tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383855046471878262024-03-14T11:36:22.532-04:00Too Teeter and Too TotterAdventures, mishaps, and musings from a life with childrenHeidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-11369088727260619562019-05-06T20:56:00.000-04:002019-05-06T20:56:08.893-04:00The Time I Was "The Low Kid"At the start of a recent meeting, a math team I am a part of engaged in a mathematical challenge. The task was to take the following expressions, written on post-its, and place them on a number line: x, 2x, 3x, x/2, x^2, x^3, x+2, x-4, and √x.
As an elementary math coach, I spend all my time thinking about elementary math. I had a partner for this task and, in this partnership, I was the less Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-43917959028836963002019-01-29T21:55:00.000-05:002019-01-29T21:58:57.203-05:00Discretionary Spaces in 4th GradeIn the 2018 American Educational Research Association Presidential Address entitled “Just Dreams and Imperatives: The Power of Teaching in the Struggle for Public Education,” Deborah Ball describes the many “discretionary spaces” a teacher faces each day in her classroom. As Ball explains, teaching is a “highly idiosyncratic and individual” practice in which teachers must make in-the-moment Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-81651923441378905102018-08-27T16:30:00.003-04:002018-08-27T16:37:25.589-04:00Keeping Class Agreements AliveI've started reading Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom, by Matthew Kay, and it is a joy. I'm only on Chapter 3, but it's already got me thinking about starting the year in a classroom by purposefully planning for race conversations from Day 1.
Although Kay's book is written from the perspective of a high school teacher, so far I find it very Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-69656301171122643602018-06-07T22:03:00.003-04:002018-06-07T22:27:33.426-04:00Rule #1: Provide Think Time
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span.s2 {font-kerning: none; color: #ff5f5e; -webkit-text-stroke: Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-53842047584501136402018-05-25T15:36:00.000-04:002018-05-28T20:54:01.980-04:00Going Back HomeToday I visited the place where I became a teacher.
I haven't been inside that building in 9 years. But for the eight years before that, I went there nearly every day. I sat on the front steps calling people I loved on Sept. 11, 2001. I cried in the bathroom stalls and out on the back steps after hard days as a new teacher (and a not-so-new teacher, too). I had some of my most joyful teaching Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-13480340152930489462018-05-23T21:11:00.001-04:002018-05-24T21:58:07.774-04:00FamiliarIn recent months, I have occasionally seen one second grader, Wilfred, engaged in passionate mathematical discovery. At other times, I have seen him head down during math, tears dripping. In fact, he's cried during math a handful of times that I can think of. It rips me up inside each time.
This week, we've been working on two-part problems that involve adding two quantities, then figuring out Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-89988958738853453222018-02-14T21:15:00.002-05:002018-02-24T14:15:23.205-05:00Who Talks? "Numberless" Graphs in Grade 2
A class of second graders is having their first Hands Down Conversation (HDC). They are discussing what happens when you add 10 to a number, and what will happen if we count by 10 but start at 8. I'm sitting outside their circle, taking notes on everything they say. This is how the conversation ends.
David: It would be 0, 4,5, 8, then it would be 18, 8 at the end, 28, 8 at the end, 38, 8 at Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-62555185885996954662018-01-06T14:42:00.002-05:002018-05-13T20:27:44.130-04:00Counting Collections: One Nearly-Perfect Answer to InclusionI have a new job this year, and with a new job comes a lot of learning -- which is fun and hard.
The biggest challenge I face is that I am tasked with creating inclusion opportunities for several students who are in a substantially separate classroom for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Although I have taught students with autism before, I have never worked with students who have this Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-40036180074086984272017-12-03T21:15:00.002-05:002017-12-03T21:21:35.792-05:008 1/2 by 12 Inch Paper: Cardinal vs Ordinal Counting in Third GradeOne of the advantages of my new job this year is that I sometimes (not always, not even most of the time, but sometimes) have the luxury of not feeling rushed and not being in charge of the whole class, and I can spend a long time watching just one or two students as they work through something.
That is what I did on Friday, when I worked with two third graders who were tasked with finding the Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-62362812955027502952017-06-17T17:43:00.001-04:002017-12-02T22:08:52.324-05:00Trusting the PatternThere was recently a long Twittersation about multiplying by multiples of 10. It's something my students have been working on a lot. I have not told them that you "add a zero" in order to multiply by a multiple of 10 (I wouldn't dream of it!), but I would not be surprised if other people have told them that. Also, when we've worked on number strings like this:
6 x 10 = 60
6 x 100 = 600
6 x Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-19613242166742641312017-04-27T23:03:00.000-04:002017-12-02T22:12:43.492-05:00Just Right Conjectures
We are winding up our fractions unit, having ended with adding, subtracting, and multiplying fractions. Today my student teacher Alex led class, and she asked students to think about how operations with fractions are the same or different from operations with whole numbers.
This is a pretty wide and deep question. I watched curiously to see what would emerge.
Students turned and talked with aHeidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-25139235081211674542016-10-16T22:07:00.000-04:002016-10-16T22:14:54.229-04:00Differentiation in Math Class: Centers
My fourth grade class is all over the map, mathematically
speaking. Some are really ready to learn fourth-grade content, while others need
extra support in order to do so. Still others need time to revisit concepts from earlier grades, and a final group is ready to be pushed to fifth and sixth
grade math. This is a common situation in many classrooms, and it can leave
a teacher scratching her Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-88110577795607641802016-09-17T13:09:00.004-04:002016-09-17T13:43:44.922-04:00Forging a New IdentityWe've been in school for seven days. We've had seven days to start to get to know Diego, who is new to our school and to our fourth grade class. (His name and the details of his story have been changed. The traits I describe here are not true of the real student, but they give a sense of what his school experiences have been.) When his dad brought him into our class on Day 1, he said, "He's had aHeidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-4995514162550056142016-05-21T10:52:00.002-04:002016-05-23T20:51:33.177-04:00Ten TeenMy two and a half year old daughter did several things with numbers yesterday that I had never heard her do before.
We were out on a walk, and someone walking two dogs passed us.
(That was my count, anyway.)
"Five!" Mia exclaimed.
"Where do you see five?" I asked.
"Five dogs!" she answered, pointing back over her shoulder.
Then she looked ahead to another dog that was approaching.
"Six!" Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-14937200581621254002012-06-05T17:05:00.000-04:002018-12-18T14:35:40.885-05:00What insects need to liveOne of the objectives of our second grade insects curriculum is that students should learn that insects need 4 things to live.
You know them, right? Quick! Name them!
I'm sure you got it right, but in case you didn't, here are the 4 things: food, water, air, and space.
In the past few years, we've started writing learning targets for our lessons, so that both the teachers and the students Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-55896292155726119012012-05-31T20:41:00.000-04:002018-12-18T14:35:27.435-05:00What I Learned at HarvardIt's been a year since I last wrote a blog post -- a year in which I haven't been teaching, but have been learning instead. My year of graduate school is at an end, and so I'd like to share the biggest thing I learned at Harvard:
We only really learn the things we figure out ourselves.
This actually seems so obvious to me that I'm a little embarrassed to write it down, but from looking at Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-56245146184163655622011-04-07T16:10:00.013-04:002018-12-18T14:40:18.349-05:00TalkI'm part of a project this year that works with new(ish) teachers on teaching science. One of the science teaching practices we're learning about and trying out is a "Science Talk." A Science Talk is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You ask your class a question -- a question that doesn't really have a right answer, that perhaps can be interpreted in different ways -- Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-21975121512532473732011-03-31T15:57:00.000-04:002018-12-18T14:42:43.507-05:00Cheating and other hazards of high-stakes testingThere's been a lot of news lately about cases of confirmed or suspected cheating by administrators and teachers on high-stakes tests. This is, of course, not surprising. When a single measure such as test scores is used to make decisions about school funding, jobs, and whether or not to keep a school open, you can be sure there'll be outright cheating. But there's a much Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-50062238257021867522010-12-12T21:18:00.003-05:002018-12-18T14:44:13.083-05:00The Lives of Teachers: Autonomy Versus ControlI have a lot going on right now, but I had to write a post for a project I'm working on about teacher autonomy, so I thought I'd post it here.
Clearly, if we just leave teachers to their own devices, to teach with their doors closed and no supervision, we cannot be assured of high-quality instruction. At the same time, if we ask teachers to be automatons who parrot pre-packaged Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-15366221777679252222010-12-02T22:35:00.000-05:002018-12-18T14:45:51.394-05:00Writing is like talkingI've been trying to infuse my science, social studies, and math instruction with more writing. At my school, we aren't that great yet at teaching children to write, and the result of our instruction in that domain leaves much to be desired. (I am fully implicated in this problem along with my colleagues -- for years, I've been saying I don't really know how to teach writing.)
Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-86510091775676029162010-11-15T22:27:00.008-05:002018-12-18T14:46:20.949-05:00Teach less, but teach smarterI've been doing a little math today.
I've been calculating how much time I work, and of that time, how much I spend teaching.
I have some unique data on this because, since September, I've been keeping track of all my work time. Since I'm half self-employed, I need to track my time for some projects. Since I was tracking my time for some projects, I figured I might as well track myHeidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-24910388442827381942010-11-06T16:31:00.000-04:002018-12-18T14:46:35.141-05:00To Play or Not to Play?Here are some pictures of my students on our first neighborhood walk the other day.
This is what I love about teaching. Besides good conversations, exciting discoveries, and having fun together, my favorite moments are when we are outside, exploring and discovering, or inside, creating and building.
Don't get me wrong. I also love teaching math and reading. IHeidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-26562877270091154982010-10-27T17:48:00.008-04:002018-12-18T14:46:45.314-05:00Knowledge is Power, PeopleOn this rainy morning, I went to visit the KIPP Charter School in a nearby town. Charter schools are THE hot topic around here, partly thanks to Waiting for Superman and partly because Massachusetts has dropped the cap on charter schools. Next year will see many new charters in Boston, and the city school system will be losing a lot of money to them.
The big question is, with fewer Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-16032687187044013222010-10-21T14:51:00.001-04:002018-12-18T17:36:41.481-05:00ChadThis is a story about Chad, who I already think might be a common subject of my stories this year.
Yesterday we had our weekly reflection period. This is a time we have built in, for the first time this year, for kids to reflect on their work. It is a time to write about what you have learned, what you have gotten better at, and what is still hard for you.
These self-reflection Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-838385504647187826.post-27194068140900608262010-10-15T08:28:00.000-04:002018-12-18T17:44:58.182-05:00Inside a Teacher's BrainThere is a powerful image early on in Waiting for Superman that I can't get out of my mind.
A cartoon teacher stands in her classroom, cartoon students seated before her. She walks along the row of desks, stopping behind each child just long enough to open up the top of their brain, pour some knowledge in, and pop it closed again.
Soon, though, countless edicts and policies begin Heidi Fessendenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14231730070389379181noreply@blogger.com0