Moderate Success

Had some success with the 30-2s and the Set Theory Unit, they have their first Unit Exam next period.  After giving them a formative assignment where they were to create their own Venn diagrams, I realized that they were really having trouble.

Created an interactive Venn Diagrams smart board activity.  Made a bunch of colored circles and infinite cloners of set theory terms (A, B, C, \, ', U etc).  Had students move around the circles and answer questions.  I saw significant improvement from the students afterwards.  Gave them a hard assignment after, the ones who persevered were the ones who I felt got the most learning out of it.

Found 2 really awesome games/applets that I did with them.  The sets game is really amazing (google sets game).  Students really got into it, I think I might make it a weekly challenge to beat our best time.

Been mostly successful in keeping my lessons short (< 30 minutes).  I find that if I have short periods of teaching interspersed with activities, they stay attentive longer and are more engaged.  Surprisingly, it reduced my classroom management issues.  All it takes is a few seconds to get their attention again and it has increased on-task behavior...monumentally.  Really.  Seriously.  Students are 100% more on task.  And it allows me to guide their learning by walking around and helping them.

20-2s are doing a unit project instead of a unit exam for their first unit (logic and reasoning).  I think having them do a project is better than an exam for logic.  Assessing them on their actual application of logic and reasoning is better than answering multiple choice questions imo.

I'm rambling.  But this blog is for me to reflect so I don't really care.

20-1 (honors) are awesome.  Classroom management isn't an issue.  On the other hand, they tend to be somewhat less willing to be creative/take risks than my other kids.  It's hard to get them to share their ideas, or volunteer to demonstrate their solutions in front of the class.  Have to find a way to get these kids to take risks.  They are also addicted to having a clear-cut way to solve a question.  Demonstrating 2 different approaches baffles them and they panic.

"I did it the second way.  I don't understand the first one." 

"That's fine, the second way works too."

"But the first way confuses me."

"Then use the second way."

"Can you only show us the way that's on the formula sheet?"

"..."

I wonder if this is common with higher-achieving students or if it's just me?

Day 1

First day of school today.  For me, it's the second half of my first year of teaching.  I started teaching last year in February.  Mostly today consisted of housekeeping items, a little bit of review.  Going to be working through review booklets for a few days and then getting into the good stuff.

I think the stuff I have written for 20-2 and 30-2 are pretty good.  Realistic examples, lots of multimedia, different activities.  Going to try and keep all my lessons under 30 minutes.  Definitely going to time myself once I start actually teaching.  I think that way, students have time to ask questions, clarify and work on homework in class.  The more they work in class, the better for them overall.

My class sizes are ballooning.  A class that originally had only 21 kids (omg yay) at the end of June now has 30.  And growing.  It's a 30-2 class, so the students can be a bit chatty.  Working on keeping them motivated to learn.  A lot of students in the 30-1 class are getting scared and dropping into mine.  My worry is that they think 30-2 is going to be a cakewalk, which it isn't.  I'm thinking that overconfidence might prompt them not to work as hard as they should for a diploma course.  Hopefully it doesn't affect them adversely.

Meeting new kids, seeing new faces, talking to students I've had before...its exhilarating.  I love starting fresh, learning more and revisiting things I've done to see how I can improve.

All in all, a good day.

Brand New Day

I thought about starting off this post with some lyrics of the song "Brand New Day", the one from Dr. Horrible.  But I figured that might be a bit off-putting.

It's the start of a new year.  I still wish to maintain my regular posts on this blog during the school year, so here I am.  Typing.  New classroom, everything seems very...empty.  On the plus side, I have windows!  Can't complain about that, my old room was a dungeon.

Opening up is supposed to be about my attempts to reform my teaching, to make me a better teacher.  I think I will set one major goal this year:

I want to be less boring.

I think I mentioned it before, but I had an epiphany over the summer.  The way that I see math being taught is boring.  Frankly, I totally understand why so many students hate math.  We start off math lessons with explanations and terminology and instructions which are completely irrelevant and not meaningful.

I personally think that we need to start off a lesson with context.  A context in which this is actually applied (and not purchasing 60 watermelons).  Then we need to let students explore, play, ask questions, discuss, make mistakes.  They need to draw their own conclusions, right or wrong.  When they discover things that don't work, they need to figure out why.

Then, we can have the instructions and the explanation.  To me, this is a more authentic model for real learning.  A student can add fractions together easily, but completely lose the process when it's applied to rational expressions.  Why?  Because they learned a method, a set of steps, but never really understood the concept of WHY we have a common denominator, or how to get one.

Furthermore, I think that by giving context first and letting students explore, they are more engaged in the lesson and are much less likely to tune out.  And isn't that the first step to learning?

Those are my thoughts for today.

Math and the Real World

Upon reading some of the old lessons that I had done near the beginning of the year, it is amazing to me how much I have already changed.  Mostly, I glance at my old materials and recoil in horror.  I'm coming to the realization now that I have a fundamentally flawed understanding of math education.

I think it's because I enjoy math for the purpose of math.  I like rigor, I like notation, I like working through a problem where I really have to think and I gain satisfaction from finding solutions.

I'm not sure students are the same.

I don't think that students can appreciate math without a context.  For me the context is mathematics, but they don't see it that way.  Anything without a context is irrelevant and they haven't gained the maturity to slog through stuff that they find totally boring.  I found, looking back, that I was often punishing students for talking, not doing work, being off-task etc. when really...

...I was boring.

It's hard to stay on track and focused when you're not interested in the material.  I find that a hard pill to swallow.  Why can't they just listen and learn because they're supposed to?  Why don't they care?  Duh, because they're teenagers and their lives are preoccupied with other things.  I am the classroom management problem when I'm boring.  I cause the problems, it's not them; it's me.  So ultimately the problem/solution lies with me.

So there's the problem: context.  Meaningful context.  Not "Jeremy walks into the store and buys 46 watermelons while the cashier stares at him dumbfounded because who the hell buys 46 watermelons".

Working on 30-2 materials for the Set Theory unit.  Trying to make it meaningful.  Struggling, but the struggle makes it worth it.

Resolution: Make all lessons <30 minutes.  Less me talking, more them doing.

The opening

So my math 20-1 class is writing their final exam today, so I thought it would be a good time to start my blog.  I wanted to start a blog so I could document my reflections on my math classes as I make my way through the tumultuous life of a first year teacher.  


I'm the type of person who couldn't motivate herself to write in a diary regularly, so I hope that my attempts at keeping myself up to date with this blog are more successful.  I can see the value in keeping a blog, my hope is that it helps me grow and improve as a teacher/human being.


I suppose I should start off with a few goals.


1. To reflect deeply on my own teaching practices.  Ask myself the difficult questions in order to make meaningful, well though out decisions about what happens in my classroom.


2. Connect with other people and learn from their experiences.


3. Share my experiences/resources with others.


4. Provide a record of my teaching practices so I can look back on this and laugh at myself.


5. Be a better teacher/human being.


Too lofty?  Probably.