Klingenstein Part 1: Golden Nuggets

A few weeks ago I came back from a life-changing experience: The Klingenstein Summer Institute for Early Career Teachers. It was so valuable for me. I spent two weeks there and participated in sessions with my math cohort, in sessions with a mixed cohort to discuss diversity and equity, and with the whole group in plenary sessions. They days were packed from 7:15 AM until 8:30 PM but I loved every minute of it. Sprinkled throughout were opportunities to meet with other small groups to discuss cultural issues as well as social events. Meals were a great time to just nerd out and talk about teaching.

In the next few posts, I'm going to share some of my reflections at the end of the institute. I wrote these for my final reflection paper at Klingenstein but I worked hard on them and my thoughts are valuable so I thought I would double dip and share them here as well.

A key learning that I will carry with me is what it means for something to be “authentic”. Over the course of the Klingenstein Institute I incrementally adjusted my mental model for the word “authentic.” I teach math and I think there is a misconception that an “authentic” math problem is one that relates to the real world. After my time here, I do not believe this to be the case. In my math curriculum group we read an article by Wiggins about authentic assessment. I wrote the following journal entry that I think encapsulates my realization:

“During the last year, I operated under the assumption that it was enough that my students could successfully execute the mathematical skills required by the course. By emphasizing skills, I now realize that my students lost sight of the big picture, how math fits together and how to use these skills in context. They could recall content by name, for example, “unit 1 standard 5” but I don’t think they would have been able to solve a problem out of context without knowing that it came from “unit 1 standard 5”. This year, in order to to help my students make connections and see how the concepts fit together. I hope to integrate an applied or exploratory activity to each unit or proficiency….

Later in our session, I added the following to my entry:

The heart of doing math is the process of troubleshooting, searching for the tools at your disposal for solving problems. I think you need to be able to apply those tools accurately in and to be able to identify the settings where they are most useful. This is what it truly means to be authentic. Certainly, it is important to be able to access those skills from long term memory easily; but to ensure that my students are really acting as “authentic” mathematicians I need to have assessments that require the students to not only use the skills but identify the contexts in which they should use these skills. I also want them to be able to see patterns and connect these skills with skills that they have already learned. That is what math is really about.” (June 24)

I think that this insight has important implications for me as a teacher. On the surface, it shows the recognition of a weakness that I believe I have in my practice; I recognize that I did not provide my students with sufficiently authentic tasks that truly encouraged them to participate in the most important aspects of mathematics. The quote also demonstrates a growth mindset for myself, as I identify a hope/plan for implementing more authentic assignments next year. I think that this is such a key insight because I cannot feel like I am being authentic as a math teacher if I am not providing my students with the opportunity to get to the heart of math.

My ideas about growth continued to expand as I continued my time at the institute. After watching the video of Tim Farris, the reflective journal entry prompt asked us to reflect on our own personal “what if”. I asked:

“What if I started using more authentic activities like problem based learning and projects in my classes?”

The next reflection question asked us to consider the “cost of inaction” with respect to this “what-if” question. I responded:

For me, the cost of inaction is the continued feeling that my classroom does not enact my teaching philosophy. I am not modelling or providing the type of mathematics that I would like to be. The assignments that I have put forward lack the need to make connections, to grapple with hard content, to pursue individual passions, to ask questions, to seek patterns, and to problem solve.

For my students the cost of my inaction is that they are losing the opportunity for transfer and authenticity. They are learning many skills and seeing progress. They are learning study strategies and finding their strengths and weaknesses. They are thinking metacognitively about learning but if I don’t add this element to my class, the information won’t stick, my students won’t make connections between the material and with other material.

For my school community the cost of my inaction is hypocrisy on my part. My community sees me as a model of good teaching. If I don’t employ more transfer tasks, I won’t feel like a good teacher. Without more authentic assessments, I won’t feel like I can respectably help other teachers develop their own authentic assessments. (June 29)

This journal entry represents the importance of addressing the discrepancy between my educational philosophy and my teaching practice. This difference is probably the thing that I have grappled with the most during my time at Klingenstein.

Additionally, my KSI experience has really changed the way that I think about diversity and equity. The following journal entry, written near the end of the institute reflects the type of questioning that I have been considering with respect to diversity.

“Although, I am in the ‘femininity workshop’ I think that the following question summarizes a lot of what I’ve been thinking about over these weeks. ‘Is it more important to blur the boundaries between binaries or to redfine those binaries?” (June 30)

In the context of gender, the core of this question is whether we should encourage girls to actively fight gender stereotypes or to pursue their interests as individuals without consideration of gender.

“I think the answer to this question comes down to the difference between who we think we are as an individual and the identifiers that we use to define who we are. Steve gave a really great example of this dichotomy. He described a photo of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama reacting to a situation, in which Clinton is crying and Obama is stoic. In this moment, the media took this photo and used it to say something about women being emotional. Hillary became a representative of all women where Obama was able to represent only himself.”

I have been thinking about how this question might affect my practice as an educator. Because I teach math, gender identity and stereotype threat have an effect on the mindset of my students every day. I need to make sure that women in my class feel like they can succeed at math. I need to make sure that those same women feel comfortable with failing; that their failure will not reflect on the entire gender as a whole. One way that we talked about supporting students in this way is by “tapping.” I can reach out to students with identifiers that have negative math stereotypes associated to them (particularly girls) and give them positive feedback on their hard work and successes in my class. I can also have an effect by being a good role model. I am woman who has achieved success in math. I can own that success to help my students see that there achievement in STEM is an option for them. I can help them to see that they can identify as female an as a mathematician.