I Want to Teach Forever

Interview: Dr. Cary Chugh, author of Don't Swear With Your Mouth Full! [Part 1]

2009-11-11T08:00:00.001-06:00

This is part one of a two-part interview with Dr. Cary Chugh, author of Don't Swear with Your Mouth Full! When Conventional Discipline Fails Unconventional Children. For my original review of the book, click here.

Your book discusses why a lot of the popular and conventional wisdom on discipline doesn't work. Television has shows like Supernanny and others that seem to advocate time-limited discipline, reward charts, and all sorts of ideas that seem to run counter to the premise of your book. Are there good TV shows parents and teachers can watch for examples of your ideas at work? Any shows we should avoid?

Yes – The Dog Whisperer! That’s only half a joke. Behavior modification is based on basic animal research and it is often the case that animal trainers adhere to the basic scientific principles of behavior change better than most parenting experts. Part of the reason for this is that animals don’t talk back and animals don’t evoke the same emotional reactions in their owners that difficult kids evoke in their teachers and parents.

The only "expert" I tell people to run from is John Rosemond. Here's a link to my favorite example of bad parenting advice (in the second question, he advocates locking 3 year old kids in their rooms for the rest of the day when they misbehave). I often clip out his columns to show people what not to do.

In some states, parents would have to jump through a lot of legal hoops to get their school to make any formal accommodations for their child, such as a behavior plan. How do we ensure schools and teachers are following behavior plans issued by parents?

I think the best way to accomplish consistency across settings is for the parents and teachers to view each other as part of the same team with the same goal – to better socialize the child to the learning process and to maximize their potential. With the right mindset, we can avoid some of the typical problems that develop between parents and school personnel, such as one group blaming the other for not doing their job. In my experience, the most effective way to convince a teacher or the child’s team to try something new in the classroom is for the parents to demonstrate their own success using an alternative system at home. Parents often forget that teachers are human and are prone to the same frustration and anxiety when dealing with challenging children as they are. Good communication and good teamwork go a long way to preventing roadblocks from interfering with the child’s development.

Where does the idea of children having to be completely under control of adults come from?

Let’s face it - parents get trained as much as their kid do! For example, a mother who hovers over her son while completing homework gets instant gratification by getting it done more quickly. The same thing can be said for the parent who yells, threatens, or spanks. The title of my book, Don't Swear with Your Mouth Full!, is a funny example of the long-term effects of this kind of mentality. Parents get reinforced by the child’s quick response to being yelled at, but tomorrow they have to yell twice as loud while their expectations start dropping lower and lower.

If theory hasn't caught up to science, as you assert in your book, what can we do to protect students from bad decisions in terms of medication, being shifted into special programs or otherwise "labeled" in and out of school?

I like telling people that they will know if a particular punishment/reward scheme is working when they don’t have to keep using it. In fact, the last thing I wrote about in Don’t Swear with Your Mouth Full! is something called the Poor Man’s Evaluation. Simply put, if a child has the capacity to learn a new behavior and the teacher is using technically sound behavior modification strategies, the behavior always improves. If the behavior persists despite good interventions, then the child has demonstrated that he cannot control the behavior in question. At that point, behavior management is considered (e.g., change in classroom; formal accommodations). We try not start with behavior management tactics because if the child could learn a new behavior and we manage it, the child has no need to learn it because it is being taken care of for him. If behavior modification and behavior management fail, then we talk about the possibility of medication. It is a fool-proof way to prevent the child from experiencing unnecessary and potentially harmful treatments.

As a teacher I was always concerned about how many students seemed to be mislabeled as needing special education services or given "armchair diagnoses" of ADHD. How real is this problem? How potentially dangerous is it to the development of those kids?

ADHD is a very real neurodevelopmental disorder affecting approximately 3-7% of school-aged children in community samples. A thorough assessment by a trained child psychologist, very often in collaboration with the school psychologist, is paramount to the development of an effective treatment plan. In other words, we don’t just eye ball kids and take out best guess. I tell parents, “Kids can’t tell us whether they have ADHD so the adults better be pretty damn sure they do!” Failing to detect ADHD is also a major problem. Left untreated, kids with ADHD are at significantly higher risk for an array of secondary emotional, behavior, and psychosocial problems that can have devastating consequences. However, it is a major misconception that ADHD treatment always involves medication. In fact, the Poor Man’s Evaluation is used to determine the need for medication intervention. For kids with mild to moderate ADHD, behavioral interventions are equally effective as medication options. We do recommend medication as a primary intervention for kids whose symptoms are severe in nature. But, it is critical to note that most kids who go on medication continue to require more behavioral support than their classmates without ADHD.

I argue that behavior-limited discipline has the potential to be far more effective than typical strategies used with kids who have ADHD. It’s interesting that while we know that these kids experience “time blindness” (i.e., they don’t learn from past mistakes and they have difficulty predicting future consequences for their actions), all of the recommended practices incorporate time limits! With behavior-limited punishments and rewards, teachers and parents can take immediate advantage of the motivation their interventions create to shape the child’s behavior.

Come back tomorrow for part two of this interview!

Book Review: Don't Swear With Your Mouth Full! by Dr. Cary Chugh

2009-11-10T08:00:00.003-06:00

Educators know that in most U.S. schools, the most common approach to discipline is a version of detention. At the elementary level, this takes the form of time-out or staying in from recess, lunch or other activities. At the middle and high school level, the same principle is applied in the form of after-school detentions, in-school suspension, and out of school suspension.

In essence, our de facto response tells students You've misbehaved, so you must leave class for this amount of time. Of course, I think most educators also know that for the most consistently challenging students, this approach usually fails to improve the student's behavior. In his book Don't Swear with Your Mouth Full! When Conventional Discipline Fails Unconventional Children, child psychologist Dr. Cary Chugh makes the case for a better way to deal with students when the most common methods fail.

One of Dr. Chugh's main themes throughout the book is that there are no easy answers, no one-size-fits-all solutions to behavior problems. Each problem requires a unique approach that has one goal in mind: make sure the child learns from whatever discipline you use. Your child (or student) needs to learn the self-control required to not engage in the same misbehavior in the future. In the book,

Dr. Chugh explains what research says we should be doing and compares it to what most parents and teachers already do. Use of methods like the example above, something the author terms time-limited discipline, is deconstructed and analyzed. He easily reveals why the idea that adults need (or will ever actually have) complete control over a child's behavior is no more than a myth. It's helpful that the author always explains what the child's perspective on everything is and how they will respond to a wide range of conventional methods. Ironically, he doesn't say that everything we do is wrong: for the most part, it's how we do it.

For example, Dr. Chugh doesn't say we should throw out ideas like time-out or detention. Instead, we should remove the time limit and create a situation where the student can end their punishment if they can demonstrate the proper behavior we're seeking. He doesn't really advocate creating positive incentives either; for most of the examples he gives, the child's incentive to behave is that the punishment will end. This is a powerful idea that doesn't exist when we say something like, "You have to go to your room for the rest of the night," or "You're going to be in ISS for the next two days." The child is stuck, and whether they're ready to go back to class in ten minutes or still not ready after that time frame has ended, we haven't actually solved the problem.

The author terms this alternative behavior-limited punishment, and this idea is really at the heart of the book. Other methods may work temporarily, making misbehavior more manageable. They may work great with children that rarely misbehave or get into trouble. Don't Swear with Your Mouth Full!, however, is aimed at dealing with children where the situation has gotten out of control or the child has emotional and psychological issues causing serious misbehavior. It's about repairing relationships and making real, long term positive changes in difficult situations.

The book is a quick and easy read, with each chapter ending in a series of Take-Home Points that summarize the most salient and critical information. While the main audience for this book is parents, everything Dr. Chugh discusses absolutely applies to the classroom as well. He differentiates his approach for young children and teenagers. In addition, there's a chapter entitled "From Teacher's Pest to Teacher's Pet" that addresses these issues at school directly. The last chapter serves as a review and clear starting point for changing our thinking about discipline and how to apply the author's ideas at home and in the classroom.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book for parent and teacher alike. It's a refreshing, well-researched and well-thoughout perspective on the most frustrating and pervasive issue we deal with when it comes to kids.

Don't Swear with Your Mouth Full! When Conventional Discipline Fails Unconventional Children is available on Amazon.com as well as directly from Dr. Chugh's website.

For more information on the book, read the two-part interview with the author coming Wednesday and Thursday where we discuss TV parenting shows, Teaching With Love & Logic, ADHD, changing school culture in regards to discipline, and much more!

Where is this week's 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons?

2009-11-09T11:07:00.000-06:00

It's still somewhere in the back of your mind, just waiting for you to type out and email to teachforever AT gmail DOT com.

Unfortunately that means there's no entry this week, which makes today a great time to catch up on previous entries. It also means that my book Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition is not available for free download today (but it's still only $5 to download anyway).

Looking ahead, on Tuesday I'll be posting a review of the book Don't Swear with Your Mouth Full! When Conventional Discipline Fails Unconventional Children, followed by a two-part interview with the author on Wednesday and Thursday. Stay tuned!

Five for Friday: Countdown to Thanksgiving Edition

2009-11-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

Yes, my weary friends, we're only a few short weeks away from Thanksgiving. You're in the home stretch now! You can do it!

Enough With The School Projects! - Wired's GeekDad blog makes a good point about teachers giving projects that focus too much on art and creativity and not enough on content. The article, written from a parent's perpsective, offers a lot more fodder for thoughtful discussion.
WatchKnow - Helping Educators Find Videos That Students Can Watch to Know More [@The Innovative Educator] - A review of an interesting new website that collects and categorizes educational videos.
Online Grading: Treat-- or Trick? - Nancy Flanagan of Teacher in a Strange Land makes the case that giving parents instant online access to student grades can be either pointless or endlessly frustrating for teachers.
Selections from the instructions for the 18th World Puzzle Championship [@The Number Warrior] - An interesting challenge for you or your students!
Keep Swimming, Friends - Sup Teach? feels your pain as the countdown to Thanksgiving begins!

Instant Elementary Grouping Game for School or Home

2009-11-05T12:39:00.000-06:00

Following up on yesterday's simple elementary grouping game, here's a way to use a deck of cards to do more practice on grouping in the classroom, at home, or anywhere you have some table space to lay out cards. This is appropriate for K-3, (older children having trouble with multiplication and division).

Basically, using different amounts of cards, you'll ask the students "How many groups of ... can you make?" using the numbers given. You can remix this activity in a variety of games, working your way up from a smaller group or starting with

Start with all 52 cards, face down. Groups of 26, 13, 8, 7, 4, 2, 52, 1.
Remove 4 cards (leaving 48 cards). Groups of 12, 24, 4, 8, 6, 2, 48, 1.
Remove 8 cards (leaving 40). Groups of 10, 20, 40, 1, 5, 8, 2.
Remove 5 cards (leaving 35). Groups of 5, 7, 35, 1.
Remove 10 cards (leaving 25). Groups of 1, 5.
Remove 1 card (leaving 24). Groups of 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24.
Remove 6 cards (leaving 18). Groups of 3, 6, 9.
Remove 8 cards (leaving 10). Groups of 2, 5, 10, 1.

Throughout this activity there's opportunities to ask about multiplication and division facts as well as fractions. You'll notice the number of groups and order changes in each round; that's on purpose. I didn't include any group numbers that would leave remainders, which you can of course add depending on the child's aptitude and grade level.

You could replace the deck of cards with basically any other object, but cards are useful for many different types of games and I think are easier to organize and keep track of than block, beads, and other typical counting objects used in schools and at home.

educarnival v2, Issue 11 is up!

2009-11-04T11:05:00.002-06:00

educarnival v2, Issue 11 is up at I'm a Dreamer. Enjoy the carnival, then submit your links for the next one!

Simple Elementary Grouping Game

2009-11-04T11:05:00.000-06:00

I can't remember exactly where I picked up this idea--I'm not sure if I participated in this game as part of professional development of some kind or if I watched a colleague use it with their class. Either way, it's a way to practice grouping with your entire class or any large group. It would be most beneficial for grades K-2.

You could do this in the classroom (depending on how much space you have) but you might need to move to a bigger space since your students will have to move around a little. Once you're in your space, the game is simple:

You will be calling out numbers. Your students then get into groups of that number. They can hold hands or at least hold each other by the arm (set your expectation for this ahead of time).
They must get into their groups quickly and correctly. If their group has the wrong number, or an odd number of students are left out because of the numbers you gave, they're out.
Continue playing until you're down to a group of two. These are the winners, and if you think they're up to it, they can be the ones calling the numbers for the next round.

Before the game, have students could the number of students in the class. As you play, have students count the number of groups you've made and how many are left over. When you repeat numbers, briefly discuss why the number of groups might have changed. For example, if you used 3 when you had 18 students, then 3 again when there were 12 students left, this is a good opportunity to wonder aloud why there are only 4 groups of 3 left.

I realize that your very young students might not respond well to being "out" of the game, especially if they are having trouble socially. Having multiple rounds of the game is one way to avoid this, but you also don't want only friends grouping with each other. To add a team-building, socializing element to the game, you have to encourage students to try to make groups with everybody in the class at some point in the game. I also remember during my time playing the game, that the groups started small and then got bigger, requiring the addition of different students to each one.

I'm not an elementary expert by any means, however, so any suggestions to this end would be greatly appreciated.

Grouping is an essential skill for both multiplication and division, but also for adding and subtracting, fractions, percents, decimals, and even combining like terms in algebra. You can supplement this activity with anything that asks questions like "How many groups of __ can you make?"

Come back tomorrow for a follow up grouping activity using a deck of cards!

Use Playing Cards for Unlimited Number Sense Practice

2009-11-03T10:00:00.001-06:00

Here's a quick, easy number sense activity you can do in the classroom or at home. All you need is a deck of cards.

Deal out 16 cards face up. Arrange them in a 4x4 box. This square is kind of a "number bank," which will be drawn from in the same way you would pick vocabulary from a word bank. Ask your student to create as many correct equations using the numbers in the "box" to fill boxes or spaces. You create a framework like this (this would be a great early elementary version):

__ + __ = __
__ - __ = __
__ + __ + __ = __
__ - __ - __ = __

Your student might not be able to fill the entire framework because the cards are drawn randomly, but that's the nature of the activity. Encourage them to use as many cards as possible.

You can repeat this as long as your student is willing to do it. Even better, you can adjust both the equations and the rules to practice different types of problems.

For example, you have to decide what to do about the ace and face cards. I would suggest making the ace a one and the face cards all equal to 10. You can have all of the cards be positive, or make black cards positive and red cards negative. You can increase or decrease both the amount of cards and equations you ask them to fill in. You can also change the type of problem (add multiplication or division).

Here's a much more challenging version of this activity: Increase the square to 25 cards, but create a framework of three addition equations with fractions. Your student has to use the cards to fill in both the numerator and denominator, and while they might take the easy road and use a common denominator, some students will take the challenge of making correct equations without them.

52 Teachers, 52 Lessons: Week 35

2009-11-02T10:51:00.000-06:00

This week's entry comes from Ms. Alston:

As a special education teacher, my job and my students present a unique set of circumstances not fully shared or experienced, and therefore not always fully understood, by general ed teachers and personnel. I myself constantly struggle with my 'calling' as a special educator, so I constantly seek motivation in any way, shape, or form that I can get it. That inspiration came one day from Kira*.

Kira is one of my middle school students where I currently work. Since the beginning, she has truly been one of my most challenging students, academically and behaviorally. Kira was born to a drug-addicted mother and therefore she deals with the emotional, cultural, and economic challenges that unfortunately, usually comes with such inauspicious beginnings. Kira takes medication to help her focus and attend to classes, assignments, and activities during the school day. But of course, Kira frequently skips her medicine. On these days, she is unable to function for long in the regular education or resource class setting without some type of disruption.

On one of these days, she was sitting with the DES department Lead on one of her 'timeouts'. That day's issue was getting her to wear her glasses so she could see the board in class. Our department Lead encouraged her to wear them, admiring the look of them when she finally brought them out, and patiently citing all the reasons why she should wear them. But Kira was adamant: she would not wear the glasses. Her reason? " I need to learn how to see."

Learning to see. Kira's words continued to resonate with me in the days after this conversation was shared with me by my department chairperson. Although Kira's meaning of 'learning to see' was a physical thing she was attempting to overcome, the challenge I face, the one we all face as educators, is learning how to see our students. No, I don't mean seeing them standing in front of us in full, living color, but learning how to see them as who THEY are, and not as who WE are or who we want them to be. I won't lie and say that the view of our students will always be pretty or something we want to see, but it will provide us with the ability to accept them as who they are, same as we want from others for ourselves. This is not to say that acceptance of who they are should lead to complacency; we are, after all, in the business of molding and shaping lives. But if we can SEE and MEET students where they truly are, we not only have a better chance of reaching and teaching them, but we gain appreciation- appreciation from them, and a renewed appreciation for the special and delicate task we face as educators: learning to SEE the potential in ALL of our students, and then using that to show it to them and to the world as well.

*student's name has been changed to protect privacy

Read more about this project here, then email your entries to teachforever AT gmail DOT com. Week 36 is scheduled for next Monday, November 9nd, but at press time there is no submission to fill that slot!

As promised, the PDF version of Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition will be available for free all day today!

The Best of I Want to Teach Forever: October 2009

2009-10-31T23:28:00.001-05:00

Happy Halloween! If you've had as busy a month as I have, you probably haven't been able to keep up with this blog as much as you might like. This weekend is a good a time as any to do so! First, catch up on recent entries in the 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons project. Then, check out some of my best work this month:

Make Your Own Sudoku [10/20]
A Simple Blueprint for Stress Relief [10/22]
High or Low probability card game [10/27]
Ultimate Number Line Game [10/29]

If you like this site, there are many easy ways to support it:

Pick up a copy of my revised and updated book, Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition ($12 spiral-bound paperback, $5 digital).
Contribute to 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons.
Subscribe to my RSS feed or become a Follower (click Follow on the sidebar).
Send in a guest post.
Click the Share button below to add posts you like to StumbleUpon, Technorati and other social bookmarking sites (or share links on your own blog).
Email me your ideas, questions and suggestions!

Thank you, as always, for participating! If you've only recently discovered the site, here's the most recent "best of" compilations:

Best of September 2009
Best of August 2009
Best of July 2009

Five for Friday: Spooktacular Edition

2009-10-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

GuidetoOnlineSchools.com - Students post reviews of the growing number of online colleges and universities out there. It's worth passing on to any of your students who might be interested.
Funny Math T-shirts - I thought I had seen all of them before I found this! The huge list is on Teenormous, which is a search engine devoted entirely to t-shirts of all kinds.
The truth about grit - Boston Globe article from August about how "genius" is really just a good idea with a lot of hard work behind it. Something worth reiterating to our students, no?
From home schooling to 'unschooling' [via Slashdot] - The Baltimore Sun writes about an interesting offshoot of homeschooling. I know I have some homeschoolers reading this: what do you think?
Friday Happy Hour: Fanatical Parents & School Assemblies [@mental_floss blog] - The masters of trivia ask two open-ended questions: "What’s the craziest parental fan behavior you’ve witnessed?" and "What were some of your best or worst school assemblies?" Click through for ancedotes and reader responses.

Ultimate Number Line Game: Number Sense on a Massive Scale

2009-10-29T08:00:00.006-05:00

When I wrote about games and puzzles recently, Mister Teacher left an interesting comment about his frustration over students' lack of number sense. He teaches 3rd graders, but my high school students always had the same problems. One tool I used, even at that level, was the number line.

Number lines are used for a number of topics at the elementary level, but they pop up when least expected in higher grades. They help with counting and measurement for younger students and later become part of measures of central tendency (box-and-whisker plots) and graphing inequalities. By using it, you're modeling something that appears throughout all levels of mathematics but is still criminally underused.

So I was considering this issue and was struck with the idea of creating a giant number line that student could actually walk along. I envisioned all ages of students rushing up and down the line frantically, as I used to do when we played a version of Ship to Shore in PE in elementary school).

This game is designed for 1st grade and up, and is scalable and adaptable for higher levels of difficulty.

Ultimate Number Line Game

Creating the Number Line

You need space to make a huge number line on the floor or ground. Try to secure as large a space as possible (the bigger the better):

Classroom: Use brightly colored painter's or electrical tape to mark several parallel number lines on the floor. Create enough hash marks as possible (-10 to 10 at an absolute minimum). Move desks, tables and chairs out of the way (out of the room if possible).
Gym: If there's any lines already on the floor, use them as the hash marks of your line, but create the line students will follow as described above.
Outdoors [large sidewalk/playground]: Use sidewalk chalk to mark number lines.
Outdoors [football field]: Perhaps the best option of all, especially if the field is lined but not numbered, in which case you don't need to do anything except get out there.

Parents and homeschoolers: you have a distinct advantage if you try this game--there's no excuse not to use the largest space available.

Game Procedures

Students stand at zero to start. If you're in the classroom, use teams and have students rotate out when they're eliminated (see below).
Teacher calls out problems with ample pauses between numbers and operators ("8... plus... 3... next: 2... minus ...7!"), allowing students to move accordingly. If someone stops on the wrong result or is the last to get there, they're eliminated. Eliminated students stand off to the side, and are welcome to help with answers and identify cheaters or other problems.
Increase the speed and difficulty of problems until the round is done.
Start over and encourage improvement, but accelerate the game more quickly. The ultimate goal is that the class will get to the point that everybody is moving to the right spot almost as one!

Introducing the Game

Discuss the type of problems you're going to do. Some questions you might ask, depending on the level of questions you'll be working on: "How many of you know how to add? ...subtract? What happens when you subtract a bigger number from a smaller number? What is a negative number?"

Introduce or review the number line. We start at the first number given in any addition or subtraction problem. We move right for addition and left for subtraction (and if you're using negative numbers, that sign reverses your direction). Explain the game procedures outlined above.

Options and Considerations

How do you want students to move? Do they make big steps over large intervals, hop (as we draw on paper number lines often), or can they run?
Are you going to announce problems separately (which will require more movement) or just add or subtract to the last answer (which might be quicker)?
How difficult should the problems get? Will you just add and subtract positive numbers, positive and negative integers, fractions, or decimals? Will you change your intervals to 10 or 100?
Who do you need to talk to in order to use one of the spaces outside your classroom? The unique setting and large scale of this game is what will make it more memorable and effective with your students, so you have to do everything to get the most possible space.

Why This Will Work

Notice that I didn't suggest students could do this on a paper at their desk; of course they could. Yet that would miss the entire point: this is an engaging, fun, kinesthetic activity. Students will be paying attention, quite literally on their toes, and that's a big deal in and of itself.

More importantly, the number line is an easy to understand model of addition and subtraction, especially for more difficult problems like subtracting larger numbers from smaller ones, and adding and subtracting positive and negative integers.

This game avoids any written component, by you or them. You're helping them develop number sense by solving the problems quickly and mentally, with only a slight aid from the number line. By not even seeing the written problem, let alone being able to work it out on paper, they're forced to use the natural math ability we all have.

To go back to Mister Teacher's example, imagine starting at zero and giving students the problem "0 minus 8". It sounds like in his class, you'd have half of the students go to 8 and the rest to -8. Who's right? Can one of the students explain the answer? It's a great teachable moment that will stay with your students.

Moving around the line doesn't take too long, so you have the opportunity to do a lot of problems, multiple rounds, and reverse and repeat problems that students struggle with.

By the end, you should be able to call out almost any problem and have everybody moving to the right answer simultaneously! In other words, it should get to the point that they don't need the number line by the time you're done.

Homework

If you attempt this in class, please report back with your experience! I'm really excited about the possibility that this simple idea will make a difference for your students.

Have you done anything similar on this topic or others? I'd love to hear about that as well.

Stay tuned for more games for students young and old!

educarnival v2, Issue 10

2009-10-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

Welcome to Issue 10 of educarnival v2! I hope you've got your costume ready for the weekend (and/or Friday at school!). Let's get to it:

Pat presents Working Myself Out of a Job posted at Successful Teaching.

Darren presents CTA--How Are You Going To Explain This To Your Membership? posted at Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher. He asks, "What happened to the CTA, such that California, with no fight at all, got rid of the section of ed code that forbade tying student standardized test scores to teacher performance evaluations?"

Joanne Jacobs presents Schools can't close parenting gap posted at Joanne Jacobs.

OKP presents Inductive Reasoning and Close Reading posted at Line 46, which is "[a]n activity to help train students to read more closely."

Pat pulls double duty this week, presenting Using Common Sense is Not Impossible posted at Successful Teaching.

Mister Teacher presents Sum wrong answers posted at Learn Me Good.

Mrs. Bees presents Awful posted at Full of Bees!, saying: "They warn teachers never to get into a power struggle, and I think that's exactly what I did - but I'm not sure what else I should have done with this belligerent student. What do other teachers think?"

oldandrew presents OFSTED Must Die posted at Scenes From The Battleground. "OFSTED," he explains, "are the school inspectors in England."

Bellringers (Carol Richtsmeier) presents Witches, Warnings & Phone Calls posted at Bellringers.

More Great Posts, Selected By The Host:

Craig asks if he's giving Too Much Help? by letting students use study guides during tests at Approaching Infinity.

Joshua Gans reveals Shock! Baby Einstein not educational at Game Theorist.

Eyawn explains Why I've Become a Believer in Our Oakland School at Sup Teach?.

j4luck says I Don't Know Nothing About Anything at Contemplations of a Future Teacher.

sassybug shares Just a few stats... at A Few Degrees Short of a Right Angle.

***

That's all for this week's educarnival v2. You can read the previous issue at Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable. Next week's carnival will be hosted at I'm a Dreamer. As always, you can submit your entries for next week here at the Blog Carnival website. Thank you for visiting!

High or Low: From Drinking Game to Learning Opportunity

2009-10-27T08:00:00.003-05:00

Let me start this post with a hopefully obvious disclaimer:

Do not, under any circumstances, tell your students (or your colleagues, administrators or anybody else) that this is based on a drinking game.

Let them figure that out for themselves when they're in college, where they'll have a distinct advantage over their classmates because of the probability skills you're going to teach them.

The premise of the drinking game High or Low is to guess whether the next card is higher or lower than the last one dealt. That's basically it (minus the obvious). The only element we're going to add to the game is that students will figure out the exact probability that the next card will be higher, lower or the same suit.

Introduction/Guided Practice:
Explain that you'll be using a regular deck of cards to help students understand some challenging probability problems. Show them the graphic organizer and how to fill it in by "playing" a few sample rounds. Click through for a rough example of what a filled in organizer might look like.

While you're modeling how to play and use the organizer, that's the best opportunity to review the structure of a regular deck of cards, as that's essential knowledge they'll need to play.

I wouldn't try to sell this to your students as a super fun game so much as a different way to practice problems (better than say, doing problems out of a textbook). They might get into the guessing element, but I don't think it will be as engrossing as my Deal or No Deal probability game. Students definitely don't like it when you tell them something is fun when it's not, but they do appreciate the novelty of using cards and just doing classwork differently in general.

Collaborative Practice:
Split your class into small groups, giving each one no more than 10 regular playing cards. Each group would have a different set of cards and probabilities to figure out, which eliminates the problem of students copying answers. That element plus the "game" itself should keep most students focused and invested in the activity. They'll be filling out the organizer and then considering the reflection questions as well.

Wrap-Up:
At the end of the game there's a few reflection questions you might talk about together. Students will probably think this game is pretty easy at the beginning--how hard can it be to guess correctly high or low? I think their results will probably skew towards an even number of correct and incorrect guesses.

You could also give them an exit slip like: "How could we change this game to make it easier? ...harder?" A game of Red or Black?, for example, would elicit some interesting answers.

Things to Consider:

Do you want students to leave probabilities as fractions, simplified fractions, or change them to percents as well? The latter would take a bit more time and might require you to give 1 or 2 less cards to each group.
How long do you want this activity to take? As is, it should fill a 45-55 minute period, allowing for opening and closing procedures and transitions. If you want to spend less time on this, give students only 4 or 5 cards. You can spend the rest of your class period on similar probability problems from your usual resources or whatever you'd like.
This should be taught after you've introduced the basics of probability in other ways, as it involves the idea of independent and dependent probability (replacement).
Every time I post something about probability, some people like to start an argument over the Monty Hall Problem. I think you could argue either way, but the point of this activity is to provide practice on finding probability in a way similar to typical standardized test questions, and that's all. Let's leave that debate for another time.
If you want to add an additional challenge, you can use this activity as a segue to talk about compound probability!

Materials to Download:

High or Low card game graphic organizer
Rough example of filled-in graphic organizer

Halloween Fun: "You've Been Boo'd"

2009-10-26T17:00:00.000-05:00

Carson-Dellosa, a name you probably recognize because they're one of the biggest educational publishing companies, has announced a fun, relatively* free Halloween game to play with your colleagues at school:

You can get in on all the Halloween fun and continue the fast-growing tradition of Boo-ing with Carson-Dellosa’s printer friendly “You’ve Been Boo’d” Ghost PDF to send to teachers at your school. It’s totally fun and best of all, it’s free! Just log on to www.carsondellosa.com/boo or Log Into to your Facebook Home Page and follow this link to Carson-Dellosa at http://tinyurl.com/ykmft9o to send the “You’ve Been Boo’d” app.

Boo-ing is a fun way to spread the Halloween spirit. Carson-Dellosa has created a special “You’ve Been Boo’d!” Ghost for teachers so they can have their own secret Halloween fun!

HOW TO BOO:

It’s a fun little game that’s easy to do. You could make someone’s day and share a treat, too!
Log on to www.carsondellosa.com/boo and print out two copies of the “You’ve Been Boo’d!” Ghost PDF or Log Into your Facebook Home Page and follow this link to Carson-Dellosa at http://tinyurl.com/ykmft9o to send Carson-Dellosa’s “You’ve Been Boo’d” app.
Prepare two Halloween goodie bags filled with treats.
Secretly leave the “You’ve Been Boo’d” Ghost and a bag of treats for two teachers in your school.
Pass this posting on to your teacher friends at other schools.
The “You’ve Been Boo’d Ghost” PDF and Facebook app will be available through October 31st.

*Except for the goodies!

Personally, I'd avoid the Facebook app unless you want everyone at your school to be your friend there. But don't let that stop you from having a little fun! :)

52 Teachers, 52 Lessons: Week 34

2009-10-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

This week's entry is from Julie of School of Blog, where it is also crossposted. It's a great example of authentic discovery learning that other teachers can learn from.

Background:

We are in the middle of studying early American societies, and have just finished learning about Mississippian (mound builders) and Taíno societies
This lesson introduces students to early Mesoamerican societies (Maya, Mixtec, Zapotec, Olmec, Aztec)

Instructions:

The students will visit the website of ImageBase (http://www.famsf.org/fam/about/imagebase/index.asp)
I have assigned several students to each Mesoamerican society (Maya, Mixtec, etc.) In the "Search" box at ImageBase, the students in the Maya group will enter "Maya," which will generate images of artifacts.
The students will choose one artifact to analyze.
The students will complete a worksheet that will help them analyze their artifact. The point of the analysis is for students to understand what "stuff," or material culture, can teach us about the people that used it.
Once they finish the analysis, they will bring what they've learned and "jigsaw" it with the other students. Next steps include a more general discussion of those societies, trade networks, etc.

Discussion:
I've found that this type of activity is great for kids with language processing difficulties and English language learners. If I'm delivering content day after day through English-language documents, films, and discussions, it's nice to take a break and have students learn history by examining an artifact.

Read more about this project here, then email your entries to teachforever AT gmail DOT com. Week 35 is scheduled for next Monday, November 2nd.

As promised, the PDF version of Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition will be available for free all day today!

20 Free Web 2.0 Tools for Educators

2009-10-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Web 2.0 tools are becoming very popular among educators who want to integrate technology in the classroom. These tools are readily available to anyone with an Internet connection and are often one of the easiest ways to engage students and encourage collaboration in the classroom. This list of free web 2.0 tools is by no means complete, but it does provide a wide range of tools that would be useful to educators:

Claroline - Teachers around the world use this open source software to create and manage online courses and learning environments. Claroline supports 35 different languages.

Wetpaint - Wetpaint can be used to create free social websites. This tool is excellent for classroom projects. Sites are easy to build and can include text, videos, photo galleries, tables, polls, attachments, and other types of content.

mind42 - Mind42 is a free mind mapping (visual brainstorming) application that works in your browser. The app offers impressive features and works well for classroom collaboration.

SnapGrades - SnapGrades is a web-based gradebook. Teachers can use the free version of this book to print grades and store grades online.

RubiStar - This free online tool helps educators create rubrics for different types of class projects. RubiStar can be used alone or integrated into class management systems like Moodle and Blackboard.

TU Lesson Planner - Teacher Universe offers this free lesson planner to help teachers plan standards-based lessons and 2.0 learning experiences.

Quiz Center - This free online tool from Discovery Education creates, administers, and grades quizzes online. The tool is simple to use and fully customizable.

ProProfs - ProProfs provides an amazing selection of web-based tools for teachers. The free tools can be used to create online quizzes, polls, flash cards, and brain games.

Flash Card Machine - This web 2.0 tool creates web-based flash cards that can be placed on customizable pages for individual students or entire classrooms. Cards can be text-based or audio-based and support image insertion.

World Lingo - WorldLingo is an excellent tool for language learning classrooms. This free translator can translate text and web pages into multiple languages.

Twiddla - Twiddla is a web-based whiteboard. Classrooms can use Twiddla to brainstorm, share images and text, or browse the web together.

Gickr - Gickr instantly creates animated photos and slideshows using basic photos. Completed Gickr projects can be imbedded into web pages or blogs.

EduSlide - This free software allows teachers to create online courses and web-based lesson plans. Content can be presented through wikis, slideshows, blogs, and testing modules.

Web-Chops - This free 2.0 tool is perfect for teachers who want to share bits of the web with their students. Web-Chops allows users to clip web page sections and reorganize them on a single topic page that can be shared with other people.

Jing - Jing is free, cross-platform software that can be used to add screen shots and videos of on-screen action to online conversations. Recorded material can be shared over the web, through email, and via IM chat.

Vyew - Vyew is a live web conferencing tool that can be used for online meetings, presentations, and real-time collaboration.

Vocaroo - This free voice recording service couldn't be any easier to use. You simply click one button to record, another to stop, and a third to play back the recording.

Yahoo! Media Player - Yahoo's free media player makes it easy to imbed and play audio recordings on web pages and blogs. This player is great for language teachers, music teachers, and other educators who want to share audio files with students.

Edutagger - This social bookmarking site for K-12 teachers is a good place for educators to find web 2.0 tools that have been reviewed and implemented in the classroom.

The Apple - The Apple is a social network where teachers come together to talk about technology, web 2.0 tools, lesson planning, and other education topics.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer, the About.com Guide to Business School. Karen also writes about online classes for OnlineClasses.org.

Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition = More for Less!

2009-10-24T08:00:00.001-05:00

I've noticed that since I published my updated, expanded Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition last month, most people have still been buying the first edition (paperback and download). In the case of the paperback, it made sense because the Second Edition was slightly more expensive. I can understand that.

However, the Second Edition download has been $5--one dollar cheaper than the first edition--since day one! Since the Second Edition has more content, people are paying more for less!

So to anyone who's thinking about picking up my book, consider this:

I've lowered the price for the spiral-bound Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition to $11.95, the same as the first edition paperback. So now you'll get more content for the same amount of money.

Frankly, as much as I like seeing my Amazon sales rank climb from #1,500,000 to #1,499,999 from one day to the next, I don't make much off each book sale there. Long story short, if you're aiming to support this website, I make more from each Second Edition sold than any first editions I sell.

Either way, you're getting a better deal and helping me and the website out more. So if you're interested, click the book cover on the sidebar of the blog or click through here:

Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition

...and thank you!

Next Teach for America Application Deadline: October 28th

2009-10-23T13:00:00.004-05:00

If you click the Teach for America tag, you'll find previous posts about my experiences. I'm happy to answer any specific questions you might have, just email me.

Five for Friday: Turnpike Series Edition?

2009-10-23T08:00:00.002-05:00

I guess I tempted fate with the "I Love Football Season" Edition of Five for Friday last week; both my alma mater (Rutgers) and the New York Jets lost close games. I'm not really all that interested in the World Series, but I like the idea of the "Turnpike Series" because it's the New Jersey Turnpike, baby! Jersey represent! On to the links...

The Carnival of Homeschooling #199: Maine: The Postcards Don't Lie Edition [@No Fighting, No Biting!]
Origami and Mathematics - Art & math, together again. [@Webmaths]
Math Teachers at Play #17 [@Mathrecrecation]
All Children Left Behind - A great primer on the "common core" movement that's gaining momentum. I need to look into this more myself before I start commenting. [@The Innovative Educator]
It only took 6 weeks to get to my first Big Crisis Moment of the year. - Alison, a young math teacher in only her second year, is struggling with whether teaching is right for her (among other things). Perhaps you can give her some advice? [@Axioms to Teach By]

All blogs linked are worth subscribing to in your favorite RSS reader. (BTW, if teachers out there have heard about RSS, feeds and "subscribing" to blogs but don't know what to do, I'd be happy to do a how-to post. Email me or leave a comment and I'll get on that ASAP.)

A Simple Blueprint for Stress Relief

2009-10-22T08:00:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since I've talked about stress relief, but I have some new ideas that I think might help you if you're struggling at this point in the school year. What I'm proposing for you to try out, be it this weekend or during a weekday a mental health day, is to take your mind out of time.

Sometimes we seek to escape stress by distracting ourselves, spending money on literal escapes, or self-medicating. None of these actions solve the problem; when it's over, the stress returns. What I want you to try will give you a chance to reflect and hopefully recenter yourself. Ready? Let's begin.

Schedule nothing. As I've always advocated, a day of true discovery and recovery will never come if you're running errands or scheduling anything at all. You're going to have plenty of nothing to do on your day of rest. This is essential for the success of Step 2.
Sleep in. Turn any alarm off--I would suggest covering up or unplugging any clocks in your bedroom. Ask anyone in your home who might normally wake you to leave you be ahead of time. Keep your curtains drawn. The night before, go to bed whenever it feels comfortable, not an artificially scheduled time based on your normal routine.
Go watchless/clockless. Teachers might be the last group of professionals still relying on watches all the time--there's an increasing trend among the young generations to forgo watches in favor of the clocks on their cell phone. This is a simple gesture but has an amazing affect in and of itself. Try it for today, and I guarantee you'll be looking for more opportunities to disconnect. This plan is about not planning, and most of us are so completely tied down to what the time tells us to do. As soon as you stop thinking about what time it is, you're free to think about what you want to do right now.
Go completely analog. The next logical step to not thinking about the time is to disconnect from the digital world that also keeps us in artificial cycles of thought. This means no cell phone, no Internet, no TV and so on today. Any one of these devices can immediately anchor you to your conventional routines and trigger stereotypes about what you're supposed to be doing at certain times of the day. You're actually supposed to be doing whatever you want to be doing, and completely disconnecting from everything else.
Go outside, and go forth! At this point you should be starting to feel a disconnect from the limits we place on ourselves by way of time. Now you need to get out of the house and head somewhere that will help our mind disconnect from our normal places. Find the simplest way to get going, whatever that might be, and go. Your destination should be separate from and different than what you're used to. It's sort of a choose your own adventure, and what you choose to do with it is up to you. You might take this time to think, or to not think at all. It depends on what you need, and I think once you take the first four steps, you'll already know what that something (or nothing) might be.

The main idea here is to sever yourself from the things that tie you to your normal stresses: time and place. I think that whenever you manage to wander back home, there might be a few moments where you still don't care what time it is. And it will feel amazing.

On Games and Puzzles

2009-10-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Working with elementary school students in my tutoring job has had me thinking a lot about how I learned math when I was younger. I'm good at following directions and solving problems with the standard methods we're always taught, but I've finally got a name for the way I would try to break down and simplify problems for myself: number sense. Of course, I've heard of number sense before, but I didn't really have a complete picture of what that meant beyond being really, really good at solving math problems quickly and without a lot of difficulty.

I've realized that more than anything, playing a wide range of games (card, board, video) and solving puzzles throughout my youth gave me more practice with number sense than anything I did in school. The crucial skills are pretty easy to see when you're looking for them: counting, classifying and grouping numbers, estimating, thinking quickly, dealing with money, spatial relations, problem solving, creating systems to make success easier, and finding out that there's more than one way to do things. I'm being purposely vague here, because I think these skills are present to some extent in so many things that it would be difficult to make a definitive list.

What I mean to do with this notion is to:

Revisit and review games both old and new and point out their educational value, and suggest ways to extend and adapt them for the classroom (not necessarily a new idea for me, but there will be a renewed focus on this)
Create more new games that teach these skills in both obvious and subtle ways
Suggest games that would be valuable for parents to do with with young children at home.

The last one is a new adventure for me; up until now I have focused almost entirely on things that can be done in middle and high school classrooms. Being out of the classroom has reminded me that so much can be done at home, and much more easily than parents might think.

So be prepared for a lot of discussion of games and puzzles in the near future. For now, here's some great resources that inspire me and should do the same for you:

Educational Games Research
Digital Play

Make Your Own Sudoku

2009-10-20T08:00:00.002-05:00

When I fly home for the holidays, I usually take a book of sudoku puzzles with me. They keep me occupied to prevent both boredom and anxiety about flying that I've never completely shaken.

Sometimes I bring along a very challenging sudoku book, one where I might not finish a puzzle before landing. While I'm usually up for a challenge, I've often found myself more frustrated with these puzzles than the stresses of travel. It's the only book where I've finished multiple puzzles only to realize I had done so incorrectly (How did I get two 9's in the first row? Arggh!). Nevertheless, I keep bringing it along every so often, vowing to conquer the mighty challenges within. You can guess how most of these struggles end.

It was in one of these moments that, instead of paying airport prices to buy an easier book, I thought it would be an interesting challenge to make my own sudoku. I would start with a blank 9 x 9 grid and fill in the numbers from scratch. All I needed was blank paper, a pencil and time.

I started as I sometimes do with traditional puzzles: fitting the same number in each of the nine 3 x 3 boxes. In this case, it didn't matter the starting number, or the order after that. You still have to use the same skills and logic that you do when solving a regular puzzle. Mathmatically speaking, at some point early on, you lock yourself into that one solution that all sudoku puzzles have, so it's not long before you're basically doing a regular puzzle.

I wondered if I could start with specific patterns and still create a working puzzle. Could I fill a row with 1 through 9 in order from left to right? What about crossing through that with a vertical line of 1 through 9 in order? Could I make patterns in one 3 by 3 box and simply repeat them in the other boxes with very few changes? Could I fill a 3 by 3 box like a telephone keypad? If I could create a pattern one way, could I simply rotate the nine 3 by 3 boxes around? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when I set these starting parameters, how much am limiting the possible solutions?

There are a lot of possibilities, and it's a good, challenging puzzle exercise for curious young minds. First, sudoku by nature teaches critical thinking skills like logic and problem solving. There's one solution, but many ways to get there. When students start creating their own strategies, they're thinking on a higher level. Spatial relationships are so important throughout higher level mathematics, and the basic ideas of ordering, positioning and arrangement are always needed to solve (and create) these puzzles. "How does this fit together?" and "How can I take this apart?" are key for success in geometry (among many other things).

So I would give this to students as a challenge, first giving them blank grids and perhaps starting one together. Have them complete some on their own, then either show them or give them the "starter" sudoku to explore some of the questions I raised earlier. I think you could do this with upper elementary students and up--and it would be great for homeschoolers as well!

Blank printable sudoku grids (six)
"Starter" printable sudoku grids (six)

Tried something similar? Share your experiences and resources in the comments.

Submit Your Entries for 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons

2009-10-19T12:11:00.002-05:00

There's no 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons entry this week.

Read more about the project here, then send your entry to teachforever AT gmail DOT com.

Take a look at last week (Week 33) for additional inspiration.

Five For Friday: "I Love Football Season" Edition

2009-10-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

Use PlayCrafter to Create Your Own Free Flash Games [@Wired: GeekDad] - Have some fun this weekend with this, then figure out how to use it in school!
How does your school foster a "college-bound" culture? [@Sup Teach?]
Math Videogame Scorecard - The Number Warrior created a graphic organizer to keep kids on task and learning while playing an online math game.
On Using Technology for Doing Math [@Math Mama Writes...] - Sue spurred an interesting debate on whether it's a tool, crutch or both. Click through and read the comment to see my position on the issue.
A Road Map to Memorization [@Contemplations of a Future Teacher] - j4luck shares some research on using maps (think board games, road maps, etc) as a way for students to take effective notes.