Day of Observation (Day 75)

There is an observation in my classroom from the principal today. It's one of several observations that I, as a new teacher, must receive as a probationary teacher before I can earn tenure.

I'm on the fence regarding whether I should do "A Day in the Life" today. On one hand, the day of an observation is definitely a special occasion that merits a special post -- and it appears that there won't be a monthly minimum day this month, so I could count this as my monthly post. (After all, there were two such minimum days in October due to Parent Conferences, and of course there will be three minimum days this month for finals. So it's not as if we need another minimum day.)

On the other hand, the focus isn't on the entire day, but only on the period that the principal observes. It is fourth period Ethnostats -- I selected it because it's my largest class and hence more representative of my teaching and management style than, say, either of my tiny four-student classes (second period Ethnostats and fifth period Stats).

Well, here's my decision -- I won't mark this as "A Day in the Life," because this post is about more than just "A Day." The story of my observation begins last Friday -- when I met with the teacher next door, the department chair (my partner teacher). She'd promised to help me with my observation.

So during sixth period on Friday, I explained what we were doing in Ethnostats, and what direction I was heading for. We had just finished watching the McFarland USA movie, and now I'm getting ready for Quiz #4 (on Chapter 10) coming up this Wednesday.

My partner teacher gave her first recommendation --namely not to give the quiz on Wednesday. Unlike my general Stats class, which had been working hard in Chapter 10 all last week, the Ethnostats classes were watching the film. Thus they won't be ready for the quiz this week. And any lesson where I haphazardly throw vocabulary at the students just to "prepare" the students for the quiz won't look good in front of the principal. Thus I won't give the quiz on Wednesday at all.

The other thing she pointed out was that, while I did show McFarland USA in order to make the class more "ethnic," I hadn't made any actual connection between ethnicity in the movie and samples or anything else in the current Stats chapter. Thus the class is rather disjointed -- and that won't impress the principal at all. I can't just teach the traditional Stats course, play a few race-related movies, and then claim that the class is "ethnic" Stats. I need to be able to make more connections.

Even though this isn't truly "A Day in the Life," I am going to be reflecting making comparisons here to previous classes I've taught, including back at the old charter school. Indeed, back then I had to do several projects as well -- the STEM projects from the Illinois State text. Theoretically, the projects corresponded to Common Core Math standards, but it wasn't a one-to-one correspondence. And more often than not, it was difficult, if not possible, even for me (much less the students) to see the connection between the projects and the math lessons.

And this project problem continues to plague me up to the current day. This Ethnostats course is the first time  that I've been called upon to teach a project-based course since the old charter school. And this time, I'm having even more trouble connecting each project directly to a math lesson.

One thing that I've been doing is relying (too much) on the date. I see a link to some of the projects that my predecessor from two years ago taught -- and I keep trying to assign those same projects right around the same dates this year. Now I see why this is wrong -- just after Halloween 2019 the teacher assigned the Chapter 8 data collection project, but in the text that my school is using now, samples appear in Chapter 10, not 8. And of course, the reason that I played the McFarland movie last week was also the date -- it was the week after this year's State Cross Country Meet. (McFarland won it in 1987.)

Well, I kept my partner teacher's words in mind the whole weekend. I had spent last week teaching my class about samples and showing them the McFarland movie, even though I didn't show what one had to do with the other -- and now I must build upon that shaky foundation in order to present a lesson for the principal.

And that takes us to today. One of the other teachers (the history teacher) is out today, and so I'm called upon to cover her class. I'm given a choice whether to cover her first or sixth period -- and of course I choose sixth period. I'd much rather spend first period preparing for the principal, and do my period subbing after the observation is complete. Second period, the other Ethnostats class, becomes a dry run for the period of observation. And in third period Calculus, I know I won't be able to concentrate on teaching, and so I simply play them a video. (It wasn't Michael Starbird though -- I'll explain my Calculus class later in this post.)

Then at last, it's time for fourth period, the period of observation. The principal arrives in my room, and she's ready to evaluate me. I begin the class with a Warm-Up, as usual. Today's Warm-Up simply asks the students to identify any Ethnic Studies themes in the movie that they just watched last week.

The main lesson consists of note taking, but I also call on students throughout the period. I start by having the students to think back to those aforementioned data collection projects, and have them tell me whether they believe that their samples were unbiased. (Most believe that theirs were.)

Then I show them one particular student's survey, and ask the class to imagine asking these questions to the students at McFarland High School in 1987. They realize that to certain questions such as "Do you have a job?" or "How many hours do you sleep?" or "How much (TV) screen time do you get?" they will receive very different answers from, say, the Diaz brothers and the White sisters." And these answers are highly race-dependent -- many Hispanic students at McFarland had farming jobs, slept short hours (due to rising early to work in the fields), and couldn't afford a TV at all.

And so my students learn about the representative sampling techniques -- simple random samples, stratified samples, cluster samples, and systematic samples. For example, applied to McFarland, a stratified sample would be stratified by race, to be sure that both Hispanics and whites are included in the sample in order to make it more representative of the population.

On the other hand, voluntary samples and convenience samples are biased -- and again, we can see why when we apply it to McFarland. Respondents in voluntary samples are self-selected, but would, say, the Diaz brothers volunteer to answer "How much TV do you watch per day?" or would they be too embarrassed to admit that they lack a TV set? Also, a convenience sample might survey the students right after school -- by which time the Diaz brothers are either out running XC or working in the fields, so their answers aren't counted.

Then we revisit the question about my students' own surveys. They now realize that perhaps their samples are biased after all. Then again, I never gave them any opportunity for them to use one of the more representative methods (by handing them a numbered list of all students at the school, from which they can make a simple random or systematic sample, say).

In the Exit Pass, I ask the students to write down how many different sample methods we've discussed in class today. There are six methods named in this lesson -- and of course, today's date is the sixth.

After her observation, the principal tells me that she enjoyed the lesson, and that she appreciated how I was able to make the connections between last month's projection and the McFarland movie. And of course, I have my partner teacher to thank, since she showed me the way.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm no longer giving this class a quiz on Monday. I could review with the class on Wednesday and prepare them for a quiz on Friday. But I don't really want to give them a quiz that close to the final exam. To me Wednesday is the latest that I'd want to give them a quiz -- so if I can't quiz them then, I won't quiz them at all.

Thus I'll treat this just like the earlier tests -- there will be a quiz in general Stats (and Calculus), but not in Ethnostats. Normally, I replace the test in Ethnostats with a scrapbook project and keep the quiz, but this time I'll replace the quiz and keep the test (that is, the final exam). The homework, which would have been a review assignment for the quiz, will now instead be the third Stats article summary (that is, a current event).

So what's going on in Calculus while all of this is happening? I originally wanted to show the ninth Starbird video on optimization -- but that was based on the assumption that I'd complete Chapter 4 the first semester (and start the second semester with Chapter 5). Now that Chapter 4 won't be until January, I don't need to do Starbird Video 9 until then. Instead, I assigned some review trig questions from Section 3.6 (the section on inverse trig derivatives) -- and the YouTube videos I show them will help them with the trig.