On December 31, I posted about middle school math teacher Dylan, in Colorado. Yes, that Colorado.
Dylan is a treasure - a remarkable thinker about the day-to-day, hour by hour math teacher experience. He likes to change up his teaching practice. So he was pondering no tech in class for the month of January.
I jumped into action, offering him a Weird Al “Amish Paradise” CD if he actually did it. Center for Teen Flourishing spares no expense. I figure if his school district sues him for not using all their tech, we will chip into the legal defense fund using all this Substack cash.
Generally, CTF stays in our 3pm to 3am lane. But we worry tech-in-schools from 8am to 3pm leads to, for some teens, a really bad 7pm to bedtime experience - whatever its “during classroom time” merits. Many teens essentially imprison themselves in their bedrooms after dinner, “owing” homework but unable to get it done, in part because the homework itself is literally on the cocaine of laptop/cellphone.)
Here’s the update on Dylan’s tech free classroom. He writes:
I’m loving it. Things I like:
Separate from the technology stuff, this is a great way to mix up my routines and get me trying new things. I think that’s good for any teacher — mix up some routines that have been static for a while, see what something different feels like, see what else you can come up with.
Biggest benefit is not fussing with technology. No “my Chromebook is dead” or “I forgot my Chromebook” or “this charger isn’t working” or “the website isn’t loading” or “you forgot to post it to Google Classroom” etc. I knew I would like this but I actually underestimated it.
Side note — Chromebooks are physically out of the room. This was a coincidence. Our science teacher had been trying a system where kids leave backpacks outside. For some reason our school has lockers but not enough for all students to have a locker, so they bring backpacks with them. That leads to issues, mostly around food and random toys coming out during class, one more thing for teachers to police. Anyway, science teacher had students leave backpacks outside. It went well, and the entire 7/8 team agreed to try it together. I have two narrow tables outside my room for students to leave their backpacks on. They walk in with a pencil and that’s it. It’s been lovely.
I’ll also emphasize that our phone system is working well. 9-12 grades are actually doing a huge phone reset tomorrow, their system is a mess. Pouches didn’t work very well. But our phone safes, away for the day system has been great. This helps since that means one fewer distraction to fight with.
Ok let’s talk about learning. I feel much more responsive to student thinking. Part of the premise of tech is that we have tons of data but I often find it overwhelming, or I become the “are you actually working” police which is different from thinking about thinking. I’m talking to students about their work more, adjusting more in response to their work.
Along those lines I’m building a new end-of-class routine. Still some mixed practice to end class like I usually did with DeltaMath, but we end class with a quick round on mini whiteboards addressing a common mistake. Feels connected to that last point.
Variety of problem types. DeltaMath has something like 2k skills, but they can still feel predictable and stale. I’m using LLMs a bit to generate problems but still, way more variety putting the computers away. I think that’s important.
I’m not seeing a difference in work completion/effort for lower-performing students so far. Not sure what to make of that, we’re still getting into new routines. Don’t want to draw any conclusions too early.
Providing extra support: I’m doing less individually, but more whole-class work in response to common mistakes. Some of that may be adjusting to new routines.
Students have broadly responded really well. Some students say they miss Chromebooks but the reasons were mixed, some good some bad. Very few real complaints or negativity. Lots of students like it. They also totally understand my reasoning.
Other things:
It’s been a bunch of effort to build new systems. That’s fine but I’m curious where it will settle. Had to redesign my mixed practice assignments to end class twice last week. Normal stuff, as I’m experimenting some things don’t work. Wonder how long it will be to find a consistent system that’s lower-effort for me.
Grading is a bit longer. That said, tomorrow I’m trying a new system to follow up on a quiz. Digital quizzes are easy to grade, easy for absent students to make up, but harder to get kids looking at their work and learning from it.
I wrote a post a while back, “variety is the spice of math class.” Definitely feels like less variety without Chromebooks. Worth the tradeoff? Maybe but that will be one factor pushing me to bring back tech down the road
If I bring back tech, what would it look like? I love having them out of the room, no issues, nothing to worry about for the entire class. Would I do one day per week? I don’t know.
Mike here. We’ll check in soon to see if Dylan continues this in Feb….