Zach Diamond  0:03  
Welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. Each week, we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other. So this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the modern classrooms project podcast. Hello, and welcome to episode number 174 of the modern classrooms project podcast. My name is Zack diamond and I'm a middle school digital music teacher in Washington DC, and a modern classrooms implementer and mentor. And today I'm joined by a Project Lead the Way biomedical science teacher and modern classrooms implementer Steve Charmin welcome to the podcast. Steve. I'm really glad to have you.

Steve Schlarman  0:53  
Hello, thank you for having me today. I'm really excited to talk about stuff today that has been bothering me all year long. 

Zach Diamond  1:00  
Yeah, I'm really excited to get into that too. Because I know, this is sort of foreshadowing I guess. But I know, like half of the story. And I'm excited to hear the other half of the story from you today. So looking forward to this episode, we're going to be talking about planning for multiple preps. And by multiple preps. I mean, when a teacher teaches more than one course at the same time, so we call them preps, at least here in the US in English, different courses that you teach simultaneously and see if when I said that I knew about half of the story, you actually reached out to us by email to ask us, like you said, basically, were overwhelmed by the number of preps that you had. And you had you were wondering if we had any advice that you had already been implementing the model and you just asked us for advice, which I first of all, think is awesome that you just emailed us at the podcast because I love that. So I guess just a quick reminder to listeners, we do have an email address. If you don't listen all the way to the end podcast at modern classrooms.org. Email us we'd love to hear from you. And look at this. You never know when your question might wind up getting a whole episode dedicated to it.

Steve Schlarman  2:06  
I wanted to make sure that my students were supported on a one on one basis from I didn't want them to feel like they were going through the motions and feeling that they were being left behind. I wanted them to experience as much of this curriculum as possible is very intense and difficult curriculum without feeling like they didn't have that support. And so monitor classroom was really the only way I felt like I can do that. Like I said, it fits me like a glove. I have to make every assignment tailored to my classroom, from the curriculum that I get from but it's not a bad thing to really look at that curriculum and try to make it something that feels like yours instead.

Zach Diamond  2:53  
I guess I feel like I should say the topic of the episode is planning for multiple preps. But I think that a lot of teachers, even with very few preps could still feel overwhelmed by the amount of planning that it takes to, to get a modern classroom off the ground or just frankly, to be a teacher. Because teaching is hard. But talk to me about some of the challenges specifically that you faced that sort of led you to write us and ask about how to manage specifically planning for multiple preps?

Steve Schlarman  3:20  
Absolutely. Because it is definitely very different from your normal science teacher. Most standard biology teachers at the high school level might have one or two labs a units whereas I have one or two labs a week per class. So I am constantly staying after school and figuring out a way to set up labs, I'll have to be pouring bacterial ag our plates one night, so we can use them in a Transformation Lab. And the next night I might be doing stations for different assessments and the students will learn how to do in a physical exam and, and even the kids in my junior level classes. They're doing things that I was doing as a researcher in genetics with the USDA. So those labs are very advanced, which means the prep is very advanced and advanced. It just takes lots and lots of time. That's all there is to that. There was even days where I would pack a lunch and a dinner because I knew I was going to be at school for that long time. And just tell my wife, hey, I'll come home mentally. And so don't get me wrong. It's like my dream job. But I know that if I continue to do it at this pace, and I continue to have these long nights where I'm either planning for the next day or planning for the next lab. I won't last very long it's it's just going to be a matter of time before I lose that passion. And even if I stay in teaching with that kind of loss, then my students have lost something really special that makes this program so unique me This system makes you become organized. And believe me, I'm one of the most disorganized people out there. If I was doing this, without modern classrooms, my lab would be a disaster. That's just the way it is. And so I can focus on the day to day routine of running the classroom, because I have this organizational support for myself. And that makes monitor class or that makes classroom management easier. That makes building relationships easier, that makes me less anxious, when I see that I have an interruption like a fire drill, or a class meeting coming up, I can, I can manage those things, because of the modern classroom project. But the bad news is that it's a lot of upfront work, even with the courses that I'm familiar with. It'll take me several days to assemble everything for that one unit, and at the assignments to my liking, and check that all the statements are addressed, then make copies, then make mastery checks, then make a unit assessment and then create virtual versions of the assignments in Canvas for anyone who does end up missing a bunch of school. And oh, by the way, you're probably doing all of this while your students are preparing for a unit exam already. So they need extra support in the classroom at exactly the same time, you need to give yourself extra support, just to get things planned.

Zach Diamond  6:25  
I also started modern classrooms in 2019. So this is what our fourth or fifth year using this model, right. And I don't have a new curriculum. So I've actually had the time now to basically plan the units, I was already teaching these units, and I sort of converted them to modern classrooms. So I've been able to plan them, and now tweak them, and really fine tune them so that they work really well with the model. And what I'm finding is that the delivery of instruction isn't the main teaching. There's not the body of the teaching that I do. That happens in the classroom, when I can talk with the students. And so like, I've I've actually taken my foot off the gas a little bit with regard to tweaking my units, because they don't really even notice like, unless I get something actually wrong, or or there's something in EdPuzzle, that just doesn't make any sense. And I know that I messed up when I was planning and shooting the video. I don't I haven't been changing that much. And it just frees up my time. My planning time to follow up with kids where I need to or to reach out to parents and guardians. And so yeah, I would I would also fully endorse that. The front loading is tough, especially if you have four different preps. I mean, I never had that. But it is hopefully worth it. Because after the front loading, the years after the teaching just become so much more substantive. Because well, first of all the materials are there, you're teaching with the kids, you're there in the classroom, and you're planning time becomes more productive, because you're doing other things that aren't planning that unit that's already planned.

Steve Schlarman  8:07  
First, they ended up telling me that if I gave some of my lab prep work to my upper level students, they might be looking for that experience in the lab, which is amazing. And I would definitely love to teach those kids how to make chemical solutions and be able to pour back our plates. So I didn't have to. But unfortunately, none of my students have been able to take me up on the opportunity, because there's so much curriculum that they have to get through. And I am just one small piece of their pie that they have in so many activities, so many honors courses. It just doesn't fit with them, unfortunately. So yeah, they're interested. But do they have time for it? No, do I have time for it? No, someone's gonna have time for it. I guess it's going to be me. Another piece of information or advice that they gave me was to try to automate my mastery checks as much as possible. And that's always a good piece of advice for anyone new to modern classrooms. But I actually really prefer open ended questions for my mastery checks because I have to prepare my students for an end of course exam. So it doesn't seem like I'll be able to really prepare them for the exam with multiple choice questions, even if they are higher order thinking and difficult questions. It doesn't feel like I'll be able to get them to that point. If I just stick with multiple choice automated only in formative or something like that. And until we get AI to grade everything that we do, it doesn't seem like it would be feasible for me to really hand off the responsibilities of grading those mastery checks and giving valuable feedback. Yeah, the big question is what does actually work so I did find Some things from my talks with the modern classroom mentors that actually helped out a lot. The first thing was that I now devote one specific prep to each day of the week. So my freshman class will be the only thing that I work on on a Monday, and my sophomores only on the Tuesday. It just so happens, my juniors only see me on Wednesdays for their block day, they don't see me on the Thursday. So that's perfect, because that's right after my plan, period, and I can have a lab running running for them right away. I don't have to worry about staying after school on Tuesdays for that reason. So some days are gonna end up being really heavy. But it's now more predictable. And so that ahead of time, oh, I can see that my hard deadline for my freshman classes coming up, I need to have my Progress Tracker ready for that Monday, and all the copies for that unit to roll out for the Monday after that. Something that my student actually, one of my students last year, told me after having my class, she organized her to do lists based on must do should do and aspire do tasks because she had my class that has the must, you should do and aspire to do system there. So I decided to give it a shot for myself. And Wesley said it should do that too. So why not, I now have a life that is organized in must do should do aspire to do tasks. Yeah, that's great. And I can, I can really just focus on the things that really matter. Now I have the musters in front of me, the should use are no longer a problem. And this fired us or something I can do, if I really think about next year or something like that. The last piece of information that I got from Tony rose specifically, and this is going to be the most touchy feely, we talked about how to really be patient and lenient with yourself. And it really got cracked on my school that it's okay to take some shortcuts here, it's not necessarily going to be perfect the first time around, and it shouldn't be perfect the first time around, you should be learning how to improve your craft every single year. So what's perfect the first year, you're not going to be a better teacher the next year. And not to say that things were ever perfect in the classroom before I have the same manic energy as an emergency room a lot of times, but Tony rose reminded me that my best is not just going to be good enough, it's going to be highly effective. And so my second best will still be pretty amazing, my third best will still be great. And so on so forth, I have to give myself a slack in order to be able to reasonably accomplish my second and third best attempts at this daunting task of having four prime periods at once. So as long as I'm creating a positive learning environments, where every student can be engaged in my curriculum, and is able to know their progress towards meeting my standards, the job should be considered done and should be considered done well. And I, I want every listener to really feel like they're hearing that for the first time. If you have to go and steal a reading assignment from an online textbook, or if you have to give the students an animation that you found on YouTube, rather than recording a lecture for yourself. Or if you have to just a lab just to condense it a little bit. Or worst case scenario, if you have only half the Unit ready at the beginning of the unit, know that it's okay that your students are never going to outpace you first off, you're always going to be ahead of them no matter what. And not only is it okay for you to give yourself some slack. But it helps me focus on the important stuff, which is the feedback that you're going to give the students. But it's why I'm such a proponent of open ended questions for mastery checks and exams for that matter. I can have my students literally draw diagrams, make a script, use a T chart, write paragraphs upon paragraphs, or just give me the bullet points, if it's just an identification kind of standard. And I get to decide when they've met that standard, or talk it out with them with the heavens. So that not only allows me to understand exactly where my students are at all times. But it allows me to have that next piece that relationship building as I guide them through where things went wrong.

Zach Diamond  14:39  
I imagine trying to give feedback on a true or false or multiple choice question. And it's like, what feedback can I give that I couldn't automate into there anyway? Like, you got the answer wrong. The right answer is this. But it doesn't tell me why they got the answer wrong and with an open ended question, they have to actually to produce something like you said, there's different types of things that can produce, it could be a drawing, it could be a graphic could be writing, in my case, it's, it's music, like it's a screenshot of a DAW showing their music, they had to make that. And so if they did something wrong, I can see what they did wrong. And I can, it really helps me to sort of pinpoint where the misconception is or where the misunderstanding is. And like you said, it leads to dialogue with the student, it leads to me having a conversation to ask them, Why did you put this here? Like was that on purpose? Did you not realize you were doing that? Was it an accident? It it's, it's just a it's just a much more authentic way to spark a conversation around what the student doesn't know yet. And, and really help them to grow and help them to learn.

Steve Schlarman  15:52  
I get to differentiate instruction not only based on their skill level, and their needs, but on their personal topic to topic, interests. And that's, that's all you could ask for. And I get to have them, by the way, present that to faculty and industry leaders from companies like Bayer and DuPont. And I'm so happy that I get to do that, because last year, we actually entered them into contests. And two of my eight seniors from last year took home scholarships for their efforts and their projects. And we swept the Biomedical Science category for this thing that I call just class.

Zach Diamond  16:29  
How cool. Thank you so much, Steve. This has been a pleasure. And I'm really happy to have now to have the other half of the story filled in for me. Thank you so much for joining me. Absolutely.

Steve Schlarman  16:43  
Thank you for your time today,

Zach Diamond  16:44  
Zach, of course. Thank you listeners. Remember, you can always email us at podcasts at modern classrooms that org just like Steve did. And you can find the show notes for this episode at podcast dot modern classrooms.org/ 174. We'll have this episode's recap and transcripts uploaded to the modern classrooms blog on Friday, so be sure to check their check back in the show notes for this episode if you'd like to access those. And we are asking our listeners to leave a review. If this podcast has been helpful in supporting you to create a blended self paced, mastery based learning environment. It does help other folks find the podcast so we would really appreciate that. Otherwise, thank you all so much for listening. Have a great week, and we'll be back next Sunday. Thank you so much for listening. You can find links to topics and tools we discussed in our show notes for this episode. And remember, you can learn more about our work at WWW dot modern classrooms.org. And you can learn the essentials of our model through our free course at Learn dot modern classrooms.org. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at modern class prize. That's PR o j we are so appreciative of all you do for students in schools. Have a great week and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the modern classrooms project podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai