Like Krazy

This is the fourth in a short series of posts about Coach Morgan Wootten’s influence in the classroom for me. It includes thoughts on his coaching lessons but mainly contains reflections on my experience as a student in his classroom where he remains one of the best classroom teachers I ever had. A couple other activities that were part of Wootten's class brought many other learning concepts into play.  On Fridays, students, on a rotating basis, would present Current Events (local, national, and international news stories) to the class. We were given freedom to present what we wanted and how we wanted to do it. In a way, it was Google’s 20% time long before Google was even a thing. Again, the effective learning methods of student choice, students teaching other students, relevance, public speaking, accountability, and authentic audience all came into play in his classroom. But, that was just the lead into a far bigger activity. As a significant part of the course, we each ...

This is the third in a short series of posts about Coach Morgan Wootten’s influence in the classroom for me. It includes thoughts on his coaching lessons but mainly contains reflections on my experience as a student in his classroom where he remains one of the best classroom teachers I ever had. Morgan Wootten followed what I came to know (and later incorporate) as the “classic” DeMatha class structure: Quiz. Grade and discuss quiz. Direct Instruction, Inquiry, and Storytelling.  Class always started with a quiz and it was five questions which could be vocabulary and/or reading recall.  We always just thought that the daily, low-stakes quizzes were given to hold us accountable but that was only partly true.  What he was also doing was putting into practice the Testing Effect. We were getting retrieval practice on the important concepts, something Daniel Willingham and others have shown is so important to learning. It’s not surprising that when I think back on ...

Charles "Buck" Offutt spent over 50 years teaching and coaching at DeMatha.  While he was nationally recognized as a great coach, I witnessed that Morgan Wootten also incorporated many of the most effective teaching and learning strategies in his classroom each day. Even if some of those lessons weren't as readily apparent as the reason for a basketball player to be using a tennis racket in practice. (see Part 1 in this Wootten series). One of my first days in Morgan Wootten's World History class as a freshman, Dr. Charles “Buck” Offutt came into our classroom and “interrupted” us to have a discussion with Wootten. Offutt was already a veteran at that time, having been at DeMatha for over 20 years (he retired at 52 years) while teaching English and coaching the football linemen. Our class was drawn into their conversation (later to realize that this was on purpose) and at one point Offutt pointed me out. “Krawczewicz?” he said as he eyed me in the back of the ...

This is the first in a short series of posts about Coach Morgan Wootten’s influence in the classroom for me. It includes thoughts on his coaching lessons but mainly contains reflections on my experience as a student in his classroom where he remains one of the best classroom teachers I ever had. In a recent documentary about DeMatha’s longtime Hall of Fame basketball coach Morgan Wootten, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski says that Morgan Wootten’s blueprint is all over basketball. Wootten was seen as an innovator in the X’s and O’s of basketball and on the people he coached. Looking back on my experiences in his classroom, I think his (along with a few others) blueprint is all over my classroom at DeMatha as well. DeMatha vs. Power Memorial game preparation A great coach must be a great teacher and one of Wootten’s signature moments in coaching shows this to be true.  In preparing for DeMatha’s second Power Memorial game back in the 60’s, Wootten had a player use a ten...

Google Classroom does not do everything (yet!) but it does do several things very well. If you plan to use three of its strongest features (distribute resources, distribute and collect assignments, or create complete lessons), there are a few things to do before you use it with students. #1 Prepare “static” resources Let’s start small. Classroom is great for distributing “static” resources (articles or readings as handouts or website links). Gone will be the days of “I lost it,” “I wasn’t here,” or “You didn’t give me one.” “ But you were in class when I handed them out! ” “Well then, you must not like me.” You’ll want to get the resources “Google Classroom ready” and keep track of them for future reference. How to get resource ready: Add the link or the document name to a document that has all the links and handout names in order. Copy the handout/document to Google Drive. The details: Create a Google Doc (this will be a theme) in a Google Drive folder for the course an...

I've often heard that it takes 30 days to develop a habit. From my #AprilBlogaDay experience, that may not be completely true. But it was only by taking part in the challenge that I was able to figure that out, along with a few other key things. Time is of the essence When the challenge began, I was on Spring Break. This gave me the necessary time to get a blog finished each day. Once classes began again, I found that many of my blogs were completed and submitted after 11 pm. The daily deadline helped make it happen but I'm just not ready to commit to that going forward. Even though I got better at churning them out, it still takes quite a bit of time each day. Practice, practice, practice One of the biggest takeaways was that the daily writing helped me develop a process to writing each post. I learned to let go and press Publish. It's never going to be perfect so just let it be and move on. It has certainly made it easier for me to post something and so the hurdle e...

The worst advice I've ever heard about technology in the classroom came out of my own mouth. It went something like "You should do/use/incorporate this because it is great and easy to do." I don't remember what this was but I do remember the comment from one of my colleagues after I said it a couple of times during a professional development session. She stopped me at one point and asked if she could be perfectly honest with me. Me: Of course. Her: "Well, it is probably easy for you but it's not really easy for me." Me: Yet Her: "Maybe. But until then, it's even more frustrating that I don't get it when you keep reminding me how easy it should be." Me: I guess I'll hide this big red "That was easy" button until a later session. I've tried to avoid the word in any presentation or PD session since.

Overview With this year's freshman class required to BYOD, one of the things that I decided to do was to have all of my students do the daily assessments on the devices. I chose to use Socrative because I had already successfully used it for a few quizzes but many review games for almost two years. I committed to try for the entire school year because I figured it would take some time to work everything out and to learn some of the ins and outs. The process Each quiz is anywhere from 5 to as many as 10 multiple choice questions. Students start with a blank sheet of paper for the first quiz and I always give an open-ended written question last. While writing that answer on their paper, I format and print results and take a quick peek. Students hand in a quiz with that hand-written answer and it gives me something to put a grade on to hand back the next day. Creating quiz questions Initially, it takes a little more time to create each quiz but definitely less time than gradin...

The biggest fear was the lack of time time so I decided to try keep each post short and simple - one thought - in and out. But that is way more difficult than I had imagined. Seth Godin's post today addressed this situation for me. Perfect timing. So after 27 posts in 27 days, I'm trying to actually do it as planned this time. It shows I definitely needed the practice.

There were several reasons I decided to take on the AprilBlogaDay challenge. One of those reasons was my attempt to get over the thought that a blog was basically a written selfie. I kept asking myself - What is the purpose of a personal public reflection? After discussing the practice in a chat over the weekend, it became clear that this process is more than just a method to flesh out and expand on an idea or thought that has been limited to a scribble on a scrap of paper. The "Publish" button is just a way to finalize that thought for that moment. I guess I'm just used to seeing the reaction in the faces of the students in the classroom. On Facebook there is a "Thumbs up" button that at least gives an indication that someone's been there but I'm glad those aren't part of this process. Based on my own experience in reading and (not) commenting, the number of comments for most blog posts must be a very low percentage. By writing it out, it will s...

The response is definitely not "No comment" and also more blogging. Several of those who have been participating in the April blog a day challenge (#AprilBlogaDay) put together by Chris Crouch (@the_explicator) got together for a Twitter chat this morning. As I stated near the end of the hour, I don't know if I have been a part of a more productive chat. It was part reflection and part brainstorming, but then also led to a planned future activity that is often missing from professional development. The group decided to continue blogging (in various degrees of frequency) in the month of May. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! (read in your best ginsu knife commercial voice) Some have chosen to comment on one blog post a day and post a link to the blog. It should be a great way to share what you are reading to a wider audience and give some needed feedback to many education bloggers. The hashtag in May becomes more universal - #edBlogaDay . I look forward to continuing to l...

This post was written in response to two hashtags: #ILoveMySchoolBecause and #AprilBlogaDay There are several things that come to mind that I truly appreciate about working at DeMatha Catholic High School. While these really just scratch the surface, they are some of the first things that come to mind for this quick reflection.  I had to cut it off somewhere because this prompt was "due" yesterday! Incredible colleagues My colleagues and administrators have been intelligent, risk-takers who are willing to share their experience and time. Most importantly, they are great people and its modeled for the students everyday. Our principal often encourages the importance of "play" in education and I see that in the attitudes of teachers and students throughout each day. Freedom + Support Since my first days at DeMatha I have been given the freedom to choose much of the content and approach that best works with my teaching style and my students. Along with that fre...

A few days ago, Cincinnati Reds manager Bryan Price went on a profanity laced tirade with a reporter about the amount of information he released about an injured player.  His main point centered around how that information could be a help to his team because he knew it could hurt his team by giving opponents information that may alter their game plan.   How much information should be revealed to the press and what information is really necessary?  His concern was basically about transparency and s ocial media has made everything transparent. But just because the information is easily shared does that mean we are entitled to it? Within the last 5-10 years, social media and the Internet have made a long-time isolated profession of teaching much more open and transparent. In the past, we taught in "our" classrooms and worked with "our" students and were very protective of both. It wasn't practical or possible to get information out very often. So we wo...

This only puts me at five so I am allowed to add it! (see yesterday's post). #5 We need to stop pretending that if students can Google it, they do not need to know it. If I tell my doctor a symptom and then he/she Googles it, the next symptom I will ask him/her to Google will be "extreme concern." There are things our students should know about our discipline which will allow them to think about it creatively. Without that foundation, they will not be able to move any further in their thinking or be able to creatively put together ideas from other areas of interest. It's one of our jobs to know what that foundation may be and help students understand it and how to build upon it. It's in the learning of that material that we get to be as creative and innovative as our ideas will allow. So yes, there will be many times when I ask my students a question that they could possible Google and get the answer. It's the follow up question, the one that puts t...

There are five listed here for my April Blog a Day post (#22) but the last one is too personal to be part of the main list. #1 We know the future we are preparing students for Yes, there are a lot of changes in education and technology recently but we can't today and never really have been able to. But, if we make students the best learners and people that they can be and give them a solid and varied foundation, they will have the tools and attitude to handle and create their own future, whatever it may be. I think that's always been the case. #2 New teaching method __________ is the only/best way to go Fill in the blank with any of the latest. This is a tricky one for me because by no means am I saying that it can't work. As a matter of fact, I may have tried it or may be doing that very thing. I definitely don't want to quell any enthusiasm or knock down a good idea without giving it a go. It's the words "only" or "best" that get me bec...

Freshman quote of the day: Me to class: Reminder - you are finishing To Kill a Mockingbird tonight. Student: To the end? It's interesting how some questions show puzzlement AND complete understanding at the same time.

We are currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird in my classes. This is the 24th consecutive year I have "taught" this novel and each year I hope to learn from previous years and improve on the experience for my students. Today we were discussing the end of the trial and the inevitable verdict given the racism of the town. Even though Atticus didn't win the Tom Robinson case, Tom's family and friends show their appreciation for what he did by standing in respect when he exits the courtroom and leaving food on his back door step the next morning. My focus of the novel has always been on Atticus and what my students can learn from his example. This part allows me to ask questions that leads students to examine the "If you're not first, you're last" mentality, why Atticus deserved their respect, and why they showed it the way they did. The discussion in one of my classes went something like this: " I bet the food was all full of ants." ...

... the curiosity and ease that led you to read this. In our digital world, diversive curiosity is constantly stimulated by ever-present streams of texts, tweets, etc. that stimulate our hunger for novelty.  In the process, our capacity for the slow, difficult, and frustrating process of gathering knowledge may be deteriorating. - Ian Leslie in Curious That process may include a class discussion and conversation, students going to a text to find a relevant passage, or even making a correction to their own work to solve a problem. That's not something I want to see deteriorating in my classroom. Easy and constant distraction is the biggest negative factor in using technology in my classroom. I've heard the same from colleagues as well. It took one new faculty member less than one semester to go from a computer savvy technology-in-the-classroom enthusiast to a "near luddite."  That's totally understandable.   Technology in the classroom, with its h...

What is one small step I am willing to do to elevate the profession? Based on the number of readers I am getting, it's not these blogs posts! Replacing "small" with "minuscule" (is there a word that means something even smaller?) may be more appropriate in that case. But that's not why I'm doing this I keep telling myself. Therefore, after almost three weeks of posts, I've realized that I am basically the guy walking down the street talking to himself (the one without the phone sticking out of his ear) and I am fine with that. What I can do is share and collaborate with colleagues, both at DeMatha and those I am in contact with through social media. I've learned an incredible amount (this is where an adjective for a really, really large number would come in handy) from my colleagues through the years. But helping them requires getting to know them well enough so that I know what they are doing and how they are doing it. Otherwise it is too...

There may be much teachers can learn from storytelling to help us in the classroom. "When the story contains a surprise, the preceding events will be remembered better than when it contains no surprise." - Hoeken and van Vliet Hoeken and van Vliet explain that this probably happens because the surprise forces the reader to reassess their representation of the story. In doing so, the reader is playing the events over again in their mind and going through the process which helps in remembering them better. Daniel Willingham stressed the effectiveness of creating lessons that tell a story in Why Students Don't Like School because people tend to remember stories. It's certainly not easy to do this for every lesson but I've tried to think about it each time I've put something together. In doing so, one thing that I tend to do is create lessons which have a surprise in the beginning to create a "hook" which I hope leads to curiosity and even engagem...