tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34514122291364178302024-03-08T09:28:44.841-06:00Teaching on the East SideMrs. Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00069803368342564025noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-47697919731146662972019-08-10T22:21:00.000-05:002019-08-10T22:21:42.102-05:00T Minus 2 DaysHard to believe it's been two years since my last post, wow! It's been a bit crazy around here, but I'll talk about that later.<br />
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So we are embarking on another year in just two days. I have to say, I'm pretty excited! This will be year 5 at my campus, teaching both Algebra 2 and Precalculus. This is the first year that I am not really feeling the beginning of the year anxiety that usually sets in during our PD days. Really, this is quite amazing considering some of the significant changes that are happening this year. <br />
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First off, we have a new principal. He seems pretty awesome so far, but his leadership style is definitely different than the last principal, and I loved the last principal's style. I'm not really worried about working for someone new, but my hope is that he is present for the kids. We have a pretty awesome admin team with 4 assistant principals as well, but the principal's presence on campus is so important for the kiddos on our campus. <br />
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I also have 3 new teachers on my team, one of which was hired last week and has only been on our campus for two and a half days. I'm sure he's feeling a little anxious about starting with the kids already on Monday. So far, each one of our new team members brings something different to the team and I'm pretty excited about these new additions. <br />
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This year we are also starting a new intervention program with our math kiddos that have previously failed or are at risk for failing their Algebra 1 STAAR. I have a group of 8 freshman kiddos that I will be working with from day 1. In the past we have waited and started intervention sometime in the middle of the fall semester for repeat testers or the middle of spring for at-risk freshman, but this year we are getting our group of kids from day 1 so that we can first build a strong relationship with them before starting on the intervention work. The plan is to do SEL activities with them on Mondays, intervention work and tutorials Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then Friday Fun day, which is reserved for team building and game activities. I'm especially looking forward to the Friday's because I love games, and many of our students have never played a board game or card game in their lives. <br />
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I really am hoping to be more intentional about reflection this year and hopefully some more regular blogging. I guess this is a start! Mrs. Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00069803368342564025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-19230134167044343882017-08-19T20:41:00.001-05:002017-08-19T20:41:35.505-05:00Classroom Management<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm a little intimidated writing a post on classroom management because I am no expert and I've had plenty of classroom chaos in my years. What I have become better at is rolling with the punches when things don't go exactly as planned. <br />
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For me, the best way to keep things going in the right direction in the classroom is engagement. It's those idle times that lend themselves to a little monkey business from my darlings. From the time they walk in until the bell rings at the end of 50 minutes, my goal is to keep them busy. Here are a few thoughts about what it means to me to "keep them busy."<br />
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<li>I train my students to begin working on something as soon as they walk in the door. Whether it's some problem they pick up on the shelf when they walk in the door, or a warm up activity I've posted on my screen, they learn really quick that when I walk in after the tardy bell, my expectation is that they are already working.</li>
<li>I try to vary my activities every 10 - 15 minutes to cut out the boredom. Throw in at least one where they have to get up out of their seat an move around a bit.</li>
<li>I use a lot of group activities where I will select one from the group to grade, but I don't tell them which one ahead of time. Each student has a different colored piece of paper and I draw the color to grade at the end of the period.</li>
<li>I find setting a time goal very helpful to keep them on task and up with the class. I'll say something like "You have exactly 2 minutes and 32 second to complete the next problem and then we are moving on." Not sure why this works, but its like they don't want to be left behind because they know we are moving on to something else after this.</li>
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The end of class is usually where I have my struggles for class structure. Biggest pet peeve of mine is students who want to pack up and stand at the door before the bell rings. I found myself saying a few too many times, "What, are we back in kindergarten, standing in line to leave the class?" Totally my own fault, I'll own it, but I have to get better at this part of my class this year. A teammate of mine suggested that I allow them to pack up 3-4 minutes before the bell, but then have one more quick closure to do until the bell. I'm envisioning saying, "You have 2 minutes to pack up and be ready for...." Hoping that this time goal will ensure they pack up quickly, but are still attentive to the fact that we are not done yet. </div>
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My math team actually set a goal this year for all of us to work towards bell to bell engagement so maybe I'll have some more ideas to share as the year continues. </div>
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Mrs. Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00069803368342564025noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-24738895482551298422017-08-05T20:33:00.002-05:002017-08-05T20:36:17.301-05:00GoalsGah! Where did the last year go? I cannot believe that it has been over a year since I last blogged. I recently saw <a href="https://twitter.com/jreulbach" target="_blank">@jreulbach</a> post about the new MTBoS Sunday Funday blogging initiative and am going to try and jump back into blogging more regularly. <br />
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So what kind of goals do I have this year? Honestly, I sometimes become overwhelmed with all the things I want to do in my life in general, which then results in getting very little accomplished. I know, I know, I need to just focus on one or two things to make it all more manageable. This is a very hard thing for me to do. Here's what I have so far...<br />
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Classroom Goals</h3>
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<li>Incorporate the use of the Desmos graphing tool in more lessons. I was very inspired by <a href="https://twitter.com/saravdwerf" target="_blank">@saravdwerfs</a> post about <a href="https://saravanderwerf.com/2016/07/28/evangelizing-desmos/" target="_blank">Evangelizing Desmos</a> and just how Desmos can be a game changer in the classroom and how it can build equity and access for all our students. I want to use it to build great conversations and to help them see the math they are doing.</li>
<li>Student Reflection and Feedback. This is another big one for me this year. I want to really focus on teaching my students how to reflect on their learning by providing feedback to them in a variety of ways. I want to get away from just getting the answer and being done. I want them to really see the value in really digging deeper into the problems and being able to explain what their thinking was when they were solving the problem. Not exactly sure how this will look, but I'm working on it. </li>
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Professional Goals</h3>
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<ul>
<li>Reflecting on my teaching even more. Obviously if I value this for my students, then its something I need to model and refine for myself too.</li>
<li>Focus on being an encouragement for me team at school, seeking ways to build them up and help them become better teachers.</li>
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Personal Goals</h3>
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<ul>
<li>I got really lazy about exercising last year, always with a good excuse why I couldn't make it to the gym. This year I want to get to the gym more often and if I can't manage that I want to at the very least walk regularly. </li>
<li>Be more consistent about cooking and eating healthier meals. We will be down to just the two of us this fall as we send all four of our kids off to college. I know that it would be easy to just grab something for the two of us, so I am going to have to really make an effort to plan and cook.</li>
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Just for Fun</h3>
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<li>I used to be more of an artsy kind of person, but just haven't had time to pursue those things in the last couple of years. With my kids all out of the house I am hoping to dabble a little more in some crafting areas. Right now hand lettering and calligraphy are on my radar, as well as pulling out the old rubber stamps to start making cards again.</li>
<li>Finally, reading. I absolutely love to read and really hope to squeeze more of that into my life.</li>
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Well there it is, finally a blog post. Now here's to hoping I don't wait another year to write again!</div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-36386819731231656492016-07-28T09:00:00.000-05:002016-07-28T10:45:44.552-05:00Card Sorts for GroupsI love card sorts. I use them pretty often as a way for my students to show me what they have learned or to reinforce what we are learning. I typically do card sorts with pairs because both partners remain relatively engaged while they work together to match up or group cards. I find that card sorts with larger groups are more challenging because I worry that some students will just sit back and watch others do all the work.<br />
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After a brief chat on doing card sorts with groups by @samjshah on Twitter earlier this week, I was reminded of a method for doing a group card sort that I learned a couple years ago. I had completely forgotten about learning this at a school PD day and was thankful for the memory prompt. The method was presented by an amazing teacher on my campus, <a href="http://changetheapproach.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Ramy Mamoud</a>.<br />
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Okay, let's take for example a card sort involving Linear, Quadratic and Exponential relationships(you could use this <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_DqsZY2PgnyMVZTUkxGYmh1d2c/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Card Sort</a>) and a group of three students. <br />
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Here's how this card sort would work:<br />
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<li>Instruct the students that there is to be no talking during the first part of the sort.</li>
<li>Have the students begin by laying out all of the cards face up in front of them.</li>
<li>Instruct them to take the Title labels and lay them out to create three columns that the other cards will be added to.</li>
<li>Now silently, without any help from each other, have them take turns placing the cards into the three groups, one student going at a time, <b>Reinforce that they must remain silent, even if they think one of their group members is making a mistake and placing the card under the wrong title.</b></li>
<li>The first student in the group chooses one card from the pile and lays it under the title in which he or she thinks it belongs. The second student takes a turn and does the same. The third student follows and the group continues going around, each member laying only one card at a time. </li>
<li>During the silent, no talking time, you can play music for the class.</li>
<li>When all of the cards have been placed, have each group sit silently while you wait for all groups to finish.</li>
<li>When all groups are finished with this first part. Have the students take turns again, going one at a time, to move cards that they think may have been placed incorrectly. </li>
<li>If a student feels as if a card was placed incorrectly, they pick it up, explain to the group why they think it was placed incorrectly, and then place in the proper place. If the group members do not agree, they should discuss and come to an agreement on where it should be placed.</li>
<li>Finally, after the groups agree on the final placement of each card, the solution can be revealed.</li>
<li>Follow up discussion might include having the groups pick a card or two that they weren't sure about, or couldn't agree upon and discuss as a class why that particular card was a struggle for them.</li>
<li>Another follow up option would be to have each member of each group choose a card and then write their justification for putting it into the group that they did.</li>
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Some thoughts on why this method of a group card sort is a great activity: </div>
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First off, this activity is very low risk for the student. Because they must remain silent and cannot point out a card being placed in the wrong group during the first round, students don't have to worry about being called out for being wrong. By the time the group goes around several time to place all cards, no one remembers exactly who placed which card, so no risk of being called out at the end of the first round either. </div>
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Second, all members are totally engaged. While one student is placing his card, the other group members are looking over the remaining cards and deciding which one they want to place. They will typically look for a card that they feel that they can place correctly, so they are spending some time in thought about each card as they make their decision. </div>
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Finally, during the second round, students have the opportunity to move cards and discuss their reasoning for placing in a different group giving them time to look at and discuss cards they maybe aren't quite sure about.</div>
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I'm so glad I was reminded of this activity so that I can incorporate it into my plans for this year!</div>
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Would love to hear your thoughts!</div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-46196214400254938512016-07-23T11:11:00.000-05:002016-07-23T11:11:11.292-05:00Assessment ReflectionLast year was the first year our district used new math curriculum and so it was a crazy year creating new material and new tests and everything to go along with the new curriculum. As I went through the new year, I created some great tests and I'm sure a few not so great tests. Grades on some were good, on others, not so good. We did spend some time looking over the tests in class, but I really want to do a better job of having the kids reflect on how they did on their tests and of course be able to capture that data. I do have my class averages for each test, which gives me a little information. <br />
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What I really want though is data on each question, but who has time to go through all tests after grading and write down how each student did on each question. Valuable data, but impossible to collect by myself. In the past I have had students fill out a reflection sheet after a test and then collect those sheets, but again, if I want to pull any data about each individual question, I would have to go through each of those papers and pull that out myself.<br />
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There has to be a better way, and maybe some of you all already have a great way of doing this that I haven't stumbled upon yet!<br />
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As I sat this week preparing my materials for a Google Apps PD session I'm facilitating for the teachers in our district in a few weeks, I started thinking about how I could use Google Forms to collect this data. <br />
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I'm envisioning that on the day I hand back tests each student will access this Google Form to enter their reflection and data on their own test. The data will be collected in a Google Sheet that will allow me to sort by question to see exactly how my kids did on a specific question and why they thought they might have missed the question. Here's picture of what the form will look like, what do you think? Would love any ideas or feedback that you think might improve upon what I have here.<br />
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I'd be glad to share if this is something you might find useful. Just send me a note and I'll provide the link since sharing Google forms can be tricky.</div>
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-54033283757364717952016-06-06T11:21:00.001-05:002016-06-06T11:21:19.718-05:00Finally Summer - Back to Blogging and Tackling Homework IssuesI did a pretty good job of blogging this past school year, until I hit February. It was at about that time that I became completely overwhelmed with everything and just couldn't. I either didn't have the spare time or when I did find some extra time, I didn't have the energy. So here it is June and the kids are out of the summer and now I need to get back to reflecting and start planning for next year.<br />
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I really wanted to attend some kind of summer math conference this year, but with the way my summer is looking I just don't think it is going to happen. I have two graduating seniors this year and everything that that entails is driving my crazy life right now. Graduation is Thursday at 2:00, immediately after the ceremony we hit the road for Arkansas to attend twin 1's new student conference and registration at John Brown University. We will spend two days there, Friday and Saturday, head home Sunday only to turn around Monday night and head to twin 2's new student conference at Texas A&M on Tuesday and Wednesday. We will head home Wednesday night and I return to curriculum writing for my district that I started Monday and will continue for two weeks. As soon as that is over I will head to Indianapolis for twin 1's National volleyball tournament for a week. Finally in July things will slow down a bit, aside from all the college prep I will be doing with the girls. I can already tell the summer will fly by and it will be time to head back to school for the fall. Okay, deep breath. I have to keep telling myself I can do this.<br />
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Here are my two girls on their last day as seniors.<br />
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Back to teaching and school related things...<br />
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<b><u>Homework</u></b></h2>
Always a struggle for me. I know the value of practice but getting the kids who really need the practice to turn in homework has always been a struggle. As I looked over my gradebook at the end of this year and the accumulation of zeros for some of my students I really felt discouraged. I don't want to be that teacher that fails a student simply because they can't seem to get their homework turned in. This year I did homework stamp sheets where students received a stamp for completing their homework, then did a reflection on the learning for that unit before turning in the stamp sheet on test day for a grade. This was great for the conscientious student who always does their homework when it's assigned, but it was a failure for the students who are procrastinators or simply cannot finish what they start. My rule was that if they did not get some items stamped before test day they could simply staple all of the missing assignments onto the stamp sheet for credit. On each test day I would get quite a few packets of work from my procrastinators and as I looked through their work it was pathetic. It got to the point that I think they just scribbled something down to get their "completed" stamp which was such a waste of time for them and for me and this in now way prepared them for the assessments over the material.<br />
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I want my practice work to be meaningful, not just something that students check off that they have done without regard to quality. Also, because I post solutions so that students can check their own work, I am sure a few of those beautiful homework assignments were just copied straight from my worked out answers, and it was obvious who was doing this when test results came in.<br />
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I want my grading practices to be a true reflection of what my students have learned, not how well they can comply and follow directions. I don't want to find myself in a situation at the end of the year with a student who has demonstrated mastery of content but is simply failing because he hasn't turned in his homework stamp sheets.<br />
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I want to raise the bar of learning in my classes and make sure all students are accountable for learning the content. I want to develop a system to meet the needs of those kids who do not learn the content the first time around.<br />
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So as I begin this summer I have a lot to consider and think through as I plan for next year. I would love your input as I wrestle with what I want and how to make it happen effectively in my classroom.<br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-76658070770198848302016-01-30T10:58:00.000-06:002016-01-30T10:58:16.254-06:00#MTBoS - Questioning about Polynomial Functions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The MTBoS blogging initiative this week is about questioning strategies in class. This is an area that I know I need to improve upon. This year I have really been focusing on trying to be more of a facilitator and not such a lecturer in class. I know I have a tendency to talk too much and to spoon feed my students too much. I really want to talk less and make them think and discuss more. I want to ask the right kinds of questions to make them really think and probe each other. Baby steps, I keep telling myself. I know I can't totally revamp every lesson, especially with incorporating a new curriculum in our district this year, so I am making small changes here and there, with the hopes of adding new ideas each year.<br />
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Enter our polynomial functions unit. In the past, I have simply given notes to my students on all the ins and outs of polynomial functions. I didn't want to do that this year. I really wanted them to look at the equations and the graphs and figure out the patterns they saw on their own. I stumbled upon Dylan Kanes post about <a href="https://fivetwelvethirteen.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/polynomial-tasks/" target="_blank">Polynomial Tasks</a> and really liked his Characteristics in a Table idea, so took that and revamped it to my needs.<br />
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After deciding what I wanted them to find in a table, I then asked questions that would hopefully drive them to discover what they needed to know. I tried to use questions that started with "What do you notice?" and "What pattern do you see...?" The day was amazing. I spoke very little. I listened a lot and they talked a lot. <br />
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I'll discuss more of the lesson itself later, but what made this day so amazing is that the questioning strategies I chose to use really worked. Instead of telling them to notice something, asked them what they noticed and you know what? They ended up noticing and figuring out all of the information I would have given them in a set of lecture notes. I have to say, it was probably my favorite lesson of the year. <br />
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I really want to get better at asking the right questions, and do it more often than I currently do. <br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-14660753107542070952016-01-30T09:24:00.001-06:002016-01-30T09:24:42.773-06:00#MTBoS - Favorite Review GameAs part of the MTBoS Blogging initiative, I'm going to share one of my favorite games to play with my students when reviewing. I'm a little late on this post, but wanted to share anyway.<br />
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The game is called relay race and it works almost like the relay races you used to play in gym class as a kid. I arrange the kids in rows and each row represents a team. I let the teams pick out a name to represent themselves and we put the team names on the board to keep track of points. Each student has a small whiteboard and a marker. I have a set of cards with the questions or problems on them, with the same questions/card for each row. For example if I have 6 rows in my classroom, I would have 6 cards of each question. <br />
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The game starts by me putting the first question card on the first desk of each row, face down. The first person in each row is not allowed to turn the card over until I say go. When I say go, the first person in the row looks at the question and writes down all important information they need to solve on their white board, then passes the card to the person behind them. Students are told to not start working on the problem until they have passed the card to the next person in their row, so that time is not wasted. The second person in the row then proceeds to write down the information for the problem on their white board, and then pass to the third person in the row. By the time the last person in the row receives the card, everyone else in their row has seen the problem and is working on the problem. As students finish the problem, I tell them to keep their board covered so others cannot see their answer, as sharing answers results in a team penalty.<br />
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The round is over when the one of the students who is last in their row is finished and stands up. Everyone now has to put their markers down and the round is over. I then have all the students hold up their white boards and I give a point for each correct answer in their row. I keep a key for the questions on a clipboard for quick checking after each round. Points are tallied on the front board.<br />
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For the next round, the students that were last in their row now come to the front and are first in their row, everyone else moves back one seat. This assures that it is a different person who is last in the row each time, eliminating any complaints about how the slowest person is last,etc. I also do random bonus rounds which award 2X the points or 3X the points to keep things lively and to give hope to those teams that have gotten themselves really behind. There is also a punishment for sharing answers, the team loses all the current points that they have. This keeps them pretty honest.<br />
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My kids absolutely love this game and it works for a variety of topics from solving systems, to solving equations, to graphing parabolas, etc. I usually prepare about 12-16 questions, depending on the topic and that always lasts for the 50 minute class period. <br />
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Hope you enjoy!<br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-37842141437961760542016-01-14T22:04:00.002-06:002016-01-14T22:04:11.127-06:00A Day in the Life of MeAs part of the #MTBoS <a href="https://exploremtbos.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/week-1-of-the-2016-blogging-initiative/">blogging initiative</a>, I get to share with you a little glimpse into my life. Don't get too excited.<br />
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5:15 a.m. Awakened by husband getting up to go to the gym. I always try to go back to sleep, but my mind starts turning about the day ahead and it usually doesn't happen.<br />
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5:45 a.m. Decide not to wait for my alarm and just go ahead and get the day started.<br />
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5:50 a.m. Shower, dress, make-up and hair.<br />
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6:20 a.m. Move to the kitchen and grab some coffee while contemplating breakfast. Would like my usual smoothie, but we have only one banana and I know hubs will want a protein smoothie after the gym, so I leave that for him and grab yogurt and granola bar. <br />
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6:40 a.m. Pack up a lunch of leftovers from the night before, more coffee to go and grab my bags and head out the door.<br />
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7:00 a.m. Arrive in the parking lot of school to find only one other car besides the night custodian's car. Coach B is always the first to arrive at school. No matter how early I get there, I have never beat him.<br />
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7:05 a.m. Arrive in my classroom and turn on all my lamps, my Scentsy and my light up letter D. Fire up the computer and get logged in. Put my lunch in the little fridge I keep behind my desk, lock my purse in my tall filing cabinet.<br />
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7:10 a.m. Settle in to my chair open up my email, pinnacle, google drive and TweetDeck. Browse TweetDeck briefly, then move on to emails. <br />
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7:20 a.m. Snapchat my daily "Good Morning Fam" to all of my kids and hubs. My girls are big on keeping the streak going. I open up my daily agenda powerpoint that I project on the screen in my room. I add a new warm-up to my On level's agenda and add a reminder that we are having a quiz next week. On my Honor's agenda, a note to pick up the test review on the way into class, a final reminder about tomorrow's test, a reminder that homework stamp sheets are also due tomorrow. After finishing, I project 1st period's agenda and freeze the screen.<br />
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7:40 a.m. I look over today's lesson on factoring with my OL class, we are focusing on reviewing factoring that they should have learned in Alg 1 before moving onto some more challenging factoring. I print out tests that I made a couple days ago and get those ready to take to the copy room later in the day.<br />
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8:00 a.m. I head to the library to find our CTA to scan a make up semester exam for a student who went out of the country for the month of December. From there I headed to the counselor's office to discuss a new student from Spain who may have been misplaced in her math class. We decide to let her take the first semester Alg 2 exam to see if she would even be prepared to enter my class this spring before we contact the higher ups about her placement. <br />
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8:15 a.m. A quick trip to the ladies room and then back to my room to prepare for tutorials. <br />
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8:20 a.m. I have three student come in for some help on homework. Two had been absent for a couple days and the other girl just needed some clarification on last night's homework. We discussed a few problems and worked out some examples on the board together.<br />
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8:50 a.m. Students fill the hallways now, heading to first period. I take up my spot at the corner outside of the library with two other teachers and make constant reminders to kids to remove their earbuds and take their hats off. "Walk and talk" we tell them to keep them from stopping and congesting the halls. 10 minutes is entirely too long to walk the halls before school. We have some students who lap the entire building three times before finally heading to their first period class.<br />
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9:00 a.m. First period starts, Honors Algebra 2, and we are simply working on review problems in preparation for the test tomorrow. Students work together on the review, comparing their work and methods as they go. This is a very productive class that works very diligently at whatever I ask of them.<br />
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9:50 a.m First period ends and I'm back in the hall for duty. I discuss with the teacher next door how the review is going as her 2nd period is also Honors Alg 2. We talk about problems they are struggling on as we move the kids along to their next class.<br />
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9:55 a.m. Second period starts with the Pledge of Allegiance to the US Flag, the Texas Flag and then a moment of silence. A few minutes of announcements and then class begins. Students work on the warm up with their groups, then I ask volunteers to work the problems on the board. We continue discussing factoring and practice together on several types of problems. With 15 minutes left in class I hand out a Comp Check on adding, subtracting and multiplying polynomials. They are thrilled when I tell them no homework tonight. <br />
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10:47 a.m. Second period ends, back in the hall for passing periods and a little pow wow with my neighbor teachers.<br />
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10:52 a.m. Third period and back to test reviewing with my Honors kiddos. This class seems to be struggling more with special factoring patterns, so I give them lots of problems on the white board as additional practice, allowing them to explain to each other their thought process as they work they problem. We go back and forth with work on the board and work on their paper. By the end of the period my boards are filled with their work.<br />
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11:42 a.m. Third period ends and its back in the hall.<br />
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11:47 a.m. The start of 4th period and my first conference period. I work on grading the comp checks from 2nd period and updating my gradebook. I then continue to work on a Mandatory Tutorial form that I am creating for our school. We are going to try to have a uniform form that all teachers in the building use. I attend to some emails that came in that morning.<br />
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12: 15 p.m. Highlight of my day was a text message from a young gal who did her observation in my class last fall. She found out she was going to be student teaching in my district this spring and wanted the scoop on her assigned teacher. I didn't know the other teacher well enough to provide any help, but we chit chatted a bit and promised to get together soon after she started so she could fill me in on how it was going. I love her excitement!<br />
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12:35 p.m. Lunchtime! I walk to the math office where I meet 3 other teachers for lunch. We talk shop and our lives over lunch. This is precious time to me, meeting with other adults during the day. It really help to be encouraged by each other because sometimes this job is hard.<br />
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1:00 p.m. Lunch ends and we move on to TAD tutorial time. This has been a new program this year and a miserable failure. Because of that we are going to be implementing a new system in just two weeks, Block Lunch. Another member of the Professional Learning Team and myself spend the next 30 minutes going to two different classes to do a presentation on the soon to be coming Block Lunch. We go over what it is, what the student expectations are, what kind of offerings will be available to students during that time, etc. We have been visiting TAD classes for the last week as part of a team that is training the rest of the campus to prepare for Block Lunch. Everyone is very excited about the new plan. Students will get a full hour for lunch and to attend tutorials or club meetings or to play ball in the gym, etc. We are giving student's choice in how they spend that time. Everyone is super excited about the change. Three other schools in our district have started this schedule successfully, so we are hoping the transition on our campus goes smoothly.<br />
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1:30 p.m. Another passing period and hall monitoring.<br />
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1: 35 p.m. 5th Period begins. Another Honors Alg 2 class reviewing for a test. I have a couple students who missed class earlier in the week, so I try to spend some time catching them up. Fewer questions from this class, and more groups working together on the review problems.<br />
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2:25 p.m. 5th period ends and I move to the hallway to monitor the transition between classes again. Thankfully no excitement today. <br />
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2:30 p.m. 6th period and all of the math department is off together. Today the Algebra 1 team meets and I see in on the meeting to offer feedback and monitor how things are going in those classes. Our district math support arrives and sits in on the meeting too. We discuss plans for the next few days and ways that we can meet those kids that are more advanced in our classes when we have 40-50% Sped kids and CMIT kids in these classes. It's a constant struggle to reach the low low ones without cheating the higher ones of a challenging education. We discussed possible ways to differentiate, and threw out a few ideas on things to try. <br />
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3:20 p.m. End of meeting and end of 6th period. I stay behind in the math office to meet with our district support gal, Karen. We discuss the new math teachers in our building this year, there are five of them, and how they are progressing. We discuss ways to encourage them and offer support. <br />
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4:00 p.m. Karen leaves the building to beat the after school rush and I return to my classroom to work on plans for our next unit. I realize then that I didn't get my copies made, but there isn't enough time now before tutorials.<br />
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4:15 p.m. School ends and a large group of students begin to drift into my room. It's the day before a test, so I have more than the usual tutorial attendees. Some just want a quiet place to work where I am available if they have a question. Other's are there for specific questions on the review. Other's are there to listen to everyone else and see if I slip up and share something specific about the test tomorrow. The other Honors Alg 2 teacher has hall duty this afternoon, so I have a mixture of her students and my students. <br />
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5:30 p.m. I still have quite a few kids in the room working. I begin to rearrange the desks in my room to rows to be ready for the test tomorrow morning. I stop occasionally to answer a question or two, but most of those that are left are the high achieving kids who don't know when to stop. I enjoy bantering back and forth with them and then throwing up some really challenging questions to try and stump them, but they are not quitters. The keep at it until they get it, sometimes collectively. They will all make almost perfect scores on the test tomorrow, I am sure of it.<br />
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6:00 p.m. I tell the last little group that it's time to close up shop as I have some things to do before I head home. I remember that I still have a date with the copier after I everyone leaves.<br />
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6:10 p.m I finally make it to the copy room and start coping my four versions of the test for all the Honors classes. I catch up on social media while the copier hums.<br />
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6:30 p.m I am finally done copying and quickly head back to my room to lock up the copies and gather my things to go home.<br />
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6:40 p.m I'm out of the building and in the car. It's dark as usual. <br />
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7:00 p.m I arrive home to taco night. My two girls that are still living at home are gone for the evening. One is at youth group, the other at volleyball practice. My son and hubs are sitting at the kitchen table eating. I fix myself a plate and join them. We catch each other up on our days while we eat.<br />
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7:30 p.m. Dinner is over, time to clean up the kitchen. There are dishes from lunch and dinner. We are two blocks from the Senior High School with off campus lunch, so my kids and their friends often come to our place for lunch. With thier limited time, there's never time for clean up and so it becomes a nightly routine to clean up after a group of teenagers that drop in for lunch. <br />
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8:00 p.m. Kitchen is as clean as I'm willing to leave it and I head into the office to do a little work. I continue to plan for the upcoming unit on graphing polynomials while my hubs works at his desk beside me. At least we are spending time together, kind of. I get distracted easily with twitter. So much to learn from the #MTBoS, it's hard to stay away. <br />
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8:30 p.m. Daughter arrives home from volleyball and catches me up on her day. She's in the recruiting process, trying to find a place to play college ball. She talked to a couple college coaches on the phone today and was excited about some upcoming visits to these campuses. We've been through this once with our oldest who is playing in college now, but the excitement still gets us going. We then discuss the weekend trip we will be making to San Antonio for a tournament. I'm going to miss this next year.<br />
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9:00 p.m. Daughter moves off to the kitchen for food and I go back to twitter and very little work.<br />
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9:10 p.m. Other daughter arrives home from youth group and we discuss her day. She needs me to order books from Amazon for a class, so we hop on and get that done. I also notice that she has a browser window open on my PC with prom dresses, so we discuss that a bit. <br />
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9:30 p.m. I'm done for the day and head off to get ready for bed. Play with the puppies for a few minutes before the bedtime routine.<br />
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10:00 p.m. In bed with my puppies snuggled up next to me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-13877511543126773712016-01-13T20:51:00.000-06:002016-01-13T20:51:20.516-06:00Polynomial Division - Box MethodAfter finishing up polynomial long division and synthetic division I wanted to give this polynomial box division method a try. I was intrigued by this method after I saw Sarah Hagan's post about it on her <a href="http://mathequalslove.blogspot.com/search/label/Polynomials">blog</a>. It wasn't a method I was familiar with, so I had to first spend some time figuring it out. Love it! I really thought this method would be so much easier than long division because it eliminates all the potential sign errors when subtracting in long division. <br />
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I was hoping to teach the method and practice one day, then do Sarah's box division activity on the second day. Unfortunately we just didn't have that extra day for the activity, so we were just going to chug through it in one day. The day before I spent quite a bit of time working through some problems myself as I didn't want to fumble over my words during the lesson and confuse the kids. Some of them were already confused enough with all the factoring and division we had been doing. Then sometime during the middle of the night I woke up thinking about the lesson and decided to change it up. I decided I wasn't going to teach them this method at all, I was going to see if they could figure it out on their own. <br />
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So this is how it went...<br />
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When they walked into class I had two polynomial multiplication problems for their warm up and I asked them to do it with the box method.<br />
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When they were finished with these two problems I asked them to take the problem given and their answer and turn it into a division problem. Then I asked them to look at an empty box and tell me where would did the divisor come from, the dividend, and the quotient for the division problem. We diagrammed the empty box together on the white board.<br />
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After this I short discussion, I put up the following seven problems on the board and told them to use the box and see if they could figure out how to do the division problem with a box method. That was it, all the direction I gave them.<br />
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I told them when they think they had the quotient figured out, they then needed it factor it and look for the solution in the scrambled answers in yellow.<br />
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After a few initial complaints about me not helping them, they all got busy thinking and discussing. Talk turned to patterns and how to find each term and it was awesome! <br />
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By problem 7 they were all pros at using this method and when I polled them at the end of class on their preferred method for solving, almost all of my students thought this one was easier to figure out. I guess we shall see on the test tomorrow.<br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-56212537084175533792016-01-05T22:01:00.000-06:002016-01-05T22:02:12.147-06:00A Soft Re-entry back into Algebra 2That first day back is hard. We are all used to two weeks of staying up late and sleeping in late. First period was especially tough with lots of sleepy kids and very little energy for thinking. Well aware of what today would be like for the kids, I planned a fun day where we could rely on some previous learning to slowly get back in the groove. A soft reentry back into our normal routine, as I told my students. <br />
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Before the break we started working with polynomials, even though our polynomials unit isn't until the Spring. We had to cover a few topics before the break because the spring calendar is packed and with testing coming up later in the spring, some of it had to be moved to the fall. The two topics covered were adding and subtracting polynomials, and multiplying polynomials, so I was on the lookout for some ideas to do a real quick review of those topics, without just giving them a boring worksheet for practice. While browsing this past weekend, I stumbled upon<a href="http://www.teachesmath.com/?p=140" target="_blank"> Lisa Henry's</a> site and one of her posts about some polynomial review stations she did with her classes. <br />
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I decided on three activities, two from Lisa and the other I created myself based upon an activity that <a href="http://mathequalslove.blogspot.com/2015/10/dividing-polynomials-using-box-method.html" target="_blank">Sarah Hagan</a> did with her students using the box method for multiplication.<br />
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Activity 1 - Exponent Puzzle</h3>
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I've actually used some version of the puzzle in the past with factoring trinomials and solving equations, so when I saw Lisa using one for exponent review, I decided to create my own similar puzzle. Students have to match up the problem and solution eventually forming a 3x4 rectangular puzzle. You can get mine<a href="http://bit.ly/EXPREVPUZ" target="_blank"> here</a>.<br />
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Activity 2 - Polynomial Cubes</h3>
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This idea also came from Lisa, but I created my own list of polynomials to work with. Students roll the two polynomial cubs and the operation cube. The operation cube tells them to add or subtract the two polynomials. You establish that the polynomial from the blue cube comes first, so that their work matches the self checking key. I asked my students to do 12 rolls and they used white boards to work out their problems and check. You can get my version <a href="http://bit.ly/1VH4fvX">here.</a></div>
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Activity 3 - Polynomial Multiplication Puzzles</h3>
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I created 6 puzzles fashioned after a polynomial dividing activity Sarah shared on her blog. The puzzles are pretty easy at the start, but get progressively more challenging. I loved the way the students had to think about patterns they saw happening in the boxes. I'm hoping to do the dividing activity with them too, so this practice will help with the learning curve on the dividing one. Students were given "the box" as the puzzle board and all the pieces to the polynomial multiplication problem. They had to arrange the problem parts to find the resulting solution polynomial. The puzzles can be found <a href="http://bit.ly/1mAJer9">here.</a> I copied each puzzle on a separate colored cardstock to keep them organized.</div>
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My largest class is 30, so I had about 8 copies of each activity and I had them work in pairs. The decided which activity they wanted to start with and when they were finished they returned it to the table and grabbed a new activity. In all of my classes, after a quick introduction about each activity, I only had 3 groups finish early, about 5 minutes before the end of class bell. </div>
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Here are a few shots of the fun.</div>
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Hope your first day back was as fun as ours!</div>
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-951871440685655542016-01-03T16:30:00.000-06:002016-01-03T16:30:26.827-06:00#MTBoS Blogging Initiative<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I, Bonnie Davis, resolve to blog in 2016 in order to open my classroom up and share my thoughts with other teachers. I hope to accomplish this goal by participating in the </span><a href="https://exploremtbos.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/kicking-off-the-2016-blogging-initiative/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">January Blogging Initiation</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hosted by</span><a href="https://exploremtbos.wordpress.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Explore MTBoS</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-79793963254040668502016-01-03T12:48:00.002-06:002016-01-03T12:49:04.069-06:00Easy BBQ Chicken SandwichesSo easy that we have this often.<br />
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6 frozen chicken breasts<br />
1 18 oz. bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce<br />
1 tsp garlic powder<br />
1 tsp onion powder<br />
salt and pepper to taste<br />
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In the morning before work place the chicken breasts still frozen in the crock pot. Pour the bottle of BBQ sauce over the top. Sprinkle in the garlic, onion, salt and pepper. Cook on low all day. <br />
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When you arrive home, shred chicken with two forks and serve on bread of choice(we typically use hamburger buns.)<br />
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Thanks <a href="http://restructuringalgebra.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Kathryn Freed</a> (@kathrynfreed) for the recipe challenge!<br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-4085008500698460322016-01-03T12:33:00.001-06:002016-01-03T12:33:51.820-06:00#MTBoS12days - Classroom WishlistI really love my classroom. I've been at my school for 2 years now and am very happy with the room I inherited from the previous teacher. There are a couple things that would make it even better though.<br />
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<li>iPads for everyone! Ok, I'd be happy with one for every two students. There are so many cool things I've seen posted that I want to try, but not having laptops or iPad has been limiting. We do tons with our personal devices, but I do have a few students that I need to accommodate because they don't have a phone or don't have room for another app. </li>
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<li>Tables and chairs, instead of fixed desks with seats. I want to be able to have those days that we push the tables to the side and just use the chairs or even the floor. The desks with connected chairs are so cumbersome. Narrow tables like these would be awesome.</li>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nkmhv3GQ2wc/VolnvwhClzI/AAAAAAAAAT8/QtcjkmEU2E4/s1600/Classroom90711.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nkmhv3GQ2wc/VolnvwhClzI/AAAAAAAAAT8/QtcjkmEU2E4/s640/Classroom90711.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<li>Windows! I'm in the middle of the builidng with no natural light. I would love to have some natural light pouring into my room. Might just get me out of there earlier too as I'd have a sense of how late it really was.</li>
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<li>Interactive whiteboard. I've never had one, but they look really cool. Definitely not a need, but would be nice.</li>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-31836524406108969442016-01-03T11:03:00.000-06:002016-01-03T11:03:19.591-06:00#MTBoS12days - What I Want to Improve On this Coming SemesterOh where do I begin? I always feel like there's a ton I can improve on, to the point that I get overwhelmed when I begin to think about all of the areas that could use some improvement. So let me try not to send myself into a state of inadequacy the day before I return to work. I'll try to focus on a few areas.<br />
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<h3>
Homework - </h3>
I'm going to start using a Stamp system for homework checks. I'm using a version that came from a friend in the district, Leah Cramer, but I'm revamping it a bit. I love how <a href="http://pamjwilson.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Pam Wilson</a> (@pamjwilson) uses a color coding method for student feedback, so want to incorporate that idea. I also plan to have a reflection area on the back of the stamp sheet so that students can jot down important things from the lesson that they will need to remember for tests and quizzes. <a href="http://bit.ly/STMPSHT" target="_blank">Here's</a> what I've come up with so far. <br />
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I only give 5-8 problems at a time, and the grade area is for students to keep track of their own progress. I don't actually take the grade in the grade column, its for their own record of how they are did on that lesson. I plan to collect these stamp sheets on test days and use these when discussing with a student the opportunity to retest or do corrections if they do poorly on the test.<br />
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<h3>
Planning -</h3>
Another area that I would like to improve upon is timely planning. I typically start out the semester way ahead, but within a few weeks I always feel like I'm scrambling to put things together for lessons. I want to stay on top of this more this semester. I'd like to get my assessments done before we even start the unit, which is always a goal, but by mid semester it falls by the wayside. <br />
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<h3>
Relationships -</h3>
I think I have pretty good relationships with my students in my classroom, but I want to make an effort to be involved with them outside of my classroom. I want to get better at attending some of their extracurricular things like band concerts, sporting events, theater, etc. I always have good intentions of attending these types of activities, but when the event finally comes around, I can find some excuse to go home and not stay around to attend. I know how much it means to the kids for their teachers to be there, so I want to really make an effort to do this.<br />
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I'm sure there are a lot more areas I could improve upon, but I'm going to focus on these three for now.<br />
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-63031010327078456532015-12-30T22:53:00.000-06:002015-12-30T22:53:46.467-06:00#MTBoS12days - Tried and True StrategiesSo the title says "Strategies", but I think I am going to share just one. This one strategy has transformed how my kids work together in their groups. It has turned group work into great strategy sessions that involve lots of great math discussion and problem solving. <br />
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The official name I give my kids for this activity is "Performance Tasks." These actually started as a result of our new curriculum this year and the first performance tasks I used actually came straight from our book. The strategy comes more from how I have them actually do the performance task.<br />
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It looks like this. I create the performance task for the end of a Module (our book is broken into Modules with each unit consisting of 2-3 modules, each module is 3-4 lessons). It's basically just a multi-step word problem that incorporates skills from all of the lessons. I copy the Performance task onto four different colored papers so that in each group of four students they all have a different color. I tell them that the performance task counts as a quiz, and they must work together and agree on what to write down as far as work and their thinking as they work the problem. They should have some sort of graphic or picture that represents the problem or their thinking and justification for their answer. I stress that each one of them must understand the problem and contribute to working the problem. <br />
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Then I tell them that they must make sure that each paper has everything they discussed and worked on because at the end I will only choose one color to grade and the entire group will get the grade of the color that I choose. I also tell them that whoever's paper I chose must be able to explain to me and defend their thinking for that problem. It's truly magic. The discussion that has occurred over these performance tasks has been amazing. If someone in their group doesn't understand, the others are teaching them until they get it. They argue and bicker over what should be included in the justification and what should be left out. They look at each other's graphs and discuss them and how they should look. <br />
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At the end of the period, after I pick up their papers, I put the four colors in a bucket and have a student draw the color to be graded in front of the class. This way there is no question about how I chose the color to be graded.<br />
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I absolutely love these days that we do performance tasks. I have 100% participation in class, great math discussions and peer teaching going on and the added bonus of only having to grade one fourth of the papers I would normally have to grade. <br />
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Let me know if you try this and how it works for you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-39487958901995218192015-12-30T21:47:00.000-06:002015-12-30T21:47:53.152-06:00#MTBoS12days - Semester Reflection: Start, Stop, ContinueTime to reflect on the last semester. <br />
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<b>What to Start...</b><br />
I want to start being more consistent with an opening activity when the kids walk in the room. I want that activity to set the pace for the rest of the period by getting the students thinking. Some days I have a warm-up for them to start, on other days I have procedural directions. I really like the idea that many of my twitter math peeps use of a different activity every day, but consistency on what is done each day of the week.<br />
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I'm going start a new homework checking procedure using a stamp page. I'm in the process of designing it now, but I got the idea from a friend in the district, Leah Cramer, who has used this in the past. The students keep up with the page which has a stamp for each homework assignment. On the back there is a place for reflection after each lesson which the students keep up with as lessons are completed. The idea is for them to use the reflection part to help study for the unit test. The stamp sheet is then turned in on test day and the homework is recorded in the grade book.<br />
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I'd also like to start, in some form or fashion, spiraling my material. I'm hoping that I can incorporate that some into my warm-ups. <br />
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<b>What to Stop..</b>.<br />
I'm going to stop having my kids turn in their homework electronically through our Google Classroom. Although I love some aspects of this, the kids hate it. In a perfect world where all kids turned their homework in on time, it would be great. I've found it incredible difficult to keep up with all those kids who turn theirs in late. I'm found that I would have to go back through the assignments multiple times to catch all those late kids. We also had some difficulty with images not showing up or documents being blank. I may give it a try again in the future, but if I do, I will do it at the very start of the year and have a day of training on how to do it and some better procedure for those kids that turn it in late.<br />
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<b>What to Continue...</b><br />
I'm going to continue using Google Forms and Flubaroo for warm-ups and Quizalize for quick in class assessments. I've seen some posts on Quizziz too, so I'd like to try that and compare to Quizalize. <br />
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I'm going to continue using our Google Classroom to post notes and assignments for students who forget or miss class.<br />
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I'm going to continue giving my kids ways to self check as they are working in class. In the fall semester I used some great partner activities as well as my solving scramble, which I use a lot now. It has really freed me from the dreaded question "Did I do this right?" and allowed me to keep moving around the room.<br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-74624276539295570082015-12-30T20:53:00.001-06:002015-12-30T20:54:17.702-06:00#MTBoS12Days - Currently Reading...I love, love, love to read. Sadly, I don't read as much as I would like to because by the time I crawl into bed at night I can barely keep my eyes open these days. When I do have a spare moment, I'm usually reading blogs looking for ideas to use in my classroom instead of pleasure reading. I love reading fiction, especially medical mysteries and spy & espionage books. I wish I enjoyed reading non fiction more. I always have good intentions of reading through a non fiction book, but more often than not, I never make it completely through the book. I'll read particular chapters and skim other areas, but struggle to read it in its entirety.<br />
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A book I've recently read - "Coming Home" by Mariah Stewart. This is one of my favorite authors who has written some really great suspense/mystery novels, but this particular book is a completely different genre. It's more of a romantic fiction along the lines of Nicholas Sparks, which I occasionally read, but completely different from the other books I've read by her. I was intrigued to see that she was writing books like this and had to see for myself if it was something I liked. I found that I did like it and ended up reading the first three books in this series she wrote. The rest of the series is on my list for next summer when I have more time to read.<br />
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A book I'm currently reading - "Resistant" by Michael Palmer. He's my absolute favorite medical mystery author. Highly recommend any of his books if you like medical mysteries.<br />
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A book I'd like to read - Just got back from watching the STAR WARS movie and one of the movie previews was for a movie called "The 5th Wave." The story line sounded intriguing and when I saw that it was based upon a book, I decided that the book would probably be much better than the movie. It's sitting in my Amazon shopping cart right now. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-63671352594917229082015-12-23T08:49:00.001-06:002015-12-23T08:49:57.859-06:00#MTBoS12days - How I Relax and Rejuvenate over the break!It may not sound very relaxing, but the biggest stress reliever for me is organizing. With 3 teenagers living at home, my house gets crazy cluttered during the semester. I spend more time working on lesson plans and teaching than I do on my house and as a result it's utter chaos by Christmas break. Once break starts, the de-cluttering begins too. I usually start with my desk at home, then move on to my closet, then my kitchen pantry and so on. By the time I go back to school, I feel like I've accomplished something at home and hope that the neatness lasts at least a couple weeks.<br />
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After organizing, my next stress reliever is baking. This I'm able to do throughout the school year, so it's not just an event that takes place over the break. I love to bake! Warming up the kitchen with all sorts of yummy smells puts me in my happy place. Pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, and bread are my favorites. <br />
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Kind of funny that my two greatest stress relievers actually involve more work. I don't mind though, it doesn't seem like work when I'm doing it. What is your go to stress reliever during the break?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-82135165665695827922015-12-22T09:00:00.000-06:002015-12-22T09:00:08.274-06:00#MTBoS12days - Semester SuccessThere have been a lot of first and seconds for me this year and all in all I'd count it as a pretty successful first semester for the year. This is my second year at my school and second year back teaching high school math, but my first as math department chair at my school. This was my first year to be involved in curriculum writing in my district and first year to be part of several leadership teams on my campus. To say that I have been dragged out of my comfort zone is an understatement. <br />
I consider myself a worker bee. I love being behind the scenes and doing what I love doing, teaching and planning, so it has been a little uncomfortable to be out in front of my teacher friends, leading. I've gotten good feedback from some of the projects I've been involved in, so I must be doing okay, even though I feel inadequate at times.<br />
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In my classroom, I have seen many successes this year as well. Lots of failures and areas for improvement too, but today I am focusing on success.<br />
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Success #1 - Incorporating technology into some of my lessons. We are not a 1:1 campus, but most kids have their own devices so my goal was to get my students to use them in class. I don't want to be one of those teachers that constantly harps on her kids to put their cell phones away. Cell phones are a fact of life for these kids and I'd rather spend my time teaching them ways to use them for school than punishing them for sneaking a look at a text or a post. What I've found is if I treat them as if its no big deal that they have them out on their desks, then it really does end up being no big deal. Sure there's an occasional text message sent or email checked, but for the most part I keep them busy and it becomes a non issue. <br />
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Being BYOD can be limiting sometimes, but we have had some great lessons using Desmos and Geogebra. I've used Quzalize and Google Forms for formative assessments. I'm using Google Classroom for all of my classes this year and have tried turning in electronic homework with on again, off again success. <br />
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Success #2 - Twitter and Blogs to extend my professional learning. I am still in awe of the vast knowledge available to me as a teacher through twitter and blogs. I would read an occasional blog before this year and had a twitter account that I rarely used, but this year I've finally figured out what those two things can do for me. Getting active in the #MTBoS has really transformed my teaching. The challenging part has been finding a system to organize all of the information I am finding. When I find a great lesson idea for something that I don't teach until April, how do I help myself remember that idea. I think I've figured out something that is working for me, but I'm sure this will be evolving over time too. Any of you with great ideas on this one, please chime in here.<br />
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Success #3 - Student Relationships. For whatever reason I feel like I have developed some great relationships with my students really quickly. Usually about March or April I can look back and see that I've finally won all of my kids over, but this year I am already feeling like I'm at that place with them. I have almost no discipline issues and my kids work for me. It doesn't matter what silly or rigorous activity I plan, they are always great about playing along and giving it their best. As a result I'm usually in awe of the conversations that are going on about math in my room. It's a real boost when I have other teachers asking me about an activity we did in my class because my kids were still talking about it when they got to their class. I hope to continue building onto these relationships with the kids as it makes taking risks and trying new things with them easier.<br />
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I'm looking forward to an even better second semester too!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-57213516617978953582015-12-21T11:27:00.001-06:002015-12-21T11:28:39.843-06:00#MTBoS12days - Favorite Family Holiday RecipesIf there's one thing my family does well, it's baking. It's a tradition that has been handed down for many generations and I am continuing it on with my own girls. My sister has an amazing blog where she shares lots of family recipes as well as new recipes she's trying. My sister's three daughters have also carried on this tradition and they all post frequently about what is currently going on in their kitchens. It's not just the women though, because one of my older brothers is just as gifted in the kitchen. In fact, this Thanksgiving he prepared and sold 24 BBQ Pit Fireball Pumpkin Pies, his latest recipe hit. I'm not quite as adventurous as my brother and usually stick to the tried and true recipes handed down from my Grandmother.<br />
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<b><u>Chocolate Roll</u></b></h2>
<b><br /></b><b>Ingredients:</b><br />
5 eggs<br />
1 cup sugar<br />
1/4 tsp salt<br />
2 tsp baking powder<br />
1 cup flour<br />
1 tsp vanilla<br />
powdered sugar<br />
chocolate filling (recipe below)<br />
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<b>Directions:</b><br />
Separate eggs. Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon colored. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. <br />
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In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until almost stiff. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup sugar and beat until very stiff. <br />
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Fold yolks into whites, then fold in remaining dry ingredients.<br />
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Spread onto wax paper lined jelly roll pan.<br />
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Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.<br />
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Dust a dish towel with powdered sugar and turn baked cake roll onto towel. Roll up and let cool. Fill with chocolate filling and refrigerate.<br />
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<h2>
<u>Chocolate Roll Filling</u></h2>
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<b>Ingredients:</b><br />
3/4 cup milk - scalded<br />
1 1/2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate<br />
1/4 cup flour<br />
1/4 cup milk, cold<br />
1 Tbs butter<br />
1/2 cup sugar<br />
1 egg<br />
1/4 tsp salt<br />
1 tsp vanilla<br />
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<b>Directions:</b><br />
Scald 3/4 cup milk with chocolate. Thicken with flour. Add 1/4 cup cold milk and 1 tablespoon of butter. In a separate bowl, beat sugar, egg, salt and vanilla. Add mixture to chocolate mixture and cook over low heat until smooth and thick. Spread onto cooled cake roll.<br />
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Serves 12.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-71799927582443484292015-12-21T08:51:00.000-06:002015-12-21T08:51:02.372-06:00#MTBoS12days Yule Blog ChallengeAs you can see I have not been very good about keeping up with my blog this fall. I'm hoping to do better in the spring semester. For now though I'm going to attempt @pamwilson and @druinok Yule Blog Challenge over the break. I'm hoping this will kick start my blogging going into the spring semester.<br><br> You can see Pam's original post <a href="https://pamjwilson.wordpress.com/2015/12/19/mtbos12days-yule-blog-challenge/">here</a>. <br><br>Here's a recap of the challenge, in case you want to join -
<br>~ “My Holiday favorites” (you choose: treats & recipes to share, inexpensive gifts to give, holiday memories
<br>~ a success story from this semester
<br>~ How I relax and rejuvenate over the break
<br>~ a book I’ve read… a book I’m reading… a book I want to read…
<br>~ Reflection on last semester… What will I start, stop and continue in the new semester?
<br>~ a tried and true task/strategy – I can always count on
<br>~ a Moment / a-ha that challenged me as a teacher & how I handled it
<br>~ 1 thing i want to improve next semester
<br>~ classroom wishlist
<br>~ looking forward to in 2016…
<br>~ New Year Resolutions – Personal and/or professional
<br>~ Something that makes me proud to be a – Laker, trojan, Knight, Wildcat, Eagle… etc.
<br><br> Now, where do I begin?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-21413636725044921912015-11-06T08:00:00.000-06:002015-11-06T08:00:05.378-06:00Imaginary NumbersTwo posts in one week. I'm even amazed. Never mind the fact that I'm writing about activities we did a couple weeks ago.<br />
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We were in the middle of a solving quadratic equations unit and had already covered simplifying radicals and solving with square roots. I introduced imaginary and complex numbers and wanted to spend some time practicing simplifying negative radicals. We started with a foldable about imaginary numbers with some practice problems inside.<br />
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We then moved on to practicing with a Solving Scramble activity. I gave the kids 16 problems that involved imaginary numbers, simplifying radicals and solving using square roots. They used white boards and worked with a partner to work each problem. </div>
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On the big white board in class I had all of the solutions in a scrambled mess. They checked themselves by looking for their answer. If it wasn't there, they went back to figure out what they did wrong. I really love these self checking activities because it gives them immediate feedback without all the questions to me of "Is this right?"</div>
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-66803487448479811532015-11-05T20:01:00.000-06:002015-11-05T20:21:55.473-06:00Solving with Square Roots<span style="font-family: "coming soon" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 17.12px;">Looks like I'm on a once a month post schedule. I had really hoped to post once a week, but life just seems to be getting in the way.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "coming soon" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "coming soon" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">We are working on solving quadratic equations by square roots. I wanted the kids to get some practice in class before I sent them on their way with practice for home. I chose to use one of Kagan's structures, Rally Coach. I taught them four of the team cheers from Kagan and they loved it! Getting silly in math, why not! I think them seeing me super animate each cheer was exactly what we needed to liven things up a bit. Even weeks later they are cheering each other on with the silly cheers.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "coming soon" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "coming soon" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">Each set of partners received a recording sheet with about 12 problems, with the sheet folded in half longways. The partners take turns solving the equations. The one solving the equation talks their partner through the entire problem. I told them that they can't write anything they don't talk about. After partner A solves the first problem, Partner B gives them a cheer and they switch roles and turn the paper over to the other side. It's really a pretty easy activity, but it's the silly cheers that make it so fun. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "coming soon" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.12px;">This was the first time I have tried a Kagan structure, but I'm loving the student engagement I saw and will definitely be trying some others.</span></span></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3451412229136417830.post-62995055519607482252015-10-04T22:24:00.001-05:002015-10-04T22:24:27.209-05:00Quadratic Functions IntroWe started our Quadratic Functions Unit last week, which is one of my favorite units to teach. On Day 1 we started with a Brain Dump to see exactly what everyone remembered about Quadratics from Algebra 1. Some classes were more successful than others at what they remembered, but in each class we were able to help others remember more than they thought they did. I had each student start by writing down everything they remembered on a piece of paper. After about 5 minutes I then had them all get up and go chat with 3 other students with the goal of adding 2 more items from their list for each student they chatted with in the hopes that they could each add at least six more items to their own list.<br />
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After returning to their desks, I then asked for volunteers to write one thing from their list on the white board, but they could not duplicate anything that was already written. It had to be something new that was not already on the board. This process lasted for another 5-10 minutes as they began remembering more as they saw what others were adding to the board. I asked them to add anything to their paper that was not already there as we were filling up the board. At the end of this activity my board looked like this.<br />
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We then moved on to talk about the attributes of quadratic functions and did a few examples together where we picked out the vertex, axis of symmetry, domain, range, maximum or minimum, and increasing and decreasing intervals. Once we worked on a few together, I gave each group their own quadratic function to work with and had them put the information on their group white boards to display. <br />
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After all were done, we did a gallery walk around the room to check each other's work.<br />
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