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This is my reflection and collection of thoughts on the past year…..This past year it’s been everything I could do to keep my head above water. Every day brought a new challenge with remote learning, not remote learning, being a dad, tennis – but through it all, it was a learning experience. These are my takeaways from the past year:

It’s Just School

When the school year finishes, most students will probably forget the things I taught them. I’ve come to terms with that reality. But one thing will always hold true – they will never forget how I made them feel throughout the year. Yes, it’s easy for me to say, “It’s just school,” when I don’t have a state test for Social Studies. However, I had a state test, I would still the same thing. I don’t care if we get through all the units this year. It’s just school. I cut out a unit on America’s role in early world affairs. It’s just school. It’s important for me to ask every student, by name, everyday, how they are doing and to give them a chance to share. I don’t care if it takes up 5-10 minutes of class. It’s just school.

In 505, I try to see each student as unique with their own set of strengths. One question that helps me with students – How can I give every student a chance to be successful? Everyone in this life deserves a chance to have fun and be successful with something and if my class is that one chance then I’m happy with that. With each assignment, each lesson, each unit, I try to provide choice so students can use their strengths, find success, and have fun. This, to me, are the things students will remember the most from my class. After all, it’s just Social Studies.

Try Some New Things

In the last year, I have cared less about sports and focused more on learning new things. Most of my questions this past year have started with, “How,” or “Why,” and led me down great paths…..

How can I make better food? – This past year I have learned how to cook better food. Having restaurants closed down has driven me to figure out how to cook better food. Here are things I have perfected in the last year:

If anyone needs a recipe let me know……

1. PF Changs Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps
2. Vegan Lentil Sloppy Joes
3. 2 Bean Vegan Vegetable Chili
4. Vegan Skyline Chili
5. Pan Fried Fish Tacos
6. Homemade Pizza
7. Bread (Honey Wheat and Brioche)
8. Pancakes
9. Impossible Meat Bolognese Sauce

Why does the world seem so angry? How can history help me understand this? – I turned to podcasts this year to help me understand the world. Understanding history help us all understand that these problems aren’t new. Everything has a history, and I wanted to know more. I thought I knew a lot, but I quickly realized, and fully admitted that I didn’t know much. As a result, I found a great NPR podcast called Throughline which connects history to today. A great podcast that ranges in topics from electricity to racial injustice to elections. A new episode is released every Thursday.

How can I make my class more engaging for students? – Everyday I’m committed to making class more engaging for students. I’m learning some new questioning strategies to use in class. I’m using some new technology to help relate social studies to today’s mainstream world. Eduprotocols is a major part of 505, but I’m learning how to better stack the frameworks and combine them with new lessons to make class engaging.

I Learned Who People Truly Are

2020 sucked. Social media made it suck even worse. Between protests and the election, the posts of disinformation from both sides was staggering. It really opened my eyes and made me truly see who people were. People I thought I knew. Family members. Everyone made me scratch my head and shake my head in disbelief. In a time of so much confusion and anger, most people seemed to add fuel to the fire. They double downed on their opinions. As for me, I took the opportunity to ask why and apply history to understand situations. I feel better because of it. I feel more educated because of it. I deleted Facebook because of it.

In a way this is part 2 of my reflection on my current book entitled, “Why Don’t Students Like School?” by Daniel Willingham. Chapter 2 discusses how we can teach students the skills they need to critically think. It’s no surprise, factual knowledge, or background knowledge, in our working memory helps aid our ability to critically think. These are my takeaways from the chapter:

Chunking is Important:

Read this list of words, cover it up and try to remember as many as you can:

If you tried to remember this, chances are you weren’t that successful. These letters looked jumbled and have no meaning. Now read this list of words and try to remember as much as you can:

Chance are you were more successful remembering more letters with this list. You could remember these because the letters were chunked into meaningful acronyms you have a working memory of. The kicker is the two lists contain the same exact letters. The chunking of letters can help us with reading comprehension. You can chunk ideas A,B,C,D,E as you are reading and relate them together to make meaning. But, that’s a lot for most. Comprehension would be super simple if one could take comprehend A through E as a singular idea. What helps with chunking ideas and comprehension? Background knowledge.

Factual Knowledge is Important

One might think I have a lot of students that come into my 8th grade US History class with tons of factual (background) knowledge of our nation’s history. Wrong. The emphasis in elementary schools is on reading, math and science. Reflecting on past years, I assumed the students had enough knowledge. I was wrong. Giving students background knowledge is essential to leading to more critical thinking and application. I am guilty of trying to rush to the critical thinking/application part of our learning journey.

The information in this chapter related to my learning from another book entitled, “Visual Learning Strategies for Social Studies,” by John Hattie. In this book, Hattie stresses the importance of surface level learning. Too often, teachers don’t spend enough time in this level. I’m guilty! From my own experience, I try to get away from surface level learning because it’s too boring or it’s not “rigorous” enough. However, these are myths and surface level learning is vital for factual knowledge to allow for critical thinking. The more surface level learning the better.

Ideas for Surface Level Learning and Factual Knowledge

This is one of the reasons I love Eduprotocols – students gain repetition with technology and can focus on obtaining factual knowledge. Plus, Eduprotocols provide creative, fun ways to learn factual knowledge at the surface learning level. Here are some examples:

The idea behind these protocols is simple – lesson frames that can be used week to week, that incorporate the 4 C’s, that are student centered, and provide a 5th C for students – consistency. As a history teacher, here are some of my favorite Eduprotocols:

Cyber Sandwich – I love the Cyber-sandwich for student collaboration, communication, creation and critical thinking as students compare/contrast 2 ideas or topics. A Google slidedeck is created and shared with students. The slidedeck should contain everything the students need: links to resources, questions, etc.  Students have 10-15 minutes to read and collect information. After time is called, they share and compare/contrast their topics. This year I have used this for: Athens/Sparta, European Exploration, Colonial Regions, the French and Indian War, and Federalists/Anti-Federalists – click here. After the students collect information, discuss and share, I like to have them create infographics, maps, or storyboards.

Mini-Report – the mini-report is great for student communication, creating, and critical thinking. Students are provided with a topic, 2 sources, and they collect facts in an organizer. After 15-20 minutes, they review the facts and construct 2-3 paragraphs about their given topic. It’s a must to provide meaningful feedback as students are collecting facts. I try to focus them on collecting useful and important facts. After the paragraphs are written, I like to have students use their information to create a storyboard, Flipgrid, or a Lego creation. Click here for my example.

Sketch and Tell – I love the Sketch and Tell Eduprotocol for student collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Students can show their thinking in a variety of creative ways. I pose a question, provide a source, have students sketch their answer, and they tell about what they created. I added some variations on the Sketch and Tell having students build with Legos, PlayDoh, Oreos, or Gummy Bears. Click here for my example.

I run these protocols on a weekly basis in my classroom. It’s a great way to ease planning and give students repetition with technology and content so they can gain the necessary knowledge to critically think. Using these protocols on a weekly basis also allows me to focus on, and show growth with writing and presentations. I encourage anyone reading this to get the book, Eduprotocols, written by Marlena Hebern and Jon Corippo and try them out in your classroom.

I’m not writing this post as an expert. Rather, it’s from my own thoughts and reflection on the current book I’m reading entitled, “Why Don’t Students Like School?,” by Daniel Willingham. This book is fascinating to me as I love to learn about how people learn. The science behind learning and how t can be applied to the classroom.

When we often think that students are deep in thought with a lesson, chances are……….they’re not. People too often lack the ability to actually think…..really think…….with complex reading, reasoning, or solving problems for 3 reasons. The reasons being: 1) thinking is slow, 2) thinking takes effort, 3) thinking is uncertain. The author posed this problem solving scenario as an example of this:

In an empty room are a candle, some matches, and a box of thumbtacks. The goal is to have the lit candle about five feet off the ground. You’ve tried melting some of the wax on the bottom of the candle and sticking it to the wall, but that wasn’t effective. How can you get the lit candle to be five feet off the ground without you having to hold it there?

I posed the same question to my classes to prove this as well. What I found is students had trouble with solving problem. Most students “thought” about the problem for maybe 30 seconds before giving up. Out of 100 students, 1 of my students got the answer correct after 10 minutes of good, deep thought (no he didn’t Google it). If most students aren’t thinking, what are they doing?

The author suggests they are trying to solve problems with their working memory, or memories of past experiences. When I posed the problem above, most students were using their memories to find a solution. However, the students did not have a memory, or experience, with the problem. Here is my biggest takeaway:

Respect Your Students Cognitive Limits

Most of us begin lessons and/or units with a question. When writing that question, consider the background knowledge your students have. For example, in my unit on the Middle Ages, I used to ask a question, “How did the Magna Carta limit the power of the King?” To me, this question is simple and straightforward. However, to my students, they have never heard of the Magna Carta and have no experience with limited government or limited power. Right away, this question could turn them away, or seem intimidating. As a result, I reworded the question in a way that used language the students had experience with. My reworded question became, “Why did nobles rebel and call for kings to lose power?” My students could define the words: noble, rebel, kings, and could provide examples of losing power. Simple question rewording can make a big difference in helping students understand the Magna Carta.

I looked at data from last year from a Quizizz on the Magna Carta. The highest class averages from the Quizizz after the entire lesson were: 79%, 77%, 65%, and 90%. This year, after going through the same lesson, my class averages were 83%, 92%, 90%, and 92%. Again, I’m not some cognitive scientist or some expert by any stretch of the imagination, but this data suggests that the wording of questions, background knowledge, and working memory play a huge part in students understanding.

I just opened my blog and realized my last post was written on March 23, 2020. The last year hasn’t provided much inspiration. My focus hasn’t really been on the positive. Rather, my focus has been on surviving and providing the best damn lessons I can day in and day out. One such lesson I created was a quick Peardeck infused lesson on the Whiskey Rebellion.

I’m currently trying to do a thematic unit on how much power the national government should have. We are focusing on the national bank issue, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Sedition Act, and much more. My lesson on the Whiskey Rebellion featured a slidedeck with historical background, a Sketch and Tell, primary source analysis, and a reflection. That lesson can be found here. It was created to be a simple 1-2 day lesson using Pear Deck.

As I arrived at school, I had doubts about my lesson and needed a change. Like most of my lessons, I cast doubt and want something better. Class was starting in 10 minutes and I was committed to changing this lesson. I dug into my Eduprotocols tool bag. This is what makes Eduprotocols so versatile and great.

I ultimately settled on a Fast Curious using Quizizz paired with a Cybersandwich. The Fast and Curious with the Whiskey Rebellion was 8 questions. Students took the quiz to begin class and the class average was 62%. Next I used a 10x10x10 Cybersandwich (Example Here) with a quick read on the Whiskey Rebellion. This part of the lesson involved a 10 minute read with note taking, 10 minute discussion, and a 10 minute summary. I finished the lesson with the same Fast and Curious Quizizz and the results blew me away – A CLASS AVERAGE OF 100%.

Lessons like this make Eduprotocols unbelievable. Planning a lesson 10 minutes before class is not ideal no matter how you slice it. However, it had students working on 2 of Marzano’s nine essential instructional strategies – Identifying similarities and differences and summarizing and note-taking. On top of this, it was effective. Students saw growth. Students gained confidence. 62% to 100% in one class period. Eduprotcols for the win…..once again.

When this whole Coronavirus talk started 2 weeks ago, I highly underestimated the seriousness of the situation. Partially as a midwesterner, and a lot as an American. Why? The thought of something coming into the United States of America, shutting things down, being told to stay home doesn’t happen. It’s the most un-american thing EVER! I never thought I would be sitting at home, away from school, during my Spring Break writing about week 1 of quarantining shenanigans.

How’s my quarantining going? It sucks. I hate sitting around all damn day. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great being home with my family. But, it’s not within me to stay still. My life, beyond family, has always been teaching whether it’s teaching tennis, life lessons, or history.  I’m still trying to maintain connections, trying to maintain normalcy, but it’s tough. It’s frustrating. On top of this feeling, here’s a run down of my first week quarantining:

1. Monday through Wednesday – I blew my nose 180 times. In a 12 hour time period, that’s 5 times an hour. My nose is raw, it sucks. Good thing we have 3 tubs of Baby Aquaphor for diaper, and now, nose rash!
2. On top of being sick, I made it through the first week of “school” – answering e-mails, maintaining my daily message I write on the board. I tried to make personalized videos wishing students well for Spring Break. I pride myself in creativity, and thinking outside the box with lessons. However, I’m not going to lie, it’s hard finding motivation right now. Luckily, Spring Break provides me with an opportunity to come up with something. In the end, I’ll find the motivation and think of something creative because ultimately it’s for the students. For them, during this time, I will come through.
3. School is where I should be. I miss my students. I miss teaching in a classroom. That is all I have to say about that.
4. Refer back to number 1 – I started off not feeling well. Now Teddy doesn’t feel well. My wife doesn’t feel well. But, we are fighting it and getting through.
5. I’ve taken time to rediscover some old music I used to listen to – if you are not listening to Nathaniel Rateliff or Jack Johnson, please start. It’s what this world needs.

6. I can’t wait it for to warm up so I can make my way outside more. I don’t consider myself an outside person, but it’s been awesome so far. My appreciation for being outdoors has increased with each passing day.

7. I went to the grocery store on Saturday morning. I have a slight cough, and was afraid to cough in the store. What an awkward time to have a cough! I held that damn cough in for 30 minutes and let loose when I got back to the car.

There you have it – week 1 of quarantining shenanigans. Nose blowing. Sick, sick, and more sick.  Music rediscoveries. Finding motivation. Awkward Kroger trips.

 

Everyday I write a new message on the whiteboard for Room 505. Today’s message – “We didn’t choose this moment. But we can choose how we respond to this moment. If you have come to trust me a little this year, then take this advice to heart……breathe and persist. Time to step it up……own your learning……earn your learn.”

I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime. Honestly, I don’t know what else to say. I do know this……in times of craziness, I have always remained calm. It’s a must in the field of education. In tough situations, get tougher, think on your feet, and make it happen. However, this will be the longest 3+ weeks of my life spent wondering, “Is this the best thing for students?”

Earlier in the day, on this last day before break, I shared with some that this hasn’t been my best content teaching year. However, the one bright spot this year is my focus on connections. Each day I write a daily message on the board – something inspirational, something to make students think, or whatever comes to mind. With my 7th grade classes, I say every student’s name, ask them how they’re doing, and they have the ability to share something that made them smile or frown. This practice started off awkward….now I have tons of students sharing stories.

So, as I sit here tonight ready to begin the longest 3+ weeks of my life, I’m not worried about teaching content. Rather, I’m worried about lost connections. How can I find a way to keep my daily message going? How can I find a way to have students share and connect? I don’t have the answers now, but I do know I will make it happen.

 

 

 

Before I became a teacher, I was a tennis professional teaching private lessons, group lessons, team practices, and everything in between. When I first started, my mentor gave me some sound advice, “You need to be 3/4th entertainer and 1/4th instructor.” I carried that advice, and philosophy, with me for years. Still do. Does it apply to school? Absolutely. Can, and should, the fractions change for school? Absolutely. But, I do believe we are part entertainer when we are in the classroom.

What brings this up? The other day a student asked me, “Are you goofy all the time outside of school?” Yes. Yes I am. For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to make people smile and laugh. If I could get those reactions from someone, it was a fuel to my fire. I’m still the same way, and I see this trait in my daughter as well.

Each day, I try to keep the classroom laid back and light hearted. In my opinion, people take things way to seriously. Test scores and content drive way too much. My approach this year is focusing on the individuals in the room and the story associated with each name. This is why I begin my 7th grade classes by saying their name and an opportunity to share something that made them smile or frown. With this, I often share a story or joke as well. It works. They like it. It gives me a chance to open up a bit. If I’m not sharing a story, you better believe I’m sharing a dad joke! For example: My first time using an elevator was an uplifting experience The second time let me down.

At the end of the day, focus on the individuals and their stories. make time to share and open up a bit. Have some fun and tell a joke: A farmer who owned 67 sheep asked me to round them up. I said: “Sure. 70.”

I haven’t written a post like this in a long time. It’s no secret, this has been a looooong school year for me. Larger class sizes, a new building, the addition of a new daughter, and just craziness of everyday life at a middle school. I can complain about a lot of things, but like most things in my life, I try to make the most of it and keep fighting the good fight. As always with these posts, I will focus on 3 positives from this year:

1. Smiles and frowns
2. New opportunities
3. Gamified units

Smiles and Frowns

Three weeks ago I decided that Social Studies was not important. Instead, building community, listening, practicing empathy, and creating connections was more important. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, this has been a rough year for me with school changes, student behaviors, and consistency. The icing on the cake was a student saying, “I love this class, but I don’t know anyone.” That was said in December and I felt like a failure. The cherry on top was a group of students that walked in and asked me, “Mr. Moler who do you think won the fight?” I lost it. 

Rather than go negative, I thought back to June of 2019 and the best keynote speech I ever heard from Joe Sanfelippo. He preached, “30 seconds is all it takes to change culture.” The next day, I wrote my message up on the whiteboard, “It’s not the amount of time, it’s what you do with the time. In a 7 hour day, you have 840 thirty second chances to connect to someone and make a difference in their life.” I took a chance and we took 2 minutes to send an email or text to someone and thank them. It made a huge impact – some students were scared to push send and some began crying. But that was alleviated when they received a nice reply. HUGE IMPACT. After 3 weeks, we devote Thursdays for taking 30 seconds, but I have noticed many students doing this on their own during the week. 

To help students get to know each other, I took a chance and implemented a Monte Syrie idea of Smiles and Frowns. At the beginning of class, I say each student’s name and they have an opportunity to tell me something that made them smile or frown in the last 24 hours. We do this EVERYDAY for 5 minutes. At first it was awkward, especially for 7th graders. However, more and more students are sharing. We have applauded successes, and gave pats on the back for failures. I’m seeing a community being built. Students are hearing each other’s names. We are getting to know each other. I wish I started this at the beginning of the year instead of 3 weeks ago. What happens in week 5? Week 10? Week 20? I haven’t a clue, but I’m seeing some great results now. 

New Opportunities

5 weeks ago, I was offered an opportunity by Jon Corippo to go to New Jersey and work with a small group of teachers with Eduprotocols over 2 days. I have never done anything like this before, and I was apprehensive at first. I worried about doing this because I didn’t want to leave my wife hanging with 2 kids. Moreover, I worried because I always have my self doubts and insecurities. Despite my self-doubts, I always come around and accept. Deep down I know I need to take a risk, learn, and grow as a teacher. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Although I haven’t done this yet, I’m excited to make my way to New Jersey Feb. 24 and 25 to share the power of Eduprotocols.

Gamified Unit

I tried something new this year that was a hit. I took Ancient Rome and turned it into a game called Barbarian Battlefield. I had students get into groups, and create Barbarian team names. This is an honest statement, and maybe not the best practice, but I thought of this over a weekend and put the website, story, and foundation for the game together in one day. Here is the website: https://barbarianbattlefield.weebly.com/ I didn’t know what to expect, but what I learned is the unit was fun. I threw in twists and turns along the way, and created new games. For example, I created badges related to ancient Rome (pictured below). Students could earn badges for quality work, winning games, or earning certain scores on assignments. Another aspect of this unit I liked were the side quests that students could do. Students had the opportunity to choose from a  variety of side quests – they could choose things that suited their interests and strengths. Overall, this was a fun unit that created friendly competition and helped bring out my creative side as a teacher.

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I thought teaching middle school was hard…….until I’ve spent the last 2 days with my daughters – Leni (3 years) and Teddy (5 months). When I’m at school I don’t always know what goes on at home which means I make up what I think should go on. As a result, when I get home and the house is in chaos, I’m disappointed. I refrain from comment, but it’s hard for me to hide my facial expressions. These last 2 days, I figured what exactly goes on day to day. The answer is…….you never know what in the hell will happen……….sometimes it’s a good day, sometimes a bad day.

Managing 7th and 8th graders is tough enough, but nothing compared to a 3 year old and a 5 month old. What’s going to keep Leni happy? What’s going to keep Teddy from crying? Will Teddy take a bottle and sleep for more than 20 minutes? Will we make it to ballet on time? Did I bring enough clothes and diapers with me? Do I need a bottle? I expect things to go as planned, but this isn’t one of those gigs. I think that’s what stresses me out – the unknown. Kudos to my wife for doing the day in and day out parenting. Our daughters are healthy, happy, and sweet as can be and she gets all the credit.

All of this had me thinking, however; sometimes we think we know what students go through. Partly, because we were students. Sometimes we assume and make up the things we expect of them. The truth is, we really don’t know what they go through. Maybe it’s tougher than we think.

What if we followed a student’s schedule for one day? Class to class – 50 minutes at a time. One subject after another…….most of which isn’t cross curricular. Learn. Forget. Learn. Forget. Learn. Forget. You get it. Would this exhaust our minds? Would we have a better understanding of what they go through? Would a full day seem easy to us?

I know I asked a lot of questions here. But, these questions I don’t have answers for. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the answers……….but for one day I would like to follow a students schedule to find out.

As a teacher, I am easily asked hundreds of questions per day. Some about content. Some about life. Some that make me think. And, some that make me laugh. For example, the other day a student asked, “Why did you become a teacher Mr. Moler?” I responded with, “This might sound cheesy…” Then another student chimed in, “You can’t be cheesy, you’re a vegan.” The other day, a student asked me a question I have never been asked………

“Why do you share so much stuff on Twitter and Instagram?”

Usually I have an answer. This time I didn’t. So I stopped and I thought about it, and here is why I share so much stuff.

In the moment when students are creating and learning, it might not seem important or matter to them beyond a grade. However, learning should go viral and inspire others. I love sharing student work and “stuff” because it matters to me. Good, bad, indifferent…..it all matters to me. Plus, I know it matters to, and inspires, others. Stop and think about it…….how many times has New Richmond Middle School student work mattered and inspired others around the world? Countless times, and that’s pretty cool.