*THAT* School.....

Are you "that" school? When people ask you where you work, and you tell them, do they get a knowing look in their eye as if, "oh yes, I know ALL about your school". They know what they've heard and what they assume and what conclusions they draw without ever having stepped inside your school.

I work at "that" school. In fact, all 3 of the schools I've taught at have been "that" school in some way or the other. In fact, I'm now coming to realize that maybe ALL schools are "that" school. Just like everyone (it seems) knows exactly what it means to be a teacher (those lounging summers off and that too-much pay and the paltry knowledge we hold in our heads). It seems everyone has a bead on just exactly what your work environment must be like.

In fact, I think I'm guilty of thinking "that" school when I hear of other teachers at other schools in our area. Maybe it's human nature. "Oh!" we think, "they must have it so _______ over there" .... or "Oh! THAT'S the rich/poor/smart/entitled/ethnic..... type of school it is." When in reality, I'm guessing that all schools have their problems. All schools most likely have drugs and fights and bullying and parents who _____ and parents who don't ______ and depressed kids and happy kids and excelling kids and struggling kids and just plain kids. I need to be more aware of my jumping to conclusions about other situations.

A Warm Fuzzy...

A long while ago, the students (that happened to be) in my calculus class were all up in a tizzy and stressed out and flustered and frazzled with school. It seemed daily that there were melt downs. I tried to think of things that would be helpful and not take too much time that would ease their situation. I did few things, including this activity.

I didn't know if the following thing would work (and it actually took some time), but since that day, I've seen the students file this sheet in the plastic sheet on their binders, so they can look at it when they need to. I just saw one the other day, and it reminded me about it.

Now, I'm guessing it will only work with students who know each other well and have some history with each other. My students, for example, have been in math classes together for at least 4 years. They're the epitome of the dysfunctional siblings ... in a good way ... mostly.

I copied this sheet onto pretty paper:



Then each kid wrote their name in the box at the top. Then each kid had to write something nice about themselves (a memory or a compliment) on the first line.

Then we rotated the papers in one direction, and then each kid had to write something nice (memory/compliment/...) about the named kid at the top of the paper. Then we kept rotating in this fashion until the paper made it back to the original student.

Now this is something the student can keep forever and look back on when they need a boost.

Of course, I had to preface the activity with some time where each person had to scan the room and reflect on memories. They were also reminded about "bad" "mundane" sentences: (you are very nice) versus awesome statements (I love that you helped me with ____ when I was feeling ____).

I have 22 kids in class, and it probably took that long. So I'm guessing it has to be on a day when you can afford that time. Don't know if/when I'll do it for another class, but at the time, it seemed needed for my little stress buckets.

Finals Week

It's Here! It's Here! I'm sure the kids are super thrilled to last-minute cram a whole semester's worth of knowledge into their heads. I know I'M THRILLED to see how they fare (fingers crossed). I also know it's time to sit back and reflect on the semester and what I can do to improve and encourage for the next round.

The student surveys for each class revealed some good tips for me. Some of them were of the hit myself on the forehead for the "why didn't I think of that" variety. For example, we've been using Haiku as a school to post our flipped lessons and such. We also have a separate homework calendar. I also have a third website where I sometimes post links to helpful websites. Hmmmmmm, combine them all on particular Haiku pages so the students only have to look in one place. Of course!

They also clamored for more examples, more examples. Haiku to the rescue. I always run out of time in class and only get in one or 2 examples. I could scan and post extras on the site.

They (AP Calculus AB) also reminded me to keep up with the pep talks. A large part of their success is just knowing they can do it and them keeping the faith that they are capable. I know they can do it ... I just have to keep reminding myself that they need reminders that THEY can do it. DO IT! It's easy to forget sometimes that they're little kids (and humans) and their insecurities cram into their brains and mess with them and make them more susceptible to giving up and not pushing through. Sheesh! Humans!

I also need to revamp my attitude. The five preps and extra school related activities and insomnia and life have been messing with my mind and personality. I found I'm more apt to blurt out a sarcastic comment or suggestion instead of a helpful one to students. Who put the crabby into my pants? Hmmmm, not a nice visual. I have to fake the nice until I make the nice attitude. I. Can. Do. It. Go Me! Viva La Math!

Trig Graph Project

This Fall our math department went to the Dallas Regional NCTM conference, and there was a pair of precalculus teachers discussing various projects they did. Great talk, and I took one of their projects and altered it to this:




I only wanted them to use ONE EACH of the 6 trig functions; they could restrict the domain; they were NOT supposed to restrict the range; they couldn't use any other functions; and then the were to color it. Here are some students that followed the directions.

Calculus & Calculators

I realized I've been remiss on practicing calculator skills with my AP Calculus AB students, so on my flipped lesson video, I walked through finding a numerical derivative, and through solving an equation. Their assignment was then this sheet:




I've been away at college field trips for 3 days, so we'll see how it works out when classes resume on Monday.

And on that note, can I just gripe a little? Of course I can, you'll be too late to stop me. Almost to a person, every guide we had on the 4 colleges we visited had this answer, "oh, I don't know about that, I'm a business major."

What's with that? Here were some of the questions that stumped them:
Do you have a _____ engineering program?
Do you have ______ degree program?
Can you tell me about classes offered in ______?

I understand that they're just college students that are earning extra money shuttling high school students around the campus, but I would think that would be part of the training. What about an answer such as:

Great question! I don't know that answer, but here's a website link, and I think you can find the answer. (or for the case of the guide near a computer, maybe they could look up the answer).

Also, the guides should have a test on projecting their voices past 10 feet, so the students in the back can hear them.

Also, most HS students are not interested in "here's this building, and here's that building". What about comments from the guides such as:
* here is what I love about my school
* here are some fun memories
* here is how I made friends
* here are the cool classes I took at my school
* here are great things I love about my professors or major or ______

Okay, griping done.

Deep Breaths & Mantras

* They're still children.

* They must be allowed to fail if that's the path they're on, and they're not taking any of the multiple opportunities to get help.

* They don't get answers wrong to annoy me.

* What do you MEAN math's not the end all of your joyous tasks???

* Every day is a fresh start.

* Homework in calculus is only worth 10%. I should not get my panties in a twist because they are trying to find loopholes to "doing the right thing".

* They are people and not grades.

Breathe innnnnnnn, breathe outttttttt.

Flipping Idea

A couple of weeks ago, when I was starting my calculus class, it turned out that about 6 of the students hadn't watched the video. Out of 22 students, that's not good. I was so frustrated and grumpy and chided them and mumbled that now I'd have to babysit them and actually take their notes as a homework grade and yada yada yada. One of my finer moments.

Yes, I have started taking the notes for a grade (it's only been one class! success! :))

But then after I learned about screencast-o-matic and also movie maker in which I can splice together different screen shots or different videos, I had an idea yesterday, and I implemented it. We happened to have a club meeting on Saturday, and one of my calculus students was at the club. I had her make 2 short video clips, and I spliced them into my flipped lesson in addition to splicing in a goofy photo bomb picture of myself.

My thoughts are that maybe I can have stealth students quickly record a short applicable webcam video (periodically? always?) and then put them in randomly. Then the students will be CLAMORING to watch their flipped videos. Right? Right?????

This lesson happened to be about related rates problems involving cones. There's invariably an upside down cone filling or draining of liquid. One of my student's clips was, "why would you have a cone-shaped tank?". Her other one was, "how does this cone keep from falling down?". My goofy face was plugged in after I made some mistake in writing my notes (shocker!), and then I popped my face in there and then continued.

Ahhhhh, at least I keep myself amused.

Creating Quick Graphs for Documents

I'm playing around with screencast-o-matic that I found out about from an awesome colleague, so I thought I'd make a video on how to make a quick xy-plane of any size you want for your documents:

Grading Exams...

I'm grading my 6 weeks calculus exam. On one implicit differentiation problem, I stated it as: show that dy/dx = ...... , so the kids HAVE the answer they're shooting for. They need to do the differentiation and get to the answer.

I love how the Magic Math Fairy sprinkles dust on some of their work and 10's become 6's or negative numbers *POOF* turn positive just because they have to.

They're so cute.....

Classes & Objects in Java

I didn't find a satisfactory way to teach this without yapping at the kids and having them take notes and zone out and such. I knew I wanted to make analogies to link it to what they know. I didn't have time to create something.

Luckily, I came across this website. And I made up this sheet:



It took them all block period, and MOST who were on task finished. There was good discussion on what classes and objects and subclasses were. I think I'd like to add to the sheet (maybe for homework or a follow up). The add on would be more questions about them creating classes and subclasses and objects going along with this analogy.

Intermediate Value Theorem

In Calculus we've "learned" the IVTh a bit ago, but as in all things, once we come back to it, students seem to have a hard time explaining what the theorem was. As I was talking to a kid today doing corrections on a section quiz, I gave her an example and asked her to match up my scenario with the terms of the theorem.

This seemed to help her (but then I did that at the start of the topic also), so I decided to make the following worksheet for the rest of the class. I think this will be different than me just relating a story because the students actually have to go in and match up what goes with what. Here's the sheet.

Back in the Day .... Dinosaurs....

That's what I felt like today.

In precalculus, like all teachers, I want them to memorize and have a quick recall of (eventually all 6 functions and all 4 quadrants but for now...) sine/cosine/tangent of all special angles in the 1st 2 quadrants. I do timed quizzes where they have to get 100% or they get a 0% ... and they can take it as many times as they want.

I think the repetition is good for them. Also, I tell them, "hey! Make flashcards! Study!" we made a foldable (2 circles with a radius cut out and them sandwiching the other and the bottom is the unit circle with stuff around it).

Anyway, a student was waiting for a friend to do test corrections after school today, and she said, "hey ...", while she was fiddling with her iPhone. "Look what app I bought." She showed me the "unit circle app" that she bought for $0.99. You do something and a random graphical image of a reference triangle shows up on the unit circle and the sine and cosine values are shown.

Huh.

Dinosaurs, I'm telling you. Rawr.

Teaching Methods in Java

I'm going to be teaching methods this week in Java, so I made up the following packet for the task. I'm still feeling my way around the best way to do things. Next year (cross my fingers the class will make), I'll teach methods sooner.



Currently, my students are working on a "Match Making" graphics program. I found some code online, that will make text boxes and allow use of the user input for "painting". I played around with it a bit and had the kids practice via a guided packet. Now they're to prompt the user for boy/girl, eye color, and 2 traits they decide. Then they're to draw the "dream date" based on the input. Can't wait to see their results.

NACLO

I just learned of NACLO, and thought I'd share it with people. This is the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad, and it's a FREE contest that's held in late January next year (2013). This seems like a cool career path (computational linguistics) that students may not have been aware of.

Here's a link to past contests. And there look to be super fun problems.

Some things that Computational Linguists think about and work on:
* speech recognition
* detection of deception
* search engines
* spam detection
* how (and why) do languages change?
* what do human languages have in common?

Patty Paper & Precalculus

I have used transparencies in the past for what I FINALLY figured out today. Sheesh! I feel slow, but at least I now have a new tool to use.

Here's a link to a 2 minute video.

Overcoming *current* Bad Habit...

I'd noticed lately (again!) that I'm treating my students like math robots. They are there to do my math homework. If I see them in the halls, my brain immediately scans through their work ethic and things they may or may not have done and tasks they have to take care of, and the FIRST thing to pop out of my mouth seems to be, "come in for tutoring" ... or "you need to make up your homework" ... or "why haven't you made up your absent work" .... or "what are you doing wandering the halls? you should be doing work".

Who invited Crabby Pants to the party?

Once I noticed that, I tried to just shove all those thoughts aside and settle on just a simple, "hello ... how are you?" type of greeting accompanied by a smile and a wait for an answer. I've taken a vow of "NICE". Don't know how long it will last. Also, I am NOT including my salty sailor mouth in the "nice" restrictions. I'm simply going to recognize these human kidlets as actual humans ... or try to anyway. Crossing my fingers that I can keep it up (until the next time I realize I've fallen off the "Nice" wagon).

Reflections

I'm totally sure this has been done to death, but I liked how this project turned out. We are doing a unit on transformations, and for the reflections portion, one of their homework assignments was this. In essence, they had to draw the x and y axes. They also had to draw the lines y=x and y=-x. Then they had to draw a word that was at least 4 letters long in the "first slice" (between the line y=x and the x-axis in the 1st quadrant). Then they had to reflect that word ALL around the lines and show some key points that they/I could check for accuracy.

I liked the "Reflection on the Reflection" piece I had them do in class when it was due (after they did a gallery walk). I asked them to write what they liked and disliked about the project and about their final product and if anything was challenging or easy or other such thoughts. It was enlightening to read their comments.

I didn't like that a ton of the final projects were such that their original word was "horizontal". That made it easier to reflect, I think. Maybe if I did this again, I'd say they had to do a "tilted word". I also think block letters may be a future requirement (for the challenge). I also think I may say that some letters have to have curves in them. Anyway, voila:

Calculator Shortcuts!

I just got back from the Dallas Regional NCTM conference. Amazing. I've only ever been to the national one in April, but we haven't been able to go for the last 3 years since it's right around state-wide-testing time. Now I actually think I enjoyed this Fall conference just as much. It was less headache to get to (other than the scrambling at the last minute to do lesson plans). It still had great talks. And it was in the beginning of the year, so I feel I could implement stuff I learned.

We went to great talks on brain research and precal projects and transformations in geometry. I bought some terrific books on formative assessment and other things. More later when I have time to process.

BUT.

One seemingly little thing that is BIG ... but maybe people already know it ... is regarding the TI-84-ish calculators. I've always done the VARS, Y-vars, bla bla bla to get to the Y1, Y2, etc. functions when I need them. Oh. No. There are shortcut menus. Who's been hiding the shortcut menus from me? I want names!

Apparently, when you enter: Alpha F4, then you get a whole range of shortcuts and can just chose Y1 or Y2 at your whim's desire. Here's a video, too.

What else have you been keeping from me?

Goofy Idea

I was finishing up my flipped lesson taping tonight when I saw the web cam and decided to take a picture to send to my husband who's on a trip. I added a goofy message and was done with it.

Then I got to thinking on my drive home, that I could totally use this on tests or worksheets for an extra added goofy factor. I can add mustaches or weird eyes with editing tools. I don't know how things will turn out in black and white, but here are some brief things to get the ball rolling:

Student Conversation

I was helping a calculus student with her test corrections, and we were chatting while she was writing things up. She said 2 interesting things. The first was:

Don't take this the wrong way ..... (that never ends well, does it?) .... but you make me feel stupid and smart at the same time.

She explained that when I look at some work she does to check it, I scrunch up my face in such a way that she interprets it as me internally saying, "what type of idiot would put this chicken scratch down and call it math." Then when I'm finished scrunching, I turn to her to explain with a bright cheery look on my face explaining the correct things she did and guiding her to fix certain things.

Sheesh. Little does she know that my face scrunching is just me thinking and squinting my eyes to see better without having to worry about how I look on the outside. Apparently, now it is true that LOOKS MATTER.

The second thing she said was that math makes her feel stupid.

Again with the SHEESH. She did have a good explanation, though, that she knows theoretically, but I don't think it translates to her heart of hearts.

She mentioned that (and she cutely says, "I don't mean to sound egotistical, but....") in other classes, she doesn't have to put out much effort to get good grades. Things come naturally to her, and it's just a matter of putting in the time. But with math, she has to actually think and if things don't come instantaneously to her, then it makes her feel stupid because of the experiences she has with other classes.

She also mentioned that even though she feels stupid in math class (now this is a girl that gets high B's and could get A's), inevitably on SATs and other standard tests, math is always her highest score. We thought about it for a bit. I'm not sure, but I think it's because in math class, it's new stuff that students are struggling with, but on standardized tests, it's more like a puzzle, and it's stuff they've seen before.

Anyway ..... here's to me making kids feel stupid .... yet smart at the same time. Woot! Just another job perk.