What Does Failure Look Like? #MakerEd #EdChat

It is almost the halfway point of the school year for me and it has been crazy. I've spent lots of time the past few days thinking about what has worked and what has not. I know that I'm too critical of the things I do, but I still need to look and see where I can be better.

As I have been reflecting, I was thinking that there is still so much to do in the Makerspace and that I am not where I would want to be with student engagement. I have very dedicated students in the Makerspace on a regular basis, some that come in from time to time, and others that have not interest in what is going on. For me, I feel like I have failed to bring in the students I wanted into the space to see them explore and grow. However, I received a couple of recent compliments from teachers saying they have been seeing cool things coming out of the Makerspace. They are excited to see it grow even further in the second half of the year. It really caught me off guard. I thought I was failing at what I was trying to do, but I was succeeding in the eyes of others. So, what is failure then?

If a lesson does not go exactly as plan, but students still learn and are engaged, is the lesson a failure? Just because I did not hit randomly chosen numbers of usage in the Makerspace, does that mean that my efforts have been a failure?

My badging system took off at the start of the year, but it has slowed down a bit. Students have been trying to find time to use the space, but sports and other assigned work has stopped some from fully engaging in the space. I have many kids that want to spend more time, but have conflicting schedules. It's tough for them to get down here. Is that a failure on my part or is it a success that students want to be come down, but they are not able to do for reasons outside of my and their control? Students are still earning badges and the steady trickle is probably what it should be until I'm able to get more resources.

I think I'm just rambling at this point, but that is sort of what reflecting is for me at times. If others view my work as a success, but I think it falls short, is it a failure or a success? If a tree falls in a forest...

Most importantly, not everything is perfect in the Knight's Forge and I still have plenty to learn and understand from others and from the overall Maker Community.

Special thanks to @gravescolleen for getting me thinking about this. She is awesome person to talk/text with when something is rumbling around my skull. 

Week 25 #NerdyCast Reflections - Punched in the Face

This week was a fun and busy week. I didn't even touch on Parent Teacher conferences because of the other cool things that were happening. I broke up a fight, went to my state conference, and my class had the best discussion of the year and I wasn't there. I really need to sit and think about the way I run class discussion. I have always let the kids take the lead, but I guess I need to do even more of it based on how the students responded to using Google Classroom while I was out. Any stories on how you run class discussion would be appreciated as I rethink my practice.

Week 24 #NerdyCast Reflections - Suspending Students

In my video for this week, I talk about using music to connect my students with poetic elements and I share my thoughts on suspending students. I do not have an answer to this, but it is making me think about the reason for suspending students and removing them from the classroom. If they are already struggling, how does removing them from the learning environment help them. What if the reason they act out has something to do with their home life and they are now being sent back there for multiple days? I don't have an answer, but this is on my mind and that is what the #NerdyCast Reflections are all about.

Share your thoughts in the comments section if you have an idea about suspensions or poetry.

Weeks 22 and 23 #NerdyCast Reflections

This week I talk about the past two weeks. I've been sick, but battling through like every teacher and parent has to do when they are sick. I dabbled in some flipped video making for the first time. I received mixed results, but it was interesting enough to try it again. It was testing week and that was interesting. Finally, the makerspace I'm working on has come a long way and I'm excited to see students get in there at the end of the month. Please leave some thoughts or share your experiences below on any of these topics. Also, check out my podcast on iTunes. I will have a new show every couple of weeks.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/nerdycast/id514797904?mt=2

Week 19 and 20 #NerdyCast Reflections

It has been a crazy couple of weeks for me. I have been sick for about two weeks and I have had the busiest two weeks at the same time. I wrote about being sick and being a teacher and had so many great responses. It is nice to know that I'm not the only one that deals with the dilemma of deciding how sick is sick enough to go to work.

We also had a visit from Kid President!

I will go into more detail in a later post, but his visit was awesome and I'm so glad I had a chance to see a friend again and meet the one and only Kid President. It was a great day and I was happy I was able to share it with my students.

My students also wrapped up their Mock Trial and they all did an amazing job. I'm so proud of my students and everything they accomplish. Seeing their engaged faces in projects like this makes all of the hard work worth it. 

Here is the video reflection. I will have more posts soon to cover some of my thoughts more deeply. 

Nick

Week 18 #NerdyCast Reflections

18 weeks down. It has been crazy to think that I have done 18 of these videos. I've been reflecting on my teaching for a number of years now, but this has been something different for me. I really can't wait to look at the first few at the end of the year to see if anything has changed.

This week is the end of the semester, so I took some time to chat about my students, ongoing projects, and future events at school. Thanks for taking the time to watch and feel free to drop me a comment if you have something to share.

Week 17 #NerdyCast Reflections

Here are some thoughts on Plagiarism for this week's reflections. I really do not come to any conclusion because I feel this is such a complex issue. I'm not sure anything can be done besides doing our best to educate students about it and how to avoid it. What are your thoughts?

Week 16 #NerdyCast Reflections

Here is my reflection from the past week.

I talk a bit about teaching writing and how it is something I have worked on over the course of my career and I feel like I am having a very good year reaching my students. Sometimes you can just feel like the lessons and tweaks that you have made are actually working. I felt like that this week. 

I also chat a bit about final exams and how I am not a fan of them. I also do not like the fact that we are losing 6 extra instructional days to testing this year. Ugh. More and more testing just eats away at the soul. Honestly. It is hard to find something that is a bigger waste of time. 

Anyway, I hope you are taking the time to reflect in the New Year and I'd love to hear from you. 

Happy New Year!

Nick

Week 15 #NerdyCast Reflections - Importance of Partying

In this reflection I talk about the value of the class party. Some look down on the fun classroom gathering as a waste of time that should be spent with curriculum. I share my thoughts on how it is important to create and nurture a positive classroom environment for our students and a party the day before break is a great way to do that. What do you think?

Week 14 #NerdyCast Reflections #EdChat

Another week of teaching and another reflection. It was an awesome week in class discussion. My students have been amazing. They have really taken to owning class discussion and asking the tough questions. It is great when I can sit back and let the class move in the direction it wants to to explore the ideas that matter to them. I only have to nudge them in certain directions from time to time. Next week is the last week before a 2 week break and then it is a race to the semester finish line. See you next week!

Week 12 and 13 Reflections #Makerspaces and #20Time

It has been a productive couple of weeks with my students. My kids are working very hard on their 20 Time projects, but they are also working very hard on learning about literature and how it relates to their life. We have had some great conversations in my classes. Freshmen and Sophomores have been amazing.

I'm working on a Makerspace in my school and I'm shooting for highly effective for my evaluation this year. I've asked to be back on cycle and feel confident I can do this. Reflection is one of the tenants of HE, so I've got that down. Here are my thoughts on the past couple of weeks. Share any thoughts in the comments sections. Thanks!

An Apology To My First Hour #EdChat

This is really a letter of apology to all of the classes that get the first run through of a lesson. Today is just another example of how teachers change on the fly to make lessons better as the day go, but I feel bad for my first hour. 

Today, I had my students use TodaysMeet as their exit ticket. They needed to re-write a good topic sentence based on an old topic from earlier in the year. My thinking, which was terrible, was that I would give them a thesis I wrote based on a question they encountered earlier in the year. Even explaining it is complicated. Students seemed confused and had a hard time coming up with a new topic sentence because they did not write the thesis. Ugh. It was a mess, but my students did the best and completed the task. 

As the disaster was unfolding, I realized that I would have my 6th hour just rewrite one of their claims from the essay in front of them. It was so simple, I should have just gone with that in the first place. I managed to talk myself out of it and I'm not sure why. 

The good part is that I'm reflecting as I teach and making changes as they are needed. However, what about my first hour? Are they forever doomed to get the "not as good" lesson? I really wish I had a rotating schedule here so the I would see different classes at different hours so the first hour would always change. 

Anyone have any thoughts on dealing with the first lesson of the day mess-ups?

Week 11 Reflections #NerdyCast #EdChat

Here are some thoughts on student projects and teacher evaluations. I've thought about instructional goals for the evaluation process, but I have never really thought about Leadership goals. I wonder how many teachers have approached it the same way I have over the years. Here are my thoughts on the week. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

Week 10 Reflections #NerdyCast

Here are some thoughts on Week 10 of teaching. Check out some of my other reflections on the #NerdyCast channel.

Week 9 Teaching Reflections #EdChat #NerdyCast

Here are my thoughts on the first 9 weeks of teaching. I love that I'm sticking to this reflection goal. It has given me plenty to think about. I've limited myself to 4 minutes, so I can't talk about everything that comes across my mind, but I really have looked at different areas in much more depth than I have before. I also have been looking at my interactions with students as well. In an effort to keep the students' actions private, I've opted to keep those reflections to myself so students do not watch and think they are the center of the video.

Here is my video on Week 9 Reflections. Feel free to leave any thoughts below.

Weekly Reflection Supports Growth #NerdyCast #EdChat

One of the things I have challenged myself to do this year is to reflect more on my teaching. I've done this on my blog, but I felt like I only focused on isolated events in the classroom. I wanted to spend more time thinking about how the week went and what types of things I could change. I also wanted to set little goals for myself each week. This could be in relation to students or something instructional. No matter what it was during the week, I wanted to spend some time thinking about it and sharing it out there.

The traditional way would be to just write about it, but that can be very time consuming and I did not want to give myself any excuses as to why I was not doing something. So, I decided to add my reflections to #NerdyCast. It is a perfect place for me to sit down and share my thoughts on how things went in my classroom over the past week. I will always keep the videos around 4 minutes long and focus on what works and, most importantly, what didn't work.

I'm not a perfect teacher, but I feel that image is inadvertently displayed when I only write about the awesome lessons and the exciting things in class. By looking at the whole week and talking about it, I think I will be able to have a deeper reflection on how all things I do in class are connected, not just isolated events taken out of context. That's the thought process anyway. Here are my first 3 weeks of reflections. You can always jump to #NerdyCast to see the weekly reflection on Fridays after 3:30EST.

Please leave your thoughts in the comment section of the videos. I'm using this as a way to grow as a teacher, so feedback would be great. Thanks for watching!