that I should be starting.

Most of my students, on the other hand, don’t know what’s due past tomorrow. Sure, I give them calendars and assignment sheets, but my students never look at them.

For my students, the world is now. Today is the future. Next week is far off, and next month is an eternity away.

But most worthwhile things in life — and most school projects — take time to complete. That’s why I need to teach my students better time management.

One way to do so is to break up a large assignment — say, reading a book — into smaller, more manageable parts, and then checking progress along the way. I suppose this is what project managers do in the corporate world. But my thinking is that this method doesn’t actually teach anything. Sure, I can cut up a product into parts, but can my students do the same thing?

Some teachers flip conventional practice and tell students to create their own schedule. This sounds good in practice but is difficult to implement. At best, this means I have to remember each student’s individual schedule, which is a little crazy (and undermines the whole-class community). At worst, students grossly underestimate the time each task takes, fall behind their schedule, give up early, and then require my assistance cheerleading them back.

The best thing I’m finding is to text my students about upcoming due dates and to encourage them to start early. Even if they don’t, they will have received the message. That’s what I did tonight: I told my students an upcoming essay is due at the end of the week.

At least three students texted me back. One asked, “What essay?” The other two asked, “When is the essay due?”

I wanted to respond, “Please check your calendar,” but I’ve found that withholding information just makes students mad. Giving them the answer, however, only enables similar behavior in the future. I’m not sure how to move students toward longer-term thinking and better time management, but at least I’m trying to see what works.

What do you think?