There is One... Among Us...

 This week I decided to try to incorporate the wildly popular game Among Us as a review lesson in my classroom.

My school has been in-person for about two months. There are many restrictions in place to keep everyone a safe as possible - desks six feet apart, masks, limited movement in the classroom among many other protocols. Many of my engagement activities have been heavily modified or eliminated due to the restrictions, so I have been trying to figure out new ways to increase engagement and excitement.

Enter Among Us. If you are not familiar, Among Us is a wildly popular game/app apparently played by nearly every middle schooler in the country. You play the role of a member of a derelict spacecraft and are either one of the 'crew mates' or an 'imposter.'  While the goal of the crew is to save the ship, the goal of the imposter is to prevent repairs and eliminate all of the crew members. If you have played camp games such as Mafia or Town of Salem, it is very similar. 

How, though, to do this within the classroom of restrictions?  The game itself has a few basic characteristics: Crew members complete tasks in any order to save the ship. Imposters sabotage repairs and try to kill off crew members. There is a vote to eject a player. The goal of the crew is to eject the imposter. The goal of the imposter is to have them eject crew members.

I decided to use Desmos to build the game.  My thought was the first slide could be instructions, then some slides for 'tasks', a slide for the imposter to eliminate a crew member, a slide for a chat, and a slide for the group vote. Then have two slides at the end: one for a crew mate victory, and one for an imposter victory.

On Friday, I tried it out. To say it was well received would be an understatement. I first asked how many students had played before and every.single.hand.went.up.  The excitement and anticipation was incredible. They were already lobbing "how are we" and "what if" questions my way when I asked them to filter their questions and reminded them I haven't explained the rules or procedures. 

I emailed one student a message that said, "you are the imposter" and had each of them check their laptop (we are a 1:1 Apple school.) They then logged into the Desmos as a class. I explained that there are eight tasks (review slides) that they can complete in any order. Meanwhile the imposter needs to also do some tasks because if they just stay on one screen it will look very sus. Their job would be to get to screen nine, pick two classmates to eliminate, and return to tasks without being noticed. 

The game started and after a few minutes of them doing tasks the imposter struck and I hit the pause button. A small gasp was heard as students realized what was happening.  On the board I wrote two names - students that are now ghosts.  I opened up the chat and voting screens and let them discuss via chat, though they were more than excited to share their opinions verbally.  For this classroom version, I let everyone vote. After some discussion, the vote leaned towards 'skip' and nobody was ejected. 

Round two came to an end with an ejection and an announcement from me: "E____ was ejected.... E____ was NOT the imposter. One imposter remains..." Having the eject sound effect play added to the experience. 

Rounds three, four, and five all led to ejections as well.. and all none were the imposter. Unfortunately at that point we were out of time so the imposter revealed herself and an audible group of "I KNEW IT" and "YOU WERE SO SUS!"  erupted. 

The students were so enthralled by the game that their next-period teachers told me they had to remind students that the game was over and they needed to focus on their current assignment.

So from a student perspective it was a smash hit - but what about from the math review side? All of it is fun, but if they didn't do their review tasks it wouldn't really be effective.  I was so happy to see it was very successful. Students completed tasks with expected levels of accuracy and relatively quickly. Many had nearly all 8 tasks complete by the time the game ended. 

I got quick feedback on questions that were tough

I can't wait to try this one again. I'm looking for ways to as a 'sabotage' element to the game, so any of my readers that have experience with Desmos and could suggest something, I'd love to hear from you. 

I Spent Labor Day Weekend With a Nice Run in a Park...

What an amazing weekend! I finished the Tuscazoar 50-miler this weekend, my third longest run ever. I arrived Friday after leaving work and found my camp space. My evening started with a spaghetti dinner provided by the race organizers. Actually it first started with me meeting Jeremey Followay (one of the amazing race directors) as I was driving somewhat lost in the camping area trying to find a space to park. He took time out of his pre-race duties to help me get parked in a safe space by my camp area.

Spaghetti was grab-and-go style (again, lots of spacing for Covid) so I picked a picnic bench and enjoyed some quiet reflection and pre-race planning time. I had no goals other than to finish. When people asked how long it was going to take me, I would just say I would be done sometime between 10 pm and midnight. After that I set up my tent, then returned to a central fire by the start-finish line and listened to stories from other participants. I got to sleep sometime around 10:30 pm....

My home for two nights

I was woken up the next morning with music and a loud speaker - I totally forgot the 100-miler (yes they had a 100-mile event too, as well as a 25-mile event) was scheduled to start at 6:00 am. I got dressed (so glad I remembered pants and a sweater - the temp was in the low 50s!) and got to watch the start of that event. Truly amazing to see those athletes. With the wave start, Eric Whittington (the other amazing race director) was able to chat with three people at a time. It added a very personal touch to an already amazing event. This happened for the 50-mile event as well.

After the 100-miler start, I went back to my tent and dozed until about 7:00 with my race starting at 8:00 am.

The course itself is a 25(ish) mile loop with significant elevation gain at the end of the loop. My watch had 3000 feet of gain per loop, but others had it at 2500 feet.

The first 15 miles were just fantastic. I found my friend Cynthia and ran with her for a bit. We were able to share miles across bridges, on single track trails, through the creepy tunnel, and through the town of Zoar, OH (Population 178.)

At about 15 miles is when things went a bit sideways... GI issues popped up and life was less fun. I convinced Cynthia I was ok overall, but would be hanging by the porta-potty for a bit, and convinced her to go on without me. Those of you that know Cynthia know how hard this was for her - she'd never leave someone in distress, but she trusted me and continued on with her race. I saw her a bit later in the evening during an out-and-back section, which I'm sure gave her some relief in her soul.

The next few miles were slow and sluggish as I felt like there was a brick in my stomach. I got to the 22 mile aid station, got some ginger ale, and took a few minutes to refocus.

The views were amazing

This, arguably, was the proudest moment of my run. Former-me would have gone down the just don't finish spiral - your stomach hurts, you still have a 50k (31 miles) to go, there is no way you'll be able to finish that. Just get a ride back to your tent and sleep this off... All the negative self-talk. Not to say those thoughts didn't happen, but they got shut down by thoughts of "It never always gets worse", "run the mile you are in", and "if you truly want to finish a 100-miler, you have to figure this out." I definitely had Erika and Skinner in my head coaching me up.

I got out of that aid station and made it back to start. I sat down, got my head lamp, changed shirts, composed myself, and started out on loop two remembering that I had no goals today and the clock didn't matter.

It took a few aid stations to figure out, but things cleared up as I finally found the magical combo of grapes, ramen, and ginger ale. Total contrast to my usual PBJ & candy combo - but for today sweets were just not working... except for a sno-cone at mile 30. that was heavenly.

When they asked, "what flavor?" I almost cried...

Lap two went much better physically (though slower overall.) I hit a minor low at about mile 38, but I pumped up some music from my donors and things got much better. Belting out Into The Unknown and making a runner coming the other direction smile was a definite highlight. The sun went down, temperatures dropped, and suddenly I was in the dark on single-track trails. It was an amazing perfect storm and I found my running legs again. I was in an open field after dark, turned off my headlamp, and the only illumination came from the stars. I stopped moving and just soaked in the night sky. Every constellation was out. Sagittarius was particularly stunning... It was magical.

I got to the final aid station, mile 47, ate some ramen and settled into my last hour-ish of the event. It may not make sense to many, but I was looking forward to the uphills on the back part of the course. My legs were hurting from all the flat and downhill movement, the uphills gave me some different muscle groups to work and the climbs actually felt good.

I crossed the finish line about 14 1/2 hours after I started, recording 51 miles and about 6000 feet of gain. Eric and Jeremey were there to greet me, make sure I didn't want to do 'just one more lap', and give me my medal. These guys are amazing - to my knowledge they congratulated every finisher as they crossed the line for an event that was scheduled to last 32 hours (not including all the pre and post-race prep work.) I got some food (I asked for bacon and grapes and got a literal cereal bowl full of bacon) then went to my tent. I fell asleep pretty quickly, woke up at 3:30 am as apparently it was someone's birthday and they decided to sing happy birthday as they crossed the finish line. This group truly provides a magical personal experience I went back to sleep until about 7am. I got some breakfast (the SOUP was AMAZING!) packed up camp, thanked both race directors again for an amazing event, and headed back home.

Always earned, never given

It wouldn't be a true ultra event unless I was following the Team Possum creed of making at least one new friend. I found many during this event. The first was Ben who was attempting his first 50-miler. We chatted for a bit and when he mentioned his goal was 10 hours, I told him staying with me was definitely not a good plan. I also met Kate when I found Cynthia. Kate was running her first 50-miler as well! Later in the race I came across Katherine. She was recovering from a stress fracture in her foot after training for a 100-miler, so was doing the 50-miler today. She was also only 17 years old! Later in the race I came across Milisa who was originally planning on doing the 100-miler, but chose to "only" go for a 100km today. She had finished multiple 100-mile events ("too many to even talk about") including Burning River.

Thank you to all my donors. In all I was able to raise $1100 that went directly to the The Trevor Project. These funds will help run The Trevor Lifeline and provide resources for LGBTQ+ youth. I'm proud to help this community and so glad to have so many other people join me in that cause.

Thank you so much to Race Brimstone for putting on an amazing Covid-conscious event. Thank you to all the volunteers. Each aid station was amazing, volunteers were attentive and kind, and the amount and variety of food was amazing. I'm very much looking forward to running Eagle Up Ultra in 2021 and will be back at Tuscazoar 2021 either as a volunteer or participant!

Starting Year Twenty-Three... Let's Do This!

As I reflect upon the start of my 23rd year of teaching I have so many thoughts. What will this year bring? What challenges will I encounter? What challenges will the students encounter? How can I support my students with so many unknowns coming up in the next few weeks.

But as I thought of these questions, I realized something. These questions are not unlike any other school year. Each year I start with my roster and my student profiles. I look at their strengths and where they need some gaps filled. I look at teacher notes from previous years and some advisory strategies that have worked in the past.  

Covid, distance learning, routines, tech... all of these things are obstacles. Obstacles to student learning. Obstacles to me being able to present information. Obstacles to building relationships.

Or is this just the perspective I've chosen to take? Are they obstacles? or are they opportunities?  When I started teaching (yes, back in the 20th century....) I worked in a third grade classroom with many students that had just arrived to America from Mexico. Many of them didn't speak English. Fewer of their parents did.  I was told that these were some of the obstacles I would be facing in the classroom.

However, I looked at it a different way. I used these 'obstacles' as opportunities. We had daily circle time. We talked about the calendar, weather, and school day. They all had to speak in English. When it was my turn I had to speak in Spanish (background: I had taken Spanish in college, but was nowhere near proficient.) It was probably the first time in their young lives they had an opportunity to correct an adult.  I still remember, many years later, the relationships and trust that was built. 

I had a student from that 3rd grade class 'find me' on Facebook a couple years back. She said to this day I was still her favorite teacher and that was her favorite school memory.  I had to remember that she was was almost 30, not the 9-year-old girl from my memories.  She explained how she was so scared of coming to a new school, but I made her feel safe and happy... and I made her laugh. The 'obstacles' I was told would get in the way actually helped build a successful relationship which lead to a successful year and a more successful long-term school experience for her. 

So as we trek into the great unknown that will be the 2020-2021 school year, I plan on keeping my perspective in check. There will be frustrations and difficulties. There will be anger and disappointment.  These feelings are real and valid. But there can be opportunity in challenge as well.  

I know I won't be 100% successful this year, but I can also say that I've never had a year that felt 100% successful. Tech will get in the way. Internets will drop. A student will miss a class. It's ok. Keep Maslow in mind. Work on the size of the problem. Keep moving forward.

To those starting up in the next few days or weeks, good luck. Whether you are virtual, hybrid, or in person. Whether you are happy or disappointed with the choice that has been made. Once those students are in your classroom, you have control over the perspective and the narrative.