End of the Tunnel... Sort of

by Rob Shenk

Well, I made it through finals, barely. I was five minutes late for my 8:00 AM final. The final for my most difficult course was a take home final. And wouldn't you know that as I was frantically typing in the last answers, my computer crashed. I have never had a mac crash on me - ever! Does that mean something?

Anyway. I had to retype, but I was able to turn it in 20 minutes late. So I'm done with this semester. A wise man recently reminded me that we get over our obstacles step by step biting off a little here and a little there. Before we know it, we're done. I'm trying to use that to remind me that one day I'll look back at this time and be impressed that I made it.

In the mean time, I'm going to enjoy this break with my kiddos. I may post once more before the holidays; but if not, I'll be back in January. In the mean time, if you find yourself bored, you're welcome to come and read my craft blog where I'm attempting to post our advent activities for the month (trying to start a new tradition). And with no math books to read, I might read fiction and post some on my book blog. (I know. You're thinking I'm crazy, and I have to agree with you. But how else would you be entertained in your bored moments?)

I can see the light

by Rob Shenk

We're in the home stretch now. I made it through my last week of class. This upcoming week is finals. I'll have my head in the books feeling stressed to the max. I'll let you know how I feel about it at week's end. Please keep sending your well wishes this way. My family needs me to be in a better mood than what I'm settling into.

I'm too old for this

by Rob Shenk

Considering that the women in my family live until their late 80s, it seems a bit early to say that I’m too old for much. Ok, I’m too old for foolishness, to waste time with the trivial, and to allow things in my life that don’t bring joy. But we’re never too old to learn something new, right? Well, I think I’m learning that I have a lot on my plate.

This morning, I blew a test that I should have aced. I had a paper due earlier this week and homework for another class. Plus I was behind on grading papers, and I had to prepare my students for a test. The result was that I took my ability to prepare for this test for granted and waited until the last minute to really study. And wouldn’t you know that this would be the night that little Ms. Z chose to be extremely fussy allowing me neither time to study like I wanted nor an opportunity to get ample sleep. So I answered two questions extremely well (I think) and I bombed the other two. There went what I was sure would be an A to balance out whatever grade I’m graced with in my difficult class.

When did it get to be so difficult to manage things? And to think that I had considered continuing to work full time while doing this. So back to my original conclusion. I must be too old for this. I’m perfectly content to be the mother of those beautiful bundles of joy the Lord blessed us with. I’m not about titles, so I don’t ever have to be called Dr. anything. I can tutor and still make a difference. Of course there is the issue with the fact that I’m not a quitter. A procrastinator and avoider, sure, but not a quitter. And I was starting to look forward to the idea of teaching at a university. But that’s all vanity.

I’m tired today. Prayerfully I’ll have a new perspective in the morning. After all, I still have a paper to write, three finals to prepare for, classes to teach…

Rough Week

by House Of Sims

 We're nearing the end of the semester, and things are piling up on me. Add to that the fact that I got sick this week, and you find lots of room for error.

On Monday I was running late and managed to slam my hand in the car door. As a result, I taught my students how to do something completely wrong. I didn't even hear what I had said until class was over.

I prepared myself to apologize and correct my error knowing that the result might lead to confusion on the topic. But then I woke up with a persistent, painful cough. I had to send in a sub. The good thing is that a sub in this case is a fellow graduate student teaching the same class, different section. The bad thing is that my students decided that since what she taught was the opposite of what I had said, then she must have been wrong. So they rebelled by either doing the homework in the way that I had taught them or by not doing the homework at all. College students!

And when I returned to class, I was still loopy from the medication I was taking to be there. So my attempts at explaining what had happened and why the sub was correct didn't seem to come out well. Given that they have a test this coming week, I'm afraid of what the results will be. 

Pity Party

I'm going to get his party started and then I'll have to excuse myself because I don't have time to stay.

Last night I received my grade on my big midterm, and it was embarrassingly low. Low enough that if I get out of this class with a passing grade, it will be because the instructor had great mercy. And considering that any grade below a B in graduate school is frowned on, I'm not feeling hopeful about my situation.

So I'm in a place where I question whether or not I have made the right choice. Sure I wanted to do this, but does that mean I was supposed to? Did I choose the right program? I should have researched a bit better and found a program that is solely math education as opposed to having so much pure math. My goal  was to teach future teachers rather than future mathematicians and engineers. The upside is that if I get through this program I will have the option of doing either.

Sure I could retake the course, but considering that this semester's tuition and books cost more than a month of my meager salary as a teaching assistant, retaking courses wasn't on my agenda. Besides I've already had go back and pick up an undergraduate course so I've added to my overall bill as it is.

And how do I repair my self esteem? I mean I'm trying hard here and I thought I had done well. I put in a lot of time on this course just to gain some vague understanding. So today I feel too old and dumb to be doing this.

Well, I got this party started as I promised, but I don't have time to stay. I have children to get ready for school, a class to teach and various other responsibilities in my many other roles. So stay if you want. Have a drink and talk amongst yourselves.

Made it Through Midterms

by Rob Shenk

My test this morning wasn't as bad as I expected. Although there was a proof that I wasn't sure how to approach. And I ran out of time before I could figure out what to do. I gave it my best, and that's all I can do.
My larger midterm was submitted minutes before it was due. And I was only confident in 2, maybe 3, of my six responses. I did give an answer to every question. We'll just have to hope for partial credit.

by House Of Sims

My midterm evaluations went alright. One class was full of compliments. The other had more issues with my teaching. Since my goal is to be a better teacher, I'm trying to take what they said to heart. The prevailing comment was that I go to fast. It's hard to determine if they mean that I speak to fast (which I am prone to do) or that the pace of the course is too fast. If it's the latter, that's harder to fix. There's a syllabus, and I'm already a little behind because I wanted to explain more thoroughly.

Some commented that they like that I go step by step while others want more examples. There were requests for improved handwriting on the board as well as requests for me to be conscious of where I write on the board in consideration of those who sit in the back.

Overall, I've made more of an effort to go slower and include more examples that more closely resemble the homework. We'll see how it goes!

Another week

by Rob Shenk

This has been another stressful student week. As I mentioned, it’s midterm time. We were scheduled to receive our midterm in my most challenging class. This is the class that requires a week to complete 10 problems even after meeting with the study group. We were to be given a take home final over which we were not to collaborate. We had been told that our homework problems would be easy in comparison. Add to that the fact that our professor expressed concern about our current poor performance as a class. Needless to say, I have been worried about what to expect. In fact, I planned to skip a family trip so that I could stay home alone and study. Unfortunately, our professor went out of town for a conference, and the test was never posted. We don’t know if he forgot or changed his mind.

While some might view this as a good thing, I’m a bit neurotic, which currently means that I see only the bad in this. It happens that I already completed my assignments for my other classes in preparation for a test weekend. Next week, I’ll have a paper to put together, a test to study for in another class, and a test to prepare my students for. While I hated missing the family trip, next week I will find it more difficult to isolate myself and study without feeling guilty.

I have to keep reminding myself: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

by House Of Sims

On the teaching front, I’m in a reflective mode. I’m not currently satisfied with the teaching style that I have taken on. I have fallen into the pattern of “I do. We do. You do.” So I write a problem type on the board and go through the steps. Then I put a second problem up and we talk through it as a class. I answer questions. I put a couple on the board that they try on their own. Then I work through the problems to ensure that their notes are accurate.

This is a more traditional approach, but I don’t see it as my style. I prefer to have them explore problems, coming up with their own method. I want them to discuss their different methods understanding that there are often several approaches to a problem. I want them to present to their peers with minimal guidance for me.

Unfortunately, the amount of material to be covered in this short amount of time seems to be preventing me from operating in my ideal state. When I put problems for them to work on their own, they wait for me to work them out. Prompting from me produces, “This is hard!” Very few are willing to come to the board. If they get it wrong, I try to ask other classmates for their input rather than rushing in to fix it. But the volunteers seem to resent having their classmates tell them where they went wrong.

I try to encourage them to work through problems in small groups, but their participation varies. Some days, I can hear them helping each other out. Other times, they are texting or talking about some frat party, or heaven forbid they try sneaking in a nap. Midterm evaluations will be given out on Monday. We’ll see how I fair.

Middle of the Road

by Rob Shenk

It’s midterm time and I am feeling it. I’m having a hard time staying focused this week, and my sleep patterns are off. I had a paper due Tuesday, and I submitted it about 5 minutes before it was due. (And yes I was on Facebook when I should have been writing.) I missed study group on Sunday, so the homework from that class is proving more difficult. I keep finding myself on the net instead of working tirelessly at understanding the problems. I can see that I’m walking in the wrong direction, but I can’t seem to get turned around. It’s temporary thing, I’m sure, but I’m just tired this week and in need of ME time.

by House Of Sims

I’m not so proud of my teaching this week either. It’s a test week. As a teaching assistant, I don’t write the test. In fact I don’t tend to receive it until a day or so before I give it. So in some ways I’m blind to how they’ll be tested. I guess I’m OK with that, although it makes me nervous during test week. I want them to do well. When they don’t, I view it as a reflection of my work. Some might say that it is a reflection of the effort that they give, but I think that’s only partially the case.

Part of my reason for saying that is based on how we teach as opposed to how they are tested. Due to the level that my students are at, we have a prescribed curriculum. Its focus is on processes. This is the algorithm for factoring by grouping, for example. Given the vast amount of material to be covered compared to the amount of time available, there isn’t much time for constructivist teaching, although I try to do what I can to help them discover why this method works. The problem is that we test via application to some degree. In other words, the test has “story problems” and contextual situations, while the examples we give in class and the homework we assign are what I call “raw, naked problems”.

So now I need to give some serious thought to how I will incorporate context into my teaching without deviating from what I am required to teach.

Just keep swimming

by Rob Shenk

For those who are interested, I am managing to keep my head above water, but my arms are getting tired. As you know, I had to drop a class and go back and take the prerequisite course. At the moment, that is going well. I manage to understand the lecture and am able to contribute to solutions and answer the questions of classmates. I’m even managing the homework with little error.

My education-focused course is going well thus far. I’ve led a class discussion with relative success and received decent marks on my first paper. As we start the research for our final paper, I am starting to think about potential topics of research for a dissertation.

The math course that was initially going well may be taking a turn however. At the beginning of the semester, I understood every lecture, but the homework took forever to finish. In fact I didn’t typically finish all of the problems in time. This past week, I’ve found myself feeling lost in lecture, but having a better understanding of the homework.

Recently I find myself better able to complete problems on my own before discussing them with the study group. In fact, I finished today’s assignment hours before class. This might not seem like a major feat to you, but believe me I’m celebrating. We receive our problems on Friday or Saturday and they are due the following Thursday. I touch those problems every day for a minimum of an hour. And up until now I was struggling to finish. In fact, I had to visit with the professor on one of this week’s problems, and we spent over an hour in solving it. That’s one problem with the assistance of the professor. So can I get a virtual high five for completing my homework on time?

by House Of Sims

As a teacher, I’m still negotiating the balance between leniency and strictness. My biggest issue as a junior high teacher was that I was too nice. I loved teaching and I wanted the students to like me. I had to be reminded that no grown woman needed 12 and 13 year olds as friends. But I loved the humor of students at that age, and I was too easy going with them. The result was that my classroom management was nonexistent by the end of the year.

So one of my joys in this environment was the belief that classroom management wouldn’t be an issue. If they didn’t want to pay attention in class, they were wasting momma and daddy’s money and their time. Not my cross to bear. I can’t write a referral and send them to the office, so as long as they don’t disturb those around them, was I to stop them from texting during lecture? While the answer may seem obvious to you, the verdict is still out for me.

My larger issue is still the leniency though. As a junior high teacher, I was always willing to give extra credit or make up assignments so that my students had a chance to pass even if they had blown off most of the work in the grading period. The policy here is no late work. Period. If you're absent test day, I'm sorry. You'll have to do well on the remaining tests.

We have a “five minutes late and you’re absent” rule. But I tend to give every one a chance to sign the roster if they are present by the first 15 minutes of class. I’ve been occasionally persuaded to let students turn homework in by 5:00 if there were problems that they didn’t understand. When students approached me to let me know that their financial aid hadn’t come in yet and that they couldn’t buy books without it, I was inclined to extend due dates on assignments.

On the surface, I suppose that these are small things. But experience has shown me that the small things add up. And I have a feeling that I’m going to have to learn some things the hard way.

It's a matter of time

by one-11

This week's lessons have centered around time management.

I think that I was way too optimistic about what my time would look like before this process started. According to my schedule, I would be in class for several hours Tuesday and Thursday. I had planned to request a Monday and Wednesday teaching schedule. I would study Monday and Wednesday afternoon. I had even contemplated picking up extra work like tutoring or contract work on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and all day Friday. If I wasn't doing extra work, I would take care of domestic things like cooking meals ahead of time or catching up on laundry. Nice, neat and planned.

My schedule has been modified in that I ended up with a Monday, Wednesday, Friday teaching schedule. I am required to offer office hours everyday. I have papers to grade. Homework requires a LOT of time. And I've already learned the hard way that working at home surrounded by children isn't conducive to completing anything. In an effort to get everything done, I arrive at campus by 8:30 most mornings, and I am there until almost 5:00 Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. I'm there until after 8:00 on Tuesday and Thursday. And I'm about to join a study group of folks who live here in town that meets on the weekend.

I have no idea where I'd find time for extra work. I'm behind on laundry again. Let's not even talk about all of that cooking ahead that I was going to do. I don't see my friends anymore. (I really miss you guys!) I feel like my children's lives are marching on as I spectate from the sidelines.

I have to remind myself that anything worth having requires hard work. And it takes time to accomplish that hard work. But when it takes so long to get everything done, and my child says “See you tomorrow” as she leaves for school in the morning, I admit that I question whether or not I'm making the right choice. In theory, this will be only three years of my life; and when it's over, I'll hardly remember all of these feelings of angst.

I have vague memories of when my mother returned to school. We talk about when I would call her at the computer lab and remind her that it was about time to finish up and get back home. I'm not scared from the experience. I enjoyed having her teach me her lessons for practice when she was getting certified to teach. I was (and am) proud of her for getting her degrees while raising four children and working.

So I think I'm supposed to walk away from this week knowing that while my time is currently not mine, this is worth it. Right?

A better week

by one-11

In spite of the holiday, it's been a long week for me. At least on an emotional level. But I survived without quitting. I think that I'm almost past the "what have I done?" phase. Things are starting to look up.

I was inspired by President Obama's speech to the children of our nation this week. He requested that "whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it." He said "There is no excuse for not trying." and "The truth is, being successful is hard." And most poignant to me was "Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength because it shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and that then allows you to learn something new."

At the end of last week, I had a plan for succeeding in my "bad" course. I planned to join a study group, I had a lead on someone who might be able to tutor me, and I was going to "give it my best effort." But by the end of this week, I had to accept that effort wasn't enough.

I tend to encourage my students to form study groups. I utilized them in high school and college with great success. But what I realized this week is that a study group is only helpful if you have something to contribute. You may not have a full understanding of the material, but if you understand some aspects, and others in the group understand other aspects, you can support one another and fill in the holes where information is missing.

As I sat with the study group this week, I felt that they were talking way over my head. They had attempted the assigned problems without arriving at completion. But they were able to discuss where they got stuck and what their thinking was. As each shared how they approached the problem, others were able to point out fallacies or suggest how to get further along that path of thinking. This is how a study group is supposed to work. But there I sat in the middle neither contributing nor increasing my understanding. I tried asking questions; but the answers, which were often preceded with "well we know that because", were things that I didn't know or quite understand.

My classmates were helpful, but I didn't gain any clarity and I walked away feeling less than good about myself. I had to accept that perhaps it wasn't simply a matter of forgetting. The reality is that I don't yet posses the skill sets to be successful in this course. The important word in that last sentence is yet. I couldn't see the yet until the end of the week.

I ended up speaking with my advisors and we decided that the best path for me was to take the undergraduate pre-requisite to this course. This time it was comforting to know that I wasn't the only one needing to take this option. During the first session of that class, I was relieved to realize that I understood all that the professor was discussing and I was able to follow along without stress. What was even more interesting is that I I started to see it as a puzzle again. The ability to see math as a fun puzzle is what caused me to end with a major in mathematics to begin with.

In the "bad" class, I found myself questioning why these topics were important to learn. I wanted to know what relevance any of this has to my career. This stuff was only for those who want to be "pure" mathematicians. I sounded a lot like those debating against the current graduation requirements in this state. Now that I'm in a class where I understand the material, relevance isn't on my radar. A fellow classmate actually asked the professor when we'd be doing application problems, to which the professor responded that much of the information in this class is only applicable in other mathematics courses. But because I have an understanding of the material, I wasn't bothered by that. What a change in perspective!

When my previous classmates asked me how I faired on the homework, it was initially embarrassing to admit that I had to drop the course. But it turns out that the need to take "leveling courses" is actually fairly common. Those who didn't need that support tended to have masters degrees in math instead of math education. In general, this means that they had already taken courses that gave them experience with the concepts that I'm missing.

So I had to wrestle with my self esteem a bit more this week, but I'm starting to recognize that there is a difference between lack of knowledge and an inability to comprehend. I'm able to look in the mirror and hear the words from a theme song of a 1970s show "You're going to make it after all."

The weak (I mean week) in review

by one-11

I am so thankful for the outpouring of support that I have received from everyone. I truly wouldn’t be motivated to continue without it. I know that doing this is supposed to come from inside of me. And for the most part it does. But having everyone push me forward is so important. So thank you.

That being said, I realized at the start of the second class that it is going to take a lot more than your support to get me through this. Because while that kept me from running out of class, it didn’t give me any understanding of what the instructor was talking about.

What I found interesting is that there are others in the class who apparently are feeling what I’m feeling. This is interesting to me because I swear that they weren’t there on the first day. From my perspective EVERYONE but me was answering her questions. The answers seemed to roll off of their tongues while I sat there like a deer in headlights. So when others expressed concern, I kept thinking that they still weren’t as bad off as me.

What I found even more interesting is that knowing that I’m not the only one didn’t make me feel better. I didn’t feel any less dumb. I didn’t believe that those of us who are lost could get together and pull each other out. I just thought that there are more of us to become statistics – college dropouts.

I met with the professor to express my fears and obtain her guidance. Her recommendation was that I consider dropping the course and auditing the undergraduate prerequisite. Is that like developmental math at the graduate level? While it might have been a valid suggestion, I admit that I felt embarrassed and a little humiliated.

What made the experience worse was how it affected how I felt in my other classes. I suddenly became unsure of my work on homework in another class that I was sure of the day before. The few marks on my first paper suddenly felt like an indictment of my inability to write. I couldn’t pay attention in the class preceding my “bad” class because I was so full of dread. Is this how a struggling student’s self esteem goes down the drain?

I have slept on it and prayed over it, and today doesn’t seem as bad. I’ve let go of the feeling that I need to just quit and go find a job out of my field where nobody knows me and I don’t have to be embarrassed that I quit. I’ve connected with a study group. At this level, tutors are harder to come by, but I’m sure I can find one. I’ve had a talk with my graduate advisor about options. I’ll pour over next week’s assignment this weekend while everyone else watches the game. And my village will keep pushing me forward.

This part still isn't fun yet.

Teaching Reflections: Week 2

by House Of Sims

This wasn’t my finest teaching week. I planned ahead and wrote everything down. But getting it from my notes to the students wasn’t all that I had hoped.

I sometimes talked faster than I should have. In my fear of not having enough time, I think I left out a couple of things that I didn’t mean to.

I caught myself being sloppy with notation. On more than one occasion, a student would remind me of a negative sign I left off or that I got an inequality wrong. I could be optimistic and say that this meant that they were following along and understanding enough to catch my errors, but I hate it when I don’t pay attention.

One similarity to teaching middle school was that when I reviewed what I had taught in my first class, I was able to correct my errors in my second class. I was able to look at what students didn’t get the first time and modify my examples accordingly for the next class.

I found myself falling into that bad habit of taking the first answer without ensuring that everyone got it. In my haste, I sometimes assumed that a lack of questions meant that they understood. In public school, you put their names on popsicle sticks and call on people randomly. I wonder if that works at the college level.

When I sometimes saw that look of “I wish this class would hurry and end!” I neglected to force that student to answer a question or demonstrate a response.

I know that a lot of this is the result of being out of practice. As the semester goes along, I’ll get a rhythm going. I also have to figure out where the lines are drawn in college. How much help is too much? Is there such a thing?

This part I like!

Have I learned anything?

So I went in to my class thinking about my experience in my own classes. I wanted to ensure that my students didn't feel as panicked and lost as I had the night before. The trouble is the amount of material that has to be covered versus the amount of time given.

Even as I say that, I struggle with that teacher part of me that screams that I am teaching students and not material. In teaching public school the balance between ensuring that the required topics are covered and ensuring that enough time has been allowed to develop an understanding can sometimes be tenuous. And my guess is that it will be even more difficult to find this balance at the college level.

In middle school, I got to do a lot of hand holding to get my students to their proper destination. I think that there is a shift at high school away from the hand holding in an effort to prepare them for college. So it would follow that I am to be hands off with my current students to some degree.

The problem for me is that I'm guessing that hands off is what caused them to end up in this class with me. So my instinct is to grab their hands and walk them through the maze. But would so doing cause them to be unprepared for what comes next? On the other hand, if I focus on the material more than the students, aren't they still in danger of not being ready for what comes next?

It feels like I will have a lot to struggle with this semester.

Not so easy start

Ok. Here's my new life. I'm a graduate student – a PhD candidate – in mathematics education. I get the opportunity to teach at the college level while taking classes. In my opinion, it's the best of all possibilities. I get to be a student, which I love. And I get to return to teaching; although it is at the post secondary level, so my save the children desires aren't all being fulfilled.

My first night of my own classes and I'm feeling like a fraud. We're going over concepts that we covered at the undergraduate level, so the instructor is going ninety miles an hour. And everyone else is answering her questions without hesitation. And I'm drowning in self doubt.

As she's writing those symbols on the board, I recall what they mean. The upside down A means “for all” and the backwards E means “an element of”. Yeah, I get that. And I know the meaning of a ring and closure and the identity property. But none of it is coming together for me. And I can feel myself panicking. I just know that she can see that I'm an idiot whom they shouldn't have let into the program.

I think about my students and how this might compare to how they feel. When I taught middle school, they were seeing the concepts for the first time. So when they didn't get it, I presumed that it was like learning a foreign language, and that they had to decipher the meaning. But my current students are now seeing this material at least for the second time. So it's not so foreign, but somehow still undecipherable.

I'm sitting here in this class thinking I should know this. I studied this material as a junior at a tier one university, and I'm pretty sure I got an A in the class. I know that I've seen all of this before just like everyone else. But I couldn't spout out any of it. And I'm feeling unsure that I could prove any of the things that I'm expected to know already. So while she's up there saying that it's obvious that this set is abeliean since it has left blah blah blah, I'm fighting the urge to burst into tears and run out of the room like a teenage drama queen.

I tried relaying to my husband what it felt like. The best I could come up with was a comparison to the scene in Dances with Wolves when Stand with Fist is told the remember the white man's words and she can't because it's too painful. Or it was like when a kindergardener learns to read by phonics. They can sound out the words syllable by syllable, but they can't tell you what happened in the paragraph they just read.

I tried consoling myself by believing that this will help me to develop empathy for my students. But I want to be the smart kid that I used to be. I don't mind working towards understanding, but I don't want to feel like I'm on the brink of failure clawing my way to safety.

This isn't as fun as I thought it would be.

Improve your teaching

On twitter, I came across this great article about qualities of great teaching.