MSM 696: That Was An Inordinate Amount of Time

Welcome to Middle School Matters podcast number 696.

That was an inordinate amount of time.

We've got some jokes for your classroom.

We're going to talk about some things that we're doing in our classrooms, and we think

you'll find useful.

So without further ado, here's the wonderful and the magnanimous, the Mr. Troy Patterson.

Hi, welcome back to the show.

I am Troy Patterson and with me is.

The world's greatest co-show host, Mr. Sean McGurr.

Hey, Sean.

Well, hello there.

How are you?

I'm good.

I think we have an exciting show for you coming up today.

Oh, I can't wait.

It's a good meeting.

I can see that by utter silence.

Not yet.

You know, you really have got to stop using that time travel machine and going in the future

and coming back and telling me about the show.

I'm looking forward to it, too.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We'll see what happens.

Oh, yeah.

Let's see here.

Here's a thought for you.

Okay.

Whoever's job it is to perforate those paper towels, they're just not cutting it.

Oh, I see what you did there.

Yes.

You're right.

I have a quick question for you here.

All right.

What's the difference between a fly and a bird?

A fly and a bird?

Well, size maybe?

I don't know.

What?

You're coming across pretty low in volume right now.

Am I?

Okay.

The difference between a fly and a bird, a bird can fly, but a fly can't bird.

I got you.

I got you.

No.

Yep.

Okay.

I see it.

All right.

Let's continue on.

This is your next thought exercise.

Okay.

If they bishop and an arch bishop cross paths, all right.

Do they have to fight the dust?

Oh.

Because they're going to be one and an arch bishop.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Did you know the KFC Blue Sky account only follows 11 people?

I did not.

Five spice girls and 11 guys named Herb.

Got it.

The 11 herbs.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

KFC has a secret blend of 11 herbs and spices.

So.

Oh, this just in.

People saying boo to their friends has risen 85% the last year.

Really?

Yeah.

That's a frightening statistic.

Aha.

Aha.

Aha.

Aha.

Aha.

I love the occasionally.

Sean.

It's all.

I didn't see that one coming.

Look on his face and he did.

Did you know a ton is heavy, but not backwards?

Oh, that's good.

I like that one.

Yeah.

Aha.

Okay.

And let's finish with another quiz for you here.

What part of the bread factory do lobsters work in?

Really?

Or if you prefer.

What part of the factory do lobsters work in?

Oh, there we go.

I didn't know they worked in bread factory.

Tell me.

The crust station.

Oh, sure.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

All right.

Oh, let's see here.

You know, David Lausky always comes up with such great stuff.

And this week.

I think is one that.

Not only are people going to appreciate this week,

but as people are starting to.

I'll hire for next year on that.

They may want to bookmark this one.

They want to put a pin in this one.

So they can refer to it.

Because this is about advice for new science teachers.

Oh.

All right.

So here, without further ado,

it's the wonderful Mr. David Lausky.

And the middle school science minute.

Hi, this is David Lausky of k12 science.net.

This is your k12 science podcast.

I was recently reading the November 24th, 2025.

Issue of the National Science Teaching Association blog.

And there I read an article entitled,

Embrace the Chaos.

Advice for new science teachers written by Jason Stroll.

And he started off by saying that starting your journey as a science teacher

can feel overwhelming.

Beside lesson planning, classroom management,

and helping young minds discover the wonders of the natural world,

it's easy to feel like you're drowning in expectations.

But according to Madeleine Grigiel,

a science instructional support teacher for the Richmond Virginia Public Schools,

the key to successful science teaching might surprise you.

Embrace the beautiful chaos.

Grigiel asks her students what a scientist is.

Their immediate responses are predictable.

Goggles, lab codes, explosions, she reports.

While these dramatic elements have their place,

real science education starts much simpler and closer to home.

We really want them to see that you can walk outside

and look at a blade of grass and you're making observations.

You're asking questions and that's doing science, she notes.

It's noticing the world around you asking questions.

That's the first step.

This shift in perspective is crucial for new teachers, Grigiel's contentants.

Teachers don't need a labored equipment or dramatic demonstrations

to teach meaningful science.

Sometimes the most profound learning can happen when students do something

as simple as growing a plant in the classroom

and observing its changes over time.

Cultivate curiosity about everyday phenomena she advises.

Science is happening everywhere.

Help your students to see it.

Students used to be able to just memorize vocabulary, memorize things,

and they could perform really well in the science standards of learning exam.

But that's not the case anymore, Grigiel explains.

They really have to be able to interpret charts,

look at data to draw conclusions.

This shift makes teaching more challenging,

but ultimately more valuable she maintains.

When students engage in engineering practices and think critically about evidence,

they're developing skills they'll use far behind your classroom.

She suggests that teachers design lessons that require students to think like scientists,

observing, questioning, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from evidence.

Some of the most powerful and impactful learning happens when students see

the reconnections between their classroom activities and the broader world.

She describes a collaborative project in which students visited a school

to conduct temperature readings around the campus using thermal imaging drones.

The students discovered that their school's rain garden and reforestation area

didn't just keep things cool and hot weather.

They also helped regulate temperatures in cold weather.

These weren't abstract concepts from a textbook.

They are observable phenomena happening in their own backyard.

So look for opportunities to connect classroom learning to real world applications she recommends.

Partner with other schools, invite community experts,

or simply step outside your classroom door.

At the end of the day, what keeps educators like Grygel excited about their work

isn't the curriculum or the test scores.

It's the relationships and those magical moments of discovery.

Building relationships with the kids is the biggest thing she reflects.

Seeing students excitement, once they get something, is the best feeling in the world.

Teaching science to young minds is both a tremendous responsibility

and an incredible privilege, she says.

Because teachers have the power to shape how an entire generation

views the natural world in their place in it.

By embracing hands-on learning, fostering curiosity, building real world connections

and collaborating with fellow educators, you're not just teaching science,

you're inspiring the next generation of thinkers, innovators, and problem solvers.

Remember that the mess is worth it.

The noise means engagement and every question a student asks

is a door opening to discovery.

Step through it with confidence, curiosity, and joy.

And this has been your K-12 Science Podcast.

All right, are you guys at the point where you're hiring teachers yet?

Oh, yeah.

So we've been on this thing where we're kind of like always hiring teachers.

Like every week there's a posting for an L-Much teacher.

It's been a thing, right?

And you just can't, it's hard to get and it's hard to keep teachers right now.

Just wondering.

There's another thing going on too.

I don't know if I should mention it on the air, but.

So I'll mention it, I'll mention it.

It's just in vague terms.

So did you know that teaching is a competitive market?

Okay.

And and and and districts have no problem.

They're going and finding what they want.

Oh, yeah.

You might get an email.

Hey, hey, guess what we're doing over here?

Plus this bag of money.

You know, one of the things I have not heard frequently is a bag of money.

Has it result?

Is it relates to teaching?

Well, I think it also depends on like what district you're in, right?

Because we my district used to be the top in our region for pay.

People want to come here.

And then other districts around us caught on and they up to their pay.

And so a lot of our folks that don't have tenure in our ways away from getting tenure.

They're very mobile and there's no reason to keep them around.

Sorry, let me raise that.

There's no reason for them to stick around.

And so because the districts that giving them a reason to stay, right, money incentive.

And other districts are poaching from districts like that by coming and saying,

so here's what we do.

And there's this bag of money.

And we'll you know, we'll give you years.

We'll give you.

You just have to come work for us.

And there's some pretty strong incentives.

Like I know that there are teachers that left because the district said, hey,

we're going to dedicate an aid to your classroom.

Wow.

Right.

And if you come, not only are we, you're going to go up in the pay scale,

but we're also going to dedicate, we got aid that's in your room and helping you.

You know, so you're not alone and you're getting, you're getting more support in your classroom than you are where you are.

You're at.

And you're getting more money.

Why would you not go?

Why wouldn't it come to us?

These are interesting.

These are the times that we live in.

These are things that my parents said would never happen in education.

Well, I'll never do that.

Well, we're there.

I'm not in a position to take care, take advantage of it.

They were right about that.

Yeah.

But we're there.

You know, I mean, we interviewed for a math teacher on my team.

We interviewed for a math teacher.

There were three.

That was a lot.

They thought they actually had kids.

That was a lot.

Yeah.

I remember when I interviewed for a position,

Solstice position at Allen Park High School.

I knew the secretary in the central office and she,

she wiggled her finger at me and said,

come here, come here.

She's going to, she's going to come behind the desk, you know, the counter area.

So I came back there and she pointed to this long, long counter that was back out of the way that

people couldn't see.

And about a foot high and eight and a half by 11 all the way down that counter.

Oh, about 10 feet.

We're just stacks and bundles of paper.

And I said, holy cow, what's that?

She goes, those are the people they're interviewing for the job interview you have on Tuesday.

By the way, we have a job interview on Tuesday.

Okay.

I guess I should be ready.

She goes, I just want you to know she goes, we had 600 people apply for the job.

She goes, you got to review.

She goes, you should, you should prepare.

I made it to the final round.

I didn't get the job, but I made the fun around, but there were 600.

You can't find 600 people.

I think for any job in education anymore.

You know, we had three.

That was it.

That's all the pool set pool.

That was three picked from these three.

I guess at the big all three.

You know what it is.

I noticed recently is everybody's hiring superintendents.

Everybody's hiring superintendents.

Really?

Yeah, there's tons of those interviews out there right now.

So I know the superintendent game for quite a while now.

The average has been like two to three years.

I don't know if that's still accurate.

I don't know what that number is recently.

They move around quite a bit.

So that part's not super, super surprising.

But yeah, I mean, this is kind of the, for a lot of schools,

this is getting into the time where they're starting to do hiring

and they're doing interviewing and all that good stuff.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's the same in Maine,

but in Michigan, if you're letting a teacher go,

you have to let them know in March.

I think it's April for, I think it's by the middle of April or something.

I don't know.

I know that there's a couple of positions in,

it was with one director of educational technology position.

And I think there was a couple of teacher positions

that have already identified.

There's some people who are retiring and things like that.

And we know there's going to be at least one retiring in my building.

By the way, I'm going to just make a career,

exactly a career decision here for you.

You don't want the one in capitalism thing.

Who does that?

Don't do the one.

Me personally.

Yeah, don't apply for that one.

Capeless with Maine.

I'll say other people should apply for it.

Sure.

Very high achieving district

and some a lot of good people involved.

I'm not saying it's not a bad job.

I'm just saying, you know,

I think you should be an instructional designer.

We've talked about that.

We talked about that this morning.

And there's something.

And we'll talk about it again a little bit here.

Okay.

So yeah.

But yeah, I know they're doing that.

Right now there.

There is some.

There are some positions out there.

And there's doing some hiring and all that good stuff.

I know that like I think Maine is kind of in a similar situation

where there's.

There's a desire for teachers,

especially with certain.

Certain certifications.

So.

In Michigan, you don't have to be certified to get hired

anymore.

Wow.

That's how bad it is.

I shouldn't say bad.

There's a young lady.

I know she's brilliant.

And she's an excellent,

excellent math person.

She's not taken.

She said she's had one or two education classes in her undergrad career.

And she has a passion for it.

She's driven.

She wants to learn about the profession.

She seeks people out.

She seeks mentors.

Right.

She really wants to be a teacher and do it.

And under the state department,

Michigan Department of Education rules,

she has 10 years to get certified.

So.

You know, she can start her job and just she's got 10 years to get it done.

That's that's quite the quite the window.

I mean, that's a nice opportunity.

I didn't have that one.

I was starting out.

It's also interesting because it makes it available for second career type people.

Like, for example, we haven't we have an ER nurse who's teaching patient,

the patient care technician course and the pharmacology course.

And she's picked up another clinical nursing assistant,

CNA course.

For her, I mean, she spent 25 years in the yard.

For her, she's got 10 years to get certified.

Uh huh.

Read between the lines on that one.

That's good.

In 10 years, she's just going to retire and go, well, I guess I didn't do it.

And you know what?

She's got that 25 years of nursing experience.

She's going to do fine.

She's doing fine.

She's another one who seeks out other people and says,

I know the nursing site helped me with the teaching site.

And she gets in help her with that, right?

And she's an excellent teacher and she's passionate about her kids.

And she's passionate about her subject and, you know,

her kids go straight for her course and right onto the workforce.

They have jobs.

They're getting paid really good money just walking right out of high school.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

So.

All right.

So one of the things that we did talk about this morning and we talked about over the last couple of days,

honestly, it's been instructional design and doing some of those things.

And one of the things that's that apparently, uh,

Chetchy PT got a little bit lippy with you.

I had some fun with Chetchy PT.

Yes.

So, um, one of the things that we've been talking about is, uh,

who controls who, right?

How much does Chetchy PT really get to know you?

To know you.

And so I spent, uh, six hours on Thursday, seven hours, eight hours, eight hours on Thursday.

I just, I've done now that I counted up.

It's like that was an inordinate amount of time, Sean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I wanted to, the, my, my principal came to me and said,

we have an issue in the principal at the upper elementary,

um, asked me a question and I don't know how to answer it and I need information from you.

That's the short version.

He didn't put it in those words, but that's essentially what he said.

And I said, I can do that.

I can help.

Let me put something together and I'll show you what I mean.

Well, I show you what I mean part has been a,

been a, what I've been working on.

I've been building a fifth grade social studies course using,

using middle school principals and best practices applying it to the elementary.

And then building in that interdisciplinary lesson design approach,

showing how these things can be tied into math and language arts,

because at the upper elementary, those are the only two things that matter,

because those are the two things to get tested on the M step,

except when you're in fifth grade and you also have a social studies M step,

but they've never had social studies going through elementary.

So they always bomb that part of the test, but it doesn't matter because the social studies.

All I think I'd worry about is language arts and math,

most of the two scores that, that media and everybody else worries about.

So he said, you know, do we have a curriculum? Yes, we do have a curriculum.

We do.

I said, yes, we worked on this three years.

We do.

For three years in the summertime, you paid us money to do this.

He goes, well, where is it?

I said, well, the current curriculum director has deleted a lot of stuff,

but I have copies.

Would you like a copy?

Yeah.

I mean, because we need to do something about this.

Okay.

So I shipped him off through email, the link to the document.

And he's like, oh, thank you.

Thank you.

And I was like, give me some time, and I'll put this together,

and I'll show you what this could look like.

And that's what I've been doing.

But a lot of that requires a lot of cognitive lifting, right?

You have to know the standards for math and language arts for fifth grade.

And for me, that was a long time ago.

You know, 28 years ago.

And I know that's, I've just not been, I didn't have to worry about that.

But what I could do is I could ask ChatGPT to do that lifting for me.

So as I built the course, I started saying things like, you know what?

Could you build this as an H5P activity so that I don't have to sit there and do it myself?

And ChatGPT said, yeah, I can do that.

So it built me one.

And I was like, oh, this works.

Build me another one, but I want it like this.

So it built me another one.

And it worked.

I was like, oh, this is good.

I said, build me another one.

It built me one, but I had some errors.

I came back and I said, I've got these errors coming back.

What do you think?

And it says, oh, well, if I move this here, and I do this,

and I don't use this in my code, when I write it, it should work.

It worked.

So I finally came back and I said, here's what I want to do.

I want a branching scenario designed from this chapter of this open source textbook.

And it said, I can do that.

So it started working on it, right?

And I came back and I said, all right, you're done.

I'm going to try it.

And it said, believe it or not, if there's any error codes, please tell me and I'll work it out.

I was like, oh, I'm going to do that.

So I did not get an error code.

What I got was an empty branching scenario and branching scenario is like a choose your own adventure.

Yeah, that's a problem.

Right.

So I came back and I said, hey, there's no content.

And then I think I had something else that popped up and I put it in there and it says, oh.

And I said, by the way, I'm using the 1.8 version, not the 1.92 version.

I said, oh, well, that would be a problem because I wrote it for 9.1.92.

I said, okay.

So, and this is where I got the screenshot I showed you.

I said, could you could you write it for version 1.8?

And chat GPT's response was very seventh grade, probably.

And that's all I got.

So did you then get the rewrite?

So I said, okay, then do it.

And so I did the rewrite and it still didn't work.

But that's I think.

I'll wait until I get 1.9.

Putting in there and then I'll go back and revisit it.

I just, so I literally waited.

It was I told it.

I said, let's put a pin in this and we'll come back to it.

It was interesting because about four hours later, it came back to it and said,

now we put a pin in the branching scenario.

This would work well here with what you're doing.

Do you want to do this here?

And I said, no, let's not do that right now.

But I was impressed that it recognized at the point in the curriculum that we were working through.

It recognized that this was a good fit.

And that we should probably try it again here.

I had several weird things happen.

At some point, and I can see where people say you just kind of get sucked into that whole world.

At some point, I recognize two things about it.

One, it's kind of like Jarvis when when in Iron Man, the movies, he stands there and he just starts telling Jarvis things to do.

And it just goes to work and ask clarifying questions and it's just banging away at it, right?

Yes.

Okay, here's the second thing that I realized after working with it for two days.

My parents did this to me.

I'm saying explain that one.

I'm sitting here thinking to myself, okay, all I'm doing is directing chat GPT to go and build these certain things.

And I'm asking you to do very complex things.

I shared with you this morning some of the documents that I made where I said, build me an interdisciplinary layout crosswalk.

Of chapter one.

And then I want to launch it a layer in the math, science, and language arts, standards that correlate.

And then give me a list of suggested activities that would tie in where somebody could tie these things into those other disciplines in their classroom.

And then I said, and then I want you to do that and I want you to build it out and make it something that the district level.

And it's anything my parents used to tell me.

Ask me all kinds of questions about all kinds of things and I'd have to go and answer them where I'd have to go find it and come back to them with the answer.

You know, when I was a kid and then when I was in high school and then after that, and I was realizing holy cow.

I'm doing the chat GPT, the very same thing that my parents used to do to me.

They would ask me questions and then just use the answer and it's like, I don't know, but I'll ask Sean and he'll tell me and I'll just use that and we're good.

So just keep moving.

So that was my epiphany yesterday.

Okay.

Yeah, I know we're near as good as chat GPT, by the way.

My parents got the, not only did they get the beta version, they got like the Neanderthal beta version of it.

There you go.

Oh, I don't know where you want to go with this next.

I'm just stream of conscious flowing here.

So you, you, you kind of steer the, the book where you want to go in this conversation if you want to do this now.

That, no, no, that's good.

I, because we did have lots of conversations and then I sent along to you a meta prompt as well.

Yes, yes, you did.

Yes, you did.

Yeah, that was fun.

So go ahead.

I'm going to put them the meta prompt in the show as well, but the meta prompt really is kind of like.

Hang on, just a, just a second, I should have had this ready to go, but I obviously did not.

But the meta prompt is basically like, okay, don't, don't answer my question yet.

First, tell me what assumptions that I'm making that I haven't stated out loud.

Tell me what information you would significantly change if your answer, change your answer if you had it.

And tell me the most common mistakes people make when asking this type of question.

Then tell me, then ask me the one question that would make your answer actually useful in my specific situation rather than anyone who would ask that.

Only after I answer, give me the output.

And yes, my question is, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So it's kind of like the asking the, the AI to do the medic cognition and kind of tailor it directly to you, right?

Right.

And one of the things I ran into was every time I build something like when it's particularly working with those interdisciplinary documents, I'd run into something.

I'd finish one and then chat to you with pipe up and go, you know what would make this awesomer?

We should do this.

It's like, oh, yeah, that would be awesome.

Yeah, go do that.

And it goes back and goes, and then you know what else would be awesome if we did this.

And I'm like, oh, that would be more awesome. Let's do that.

And after a few minutes, I'm going, you're eating my tokens.

Stop it. Just go straight to super awesome and skip the rest of the other stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And this would have helped prevent that.

Yeah.

And so you did this on Marcus Aurelius.

I did do something with Marcus Aurelius.

I was doing that for my, my regular soul stage course, not the one I'm doing free labor on.

My labor's not worth much.

Wow.

I think you don't charge much for your labor, but I think your labor is worth quite a bit.

We should talk about my contract.

Yeah.

The one for the show.

You can raise.

You can double.

Stay on the contrary day.

Marcus, really, what about him?

So you created an interesting.

That was the thing that you were working on when we were talking about the meta prompt.

So I don't know if you used.

I don't know if you used the meta prompt in the other stuff too or no.

It was just the Marcus really is one.

I used it on something and then I went back to what I normally was doing for two reasons.

One.

I had to work faster because I had to get things done.

And second.

You can really go into the.

At some point.

Well, how do I.

How do I phrase this?

You can sit there and.

Weedle over every little thing.

To the point of.

Obscurity.

And.

And.

And never get anything done.

And I.

The prompt kind of was heading that direction.

And so I.

At some point, I just had to say, this is cool.

I did it once, but I'm going to go back to the other thing.

I think if I did it once and do it like down near the end of the work.

That would be helpful because then it helps refine your own thinking.

But I think it's important for the.

Prompter to do the other stuff first.

Because it engages that cognition on the promptress part to say.

I'm getting in the things that I need with the with the meta prompt that you used.

It was becoming more of.

I'm going to tell you how you're going to construct this.

And then.

And then we'll edit.

Or I'll let you edit.

Whereas I went through and I said, no, no, no, here's the foundation thoughts first.

And you're going to use that as the foundation.

And then build off of that with the meta prompt.

So that we're having a consistent.

It's my conversation that your conversation.

Does.

Yeah, does.

Okay, it does.

And then Marcus Relius.

And then the Marcus Relius one was really interesting.

And I thought that was really neat for middle school.

Specifically.

I don't know if you have you posted that anywhere or is it just.

I have not.

I shared it with you.

But I probably will post it now.

So first of all, we should probably tell everybody what the Marcus Relius thing is.

Yes.

We.

We should.

So tell me we.

I mean you.

I mean you.

Wait, I mean you.

So let me explain.

I'll explain what it is just really quick.

I wanted a project.

I'm.

I want a simulation.

We're in to roll.

And I want my kids to understand.

Why Julius Caesar is considered both hero and villain at the same time.

And then I'm going to force my kids to make a decision.

I'm going to use my short answer dot com.

And have them.

Have that debate in their writing.

Online with each other.

Right.

I'm going to.

We're going to try to game into it.

But.

But they don't know what they don't know.

Right.

So I need something.

I need something.

They have to have some sort of background.

That now what the.

I had a great comment.

Monday or Tuesday.

One of the girls in my first hour.

Turned to me.

And she goes, Mr.

You know what I'm learning?

I said, tell me.

What is it that you're learning?

She goes, I'm learning that people in old times were not as dumb as I thought they were.

I said, that's interesting.

What does that mean?

What do you mean by that?

She goes, no, she says,

I thought they were absolutely stupid and idiots.

And she goes and turns out.

They weren't.

They knew a whole lot of things.

And so she started talking about how she had this preconception going in that.

That people from ancient times were just dumb.

You know, why didn't they just go and do that?

You know, how come they didn't do that?

And.

So I thought that was really interesting and profound.

And then I thought I really need these kids.

To see.

That the past really applies to themselves right now.

That's, by the way, for those of you in the Michigan audience, that's H one dot one dot or H one dot two dot one standards.

You use that one all the time in seventh grade.

And so I said, Marcus really is right.

We're talking about the philosopher king.

The Greeks idealized the philosopher king.

Marcus really has had that philosopher king status.

And his book of meditations is still a best seller.

Wow.

Let's let's bring this.

Let's really bring this into focus the sharpen that.

And so I use the chat GPT and I said, hey, I need some quotes.

Marcus are really as quotes that really apply to middle schoolers.

I said, we're going to make a we're going to make a project out of this.

You're going to help me with this.

And then we started building and I said, here's what I want to do.

I want quotes that apply to the kids lives.

I said, then I want you to create a scenario where that quote applies.

So the kids see the quote.

But the scenario then is something where they have to take the quote and they have to apply it.

And then I want, I want three levels of application.

I want regular.

I want special ed.

And then I want you to create a prompt that is challenging and complex.

But not more work, not busy work.

So there's three levels of prompts.

And I want to give the kids a chance then to try the regular mild medium and spicy as the term.

We've been using in our district.

Right.

So there's a mild question.

There's a medium question.

And there's a spicy question.

So one is easy.

Regular and difficult.

That's cool, but something else maybe in the future.

But.

And so it's got those three types of things.

And so the kids actually have to work through the quote.

They have to then work through the scenario.

And I had them.

I had make up.

I said, apply it to middle school.

You know, what are the issues and things that we're seeing in the middle school?

And then create a scenario that fits the quote.

So the kids didn't have to analyze.

And then it turns into what would you do in the situation?

Use the quote.

Figure it out and make the application.

Because that's one of the things that this group of seventh graders that I have is really struggling with.

Just on a maturation level.

My kids.

My kids right now.

In in March.

Or right about where.

They should have been maturation wise in.

September.

Right.

And it's been a lot of work to say to teach them right to be seventh graders.

We're working on that.

Behavior is learned.

And we've been working on that this year.

And they're just now getting to that part where it's not like trying to hug a porcupine.

Right.

Yeah, so.

So I made this.

I made this packet.

And I'm going to use it as a.

I'm going to give one section to each.

I have six tables in my room.

So I wanted six quotes.

And I'm going to give them the scenario page with the quote.

And then I'm going to have them report out to the class.

The scenario.

Quote.

And what their decision was on how they would handle the situation based on the on the quote.

And then I'm going to have them teach each other.

Yeah, that's where I was going to go with that.

That's that I think is really awesome.

And this is one of those things that I thought when I saw it.

I thought.

Wasn't limited to social studies or studying Rome or ancient.

I thought this was a great.

Advisory activity.

It's a chance for kids to really think about like who do they want to be.

What's important and thinking about them.

Thinking about themselves kind of thing.

So I just thought that was that fit in there for me is like.

I think this should be fun.

Advisory activities.

And then you could, you know, use the quotes to remind kids.

Hey, think about it.

Think about your impact in the world.

Think about who you want to be.

Think about that kind of thing.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think about eliminating the scenario cards.

And having the kids then write their stuff on a piece of paper.

And that way I can just make it a folder activity right where I can just pull it out and use it.

I put it back in the folder and put it in the filing cabinet.

It's funny.

Oh, it is because nobody uses filing cabinets anymore.

No filing cabinet.

You want to hide something from admin, put it in the filing cabinet.

Yeah.

All right.

The other thing you were working on was vocabulary support.

This was a, you know, this ended up being kind of a H5P,

the Moodle kind of blend, right?

Are we talking about the fifth grade course or the your prefixes suffixes root course?

Whichever one you want to talk about first.

Sure.

Okay.

So, oh, first you want both.

Okay.

I did.

Oh, I see how it is.

Glad that you picked that up.

Dance, lucky dance.

So.

I did.

So I started working.

I had a language arts teacher came to me and said.

I need something for prefixes, suffixes, and roots.

The kids are just, they just need review and they just are not in there.

They need, and they need a satisfying message that I can help with that.

Do you have a list of prefixes, suffixes, and roots that you want them to focus on?

Yes.

I've got a piece of paper and hands it to me.

I'll show you.

I'm holding up the Troy right now.

She was.

Wow.

This is, this is handwritten to this.

Yes.

This typed out.

This is handwritten.

Well, and it's researched because what she did is she went through.

And I wish I could, I think it's the I ready assessment.

She went through the I ready assessment and pulled out exactly which prefixes suffixes and roots.

All the kids in our team are, are just dropping the ball on.

And so she did, she did a lot of work to put this together.

And I'm glad she did it.

Not me.

Right.

Yeah.

So she identified.

And so the other thing is that these prefixes, suffixes, and roots are very unique to our team.

It's, I don't know that we can take this and hand this to the other seventh grade team and say.

Hey, here's the fix to your problem.

Right.

Well, I guess my guess is probably the same as probably happening there too.

But I can't, I can't say that with any definitiveness.

That's just a guess.

And so I did.

I went through and I said, all right, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to break these into chunks.

And then what we'll do is we'll, we'll present these prefixes.

We'll start with prefixes.

Let's, we'll present these in several different ways.

And we'll give the kids a chance to play with them and work with them.

In, in, in multiple different ways, using H5P.

And she got nervous and she goes, I said, I said, I'll do this for you.

I said, but you have to promise me something.

She goes, what?

I said, if there's a problem, one, you're not going to give up in number two.

You're going to tell me so I can fix it.

She says, okay.

And so, you know, we did.

We ran into a problem.

I forgot to add questions to the prefix pre-test for the special aid kits.

Not problem and not hard.

That's easy fix.

But if you ran into the problem and I'm not standing in the room,

a lot of teachers are like, no, throw that away.

We're trying something else.

Right.

And she did.

So she said, this kid's having a problem.

Can you fix this?

It said him over.

I fixed it, sent him back.

She's like, well, that was pretty easy.

You're okay.

We're going to be all right.

I got this.

And something else happened and it wasn't a problem.

It was that the kid didn't read.

And once we fix that, well, everything's all right.

If you could just fix the kid actually reading, that would be.

If you could send me a non-problem, kid, I can fix this problem easier.

Yeah.

No, that's what it was.

The kid was trying to do something wrong.

You know, not clicking the right place, for example.

And I was like, no, no, read it.

What does it say?

And what are you supposed to be doing?

Oh, okay.

All right.

You're good.

Go back and get the word.

Okay.

So you did.

You ran across all of this.

Everything was fine.

But what we're doing is we're taking those prefixes.

I'll share with you what I did.

We're taking those prefixes.

And I decided to play with them.

And I did an H5P activity where I said, give me a root word for each of these prefixes.

And then I had the kid's end of definition.

And so I listed in a center column the root word.

And the kid then has to take the prefix, attach it to the front of the word by a drag and drop.

And then has to go find the definition and put it next to that new word.

Because one of the problems they were having was that they, you know, they were taking the word.

And if you added a prefix to it, suddenly they said, I don't know what that means.

It's like, well, no, you do know what it means.

You just have to work it out.

And they weren't doing that.

They weren't making those connections.

And so we're doing that.

And she's really happy with that.

She likes that activity.

We're doing a glossary activity.

She thinks that's wonderful.

We're doing a board activity where the kids I put the root or the prefix at the top.

And the kids didn't have to go find as many words that have that prefix attached to it and list it in a column.

You know, down the board activity.

I'm doing.

Speak the prefix.

And she thinks that's absolutely hilarious to hear all these kids talking to the computers.

What else do we have that we've done?

I did a context clues activity where the clues are inside a drag and drop.

And so you read the story.

It made the story, right?

And I made the story apply to her into her classroom.

And then the kids then have to drag and drop the things into the text to make to complete the text.

Make it work.

H5P has been a wonderful, wonderful tool for this.

And then with Moodle that allows you to create the groups because you made reference to.

Oh, yes.

You didn't do the special special ed quiz or a special ed activity pre quiz.

So you're using groups as well, which means you can kind of cost easily customized.

Who sees what kind of thing?

Absolutely.

There's two quizzes in there, right?

There's a regular ed quiz and there's a special ed quiz.

And the regular kids only see their quiz.

So here's what I did.

The regular ed kids are androids.

And especially kids are iPhones.

And so even if they see the other ones quiz, it doesn't say redbirds, bluebirds, and buzzards.

It says androids.

I have the Android quiz.

Oh, so you got that version.

Okay.

I got a knife on quiz.

Oh, you got that version.

Okay.

Right.

And they're the same content.

But the special ed questions are fewer choices.

And a few distractors, I should say.

And fewer numbers of questions.

And I got yelled at by the special ed teacher.

She says, don't give them anything higher than a DOK2.

Okay.

Only one of you.

I got you.

So when it pulls from the question bank, it's only pulling from DOK one and two from questions

that were specifically made for special ed, not from the other ones.

Now the androids.

Androids have to pull their test pulls from a test bank that includes DOK123 and four.

And then I intentionally put some analogies in there as a DOK3.

They have analogie questions to put in there to answer.

Because we want to start.

Have them start thinking in PSAT question format.

Yep.

Probably more information you ever wanted.

No, no, I see that's what I think.

That's where I think a lot of this power lies.

And I don't I don't think I talked about this last week.

So somebody in one of the groups that I'm in an instructional tech kind of person,

instructional coach posted something along the lines of I have 150 activities

that I personally have created for CSA.

And the district is going to not, not renew to CSA.

Where can I move these two?

And that's where, did you ever say something and realize like you hadn't said it

until somebody spits it back to you?

No, you said this.

Oops.

But apparently, I mean, as a teacher, you know that right.

But apparently at one time we'd been talking and I had said, you know,

you're always investing in someone.

You're either investing in someone else or you're investing in yourself.

And it was one of those moodle conversations.

And somebody apparently climbed onto that and they spit it back to me.

They're like, yeah, we should invest in ourselves.

And that's what I was like.

You've invested all this stuff.

And I mean, if the district decides they're not going to support moodle,

then that could go away as well.

But the cost there is much lower to do that.

And that's just one of those things that I think that like if teachers understand

like, where are you investing?

What capabilities do you have?

And I think it's powerful that like you have all of this differentiation built in.

And you're not dependent upon anybody else doing it.

Right?

And you have control over that.

Of course, there's also the differentiation where you're doing this for other people as well.

But that's a separate issue.

That's a Sean issue.

Oh, yeah.

Sean has more.

Sean has a lot of time.

Does he?

Who is this guy?

I've got to meet this guy.

Apparently.

So yeah.

I'm interested in what you posted next in the show notes.

Tell me about this.

So the.

I had a chance.

I thought it was.

Our Mac.

Mac rap gave me a call the other day and said, you know, like to swing by.

And like, that'd be great.

Like, I'll bring a new.

Mac book.

Neil in the new.

M five air.

Okay.

Cool.

Okay.

So brought the Mac book.

Neil.

Because that I think is going to be our student choice next year.

Hmm.

It will.

Very nice.

It will save significant amount of money.

And.

So we looked at it.

It reminds me much more of you like playing Mac book.

Of a few years ago.

Okay.

It.

It just kind of looks a little simpler.

It still looks like a Mac.

It's still.

You know, still running the full Mac OS.

It's only got eight gigs of RAM, which was.

Which is like the one area that I think we have some concern over.

But all of the testing in that.

And it does run AI stuff.

Which I thought was interesting.

Because they had upped everything else to 16 gigs to run AI stuff.

But it runs out.

And all the reviews online are.

That it.

That it is a pretty useful device.

It is kind of way beyond the Chromebook.

And not quite to Mac book air level.

I still have that Mac book air, not air, but the.

The very bare bones Mac book that I took to China.

I still have that.

I love that form factor and I love the light.

Easiness of it.

I carry a MacBook Pro now.

And it's more power than what I really eat.

Use it for it.

But when I'm done with that, I plan on turning into something that is useful inside my classroom.

I'll just use it there.

But my my iPad.

My big iPad is actually more powerful than my.

My MacBook with when it comes to chip wise.

It just does certain things differently.

That's all.

But I find myself I gravitating more towards my.

And not just because I like tablets, but.

I find myself if I have to pick up a device to use.

I'm picking up my iPad.

And I'm working on my iPad with stuff and.

I am still.

Very differentiated.

I use my iPad every day, but I use it as a consumption.

If I'm reading things, I will definitely pick up my iPad.

That's a good point.

Yes.

And same here.

It's my iPad is my input debt into my own brain type of thing.

Right.

If I'm producing and creating, I'm coming into this room and I'm working on the studio.

That's me too.

And if I'm dealing with mail, I'm not doing it on the iPad.

It still is not.

It's much quicker for me to deal with mail on the computer.

So see, I can and I'll do mail and I've had no problem.

So I'm.

And I'm using.

I highlight.

I highlight, you know, I know the, I know that you can highlight multiple emails at once and delete them all at once or archive them or.

Whatever you need to do with them.

And I do that.

But it's like it's still, it's just so much faster and easier for me to do that on a computer that I do that.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just responding.

When I use it for email, I'm just responding and taking care of whatever I got to take care of at the moment.

Yeah.

All the heavy, all the heavy lifting is done in here.

So I think the MacBook Neo looks like a winner.

I did think it was interesting that our, my Apple rep bought one that she had purchased for her husband.

Because he needs a new computer and told him he couldn't have it yet until she gets her official Apple.

Try it.

It's like, yep, that's what it's like to be married to an Apple rep.

That's funny.

I bought you a new computer, but you can't have it yet.

I think back to when I first bought an iPad, I bought the very first iPad years ago.

And I took it to a conference.

And that was back when my mom was alive.

And I had been letting her use it because she loved looking up recipes and she would just, because you could use your fingers, right?

Yeah.

And she was mad that I, how dare I take my own iPad and I go to a conference and I use it.

Yeah, just you buy your own.

Wait, I bought this one.

It's my own.

I did.

So mom, you buy your own.

And in order to buy one, you may want to head over to the social web.

Oh, yeah.

MLE has got this is the month of the young adolescent, right?

So this is middle, middle level month.

I can't remember what the exact terminology is anymore.

But there's all kinds of things happening over at MLE for middle level month.

But they've also got post articles as brain science is not a fad when an entire faculty understands how learning works.

Collective efficacy rises and students benefit Glenn Whitman joins our podcast to share guiding principles from his school's 18 year focus on the science of learning.

There's a link in the show notes for that.

I thought that was cool that they posted that.

Even Castello, a new article from the amazing alternatives to instrumentalist online learning in higher education project with Jason K McDonald and James Brunton.

I learned so much working with them, a genetic online learning how university staff make the work or their work matter.

I included the thread in the whole because he posted three or four of these things.

And I thought it was interesting how the staff found a purpose in a sense of purpose because they reflected on their work.

They created activities that were not just simple busy work like worksheet type activities.

And in creating work that was meaningful, they created it made their work meaningful at the same time.

And that's the direction we kind of need to have our staff start focusing on instead of fill out this pick a slide and fill it out.

The type of things where kids are just copying and pasting and throwing it to a slide and not being really creative. They're just there.

Yeah, doing stuff.

This is something I think I want to delve into more and talk about with some folks at work because I think if we turn our work into something that's agentic and empowering our students, we're going to feel that same type of excess because we had a hand in making something like that.

So what are they, what is it that there's, is there something because I started reading it, but I haven't read it yet.

What is it that they're proposing here or advocating for?

It just reflect on the work that you make and then when you evaluate it, is it, is it something that is.

You should go back to DOK levels one, two, three, and four, right?

Yeah, are they operating at the kids operating at a, what cognition level are the kids operating?

And are you operating at that level where you're creating those things?

Because when you operate at that level, that's the reward. That's the piece that says, oh, I created something that was meaningful.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Didn't mean to put you on the spot there, but thank you.

We would do this for what? How many years?

I've got practice. It's been a while.

Yeah, it's been a little bit. Eric Kurtz has a new gem.

Deca roleplay sim, inactive practice tool design help Deca students prepare for impromptu roleplay events.

That is cool. That's mostly a high school thing, but you could use it with your kids for like,

a shark tank type of scenario type of thing.

Emily has, I don't forget, the deadline to participate in this year's student sound off contest is April 3rd.

There's a link in our show notes. It's amle.org slash sound off.

Kids can sound off on their middle school experience by responding to one of our prompts in any format of their choosing artwork, photography, video, music, essays, poetry.

But be very honest. They're saying anything. Just send us something.

So I told my kids and my kids are doing this as an assignment in my fourth hour class, my exploratory class.

I said, I want you to express in what it means to be a middle schooler.

And because they have a preclivity for the negative, I said, now, are they really interested in you gripping about what your life is like?

And they stopped from it and they're like, no, I said, would you pick something that was gripping?

Yeah. No, we wouldn't do that. I said, so when we create our projects, we will, we'll avoid that. So, okay, there you go. You got the idea.

Let's celebrate what it means to be a middle schooler. Let's not just complain.

So I'm looking forward to see what they did to present their projects here after break.

If we're heading into testing season, with us a weird, I want to rat hole here for just a second.

So it's a weird part of the calendar. I just said Thursday and Friday off for Eid.

And then I'm going to be in PDM Monday. And it's going to be a three and a half day week because Fridays, I have day four.

Grades end of the quarter. And then we come back for a couple days and it's spring break.

Or no, I think we don't come back. I think it's spring break.

And then that's a week. And then, and you know, it's, it's, it's a really sharp slide right into the end of the year.

We got testing. We've got state testing coming up. We have PSAT testing coming up. We've got I ready testing coming up.

There's essentially four or five weeks left of like real instruction left.

Wow. I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it. Try just not going to make it.

You'll make it. We've got marches are long month because we have a break in February and a break in April.

But that's why my feeders are no breaks in March.

Well, we should keep Indiana learning at keep Indiana learning.

Yep. Stop searching and start discovering. Get Ed tech tips, book studies, fast teacher tips and monthly shows all on our YouTube channel.

PD that hits or I'm sorry, it fits your schedule and interests. Check it out.

And there's a link in our show notes to their YouTube channel. Keep in to keep Indiana learning has some really, really good stuff.

So you can make it when you strategies for learning.

Excellent. And you might even want to sing along or make some music if you're doing that.

Yeah, I went to Suno and I said, I need a I need an anthem for this fifth grade social studies history course thingy I'm doing for free.

I need something motivates me. So I did I went in and I made myself an anthem.

As Dorian's anthem in Suno and then I went over to the course and I put it at the top.

And in fact, I found two that I like. So I put them both in there and they can play that.

And I'm going to tell the fifth grade teachers is it's your vision. It's your audio cue, natural visual. It's your audio cue.

When you hit that, the kids will know we're in soul studies, right.

And so you can kind of turn it into a fun thing instead of saying, all right, put your books away.

We're going to do just hit that and then watch the move, right.

And then we haven't have kids. We're joining with a couple other schools for a trip to Washington DC.

And we need to help fill a second bus and thinking we probably need a motivational song.

And the sixth grade teacher said, you know, I got the slideshow. I kind of need to need some audio.

I shared her through the historians once she goes, could you just put that in there? I was like, no, we need.

We need an anthem for Washington DC, a trip, a road song. We need a road song.

So I made a road song and then I'll share that with the kids and that's going to go with slideshow.

And yeah, so I put the links in the show notes for your interested in just having some fun with it.

Click on the thing. You can leave a comment. You can leave a rating. You can ask some questions. You can download it. It's all yours.

Okay. Just real quick. I got a couple of things to talk about.

And that is there's a game called survival of the best fit.

And this is something that the kids can play online.

Okay.

And it's to teach them the idea of bias.

Oh.

And what it is is like you're like, congratulations. You have a million dollars for your company.

You need to hire people.

And so they present people, you know, different candidates and you either accept to reject them.

And it becomes where you get timed. Like you can't sit there forever going.

You know, you only get so much time.

And you get feedback like, well, the investors want you to work a little faster on these things.

So it's kind of interesting. And it's something that the kids can do to you can discuss bias and.

And just like who who's a good fit like what does it mean to be a good fit for a job.

And then there was what I thought was a really interesting.

Article by G young.

And it is early grade retention harms adult earnings.

So we know, you know, you've, we've heard about the Mississippi miracle where holding kids back in third grade.

And what they did is this is a Texas study.

And they did a longitudinal study, not just how did those kids then do the next year on the third grade.

But how did they, how did that interact with graduation rates and future earning rates.

And it turns out that being retained in third grade does not equate to more earnings in the future or a better graduate graduation rate.

So when we, some of these things, there's short term effects and long term effects.

And we have to consider both as we move forward.

One of the long term effects we would, when the short term and long term effects that we would appreciate is if you would tell a friend and neighbor post on the socials about middle school matters.

And head over to the podcast, catcher of your choice, give us a five star rating.

Heck, we'd really love that if you'd give us a comment, tell us why Sean is the world's greatest coach of hosts.

And of course, there's links to everything we talked about this week and more over at middleschoolmatters.com.

And that, this has been middle school matters for middle school educators who care.

All opinions expressed on this podcast are exclusively the opinions of the hosts and guests and not indicative of any employer.