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I was browsing through some of the blogs by others and found this article mentioned in the blog Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere.  It is kind of a long article but really made me think about the education we are getting as pre-service teachers.  It also mentions a book, that I want to buy as soon as it hits the shelves.  Some methods in the article contradict what we are being taught but there are also some things that aren’t being taught for us to soak up and use.  Overall this article really made me want to strive to do better and learn more in order to become more prepared for my first day, first classroom, and first year and all years and classrooms to follow.  I highly recommend reading this article and asking yourself: Am I prepared enough?  Will I ever be prepared enough?  What more do I want to learn and how can I keep learning to better myself?

2010 03 20 Marisa Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

Math Magician Game

Students should usually have their math facts down pat by 6th grade, but some don’t…. I found a math game, that if combined with some kind of reward for achieving a certain score and time, would be good for those students lacking in knowledge of basic multiplication and division tables. This online math game essentially represents flash cards, just virtually!

http://resources.oswego.org/games/mathmagician/cathymath.html

2010 03 15 mattcartier Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

Teaching with a SmartBoard

Teaching with SmartBoard

The above link is a cool site I’ve found that has some fun tips on teaching with a SmartBoard if you get the opportunity!!  Hope you all are enjoying the School-Field Experiences; I know I am!

2010 03 08 lindsey.johnson Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

General Comments About Observing

Observing at Hudson High has been a great learning experience so far.  I get along really well with my co-op, Adam Kowles, and he has been so helpful.

One thing that I have noticed during the day is the difference between two periods of the same class. Right away in the morning, It is two Algebra II classes followed by two Algebra I classes.  He has told me that if something doesn’t work with the first class, then he changes it  for the second class to make it work, either an activity or just the way the lesson is structured.  The one time that was obvious he did this was the first class walked in and he checked their homework and then went through to see if there were any questions.  After all the questions were answered he went on to his lesson.  In the first class, he was not able to give all the examples that he planned.  For the second class, he started with questions from the homework and moved to the lesson plan.  He made it through everything that he had planned and was then able to check the homework.

I wonder if there is a way to learn this type of flexibility or if it just comes with experience….

2010 03 07 k_deboer Uncategorized Comments (2) Permalink

SMART PODIUM

While observing in one of my two classrooms, the one room has a SMART Podium which sits on her desk in the back of the classroom.  I thought it was neat because she basically uses it as a SMART board and has students come and write solutions out on it.  The reason I mainly liked it was because everyone could see the screen at all times because no one was up at the board writing but instead in the back of the room.  Another advantage is that if a student misses class you have the notes electronically so you can send them via email or post them right on the web.  One disadvantage I thought of was that you are not able to see students reactions to the different concepts you are teaching; therefore, it may be difficult to see if they just are not getting something.  Here is one website that shows the different models.

2010 03 07 2k4 Uncategorized Comments (1) Permalink

ipods

I would just like to mention that, on Friday at SCC, there was an announcement made by the principal over the loud speaker at the beginning of the day that went something like: “When you have your ipods in class or in study hall they are only to be used during your work time for music.  You are not to be playing games.  If you are playing games, you will lose your ipod.  So, please use it only to listen to music.”  I had noticed many ipods in study hall throughout the three days I had been there so far and none of the teachers minded.  I thought maybe it was just that the two teachers in the room didn’t mind during their study hall.  However, after that announcement I started to realize that kids kept them in their pockets all day and a few did use them while working on homework at the end of class.  I would also like to say that I have not seen a single phone in class.  I heard one in the hallway once but I have not seen one at all in class–not even the sneaky under the table or in the sweatshirt moves.  Maybe allowing ipods is a compromise.  The students know the rules and seem to be respectful of them: they aren’t using them during the lesson or during announcements.  So why not allow them?

2010 03 07 Marisa Uncategorized Comments (3) Permalink

interesting things

http://teachhighschoolmath.blogspot.com/

This was from one of the people that Langford put on her list, and there were a couple of interesting ideas that I found. One of these things was the idea of switching seats. This particular teacher has his students switch seats at the beginning of every chapter. First of all, would you personally let your students choose where they sit, or do you believe assigned seats are the best way to go. (speaking generally of course, I realize that every class is different and may have different needs).

The other idea that I found very interesting was the review game he had. It was the game UNO Stacko, and he would divide the class into groups of 4, and he would choose a student at random to answer a question. If the student answered correctly, they would have to remove 2 blocks from the tower, but if they answered incorrectly, they would have to remove 4 blocks. If the tower fell while a student was removing blocks, each student would receive extra credit, except for that student and the group that he or she was in. I thought that this was very creative, although there may be some things I would change about it if I were to use this in my class, but overall a good use of a preexisting game. Does anyone else have any ideas of games such as this? I know we have already used the “fly swatter” game in 305, but any other ideas would be great!

2010 03 03 gresethn Uncategorized Comments (3) Permalink

Assessment Tools

I have been trying to find the article that showed a teacher using index cards as low tech i-clickers and have not had much luck.  I did stumble upon this site that has some neat assessment tools. I will let you know if I find the article.  Basically what the teacher did was have a set of index cards that were laminated  and they had the letters A, B, C and D on respective index cards that were color coded.  One color was for red, one for B and so on.  Each student takes one of each letter and brings them back to the their seat.  For any assessment that the teacher that some students would be embarrassed by, the teacher would have the students put their heads down on their desk and hold up the card indicating their answer.  The question and choices were on the board.  She mainly used it to check students understanding.  I thought that it was a good way to use the concept of i-clickers if you were not given the budget to have iclickers.

2010 03 02 casciuwrf Uncategorized Comments (3) Permalink

Have Your Cake… And Eat It Too!

I have come to really like a lot of posts by Kate Nowak and When I came across her Extrinsic Motivation post I thought it was awesome! She talks about how she is in a cake decorating class and how she was supposed to make a rainbow but made a pie chart on the cake instead. She then took a picture of it and had her students label the radian measurements of all the parts. When the students found out that they get to eat it afterwards they were very into it.

I thought it was a great way to motivate students! I like getting ideas for motivating students. I think that I would like to try something like this in my classroom someday. When I was in High School we had “pi day”, which happens on 3/14 and I am sure that many of you celebrated this day as well. We got to bring in pie and have a little celebration and discussed the number pi and its applications. Students always get excited when food is involved. Matt and Nichole have already incorporated food into their lessons and I remember doing a unit with cookies and jelly bellies in middle school. Food is a great motivation but it also can be a big distraction if not used right.

2010 03 01 lroubal Uncategorized Comments (2) Permalink

Algebra site

Katie found a really cool site about algebra.

2010 02 26 LaurelLangford Uncategorized Comments (2) Permalink