As always, I’m inspired by really good teaching and one of the best lessons I’ve gotten this semester from my Calculus III professor is to teach my students to understand the concept.
If they understand the concept then the algorithms, formulas, and any other applications of the concept that follow will be that much easier for them to digest.
I started the year off with the data collection, probability, and set theory unit and the kids BOMBED it. I blame myself for that because I taught them how to apply the new information without really stressing the concepts as much as I should and their scores reflected that ( granted some scores were incredibly low because some of my students are lazy…but I digress)
I taught the relationship between squares and square roots today and used lots of illustrations, examples, and explanations. But the most important thing I did today was teach them where the term square root came from and how the square root is the length of the side of a square with a given area. Once they were able to digest that little golden fried nugget of information the rest of the class was a breeze.
In less than 50 minutes they were able to draw pictures of square roots, explain why square roots had two answers, and differentiate between perfect and non-perfect squares. My homeroom ( who I see three times every day ) was able to extend the lesson and solve tons of different types of problems that they had never seen before today….because I took the time to stress the concept over the algorithm.
Not bad for a day’s work.
My website is running super slow…and several times over the last few days I wasn’t able to access the site because the server was down.
Time to upgrade.
My school recently had open house and I told a number of parents that their children were not reaching their full potential and the parents did a wonderful thing….they acted.
One mother pulled her son off of the football team so he can spend more time studying.
Another mother took her daughter’s cell phone away indefinitely and now makes her study every night.
Finally, a third mother found an old Algebra book and made her son do some extra studying.
Each one of these students came to my class the next day and aced my quiz. Accountability was shared and we were all successful.
My repeater’s parent pledged to make the child study but the child came to me the next day and said that the parent would not enforce the new studying rules until next week. The repeater subsequently failed my quiz. And is still failing the class.
I also had a meeting with my Principal in which I was to discuss my goals for the upcoming year. I brought my test data and identified those students who I felt might struggle and offered a plan for remediation. When I teach, I teach for relative growth for the student since so many of my kids comes to me lacking so many basic skills. That, however, wasn’t enough. She wanted to know exactly what percentage of students I was going to get to pass the state exams.
Essentially, I refused to answer the question and instead deferred to finding out what percentage she wanted to pass and I agreed to do my best to make that happen.
I always hate questions like that because in most cases, I am the only stakeholder in the mix that is directly contributing to the success on those exams. I can teach to the standards and create a number of learning opportunities for the students but I cant make them study or care. Only their parents can do that.
In years past my students didn’t seem to care and I got very little support from the parents. Unfortunately, this is the reality in many “urban” ( there’s that word again) districts. Not surprisingly, test scores usually suck in districts like mine because of the lack of involvement and the classroom teachers are expected to turn water into wine.
When everyone ( or at least more than half of all stakeholders ) carry their fair share of the load, success comes to us all. When one group of stakeholders is expected to carry the entire load, well, then you get results like my repeater.
(By the way, the day’s average for my quiz hovered in the low 80′s and high 70′s. We should have open house once a week! )
If you’re a budding web designer or a bit of a web tinkerer then Kompozer is for you. It’s a great lite package that packs all of the best features of Frontpage into a nice free web authoring tool.
On the rare occasions that i actually have to code HTML I prefer to use kompozer. It’s pretty stable and doesn’t have any of those weird add in tags that you sometimes get with Frontpage.
It is WYSIWYG, so for those of us who want to toy around with the web but aren’t too comfortable coding by hand.
I promise…this will be my first and last post about the election.
I saw this and just had to post it. It rings so true to me.
Working in an “urban” ( I really am beginning to hate that term) district is rough and rewarding. You have days where all you do is break up fights, try to get kids to see the usefulness of what you’re teaching, and you have struggles with staff and administration. You also have days where the lightbulb comes on for all of your students, hands shoot in the air like 4th of July fireworks, and the synergy between team members is unbelievable.
In either case I do my best to leave work at work. Taking it home with you is probably the worst thing ( in my humble opinion) that any practicing teacher can do to themselves.
You become one of those weirdo cultish teachers who are defined solely by their profession. I was that person during my freshman year of teaching. I was constantly grading papers, calling parents, writing lesson plans, and even having dreams ( nightmares) about my students.
( This is a creepy image isn’t it ?)
I love watching good teachers teach. I really do. Really. I do.
I’m taking Calculus III and I think my professor is a bit of a jerk but he’s also a damn good teacher.
He models, makes bad jokes, admonishes and encourages, emphasizes understanding concepts over knowing formulas, and always….always shows the class two to three ways to solve the same problem.
I unconsciously began doing many of the same things in my own classes. Today I found myself drawing an oil rig on the board to illustrate what was going on in a word problem and the kids ate it up. They understood the problem completely and were able to grasp the concept…rather than simply focus on the method.
Professional development and teacher preparation programs should really include a major component that allows all of us newbies ( I’m 4 years in the game and I still consider myself new at this ) to watch the vets so we can learn a thing or two and steal as many pedagogical practices as possible.
So, my loyal readers ( both of you!)…from whom do you steal ?
I got to work bright and early yesterday only to be greeted by this.
Life is grand ain’t it ?
I’m always searching for free ( open source ) alternatives to commercial software apps for use in my classroom.
It takes so long to get the district purchasing department to make moves of any kind for software.
Here is a little list I’ve compiled of some interesting apps for use by home schoolers ( Nia Knowles!) or cash strapped math departments.
Enjoy!
GeoGebra is a free alternative to the Geometer’s Sketchpad. It looks to be a really good tool to help students visualize Geometry, Algebra, Pre-Calc, And Calc concepts.
Lots of my professors reccommend Mathematica for generating visual representation of equations, etc. I just can’t bring myself to buy it so I thought above giving Sage a try. It’s supposed to do the same things that Mathematica does…for free.
I’m actually downloading EduBuntu as I type this. I’ve been confronted by the dreaded Blue Screen of Death for the last time on my home desktop and have decided to abandon Windows operating systems in my home…and eventually my classroom. EduBuntu is a linux based operating system designed specifically for the educational community. In addition to it being much more secure and crash free than Windows…it’s also free! Give it a try if you have an older machine laying around or are just tired of dealing with the Blue Screen of Death.
Gimp and Gimpshop are great free alternative for Photoshop. This is great if your school has an art department or program or if you have students who are just interested in computer graphics. Gimp is actually the app and Gimpshop is a plugin that makes it operate like Photoshop. If your students ever decide that art school is the move for them then can easily make the transition from Gimpshop to Photoshop.
Feel free to share links to your favorite open source educational freebies.
I assessed what my students learned about probability and statistics when we wrapped up that unit about a week ago and they bombed the test…I mean….Hiroshima bombed. It was pretty bad. I, however, maintained that they did learn the concepts even if their scores were terrible, but the language of the test is what took them out of their zones.
I made the judgment call to move on to my number and operations unit and to retest them at a later date ( yesterday ) using more familiar language just to confirm what I thought.
All this week I taught them about the properties of exponents, why the properties work, and when to apply the properties. I made no mention of the older material. I simply moved on to the newer information.I didn’t review the bombed test with them lest I kill their confidence early in the game. Instead I told them that the results were awful and that they’ll be re-tested at a later date. I did this for two reasons:
- Their relative self esteem
- And to see if they truly retained what was taught and if it was in fact the language that caused those scores.
The re-test scores went up by an average of 30 points per student. And this score increase is after a week of NOT seeing that material. The only thing I changed was the language of the test. The questions were of equal difficulty and they were conceptually the same.
I think now I have a little bit of baseline data for this action research project and more support for the idea that the reading component of mathematics must be stressed so much more for inner city students.
When they know what they’re being asked to do they can work through problems logically and with confidence. When they don’t know 2 of the words in a word problem because they’ve never been exposed to those words they takes tests on a wing and a prayer.
Next week my team and I will begin implementing a plan during all of our 8th period classes to introduce all of our students to 10 to 13 non-content specific vocabulary terms in order to increase their understanding of what they read.
I think we’ll truly be able to turn these kids back on to school.
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