Why I teach

Last night I had a wonderful moment that helped me remember why I'm in this job. It's hard sometimes in the day-to-day grind to keep my sights on the bigger picture.

I have a student who started the year off by doing absolutely nothing. Every once in a while, he might put in a few minutes of work, but for the most part, all he did was clown.

As the year has progressed, I've started to see small changes. More work was being done, although usually late, and the quality was improving.

Then, we hit a wall. He didn't like who he was grouped with on a project (others who were not living up to potential) and saw no point in trying since he was convinced that he would fail no matter what. I spent an entire class period debating and pushing, telling him I would never give up on him and never let up. If it meant telling him every two minutes for two weeks to get to work, I would do it.

That day, it was like talking to a brick wall. It didn't seem to matter what I said, he was not going to do it. I was starting to worry about what was going to happen if this streak continued. And then... he came in to class the next day a changed person. He worked with his team and then did a great job. He felt success, which was good. And he continued to keep up more and more with his work.

Yesterday after school, I entered grades for a few assignments he had turned in (late, but without prompting). And his grade changed to a C for the first time!! So, when I saw him with his parents waiting to talk to another teacher at Parent-Teacher conferences, I told him to be sure to come see me. I ended up being their first conference, and the grin on his face - let's just say it's enough to keep me going for a while. I know most of their night was probably filled with hearing how he's struggling, and it felt great to be able to say (and mean 100%) "Good job. Keep it up."

What feels different?

As I reflect back on teaching this past week, I think my most important revelation came sometime during the day on Friday. As I was walking around answering questions and watching kids work, it suddenly hit me - this feels like PBL. My students were actively engaged in the task at hand, relatively interested in it - at least enough to keep working on it. They were following directions and asking good questions. In most cases, they were actually working together with their partners.
And so, as I continued to think about this feeling of success, I began wondering - what made this week/this project a success? Why did it feel different than the previous project last week? How exactly did it feel different.
Here are some of the answers I came up with:

• It helps that most of the math skills in this project are review for most of the students. They might need a quick refresher, but they are mostly capable of completing the required math with little to no help from me.
• Step-by-step directions - with instructions to follow each step of the way, students are no longer questioning "What are we supposed to be doing?" - or, when they do, find that my response is simply "Check the agenda."
• Resources built-in - I pre-assembled resources to help with anything I foresaw questions about - resources that they could use without needing to ask for help (notes to read, videos, website links). Students were able to answer many of the small questions they had without resorting to my help, leaving just the big ones needing my assistance. To further emphasize this "you can figure it out yourself," I would like to impose a limit on how many questions can be asked in future projects. I want them to really think about whether it is something they can figure out for themselves, or whether they truly do need my help.
• Ability to move ahead - having the next day's directions posted, and enrichment activities prepared, allowed my higher-achieving students to move ahead and keep working. This way they too were engaged all the way through the period.

Now that I have some ideas about what has led to this project's (so far) success, I will have to consider how to continue these successes in my next projects.