Me: Do you know the treatment for coronavirus? 
Student: There IS no treatment
Me: I'll give you a hint....it's a system in your body that we've been studying since September
Student: Uhhh.....is the treatment just to die? 
Me: ***ARGHHHH****

Backstory, we've been learning about the immune system since the beginning of the year. We spent one month learning about viruses, one month on pandemics, and a few months on how the immune system works to fight disease. And yet, here's this student standing right in front of me with some crazy amnesia of everything we've been learning. Nothing is more frustrating than realizing I spent dozens of hours setting up lesson plans and labs only to have this kid forget everything??

To be fair, he wasn't the strongest student, but (as many teachers will tell you) this kind of amnesia ("wait....we learned that?") is pretty common. Helping students make connections is something I struggle with on a daily basis. It's like we'll spend a whole month learning about some topic......but by the end of the month students have just spotty understandings of individual concepts. They understand the trees but not the forest. They understand the textbook questions, but it's harder for them to relate those questions to what's happening in the world around them. Even as an adult, I struggle to connect ideas across different systems, but when I make those connections I know the feeling (that lightbulb moment of "oh THAT's why that's there" or "oh THAT's what that is for"). 

Then along came my grad school classmate Lior and his awesome workshop on systems mapping! Systems mapping is a method of concept mapping meant to help students see the forest and not just the trees. Here's how we did it. 

The awesome thing about systems mapping is that the task is group worthy, meaning students naturally work in groups without the teacher requiring group work to happen. Because this kind of concept mapping was more cognitively demanding, more heads were better than one in order to get the job done. I definitely plan to use systems mapping more moving forward. It's a great example of an inquiry based way of concept mapping new ideas, where areas of dense connections naturally appear for students to notice and analyze. 

Yesterday I was leading the class through a class discussion when a student starts blasting music from his phone. I remind the student several times "Please put the phone away".... he ignores me. I speak with him individually and he starts to mock me- "Ok whatever you SAY Ms. Tsai blah blah blah BLAH" **makes a weird face

​​Both the student and I start to feel angry. I feel like I want to grab this kid and shake the immaturity out of him (don't worry I don't actually do that.....but if I could.....) 

Teaching is unique in that my emotional reaction to day to day situations has a real impact on the students that I serve. More generally, my mindset has a ripple effect through everything I do. In this situation, I have a few choices to make. Do I respond to the anger first? Or do I respond to the situation first? The choice may seem obvious, but I find that in practice making the right choice is easier said than done. In practice, I find that it's easier to default to a place of fear-- If I don't show this student how angry I am, the student won't understand he's in trouble, and I'll lose control of the class. Therefore, I need to assert my authority as the one in charge. 

But....what would it be like to practice separating myself from fear (fear of losing control of the class....fear of letting kids "get away with" cheating or breaking the rules.......) 

I was listening to a podcast by Angela Watson, an educator and author, and she introduced me to this idea of radical acceptance. Radical acceptance means dealing "realistically with the facts of the situation and sitting with the discomfort of the present moment instead of insisting it shouldn't be happening". Radical acceptance does not mean "suck it up and muscle your way through it". Radical acceptance is a way to conserve energy in order to actually focus and make change towards the situation at hand. Like mindfulness...but applied in a practical way. 

Going back to the scenario I wrote about in the beginning of this post, there are two ways I could have responded. 

• React from a place of Fear
  • Thought: This student is being blatantly disrespectful. I need to make clear that I'm the one in charge or else his peers will follow his bad example. 
    
  • Action: I proceed to yell and/or shame the student for his behavior. Maybe I kick the student out of the classroom. 

• React from a place of Confidence 
  
  • ​Thought: I accept the student where he is in this moment, regardless of what happened in the past or what I expect from him in the future. I am confident in my authority as a teacher, and I know that 90% of students will not follow this student's bad example (they also know his behavior is disrespectful). I need to quickly address this student's needs in the present moment. 
    
  • Action: I help the student understand why I'm upset ("How would you feel if I were interrupting you with loud music?") and how his behavior is interrupting his peers ("Did you notice that none of your classmates were playing music or talking when we were having the class discussion?"). The student still gets the sense of being "in trouble", but we only address his actions in the current moment (rather than attack his character or his past/future decisions). 

The way I see it, radical acceptance can help us to pause long enough in the present moment when upsetting things occur in school in order to 1) identify our fear and 2) react from a place of confidence. And I'm not saying I'm an expert in actually doing this....but it's something I want to practice going forward.

​In my student teaching, it was common for me to see teachers shame students, kick them out of class, lecture students harshly, or even call students names. What would happen if teachers were more sensitive to not just how our students are feeling...but how we're feeling? Maybe it could help us stay present, stay engaged, and meet students where they are. Maybe it could help us lead students in the right direction from a place of confidence rather than fear. 

I don't police cell phones as strictly as most teachers because I really think the benefits of cell phones outweigh the harms. I know this is an unpopular opinion, and while I don't think students should have total freedom with their phones (everything in moderation, yes) I do think there is a place for smart phones in the classroom, especially a science class. The amazing thing is....when students are actually engaged, most of them can police their own use of cell phones without my help. If I can train students to self regulate with technology, that not only takes the stress off of me, but it makes the students feel less irritated from having an adult constantly berate them for being on their phones. Figuring out how to design a lesson that engages students productively with their smartphones is the hardest and most rewarding challenge of teaching for me this year. 

Here are six ways to use smartphones in the classroom

1. Gimkit and Kahoot

• A lot of us are familiar with Kahoot which serves as a good review game. Gimkit is similar to Kahoot, but adds another twist of extra competition, power ups, and money. Both Kahoot and Gimkit engage students by gamifying the classroom. Even the kids who can't get off their video games love playing Gimkit. 

2. Quizlet Live

• Quizlet Live is great for getting students to actually communicate productively with each other. The downside is....a lot of students struggle to communicate, so this game can be stressful for a lot of students. With practice though, students do get used to communicating, and Quizlet live is a good way to practice that skill. 

3. Pear deck

• Pear deck teaches vocabulary and involves drawing (which is easier to do on a touchscreen smartphone than on a computer). It's like Pictionary and students like sketching things out on their smartphone for their classmates to see.  

4. Smartphone Camera 

• If students don't finish a lab/activity, they can take a picture of their work to remember where they left off for next time. Cameras are good for activities that involve stations (students can submit pictures of their work at the station for grading). I require students to use smartphone cameras in the lab to document stages of an experiment for their lab reports. Cameras are also useful for students who have trouble seeing the board (a lot of students will take pictures of the board and zoom in on their phone to see better). 

5. Air drop 

• I've air dropped pictures and screenshots to students before. Students also air drop each other notes and photos (sometimes they're cheating I'll admit, but other times they're genuinely collaborating)

6. Suite.smarttech.org 

• If you have a Smartboard, this one is a necessity. Students can log into www.hellosmart.com and they'll be able to see and interact with the Smartboard on their smartphone. Since the Smartboard is a touch screen, it makes sense to let students use their phone (which is also a touchscreen) so they can interact with the Smartboard without having to leave their seat. 

While training students to be responsible with technology takes a lot of effort, I do think it's worth the effort to get students to self-regulate rather than banning phones all together. As a fellow Gen Zer/Millennial I actually agree with the students on a lot of their smartphone habits. I too take pictures instead of notes. I have my notes organized into photo albums on my phone. I look the periodic table up on the internet rather than carry a paper copy around with me all the time. Trusting the students to use their phones productively is a big leap of faith, but worth the effort in the long run.