Category Archives: Amanda Jain

I Feel Like I’m Living in an Amanda Jain Blog

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Students in my English 3 have been tasked with a project that I named, “Where Were Your People in the 1920s.” It’s a mini-research project, and I hope it will be engaging, reinforce some research skills students have, and illustrate that not everyone in the 1920s was spending their days/nights at glamorous parties; we’re reading The Great Gatsby. The project directions are pretty simple: interview a relative, find a primary source specific to your family (like an old photo), and research a world event inspired by your interview. Then, create a visual component using Adobe Spark that incorporates the research, interview, and primary source piece. I have never used Adobe Spark, but it receives great reviews regarding how user friendly it is.


When I introduced this project, the students did not budge. They were super reluctant to even begin, and when I asked them about this, they essentially said that it was too much work, there was too much ambiguity, and there were too many decisions to be made. They were reluctant to even open up the Adobe Spark app, which is free. I then asked if they would prefer reading questions, and they said yes.

I think that this response is normal, however. Whenever I have to learn something new or do something new or even start a new novel, I experience a desire to avoid the learning curve. Getting through the uncomfortableness of a beginning is tricky. So, I gave up on the project and gave them reading questions.

Just kidding! I’ll let you know how it goes.

Growth Mindset: It’s working!

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I’m knee-deep in writing college letters of recommendation right now, and while I’ve been somewhat dreading writing these because I just feel so strapped for time, All.The.Time, I’m surprisingly really enjoying this experience because I’m so inspired by what our girls have to say about Math and Learning in their Naviance profiles (these are a gift, by the way, College Counseling, thank you!).  And, I just can’t keep these messages to myself.  They’re too good that they have to be shared.

I worked really hard last year (and continue this year) to insert healthy doses of challenge and growth mindset into my Algebra 2 with Trigonometry class (Junior/Advanced Sophomores).  And if you read any of my blogs last year, you know I was met with an equally (healthy?) amount of resistance.  So reading these comments makes it all worth it:

I am most proud of achieving a growth mindset. This was a new concept that was introduced to me throughout this class. Math has never been my favorite subject, primarily because it’s so black and white. However, I learned from this class that it doesn’t have to be. Like I said earlier, I learned it’s okay to not get the right answer all the time. Every time I made a mistake, I learned from it and my brain grew instead of me just getting frustrated with myself because I couldn’t get the right answer. I used to have a fixed mindset about math, but after taking this class I have grown to really like it because it taught me to look at math differently. Math can be fun and creative and thought provoking, it doesn’t just have to be simply going through the motions to get the right answer. My growth mindset that I learned in math class is something I have also applied to my other classes, and has changed my outlook on learning and school as a whole.

My favorite academic memory of this class was learning about growth mindset. I can say that I have learned a lot more than just math in a math class and it has helped me outside of the classroom as well. I think that having a positive attitude toward situations will help you to be successful in any situation. I love that some of the valuable life lessons I have learned came from my math class. We started out with learning how to perfect the growth mindset in our math problems but could later apply it to our daily life as well.  The thing that I am most proud of achieving in your class was perfecting the growth mindset. As we know, it was my favorite thing about the class. So technically, I was proud of each individual thing that I did in the class because every time I had the opportunity to improve, I would count that as an accomplishment.


I am most proud of achieving a growth mindset. Having a growth mindset was a major theme in this class and it really helped me learn information on my own. At first, it was hard because I was always used to teachers feeding me information, but after this class, I am able to understand information on my own.


I am most proud of always pushing myself in your class. Math is not a subject that comes easy for me, and I have always had to work hard to achieve a good grade in my math classes. However, I took every challenge test that was offered and I came in for extra help whenever I could. I also worked efficiently with my classmates to solve problems during group work periods and expanded my critical thinking skills by solving difficult problems. Throughout the year, I feel that I truly embraced struggle because I learned that making mistakes was okay. It is how I grew from my mistakes that helped me absorb the material.  I also learned that when there is a difficult task I am faced with, I should not get overwhelmed an give up, but rather embrace the challenge and grit it out.


My favorite part about this class was how you were so into growth mindset and gritting it out. I was so used to the same types of math classes all my life so hearing how you had new innovative ideas for the class made me really excited. The growth mindset Ted Talk’s were super interesting in class and I never thought I would watch a Ted Talk in math class. They showed me that it’s really beneficial to challenge myself and to be confident in the capabilities of my mind.


An experience that stretched me the most in your class would be when we were assigned with a Performance Task. These performance tasks were meant to be perceived with a growth mindset. The idea of the task was to try and fail. Although I would get frustrated whenever I was not able to get the answer, the idea of having a growth mindset pushed me to keep trying until I finally solve the problem. This stretched me the most in this class, because I was able to realize that if you push your mind and believe you can achieve something, it can happen.

The road to changing the way our girls learn can be quite bumpy, but reading these comments and knowing that these girls are leaving with such confidence in themselves and their capabilities makes it all worth it.

Statistics: Vehicle for Interdisciplinary Study and Service

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I love teaching AP Statistics.  What I love even more is doing Statistics.  When we came to the end of the first (of four) units in this course, Descriptive Statistics, I was looking for a way to let my students practice the Statistics we had learned.  Last year we created and administered a silly little survey about how the start of school was going for Carondelet and DLS students.  This survey certainly served it’s purpose and added an element of fun. 

This year, I wanted to do something different.  Having been a pretty bad member of the Sr. Clare Dunn Forum planning committee (I think I’ve missed every meeting this year) I thought there might be a way for me to make up for that, and a way to connect my students to this school-wide event.  I reached out to Kristy Schow with my idea and asked her what would be useful to know about our school community ahead of the forum.  Here’s her response:

1. Why does the criminal justice system need reform? Does it need reform? In what ways?
2. Is meaningful reform possible in our political/economic/social climate? Why/why not? What type of reform is most meaningful/beneficial?
3. Are there alternatives to prison? What are they? When are they appropriate?
4. What are the social impacts of imprisonment and the economic impacts?
5. What injustices do we see in our prison system and our criminal justice system? What is the solution?

While these questions were great, they were too broad and open-ended to put on a survey.  And what I love about this is that this is exactly what happens with real research every day.  A researcher (Kristy) wants to know information about a group of people and it’s the job of the Statistician (my students) to flesh out the needed information and operationalize them into concrete variables with categories or numerical responses.  In one 45 minute period I divided my class into five groups and gave each group one of the questions above.  Their job was to turn the one broad question into 3-4 survey questions.  At the same time, they had to think of any important demographic/background variables needed on our survey.  Here‘s what they came up with. 

We posted the survey to Schoology and within a week had over 500 responses!  They spent the next 2-3 weeks analyzing the results, using Minitab Statistical software, and building a report and poster to summarize their findings. 

Today we hung our posters in the inner-court, contributing to the impressive museum that the planning committee has created. 

We hope you can visit and see what our community thinks about prison reform and how these beliefs trend based on gender, political views and other demographics.

Today was a win for me.  Allowing my students to see that Statistics is a math tool with far reaching potential (most people don’t see Math and Social Studies as a natural pairing) is an important lesson.  I hope it might pique some of their career interests and help them see the flexibility, and the power, of Math.  I also love that there was a service component to this project.  While we could have come up with our own topic on which to survey students, it was much more rich to act as consultants, work with Kristy’s broad themes and create a survey that actually served others.  This was a great example of school work being the total opposite of busy work.  The work they created, in a class, served to educate our community on an important, relevant and timely topic.

What other ways can we create school-wide events where we as teachers can create projects that allow us to collaborate and serve the school?

We loved Fun Friday, but what did our students think?

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If you read Lesley’s post, you know that we had our first Fun Friday in the Math Department.  If you ask any math teacher, they’ll tell you it was a great success.  The problem was just the right difficulty, enough to challenge them but not so inaccessible that they couldn’t solve it.  And the problem was fun!  They got to play with blocks and use their hands.  There were no formulas nor any calculations.  There were no textbook problems or worksheets.  And the skills required to solve the problem were not traditionally taught in any of our courses:  in other words, no one was handicapped by not yet having learned a particular math concept based on their current course. 

But, what did our students think?  We surveyed the students after and ended up with 451 responses.  Here are the highlights:

I.  Was it fun?  [How was Fun Friday for you?  1=I hated it. 10 = I loved it.]  Look at that beautifully left-skewed graph.  More students loved it than hated it.  That’s a great start for our first of the year! 

2.  But was it math?  [How much was this task a good use of Math class time?  1= Not at all.  10 = Very much.]

 [How much did the task feel like Math?  1= Not at all.  10 = Very much.]

 
Notice that quite a few answered some low responses.  We’ve got some work to do here.  Our students are really good at “doing school.”  Unfortunately, when we are tied to textbooks and curriculum, that can sometimes make them think that math is just something you find in a textbook.  We’ve got work to do to connect the math we teach in our classrooms to the wider world.  And to let our students realize that math is about problem-solving and strategy and that not all math problems or tasks have formulas and numbers.  
3.  How did they like being with students from other classes?  [How did you like being in a mixed group? 1= Hated it.  10 = Loved it.].  For us, this was the most important component of Fun Friday.  Sure, the problem is what they’re focused on but what they did together, the problem-solving, collaboration, sharing of perspectives and expertise is really what we we’re after with these department-wide activities.  It was unclear how students would respond to having to work with students from different courses but it’s promising to see that more liked it than hated it.  

Overall, the first Fun Friday was a huge success.  The kids liked it and this data supports what I hear every Thursday in my classroom, “Is tomorrow another Fun Friday?!?  Please!”  Now that we have their buy-in to participate, this is our opportunity to shift how they think about Math.  We want students to leave Carondelet as well-practiced problem solvers.  Yes, they’ll have learned many skills in their four years here.  But more importantly, we want them to leave with the confidence and resourcefulness to know they can research and solve any problem that comes their way.  And that Math mindset and strategy can be used to solve any problem, even those without numbers.  

Intersecting Bravery and Math

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It’s been another rocky start for me in Algebra 2 with Trigonometry.  [Algebra 2 is a predominantly Junior (some Sophomore and rare Freshman) level class.  These students had to meet a prerequisite to get into this class, so as you might imagine they are somewhat accustomed to receiving good grades and doing relatively well in Math.]  Just as with last year, I’m receiving fierce pushback against my style of teaching, which is more “guide on the side” than “sage on the stage.”  Students are  complaining that they aren’t being taught and that they are having to figure out too many things on their own.  Students are complaining that my assessments are too unpredictable and that they can’t handle the anxiety they feel at not knowing exactly on what they will be tested.  Students who had been really good at “doing school math class” up until now are suddenly finding that their usual strategies aren’t working.

There’s so much to unpack in this.  I am teaching them, just not quite as directly as they’d like.  But, perhaps more complicated is that we seem to have different definitions of what math is and what math should be.  I see math as an opportunity for problem solving and critical thinking, as a language and a set of tools that can be used to chip away at unsolvable problems.  My students, on the other hand, see math as a collection of formulas to be memorized and quantities to be calculated, and problems with only right or wrong answers.

To try to bridge this disconnect, and to open a dialogue with them about why I structure the course the way I do (it’s for their own good, I promise!), I planned an entire class period of no math but rather an opportunity for sharing.  I showed them Reshma Saujani’s 2016 Ted Talk, “Teach Girls Bravery, not Perfection.”  There’s so much I love about this talk.  I’ve probably watched it over twenty times and each time I watch it I get chills of excitement.  One of my favorite lines is:

We have to socialize our girls to be comfortable with imperfection, and we’ve got to do it now. …We have to teach them to be brave in schools and early in their careers, when it has the most potential to impact their lives and the lives of others, and we have to show them that they will be loved and accepted not for being perfect but for being courageous. 

I chose this video because I want them to know that they can achieve anything they imagine, but that, socially, they have been wired to back down from many of those dreams, out of caution and out of fear of failure.  In my classroom, in my small way, I want to give them opportunities, safe opportunities, to practice taking risks, practice failing so that it becomes common for them.  I want them to become so good at failing that they will bravely and courageously pursue any dream they have.

I then showed them a short video from Jo Boaler’s Youcubed.org about what math truly is and what it means to be successful in math.  A favorite line from this video is:

No matter how math is presented in school, you should know that math is not about memorization and it is not about calculations.  Math is a much broader subject about ideas, visualization, connections.  And don’t think test scores or grades define who you are or what you can do.  You can do anything.

I love looking around the room when this line is presented (it’s spoken by a fellow student in the video) and it’s such a powerful moment.  I think for many of our students it may be the first time they’ve heard the idea that math isn’t about calculations or formulas.  So many of our students have reduced math to this.

I gave the students surveys before and after watching these videos and we also had time for discussion (some periods more spirited than others) after each video.  This anecdotal feedback is so fascinating.  Below are some results and anecdotes that are particularly interesting,

The above graphic was from the Before Survey.  I find it fascinating how many students don’t see math as a vehicle for problem solving and critical thinking.  For many students, they don’t believe that math is a subject to be figured out.  They believe the only way to learn math is to be taught it by someone more knowledgeable than them.  I am working hard to show my students that much of math can be discovered through experimentation and deduced from very simple principles.

I was heartened to see so many students willing to change, adapt and try a new style of learning, especially after our discussion and the videos.  These comments are from the after survey:

At first, my initial response reflected on my irritation of not understanding the style of teaching. I have been taught that you need to understand the material the second you’re taught it. I’ve learned that it’s okay to not understand at first and feel lost because I will eventually know what is being taught.



I understand more why this class is the way it is, which is good but at first it is a bit of a shock to have things be so different. However, I think that this growth mindset concept is a good one to teach students, especially with all the research backing it up. It should be useful in the future.



I used to be primarily fixed mindset, but after watching these videos I feel as though I can learn to be better at math

I would say now that learning teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving are things that I will value more during class time.



After learning about the research, I now realize that math is not all about math, but rather about how you look at the math material and your mindset going into it.


I know I will struggle somewhat in this class, but I think my mindset has grown a little more

I am more open to new topics and categories of math now that I haven’t learned before. I am motivated to learn new things and try harder on problems I think I can’t do rather than give up on them.

I really liked these videos and they helped me to realize that I have the ability to solve every math problem as long as I work hard and don’t give up. I like the way the course is going and I’m open to this new style of learning.

I think that this style of teaching will be more challenging in teh moment but more beneficial in the long run.

I used to be primarily fixed mindset, but after watching these videos I feel as though I can learn to be better at math

I appreciated the many students who brought up the very real burden of grades:

I want to be able to make mistakes and learn from them but I am too worried to fall back in grades. I think that it will be difficult to me to forget about the consequences of failing.

I think it’s good that we are learning to have a different mindset but it isn’t very realistic in today’s high school classes

I think that these people in the ted talks and math videos are making a valid point about having to fail to succeed but the way our school system works is that every mistake we make goes straight into the grade book, which makes making any mistake seem like the end of the world.

I think that struggling in math is essential to learning, and I think we will have the opportunity to do that in class. I think that this course may have some benefit for my particular learning style, but I am nervous about what will be graded in this class.

I like the idea of having the growth mindset, but its not always practical. In the video, they said that grades don’t define what you can do. This is sometimes true, but you were given a grade based on what you proved you could do. I think this is interesting, but it’s not realistic and it’s going to take a lot more than just videos to change the school and grading system from how it is now.

I like the idea of our minds becoming stronger, but I feel like the challenges involved cause a lot of anxiety because the grading system penalizes our mistakes.



I still feel hesitant. I believe it will help one-day, but our generation has not been raised me this, which for me, makes it harder for me to become minded about this new style of learning

Other than getting rid of grades altogether (is that a possibility for us?), I don’t have a good answer for this.  I do try to give my students lots of opportunity to fail without a huge grade impact (ability to remaster quizzes and group assessments are two of my favorites) but their concerns are real.

Finally, these two comments really hit me, as I think they are evidence of everything Reshma Saujani talks about:

After the first lesson I cried because I was so stressed about failing. I felt like you valued the benifets of failing but overlooked the grade aspect of it. I feel like this data is accurate though, and I relate. My mother is a perfectionist and stresses the importance of work being perfect. My father treats me like I’m so perfect and precious. Failure isn’t an option. Failing is hard for me.



As much as I’d like to believe in growth mindset I believe it will be difficult to change my view on math as a junior in high school.

Sometimes I think I’m crazy to try to change the way our students learn Math, especially for those who are about to walk out our doors.  I keep thinking it will be so much better in a few years once our Algebra program takes off and students walk into my classes already equipped with bravery and a growth mindset.  Other times I see it as my calling and I believe that it’s never too late to learn and practice courage and risk taking.

I’d love to hear how this is playing out in other departments.  My students tell me all the time that Math is just different:  you need to be taught math.  Critical reasoning is important in History or English but not in a Math classroom.  And the graphic above highlights this perception.  How do you see our girls being brave (or not) and how can I channel that bravery into my math classroom?

What Happens When We (Teachers) Let Go?

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We recently covered Area in Geometry and instead of employing a usual teaching format (follow lessons in book with nightly homework in between) I tried a “blended classroom” approach.  I started the chapter with a project, a BIG project.  Students were told they had to design a house, make the blueprints, determine the total surface area of the house, and put it on the market (not really on the market, but they had to decide where they were going to build the house, come up with an address and based on “comps” in that neighborhood (i.e. houses with the same total area or square footage) set a price and create a realtor’s brochure).  The house had to have at least five of the shapes we had studied this year:  square, rectangle, triangle, parallelogram, rhombus, kite, trapezoid, any regular polygon, and circle.  It had to have at least two stories and they had 1 acre of land on which to build.

They had 2.5 weeks to get this done.  Class time, with the exception of the first 10 minutes or so was theirs to do what they wanted.  They could work anywhere on campus they wanted (I created a google form where they could tell me where they’d be) and in the course of those 2.5 weeks, they had to check in with me two times each week.   Homework was minimal.  Each night they had to derive, visually, a new area formula that I assigned.  We spent the first 10 minutes of each class sharing our derivations and after that the time was theirs to work.

Let me tell you a little about this class:  it’s a bear to teach.  I don’t know if it’s the mix of girls I have or the fact that it’s a seventh period class but the group as a whole would rather be pretty much anywhere else but my class, doing anything else but Geometry on a daily basis.  Fun, right?  Part of me thought it was a big risk to give these seemingly unmotivated girls so much freedom, and during seventh period no less!  The other part of me thought it really couldn’t get much worse, and we all needed a change of pace.

Once the project started, I was pleasantly surprised by a few things:  [1] I could always find the students when I would circulate the campus and, amazingly, they were usually excitedly working.  It seemed I had finally found something that they liked!  [2] Over and over again I heard, “I was working on this last night with my dad” or “My mom was helping me look up the area formulas.”  To me this is awesome.  I gave them something that they shared, voluntarily, with their families at home! [3] the nightly homework assignments in which they had to derive the area formulas on their own were amazing:  creative and thoughtful, they showed me that the students were really thinking and using their reasoning skills to figure them out.  Here are a few samples:

Look at all of that amazing thinking and reasoning?

When the project finished, I noticed a couple of other small observations that may or may not mean anything.  The project was due at the beginning of class on Wednesday.  That day no one was absent and everyone was excited, I might even say proud, to hand in their project.  No one needed an extension, and at first glance, they all looked amazing.

I gave an evaluation about how they liked this project and this way of learning a topic.  Here are some of the results:

 I found this next result particularly fascinating:  look how hard they worked!  I totally let go, I removed the usual scaffolding of a typical chapter and the micromanaged assignments, and they actually worked harder.

Finally, I share with you some anecdotes from the evaluation:

I enjoyed being able to work anywhere it gave me a different vibe then sitting in the classroom like I do in every other class. I liked how we needed to check in with you. I wish we could’ve done it as a group if we liked to, and needs a little bit more time maybe another 3 days since it’s a lot of small projects into one. It was a nice break from writing down on paper taking notes doing regular problems. It also opens me to think about how to find the are of a shapes I didn’t know and how I could use the area of shapes I already knew to solve for the shape. I think it would’ve been better to go over all the areas we might need first then give the project.

I really enjoyed this project, which is saying a lot because math is neither my strong suit nor my passion. This was a great opportunity for me to learn about what Area is and how it is solved while simultaneously incorporating my creativity. Instead of sticking to the routine of homework, quizzes, and tests, I was able to show the little skill I have in math. I also am better at learning when the material is applied to real-life situations. It gave me a lot of confidence as well.

I loved the project

I loved how this is something relevant that we can actually use in real life

It was actually fun making the floor plans and the brochure

it was a fun engaging project that made me look forward to this class.

There were some skeptics.  And, you can see from above there was a mixed review when it came to the question of whether they learned what they needed to know by doing this project.  What was so interesting to me were the comments by students who thought they didn’t learn what they needed to simply because I hadn’t traditionally taught them:

I didn’t really enjoy it because it didn’t help my understanding of area, it only tested my abilities to look up and follow the formulas. I didn’t really know what I was doing during this project and I would not feel confident or prepared if I took a quiz on area after completing this project

I feel like the project was a nice way to get immersed into the area section of geometry. However, I don’t think that the project was very efficient in teaching me the most about area. I also don’t think it prepared me very much for any tests/ quizzes we will have concerning area in the future.

I did learn how to do the area and stuff but I often found myself looking up the formula for specific shapes. I feel I might of retained the information better if we would of learned it from the book but I did like the project.

I really liked this project and i thought that it was the most enjoyable project. I think that learning about are and perimeter could have been accomplished in a different way. I think that i would have learned about area better if we did followed the book and did it like a normal class. (Normal meaning that the teacher teaches us the lesson and then the students do the problems in class and for homework and ask the teacher questions).

I would argue that having to look up and figure out formulas yourself makes you much more likely to remember them.  How can we convince our students that learning doesn’t need to happen with the teacher at the board and students passively receiving the information?  And, that perhaps this isn’t the best way to learn?  How do we teach our girls to be resourceful and to value that resourcefulness?  This has been a really awesome experiment for me and despite some mixed reviews, I truly believe that this is the way that real, sustaining, learning happens.  I look forward to continuing this free, blended style of project based learning and hope to see the culture shift where my students learn to trust this process and trust themselves and all that they’re capable of.

AP Statistics Research Day is Thursday, April 19th: Come Join Us!

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AP Statistics Research Day is right around the corner.  We are excited to share our research with you and we thank those of you planning to come to the Inner Court during Period 2 or during an x-block on this Thursday, April 19th.  To help you understand the amount of work these students have done, here’s how we completed this task:

August:  Right after learning about different types of variables
(quantitative vs. categorical), we made a very brief survey that we
posted on Schoology so that we could have some data to play with.
September:  Students got comfortable with Minitab software by creating
an analysis report of our brief survey. They learned how to create all of the
graphs and numerical summaries we had learned about in the first few chapters
of our book.
October:  After learning about study design, students submitted a proposal and
initial survey for their own research project.
November:  Students revised survey based on my feedback and consulted with an
“expert”. The expert was a teacher or family member who knew more about their
topic than I did. The expert reviewed their survey and gave feedback. Perhaps
some of you served as experts!
January:  Students selected their sample using the methods learned about
in this course. Most students conducted simple random samples or stratified
random samples. A small number of students conducted convenience samples
due to the nature of their research question.
February:  Students sent out surveys and monitored responses.  Some needed to
sample again due to low response.
March:  Students built a formal analysis report of their findings in four installments,
coinciding with the inferential statistics we were learning as part of our curriculum.
April: Students designed their posters.



I share these details because I hope that someday this symposium grows beyond AP Statistics:  Imagine “Carondelet Research Day” in which students from classes in many different disciplines showcase year-long research.  So, please do come join us on Thursday and when you do, think about how you might be able to join us next year, as a contributor and let’s continue to give our students opportunity to put what they are learning into action!  


Here is the list of topics and presenters:

2018 AP Statistics Research Day Presentations



April 19th, 2018


Inner Court

Carondelet High School

How Closely do Books Relate to Intelligence?  Will Buckley

How Many Students Take Classes Outside of the Normal Classroom?  Alyssa Dunn

Procrastination Station:  What causes most students to procrastinate on their work?  Caroline Edwards

Advantages of Playing Sports Leah Engle

Technology vs. Students  Jayla Fernandez

Is there a relationship between the number of colleges a student applies to and his or her GPA?
Makena Garrehy

Who Gets Injured the Most?  Briana Granados

How Do High School Students Form Their Political Views?  Courtney Lally

The Relationship between Sleep and Academic Performance  Ryan Leopold

What Factors Impact my Sleeping Habits?  Bryson Patterson

AP Classes and Their Effect on College and Future Jobs  Sarah Peterson

Exercise Habits of High School Students:  What are the workout and exercise habits of high school athletes and non-athletes?  Justin Pratt

How Much is Stress Really Affecting Teens?  Sarah Shaughnessy

Visual and Performing Arts in College:  Does being in a higher number of clubs or classes determine if you are going to continue with your VPA in college?  Cecily Sotomayor

What’s On Your Plate?  An observational study of the correlation between Carondelet Students and the Garaventa Cuisine  Sophia Veran Sanchez

Caffeine Consumption in Corporate Offices and High School Campuses  Adam Wong

Math Department Celebrates Pi Day

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The Math department celebrated Pi Day on 3/14 (you may remember that pi, an irrational number, is commonly rounded to 3.14).  We started our day together in a Math Department meeting where Mary Beth shared this beautiful Pi-related prayer:

The beauty of pi, in part, is that it puts infinity within reach. Even young children get this. The digits of pi never end and never show a pattern. They go on forever, seemingly at random—except that they can’t possibly be random, because they embody the order inherent in a perfect circle. This tension between order and randomness is one of the most tantalizing aspects of pi.


We then departed and had many varied adventures with our students to celebrate pi.  Here are some highlights:

  • Amanda’s Geometry class was visited by Anne-Marie and four of her AP Calculus students.  These advanced students had recently used Calculus to find the volume of coca cola in a classic bottle.  The Geometry students were able to do the same task by using their knowledge of the volume of a cylinder (pi*r^2*height) to come up with a coarse estimate for the coca cola volume.  The Calculus students served as coaches throughout this project and at the end introduced the younger students to the idea of curve-fitting, area under a curve, and volumes of revolution to get a more sophisticated estimate.  It was a great activity to celebrate the many applications of pi in a collaborative way.  Both young and older students admitted they learned something new from each other.

  • Cathy’s Geometry classes derived pi empirically, by measuring the circumference and radius of various circles in the classroom and inner court and working backward using the circumference formula to derive pi.  Look how close they got!
  • Mary Beth not only treated the Faculty and Staff to many delicious pies, but she also encouraged the students to participate in a pi-tastic scavenger hunt.  See the tasks here.  
Until next year…

An Easy Way to “Flip” The Classroom Without Losing Student Discovery

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Flipped classrooms are very popular.  I see a lot of benefit in letting students have agency over their learning:  letting them learn when and where they want, and at a pace that works for them.  My main critique of the flipped classroom is that it removes most, if not all, student discovery.  Generally, videos are made that tell the students what they need to know.  Often, there’s little struggle or opportunity for students to figure things out. 

One strategy I’ve started doing is using a “flipped” approach in my classes where the “flip” is not when the learning happens but rather the roles the students and I play.  For example, today one of our class objectives was:  “I can simplify rational expressions.”  Instead of teaching the students how to do this, I put an example and the answer on the board and gave the students five minutes in their group to figure out how the answer was found.  They reverse engineered the method for simplifying rational expressions.  At the end of five minutes, the class had to teach me how to simplify.  I wrote down what they told me, synthesized their strategies and we moved on to the next skill.

This picture shows two skills done in this style.  The first is after they’ve taught me so you see the problem worked out and the strategies they came up with to do problems like these.  The second skill was the one they were working on when I took the picture.  They were working backwards to figure out how I got the answer I did. 

As I was doing this today, numerous students told me that “I like learning this way” and “This is fun” and “This is really making me think.”  I really like using this strategy when the skills can be deduced from prior knowledge.  There are of course times when they need me to introduce new concepts and there are problems that they simply cannot reverse engineer.  However, as much as we can we should require our students to discover, be resourceful and figure things out. 

I know that this works nicely in a Math class but I’d love to hear if this approach could be used in other departments and if any of us are already trying this type of “flipped” classroom.

Why Are Our GIRLS So Resistant To Student-Centered Learning?

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I’ve always had a student-centered approach to teaching: my classrooms have always had tables (or desks formed into pods) and I try to limit my time standing in front of the room lecturing at the board.  My classes often involve student activities/discoveries and conversations.  The term “guide on the side” really resonates with me because I like to think of myself more as a coach than a teacher.  This may be because I actually have no formal training as a teacher.  I went to a small liberal arts college, majored in Math and Sociology and found myself figuring out how to teach as I went as a 22 year-old fresh-out-of-college young woman teaching high school students just five years younger than me.  Looking back, I realize that I was greatly influenced by my incredible department chair who had this same student-centered approach and I naturally followed her lead.  It didn’t feel new or novel and rather just became my style.

Carondelet is the fourth school I’ve taught at, the only all-girls school I’ve taught at, and the only school where I’ve received such resistance to this style of teaching.  I’m used to the usual hazing that happens to new-to-a-school teachers, but I’m surprised that I’m still dealing with fierce resistance to my style of teaching.  Given that the direction of the school is to a more student-cenered, guide-on-the-side style, I wanted to share some of the pushback I’ve received as a warning to all of us for what may be coming.

Here are some of the comments I received on a recent survey of my Algebra 2 with Trigonometry class:

[My previous math] class was very traditional and i was able to learn and do very well in that class, this class is all over the place and confusing and I’m not doing well at all.


[I prefer a traditional math classroom because] It is organized and has a plan this class room is very frustrating and all over the place I juts want to learn the section and do my homework everyday in class


I just feel really frustrated with the way we have been doing testing and learning this year.
I can’t teach myself, I need a teacher teaching me subjects or else I just don’t get it.
I DO NOT mesh well with growthmind. I like to have a sense of what will be on the test
so that I can come into class on test day feeling prepared. I feel that these growth mindset
tests do not reflect my knowledge of the information and I am just feeling very frustrated.



My whole life I have been taught math the traditional way and it is what I am used to and
it is in that format hat I understand the concepts.

I want to be in a different class with a better teacher.

I absolutely do not like the problem solving way of math. I used to love math and this way makes
me hate the subject. I need to be able to be taught a way to do something and for me to practice
what I’ve been taught so I can grow my math skills. Me teaching myself is not helping me at all and
I walk into every test scared and stressed because I don’t feel prepared even though I complete almost
every practice test and it’s really frustrating. I’m concerned that I will not be prepared
for pre-calculus next year.

This class in general makes me very anxious because I do not know what will come next and
I am a person that appreciates predictablity and control.

You may notice that some of the students above refer to a growth mindset, something I’ve been pushing hard in this group.  Also on the survey were two questions:  Where are you on the growth mindset spectrum (1 = fixed mindset, 10 = growth mindset) and what type of classroom do you prefer (1= traditional, 10 = student-centered).  These results were fascinating (p= .0013) showing that there is a significant positive relationship between students who have a growth mindset and prefer a student-centered classroom.



Here are some comments from some of our more willing students:

I like the collaborative [classroom]. It requires me to think more instead of just doing to do.


I like how we are actually making an effort to switch education


[I] much prefer the collaborative teaching style because it helps me learn from my mistakes and think through problems more. it is also more engaging.

I did realize the thoughts that go into problem solving, however actually doing a problem solving question made me feel as if I was getting somewhere. At some point I did not know how to solve it or could only solve it half way. So I think it made me think a lot more than I have in awhile which I liked.


Collaborative classrooms help me to see math in ways that I usually don’t. It doesn’t seem so black and white.


Finally, I want to pose a theory as to why our students GIRLS may be so resistant.  In reflecting on why this resistance is happening here and now, I’m thinking about the other schools that I’ve worked at.  All three were much smaller than Carondelet (class sizes closer to 12-15) and because of their smaller size perhaps more exclusive and competitive.  At those schools there was an expectation that school would be hard, challenge was expected, and although not always enjoyed, this was seldom equated with bad teaching or some form of injustice.  But, I think there is a bigger factor at play:  the fact that this is the first time I’m experiencing this in an all-girls setting.  I think in my previous schools, the boys loved the challenge, the unpredictable nature of our learning and the messiness of the class structure.  And because they loved it (or at least didn’t complain) the girls too got on board.  So, I’m finding myself challenged with motivating these girls by myself, convincing them that I am still teaching them (even if not directly) and they will be better served in college and life by having a class that isn’t neat, tidy, predictable and laid out on a platter for them.