Question

I'm feeling particularly inspired today from a conversation that I've had often in the last month. A caring experienced teacher asks me how I'm doing. I mention that there are definitely little moments that I love, but I'm also pretty exhausted. They offer encouragement, and then they often tell the same story: it seems that most experienced teachers have learned along the way that "you just can't be the super-awesome-always-engaging teacher that you dreamed of being". You have to be realistic about the time you have. "You can't do everything", as the common phrase goes.

The frequency of this conversation got me thinking. Why do we chose this reality for educators?  Of course, in any situation, there will always be "more" and "better", but doesn't it seem a bit silly that we take enthusiastic capable new teachers, who are bursting with new ideas and high goals, and teach them to significantly lower their expectations of themselves?

I was watching the girls basketball team play on Thursday night, and they had clearly honed their skills (they won the game by a long shot, literally). But it wasn't simple case of more training that made them so successful (taking that equation to it's limits, training 24 hours a day would leave the girls to exhausted to play). It was about training well. Something that the girls, with the help of their coaches, have clearly done.

Can we do that with teaching? How do we train well as we're learning to teach instead of just training more? And how do we figure out how to train well, when the treadmill is running at level 20 and we're on it?

I was inspired by this repeat conversation because it suggests that this is a real systemic question that many of us haven't found an answer to yet.  It's also a really important question to me, to almost every teacher I've talked with, and to society who have so much invested in education and therefore in educators.

It occurred to me that I could spend a lot of time trying to figure out this question. Which made me wonder if I should look into education rather than physics education research possibilities for the future. Admittedly, there might be a little bit of a narcissistic pattern here: last year, I was a girl in physics and I researched girls in physics. When I was a physics tutorial TA, I researched physics tutorial TAs. Now I'm a first year teacher, and I'm feeling quite inspired to research first year teachers. The only way to really resolve this pattern is to research narcissistic researchers, but for now, I think I'll go for learning as much as I can as a first year teacher.

Time

Hi Anneke,
Somewhere I have a draft that I started and never posted, I'll try to find it tomorrow.
Very sorry about the car...  lots of damage?
TIME is what every first-year teacher lacks. In the short run, the only solution is to settle for doing less and getting more sleep and time for yourself. There is NO evidence that students suffer at the hand of a first-year teacher, and you can often do a better job when you are rested than when you are prepared but exhausted.
I guess I'm saying "ask yourself which corners you can cut with the least damage to what you are trying to do."
I know what high standards you have for yourself, especially after your Masters. It's WAY too early to decide what you think about the profession.
Please don't burn yourself out before you give yourself a real chance!!
Tom

Time

Today feels less like a mending day. It feels more like a large-vehicle-just-drove-into-our-passenger-door-while-we-were-driving kind of day. Perhaps because one did this afternoon. Fortunately, Janet is an amazing defensive driver and responded fast, avoiding any injuries.

Opening a friendly email from a parent asking about her daughter really shouldn't have opened up my frustration this afternoon. But it did - because her daughter is awesome, and I want so much to help her more with her math... and I just don't know where to find the time to do that. Today, I'm feeling frustrated with teaching. Working an 80 - 100 hour week gets me almost enough time to plan and teach okay lessons, while still falling behind on marking and letting the list of parents to phone grow longer than it should. To actually do my job, I ought to be working 120 - 140 hour weeks, but to be honest, I'm kinda tired.

Our wonderful custodian always pops his head in my classroom as he leaves at 11pm to encourage me to go home. I really appreciate his caring concern, and the encouragements of parents and others. But I'm frustrated because, while everyone encourages me to work less, there actually isn't a lot that I can cut while still doing my job. Many people offer all kinds of advice in genuine caring attempts to help, but I think the magic solution - the one that makes it possible to both be a good teacher and still get 7 hours of sleep each night - is more evasive than those on the outside looking in often believe.

And so, I'm really not sure what to think about teaching as a profession so far. I love it when I have the time to do a good job. It's so exciting to help students grow and develop into leaders who will make a positive difference in their world. But it's not terribly rewarding to see myself constantly fall short of where I want to be as a teacher - and falling short not because I'm not doing my best, and not because I'm not receiving enough support, advice, and encouragement - I have all of those things. But simply because I need more time.

Mending

Teaching, it seems, is a medical profession. Today is a day for writing/reflecting because we're currently out of emerge and into the recovery and rehabilitation wing of the hospital. But the ambulance is parking and running; who knows what Monday will bring.

I was really excited about our first lab report in Grade 12 Biology. The lab was fun - we tested various foods for the presence of lipids, proteins, starches, and sugars, and figured out the identity of a mystery food. We went through a checklist for what a formal lab report should look like, did a short activity to go over what a lab report should include, and since they are a strong class, I assumed they would be fine to write the labs on their own.

So when the reports were in on Monday, I discovered I'd really missed the mark in giving them adequate direction. While there were a few labs that met most of the requirements on the checklist, many labs were incomplete. Two were partially plagiarized. One contained three points for a procedure, handwritten on a sheet of paper, and nothing else. I couldn't in good conscience mark the labs and return them. We needed to rewind, take some time to learn how to write a lab report, and re-submit.  So I asked them to meet with me individually, do peer editing in class, and then re-submit the labs on Tuesday. We would take this tough situation and turn it into a great learning opportunity! The route from the recovery room to hospital discharge was sparkling on the horizon.

The next day, our principal (who is very supportive) was at my door right before the start of class, letting me know that two students came to his office to tell him that my teaching was unfair and too hard. In my sleepy mind-set, after staying up until midnight getting that day's lessons ready, it was a devastating thing to hear for me. Back we went to emerge.

After a few conversations after school, I learned a bit more about the situation: revision has been synonymous with punishment for many of my students. It sounds like they understood our peer editing/resubmission plan to mean that I was punishing them, and were naturally upset.  Today, we're on the mend (for now). The students did a great job peer editing and marking each other's work using my rubric, and from our individual meetings, I think they are ready to create very good lab reports (version 2) now.

The bumps and falls are far from over though. We started our next project today - we're doing a joint project with the Grade 2 class that I'm pretty excited about. We're communicating our understanding of cellular processes to a non-scientific audience using storybook analogies, and we'll be reading buddies with the Grade 2 class to share our stories. The project has already been really helpful for me to see their learning process so far. Today, I talked with one student, who was originally planning to use a lego wall as an analogy to the cell membrane. It was such a surprise and helpful feedback for me to realize that a student successfully memorized the term "fluid semi-permeable membrane", but really didn't understand what that means yet.

But... (and there is always a but), the student who told the principal that our lab was unfairly hard also confronted me today because he felt a test would be a better assessment of his learning than the project. We talked about how I can assess knowledge and understanding on tests, but if I only used tests for assessment, it would be hard for me to accurately assess communication, thinking, and application. And it wouldn't be fair to students who struggle with tests, but can demonstrate their ability through other means.  It seemed a good answer to me, but to be honest, I don't think he bought it.  And I get that - his world is getting good grades for university applications, not balanced assessment practices.

Always mending.

Your thesis

Hi Anneke,

I had lunch with James and he gave me a sketch of your thesis. It sounds wonderful. Please let me know when Queen's has posted it on Qshare so I can enjoy it and see what you have been up to this year.

James certainly raves about you and I'm sure your departure will leave a big hole. Intriguing to hear his plans for teaching 200 next year, with 8 TAs! I feel so lucky to have found one person on "main" campus who shows such strong interest in teaching and learning issues.

And of course I'm hoping this blog will give me the occasional window into your teaching next fall. Meanwhile, I wish you well with that all important task of writing up!

Yours,
Tom

Solving the Problem of Problem Sets

I love great conferences. The plenary speaker, Simon Bates (UBC) talked about a brilliant replacement for our traditional weekly problem sets, and as I ride home on this lovely train, I have to share his ideas with you!

We have a problem with problem sets.  We need our students to practice challenging quantitative problem-solving if we hope to support the development of critical thinking scientists and mathematicians.  Yet every week, we spend precious department dollars marking and giving feedback for... nicely copied internet solutions.  We return this great feedback to our students, who glance at the red number at the top of the first page and promptly stuff the papers in their bag.  Rich and real problem-solving? Critical thinking? Revised understanding from feedback? Learning? Not really.

I loved Simon's solution. He introduced us to PeerWise (http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/), an exciting (and free!) tool that has the potential to provide much richer learning opportunities than weekly problem sets. PeerWise is a online social platform where students generate their own "problem set questions" (with accompanying solutions) on the week's material.

The prof begins by taking care to train the students in how to generate really good problems that exist sweetly in the students' zone of proximal development. Then the students are required to write 1 problem, answer 5, and comment on 3. Simon suggested keeping the number of problems that the students are required to write low, so that the quality remains high - which makes sense given that time is usually our biggest obstacle.

Then the magic happens. Students write questions. They're goofy, they're fun, but most importantly - they're really good problems. When your friends, not just your teacher, will be evaluating the quality of your work, there's considerable motivation not to take the easy way out of an assignment.  The web interface allows students to both answer and comment on the problem - similar to how you might comment on a facebook post. Sometimes, the author gets it wrong. But the instructor doesn't step in.  Instead, students debate their solutions through this forum, collaborate, and write a better problem together! Finally, the prof puts the marks where his/her mouth is. Some of these best problems appear on the final exam to add extra motivation for students to learn with their peers.

I'm so excited about this. Students have a natural investment in figuring out the answer because they created the question. I can't wait to try this with my class!

A short historical look at supernovae

Though observed supernovae occur many light years away from our home on Earth, they have found their way into our history and hearts. The term ``nova'' meaning ``new'' might seem like an ironic descriptor of a dying star, merely named this way because the increase in luminosity from an old star to a supernova is so great that the supernova appears to be a new star.  Perhaps the term is an apt one, however. Though supernovae occur at the end of a star's existence, they can also symbolize potential for new star forming regions. Supernovae seem to have a sense of hope in destruction about them.

Not surprisingly, we have been fascinated by these dramatic events in the sky throughout history. The first recorded supernova, observed in A. D. 1006 and recorded in Europe, China, Japan, Egypt, and Iraq, was "a little more than a quarter of the brightness of the moon" according to Egyptian student Ali Ridwan. Just 48 years later, another "guest star", which was also bright enough to be seen in the day, appeared in Taurus, and left behind the elegant crab supernova remnant for us to observe today.

Historic writings suggest that these explosions were both beautiful and terrifying to the cultures who witnessed them. An Arabic medical textbook from A. D. 1242 connected the A. D. 1054 supernova to an outbreak of the plague, stating that the "spectacular star... caused an epidemic to break out in Old Cairo when the Nile was low.''  Upon hearing that the public believed the A. D. 1006 supernova to be an omen of famine, the Chinese Director of the Bureau of Astronomy, Chou K'o-ming, countered general alarm by announcing the new star to be an omen of prosperity occurring during the reign of a very wise leader - a smart career move which soon got him a promotion.

Pictographs found in New Mexico (pictured below) are thought to depict the 1054 supernova.

Five hundred years later, in 1572, Tycho Brahe observed very bright "nova stella'' in the constellation of Cassiopeia. He gave a confident account of the experience in his book De Nova Stella, in which he wrote:

``I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing the other stars in brilliancy, was shining almost directly above my head; and since I had, almost from boyhood, known all the stars of the heavens perfectly (there is no great difficulty in attaining that knowledge), it was quite evident to me that there had never before been any star in that place in the sky.'' -Tycho Brahe

Though images such as the Hubble Deep Field suggest that it is quite a bit harder to know all of the stars than Brahe claimed, Brahe's supernova observation signified a cultural turning point, challenging the early Renaissance belief that the stars did not change. The philosophies of that culture would be thoroughly turned upside down by yet another supernova in 1604 observed by Brahe's student, Kepler.

Since Brahe and Kepler's discoveries, we have not observed another supernova in our own galaxy. Fortunately, many spectacular supernovae have been found in surrounding galaxies.  The funny looking character pictured below, Zwicky, found over a hundred supernovae. His classifications pioneered our modern understanding of how supernovae occur.

Recently, in 1994, a particularly beautiful Type Ia supernova was found near the spiral galaxy NGC 4526 (pictured below). SN 1994D was found just outside the galaxy disk, and appeared almost as bright as the galaxy core.

The mechanisms that drive supernovae explosions are quite amazing. Even more incredible to me is the amount of understanding astronomers have gathered about these processes with such seemingly limited information - simply electromagnetic waves telling the story of an explosion from the distant past.

Better Looking

When I considered writing a New Year's post for my blog today, the possessive adjective there stood out to me.  Blogging, in my case, is an inherently selfward-looking activity. So perhaps for the fun of irony, I'm writing a self-examining blog post about looking less at myself. Or rather, about balancing selfward and otherward looking.

It’s a New Year's resolution of sorts. Except not a New Year's resolution, because it stretches back in time before this January. And not a New Year's resolution because my resolutions tend to be quite focused on just myself: Go to the gym three times a week. Read a new book each month. Eat healthier. Sleep more regularly. Learn a new hobby. Etc. These resolutions are good, and I'd like to achieve them, but they all involve a fair bit of navel gazing. I’d like to work on improving that balance: looking selfward enough to make sure I’m eating vegetables everyday, but looking otherward enough to enjoy the beauty of those around me and hopefully to notice their needs.
 
There’s a good quote (I believe by Ethel Barrett), “We would worry less about what others think of us if we knew how seldom they do.”  Occasionally it occurs to me when I'm choosing pretty earrings in the morning that I don't often notice the pretty earrings others wear. I would like to notice more. Not just more pretty earrings, but pretty hearts. Or scared hearts. Or stretching hearts. Or hearts in need of hugs. I have been blessed with beautiful friends - inside and out. And I want to notice the details of their beautifulness more. 

At first, it seemed reasonable to assume that I must at least be otherward-looking in the arena of encouraging others. But thinking about it today, I'm not so sure I have the balance right even in that arena! When a friend or student says something discouraging towards themselves (such as "I'm terrible at physics"), my response – rather than addressing their actual discouragement – often attempts to reassure by sharing something of myself (such as "Oh don't worry - I'm terrible at languages").  I think we all do this at times. The idea is that the person will feel better if they know that they're not the only one who is not having success with ___. But I’m not convinced that this is the most helpful response. Instead I’d like to work on otherward-looking responses (such as “You have a good handle on physics concepts – it might just be the algebra that’s slowing you down” or “look how you improved in chemistry this year – I bet you could do the same in physics”). There is definitely a place for both types of encouragement, but I think I'd like to increase the frequency of my otherward-looking responses - statements that remind the friend or student of their own strengths and hopefully empower them, rather than simply sharing in the discouragement.

I was also thinking about how to apply that balance of selfward and otherward-looking to areas conflict. How do I genuinely look at another person in a conflict - looking at the person and their needs, but not necessarily dwelling on their words if the words aren't beneficial? How do I genuinely look at myself in a conflict - using self-reflection as a means to grow, but not to bully myself - reminding myself of the confidence I have in who I am as a child of God, but choosing to follow the instruction in Philippians 2 to value the other person above myself? These are tough questions for me. I'm currently still sorting out how to answer these questions in a practical application sense, and I have a long ways to go. On Christmas day, I received an email from someone with a rather limited window into my life, who had developed a surprisingly detailed and unfortunate picture of my character and even my thought processes. My initial reaction was a desire to defend myself - to explain why this didn't match my experiences of my thought processes and character. When Jeremy suggested that I refrain from sending that reply, my first thought was, "that's probably wise relationally, but it will be hard on my self-esteem." Surprisingly, the opposite was true. In actively choosing not to defend myself, I realized that I didn't have to. That was quite empowering for me. Certainly, there are times when it is absolutely crucial that people stand up for themselves, but there are also times when the most beneficial and empowering response is to choose not to. So I'm working on learning how to look selfward long enough to discern which criticisms are helpful and which are just false, and how to look otherward long enough to see another child of God, who is given every bit as much as grace as I'm so often in need of. 

The third direction to look will sound like this post is a not-so-secret plug for our church mission statement (reach up, reach in, reach out). While looking selfward and otherward, I want to be continuously looking Christward. Everywhere I go, I'm looking at God's beautiful creation - whether I'm talking about life with a friend or reading a difficult email - when I look at the people around me, I want to be mindful of the fact that I'm looking at masterpieces created by God. And equally challenging, when I look at myself - my mistakes and repeated mistakes - to remember that even then, I'm still looking at a child of God. So this year, I'd like to do better looking. But not in the fashion sense, because I don't have a chance there without Jeremy's shoes ;)