The Next Best Thing

I was thinking today, when I attempted to tackle some yard work with a 2 year old and a 3 year old in tow, that we don't always get to do exactly what we want to do. I can have a bunch of energy, and set out to pull every weed in the lawn, cut the lawn, trim every bush, sweep the patio, etc., etc., and I will pretty much always fall short.

You know that sick overwhelming feeling that comes when you see the weeds choking out the garden, and the patio covered in pine needles?  It's a tough one to overcome.  "I can't do this." "It's too much." "May as well just not start."

Then, at the end of the day, we ask ourselves, "have I done enough?" @tina_zita covers this question in her blog post, "June Comes the Same Time Every Year."  Doubt tends to creep in, and negativity. 

Teachers know this: we sometimes come in to work with to-do lists as long as our arms, a set of "must be dones", that don't get done.  Parents know this-dinner to cook, laundry to do, kids to put to bed.  Baseball players should know this, but they often swing for the fences when a base hit would do. 

There can be kind of an analysis paralysis associated with trying to get things done.  Too many things to do, too little time, nothing gets done.  But those who say just getting started is the biggest thing are probably right.  

I'm no expert with lifehacks for all situations, but today, I asked myself, "if you can't do everything you want to do, what's the next best thing?"

Cutting the lawn and pulling all the weeds became cutting the lawn close so the weeds didn't show.

Whacking the weeds down in the garden as much as I could took the place of weeding the whole garden. 

The patio got swept, but there is still a bit of loose debris. 

So try this thought exercise the next time you feel overwhelmed.  Take your perfect world set of goals for each day.  We are humans, and we dream big, so some of them may be a bit out of reach. For each one, figure out what the next best thing is, that you can live with.  

Mark 2 sets of essays instead of three.  Finish 3 items on your to-do list instead of 5, but do them really well.  Adjust your expectations, and be careful of your perfectionism.  

The lawn looks fine.  There's still weeds, but it's done. (For now...)

CC image by katerha.

"Put them in a line and count them": Comments from the Real/Fake World of Math Class

I used this problem with grade 6s yesterday:

An interesting problem, or not? pic.twitter.com/7nB784XGR3

— Matthew Oldridge (@MatthewOldridge) June 20, 2014

I am not sure where this problem came from.  I do know that it stumped me for a while, although a decent number of students eventually got it, and the solution makes sense.

The first thing to note is that we are distinctly operating in the "fake world" here. No such club exists. There is no pressing need to do this particular math. There is no inquiry that can be done here. I defer, as always, to Dan Meyer on this topic.

 The problem is "word problemy", in the fact that it is asking for something simple- a single number of people, which it obscures through the design of its words.  That said, there are no dirty tricks here- it's a fraction problem, of the sort that uses a fraction of a missing whole, then a fraction of a slightly larger whole.

So why give this problem?  Here are some of our usual reasons:

1.  We are doing a fractions unit, and this problem can get us to think about fractions.
2.  To see what kind of thinking our students do on this problem.
3.  This problem is useful in its applications in the real world.
4. Because it's interesting, or beautiful.  These are our best reasons to do math, I think.

#1 didn't apply here.  #2 I am always interested in, although slightly less so when the pressure is off us in late June. As to #4, this problem did hold our interest for a while. It is a tricky one, and it engaged our desire to "puzzle it out".  There were some arguments interpreting the language of the problem, and trying and discarding some possible answers. Multiples of 4 and 7 were clearly involved, somehow.

As to #3, I will defer to my student's comments on the problem.

-you would just line the members of the club up in a line and count them. That's the solution. 

It's difficult to argue with that logic.

Reading, Writing, Coding, and "Absolutes" in Our Education System

I have taken a critical stance on the role of coding in schools.  Whenever I read an article with an underdeveloped thesis like "all kids must learn to code", I immediately ask "why"?  Often the articles are little more than a buzzy few paragraphs touting a great app. The "why" so often seems to be missing.

It doesn't help that these articles often come through aggregators like ASCD Smart Brief, Flipboard, or Zite with preposterous headlines like, "Is Coding as Important as Reading and Writing?"  Not only do the articles never make such grand claims, but also such absolutism tends to detract from the argument in the article.  (has anyone else noticed how headlines are little more than Buzzfeed style "clickbait" these days, even on reputable newspaper websites?)

I'm of the mindset that we never teach without the "why" in mind.  If we can't identify the critical skills, habits of mind, or plain old reasons for doing something, we probably shouldn't be doing it in the classroom. This post is an attempt to unravel the "why" of coding in the classroom.

My own experiences consist of a lone programming course in the Pascal language.  I am not sure that I finished my program for my project (a Minesweeper clone, that the teacher gave the perhaps politically incorrect name "Drunkard's Walk".) I do remember unraveling the mysteries of binary and other non base 10 number systems. That's a strong math connection right there. I would consider learning to write code for iOS, if I thought of a good app idea. Maybe that is a growth goal right there.

I've found lots of inspiring examples of code in the classroom, creative work in Scratch, for example, in primary.  My working theory, having seen but not worked in Scratch, is that it's an interesting and "new" form of visual storytelling.  I also think we should be listening to the words of people like athlete Chris Bosh, who talks about his formative experiences with code. I also usually tend to listen when the President of the United States stands up and asks all Americans to consider learning computer science.

This Mother Jones article is probably the best and most detailed read i've found on the topic.  The "why", if you accept the argument, and I do, is that we will all be the better for using the particular computational logic we can learn through becoming more computer literate.  Beginning from a "feat of imagination", and bringing creative, flexible and logical thinking leading to a task.  I think this is the true argument behind bringing coding to schools.

My colleague, @cashjim knows a lot more about this topic than I do, and here's what he has to say:

@MatthewOldridge Great article! There is a #coding bandwagon but you can encourage computational/procedural thinking without hard coding.
— Jim Cash (@cashjim) June 18, 2014

And further:

@MatthewOldridge ...not coding for coding's sake. However, some early coding experiences can lead to a lifelong interest. That is a fact.
— Jim Cash (@cashjim) June 18, 2014

I am left thinking, like I often am, about the role of "non-negotiables" or "absolutes", particularly in the elementary grades.  There is a long checklist of curriculum expectations that every student must work on, at the same time as everyone else in their grade.  The breakdown of traditional subjects still holds-math is still math, geography still geography, history still past.  Everything stays in its little container (except when true inquiry learning takes root, and new branches grow).

So should coding be added to a list of non-negotiables for the 21st century learner?  What would it replace? Or should we be giving children as young as Kindergarten choices about things to learn, including coding? I'm of the mind that more choice is always better, and yes, I advocate for giving young children choices in what they learn.  So we wouldn't always do "coding for coding's sake", as Jim said: rather, give kids a problem to solve, and let problem-solving with code be one of their options.  Keep it about questions, and the constant process of inquiry (across all subjects), and let computational thinking be one of our solutions.

"Be Like Mike": Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein, and the Growth Mindset

In our math session yesterday at #7to10PDSBnet, we talked a lot about how having a growth mindset impacts on education.

As we were watching Eduardo Briceno's TED talk, I got to thinking about the premier athlete of my childhood, Michael Jordan.  I think Michael's early "failure" is well-documented (getting cut from his grade 9 team), but we probably don't often think about the growth, reinvention, and improvement that happened over  the course of his career.

My thinking is that it's every so easy to look at the Michael Jordans around us as freaks of nature, the lucky few who are so prodigiously talented and gifted that they make things look easy.  The truth is, Michael was probably the hardest worker around, and he never settled into a fixed mindset about himself as a basketball player.

Two examples to prove this point:
-mid career he became an average 3 point shooter. Not great, like Reggie Miller, or Ray Allen, but average.  But this did not happen without taking many many thousands of 3 pointers.  It comes out of a dedication and belief in improvement, and persistent work.
-at some point he added the ridiculous iconic turnaround jumpshot that became his main weapon.  Again, this doesn't happen without a belief in your own ability to improve, to get better, to grow.

You could probably argue that it's easier to have a growth mindset as an athlete-you are always working on and developing skills that will help you play the game better.  You could also argue that Michael had the benefit of height, agility, spatial awareness, and leaping ability.  There may be some truth to that- but his success was all in how he leveraged his gifts and grew over time.

We all have our gifts.  We just need to nurture them and develop them.  But what difference is there between saying "I can't shoot a 3 pointer", "I can't do Math", or "I can't cook"?  If we believe that we, and our students have brains that are constantly growing and developing, then the sky is the limit, (nearly) anything is possible. Such is the wonder of the human brain.

Another "anything is possible" kind of guy was Albert Einstein.  One should be careful about adding to all the maybe true/maybe false Einsteinisms on the Internet, but I came across a statistic about how many times Albert was wrong in his equations.  Simply put, he couldn't do the math.  He couldn't make things work out, over and over again.  What he considered his most important work, proving the existence of a force or energy that is pushing spacetime to expand, was a total failure.  It was proven much later, and the Nobel Prize went to someone else for that.  I have heard it called his greatest disappointment.  There is another statistic floating around, where a physicist claims around 20% of Einstein's work had mistakes of various degrees.

So perhaps if we truly believe in having a growth mindset, we can stop saying, "he's so smart", or "she's just not good at math".  Perhaps then "Be like Mike" wouldn't mean becoming a super athlete, but rather being the best you can be, and growing, learning, and changing over time, with persistent work.  Perhaps then being an "Einstein" might mean being someone who perseveres in the face of great difficulty, rather than "being a genius."

"I'm not good at this ... yet!" Great discussions around growth mindset. #7to10PDSBNet
— Nicole Boujos (@MSSBoujos) May 22, 2014

#7to10PDSBNet "Even Einstein wasn't Einstein before he put in years of passionate, relentless effort" pic.twitter.com/zYXgdhN5Z7
— E. Boutros (@MrsBoutros) March 5, 2014

Gamification vs. Game-Based Learning

I should start this post with a bit of a mea culpa. In my CTV news clip about using Minecraft to show math work, I improperly referred to "gamification" of the classroom.  "Gamification could be the future of education," or something like that.

The distinction is probably easy to miss.  If one is playing a game in support of one's learning, perhaps you could be said to be gamifying your learning (if that's even a word).  "Gamification", though, refers to using game-like elements in the classroom, not necessarily inside a game environment.  "Game-based learning" refers to using a game in support of your learning.

This article by Jordan Shapiro is the most well-explained thing on this topic i've seen.He talks about how gamification systems are seen in places like coffee shops, with their loyalty programs.  Gamification, I think, broadly, could be said to be about modifying human behaviour to better reach a goal (free coffee, perhaps, or better learning outcomes in Math class).

I loved his examples of video games we learn from.  I agree:  students learn from every game they play, whether it's the new "2048" app craze (powers of 2), Angry Birds (physics/geometry), or Call of Duty (single-minded concentration and pursuit of goals, teamwork, reading and writing skills when playing online with others, communication).

It's interesting how viewpoints have changed on the video game issue.  I remember even 6-7 years back debating their merits with students.  It would seem they have been allowed into mainstream culture (and educational culture) in a way that wouldn't have seemed possible even a few years ago.

Here is where I write a letter to my 13 year old self:

     Dear Matthew,

     20+ years from now, you won't have to hide your comic books, and video games will be everywhere.          Have faith and be patient.  Let's hope Zack Snyder doesn't ruin Bruce Wayne like he ruined Kal El!  PS:      you have two children and you don't have time to play games, but all libraries have lots and lots of comics      for you to check out.

    Love,

    Older, more bearded you.

But seriously though, the games I did play, I often played in a completist way- finishing every single goal in "Super Mario Galaxy" for example, or playing all the bonus content in "Resident Evil 4".  As years went by, I found I would focus only on the main goals, and not the side goals.  In Mario terms, completing the course, from start to finish, without focusing on extra start, or any extra content.

Therein lies my problem with gamification. If we are truly focused on big ideas and learning goals, side quests (for example to get "badges") might get in our way.  I also believe in naturalizing the classroom environment as much as possible- so for me, gamification systems would only get in the way of conversations and interactions.  Lastly, and my main concern perhaps, is that focusing on gamification systems might undermine students' intrinsic motivation.  Put it to you this way:  if I don't need a coffee, or even want one, and I notice I need one more sticker on my McDonald's card to get a free one, will I go?  Further, a quick search on this subject reveals many corporations are looking at gamification strategies to modify their consumers' behaviour, which doesn't bode well for it's future in education.

Game-based learning suits me a lot more.  Minecraft, for example, has been absolutely amazing as a tool in Math class.  But what's worth noting there is the differentiation:  students CHOOSE to become immersed in a  game environment, and only IF they can meet their learning goals with regard to the mathematical concept or big idea under consideration.  The other big thing here is that there are NO goals when one opens a world in Minecraft.  There are no badges, achievements, or levels.  Perhaps Minecraft is the least gamified of all games; even earlier sandboxes like Grand Theft Auto had missions that you could choose to complete (and most players probably did).

Game-based learning is no simple panacea.  Differentiation is key. Many games are too closed ended to be useful in the classroom beyond one single set purpose (and there is nothing wrong with that, in those instances).  Let students make choices about how they learn, and if it includes video games, so be it.  My 13 year old self, and perhaps some 13 year olds in your class, will thank you.

The Ingredients for Math Class Are Everywhere

Remember those teachers who could turn anything into a teachable moment? Perhaps something happened on the playground, or the world outside the classroom, and they turned it into a lesson.

If you can think of someone, were you thinking of your math teacher? I started thinking about teachable moments in math when I was shown this on the playground.

The student said: "I have a dollar."  He had taken the original $2 coin and knocked the centre out with a hammer and screwdriver. 

The picture I took after the conversation was enough of a provocation on its own.  All that was needed was the question:  Is it worth a dollar?  If not, how much? The most likely relevant technique for coming up with an answer (area of a circle), is taught in the same grade level.  

Here is the task in a tweet, with a picture made with PicCollage and Skitch:

Tweet sized task about Toonie

I've been thinking a lot lately about why we have always felt the need to rely on outside sources for our math questions, problems, and tasks.  Once you start to notice it, math is everywhere.  This is a mindset- much like the English or Social Studies teacher has when she finds articles, texts, or news stories that relate to her tasks, lessons and units all around her.  Or how about the Science teacher, who is always using the latest developments, innovations, and news as the raw materials for her lessons?

We can find authentic, meaningful and completely contextualized materials for math lessons all around us.  In planning for some Ministry of education work (a webcast on proportional reasoning), I spent a few weeks ruminating on what the tasks should be.  And then I went to the movies.  This visual sparked 3 days of work for 3 different grade levels:

Movie Drink Sizes

In this case I was actively hunting for materials for rates problems, but my math antennae are up these days, and they are getting good at finding the raw materials for math.  Math is everywhere, and all we need is our tools like our camera rolls to record them.  

The value of the toonie ring could be $1.69, but that's not accounting for the differences in the metals, or their weights.

The Road to #GeniusHour Math

The road to Genius Hour Math began with a bunch of sticky notes stuck on a blackboard.

Inspired by the concepts of 20% time, passion projects, and the great Genius Hour work happening in schools all over the world, I set out to explore what this would like for those of us who don't have our own class (and do math on a rotary schedule).

My hypothesis was this:  our math curriculum (an incredibly balanced and strong one here in Ontario) is short on things like the history of math, or the math that makes the world work, or bigger topics that are a little outside the traditional elementary math box, like infinity or dividing by zero.

I wanted my students to explore some math of their choice, so I had to see what topics they were interested in first.

As I am #poweredbykids, I started by watching their brainstorming.  My only question was this:  "what's something you wonder about that can be answered with math?" I exaggerate little when I say that I could plan my entire math program by just letting them ask questions.  Once the inquiry math mindset is open to them, all the old fears and hatred about math fall away.  They become questioners, and they start to make meaningful and important connections to the math in the world around them.

The board (now called the Wonderwall) filled with stickys with questions like:
-was math discovered or created?
-I wonder what the last number is?
-is there a pattern that hasn't been thought of yet?

One student wondered how much of a certain substance Toronto's notorious may had consumed, but that question, while mathematical, could not be answered.

These were clearly the raw materials for something really good, but more work needed to be done.  We took the odd question down to explore it, but mostly the board just sat like that, for a good two months. One day, reading the questions, it occurred to me what had happened with the brainstorming.

All the questions fell into one of three categories:  Googleable, estimateable, or needing more exploration.

Once this realization happened, the hour of our greatest genius was upon us. We watched this astoundingly beautiful video on the beauty of math.  I used Numberphile's video on cryptography to show how complicated mathematical concepts could be distilled into a carefully crafted explanation.  I showed Kid President's Pep Talk.  I explored dividing by zero with them to spark their minds.

As inquiry learning begins with questions, I gave them a simple organizer asking for a big question, and two sub questions that could be explored on the topic.

I discussed these with them, and offered feedback which would help focus the projects.  We developed some simple success criteria for what the project could look like.  The evaluation could not be pegged to a specific strand, as it usually is (although everything could broadly be said to be about number), so we mainly looked at evidence of mathematical thinking, and how it was communicated.  The Ontario curriculum front matter, particularly the achievement chart, is the math teacher's best friend.

From there, they ran with it.  The quality of a lot of the projects exceeded expectations.  Topics ranged from things like types of infinity, to music in math, to statistical analysis of a number of sporting themes, like determining who will win the NBA championship.  Activating the math of sports could be the topic for a whole other post.  Students do amazing work when they are shown how much math is in their favourite sports.

One of the most memorable included a live demonstration of poker probability, in which the dealt hands (under the document camera), provided proof of the odds that were posted on a chart of the wall beside.  Another sought to prove whether Santa Claus could make all his deliveries in a single night.  

The only slight challenge I would say is helping your students make more research-based topics come alive (like infinity).  Some projects were more research-based, and less based on mathematical technique, while the best of them had students actively developing their own mathematical technique to explore their topic.

I would encourage anyone to start on the road to #GeniusHour math.  It's worth it.  Too often (and for too long), we have let math ferment in its little silo.  Strands and units create artificial boundaries that prevent students from making connections to their own lives.  Math is seen as something that comes from teachers, in specific class periods, at specific times of day.  Finally, we are too often the questioners in our math classrooms.  Let your students be the questioners, and see what happens!