Relationships....

School is in its third week, and now the lack of sleep is taking its toll (that bell .... it's tolling for me). Today I left "early" (6pm) and treated myself to frozen yogurt and Sudoku and bad guitar playing (from lack of practice and wonky strings). I'm a wee bit more revived, and I guess extra sleep will be the cherry on top.

I went to an NHS 2-day weekend workshop this past Saturday and Sunday, and hmmmmm. Now my co-sponsor and I know all the things we SHOULD have done last year :). That's okay, we kept hearing that the first year is a throw-away year in terms of how effective you are. There were sponsors there that had been at it for up to 30 years. We got tons of great ideas to implement this year (service project every month; little service projects; leadership skills; laws and handbooks and by-laws; ...).

There was one great speaker. He said several great things, but here were some that resonated with me:

* Don't wait for opportunities. Create opportunities.
* You're never going to be paid enough or have enough time. Create good perks for yourself in spite of that.
* Take 10% of the time you have and make someone else's day at work. Make them feel appreciated.
* Kids say thank you in ways without saying, "thank you" .... coming back to visit ... asking for your advice ... changing their behavior because of something you said ... hugs ...

Oh, where does that "relationships" thing come in? We have seniors for the 1st time this year, and BOY are they stressed. There have been tears and anger and wan looks. They're taking about 4 AP classes. They are dealing with adjusting to newness of new-to-the-school teachers. They're dealing with the fact that they'll be leaving home soon. They're dealing with applying to college.

I've tried to make time to just shoot the breeze with them (though I'm thinking of all the things I should be doing) .... people before paper ..... We did our "stress write" ... we made funny pictures of stressed out characters and stapled them to our bulletin board. .... It's GOING TO BE FINE.

First CS Project Results

Love my students. Their first Computer Science project was due this past Friday, and here are samples of the things they did after just 2 weeks of learning CS (their first time ever).

I don't even know why I bothered to put any constraints on the project (at least 2 of these, at least 4 of these ....).

This past week we started working on Strings. Here is a worksheet I had them do:

Second Computer Science Task

Can anyone say "whirlwind week"? If you're a teacher I bet you can. I guess it's getting cliche to be all, "oh no, I'm so busy!". Anyway.

My computer science kidlets will turn in their first project tomorrow. Exciting. They're thrilled with their pictures they drew. Last class we started talking about Strings in Java. I didn't want to go the power point route - one, I didn't prepare; two, I think they'd just half listen and maybe take notes and then not learn until they were doing it.

So, we all opened our laptops, and I guided them through Strings and declaring and assigning and getting user input. Then I had them do a Google search on mad libs examples. There's a free Mad Libs generator that we walked through. After the giggles (and refresher on what an adverb or noun is *sigh*), I told them that their next task is to create a Mad Libs. Only about 10 minutes was remaining in class at this point, so I said, "start with a 2 sentence one.".

Also, instead of text book assigning and yapping, I assigned this homework for the "extras" I have to teach:



Good Times.

Funny Story That Made My Day

In my harried existence as a teacher at the start of the school year, I don't have all my "routines" in perfect place yet. For example, I don't yet make time for a snack between breakfast and lunch (or maybe it's just my tapeworm gobbling up all my food). Anyway, by lunch time I was literally clutching my stomach in the cavernous pain of hunger. I was "hangry" as they say.

As I was coming back from washing my hands and on my way to my classroom to eat lunch, I yet again clutched my stomach (wah wah wah). I happened to see 3 former students and a teacher friend walking towards me. The students asked if I was okay or if I was pregnant (note: I'm in my late 40's and the kids know I'm not having kids). My teacher friend mentioned that yes, I was pregnant with triplets, and we all mentioned that we should "spread the rumor". We chuckled about it, and I forgot the conversation.

After-school tutoring comes about. A student I hadn't seen that day comes in to work on her computer programming and asked if I was pregnant. She mentioned that she JUST got a text from a friend (and former student) that now lives in West West Texas asking if I was pregnant. Woot! Rumor spreads like wildfire!

Funny way to end the day.

Flipped Calculus Lessons

Well, I dove in from day 1 and started flipping my lessons. Thanks to the nice gentleman that discussed how "exploring" fits in here, and I think I found something that worked. In my previous thinking it seemed to be all or nothing: ALL of class was spent on practice, and NOTHING else. Hah! There's nothing that says you can't break it up and do some exploring and some practice and such .... even a quiz.

After my APSI workshop, I decided to do what the presenter recommended, and part of their grade is based on daily quizzes for things they need to know down pat. I call them IR quizzes (immediate recall), and there are about 15 every grading period (every day quizzes), and I drop the lowest 3 grades.

Here's how the first 2 days went.

Day 1:
intro, syllabus, bla bla bla.
Start immediately with showing them the zoomed in graph of y = sin x. And we bound off from there talking about local linearity (ala my summer workshop). Then they each got a special number to explore on y=x^2 to zoom in so much to make it look linear. We gathered everyone's information and plotted on my calculator. Then class was over.

So. Now it was time for me to flip. Lots of starts and stops. Computer at home didn't accept the new webcam. Made video at school the next day. SchoolTube never successfully loaded video. Neither did YouTube. Then I tried my weebly account. Eh. Then my nice teacher friend made a suggestion, and voila, I uploaded them to my google docs and sent the links to the kids.

Day 2:
On that flipped lesson, they were supposed to start their ISNs and then explore y=x^3, y=x^4, y= sin x. So in class: IR quiz. Then after a brief prep, they just practiced finding secant slopes and tangent slopes ala 2.1 Stewart. Simultaneously, I passed around my calculator and they entered their hwk information of slopes at their points. Meanwhile, I graded the quizzes (sine and cosine 10 problems 1st 2 quadrants). I handed back the quizzes. Then I stopped them working and we looked at the results on the calculator of their hwk and saw patterns (y=x^3 ..... slopes form y=3x^2....). Then class ended.

The flipped lesson I recorded for their new homework is just summarizing all this information. I love the format.

No longer do I have to wait for them to draw the graphs I'm drawing (they can just pause the video). My tonight's videos were about 16mins and 8 minutes (?). Send me e-mail if you want a sample of me babbling through the discussion, and I'll send you the link.

I also like the Interactive Student Notebook: my stuff on the right, their stuff on the left. I'm doing it on the videos as a guide.

HWK HWK HWK

It sure was a fun first day back. We do a big assembly production to start the day, and there are lots of smiles and hugs and confusion and new kids and old kids and new teachers and oldies. We put out small fires and remember how to juggle a bazillion things in our head at the same time. We don't sleep well the night before. We worry about the students who haven't shown up and hope they're okay. We wrap up the day and start worrying about prepping again. Loved it.

I've decided to be picky about homework structure for all my math classes this year, so I'm handing them out this (copied in the obvious way to save paper):



They're going to tape it in their notebooks, and I'll make a poster and be a stickler. I liked the phrase: the final number is not your answer, the WHOLE PROCESS is your answer.

Mini Vacations...

In order to be proactive, I want to generate a list and keep it fresh in my mind of routines of things I do to make the stress palatable. I know things are going to come around in work, and I'll have no control over them, but I will have control (hah!) over my reactions and memories of all the little things I do to make life fun and keep in mind as a "happy place" to go to in stressful times.

Here are current small things that make me happy:

* I listen to books on CD in the car to and from work. So as I'm stressing about the workday ahead I sometimes find myself looking forward to the drive just so I can be read to (currently on the 3rd listen through of the Harry Potter books).

* I don't know why, but the saying, "how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time." always makes me smile. I know that the HUGE thing I'm facing just gets chipped away at and eventually gets done. Don't see the WHOLE elephant, just your current nibble.

* I keep a foot massage rolly thing in the bathroom at home, so I vow to roll each foot across it 12 times for each visit.

* every Thursday during the school year, I go out to breakfast as a treat. It's something to look forward to and to see as a light at the end of the week's tunnel.

* I chant the mantra, "It's going to be great. It's going to work out fine." accompanied by a deep breath when I am getting stressed.

* On the mornings I exercise on the treadmill, I have a book/magazine rack on it, so I can read through my latest things and that will be motivation to get on it and sweat. So I'm not really exercising, I'm reading.

* It's helpful to kvetch with friends and make the problem sound ridiculous, so that you don't feel so alone in your apparently HUGE problems. Laughing always helps.

Okay. And I'm not really that stressed just yet (though maybe I should be because my room still is a shambles). But ..... I'm guessing it's coming soon.

Beehive in the Brain

Today was our first day back for the week before students officially arrive, and I know this will be a shocker, but there are a bazillion things floating around my brain. Stressed. Here, look at a pretty picture (as someone once said):

This is where I was this past week. Lots of sleeping and sitting and eating and visiting with a new niece ..... who was a recipient of one of these cuties that I finished JUST in time:

The person who made the pattern is so creative. Must make more. I smile every time I look at them.

And here is me staring out and probably thinking school thoughts:

And, as I was going over calculus stuff to prepare, I read over my APSI notes and remembered that the teacher said something about Texas being great about sending kids to college but not so good about having them graduate. I did a search and found this site. You can scroll to the graph at the bottom of the page and if you scroll over the bar that's your state, that page will pop up, and you'll get more numbers.

Okay, off to practice with the TI-nspire.

CS week one DONE and CHECK

Okay, now I can rest a wee bit easier since my first week of computer science planning is done (mostly). Next up is finishing my syllabi and day 1 / week 1 for my other classes. Here's what my kiddies are doing in CS class for the first week.




Of course I haven't tried this on real humans yet, so I'm expecting to have to work out some bugs and clarify as I go. I will keep stressing to my students to discuss with each other and to make sure they understand what their experiments tell them.

In other news, I'm batting around a homework idea in my head (for all classes) that I haven't completely formalized yet. It's something to the effect of having the students write a little pledge at the bottom of each homework (that will be required to earn full credit on the homework). The statement will be something like:


By signing below, I vow that I gave my (best/average/below average/medium ....) effort on this assignment. *signature*

I will have the discussion with my students that they are not graded on the actual TYPE of effort, simply on fessing up to it. I want it to be an awareness thing for them. We will have a discussion on the importance of always striving to do your best no matter what the situation and that sometimes that is not possible for whatever reason, but I'd like them to develop having that automatic internal discussion for everything.

First CS homework

I finished my AP Audit Syllabus, and feel like I have a huge weight off my shoulders. Yip! Now, I'm working on their first day's/week's program (I'll share when it's done), and I just finished their homework for the first night:

I'm also wondering if I'll actually get around to planning/prepping for geometry and precal and calculus and DE. Who's going to get the short end of the stick? Maybe it'll be like a baton, and I'll pass around the "phoning it in" lesson each day to various classes.

In other news of progress:

Waning Summer Days...

My goal is to finish my AP Computer Science syllabus before this Friday. I've been pecking away at it and trying to wrap my mind around the structure all summer basically. It's ALMOST there. I ended up really enjoying my APSI workshop, but there seems to be a trend in computer science (and by trend, I mean 2 cases!). The gentleman that was teaching us had a ton of experience and a ton of ideas, and he gave us resources to learn from, but the bulk of his stuff was copyrighted because he sells his textbook and labs and such. I've also found this with one other "package" that seems to be popular.

I'm used to the math world, I guess, where we seem to just put it out there and share freely. I'm feeling judgy and don't like that feeling, and the stubborn part of me says, "no, I will not buy your stuff". I've also heard various things about, "just get a syllabus online and don't stress about it". That doesn't work ideally for me, since if I don't jump in and get my hands dirty, I feel I'm missing an opportunity to justify all my syllabus choices of what to teach when and why and how much, and get a deep understanding of the year, etc.

I've been cutting and pasting and moving around the various topics to meet my goals of engaging the students and having a logical flow and such. It also feels like a wee bit of a fairy tale because in all honesty, I don't know how much time it will take for each concept to sink in to their brains. My take is that you "dab and go and keep coming back to it". Exposure and constant revisiting seems to be the key.

I'm also making 3 of these for my trip next week to Canada/in-laws for the last vacation of the summer and the first sight of a new niece and a visit with 2 other little nieces-something-removed.

APSI day 2 notes

Day 2 was just as intense as day 1. Here are things I took away from our session:

* There are lots of opinions floating around. You want a good teaching approach, but don't let ANYONE tell you that there is only one way to do things ... that THEIR way is perfect because they've had success. Unless they've been at your school with your kids, they don't know your situation. A great teacher can have good and bad years in various ways that "success" is determined. Listen to things and absorb and intelligently decide your best approach for your situation.

* Repetition is useful. There are certain skills you just have to practice over and over again, not in the sake of doing "hard math/computer science", but for the sake of getting a fluency with mechanics and basic skills.

* Kids most likely won't completely understand things the first time (all humans for that matter). Frequent revisiting and exposure is the key.

* He does these "80 point Free Response" tests to practice getting ready for the FR section of the AP exam. He picks a specific reasonable amount of time (3 minutes for an easier problem or 8-10 for a more involved one) and the kids go. The second they're done they can walk the test up to him for grading. When times done, you need to be done. You have 2 possible grades on the test: 80 or 100. He wants the kids to start practicing and getting it down and being comfortable with timed portions and with FR format and skills. Also, he checks handwriting in terms of neatness and legibility and such and comments on it. Only people with perfect answers done in time get 100. Everyone else gets 80. ... I like this and will modify it to suit my situation.

* Your overconfidence on the exam could be your worst enemy. He's had valedictorians and smart kids get a 1 on the AP CS exam because they made judgments about the ease of a question and quickly skimmed and answered and missed the subtle points of what was being asked. I found myself doing that (as a smart kid, ar ar ar) on some of the practice problems. I was "being a human" and part of my brain was doing the problem, and part of my brain was analyzing their intent, and then I would get the problem wrong. I think you have to train yourself to THINK LIKE THE COMPUTER and just make diagrams and fill memory and change values based on the instructions given. I had most success when I remembered that.

* Sprinkle GridWorld skills throughout your whole year. Keep coming back to it. This goes with the repetition thing. If you cover the last skill right at the end of your teaching phase, the kids haven't had enough contact with it and won't do well with it. This goes with something someone else said in Lincoln. She pretty much finishes all the content the first semester, and then spends the next semester on projects and practicing the skills (is this possible? check.).

* LOVE that geometry comes back into play on the Boolean portion of the class. Yay De Morgan's Law!

APSI

I'm at my 4th of four workshops (and dorms) this summer. Apparently, I'm going for the seasoned professional dorm dweller award. This one is an APSI on computer science, and there are only 9 people in the class. Sheesh, it could be the reason there is the NSF 10K Project:

"The CS 10K Project aims to have rigorous, academic curricula incorporated into computing courses in 10,000 high schools, taught by 10,000 well-trained teachers."

or it could be like our teacher said, "I was told that the whole APSI was closed for further enrollment because they had the maximum total people they could handle, so we couldn't get more in our section."

Either way, here are some tidbits I learned/heard already:

* "Students will be 8 different people for 8 different teachers."

* The first lab assignment he gave us was differentiated. We were working with methods and objects, and he said, "if you are new to APCS, do this one. If you're in the middle of your grasp, do this one. If you're seasoned, do this one." The first was graphical in nature, so there was an easy visual on if you were right or not. The next 2 were related, so if you started with "medium", and it was easier than you expected for you, then you could extend it to the more challenging one.

I like this idea and want to remember it for my assignments.

* He said, "students get really good at programming on the computer in class. Unfortunately, the AP exam is based on non computing skills. You need to intertwine theory and practice of the theory throughout the course in addition to programming."

* His WHOLE class is paperless, down to assignments and quizzes. I don't know if I can go that far, but maybe I'll start with more things they save online. One idea I am toying with is an Excel spreadsheet of vocabulary of a certain structure. Maybe columns for type of word and hints on remembering or anchors to past learning and topic the word is related to in addition to the columns for word and definition. That way, the kids can sort as they need in various situations. (I'm also toying with the idea of those big binder rings and vocab words so that they are more portable).

Fun Problem...

In my insomnia, I was cruising the Internet and came across this problem:

IF:
2+3 = 10
6+5 = 66
8+4 = 96
7+2 = 63

THEN:
9 + 5 = ?????

I thought that could be a fun "filler" problem or such. And maybe the follow up is to have the students write about the pattern and then make up their own.

I also bought this pattern on Etsy for a future trip I have that involves little girls to make things for.

Flipped Class Letter To Class

Here is the letter I'll hand to my calculus students the first day of class. It outlines that we're going to flip our class and talks about the benefits. The more I think about flipping, the more I like it.

I still haven't worked out how I want to do "explore learning" lessons. There are times I want them to try things and test them out and learn that way. It seems useful if they're with other students while they're doing that. But I guess my thoughts are that I'll simulate class and tell them what to attempt on the video lesson and keep prompting them to pause the video while they try things. Then I may or may not continue the video with possible things they did. Good: time saver for class time when they'll be practicing concepts. Bad: they may find the loop hole and not try things and fake it and just copy down what I do.

Another thing I could do is just give them the exploring instructions and then extra instructions on talking with another student about their results and instructions on jotting down their findings. Then we take class time to discuss results and such.

Maybe I'll try both or do both and see what's what as time goes on.

Bookmarks on the Cloud

I finally found a "cloud" bookmark application that I like. I have my Google reader for all the blogs I read, and I thought I could use that, but you can't have folders (or I haven't found them anyway). I guess it's a reader and not a bookmarker (thus the name Google READER, silly).

I found "marklet", and maybe you know about it, but if you don't, I'd recommend it. Benefits so far:

* I can have visual folders for my different things (computer science, teaching resources, fitness ideas, etc).
* I can put a "button" (is it called an extension?) at the top of my browser (like the "Pin It" button from Pinterest. That way, when I come across a site I want to bookmark on any computer I frequently use (and have "extended"), I can just click on the button and it's put into my "clouded bookmarks".
* It's free.
* You can import your already existing bookmarks.
* I can have easy access to all my bookmarks all in one place no matter what computer I'm using.
* Now I don't have to suffer the agony of not having my home bookmarks available when I'm at work and visa versa.
* I get to say marklet, which just rolls off the tongue.

Stereotype Threat

I'm on day 3 of the three day workshop on how to recruit and keep more women and underrepresented students into computer science classes. And yet again I learned some cool/useful things. Now you may be thinking, "I don't teach CS, I teach math, not that interested". Well, it could be that you would be an advocate for students to actually try CS. It's not just for people you stereotypically think may be interested. You solve interesting problems and interact with interesting people.

One point is that studies show that by about 2020, roughly 30% of jobs will involve fluency with computer science. This doesn't mean that people will just need to know how to use technology, but to understand it in order to do their job. This may be programming or altering programs or algorithmic thinking, etc. The trouble is, currently, only about 5% of freshmen are saying that they will major in CS.

You may be like me and think, okay, what could, say, Journalism have to do with CS. Don't they just type in their stories and send it through? What could be farther from CS? An example one of the professors gave us was a particular journalist that wrote code to automatically search various types of news stories from particular types of places (either countries or companies or governments) about particular topics. Then overnight (say) the program would gather all these sources, and in the morning, the journalist had all his facts and data available to him to write his story. He saved countless hours of researching and surfing the web and potentially missing a source. I thought that was enlightening.

Anyway, this post is about "stereotype threat" which I'd never heard of before. The professor discussed stereotypes and the good and bad of them.

GOOD: people need a way to categorize the world so that every new input into their brains is not NEW and unrelated to other things they know. It allows for shortcuts to process information.

BAD: because maybe one person makes a mistake, some people could stereotype a whole segment of the population as "bad" .... girls suck at math .... purple people are lazy .... citizens of green country are evil ....

Stereotype Threat is a person's fear of confirming a negative belief about that person's group. Say a common stereotype is that girls don't do computer science. Then if a girl actually wants to do CS, and if stereotype threat is in her mind (even though she may not call it that), then she hinders herself and her brain power by worrying that she won't "be good", she'll "validate others' opinion of girls in CS". She'll have harsher personal standards for herself and her performance will be diminished because she's spending so much brain power on worrying.

Apparently, this is a hot research topic currently. Okay, off to the last few sessions.

Bits/Bytes of Computer Science Information*

*(See what I did there?)

I'm currently at a Tapestry Workshop in Lincoln, NE, and on this first day have already learned about a ton of computer science resources I can use next year. One of the interesting facts I learned was about AP classes and AP tests given and the representation of women in the Computer Science tests/classes. Apparently, in statistics and biology and calculus, it's a roughly 50/50 male/female ratio. Guess what it is in CS? 81m/19f. There are probably also similar statistics for underrepresented segments of the population. Their point was that there is power in diversity, and everyone wins when an endeavor is diverse. Also, there's money in CS type jobs. Also, even the most basic jobs of the future will require understanding computational thinking; their example was a job ad for a dog catcher that required the applicant to not just be able to use technology, but to understand it.

Here are some resources I've learned of so far. I don't know how I'll incorporate them yet, but there is great potential.
Dot Diva (for girls in computing)
Bits & Bytes newsletter (scroll to the bottom for issues) (interesting articles about cs in the world)
CS Unplugged (cs activities you can do to introduce lessons or to take to non cs classes that don't need a computer)
Google in Education (who knew?)
Java Bat (good practice for the AP exam)
NCWIT (for getting more women in computing)

We've had 4 different speakers so far, and each has brought something to the table. Can't wait for tomorrow.


*Line stolen from this hysterically funny potty-mouthed lady.

Calculus and TI-nspire

To add to the craziness of my next year (4 preps, first time flipping, possible teacher mentor, math club sponsor, InvenTeam cosponsor, NHS cosponsor, drinker....), I think I want to use "my" class set of TI-nspire calculators for my one calculus class as opposed to the TI-83/84's that I'm comfortable with.

I just got out of a Web Meeting of Calculus TI-nspire users, and there were some cool links and information (I didn't know slope fields were so easy on the nspire).

What I really want is a basic primer document of:
If you do this for calculus on the TI-83, do THIS on the TI-nspire. I know there are documents of walking you through stuff (I saw a 12 page document on Sean Bird's site), which are great for their purpose. But I want a more, two column, easy to sift through, "there there, it's totally possible and you don't have to read through a ton of stuff to find the specific function you want" document. You know, for the many times when I'll be a last minute user of remembering that I need to know how to do "this" right before I teach the class. I don't even mind if the 2 column document has some links to specific instructions on other documents. Does anyone know of such a document? Unfortunately, I don't remember all the stuff I have to do for calculus, but I guess i will this year. Maybe I'll create such a file.

I did learn one cool feature of the TI-nspire for calculus that's totally easy: slope fields! With the 83/84, you had to download a program. With the nspire (not even the CAS, it's just there): under graph > menu > graph type > DiffEqn ... and then just type in your eqn .... remembering to use y1 or y2, etc instead of "y" if you need it. Super cool!

AP Computer Science Prep...

I just got back from my AP Calculus AB workshop, so I feel good about that course. Now it's time to focus more on the Computer Science prep. I still wanted to get a good sense of the order of topics. I know I could just look on someone else's syllabus, but I wanted to make sense of it myself and then check against how others did it. I guess that's "constructivist" thinking. Anyway, I feel better about it now. I first used "pretty girly" stock paper (used for scrapbooking) and cut each page up into smaller index card sized pieces. Then I just went over the AP Curriculum and textbook and such and listed topics and things I think the kids should know.

Then I first separated them into big ideas that went together.

Then I put the piles in order of how I think they could be taught. Then I checked against how my online course textbook presented things last year, and I checked it against other syllabi. I like it. Some of the things I think I'll sprinkle throughout the course instead of teaching first (as is done in my old text). For example, I don't think the kids IMMEDIATELY need to know about ethics and safety and binary/hexadecimal, etc. I can introduce that after I "hook them".

The awesome teacher I went to last week for calculus mentioned that at her school, the AP teachers have about 3 weeks to get the kids to buy into their course. The kids can't drop the 1st 3 weeks. Then they can (with a ton of paperwork to discourage the practice). I have to win over my students and show them the fun and value of computer programming. So I think I'll start with some sort of graphics (super scaffolded) or some sort of game (again super scaffolded) that introduces some of the other concepts I want them to know (variables, primatives, loops...) with the warning to them that they won't understand the WHOLE picture at first, but they get to see the power of programming and the capabilities.

I'm also going to a summer workshop for computer science late July. I don't want to feel so behind and slow, so I'm going over this book chapter by chapter to refresh my memory. I think I also want the kids to have a copy of it this year. It was recommended on the AP Central Electronic Discussion Group for Computer Science, which I also highly recommend.

Other than that ...

Math Libs...

Remember Mad Libs from childhood? I thought I could piggy back off that idea for a math activity. I'm thinking either a part of the first day of school, or a day before a holiday, or some other such time. It wouldn't take all period. My guess is 15-20 minutes (longer if they do the "homework" in class). Here's a sample of one of two I want to make. I envision a "BAT" version and a "___" version with a different storyline on the back. Students should keep their version hidden from people with the other version.

Edited to note:
This idea is not affiliated with MathLibs(R), a brand used in commerce for over a decade (link to: http://kidcourses.com/mathlibs/  ).

Splish Splash Musings...

As I was swishing my feet in the warm waters at these past few days (SO RELAXING and FUN), I was obviously thinking about school. I'd just been looking at a book that contained one of those ink drawings that fascinates me. Something like this.

I'm awed that you can create something with just different lines that are closer or farther or hatched or such. Then my next thought was that I could never do that. Then my next next thought was, ah HAH I'm being just like the kids and don't want to even attempt something because I immediately don't know how to do it right off the bat. I didn't want to tinker.

Then I came up with "Tinker Time". I haven't fleshed it all out yet, but I'm thinking of creating about 12 little 5 minute activities for the kids to do at the start of math class. The activities don't necessarily have to be about math, and the object is not to perfect some skill, but the point is to dive in and get your hands dirty and try something and then reflect on what happened. Ultimately, getting the students to not be afraid to tinker, basically, and hopefully that will translate into applying those brave skills to tinkering with math problems. I thought we could do them once a week, and then cycle around to the same activity 2 more times during the school year.

Some of my ideas were:
* show them a pen/ink drawing and have them just explore doing it and seeing what's what
* some challenging maze puzzle that is recreated about 5 times and they can just practice
* maybe some legos tossed around and they have to explore creating something
* given a prompt of an object, they have to draw it using only triangles or only circles or something

And for all of these, again, I'll keep stressing the goal of just tinkering to take the pressure off (in their minds), but to nefariously get them to get comfortable with just diving in and doing and trying. Mwa ha ha ha.

classroom ideas....

As I'm idling away the summer, I'm wondering what I can do to make my classroom more "homey" next year. I did a little better this year with being harsh with myself and tossing stuff I hadn't unpacked or use for a year. But then all the dreaded engineering boxes took up a bunch of room, and they never quite made it out of the cardboard boxes. My excuse was that I didn't want to buy an organization system on the fly without trying the year out and seeing what would make sense. That or I'm a lazy procrastinator. I'm picking the former.

Some of my ideas so far (don't know if they'll pan out) are:

* the teeny white Christmasy type lights strung around somehow.
* painting the ceiling tiles somehow.
* bringing in a metal porch swing (LOVE them and have 2 at home, one on the porch and one in my office)
* extra "calm" decorative lighting as opposed to the overhead stuff.
* painting the cinder block walls (I'm thinking I'm not motivated to make that happen, though)
* less tables (we don't have desks) and more students around the tables. This year I had 10 large tables in class, and there was hardly room to move around. I've also heard that I'll be most likely having a class of 30 or so, so I'd need at least 8 tables anyway if I had 4 2 a table. Ugh.
* I'd like a wall or board dedicated to articles I've found in my magazines or on the web. Stuff about cool jobs kids may not have heard about or things about inventors or students making a difference or inspiring stories.
* I loved having the mobiles from the last summer project hanging up all year, but those are coming down. Maybe I can have the students in class make other types of mobiles that are topic related.
* This craft gave me some ideas. Maybe I can make a BIG jigsaw puzzle template with 30 pieces (or more, one for each class .... eeeek), and then the students decorate the piece to reflect their personality, and then we hang the finished product all together. But if I have 120 students .... have to think about this one.
* I have a big wall of windows in my room, and we're on the 1st floor. I'm thinking of the students making things that would face out and the passers-by would have art work or math work to gaze at.

Okay, must think some more about this ...

Great Opportunity

These past few days, a colleague and I were at MIT for EurekaFest. You can read about it here. Holy Cow was it an inspiring few days. There were many high school teams that spent all last year inventing something. They presented their inventions in a variety of ways (talks and booths and discussions). There were "adult" and "college" inventors that were also happy to discuss their experience. There were MIT professors that actually taught invention classes where the whole class invented something throughout the year (semester?). There was this inspiring gentleman. There was this mind-blowing invention.

I'm mentioning it here because we only learned about it from one of our students doing research and asking us if we could do this. To a student at this event, the one thing we kept hearing was that they were changed by their experience of going through the process. I know my colleague and I were inspired. So, if it sounds intriguing, I think you should think about applying for NEXT year. The initial process/application is due in April, so there's plenty of time to get organized.

Epiphany

I had a conversation with friends the other day about writing in general (no mention of blogs). They asked if I liked to write or if I found it challenging. I thought about it and said that I did not find it painful. I usually just blurted stuff out on the paper in a stream of consciousness type of way and then went back and adjusted later. My thought is that you basically have an idea of what you want to say, and if you start out by nitpicking every sentence, then that whole picture is lost in the effort of perfection. Anyway, it works for me ... for writing anyway.

For the last 5 days I've been gathering site links and ideas and such to start mapping out my computer programming curriculum. I found many helpful people and ideas and opinions including my own. Then apparently, I found all my baggage about teaching the class. And ..... I have not put down one sentence of how I want the year to proceed. What works for me in writing apparently got lost in translation when I had to carry it over to mapping out a whole new class. My idea of being (nearly) perfect is getting in the way of me actually doing anything to make progress. I keep having these "but ... but ... but ..." thoughts taking up residence in my head.

So my epiphany is just that. BLURT IT DOWN to at least have a starting place with which to work! If you don't start, you can't finish. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Rah, rah, rah. Okay, that's my goal for this afternoon: get a broad brush stroke down on paper.

Summer Time...

Ahhhh, the joys of getting enough sleep. That's basically in the top 5 treats of summer vacation. That and the feeling that I have PLENTY of time to organize how I want to teach my 2 new preps next year. Hah! Knowing me, I'll put it off until the last minute and then scramble around wondering what happened to my carefree days.

I did pull out my old calculus bins, and I actually organized them chronologically. I recycled TONS of dated things from them. Now I'm pushing that topic to the back of my mind to gnaw on at odd moments. I'm still thinking of flipping that class daily, and am tossing around ideas to make it doable in the time frame I'll have. It makes me giddy to think I can actually assign problems for class practice (formerly known as homework) that involve "a" and "b" instead of actual numbers. You know, there's a piecewise function with, say, 3 pieces and instead of "3x + 7", one part has "3x + a", and the question is of the sort: find "a" so that the function is continuous. In the past, it's assigned, kids struggle, they come to class, then I walk through how to do it. Besides not being the best way for them, it also ate up class time. NOW I envision myself skipping through class with a goofy grin on my face and just feeding them little hints. POOF! More time in class and more challenging problems. We'll see what the reality really is like, but I'm willing to try it for one year.

This calculus class is also the class that will be through the ropes with me as a teacher for the 3rd time (geometry, precal, calc). To say we're like a dysfunctional family at this point basically sums it up.

My current project is the AP Computer Science class. I have 13 students that have signed up, and they have basically never programmed before. I've heard various theories about how I should use Alice or Scratch or something drag and droppy. I may be naive, and that will certainly come out as the school year happens, but I think that at the end of the day, the students still have to be able to write code and be careful with syntax and find their bugs and such. I think they're up to it. I'm forging ahead and introducing Java immediately. I feel that if I start with another type package then somewhere deep down I'm saying to the students: you can't handle Java. Here's a warm fuzzy puppy that bounces around the screen. Weeeeeee.

Saying that, I think I want to start immediately with the first class. In some form, I want them to write code that day (heavily scaffolded), possibly doing graphics. I have a long term first project in mind, but I have to work out the bugs.

Okay, that's me setting it down in stone. Let's see what happens as the year progresses.

Flipped AP Calculus Class

Curses on my principal! This year she's been on the "flipped classroom" train. She sends us e-mails. She "gently" suggests we just try it once. She sends more e-mails containing articles raving about flippin' flipping. I kept my head low. I had conversations with myself: What's she thinking! That's too much! I have other things that I'm juggling! I can't see how it would work with students that don't have computers. What if they don't watch at home? What if they come in and either didn't watch and say I didn't get it, or watch and say I didn't get it? Do I do it for every lesson? Every subject?

Then she sent a portion of an article by this teacher, who did this with AP Calculus, which I'm teaching next year. I've also been reflecting and brooding on all those students I had this year in precalculus who perfected the art of "playing school" by pretending to be taking notes and paying attention while they were just going through the motions. Passive "learning". I had no effective consequences for that, not in the "shame on you" way, but in the catch it and make them tune in way. By flipping, and some effective way I can give points or assess that they watched, then I can do the practice problems in class. I totally agreed with this teacher's statement that by the time the kids get home (and ours get home pretty late), their brains are fried, and they may not be giving their mental "all" to the math homework.

Anyway, I'm batting around the idea of doing this for next year for calculus. Teacher Tube? Screencast.com? Other? There seem to be a ton of resources in the above link. .... I'll THINK about it.

Nice To Meet You...

When I started this blog in January of 2005, I didn't know the what's/how's/why's of how this would transpire. I wanted to keep most (all?) of my privacy just in case there were repercussions. Within the last year or so, I've only JUST started mentioning to people I know that I blog, and THAT took me 6 years. Now it feels kind of stilted and phony to me to just keep signing e-mails or blog responses as "Ms. Cookie". I completely understand the reasoning for everyone doing it, but it started to feel "un-right" somehow for me. By the way, why that name? I like cookies. Really logical.

I've also been mentioning blogs as a great resource to other teachers, and again if feels phony when I fail to mention mine. So what if they come upon it and recognize my picture. Do they mention it to me? Do they not? Do I mention it? ARGH!

So, hello, nice to meet you. I'm Shireen D. I never started out wanting to be a teacher. Now I can't think of anything else I would rather spend my time doing. Blogging and reading blogs have been such great experiences that allow me to get advice and resources and camaraderie and hear other teachers' ideas, and I'm able to think out loud on what has worked and not worked for me. I'm less in a teaching vacuum because of the generosity and availability of other teachers that are processing their work for the rest of us to share.

Case in point today. We have a new teacher that will be teaching AP Statistics next year, and we quickly went online with various search phrases and were able to find blogs, activities, syllabi, outlines, etc. Now this teacher will be affecting 15 or more kids and will have great resources to do so. The inevitable question: WHAT DID WE DO BEFORE THE INTERNET?!

Last Day Reflections

Like something that still doesn't feel quite done, THE SCHOOL YEAR IS OVER! I gave my last 2 finals. I marveled that my Digital Electronics students actually learned something. I turned in my last grades with literally seconds to spare (over the ceiling intercom, "Ms. ____ are you done yet?"). I contemplated packing up my room and decided to do it later. I went to a last shindig with our juniors who were thanking industry partners for their week-long internship. I celebrated with a dinner out and a reading of a funny book. And now blogging. Woot!

Things I learned or was reminded of again this year:
* people before paper (if someone is vying for your time and you're trapped in your busy work, stop and talk with them; paper can usually wait).
* like all people, kids remember how you make them feel, not how stellar your knowledge was of a particular topic.
* being physically around a group of negative people too much is not healthy for anyone; it feeds on itself.
* change is inevitable.
* kids are still kids, and no matter how mature they act; there are still things they don't know and may appreciate hearing a different perspective on.
* people usually aren't doing the things they do to annoy you; everyone is mostly trying to get by the best way they currently know how; react accordingly.
* no school is perfect; warts happen; you have to know what your deal-breakers are and how to work healthily around things/situations if you can.

Final Exams......

This morning I happened to read some teacher suggestions (a union teacher journal) on writing in the classroom. One teacher mentioned that as she handed out tests to her class, she instructed the students to write an inspiring message on their test. She mentions that they would roll their eyes but do it anyway. Then if she forgot to mention the message on later, future tests, the students reminded her.

I gave some geometry finals today, and as they got ready, I told them to write inspiring messages on their scratch paper. I mentioned that they'd do great, and they have to free up their brain cells from stressing, so they can concentrate on doing math.

I read through their messages after the test:

* Don't overthink it! Relax and everything will be okay.
* Kick butt!
* You are the smartest person in the world!
* You know things .... just try your hardest.
* I'm proud of you.

Feet Cubed....

As every high school student OBVIOUSLY knows, "3 feet cubed" is "3x12 inches cubed". Duh! You know, you just multiply by 12 because there are 12 inches in a foot.

Like everyone else, I've tried various ways to dispel this rumor: we've drawn models, we've used models, we've discussed. Seemingly to no avail. This year, I tried yet again with a different tactic.

We started out with a rectangular prism 3' x 2' x 4'. They found the volume in feet cubed. Then I asked them to find the volume in inches cubed, and to a person, they all wrote the wrong answer (24 x 12 = 288). Then without saying they were wrong I had them go back and redraw the prism into the inches equivalent and recalculate the volume, and OH NO, they were wrong with their first "288". Hmmmmm. So, this is stuff I've tried before. Now for the "new" attempt that MAYBE will work.

I had them write: 5 ft^3
Then change to: 5 * ft * ft * ft
Then EACH foot had to be converted to inches, so

= 5 * ft * ft * ft
= 5 * 12in * 12in * 12in
= 8640 in*in*in
= 8640 in^3

Let's see if this one sticks.

Solar Eclipse Video

Over at this site I found cool information about tonight's solar eclipse.

There was also a NASA video ...

Goal: do more planetary topics in precalculus next year.

Slow Learner

Today in discussing Surface Area and Volume of 3D figures, I found out why textbooks choose to flatten out a cylinder in this way:

as opposed to this way:

I was "not on the ball" when I was talking while simultaneously drawing it the "bad" way.

Oy!

Second, I think I've jumped on the "be bossy in how you accept homework" wagon. I strongly suggested in the past that students show work neatly when they do their homework or tests. I never went further than that. I've seen too many instances now where they or I can't follow their work and when there's a mistake, you have to do extra work to track it down.

Because we're doing SA and LA and V of 3D figures today, and because I've seen so many mistakes in the past (and made them!) just from sloppiness, I laid down the law today. I had a small discussion about how they're not just doing a problem, but they're communicating a process. If the reader has to question you about what you're doing, then you've failed as a communicator. If you have to track down your work later on, and it takes you longer because you're jumping around all the work and can't follow the thought process, then you've failed as a communicator.

I'm making them write things DOWN IN COLUMNS and drawing and labeling neat pictures and indicating what they're finding for each step. With lots of (good-natured) grumbling (see, I'm in denial), they got to work and the beginnings of things looked promising.

I think I want to start off next year as BOSSY PANTS in this manner.

Also, SO excited! I found out what I'm teaching next year (95% sure):
Precalculus preAP
AP Calculus AB
AP Computer Science
Digital Electronics

Woot! Who's going to be busy this summer? I'm going to miss the enthusiastic 8th and 9th graders, but I'll be excited to challenge my brain in a different way.

Stacks & Queues

In Computer Programming we learned something about various data structures, two being "stacks" and "queues".

Stacks can be thought of like a pile of plates. You keep adding to your list (or plates that are stacked on a table), and when you want to remove one, you remove the top-most one (or the last thing you put on). You can liken it to "last on first out".

Queues are like movie lines - first one in is the first one out. So you can add to the end of a list, and then when things are removed, they peel off from the start of the list.

I thought about that today when I was teaching for two reasons. There are all these "extra" things we have to remember in addition to teaching our content:
* put kids on "mandatorials" if they fail for a grading period
* check in and make sure they're coming to tutorials
* don't forget to update your money log if you're a sponsor of a club
* check in with kids emotionally to see if anyone is acting "off" from their normal selves
* if you're a team leader, check in with other people teaching in your grade level
* do your 5? 6? observations of other teachers throughout the year
* have you planned for an interdisciplinary unit?
* what about a flipped class?
* check in before every test you give to make sure kids know how to study for tests or need extra help
* kids stressed? don't forget that extra activity you did that was short and sweet and was a temporary relief for them
* make sure you connect with the students
* there are no stupid questions, so get that look off your face and answer patiently (it's the FIRST time this kid is asking)

etc.

So this came to light today when I realized that I'd totally forgotten to do one of those things (more?) that should have been ingrained in my mind - the "check that they know how to set up a study schedule for learning" .... (because most of them have never learned how to study for math tests before). Then I thought, I'm like a "queue". I have so many more things popping onto my to-do list, that the old/first stuff falls off my radar while I'm concentrating on the "new fires".

Maybe I need a bunch of charts hanging around my room or somewhere I can see them and the kids can't. That way I can take a quick glance and see if anything needs to be addressed currently. ..... But then I'm thinking, the list would probably be SO long I wouldn't have space to hang it :).

EOY Wrap Up

Only 3 weeks and 2 extra days of teaching this year. Oy! As always when I come to this part of the year, I shake my head at how fast it went and what all I still have to do and how there's not enough time and too many testing interruptions to finish up strongly and and and ....Then I also start to get excited about next year. I think about the potential classes I'll teach (not 100% sure yet) and then I don't want to jinx anything, so I make myself THINK it'll be okay if I don't teach a particular course (you know, lie to myself). Then I get nervous because it seems 99.9% sure I will be teaching certain courses, then I wonder how it will all work out. Maybe all this mental gymnastics is just a smoke screen to bend my mind away from the fact that THERE'S HARDLY ENOUGH TIME LEFT THIS YEAR.

Anyway, I was out doing chores today and was at Barnes & Noble and picked up Ron Clark's new book. I did not know he started a new academy. I find his enthusiasm and energy and good thoughts and "can do" attitude and belief and vision so inspiring. Just the jolt I need to end the year. I think his school is 5th-8th, and I teach mostly high schoolers, but I still found many things I want to think on and mold and implement.

Next year, we'll have our 1st senior class. This will be the class that were freshmen when I started teaching at my "new" school. This is the class that in my first year caused me much grief and stress and joy and frustration and laughter. It will be sad and exciting to see them graduate, and it will feel like a different school without them in 2 years.

Fun things this past year:
1. Digital Electronics. At the start of the year, I had my students write on index cards what they were worried about for the coming year in DE. I clipped them together and put them away. Just recently, I found them and as a class we had a giggle reading them. We were all "I hope I don't get electrocuted!" ... "I hope it's not too hard!" ... "I won't know what to do!" And now for the most part, we're bread boarding geniuses, we can work with our BoeBot and circuits and K-Mapping and State Machines and such.

2. My online AP Computer Science class from Mizzou. I took it to "help" one of our students that wanted to take the course but didn't want to take it alone. I ended up learning a lot about the student's point of view in an AP class and trying to balance the work load all the while juggling the ton of other things that make up life. It was also interesting to take an AP class from a college course perspective.

3. Overloading of Duties/Happenings. Okay, not so fun in the stress department, but it's always fun to tackle new challenges. I: was NHS cosponsor, one of 3 HS team leaders, agreed to cosponsor an "inventing team" for next year (that started this year), sat in on TONS of interviews and learned TONS, taught a 1/2 hour weekly yoga class to our sometimes-unwilling students, tried a cross-country geometry project, had several guest speakers in DE (a mix of successful and not).

I'm eager for summer to start for the longer periods of R&R that I'll get and also for the workshops and such I'll get to attend and the planning for 2 new courses I'll be teaching (most likely) and the vow to myself not to sit so much and to get up and move.

More Enlightening Conversations...

The more this year goes on, the more I wonder about what I don't know about students' misunderstandings. My geometry students were practicing today for our Geometry EOC test. I found some great resources online from Texas and North Carolina (whose problems I liked better). One problem gave the coordinates of the 3 vertices of a triangle and asked for the equation of the line that's the perpendicular bisector of one triangle side.

A student calls me over and asks me to refresh her memory on parallel and perpendicular lines. Okay. I asked her what was the same and what was different about 2 parallel lines. She got that the slopes were the same, but hesitated on whether the y-intercepts were the same. So I had her draw an xy-plane and draw me 2 parallel lines. I got this:

And with some prodding she said that the y-intercepts were not the same. Great. So I asked her what was true about perpendicular lines. She got that the slopes were opposite reciprocals. Great. I asked her if the y-intercepts were the same or different, expecting this to be a gimme. Now this is where it started to get enlightening. She couldn't tell me if the y-intercepts of 2 perpendicular lines were the same or different. So I thought, "great! the drawing helped before, so it'll help again." I asked her to use one of the lines before and draw a line that's perpendicular to it. I got this:

Slight alarm bells go off. I ask, "what's true about perpendicular lines?". She quickly states that they form 90 degree angles. So then I thought the x and y axes were throwing her off. So I made her draw a tilted line without the axes and put the perpendicular line on it somewhere. I got this:

Then I thought, well what if we start over and the 2nd line is her pencil that she can just move around to get perpendicular. I got this:

Then we had a LONG discussion (note that there are 23 other people in class practicing and thankfully none was too needy or off task) ... also note that the quiet girl next to this student was surreptitiously eavesdropping like she needed this information, too ... which made me nervous because I started thinking how many OTHER quiet strugglers are there out there? ... Anyway, I got it down to that IF the perpendicular lines form 90 degree angles (which she got), and the angles were supplementary (which she got), then the 2 angles should LOOK congruent. So next I got this:

And then this:

So what's the point of this story? I guess I always have in the back of my mind that if the student is not understanding something, they'll ask for help. But what if what they are not understanding is such a basic concept that it does not even come up in the scope of the course other than something that's used as a tool for the course (i.e. how do perpendicular lines look like when you draw them? what makes a shadow and how do shadows work) that the kid doesn't think or know to ask. And what if there's so much information and so many students to teach that you're going to miss these critical gaps. ... I won't always have the luxury of spending 5-8 minutes with one student and multiply that by the number of students.

Maybe I need some EXTRA problems on homework or class practice that can be a diagnosis of basics for each concept, and then I have to go over them very carefully to probe kids that may be missing elementary things that are holding them back and remediate further.

Algebra Algebra Algebra

I don't know why I'm surprised. I knew that from teaching calculus a long time ago, that it always seemed to be the pesky algebra that mostly tripped kids up. I guess I thought it would be different with my current crop of precalculus kids. They're different, I told myself. They're more savvy, I said. They won't have the standard problems, I lied to me. No. They're not and not and they will. And I hesitate to say "algebra". More like "simplifying rational expressions". We're going over algebraic manipulations of limits, and I gave them basic polynomials and basic "single numerator / single denominator" expressions. They did fine. They were all impressed with themselves that they could chat up limits like they owned the place. And then WHOA. We delved into fractions imbedded in fractions. Huh! What do you mean I have one over "w+4" minus 1/4 ALL over w? What would I do with that? What? Common denom whozits? Oh! So to get the common denominator of "1 over 'w+4'" and "1/4", I can just add 4 to the top and bottom of 1/4! Who knew! Or! Once I get that sorted out, when I then have to simplify dividing by w ...... oh! I can just bring it to the "top" and multiply by w, right? Oy! And in another problem, the numerator was "9 - v" and the denominator was "(v - 9)(.......)". The student didn't see the connection of how to easily and correctly manipulate the two. It seemed like cheating to her when I mentioned how. I guess it's a never-ending refreshing of their memory and of practicing and going over concepts. They're so used to JUST dealing with fractions involving ONLY numbers that this may have been too much of a leap for them. Now I'm debating whether to delve into derivatives or to just sprinkle in more intensive algebra and unit circle refreshers in hopes that they'll have an easier time next year in calculus.

The Limit Does Not Exist

I'm at that (one of many) fun part of precalculus where we talk about limits. We do a day on finding limits graphically. I have them choral chant and watch my bouncing finger run over the notation, "the limit of f of x as x approaches ____ is...". Then on the 2nd day we talk about finding limits algebraically. I usually have skeleton notes and am done with it. This year, I went a step further and made a final chart for them to paste in their notebooks.



It's also one of my favorite topics because I get to use my "spit in the ocean" phrase. When we talk about limits of f(x) as x approaches infinity, and I tell them to only look at the highest powered terms in each of the numerator and denominator, and we test examples on the graphing calculator ...... I describe the largest term like the ocean and everything else as spit. The spit does not change the volume of the ocean significantly.

And without fail, every year someone brings up "Mean Girls".

Perfecting Recipes...

Totally off topic, but one of my latest obsessions: the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe.

I like to bake, and I like home-baked goodies (and I need to lose some pounds .... connection?). I'm a wee bit snobby about store-bought because when I see all those extra ingredients listed on the label, it does not sound appealing at all. And once you've tasted home-cooked, store bought just doesn't taste the same. Does that mean I'll turn my nose up at an Oreo? Heck no. I'm talking about those hard-plastic-encased "fresh made" stuff from the bakery section. I'll imbibe my extra calories the old-fashioned way, thank you very much.

Anyway, I thought I had a good thing going with my chocolate-chip cookie recipe. I like to add spices to it and increase the vanilla extract and put oatmeal flakes in the dough. I scooped them up with a tablespoon, and poof! we had delicious cookies.

Then a person had generously baked LARGE cookies and brought them to me twice. HUGE. I asked, and this person used a quarter cup measuring cup to put the dough on the cookie sheet. The texture was great, the size was great. Home-made cookies. Delicious.

Now this part is totally NOT sour grapes, but the flavor .... eh! It was a bit too bland and too sweet for me, but did I scarf them all down? Why, yes I did.

So a few weeks ago, I attempted to make these 1/4 cup sized cookies with one of my recipes, but I didn't know what temperature to bake them at or how long to cook them. The flavor came out great, but they were hard as rocks and the texture was too floury. I jokingly wrote a note to the above-mentioned person and nicely asked for her recipe. I figured I could tweak it with my flavorings and happily chomp away.

I was refused. Refused! What kind of person doesn't share a recipe? Maybe this is more common than I know. I'm always willing to share, and I'm happy to share and am flattered that someone wants a recipe. It's not like it's my own creation. It's not like my food will taste any less delicious if someone else is making them. Sheesh. The person was a bit apologetic and said, "I don't even share this recipe with my closest friends". Oy!

Game on girlie. I've since then been testing out recipes, and have finally found one that has the right sweetness level. I also like to add cinnamon and cardamom and cloves and nutmeg and oatmeal. I'm going to experiment with orange rind after a coworker mentioned she did that in a cookie that was delicious. I still don't like the texture of my latest batch, so I have to adjust that.

One interesting note. I'm wondering if everyone's vision of the "perfect" c.c. cookie is akin to everyone's idea of the perfect banana. You know how there's a tiny window when a banana's taste is JUST right? And how everyone has a different idea of when that window is? Well, after testing my cookies out on various people, I think this is the same with c.c. cookies. I've had conflicting suggestions on what would make the perfect texture/flavor/size from a variety of people. Everyone has installed their own window of "acceptability" of a c.c. cookie.

I do think that I have to not test these recipes but once a month or less. Unless I want to totally have to go buy new clothes. But I will create my cookie, and I will share.

Interviews...

This year provides another first for me. I'm on the "interviewer" side of conducting interviews for possible openings next year. I'm not the only one asking questions, thank goodness, because it's good to get varied feedback and reactions to candidates. But here are some surprising things that seem to be a running theme. And by surprising, I mean, "have you not gone to basic interview 101 school, people?"

When you are asked, "do you have any questions?", here possibly are not good responses:
* No, I really can't think of any.
* Um, what time is your school day over?
* No, but you know, people always seem to ask that.
* Do you have to tutor a lot?

When asked about your career goals, you may not want to mention that in a year or two you plan on doing something else.

When showing up, if you haven't brought any samples of your work, why not?

When asked why you want to work at this particular school, hopefully your answer shows that you've researched us and can say something beyond words that imply, "I want to work with an easy population". First off, there's what SEEMS to be true and then there's reality. And also you don't just say you want a change from where you are, and that's it.

Oh, and maybe you can show up on time.
And maybe you want to wear something other than your sloppy work clothes.
Just saying.

Anyway, very interesting.

Triangle Inequalities

On Saturday we went to see a show by this company (amazing tap dancing) and here's some footage from a past show. And as I was sitting in my seat fidgeting with the ticket stub, I got what I think was a great idea. Then I thought, oh surely other people already do this, and I just missed the boat. And now, maybe I'll never sail on that boat again for a while because I may not be teaching geometry next year. And then I went back to fiddling and thinking with my ticket stub.

I was thinking about the lesson on the restrictions on the 3 side lengths that can potentially make a triangle - how any 2 sides of the triangle have to sum up to more than the length of the 3rd. I've taught it various ways. We always explore with a variety of things. BUT. I've never used anything I'm completely satisfied with:
- spaghetti: messy, hard to measure, the thickness may allow students to think it's still possible, hard to get the situation where 2 of the shapes EXACTLY add to the 3rd.

- linking cubes: too thick, and sometimes students would still think they could make a triangle when they couldn't.

- cut strips of paper: see above

- drawing the triangles using compasses set at various lengths: too cumbersome.

PAPER SHOW TICKET to the rescue! Here's my idea. Cut some long strips of thickish paper (cardboard/stock paper?), or have them cut them. Maybe give one or a few to each student. Then have the students experiment with laying it flat on the desk and folding in from the two ends. They can write down all the situations they tried and measure the three resulting sides in centimeters and see what sorts of situations allow them to make a triangle from the resulting 3 sections of the strip. You may even have guiding questions about: "what 3 lengths are not even in the running and why not?" .... "what 3 lengths ALMOST look like they'll make it, but don't?" ... something to that effect.

I think this will be much better than my old props: easy, able to try a variety of cases, cheap, effective.

Whew! Almost the Weekend

This week had cr*ppy written all over it. So I'm just going to detox and purge the "bad" stuff:

* Tired from too little sleep.
* Drink too much coffee to make up for it.
* Can't sleep the following night because of the excess caffeine.
* Rinse. Repeat.
* Patience at an all time low due to sleep issues.
* Weird Schedules due to state testing.
* Don't read one of the bazillion e-mails about the schedule and get called out for it.
* Snap at children due to lack of patience.
* Feel bad and remember I don't have to say EVERYTHING I'm thinking.
* Have conversations in my head saying the sleep-deprived snotty things I shouldn't verbalize (also visualize snotty facial expressions I'd make with words).
* Skip yoga and tap and Lindy Hop due to sleepiness.
* Feel worse physically due to less exercise.
* Make up for "stuff" by mainlining huge chocolate chip cookies.
* Feel worse physically due to bad eating habits.
* Take on more work for next year in the form of an "inventing 'contest'".
* Hear about various ones of our/my students putting down our school.
* Take it personally.
* Wake up at 3am Friday to make a test I have to give today.
* Excited about the faculty meeting this morning taking up 1 hour of my planning time.
* Excited about being "tired stupid" today.

Off to go "running" at 4:30am before I get ready for work. Woot! At least I got my geometry test done. I envision caffeine and a cookie in my near future. Breakfast?

Logarithmic Graphing

In precalculus we finished our unit on logarithms by seeing what/why/how log graph paper is used. I showed them the crazy-uneven-looking paper and we got to it with:

this sheet.

Things that came up: name of our galaxy, how to do the work for the 2nd blank, giggling about Uranus, caution and care of units when you just see "58", number of feet in a mile, how much is a billion, how many millions in a billion, ...

I also love the type of examples that we used. Their homework that night was to find a sort of "show and tell" example about anything to do with astronomy. They came back with some cool facts, and we had fun sharing and being amazed at it all.

Trigonometry Word Problems

We finally got to the cool section in geometry where the students FINALLY can figure out what those crazy "sin" "cos" and "tan" buttons are on the calculator. After practicing *basic* problems in class, I assigned this "word problem" homework.

A sample problem is:

1. For a 50 foot pole to be stable, engineers have decided that 3 equally-spaced guide wires (running from the top of the pole to the ground) have to create a 75deg angle with the ground.
a. How much total wire should they plan for?
b. How far from the pole should each wire be attached to the ground?

I tried to make "sensible" problems that weren't of the "shadow" or "kite" variety ... because at the end of the day, I guess I don't care how far out the kite is or why I would even want to know my shadow's length (and you know, students don't grasp this whole shadow thing anyway :) ).

Also, I found it was a good idea NOT TO ASSUME they knew what sonar was or what guide wires looked like, so we had a discussion before the end of class as to what the pictures might look like (with them doing most of the work, of course).

Also, spring break? why si, I did enjoy it, gracie.

Shadows on Planet Earth....

We just finished our unit on similar triangles, and as par for the course, there were the typical shadow problems. I know from past experience that students have problems with these: they draw shadows going in 2 different directions .... they don't know how to set things up .... etc. BUT. I thought it was a geometry misconception problem. No. From deeper questioning of various students today, I see that some students have no concept of shadows.

Various questions/answers:
* What makes a shadow ... or how is it made?
- shrug.

* How would you make your shadow longer if it's coming from a light post?
- move closer to the light?

* Draw the picture and point to the shadow.
- points to the hypotenuse.

How did I miss this scary fact in 12 years of teaching geometry? I guess I just made assumptions on why they were struggling, and didn't probe deeper.

Eavesdropping Assumptions

In geometry we are learning the special right triangles, and I wanted to give the students time to come up with memory tools for remembering which ratios went where on the 2 triangles. Having taught geometry for 12 years, most of the tools are repeats for me, but every so often I get some surprises that stick in my head.

I gave the students time to discuss, and it was a class late in the day, and I was observing who was doing what. I eavesdropped on 2 students and thought I overheard, "she was hung over, so that's why she didn't come to school". And then they both snickered and continued talking. "Great!" I thought. First of all someone is drinking, second of all these kids are off task. Third .... who's absent today ??? Fourth, do I make a big deal of it? Which part? The drinking or (more seriously :)) NOT talking geometry when they should be.

Then I asked for volunteers to share their memory tools. Here are some repeats (for me) and some refreshing new ones:
* The 30-60-90 has 3 different angles, so that's the one with 3 different numbers (1, 2, root 3).
* The 45-45-90 has twin angles, so the parents are the x's and the root 2 are the twins
* For each of them, the hy-pot-TWO-nuse has a 2 involved on the hypotenuse side.
* the root 3 is by the 30

Then one of the "drunk talker" students raised her hand:
* On the 30-60-90 triangle, the bottom one has one X boyfriend, one has 2 X boyfriends, and one has 3 X boyfriends, and she's still HUNG OVER HIM, so that's why there's a radical hanging over the 3.

I clarified that she really meant "hung up" on him, and I was the only lush thinking about alcohol, but then I had to laugh at myself for assuming the students weren't doing what I'd asked them to do when all along they were.

Logarithm Applications

I shuffled around my precalculus curriculum (was eager to get to intense trigonometry in the fall) and am JUST almost through logs and ln and e. My class spent a day on applications, and we had some fun conversations about the following scenarios. My last day will be spent showing them log graphing paper and log-log and semi-log and 1-cycle and "how do they get the partitions" and why would someone graph on log graph paper and all that. Sheesh! The year (as always) is whizzing by.

Here's what we did (heavily borrowed from a TON of math books: