“Get over the micromanaging”

“Get over the micromanaging” 

Mr. D was leading a lesson with fractions today. He had different squares drawn on the board. He had the students come and draw what they saw as ½. Then, he had them defend and prove their thinking. (If we can get children to think about their thinking—metacognition—it is such a powerful and agentive tool to foster within students and will carry them as far as they can go.) He probed student responses with “why” questions (making sure they understood a half is two equal parts of one whole). I noticed lots of the students seemed to be fixated on sharing their particular method of halving the square over listening to other’s student’s thinking. They were fidgety and did not seem to be fully engaged. (It also was Monday and the last activity in the afternoon!) I noticed Mr. D did not seem to acknowledge the behaviors that were somewhat “not on task” or “slightly disruptive” (something I know other teachers would have addressed and then provided discipline). It seemed to me he was using a method of behavioral “extinction”—he was not exerting his energy unnecessarily to give students who were craving attention exactly what they were looking for. One student particularly wanted to answer the question and called out and begged every time there was an opportunity saying, “Mr. D, I know the answer!” but Mr. D never allowed the student to answer. I knew it was an incredibly intentional move. I kept saying to myself “surely he’ll call on him this time just so he’ll BE QUIET.” He never did. I also noticed the student did not seem to complain or worry with not having been called on after the situation was over. They were allowed to come to the board and move about—something students in school aren’t always doing (or sometimes ever doing with the exception of P.E.). We HAVE to create moments for student to move and mull about during the day or we will LOOSE them—even more severely than if we let a bit of chaos and movement ensue.

I asked Mr. D about how he was feeling during the lesson when it seemed like the students were a little “disorderly”. After all, it wasn’t so much the students weren’t engaged—they were excitedly answering and participating in the lesson. They were thinking abstracting and defending their thinking—that’s incredible. I somehow seemed to miss that initially when I was focused on how it was nosier than usual and seemed more chaotic. Mr. D told me in his first year of teaching 5^th grade he was all about re-directing behaviors and would have felt like that would have been a lesson in which he would have done such, but he said “you just have to get over the micromanaging.” There is a difference in letting things go and loosing control. Mr. D in no way had lost the children’s attention and engagement—but he had just given up a little bit of the “control” or strict structure we see in a typical classroom. In reflecting, I think the children were more excited and participating by choice—isn't that what we want? I hope to strive to find a healthy balance between the two and to always create classroom structures and environments that put the children first.  

Learning in Community 

Today I had the opportunity to go to a Math Professional Development Seminar with Greater Birmingham Math—a partnership ICS has with UAB. There are a lot of parallels between what ICS, UAB, and BSC all see as great math instruction. It reinforced a lot of what we (Merrill and I) knew to be good practice as teachers. We talked about a 5 step approach to instruction in math:

1.     Anticipating—setting the goal and identifying the task.

2.     Monitoring—student responses to tasks.

3.     Selecting—particular students to present their thinking and being intentional with our selection.

4.     Sequencing—student responses are displayed in order and building upon another for the greater good of the holistic student comprehension.

5.     Connecting—concepts and ideas and elevating student thinking. Noticing an idea a student has and naming it.