Classroom Management:  

Be Pro-Active and Positive, and the Classroom Manages Itself!!!

I struggled with classroom management the first couple of years of teaching, which were really two first years for me.  I started my career in urban Minneapolis, and then I moved to suburban Atlanta.  Two completely different worlds in every way, so just as I started to get down a rhythm for the urban environment, that had to be deleted for my new teaching job.  In suburban Atlanta, I learned quickly that parent communication was one the non-negotiables in teaching, and that was the first thing that I tackled my third year of teaching.  What I did taught me that more than necessary, it was very powerful to building relationships in the community of families that passed through my classroom.  This was the first big step in my classroom management experiments and learning, and I will elaborate further on it later.

Though I have not really had a lot of issues with classroom management in the years past the start of my career, I feel that many methods I tried and used lacked so much purpose and meaning.  In reflection, I feel most of it was driven by re-action to past problems rather than pro-active measures.  Though I had become pro-active with parent communication, the pro-active switch on everything else was stalled.  The pro-active parent communication helped behind the scenes of my classroom early in my teaching career, and it kept amount of communication less frequent and more positive.  When I began to implement more pro-active and positive measures in the main stage of my classroom with students in later years, I never really gave classroom management much thought anymore – it managed itself.

I would like to share a few things I have adopted in my classroom, most of them in recent years, that have helped immensely with making my classroom run smoothly.  My definition of smoothly includes efficient use of time and resources, safe, positive learning environment, constructive encouragement and reinforcement of student success, and most importantly of all, strong communication and relationship building with students and parents.  Notice I put students before parents in the previous sentence.  I have learned that heavy focus on pro-active strategies with students drives strong relationships with parents.   While I want to share successful strategies, I also believe it is important to acknowledge what did not work in the past and why it drove change.  I will incorporate both in what I share.

Getting to Know Students Early and Continuously

In the past couple of years, I have started the year with Sara Van Der Werf’s Name Tents the first week of school.  These are such a great way to start getting to know your students.   More importantly, it lets the students know that their thoughts, likes, fears, experiences, etc. are welcomed and valued in your classroom.  It gives them a sense of belonging and a place to have a silent dialogue with their teacher without having to ask questions or share something in front of their peers.  When students feel like they belong, they tend to engage with more ease.

Name Tents:  

There were so many years that I had students fill out a student information sheet and never had time to read them.  I did borrow a student information sheet from one of my colleagues that I really liked and gave it to them this year to return to me.  The difference now is that the pressure is off for me to read it right away because the Name Tents jump-started the “get to know you” process in the first days of school.  I still intend to read the sheets and have set a date to do so while driving down to the coast for Labor Day Weekend as it will give me something fun to do while on a long car ride.   I can then enhance instruction and daily conversations with them by productively using that information they gave me.  I will also be acquainted enough with them to really digest the information they provided.

Another method I use to build relationships with my students is during homework check time.  A few years ago I realized that homework return was slipping, and the whole process of checking and recording on my own grade sheet seemed so useless and lacked anything positive or productive. Determined not to give up on assigning work, I came up with the idea of giving them check sheets to carry with them, which I explain more in depth below.   If nothing at all, I will never give this up because it provides me the opportunity to still interact daily with them.  I can ask them how they are doing, how was the game last night if they are in a sport, how is the play going if they are in theater, how was that biology test that you were crazy studying for yesterday, etc.  It is a daily way to continue to learn more about them and let them know that they are individual in my classroom rather than just part of a group.  Below is a photo of my check sheets:

Building a Positive Environment Through Language, Acknowledgement, and Recognition.

Try Not to Use the Word Fail- Working on use of productive language is something that I have increased commitment to every year in my classroom.  The earliest memory I have was of incorporating the commitment to never use the word “fail” in my classroom; about 7 years ago.  This was a word that I had stopped using in communication with parents as well because I was tired of hearing it from a couple of my son’s teachers on the occasion when they emailed me.  It just felt like such an inflammatory word, and as a parent, I realized that after I saw that “if then statement” with the word “fail” at the end and not much else included in the conversation, I did not feel good about the communication taking place.

Anyway, it was not that I took the reality of failure away from dialogue with students and parents, I just simply switched the words to “may not be able to pass”.   It acknowledges the situation if it arises, but in a way where communication can stay non-volatile and still give hope and chance for change.  The first year I incorporated this into dialogue with students was when I had my first math support class.  I had the students 2 hours a day, so I knew them well and talked with them a lot each day.  At the end of the year I had them do reflections of their experiences in my class.  One of my students wrote that one of the best things about me as a teacher was that I never told them they would fail and that really helped her to keep going even when she struggled.  Such a powerful moment when I read that – the fact of the matter is that I acknowledged that reality with them near every assessment when going over problems, but in the way of “be careful of details, and not showing work because I may not be able to give credit for what you do know, and you may not be able to pass the test, which I do not want to see happen”.    Changing the face of one single word has driven incredible change in student motivation and relationship building for me, and I have never used that word since.

On acknowledgement of student work:  In early years, I hung student work in my classroom when possible, and sometimes hung up yellow stars for certain learning situations when students performed well.  The most recent appearance of performance based stars was with my Algebra 1 support students a couple of years ago when assessing on factoring methods.   While the students who earned stars thrived on it, I never realized what it meant to those who were not able to.  While out of the classroom last year and tutoring, I was working with an AB Calculus student.  She was struggling a lot, mostly because she was not ready for the course, but our district did not allow for any other options at that point for her to take other than below level math.  Anyway, the same types of stars were up in her classroom for test success, and she was so upset about performing below the level of earning a star.  My heart broke for her when she told me that she believed she would never be able to get a star.  I knew as a teacher that no teacher ever sets out to harm by doing this.  it is meant to be a motivator, but it was not until that moment that I realized how demoralizing it can be.  I vowed then to be different in my intentions with this process.  This year, I bought some “star student” cards from Schoolbox, and there are many already up on my board (I forgot to take a picture yesterday before leaving).  Right now some students earned a card for gaining strength in factoring skills, and I intend to give cards for things like increased success, making mistakes that contribute to learning, and other contributions that are not grade-related.   This is a far better way than my previous method to acknowledge all levels of student success as it is different for everyone, and all of it is key to our classroom.

This is what the star student card looks like:  I not only put their name on it, but I also write why they earned it.

On School Driven Recognition – Our school gives teachers 5 “Rich Raider” cards per week to hand out to specific students who have demonstrated citizenship, integrity, hard work, or respect.  We fill them out and give them to students to put in a box in the cafeteria.  Several cards are drawn from this box weekly, and students can earn prizes.  This is another way to show students that their individual contributions in our classroom matter, and they matter in the school scene outside our classroom.  There is nothing better than the excitement in their eyes when I hand them one of these.  A lot of the time they do not realize what they did warrants recognition as the academic world they live in now is so much about quantifying their success in numbers only.  I am happy that my school, and many others in our district do this.

Our school's Rich Raider Tickets - This is the bunch I will hand out next week:)

  

Organization

Interactive Notebooks:  Learning to organize has really made my class run smoother.  Most of this learning curve came after I began to implement Interactive Notebooks into my classroom almost 3 years ago.  There can be a lot of shuffling around with paper and materials, but I fell in love with this classroom strategy almost immediately and vowed to clean up my “disorganization issues” to maintain the practice in my classroom.  This strategy teaches students to organize notes and build a powerful resource of their own to reference daily for homework, group work, and preparing for assessments.

Interactive Notebooks in use this past Friday during a group learning check:

Every day when my students enter my classroom, their note pages for their notebook are on this podium for them to pick up.  If there are activities instead of interactive notes on a particular day, the empty podium communicates with them as well in that we may be using the notebooks versus adding to them.

The "Work Pick-Up Podium" - I also leave them a note for the day.  This particular day was to wish them a "Happy Pythagorean Triple Day"

This table at the front of my room is a one-stop shop for students to organize their notebooks and any other materials.  There are always glue sticks, high lighters, markers, colored pencils, tape, and often scissors on this table for them to use for adding note sheets to their notebooks and/or enhance their notes.  I introduce these notebooks as their way of building their own textbook, so they are free to add to it in any way that helps them.  There is also a stapler and hole punch for homework sheets as I give our copier a break by not hole punching – after all, I want the copier to work when I need it rightJ?

  

The crate on the table contains folders for every class for make-up work pick-up and extra table of contents for the notebooks or extra homework grade sheets if they need them.  There are also calculators up there for them if they do not have one.  This is their area primarily, and I give them the independence to use and maintain it.  Giving students independence signals to them an upfront trust and belief that they can handle the responsibility.   The supply table helps them to organize their materials in class as well as feel comfortable about the process.  This and the play table make my room just as much their room the hour they are in it, and when students are comfortable, they are more engaged in the learning process.

Homework – In and Out of Class

Giving, Checking, and Grading Homework - Homework is something I will not relinquish in my classroom, but I have acknowledged the fact that I need to work on meaningfulness with it.  This year I am spiraling and lagging homework for them, and I am hoping it will help not only with work in my classroom, but help them to keep skills strong for their future math classes.  Almost every day I check homework, and I use a homework check sheet to do so.  This check sheet contains 6 weeks of homework checks that they keep with them; at the end of every 6 weeks, we have progress reports, so they can better gauge when that is coming.  I collect the grade sheet every 2 weeks and put their homework grades in the system.  Though I have not had a lot of instances of students losing them, I encourage them to take a camera phone picture of them every couple of days just in case; sort of like “backing up files”.  I also strongly encourage them write down the assignment in check box each day in case there is a disagreement of homework grade, they can know what it is and show me.

Second-though I check for completion and work shown, I also key in on a couple of key problems each day as I go around, and I can give them a quick prompt or two for correction if they need it as well as underline or circle parts of their work to look at again; this helps me to know where they are at and what to spiral through more for homework and going over homework at the board.  Lastly, when students start to see missing work, on this check sheet, the will to get back in to the habit emerges very quickly.  I equate it to adults and credit cards.  It is easy to create negative money, but we do not get the daily reminder of what we spend unless we seek it out, and then the monthly bill can be a real shocker!  This way students get the daily reminder instead of the grade book shocker every two weeks.

Prompting Homework Questions and Maximizing Time Allotment -This is something I started working on 2-3 years ago and then let lapse last year because of being ill; the break allowed me to see the difference it made.  One of the things that can make homework ineffective is when students do not ask questions when they need to.  I wondered just how much the peer thing mattered to students when asking homework questions, and I can tell you now it is a BIG issue; bigger than you think.  I started this process with placing 3-4 blank post-it notes on random desks before the start of each period, and the student with the blank post-it note on their desk could put a homework question on the post-it and put it on the board before class started.  If they did not have any questions, they could put it on another desk.  I got so many more homework questions with this process, and it was great feedback for me on student struggles.  The drawback was that there was still not enough anonymity in that students knew where the post-its came from.  This year, I hung a poster up front right next to the supply table for students to post homework questions.  I labeled the top of it with a sign that says “learning Inquiries”  to give further encouragement on mistakes and misunderstandings as a learning process.  Here is what it looked like one day this week:

Basically, the first few minutes of class each day are for students to paste note sheets in their notebook , put their homework and check sheets out for me to look at, post any homework questions on this poster, and start the warm-up work or directions on the board.  During this time, I am checking homework, attendance, etc.  Because everyone is focused on getting their things organized and starting class, no one knows who posted what questions.

Two weeks in students are already in the routine of having their homework out for check.

  When I get to the time for homework questions, I just transfer the post-its to the white board and go through the problems.  I also take this time to address any issues I saw in work I checked while going around the room.  I usually allow time for 3-4 questions, and if I have more, they know I will work them out completely with side notes and post them on my website.  There are days I cannot get to questions, but again, I know which ones are being asked, and they know I will post solutions for them to check.   All learning inquiries on the poster and mistakes in work I see and gather in the first few minutes of class are anonymous and make huge contributions to all students.  This is a priceless way to make homework more purposeful to the students both individually and as a whole class.

  

Cell-Phones – This is something that I gave a lot of freedom to students with over past years, and probably more than I should have.   This year, I vowed to change that as I realized last year that we now have students growing up and coming to high school who have little or no memory of life without a smart phone.  I mean, it’s been 10 years since the I-Phone first came into the market – where has time gone?   While the older generations certainly enjoy technology too, we also remember life without smart phones and some of us any cell phones at all.  I wanted to make the theme of my mission with this a learning experience – a way for them for at least one hour a day know a life without being plugged in.  Because I did not want them to feel like I immediately mistrusted them with their phones (although I did, but through no fault of theirs as they only do what they know with plugging in), I told them the story of what I learned by unplugging for a few hours a day this past summer with my I-pad.  I told them that I was very attached to my I-pad (and I am), and my husband was very attached to his TV (and he is).  This summer, my husband was having trouble getting his course work done for teacher school (he is doing the second career teacher thing).  I was having trouble separating from my I-pad and the couch (exercise and me are not friends).  We both committed to turning them off for 6 hours each day to get the things done that we needed to.  He got his school stuff done, and I got most of our house cleaned and organized, more books read than usual, and started journaling again.  I was amazed at how much more productive I was – I knew I probably “I-padded” too much, but WOW… 

 Sharing this story with them right off the bat set a tone of purpose for them putting their phones in the pouches on the wall.  It was not a “because I said so and think it is a good idea” sort of thing, it was a “I get it and want to help you” type of thing.  I took the idea that Tony Riehl talked about as a “my favorite” at TMC17, and I talked about cell phones, and my I-pad, as a distraction to learning and work that needs to be done.   

Phone Storage Station with Sign Suggested by Tony Riehl

 As the days continued during the first two weeks, I noticed that some students were just simply tucking their phones away in their backpacks.  I told them that was fine too, but that they needed to stay tucked away.  I have only had to take a phone back to the distraction pouches twice, so I think the overall expectation is set now.  I am circulating often enough in class to reinforce it as well.  As far as the need for students to have technology in their hands some days to enhance learning, our school has one-to-one devices, so we are set for thatJ

Parent Communication – I saved this for last on purpose after talking about it briefly at the beginning of this blog.  If I had been writing this blog 10 years ago, this portion would have been 2-3 times the size of this one as this was my primary form of classroom management early on by control rather than purpose or meaning.  I am still pro-active with parent communication because I enjoy forming a community in my classroom that extends to families of students.  I have sent them a group parent welcome email every year for the past 10 years, but I no longer email them weekly or at the start of every unit.  Part of this is because I have had teacher websites or Edmodo class sites the past 5 or so years, but the other reason is because I have begun focus much more on building working relationships with students. 

The benefits of a group parent email are that it establishes a line of communication that is positive early on.  This way, if problems arise during the school year, the first time a parent hears from me is not when there is an issue.  It is a pro-active way to partner with parents and collaborate when needed for the success of the student.   I let the parents know my website as that is where all calendars, syllabuses, and homework resources are.  After that, I maybe check in and send an email once or twice a semester to give updates. 

As far as individual parent emails, I have changed my approach on this as well over past years.  I strive very hard to resolve any issues with behavior or lack of work with students first before contacting parents.  While I believe it is important to inform parents of problems, it should be when a resolution is not being reached after at least a couple of attempt to work with the student.  I think it is important for students to know that they will not automatically get tattled on if they make a mistake, and parents tend to appreciate quality vs. quantity when it comes to communication.   I also make it a point to alleviate inflammatory words from any communication with parents as I mentioned above with the word “fail”.  My experience with less than thoughtful teacher communication sent to me as a parent drove that decision, and it has been a powerful experience to give back to other parents in a positive way.

In closing, I really hope some of the things that I have learned and implemented can help those of you looking for new ideas for your classroom.   While I was able to control my classes early on given the fact that I am a tall and thicker individual with a voice that carries and a commitment to keeping parents in touch with my classroom, it was not effective classroom management.  The biggest lesson I have learned regarding classroom management has been this:  the more you focus on creating pro-active and positive tones in classroom environment, interactions with students, and organizing the instructional strategies you feel work best, the more your classroom will manage itselfJ

An Outstanding First Day and Week!   2017-2018

School started for us this past week.  I can honestly say this may be the best first week of school I have ever had- I feel so blessed!   My students are so good-natured and hard-working; they remembered more from last year than I ever could have imagined.  I only discovered that at the end of the week as we spent the first part of the week getting to know each other and doing cool math-y activities.

The first two days back I did a couple of Sara Van der Werf’s activities that I had not implemented yet.  The first was the 1-100 number task for group-work skills building.  The students were just as engaged as I had seen in pictures on Twitter from other teachers who have done this activity.  Below is a picture from my senior Calculus students working on it.  If you have not tried this activity yet, you much do so – it is a total winner!  Even if you have started school already, it can still be done before you start any routine group work for the year to help students work together in groups.

I introduced my students to Ken-Ken puzzles this year again but in a different way.  I had seen this idea on Twitter, but I cannot remember who posted it.  Anyway, I started by putting a Ken-Ken puzzle on the projector like this:

I then had the students stand and go find a different partner for this activity.  I had them do what Sara Van der Werf calls a “stand and talk”.  I gave them 2-3 minutes to look at the solved puzzle and talk about things they noticed about the numbers and patterns in the solutions.  We then came back together as a class and people shared what they had talked about.  Together they shared observations such as how the "numbers in bold" operated together to get the number at the top of the box, that no numbers were repeated in rows or columns like Sudoku, and they noticed that only certain digits were used..  Given that, I clicked on the link for a new unsolved 4 x 4 Ken-Ken puzzled that we solved together as a class.  They got through it very quickly and were actively engaged.  That was on Tuesday, and by Friday they endeavored to solve a 5 x 5 puzzle.  They struggled a bit with an extra row and column, and they did not finish it before the bell, but I told them that we would pick up from there next week.  They had tried a new level, and I was proud of their motivation.  Below is the link to the site for Ken-Ken puzzles that I used:

http://www.kenkenpuzzle.com/?redirected=1

Also on Tuesday after the Ken-Ken puzzle time, we played Sara’s 5 x 5 grid game.   After using some of the period for Ken-Ken puzzles, we played two rounds of this game.  I had the students work in pairs, and for the first round of the game I told them to place the numbers anywhere in the grid they wanted as I drew the cards.  While drawing the cards, I could hear them talking about placing the numbers a certain way; they were trying to figure out what the strategy would be.  After the first round, we discussed what strategies they used; many were trying not to place repeats side by side thinking that was a penalty.  In fact, the strategy is to place as many side by side as possible, but I loved hearing about the strategies they were using.  After I showed them Sara’s blog post of the grids and how they are scored, they got really excited for the next round.  I especially enjoyed talking about the slides she had where they had to figure out which placement of a set of 4 tens would yield more points.  Most student pairs had earned anywhere from 20-50 points in the first round, but after we played the 2^nd round, their scores ranged from 140-200 points; what a difference.  It was fun to watch them during the 2^nd round as they were intent on working together to get adjacent placement of numbers as much as possible.  I did a 1^st and 2^nd place winner in each class, and they earned a free homework pass to be used during review work at the beginning of the year.  That way if there is a topic they already feel strong in, it gives them some free time.   Here is a picture after we had just finished round 2, and they were calculating their scores.

Because Sara’s blog was up on the projector during the game, they noticed her and asked about her.  I told them that she was probably one of the best math educators in our country, and I believe that to be true.  I also told them behind the name tents that we were working on too; they thought that was really cool!   By doing this, I established myself as a teacher who is also an active learner from other teachers.  They probably know teachers share materials, but seeing it in action from across the country seemed to interest them a lot.   

Also throughout the whole first week, I did name tents for the second year in a row.  This year I included two days for them to ask me questions; one more random, and one about classroom policies/expectations that they still may be wondering about.  It takes a fair amount of time the first week to respond each day, but it is TOTALLY WORTH IT to do this with your students as a tool for getting to know them and letting them know that they are valued as individuals in your classroom.   The question-answer part of the name tents gives students a more private way of communicating with their teacher without having to comment or ask questions during class.  A few students really shared a lot about their extra-curricular involvements, career goals, and interests beyond the scope of questions, and I really enjoyed reading and dialoguing with them!   One student asked if we were going to do this every week.  Unfortunately, time will not allow for that, but I have decided to utilize the name tents more than last year.  One, I am going to use them to set-up groups throughout the semester rather than write names in marker on desks.  Two, I think we will paste in a second page the first week of second semester and do this again.  That way I can do a check in on the class and what is working for them or not, ask them how their holidays were, and because they are juniors, I can start seeing what they are thinking about for post-secondary options.

Lastly, as mentioned in my last blog, I set up a play table/area in my classroom for puzzle and pattern play.  My teacher friends thought it was cool, but my husband and son thought I was nuts!  They did not think juniors in high school would want to “play with blocks”.  Well, right back at them I can say absolutely they do.  The look on my husband’s face when I showed him this picture was priceless!

So yes, big kids do “play with blocks”, enjoy it, and I love that they enjoy doing this in their down time.  Here are some cool patterns that ended up on the table by the end of school on Friday:

All of the above said activities made for a great first week back.  Though I was tired by Friday as usual, I was also very happy and energized; that is a new and wonderful feeling.   Gone are the days of focusing on syllabuses, pre-tests, and “getting started as soon as possible” on course curriculum.  I had slowly lost those items over the most recent years, but I cringe when I remember years when that is what the first days looked like in my classroom.    It is so much more important to take the time to make math fun and get to know my students, and this is not something I will be willing to ever give up again.   I owe many thanks to the network of colleagues I have in the MTBoS who have taught me to see and try new things.  It allows me to be an active teacher learner and provide my students with great experiences in math.  This week was the biggest example of that yet!

One fun thing that happened that I had not planned on was using Elissa Miller’s classroom strategy of  "Two Nice Things”.  A student in pre-calculus called out another student across the room, and immediately Elissa’s rule popped into my mind, and I said immediately “now you have to say two nice things about him!”   It worked!  The kids were immediately on board and agreeing, and the student followed through!  Also, did not hear that happen again the rest of the week –

So you see – the things we learn from each other are always with us, whether we plan to use them or not.  They are in our minds for any moment we may need themJ

A New School Year = New Goals!!!!

Tomorrow marks the official start for my school district for the 2017-2018 school year.  I am really excited to be officially in the classroom again returning to the school I was at in the fall of last year.  A lot has changed since leaving the classroom last December:  realizing teaching was still my true love for a career, realizing that the school district I left was in fact the best fit for me and my home, and finally making a commitment to myself to not overload with things that overshadow my passions; easier said than done of course!

My teaching schedule this year includes Honors Pre-calculus and Non-AP Calculus.  I have taught pre-calculus before, but Calculus will be a new challenge for me as a course even though I have tutored it for many years.   What is most energizing to me is that neither course has a standardized test tied to it, and this will be the first time in my career that I have had this opportunity.  I can teach at the pace that is comfortable for learning in my classroom, and we can delve deeper into topics and incite meaningful learning in our classroom.  I am the only one teaching both courses in my school, which is also a bonus – this year it is all about my kids and I and what works best for our classroom.  I intend to embrace this teaching gift with every fiber of passion in my teaching soul!!!

In addition to an awesome teaching schedule, I am returning to a department of colleagues I came to miss a lot last spring as well as many new ones that seem to be very motivated and hard-working.  Our school has a new learning incentive for Algebra 1 and Geometry courses to improve our EOC test scores.  We received extra positions to meet the needs of this program, and now each Algebra 1 and Geometry teacher will have between 15-20 students only to allow for learning needs of all students to be properly met, and students are able to learn as they go/move on when ready after each concept rather than fit into a “one-size fits all” pacing for the year.  It is an incredible opportunity for 9^th and 10^th grade students and teachers!  So far, I have been asked to lead in the professional development and resourcing involved prior to pre-planning and in contribution to the first week of instruction.  Being a member of MTBOS definitely helped me to provide rich and powerful teaching resources to them.

As school starts tomorrow, here are my goals for this school year:

Professional

• To continue using interactive notebooks in my classroom.  I have used them for the past 2.5 years, and they have provided students with success at all levels.  Honors Pre-calculus students can use them for reference next year in calculus, and Calculus students can revisit the art of organization with note-taking resources as they make their way to college.  Maybe they will take college calculus and use it!

• I have created not only a play table in my classroom, but a whole play and puzzle area in the back corner of my room; that part of the goal is finished.  I now would like to instill in my students the desire to “play with math” by using pattern and number sense exploration through tactile play and number puzzles.  I want them to see math as fun and magical.

• I started spiraling homework in the beginning of last year, but it dropped off quickly as I went into survival mode to stay well enough to finish the first semester.  This year I am going to do this again as well as lagging homework.  I was not able to go to Henri Picciotto’s session on lagging homework at TMC17, but I have read the archives of TMC17, and love the benefits to it that he outlined.  I definitely can see how lagging content in the the assignments a student does at home is much more meaningful and productive.  I do not believe in “no homework”, but I do know that my homework assignment habits needed a huge overhaul; just looks like just the right fit.

• To help our new math teachers in the building as much as possible by providing good professional resources and advice from my experiences both successful or not.  I have been assigned one of them specifically to mentor, and she is a new teacher this year.  She has great energy that I want to foster and enhance with the professional resources and networks I am a part of.  Outside professional organizations have kept me in this profession through the good times and bad.  Even when I went astray from them, they were there for me when I was ready to re-fuel.

•  To become much more active in MTBOS this year with sharing materials, resources, and fun chats with my fellow mathies across the country.  I want to keep up with regular blogging and #teach180.   I am hoping to join some of my North Carolina peeps for their professional development activities too.  I am hoping we have another Southern MTBOS tweet-up again this October as last year was a lot of fun, and I have a great idea/location OSin mind with another possible mathematical journey beyond that oneJ

• To get as many colleagues of mine as possible on Twitter and in the MTBOS!

Personal

•  Balance…  Balance, balance, balance.  If my former principal could hear this now – he instilled the importance of this into me, but I only truly realized it after I left.  The past 5 or so years, I loaded my working life with a full-time teaching job and almost full-time tutoring business.  No more of that for me – it killed my passions for teaching in the classroom, it wore my body out, and it robbed me of the joys one needs in their personal life to create that needed life-work balance.  I will still tutor a few students each week, but nowhere near what I have done in the past.  Though it helped us re-position financially, that is not needed now, and the personal cost is not worth it.

• I still managed to read during all the crazy of the past 5 years, but now I have the time to read even more.  On goodreads, I have set my goal at 50 books in 2017, and I would like to meet that goal or get as close to it as possible.  It has been a busy summer, so I did not get as many read as I had hoped, but I am happy that I am maintaining a mixture of personal books and professional books. 

• Exercise – it is my nemesis.  I would rather do anything else, but I bought a new bicycle last spring and have barely been on it.  I traveled a lot this summer, but now with the routine of the school year upon me, I would like to work into biking in 3-4 days a week.  

6 professional goals is a lot, but most of them are already in progress and need to just be built upon.  All of them are things I am super passionate about, so it is always easier to work towards those goals.  I predict my biggest challenges of those I have listed will be keeping up with the lagging/spiraling homework, and regular exercise, but I am committed to it.   This is the first blog I have posted in a while, and I have also yet to post my TMC17 reflections, but that is next this week!

As with any “first day of the school year eve”, I find myself a little nervous about tomorrow, but I am super excited and happier both professionally and personally than I have been in years. 

Here’s to a new and awesome 2017-2018!!!

Day in the Life – Grinding Through April…

I always forget about April – I think that is the way it is supposed to be in teacher world.   In our area, spring break is always the first week of April, and we then return to weeks of cramming and testing.  The return is probably the hardest of the year, but if we just make it to May, the end of the tunnel comes very quickly.   Every year I forget what a storm this is to march through, and here is one of my days in the midst of it.

6:30am – Finally drag myself out of bed; it is getting harder and harder everyday as we are in the final weeks.  It is an up-do day for the hair, so I can grab 15 extra minutes of sleep….

7:30am: - Leave for school.  My new drive is farther than last semester, but takes less time as I am going opposite of traffic.  It is a perfect blend – extra time to think about the day than I had in previous years, but no traffic to aggravate me from doing soJ

7:45-8:25am:  Arrive at school.  Finish notes for Algebra 2 support to review normal distributions with empirical rule and standard normal distributions with z-scores.  Kiddos have been in and out of their Algebra 2 regular classes this week due to testing, so this is both teach and re-teach.

8:25-10:10am - 1^st and 2^nd hour is Algebra 2 support, so we work on the normal distributions, but save finding cut-off values for tomorrow.  I can feel they are on full after empirical rule and z-scores.   Somewhat innately, but mostly with experience, a teacher can feel that “on-full” feeling from students; it seems to thicken the air.

10:15 – 11:04am - 3^rd period prep.  I update grades with homework and quiz corrections.   Grading policies in this district are new to me, but I love them.  70% weight on Summative assessments and 30% weight on formative assessments/grades such as quizzes and homework.  For quiz grades, students are allowed to make corrections on quizzes for half of their missed points back, so it is truly formative in process.  I am a big fan of analyzing mistakes, so this to me is a great practice that is in place here.

11:10 – 12pm – 4^th period Advanced Mathematical Decision Making.  Today the students are taking their 4^th out 5 foundational algebra quizzes; today is operations of radicals.  Afterwards, they are allowed time to get caught up on their Life-Project journal reflections.  More on that later.

12:05-1:50pm – 5^th and 6^th period planning and lunch.  Yep – inordinate amounts of time here for prep and having a decent lunch.  I make copies for the rest of the week, keys to upload to the class website, and finish quiz correction grading and grade updates.

1:55-3:40pm – 7^th and 8^th period Algebra 2.  We started notes on z-scores, so we continue through with the application of them today and working backwards from a cut-off percent.  We are headed towards a quiz on Friday, so it is a race against time – this is something here that I am having a hard time getting used to.  Great discussions with the content for application though, which saves what can be a pretty dry topic.    7^th period is a large class, so a little more of a challenge to stay on task, but we made it!  8^th period is small, so we are able to have more in depth conversations within the content delivery.

3:40 -4pm – Drive home – enjoying this time to reflect on the day and think about the rest of the week.  I am definitely thinking group-work review for tomorrow.  Also feeling sad that I am not able to attend MCTM this year in Duluth, MN.   My pre-service work and first year of teaching began with this organization, and it is a great organization with passionate teachers and super-rich professional development.  I try to get back every couple of years, but not going to make it this time.

4:00-5pm – Time to talk to hubs and re-boot before tutoring starts.  Grab a snack and new cup of coffee.     

5:00-7pm -  Two tutoring sessions, both for pre-calculus, but at different levels.  Matrix work for one, and probability distributions for another.  Done early tonight as I am exhausted and need to shut it down for the evening.    

7:00-9pm – Spend time with my family, peruse Twitter and MTBoS, and at 9pm I am in bed.  Time for a good night’s sleep for a change!                                                                                       

Reflection Questions: 

1) Teacher make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.   When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried about?

The current teaching position I walked into was a tough one.  The students had lost their teacher, and one class had lost a classmate in the same time period.  Attendance was low in the morning support classes and the AMDM course, and students were not used to a consistent routine in the classroom.  Although I did not implement all of my classroom expectations, I did use many.  The students were resistant of course at first, but not for long.  I am glad that I pushed through with the expectations and kept at the challenge of knowing the balance of when to push new ideas and when was enough.  Attendance has improved greatly in support class as well as engagement, and working relationships have been formed with students.   My seniors still worry me with their diminishing work ethic, so I worry about the decision to do a big project at the end of the year.  Still, it is a good one that gives them great life problem-solving skills.

2)  Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like as a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?   What has been a challenge for you lately?

Even though I just went back into a classroom in March, I still am looking forward to summer.  Summer means rest and re-charge.  Summer means the beach and free time to get all those tasks around the house done that you put off and are now stressful.  Summer is a time to spend with friends and family more than you get to do so during the year.  This year has been quite a ride for me at two new and different schools, as well as time off and reflections and realizations I never thought I would have. 

What has been challenging for me lately is that I do not have a permanent job for next year.  I have tried not to stress too much about it, but easier said than done.  There are always openings at the beginning of the year, but knowing now would be much easier.  What I do know is that I do want to teach and be in a classroom somewhere, somehow.

3)  We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with teachers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone lately.  

In my senior AMDM class, I have 2 male students who have enlisted in the Marines and are off to basic training as soon as they graduate.  They are some of the most polite and mature students I have, and they will make excellent soldiers for our country.  Because my son was in the Army reserves, and my brother in-law was in the Air Force for many years, I have been able to share knowledge and interest in their pursuits after high school.  I was also able to use my brother in-law and son’s experiences from the military to better personalize parts of these 2 students Life Projects.  I have enjoyed the conversations we have shared as well as listening to them talk about their thoughts as they head into the military in a time of potential unrest on the globe.

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and are often have specific goals for things to work on throughout the year.  What have you been doing to work on your goal?  How are you doing?

One of my goals at the beginning of the year was to try and spiral homework daily throughout a unit.  At my new school, the pacing of content is super-fast even for on-level courses; there is barely time to cover the work needed let alone spiral.  I have been incredibly uncomfortable with the pacing in Algebra 2, but I have to keep reminding myself that different is not necessarily bad.  Still, I have been teaching long enough to know that this type of pacing does not leave much room for depth of understanding.   We have to all test on the same day, so I am not able to branch out like I would like to, and I am a guest teacher, so delay of testing is not something I can campaign for.

I am now realizing that my next DITL post is the last day of school…   Just one month left -that’s pretty exciting!

Until thenJ

Day in the Life:  March 26, 2017:  

Out of Darkness and Into Light

What a difference a month makes!!!

In my last DITL post on 2/26/17, I had just gone to a teaching job fair looking for a position for next year.  I had been offered a long-term substitute teaching position for math until the end of the year in a new district.  I accepted the offer, and they invited me in for what I though was a formal interview on 3/2/17.  It turned out to be very informal and more of an “are you sure?”, and then we went through the details of the job.  I formally accepted, and I was shown my room and a brief tour of one wing of the school.  I then went to the district offices to meet with human resources and set up the fingerprinting and background check.  This was Thursday, March 2, 2017.  By Monday, March 6^th I was fully onboarded to the district, and my first day was Wednesday, March 8^th.   What a whirlwind it was, but I can say that the positivity, efficiency, and strong community I witnessed on the day of the district’s teacher job fair not even two weeks prior continued to prevail throughout the hiring process.

It also continues to this day in the school I am at.  Teachers and kids are happy, REALLY happy.  There is not a colleague (most I do not know) that I pass in the hall who does not say hello with a big smile on their face.  My math colleagues are so welcoming and supportive, and the students are great.   There is a great amount of pride in this school, and I feel blessed to be a part of it.  I am teaching Algebra 2, which is my favorite course to teach no matter what level!  I also teach Algebra 2 support and AMDM, which is short for advanced mathematical decision making and a fourth high school math course option.   The only thing I have stressed a lot about since I have been here was working with a promethean board (we had different projectors in my previous county), but I gave myself a good YouTube crash course with it the night before I started and have winged it pretty well the rest of the way. 

My Algebra 2 team lead has been great!   She sent me so many resources via email before I started, and I met with her two days before I got to the classroom.  She gave me great crash courses in navigating the grade book system, the county teacher website portal, and she was been a super hero in putting together all the grades for me to enter in the grade book.  The previous teacher left a fair amount ungraded, and the Algebra 2 team worked relentlessly to get all of that caught up while also keeping up with their classrooms.  Two of the Algebra 2 team members taught my students on their prep hours in the two weeks between the resignation of the old teacher and my arrival.   When the department chairs said at the job fair that they are a family that works together well, they were not kidding; everything they had boasted about their department has proven true beyond imagination!

I walked into the classrooms mid-week, in the middle of the logarithms unit.  I walked into classrooms that had lost their teacher suddenly, were struggling with some of the most difficult content to learn in algebra 2 in the absence of their teacher, and trying to get used to the styles of the other teachers.   On top of all of that, in one of the classes the students had lost their class mate forever in the same time frame.  Was I nervous about being able to connect with these students?  Absolutely so - no first day of school I ever had could even compare to it.  I knew these students were hurting and apprehensive about a new teacher coming in; who could blame them?

I knew I needed the best strategies I had in my bag to connect with them.  They needed to know that the newbie was interested in getting to know them as well as wanting to teach them.  This was a situation that screamed for Sara Van Der Werf’s name tents, so that was the first thing in my preparation for class.   If you have not heard of or seen these, you need to go to her blog and reed about this great classroom building activity here!

I had used these last semester at my previous school, and I loved them.  It is an amazing way to get to know your students at the beginning of the year, and it is a complete asset if you are coming in to a new classroom in a pressing situation in the middle of the year.   I believe it helped the students to heal and adjust to their new classroom knowing their voice in it mattered through the questions I asked them to get to know them, and the opportunity to ask me questions.   We are not done with them yet.  What is designed as a 5-day question and answer exchange in the beginning of the year, has become a staggered question and answer exchange.  We still have a couple of days left on it, and I do use it to seat for group work on certain days.  I love that they ask when they will get to do the name tags again!  I also love the questions they asked me – much different than last semester.  A lot of them wanted to know what made me decide to be a teacher – we all love to share those thoughts!

One challenge has been planning for the AMDM class, which is a senior math class with seniors in their last semester of high school.  If you have taught seniors, you know their motivation at this point has definitely seen better daysJ    In the name tents, one of the questions I asked them was their post high school plans.  It was a great mix of plans ranging from 4-year college, to trade school, to finding themselves, to military.   What I know from my experience as a teen who took an alternate path into adulthood and later my own education is that at some point there is most likely a college type algebra class in their future.   I decided from the information I pulled that I would give them exit exposure to some foundational algebra concepts they have learned in high school, one per week, to give them something to launch from later on.  When I went back to college as an adult, I did not recall the algebra up front on the placement test, but the foundation was there when I started algebra courses and re-learned it.   Now that I am a math teacher writing a math teacher blog, well – you never know!

The algebra review is to keep time rolling along for them in the last long weeks of school.  I also want to do something really meaningful with them light on the math but high on the life problem-solving skills.  Their former teacher had started some sort of tax-budget challenge with them, but most were not engaged with it when I got there.  I see the direction their former teacher was going in getting them to build a budget and make practical monetary decisions in life, and I want to expand on it.   I figure we can all build a perfect budget, but life happens.  So, that is what I want to do with them – have them re-build their budgets, but I want to throw life scenarios at them a couple of times a week and have them problem solve.  If any of you played the game Payday as a child, that is along the lines of where I am going.  More on this later as I will blog separately about the whole experience, but I can tell you that I feel a socratic coming on for them at the end of this project!

So today is March 26, 2017, and I have been back in the classroom for three weeks.  I am absolutely loving the experience, and my physical health continues to thrive!   It has not been perfect or without bumps, but less bumps than I ever expected.  Given all they have gone through, the kids are doing great and working hard at learning the math involved.  My colleagues did a great job teaching them the beginning content of logarithms, and they were ready for the graphing of logarithms when I got there.   Given they were expected to graph logarithms with transformations and no calculator, I would say they embraced that challenge in that their test results for the end of the unit were phenomenal and brought their grades up a lot.  I believe this and having a consistent teacher again has helped them to relax and feel good about learning math again. 

As far as tutoring, I was able to transfer a few students to my colleagues in the area who had spots and were looking for students.  I am still tutoring a fair amount until the end of the year, but many of them not on a weekly basis.  My hopes for next year are to remain in the classroom and then get the tutoring down to a bare minimum.  

This weekend we are up at our friend’s hobby farm near Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  I had planned this trip a couple of months back with the intention of visiting Anna Vance and her classroom, but being back in the classroom means I had to shorten the trip a couple of days and will not be able to make that happen; I will look forward to seeing her and many others at TMC 2017 though!   As I sit and drink my morning coffee from the porch and reflect upon this past month, I cannot believe how fortunate I have been to find a teaching opportunity this late in the year at such an awesome school.   We have one more week until spring break.  The kids are ready for the break, and it will be a long week most likely, but I cannot wait to work with them again on Monday!

Reflection Questions: 

1) Teacher make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.   When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried about?

I am proud of the fact that I already feel like I have connected with the students and that we are in a solid rhythm in the classroom.  I am both proud and thankful that I have sought to become a member of MTBoS and have resources to great classroom ideas both content and socially orientated that have helped me to build a positive learning environment in a tough situation in the middle of the school year.

2)  Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like as a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?   What has been a challenge for you lately?

As told above, I struggled with what exactly to do with my senior math class in the final weeks of school.  I am excited about the “life project” and the ability to try and hook them into something that can be of great use to them almost immediately as they begin a new chapter in their life soon.  Though the math part is lighter, the problem solving will be intensive, and I believe that will be the project’s strength.

3)  We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with teachers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone lately.  

My whole month since March 8^th has been relational for me getting to know a new group of students and working to earn their trust in me.  We are further with that then I could have ever imagined; I am proud of them for their perseverance in a tough situation!

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and are often have specific goals for things to work on throughout the year.  What have you been doing to work on your goal?  How are you doing?

As I said above with the senior math project, I feel another socratic coming along!!!  I will also think of a new way to incorporate a socratic into Algebra 2 and Algebra 2 support before I am done.  This will help me to continue to build my bank of experience to share at Twitter Math Camp this summer.  Also, I am not sure if my students have been exposed to socratic seminars in other content courses like they had in my previous district.  I am kind of hoping they have not been or at least not a majority, so I can run through the experience of teaching them the rules of the process just as I will need to do with TMC 2017 participants when they do socratics together.

   

Day in the Life:  February 26, 2017

Continued Darkness and then an Unexpected Light

I do not have a timeline for this day.  I am stunned today but excited, and the course of the blog will explain it.

After returning home from Minneapolis for the second time at the end of January, I found that what I thought was a temporary funk about being out of the classroom had turned in to more of a darkness for me.  I had been out of the classroom for weeks, and my physical health had rebounded amazingly, but emotionally I was lost.   I never thought I would miss teaching as much as I did, and I felt completely empty without a classroom to prepare for and care for.  The daily interactions with students was still happening through tutoring, but not in the same way that teachers and students interact in the classroom through instruction and learning.   Also frustrating was trying to keep and maintain a tutoring schedule for a lot of students all of which had crazy schedules with spring sports, theater season, and field trips.   A lot of times students would cancel, and by the time I would see them again, there was not enough time in one session to review content and enhance the learning they had previously had with their teacher.  It felt like an endless game of catch-up, which is not uncommon to a classroom as well, but this was somehow different and very uninviting.   Because I felt so empty inside, I found myself without the energy to make the physical time of my days anything but empty as well.  I slept longer into each day, I accomplished less each day until it was time to tutor, I dreaded the long hours of tutoring, and I missed seeing my family because I worked at night. 

By mid-February I knew without a doubt that I wanted to teach again next year.  I knew that I could not break the cycle I was in until I started taking steps to make that happen.  I knew there would be job openings in my former district, so I re-applied and also check-marked substitute teacher thinking that if I did not get a position, I could at least get back in the groove by doing that next year.  At the same time, one of my tutoring student’s mom had gotten a job in a neighboring district this past year and reminded me about that district’s job fair at the end of February.   I had thought about applying to this district before, it is not far away at all, but to me I still saw my district as “home”.   I took her advice though and began to prepare for the job fair by applying to that district, gathering transcripts, responding to inquiry based essay questions about my teaching experiences and philosophies, and re-vamping my resume(that was the most arduous task trying to figure out all that needed to be added and what was dated enough to be deleted).   I worried that leaving one district in the middle of the year, although for health reasons, would affect my chances of consideration into this district.  The district I was applying for was growing by absorbing the most recent urban sprawl from Atlanta, and was becoming a very sought after district to apply in.  All former colleagues I knew that had gone to this district really liked it, so I was curious to see what the job fair was like.

Now, I do have a timeline for yesterday, Saturday, February 25, 2017

7-8am:   Nervously getting ready for the job fair and mini-interviews.  It has been awhile since I have

                done this – first impressions are everything for a competitive district.

8:15am:  Leave for job fair.  It is at one of the high schools closer to me and starts at 9am.  When I 

              arrive 15 minutes later I am glad I left when I did because there is bumper to bumper traffic 

              to get into the parking lot and park.  Further, they have student volunteers there to direct 

              traffic???

8:45-9am:  Pick up my name badge and job fair folder and instructions in the cafeteria.  Start towards

                the wing of the building that has the high school meet and greet mini-interviews.

9am – 10:00am:   Each classroom in the wing housed department chairs and admin from a specific

                          school in the district.  I hand in my resume to each, talk to a head counselor from

                          one high school and department chairs from 2 other high schools.  I am asked if

                          I am interested in an immediate long-term sub position at the 2^nd school; they had

                          a math teacher resign the previous week.  

10:15am:  I am finished with meet and greets.  I go back to the room for school #2 and verbally

                commit to the long-term sub position.             

10:30am:  I leave the job fair for home trying to grasp what has just happened, but I am excited!

11am-12pm:  I arrive back home and email the department chairs with my intent to accept the job. 

                    Am I really going back so soon?

Here’s the thing – From the moment I parked the car and walked into the job fair, I was impressed.  From the sheer numbers that showed up for a potential job, the friendliness of the students and staff working to direct candidates to the right areas, to the organization of the whole affair, it was clear this was a desirable district to be considering.   The superintendent of the district was driving candidates from the parking lot to the registration and interviewing area in a golf cart, and he came and shook every candidate’s hand in line to do meet and greet interviews.  All administrators representing each school were so welcoming to all candidates, and everyone was just HAPPY…   It was clear that this district was full of pride and focused on community and relationships.   Having come out of the classroom because of exhaustion and run-down health due to a very toxic school environment, this was a breath of fresh air I was afraid I would never see again.   When I did the meet and greet with school #2, the department chairs were so kind, and I could tell they loved their school and department not just in what they said, but the pride in their face.   They talked about how awesome and supportive the administration was in supporting them and their department.  They told me that even though their department was large, it was like a family that always looked out for each other and respected each other’s knowledge and contributions.  They were impressed with my resume, but could not offer a permanent job.  Still, they immediately asked if I would consider a long-term substitute position for a teacher that had resigned the week before.  I told them I wanted to think about it and make sure my health was in a place to which I was ready for it and being there long-term for the students. 

I went to another meet and greet after that, but I could not get over what a positive vibe I got from those teachers.  I could not stop thinking about what it might be like to step back into the classroom in a completely different district so soon, but my excitement at the prospect rose with every thought I had.  All of the sudden I had more energy than I had felt in a long time, and by long time I mean at least a year or better.   I felt my physical health could continue to thrive in the environment they described, and I knew that my emotional health needed me back in a classroom.  I finished the meet and greet with school #3 and headed straight back to talk to the department chairs from school #2.  They were with another candidate, but they were talking with other candidates.  I talked to the assistant principal they had raved about and told him I would like to accept their offer.   He said to go ahead and email them and that they would be in touch the following week.  He thanked me and again reminded me of how pleasant and professional an administrator could be.

I went home and emailed the department chairs again and accepted the offer if they had not found someone else.   Now the waiting game begins.                      

Reflection Questions: 

1) Teacher make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.   When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried about?

The decision to go back to making a lot of decisions throughout the day as a teacher has me both excited and worried.  Am I going back too soon?  Did I gamble my physical health to save my emotional health?  Am I right that taking care of emotional sadness will help my physical health to maintain and get even better? 

I am proud of the fact however, that I made the decision to apply for employment in a new district.  New experiences can be scary and intimidating, and I am proud that I got out of that car pushed through the nerves to go to the job fair and not let the competition turn me away from fighting for the opportunity to teach again.

2)  Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like as a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?   What has been a challenge for you lately?

As told above, I have been in a very dark and empty place being away from the career I love.  I look forward to the opportunity of being in a classroom again while also getting a foot in the door to a new district that seems full of growth and positivity.

3)  We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with teachers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone lately.  

The relational moment came with meeting the department chairs of school #2.  I instantly felt at home while talking with them, and I felt that I would really enjoy working for them.  It is really nice when an interview, even a mini one, does not feel like an interview!

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and are often have specific goals for things to work on throughout the year.  What have you been doing to work on your goal?  How are you doing?

I applied to speak at Twitter Math Camp in July 2017; I am truly honored to have been selected.  I am giving a workshop on integrating socratic seminars into math classrooms, and I had implemented socratic seminars in a different way to my Algebra 1 classes last fall.   I have been excited to give the TMC session, but I was regretting that I would not be able to explore more with socratics during spring semester.   If I get the opportunity to go back into the classroom, I will be able to work with socratics again before the sessions this summer.   This is definitely another reason I am excited for the long-term substitute opportunity – to continue working on new ways to incorporate this learning tool for students to connect and problem solve in mathematics.

So – did I get the job?   Stay tuned for March’s DITL post coming after this one!!!