Tier Your Discipline Note #3 to My Son who is a New Teacher

Dear Son,

As you start out as a new teacher, discipline is important.  Be consistent and be slow at any escalations.  Be up front with how you plan to discipline them.  They will feel safe in knowing what the plan is.

Tell your students you want to keep discipline between you and them.  You will try your hardest not to make it a public event.  You are not out to embarrass anyone.  

Tier 1: In the moment corrections.  These are usually verbal instructions given to students when they need some behavior correction but sometimes it could be non-verbal like a look or pointing or your hands at your hips.  The majority of your disciplining will be in this Tier 1 category.  

Examples: "Please get back on task."  "How is your work going?"  "Could you redirect your energies to the assignment?" "Please head back to your seat."  "Help me understand why this group is so off task?" "Please lower your voice."  or it could be a look that you give a student, or you could go over to the group that is having trouble and just stand there, or you could point to a student to go back to their seat.    Etc.

Tier 2:  After the moment discussion.  After a number of Tier 1 re-directions you will need to move up the ladder to a discussion about the issue and away from the rest of the class.  Always try to have this discussion away from the other students.  No audience!!  Also, be clear that the student is not in trouble, we are only trying to figure out how we can move forward with a short discussion.

Example:  "Let's go chat in the hallway so we can figure this out."  "See me after class please."  "Could you come to my desk so we can iron this little wrinkle out?" 

Tier 3:  After the moment discussion with a possibility of a consequence.

Examples:  "We've talked about this incident a few times, do we need to incorporate a consequence?" 

Tier 4:  Consequence (light)

Examples:  Change the student's seat. Limit participation in an activity. Take a walk with an aide to figure out a plan. Make a written document between you and the student explaining next actions when this comes up again.

Tier 5:  Consequence (involving others)

Examples:  Talk to the parents via email or phone.  Talk with other teachers about possible solutions in their classes.  Talk to the student's guidance counselor to find out any background information.

Tier 6:  Consequence (team meeting with parents)

Example:  Team Meeting with Parents AND STUDENT.  Create a contract.

Tier 7:  Consequence (Dean)

Example:  Notify the school dean for possible discipline action.

Remember the real estate phrase, location, location, location?  You should think of discipline the same way, communicate, communicate, communicate.  

Love you much son,

Dad

Involve Your Students on DAY ONE! Note #2 to My Son who is a New Teacher

Dear Son,

Don't do all the talking on DAY 1.  This will be hard to do, but it is really important that you involve your students in what you are doing.  Here are a few examples.

Introducing Yourself

Introducing yourself is an important part of teaching.  This is a chance for you to tell the students who you are and why you are there.  I would suggest you involve your students as much as possible in this process.  It is fun for the students to participate.

Here is the activity.  Explain that this is not a grade and that they are not going to turn this in.  They are going to answer a few questions about your background on their own.  Then they will have a chance to talk with others about their answers. They may change their answers at any time.  Then a few students will be called on at random to give their answers.  Again, students can change their answers if they choose. Lastly, you will discuss the actual answers with the students giving some background on each one.

1.  Have the students take out a sheet of paper and fill in their best guess at the questions.  Do this alone at first.  This will not be turned in and is not a grade.  Give approximately 1 minute to do this.  Give them a 30 second warning.  

College(s) Attended?

How Old Am I?

What jobs have I had?

2.  Give them 30-60 seconds to compare with the people around them.  Yes, the students can change their answers.  

3. Call on a few students at random (don't have students raise their hand, just pick one) to give an answer.  

4.  After students have given their guesses on each item then you give your answer to the question with some limited elaboration. 

You could also do this same type of activity by reviewing your grading procedures. See activity at the bottom of the page. 

Interview Questions

1.  Create a random seating chart and place students in pairs or in a group of three.   

2.  Have students interview each other one question at a time.  Ask students to remember the answers because they will be reporting out to the rest of the class later.

3.  Give some time for students to interview each other.  

4.  Politely interrupt the students and give them some time to choose 2 items (besides their name) that they will share with the rest of the class about the person they are interviewing.  Make sure the groups of three know who they are sharing for.  A>B B>C and C>A

5.  Now go from group to group having students share out their interviews to the whole class.  

6.  At the end of the student sharing time, you yourself should share out your own answers to the questions.  

7.  I would do this interview process every time you make new seats.  I actually never gave students the option of where to sit.  I almost always gave seats out randomly.  Sometimes you will have a student who needs preferential seating so you will have to adjust the seating chart as needed.  

Love you much son,

Dad

Grading Procedures

1.  Have students take out a piece of paper and on their own fill in their best guess for these percentages.  This will not be turned in and is not a grade.

Homework (Formative) ____

In Class Activities ___

Assessments (Summative) ___

2. Then give them a few seconds to compare with the people around them.  Yes, the students can change their answers.  

3. Call on a few students at random (don't have students raise their hand, just pick one) to give their percentages.  Students are allowed to change their answers.

4. What you have done is peaked the students' interest by involving them.   Now give them the actual percentages and why you set them at that amount.

3.  Give some time for students to interview each other.  

4.  Interrupt the students and give them some time to choose 2 items (besides their name) that they will share with the rest of the class.  Make sure the  groups of three know who they are sharing for.  

Choose Respect Over Being Liked. Note #1 to My Son who is a New Teacher

This is the first note in a series of letters to my son.  He is a new teacher this fall.  I'm reminiscing about my teaching days and some ideas that he can incorporate into his classes.  

Dear Son,

When I think about Mr. Voorhees, my favorite teacher of all time, we were never friends. We weren't chummy.  He didn't interact with me any differently than he would with anyone else in the class. I highly respected this math teacher of mine.  He made the line between teacher and student very clear.  There was safety in this boundary. Mr. Voorhees held the line for everyone in the class whether they were likable or not. 

What created this respect?

• He disciplined everyone and would not go lighter on the favorites in the class.  It is easy to discipline the kid that is always getting into trouble, but it is hard to call out the one who rarely gets into trouble.  
• He would not make exceptions for certain students.  Things like being tardy, or turning in a late paper, or talking in the middle of a lesson, all students were treated the same.
• Everyone was expected to participate in all activities.  No student could opt out of the day's activity.  Mr. Voohees always randomly called people to answer questions so people didn't need to hold their hand up.  I know this created some fear in students as well, however for me it was that everyone was held accountable.  I thought it was fair because everyone was 'in'.  When I taught, I used a system of Popsicle sticks with each student's name on it.  I would ask a question, let students quietly think on their own about the question, then I would have them discuss the question with the people around them, and then I would pick a Popsicle stick with someones name on it and call on that student to answer the question out loud to the rest of the class. 

Don't try to have students 'like you'

• Giving the best jobs of the class to the students who are likable.  You have to create a system that gives the opportunity to all students to be picked.
• Never talk to one student about another student's problem (gossip).  This is a big no-no and will cause a rift in your class right away.  
• Don't lower your standards because the students are complaining.  A good way to avoid this is to tell the students you will think about the request and talk to your colleagues and get back to the students tomorrow.  Students will always try to lower your bar to make it easier on themselves.  Keep bringing the students back up to your bar.  As a new teacher you will set your expectations one day and the students will quickly attack your expectations.  Be strong and reiterate your expectations.  This is a constant give and take.  Don't think you are a bad teacher when students try to bring the expectations lower.  This is simply students being students.  

Use every ounce of energy to remain neutral in your likes and dislikes of students.  Favoritism is a dangerous thing in a classroom.

You are going to have the popular kids and the unpopular kids in your class.  Everyone in the class knows who they are.  Treat them both with respect.  Discipline them both equally.

You have always been someone who looks out for the underdog.  That is a gift you have.  Use it to your advantage to help treat all students equally.  You will want to be liked, but rather aim to be respected.  

Love you much Son,

Dad

37 Favorites as a High School Math Teacher

I savored the last year of teaching high school math and retired in May 2024.  It has been bittersweet because I LOVE teaching. I have compiled 37 of my favorite teaching ideas.  Many of the ideas are not necessarily for just math.  Please enjoy and as always let me know if you have any questions or clarifications.  

https://tinyurl.com/37favorites

Please spread the word that I am now available to help with your Professional Development needs at your school or district. Please forward my website to your department chairs, principals or district administrators at davidsladkey.com to get info about how I can help with your schools PD.  

Website:  Energizing Brain Breaks       Buy the book:      Corwin      Amazon

Engaging Teaching Tools                Buy the Book at   Corwin   Amazon

David Sladkey

davidsladkey.com

Naperville, IL (Outside Chicago)

https://www.youtube.com/@dsladkey

https://x.com/dsladkey

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-sladkey-ab522012/

CONTACT ME

The Magic of Students Doing Challenging Questions in Groups of Three on Vertical Surfaces in the Math Classroom

I read Peter Liljedahl's book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics  this past summer and it has been transformational in my teaching. Getting all my students to go to a vertical surface in groups of three has been MAGICAL!!!!  I absolutely love the idea of students thinking more on their own than myself blabbing on about the material.  Brilliant!   It is a must read that is appropriately called the #thinkingclassroom. Let me give you major things that I changed in my classroom this year.  

1.  Select RANDOM Groups of Three 

The first thing is the randomness of your groups.  This is important because groups get old fast.  If a student has the opportunity to work in a new group of students they are more apt to participate and give and take instruction with their peers.  I change groups every time I have students go to the vertical surfaces which is about 3 times a week.  I hand a deck of cards to a student and they are in charge of shuffling the cards and then passing them out. See the video below.  Now before you hand the student the deck of cards you have to make sure there are the right amount of cards for the students.  I actually have 5 sets of cards, one for each class.  Then I don't have to mess with it too much because of absences.   I then have different locations that the Aces would go to, and the two's would go to and so on.  (see the image on point 2)   The deck of cards help the students know that it is not you that is making the groups.  After they get into the groups with all their stuff, this is the seat and location for the rest of the day.    Also, groups of three is perfect.  Two is too little and four is too much, three is just perfect.

2.  Have all Groups go to a Vertical Surface

This is tricky because you will need up to 8-10 spots in the room where students can do problems.  I use the wall which have white board paint on it.  I also use my windows which create a perfect surface to write on.   Sometimes teachers buy a 4 foot by 8 foot white board panel at Home Depot and cut it up and put it on the walls.  There is such a thing as plastic whiteboard sheets that cling or stick to the wall that work as well.  Since the students are switching groups locations so much I put a small group location map on the wall for students to navigate every time we change groups.    

3.  Give Challenging Problems.

In previous years, I usually would build up to problems that were more difficult with students.  However, I ended up not doing the most difficult ones because of time.  So start with the challenging ones first and you set a standard right away with vertical surface problems that will be difficult but reachable.  If you start with a challenging question, the process usually flushes out other easier concepts that are needed in the lesson.  Also, it is good for students to be stuck and figure out how to proceed.  This is what Liljedahl calls PROBLEM SOLVING!  What do you do when you don't know what to do.  So many times we take the challenging part out of their work and we as teachers do it for them.  Let them be challenged and think on their own.  Lastly, try to give open ended questions.  For instance, create an equation of a line that has an x-intercept of (0,5) and only passes through quadrants I, II, and IV instead of a question like find the equation of a line through these certain two points.

4.  How to Deal with Questions?

I think you better read Peter Liljedahl's book for this question.  However, the one thing I have learned so far this year is that I try to redirect questions back at their teammates (their other group members).    This gives power back to the group.  I have found that I know when students are just looking for confirmation or when they really need to know how to proceed.  When a student asks me if something is correct, I don't directly answer that.  I tell them to check with their teammates or to look at what other groups around them have done.  This is a good way to get dialog happening because many times other groups will have a variety of answers so students have to decide how to proceed.  Liljedahl has a list of excellent replies to questions.  See below.  I refresh myself with this list all the time.  My favorite is how did you do that? 

5.  Only one Whiteboard Marker per Group and Change 'Writers'

Only allow one pen per group.  This forces collaboration.  Also, make sure you call out for students to change who is writing the problem down on the board.  Sometimes groups change on their own, but more often I've found that you need to call out the change.  Sometimes I have a timer on my phone and it rings every 1-2 minutes for a change of writer.   This time amount always depends on the problem.  The non-writers are encouraged to bring their spiral (blank paper) up to the vertical surface to write notes with.   

Benefits to Vertical Problems

• Math talk is huge...even 1st period.
• Movement in the classroom.  
• Students are willing to take math risks with new group members
• Mistakes are easily changed via dry erase.
• Students love to write on the wall
• Class collaboration because groups can all see how all the other groups are doing the problem.
• Did I say math talk?  Huge!!
• Students like to take pictures of their work for future reference

Challenges to Vertical Problems

• Some students are not collaborative and thus do not help their teammates. 
• Off task groups 
• Students don't always write down the problems/solution.  Thus they don't have notes from their work on the vertical surface.

Students Still Need to Move: 9 Brain Breaks to Help Zoom Fatigue

Zoom Fatigue?  Students still need to move.  Maybe more than ever we need to encourage students to get up and move around during their online learning.  A little break in the middle of your lesson or video or slide presentation would help.  I'm planning on giving one brain break per class period.

Here are some ideas of how to use a brain break in remote learning.

• In the midst of your lesson via Google Meet or Zoom time, put in a brain break slide. I have included 9 different of my favorite Brain Breaks in slide form.  Do you present with SmartBoard or PowerPoint or Google Slides?  Each of the following files have 9 Brain Breaks with video explanations. (Link to SmartBoard, PowerPoint or Google Slides Click Here)
• In the middle of a video you have put together for your students, pause and ask your students to stand and walk through a brain break with you.  
• Do you have a Learning Management System (LMS)?  Put a module in for a Brain Break.
• Zoom Time:  I have included a few partner brain breaks below.  Explain the Brain Break (or show the video)  Then separate your students into breakout rooms of 3-4 students each and give them 2 minutes to do the Brain Break.  

Here are 9 of my favorites

  

These are partner brain breaks.  I would suggest using breakout rooms in Zoom.

 Feel free to download any of these 

Google Slides:  A Few Energizing Brain Breaks

PowerPoint: A Few Energizing Brain Breaks

SmartBoard: A Few Energizing Brain Breaks

Energizing Brain Breaks by David Sladkey

http://www.energizingbrainbreaks.com/

https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/book/energizing-brain-breaks

Energizing Brain Breaks on Amazon

More Energizing Brain Breaks by Scott Miller

https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/more-energizing-brain-breaks/book271479

More Energizing Brain Breaks on Amazon

Falling Down Hurts: How My New Covid Hobby is Helping Me Teach Math

I bought a unicycle in June 2020.  The Covid lock down encouraged me to do this. Then a couple of weeks later I bought a different size unicycle because each has it's own unique speed and handling abilities.  I have spent the last month and a half learning how to ride them.   It has been an amazing journey as I think of all the parallels to teaching high school math.  Here are my big takeaways.

1.  Why am I doing this?
As a unicyclist...
The biggest question I get when people ask me about unicycling is "why?"  My answer is that I have always loved cycling and I have always been intrigued about unicycling.  Why not start now, during the pandemic?  Interestingly, I have a lot of people communicating with me when I ride my unicycle.  Things like, "Great work" or "That looks tough" but also I get "Where is the other wheel?" or something with the word "circus" in it.  I'm not doing it for the attention I'm getting, however, I find that it is certainly is a conversation piece.
As a teacher....
Students are not given a choice whether or not to take math.  We as teachers need to build the case FOR mathematics.  We need to inform students of some of the good reasons why they should have a desire to do mathematics.  We should allow the question of "Why am I doing this?".
I'm gonna try this... 
Take a whole day at the beginning of the year and ask students to consider the WHY behind taking their math class.

I bought one Unicycle and then another a couple of weeks later.  The different size changes the speed and handling My two unicycles

2.  I am going to fall down.
As a unicyclist...
I fell hard today when I was riding.  Both of my elbows have scrapes on them.  UGH!  All it took was a loss of concentration for a second and bam, I was on the ground.  It happened when I was on an asphalt path and I had just passed a person who was walking and had said, "Good job." Embarrassing...yes.  But the hardest part was getting back on the unicycle.  I did and ended up riding 6 miles today.  Most falls are not all the way to the ground.  I usually fall off right on my feet.
As a teacher....
Anything worthwhile involves struggle.  Productive Struggle.  We will all fall down at points in our journey.  This step is overlooked in math classes.  Teachers and students like to AVOID STRUGGLE.  We try to do everything we can to help students miss the difficult stuff.   We must do better.
I'm gonna try this... 
Embrace struggle as a teacher.  I'd like to try to have a student give the class (and me) a math question that we do not know answer to ahead of time.  Then I can model the steps for trying to solve the problem.

My first day on the unicycle

3.  Going straight is easy; trying to turn is difficult.

As a unicyclist...
I can go straight fairly easily now.  As a matter of fact, if I'm on a flat surface and do not have to turn, I'm golden.  I learned in a parking lot and found I could go whatever direction I wanted but usually went straight.  However, when I have to turn on command, I'm in trouble.  Bumps are another problem.  If there is a bump in the road, or a small incline, it is much harder to ride.  So now on my unicycle rides I have been making small challenges for myself.  For instance, instead of going straight, I will incorporate a 90 degree turn or ride up a curb or even through the grass.
As a teacher....
We have to challenge our students to try hard things.  Things that are difficult are memorable, and things that are easy we tend to forget.  We need to work with students to set and achieve small goals that would be difficult but not impossible to accomplish.
I'm gonna try this... 
I'd like to give my students a choice as to which option of difficult problems they want to tackle.

After two weeks of practice

4.  Videos helped, but mostly I needed to try on my own.
As a unicyclist...
I looked at a beginner unicycle video before I started.  I was OVERWHELMED!  So I just had to get out there and try riding.  After my initial outing, I went back to my beginner YouTube video and gleaned some new information. This has been my pattern, even now. 
As a teacher....
I talk too much.  The more I talk, the less my students get to practice problem solving on their own.  The more I talk, the less I can give feedback to individual students.
I'm gonna try this... 
Give a SHORT INTRO VIDEO then have students TRY A PROBLEM ON YOUR OWN (with automated feedback)... then GIVE MORE VIDEOS.  Don't overwhelm my students with a big, long video explaining everything.  This is not going to stick and most of your students will be bored out of their minds.

After seven weeks of practice

I'm still learning to ride a unicycle.  I thought when I was just beginning that I would arrive at some point and just be good at it.  I'm realizing that unicycling/learning is a journey that the destination keeps changing as you get better.  This is the fun of learning.  We will never really arrive.  I didn't magically learn how to ride a unicycle just like we don't magically 'get' math.  The process of learning means that we will be falling down a lot.  I'm ready for this challenge because I know why I'm doing this.  Learning is fun and rewarding.  And the next time I'm trying to do something other than go straight ahead, I will try to do something that is more difficult than I'm comfortable with.