Hello, my name is Mr. Malley

Last week, I received my “tentative” schedule for the 2008- 2009 school year, and I’m still excited so I thought I’d share:

(We run on an alternating block system - blue classes one day; gold the next)

Blue Day

1. U.S. History
2. Prep
3. AP Psychology
4. Psychology

Gold Day

1. Prep
2. AP Psychology
3. AP Psychology
4. Psychology

What this means is that I’ve picked up another section of AP Psychology! Now, if I can just pick up one more section of Intro Psychology to bump out that last freshman history class …

Each year, my Advanced Placement Psychology students are given the opportunity to take the AP Exam for college credit in Psychology. This year, 57 students took my class. Of them, 54 are taking the exam.

Advanced Placement is a product owned by the College Board - the same organization responsible for the SAT. The test that my students will be taking is a national achievement test established to gauge understanding of Psychology. It costs them $82.00 each, but the benefit is that most colleges and universities offer college credit for decent scores.

Last year, I had a number of students who could have done well enough to receive college credit not take the test due to their own insecurity. I want all students who make it through my class to take the AP Exam. Why do all the work and not get the reward?

This year, I added the incentive of an automatic ‘A’ on the class final exam to all students who take the AP Exam. My logic in doing so is that the AP Exam is our class exam. Since I won’t be able to see their scores on that exam until sometime in July, I have no way of assigning them a grade for their exam before the year ends. Therefore, they get an ‘A’.

And, I’m happy to say that it worked: ninety-five percent of them are taking the exam.

Now, I just need to get them to study!

Part 1: My Quiz Policy

Last year, I gave random quizzes in AP Psychology on a “variable ratio schedule of reinforcement.” My logic was that if students never knew when there would be a quiz, then they would always come prepared.

This, I learned, is untrue. What students did instead was search out possible patterns of behavior in my quizzing schedule. They would say things like “I didn’t think there would be a quiz today” or “Why do you always give a quiz on the days I don’t think there will be one.” They would guess whether they would have a quiz or not, and shape their behavior around that guess. If they didn’t think there would be a quiz, they wouldn’t study. If they thought there might be one, they would.

This is not the type of behavior I want to encourage. Based on the recommendation of last year’s AP class, I decided this year to give a daily reading quiz, reinforcing reading on a continuous schedule.

Part 2: My Quiz Make-up Policy

High school juniors and seniors have hundreds of reasons to miss my class. Many of them are unjustifiable. For example, it is reasonable for me to expect that students schedule vacations, senior pictures, extended lunches, routine doctor’s appointments, etc. around my class.

Based on this logic, last year’s AP students could not make up missed quizzes in my class. They went into the book as a zero. However, since I know that we’re all human, and that we occasionally cannot prevent missing class (illness, certain medical appointments, etc.), I dropped the lowest quiz score from calculation. This, in a sense, allowed each student one missed class every marking period (9 weeks), or two per semester.

Part 3: The Problem

I can’t help but wonder whether this is too strict, especially considering that I am now planning to give quizzes every single class period. If my classes meet five times every two weeks, that’s approximately 24 quizzes every marking period.

Perhaps I could offer extra work in the form of research that would make up for their lowest two scores. This would allow them the opportunity to turn their two lowest scores into high scores, offsetting the effect that an absense would have on their grade.

This, of course, would force me to do more work. I would have to not only read, comment on, and assess the papers produced by the make-up research, but I would have to come up with the research topics, something I would have to do in advance to anticipate students wanting to take the opportunity. After all, these are highly motivated students I’m talking about.

And, would these research papers be punitive? If so, then its not worth doing. Why create more work for my students if it does not reinforce learning the content I wanted them to know in the first place.

Part 4: The Solution

One thing that I would definitely like to do is create a menu of research questions/topics from which students must choose to present on at least once/twice per marking period. These presentations could be “multimedia” (podcast, blog, video, oral, paper, etc.). Questions would range from historical to analytical. Quizzes could be made up by completing additional questions from that list.

Now I think I’m on to something!

This year, all students will be required to present on one topic of their choice from a list of topics that I provide. This list will grow throughout the year; as I find new topics I will simply add them to the list. These presentations can use any media and will be graded using a rubric that I will have to make that assesses their understanding of the topic that they are presenting on.

If students miss class, they can make up the quiz by presenting on another topic of their choice.

Note: exceptions will of course be made for long-term extenuating circumstances (i.e. illness or tragedy).

This should a.) make absences undesirable, and b.) encourage in-depth study in psychology, and c.) actually boost the students grade by allowing them the opportunity to turn a zero into full credit.

I always like to see where people work. It puts things into perspective a little bit for me. With that in mind, I took some snapshots of my classroom this morning. Here they are:

A few notes that I suppose might be necessary:

• The trophy is a 1990s third place women’s weight-lifting trophy. It was a gift from a student last year. I collect trophies and give them away to AP Psychology students as prizes for the “highest test score.” It’s my silly way of recognizing hard work (that I learned from Charles Blair-Broeker).
• The sign hanging on the trophy was left in my room by Tuba Steve - another student. I’m not sure of its origin, but I think its purpose is clear.
• I like lamps. There is something soothing about incandescent lightbulbs. In the morning, I will turn the lamps on along with a single row of ceiling lights. I bought them at Good Will. They have a certain “Uncle Malley” feel that my students tend to appreciate.
• The graffiti on the wall was done by a guy named Woody. It stands for Small Town Skate Crew. Last I heard, he was moving somewhere warm to skate under a sponsor - he’s really good. I really need to cover that back bulletin board. I left it uncovered all last year. Hence, Woody’s desire to tag my boring wall.

I don’t know why, but I can never sleep the night before the first day. Last night, I stayed up later than I should have (11:30), I tossed and turned throughout the night, and then awoke at 4:12am unable to go back to sleep. So, I got up. I drank coffee. I downloaded some music. Then, I grabbed the iPod and was out the door by 6am.

I just don’t function well on such little sleep. I’m a real active sort of guy. I teach as if I’m a rugby coach, for crying out loud. My mojo doesn’t work when I don’t get my z’s! Rather, I stutter, stammer, and my mind traverses every corner of my mind. “Am I going too fast? Am I going to slow? Should I be covering all this on the first day? Should I be covering more? Why are they all staring at me? Ahhhh!!!!”

I’m not like that when I’m rested.

Anyway, it is done. The school year has begun, and I have been introduced to all of my classes. Let the fun begin.

So, I basically stole that title from Engadget but I don’t care. It was too cool not to reuse!

It’s true.

Sending your kid off to school these days isn’t what it used to be …”

Still don’t believe me? Watch the news report.

Interested in buying one: Here’s their website.

I’ve spent the morning re-reading a chapter in Robert Fried’s remarkable book, The Passionate Teacher, about the necessity for teachers to develop a “stance” in the classroom.

What we have going for us is a philosophy, an attitude, a bearing, a way of encountering students based on a set of core values about kids and their learning potential.

I would argue that every teacher has a stance, whether they are aware of it or not. Even the cranky teacher down the hall, years past his last real moment in the classroom, has a stance; a message that he conveys to his students about learning, the content he’s teaching, and life in general.

The crux here is knowing what your current stance is, striving to achieve the ideal stance you have in mind, and knowing when a positive stance can no longer be maintained.

For instance, as is typically the case with new teachers, I talk way too much in my classroom. I fear giving my students control, so I lecture. I also fear not “covering the content” to the point where I frequently feel I’m no more than an animated encyclopedia of facts. And, as a result of this “stance” that I maintain, I always feel stressed in the classroom.

My stance, whether I like it or not, is ‘experienced’ by my students. While I make my lessons as fun as I possibly can, I have created a passive relationship between my students and their education. They come in, sit down, and take notes. I talk, and demonstrate, and change slides. I am essentially enabling thier ignorance!

As you can tell, this is not what I would prefer! I would much rather my students talk, demonstrate, and tell me when they’re ready to change slides.

I saw last year as a learning year for myself. This year will be a stance year. I will work harder at becoming the teacher I want to be.

Last night I had a dream that I was teaching my first AP Psychology lesson this fall when I noticed a student turn to share an instant message with the person behing him. Then, all of the sudden, I realized that every student in my AP class was in my Freshman U.S. History class last year and they were all very uninterested in my lesson! So, every one of them started talking, texting, and pulling out iPods.

I ran around the room yelling at them about how AP Psychology requires so much more discipline than U.S. History, and that they weren’t freshmen anymore, and every other thing that a teacher yells when he is losing control. I grabbed cell phones, iPods, and Trapper Keepers as I flew around the room. I even threw one cell phone at the wall, crushing it to bits.

Then I woke up. Anxious. Never more relieved that sophomores are not allowed to take AP classes.

The school year is too near. Far. Too. Near.

This is worth watching in the same sense that a train wreck is worth watching. Painful. Intriguing. More painful than intriguing!

Just watch the clip!

I can only imagine that being a superintendent of schools is a busy, low-rewards sort of job, in which one is constantly having to answer phones, shake hands, and attend meetings. But, busy enough to take a graduation speech from About.com? Never.

Read it here, folks!