Summer: Forty Percent Over

Yeesh! What lazy teacher is napping the summer away? To be fair, I am doing some CS things and house chores and friend visiting, but mostly I'm doing puzzles. I have a book of these, and these, and an app of these, and ... I'd better stop, though there are more. I'm not what I consider a "gamer" whatever that is, but I can see how someone could get chair sores from stagnant sitting all day and .... whoops! It's 4:30pm time for a drink and a think about dinner and nothing has gotten done about curriculum planning or anything tangible other than I had fun doing puzzles.

There are some positive things I've done. I switched over to bloglovin.com from my Google Reader. I'd tried others and browsed yet some others, but I'm liking this one. It's like a nice streaming roll of the current posts of each blog, and once you click on an entry, a new window pops up. There are also suggestions of other blogs you may like (sheesh, how many style blogs ARE there?), and it's easy to add and delete blogs.

I've also started my annual summer crocheting fest of toys/dolls for 2 little kids I see once a year. I got the idea from here. I adjusted some things, and am eager to get the clothes made and the 2nd doll made, but here's what I have so far:

I think she's super cute.

Also, I'm having fun looking into teaching a unit on "ethical hacking". Has anyone done such a thing? I have qualms, but I'll put safeguards in place. I've found some websites that seem to have labs the kids can do. I'm also thinking of doing the unit as a "college type" course where they sort of make up the curriculum and resources as they go with some guidance on topics from me. I don't know how that would be structured yet, but there are a ton of YouTube videos and sites and resources. We'll see.

I'm also taking an online course to learn about AppInventor from MIT. That's going to be another unit in the CS3 class.

I also want to work through the Objects First with Java (BlueJ) to see if that is a viable way to teach my CS1 class this year.

Hmmmmm, no math PD over the summer. I guess that's natural since my CS classes will be my new preps.

Okay, the nap and the puzzles are calling ... or I may be thirsty, if you know what I mean.

How Do You Not Know That?

A few things have made me think of the following this past week - the fact that students leave their 13 years of public schooling and don't know things people (some? most?) think should be basic. Then the people are shocked or upset or start thinking "the education system is broken!" "teachers are bad!" "what are they thinking!" "in my day, we learned these things!".

Some examples that I came across:
* Many teens can't read an analog clock.
* There are teens that still don't know their multiplication tables easily.
* There are teens/people that can't distinguish between (pick your favorite): your/you're, there/their/they're, lose/loose, its/it's, etc.
* Teens can't read or write cursive.
* Teens can't easily manipulate fractions.

I see these things in my students. I teach students in high school. I feel like I'm rushed to cover particular curriculum that is relevant to the course. I am guilty of shaking my head at their non-knowledge, but then not doing anything consistently to remedy the fact.

I can totally see how all this could come about. Let's take fractions, for example, but you could replace "fractions" with any of the other basic skills. These are taught in middle school (elementary?). It is very believable, from a teacher's perspective of knowing how things go, that, OH! It's time for the fractions unit. Let's spend our designated amount of time on fractions. Some students get it, and some don't. Oh no, we have to move on to our next topic for a variety of reasons. Too bad so sad that some students never mastered the fractions. Maybe we can practice them piecemeal within the next concepts. May or may not be enough. Flash forward all the remaining years of schooling. Fractions are either assumed to be mastered, or slightly reviewed, and maybe or maybe not mastered by the unknowing. Graduation day. There are students that don't know their fractions.

Then there are people that think, "oh, just use your calculator", or "no one ever REALLY needs to know that", or "I don't get it either! High five!".  Or, people don't say anything, but think less of them. But that just adds to the problem.

I don't know a fix. I guess if it was easy, it would be solved by now. I know I try to address fractions in ALL my classes, but I don't know if I give it enough justice to get EVERYONE 100% proficient. There always seems to be a laundry list of other things to teach.

It would be nice if there were passive ways of fixing this problem once it comes down the pipeline. For example, posters on the wall that you really don't refer to, but they're there for their perusal (see what I did there :) ). Maybe, just maybe the posters are engaging enough, like eye candy, that the students look at them periodically, and then absorb the knowledge eventually. I know you can't do this for everything, but maybe there are other such things to help.

Inventing. Innovation. Inspiration.

We just got back from our MIT field trip, and I'm still head shaking about how inspiring it is to hear talks from people that are so passionate about their work and about their world-changing ideas.

Here is a link to 2 Rice professors that have an engineering class that focuses on inventions to help people around the world. I still tear up when I watch it. My impression is that it is the students that think up the inventions. These professors will donate their winnings to establishing a new hospital in the African region they work with.

Here is a link to an MIT professor that uses the knowledge that organisms have to create digital solutions. One of the inspiring about her is that many times established journals thought her ideas were ridiculous and undo-able.Another inspiring thing about her is that she created her own undergraduate major that combined several disciplines. She also started her PhD program in a subject she had had no previous experience in, but had the confidence and grit and determination and curiosity to push through.

Here is  lab we visited. Students again think up and create solutions to problems plaguing developing countries. Some examples we saw were bike powered washing machines, ways of using corn cobs to create charcoal, wheel chairs that can maneuver around rough terrain.

Here is a link to the inventor of Fenugreen. She had the germ of her idea as a middle school or high school student and kept thinking about it but not pursuing it. She then tried to pursue it once with bad results. Then she put it away again. Then finally things slowly took off and she is currently working full time on her product.

The collegiate student winners were also inspiring. Some messages I hope the HS students listening to them took away:

1. Be curious, be open, be persistent,  have a team.
2. Just because you are "average" in high school, does not mean you can't go on to do amazing things later.
3. Be passionate about what you do, and work hard.
4. Do things not because it will just look good on your resume, but because you are genuinely interested in them.

When am I Ever Going to Use This?

After 16 years of teaching, I know this question comes up at various times throughout EVERY year. I gauge the intention of the asker. Do they just want to waste time, so they can sit and zone out? Are they being ornery? Do they really want to know? I also have changed every year I teach, and as I ponder the question myself throughout the years.

The subject came up again during the last days of school when my seniors in calculus were going over good and bad things throughout their HS lives. One student mentioned the fact that she learned things she would never use again, and was maybe wondering what the point of it all was. My response to her was many fold but brief since others wanted to have their say on their HS experiences. I responded that even though I haven't directly used biology, for example, EVER after HS, I'm glad I learned it because now when news stories come up or research advances, I can be part of the conversation and have a semi-inkling of what's being discussed and what's at stake, and more importantly, I know enough to go find more information if I so choose. I also mentioned that learning a wide variety of things makes you a well-rounded person and it would be a shame if everyone only knew limited things because then their lives would be more constrained.

But in math class when students ask (and maybe I'm naive, but I think they truly want to know most of the time), I start out with, "you may never directly use this, but here is how it is used by others ....." and I make sure to have an example, or mention that I'll find one and get back to them.

I think a broader answer could be, "future employers want to know that you can learn challenging things that you're maybe not so interested in and then be able to apply them successfully in your work situation." Another answer could be, " learning and mastering and struggling through difficult-for-you concepts makes you smarter and more confident in learning in general." I guess we could also add, that when you stop learning or trying to learn things, then your brain starts to get flabby and liquidy and ooze out of your ears. That's not going to be good for anyone.

Changing Perspectives

Through a random conversation during the meetings held the last day of school, I was made aware of THIS. Or visually, this:

Whoa! Was I the only one that didn't know about this? I guess whoever was "first" in creating maps had a lead on others and decided the "normal" way for world maps to be drawn. Now it's convention (or maybe only in various northern hemisphere countries), and this way of seeing the world is unsettling.

Maybe we need to see more unsettling things in our lives to get us out of our rut, and maybe we need to interact with people who don't think and live like we do - even if it is unsettling, or maybe especially if it is unsettling.

Let the Summer Games Begin

NOW summer officially starts! Yesterday we had our commencement for our first graduating class. The day before we had rehearsals. The night after we had our end of the year party. Done.

Of course I use the term "summer" loosely, since I still get to go to Boston to finish up our inventing project. Then I have an online course to learn to create Apps on Androids. Then I have First Bytes summer camp to learn new things at. Then I have to figure out FTC to coach it next year. Then I am on call for 2 months for Federal Jury Duty. Then I have to create CS1 and a CS3 curriculum. But other than that, it's lazy days. And by lazy, I of course mean getting enough sleep and sneaking in puzzles and reading and web surfing and movies and time with friends and the popular and fun game of stay-away-from-the-refrigerator/cupboards.

Maybe like everyone else, I'll have this grandiose list of things I want to accomplish this summer (fun and work), and then as it most often happens, I'll panic when there are only 2 weeks left of summer and there are not enough crossings off of the list. Another fun summer game.

Best.Day.Ever.

Or maybe that's just the wine talking through my fingers. You know how some people drunk dial? Well, maybe there's something called blotto blogging (if one glass of wine classifies as blotto).

And you know how just sometimes practically EVERYTHING goes right in your school day? Yeah, me neither. But today was one of those twice-every-2-years days, so I just wanted to rethink it on my late night drive home and capture it to absorb all the good feelings out of it before it's back to stressful business as usual.

It started out with treating myself to a Starbucks latte for the morning. Then I treated myself to buying a tasty salad for lunch to look forward to (hellooooooo ripe avocado and tons of balsamic vinegar, doing anything for lunch?).

Then for calculus everyone had brought in a shirt to decorate, and we all got woozy with all the sharpie fumes as we signed each others shirts.

Then in Digital Electronics, we perfected our choreography of the BoeBots and filmed it. Their homework is to make the video go viral (otherwise, "F for you my kidlets!").

Then in APCS, we did a "gallery walk" and played each others graphics games we made. Then I had some random kids staying after school, and we had fun conversations while they were working on things.

Then I stayed for our First Annual Media Tech Movie Showcase and got to see animated films and short films and documentaries our seniors/juniors had made in their 3-4 years in that pathway. THEN as if that's not fun enough, I got to go to my favorite TexMex place for the best nachos EVER (and said glass of wine). CabSav, thank you for asking.

Whew! What can top this? Oh. All that grading I've put off and the finals I have to tweak and copy and grade and the pigsty some teacher keeps INSISTING on leaving on my desk and in my room in general. Who's the jerk!

FYI: Seniors are SO Over School

I know that will be a shocker to many of you, but this is the vibe going around our school. We have another 3 weeks left, so I am giving this assignment to my seniors. Hopefully, it can perk them up, or WAY more important, not bring ME down.

Digital Electronics Boe-Bots

We're ending our year of DE with the Boe-Bot unit. Practically none of my students have experience with putting together things or with programming, so I'm happy with this unit. I'm not much following the PLTW curriculum due to time constraints and interest, but due to a conversation I had with the kids, we're ALL excited about what direction things took.

Last year I had my kids learn to program and use subroutines and then put them to use in running through a unique maze (one per group). This had varying degrees of success. I could have made it better with having more scaffolding and intermittent grades instead of at the very end. Live and learn.

This year, I mentioned the maze idea to my current students, and then, I don't know who, but we mentioned a group choreographed dance with the 7 Boe-Bots (I'm building one, too). We all suddenly got excited, and I scrapped the maze idea and now we keep joking that we MUST. GO. VIRAL. Isn't that all the rage these days. Are you anything if you're not viral on the Internet at least once? Will our lives mean nothing?

I created a short "dance". There are solos. There's a chorus. There's a "wave". There's an entrance and exit. The students have all done the subroutines (12 of them: move forward 1 tile, move forward one rotation, turn right 90 degrees, pivot...., etc). See what I did there? I learned from last year and made those all a grade with a due date. Go me (for now). Now on Tuesday we will code up the choreography and work out the bugs and video tape (is that even the term anymore?) and Hello Bacteria or Virus. Here we come. 

Exam Stress

The AP Calculus AB exam is in a few days, and of course we are hard-core reviewing and mock testing and discussing the whole year in preparation. One of my students asked me to make them inspirational messages, and my first thought was that I would video various teachers around campus rooting for them and post it on Haiku. That didn't happen. Instead, I've been finding funny pictures and writing some goofy message related to studying and/or math and/or testing, etc and sending them out daily. They seem to like this.

But this post is really about how much brain space you use when you are stressed or focusing on things OTHER than the question you are answering on a timed test and then stressing while you are watching the time tick down and knowing you SHOULDN'T be thinking about the "other" thing and then stressing more because you are wasting time and then trying to refocus on the problem and then stressing because it's not IMMEDIATELY on the tip of your brain, and then the whole cycle repeats itself.

Oy! Who hasn't been there. I forgot about this AGAIN, and haven't really had a discussion with my class about it. And I don't know if there is a solution. But here's what brought it to my mind this week.

My class was doing a timed Free Response question, and I gave them 15 minutes, and put the timer on the document camera, so we could gauge our time (I was doing the problem with them). A couple of things you need to know. This year, I checked out TI-nspire calculators to my 22 students. I've also been providing batteries (well, our department has). They absorb and go through the batteries FAST. I've since mentioned that we are out of money, and the students have to buy a fresh pack of batteries before Wednesday for the test. So, back to test day this past week. One student (who I have an up and down history with in terms of attitude) right before the test mentioned that her batteries were out, and could she borrow another TI-nspire for the FRQ in class. Yes.

So the test starts, and I start the timer, and I start taking the test with them. A few minutes into it, I hear this noisiness at that student's table. I look over, and she's transferring the batteries from "my" calculator to her calculator, and then proceeds to use her calculator. Then I start seething and thinking the worst. Then I start not concentrating on the question. Then I start looking at the timer and stressing because I'm not focusing and I'm not making progress on the problem. Then I start cursing her in my mind and thinking about all sorts of reasons she's doing this. Bla bla bla. Then I start thinking about how this is what the students must be feeling when they're in a timed stressful test situation and "WELCOME TO THEIR WORLD".

Anyway, the timer went off. NO I did not finish. I waited to see what the student would do. Would she just hand back my calculator with the bad batteries? Class was ending. She didn't say anything. I didn't want to be too accusatory, but I asked for the calculator back and asked her if it was her dead batteries or mine in there. She mentioned that the glide pad wasn't working on "mine", so that's why she transferred batteries .... (but then she didn't retransfer, hmmmmm).

Long post longer. I need to have a discussion on Monday with (half) my class (others are in the APES exam) (hah! APES .... AP Environmental Science) about stress and brain space and such during a timed test. Any suggestions on what could make me/them/anyone refocus on the problem at hand instead of other non-test brain activity? Thanks in advance.

Sequences & Series

Ahhhhh! It's that time of year when you hear RUMORS of students actually being enrolled in your classes, but you have scattered evidence. If it's not sickness, it's field trips or EOC exams or fill-in-the-blank reasons. Or if they ARE in class, some of them are NOT in class. If you know what I mean.

Welcome to my Precalculus preAP experience. Because of this, I was trying to give this recently-absent child a run down of all things Sequences and Series. I sketched the following roughly on paper (don't I write perdy?), and then decided that it'd would be a great Graphical Organizer for everyone else. And VOILA, guess what early Christmas present they're getting today. THIS.

APCS AP Exam Studying

After a conversation with some 10th graders today: "I wish teachers would teach us HOW to study for exams", I got nervous. In my mind I HAVE done that. I think. Once. For final exams. But apparently, it's not a message that sticks. Or maybe they're so used to being bossed around by us/me, that when they aren't, they think, "woo HOO! Free time! No Homework! Study Shmudy."

So I came up with this assignment for my APCS class (while I'm on a field trip with other students .... no stress here .... only a handful of class days before the AP Exams, but SURE, I'll help chaperon).

Maybe if they have the schedule, they'll be more likely to use it. Don't burst my bubble.

Senioritis

... And I don't mean dear old me!

Our school is relatively new, and so we have our first graduating class this year. We're starting all sorts of new traditions and going through growing pains and figuring out what works and doesn't work (or figuring out that we have to figure it out).

I don't know if it's a function of being such a small public school, or if it's just business as usual, but for most of the year this year our seniors have been:

"UGH! I'm so over it!"
"UGH! I can't WAIT to get out!"
"UGH! This SCHOOOOOOOL!"

Well, I could go on, but you get the picture.

As people with feelings, or maybe I'll just speak for myself, ... as a person with feelings, my first reactions are:

"The NERVE!"
"Don't you know the blood/sweat/tears I put out for you?"
"Do you appreciate NOTHING?!?!?!"
"RUDE!"

I could go on, but again, you probably get the picture.

Then I started to think. This is a natural process. Of course they want to leave. It would be weird if they wanted to stay in HS forever. Also, it's not ALL the seniors, but just a vocal few that phrase things this "in your face" way, and of course I then extrapolate, and it's EVERYONE that HATES us/me/math.

Maybe it's also part of the natural process (or maybe I'm just making myself feel better), that they are anxious about leaving after being here for so long, and they are trying to not get nervous/scared/worried about next year, but instead they're trying to replace it with relief of leaving.

My new inner and outer response the the kidlets is:

"Of course you want to leave. It would be weird if you didn't. You're ready for your next life phase."

(and of course the little voice inside me will still whisper: ruuuuuuuddddddeeeeeeee)

Quick and Easy Visual for Tangents to a Circle

I was helping a student recall that 2 tangents to a circle from the same exterior point are congruent (as segments). Instead of talking it out, we did this. It was a quick and effective way to test out various scenarios. We set it up so we could read the distance from the exterior point to each tangent point.

Geometry: Two Dimensional Areas

The year is winding down, and it's time for 2D area, 3D surface area and 3D volumes. I know my geometry kidlets have been learning areas of triangles since they were in the womb, so I didn't want to spend much "lecture/learning" time on it. I also wanted to do something different for parallelograms. Basically, I wanted them to spend the bulk of the period on practicing challenging area problems.

So, I thought I'd have them draw a large (palm sized) triangle in their notebooks, and then we would eyeball all 3 altitudes by lining up the ruler markings with the base to allow perpendicular segments. We'd measure everything in cm, then use calculators to get area.

We also talked about accuracy and how since we are measuring to the tenths place and THAT'S iffy, then when we calculate, we can only expect accuracy to the integers place.

Once we did this, I asked if anyone was off more than an integer for their 3 calculated areas (the 3 scenarios of bases and heights). Some kids were off a lot.

Well. It seems that I wasn't clear or it wasn't clear and I just assumed they'd know which base matched up with which height. Silly me.

So I went back and color coded my notebook and had them do the same. Here is what it looks like:

Volumes of Revolution

Whew! All AP Calculus topics DONE (okay, except for optimization ..... and a thorough job of accumulation functions). But, I figure with my now intensive 3 weeks of review, I can hit those (again) and maybe it will have a chance to stick in their overfull brains.

We just did Volumes of Revolution (and cross section areas), and here is the sheet I used for the revolving volumes:



It's a mix of information/ideas from the great site: mastermathmentor.com and from my ideas.

Active Recruiting

I was sad after choice sheets went out and came back for next year, and only 3 people had signed up for AP Computer Science. I had tried to send out enticing "see what we do in here" types of e-mail about 3 times this year to show the projects and stuff. Alas, to no avail.

Then during the CS workshop in Denver, I kept hearing about how everyone ACTIVELY recruited students, and how students HAD to feel individually welcomed. You may make a broad statement to the whole group, "Yes, you can do it. You are WELCOME in class." , but there will be students thinking, "She can't mean me."

So this past weekend, I looked at the choice sheets and found students that I thought had potential to really enjoy and succeed in the class. I sent personalized e-mails to each one. Here's a version of the e-mail (and p.s. In the 2 days since, I've had at least 15 students say yes to CS next year.):

I hear that you have signed up for an online course as an elective next year, and I want to convince you to switch to Computer Science instead. Here’s why:

• For an online course you’ll be sitting in a room by yourself reading through text and taking tests all year.
• In computer programming (it won’t be an AP course) you’ll learn how to do valuable fun things and get to actually use what you have created. And you get to interact with others for the whole year.
• There will be no written homework in the Computer Programming class for the coming year. It will strictly be fun, useful, usable coding. You’ll create games and pictures and code that will do specifically what you tell it. 
• It's a weighted class.
• We’ll do graphics and learn about web design and learn how to solve all sorts of problems with our coding skills.
• This will look good on your college application. Not many girls (or people in general) take computer programming in HS, and you will stand out.
• Computers are UNIVERSALLY used, and you will have a leg up with your programming knowledge in practically any field you study.
• Here are some cool people who use programming in various ways for their jobs: http://www.dotdiva.org/profiles.html
• Here’s a HS girl that used programming for cancer studies: http://www.care2.com/causes/teen-girl-wins-google-science-fair-for-breast-cancer-computer-program.html
• Here are some direct quotes from students who have taken HS programming:

"Everything in the world today is based on computer technology."
"It is the one true completely hands-on course. It is the way education should be."
"It helps me to understand the logic behind games...which I love!"
"I love it!"
"Computer Science has taught me to think outside the box.  Programming is an excellent way to improve problem solving skills.  I wouldn't trade my four years of Comp Sci for anything."

• You may think programming is hard or boring.  One: it’s “challenging” but doable. I won’t let anyone fail in either grades or skills. You WILL succeed and you will feel great about doing something that other people think is hard. Two: it’s totally not boring. Of course, anything can be made boring, but there are so many fun things to do and ways to learn about programming, that if you EVER come up to me during the year and say it’s boring, I will work my behind off to change things up.
• I promise you that if you sign up, you will not regret it, and who knows, you may find a new skill that you can use forever and actually enjoy.

I’ll check back with you this week to see your decision since I have to let Ms. W. know by the following Monday. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Ms. D

Finishing Up Polar Graphs

A long time ago at "math camp" (NCTM annual workshop), someone led a talk on how to relate the Limacons and Cartioids and Rose Petal Polar Graphs to the shifted or "squished" trig graphs in terms of y = f(x). This seemed to work out really well, and the students could visualize what happens in terms of the amplitude and the vertical shift. Anyway ... we're all done with that, and after exploring on the graphing calculator for the next day, this was their homework in precalculus:



Onwards and upwards to Logarithms which I subtitle (Drugs, Sex, & Rock n Roll) due to my first few examples which they figure out (and see why logs are useful): drug absorption/metabolization, population growth, & decibel levels and hearing loss.

Spring Break

Aaahhhhh, the luxuries of 8-10 hours of sleep a night. Lovely. AND I got to go to a CSTA Equity Workshop. I learned many valuable things (either formally, or by interacting with various people), and here are some tidbits (and a nice picture of where I was):

* Are your reactions as a teacher (or person, for that matter) stifling or encouraging?
* It's potentially "good" when "bad" things happen to you because you (hopefully) learn empathy or awareness of how you treat others.
* Ask ALL kids the hard questions. Kids know when you don't expect much of them.
* Be careful of saying "you are so smart" versus "you worked hard and did well".
* People need to feel invited.
* All kids need to learn to advocate for themselves.
* All people need to learn the skill of pushing through even though someone may tell them, "no".
* Just because you are not "good" at something, it doesn't mean you can't get value out of it and learn to like it or let it teach you something.
* Get out of your comfort level often.
* Don't be the teacher that "says" something but acts differently.
* Once damage is done in a relationship, it's hard to repair.
* A cool response to "I don't know": "Well, if you DID know, what do you think you would say?"
* Are you challenging EVERYONE as a teacher?

Resources:

iSense (visualization of data)
Stuck in the Shallow End (book)
EarSketch (sound and computer programming)

APCS Sorting

I debated how to teach the 4 sorting methods we need to know: QuickSort, MergeSort, SelectionSort, and InsertionSort. I remember learning about them and then promptly mixing up which ones were which after some time had passed, so I never really internalized them. I figured the same thing would happen to the students.

So, here is how I did it, and it's still in the process, and who knows if it will work, but I guess the bugs will show up as we go along.

1. I made a graphic organizer and handed it out.
2. I discussed what and how we would learn this topic and what they were responsible for (see below).
2. I found 8 videos (2 per Sorting Method) that spanned styles of teaching and were effective and short.
3. We watched the videos in class, and after every method (and during the video) the students took notes on their organizers, and we discussed and answered quick questions.
4. This took basically all period, and then they self selected groups to work with (2 or 3 people).
5. I premade little slips of paper that had the names of the sorting methods.
6. Their group chose 2 different slips (and repicked if the same method showed up).
7. They wrote their names on the slips and handed them back to me after they noted which TWO Sorting methods they were responsible for.
8. Their job now is to create 2 videos and put them on YouTube withOUT letting on which sorting method they are demonstrating. They will share the links with me.
9. Then, after they are all done and graded on correctness and creativity, I will have a quiz where I show a random video of theirs, and they are to write down which sorting method is demonstrated.

I'm excited to see their videos. I mentioned I would make 2 also, and now, GAME ON.

A Dose of Resolve

There are a group of students that eat lunch in my classroom frequently, and while I'm busy doing other things to get ready for class and to stuff down my own lunch, I hear their conversations as background noise. A few times I heard them talking about a teacher and how if they just put on a sad face or make a request or ask "nicely", then that teacher will change a grade or postpone a due date or give credit for something that does not deserve credit. The tone of their discussion was that they knew it wasn't right, but they were taking advantage of it anyway.

So as I'm writing this, I'm wondering why I didn't stop what I was doing and address this or approach the teacher. Various reasons I guess. I know if I'd heard something really horrible like people bashing or blatant cheating, I would definitely have said/done something. Anyway, that's something for me to think on.

But, the reason I bring this on is because it strengthens my resolve when I get the same treatment of puppy dog face and poor me and please raise my grade for fill-in-the-blank reason. Just because someone asks you for something nicely, doesn't mean you have to give it to them, and it DEFINITELY doesn't mean that it would be in the student's best interest to do so. They most likely know they don't deserve and didn't earn the boost in their grade.

Binary Search

I hope this will have the lasting effect of students remembering Sequential vs. Binary search in APCS. I guess time will tell, but I wanted to try something different and was inspired by various ideas on the web.



I embellished this lesson with tactile stuff of how to search for something. I showed them code, but we didn't have time to do more than that so far (other presentations that day). Anyway, it made ME laugh, and really, isn't THAT what's important?

Now what will I do with SORTING. Hmmmmmm.

Last Week Snippets...

On a positive note, I stopped myself from getting "too" snippy with 2 great students once I realized I was "hangry" during a weekend meeting that the kids GREATLY showed up for (unlike many other students). I excused myself from the room and went to heat up my lunch and filled my tummy before I permitted myself back in the room to converse with them.

On another positive note, many kids took care of business at the end of the 6 weeks and got their work done.

On some sad notes, many kids did NOT take care of business and have failing grades to show for it.

On a happy note, we had some fun guest speakers in DE and APCS.

On a sad/funny note, for one speaker, it was the end of the week, and I was majorly sleep deprived, and I was slow to formulate and process words that were to come out of my mouth. At the end of his talk, when he was done with the overhead projector/camera set up, what I MEANT to say and totally DID say in my mind was, "you may leave the projector on. Now..... class ....bla bla bla...". What apparently he heard (because of the awkwardness that ensued) was, "you may leave NOW."  And he proceeded to scurry out the room while I was asking him a question which he didn't answer because he thought I was speaking to my class. Oy! I did run after him and apologize when my class let me know what they thought I did, but I don't know if he bought it.

On a positive note ... I've caught up on some sleep.

On a sad note, I left the calculus tests at school .... the ones that I needed to grade for the report cards due tomorrow. Hello scrambling morning grading while prepping for 2 classes.

On a positive note, I LOVE the mini iPad my husband got me for my recent birthday.

On a sad note, it's a major time suck when I'm reading reddit and playing games and reading Zite and goofing off for "JUST ONE MORE MINUTE".

On a positive note, my "eat a big tub of veggies and drink 2 large tumblers of water and write everything down" diet seems to be working ... slowly.

On a scary note, my sleep-deprived self declared to my last class on Friday ... the class that recently had 2 kids run the local marathon ... that I was going to run the marathon NEXT year with them.

On a happy note, I've run 5 miles max ever ... and by "run" I think we know what I mean ... run/walk.

On a sad note, 26 - 5 is a LARGE running number.

On a happy note ... red wine.

Precalculus Fractals

We are deep in our unit on complex numbers, and last class we talked about the 3 defining properties of a fractal and made the Sierpinski Triangle. Their homework was to find cool facts about fractals, and they came through. Today we watched some cool "zooming in" videos of the Mandelbrot Set and the Julia Set. Then we got to the business of understanding them by hand calculations (and the TI-84).

I don't know how much sunk in to how many people, but I hope I got across the insanity of 2 values REALLY close together on the complex plane can have wildly different results when applying the Mandelbrot Set iteration process. We also talked about how the colors come about.

Anyhow, bla bla bla, here was/is their homework, and I can't wait to see what they come up with for their own fractal. Most of this sheet is middle school level, but I figured it would drive home the iteration fact and the first few problems would give them an idea on how to create their own fractal. Maybe I should have incorporated complex numbers into it somehow. Next time? SHEET:

Homework Calendar...

Once Winter Break was over, I revamped my homework calendar to look like this, and I love it! It's nice not to have to click through mystery days to see what goes with what and what the assignment was and what the students were learning. I love that it's all in plain view and there are active links, and someone can quickly find what they're looking for. This is on the Haiku site, but I'm thinking it's adaptable to other such sites. I've color coded the objective of the day, the daily work, and any possible quizzes and tests coming up. The farthest right column is a list of resources.



I got the idea from searching various APCS teacher sites, and now I don't think I can go back to the "old way".

Dot Product

We're in our vector unit for precalculus, and today we learned about the dot product and its uses. Nothing too mind boggling, but here's the worksheet for homework:



Also, I'm liking my precalculus class for 2 more reasons. One, I don't know what it was, but when I was asking for homework one time about 2 weeks ago (have I mentioned this already?) .... (alzheimer's...)... I said, "make sure your name, date, social security #, mother's maiden name, and favorite ice cream flavor is on your sheet" just as a joke (except for the 1st 2 things, of course). Then when I was grading their homework, I saw that a couple of kids had actually answered my ice cream question. So the next class, I made sure to mention it, and we had a smile.

Then at the end of that class, another kid, while they're handing in the homework asked, "what's the question?" ... so I came up with ... I don't know actually, but last time's question was, "what do you want written on your tombstone?", and today's question was, "on a desert island, what would be the one treat you would choose to be stuck with?". So I guess that's our thing now, and it's kind of fun to read their responses (the ones that answer).

The second reason I'm liking them, is that they play along with my tangents. When I first introduced vectors, I mentioned that they allow people to space travel and build rockets and so on, and then we got on a tangent about the International Space Station and such, and I mentioned I'm "reading" "Packing for Mars" on audio books for my commute, and told them some things I'm finding out from Mary Roach. So what I love about this class is my question #12 from the above homework about bring me one interesting fact about the ISS (and I added to it, and some "wonderings" .... like, what do they do with the "waste" ... if you know what I mean). And I know that when we share out next class, they'll have found some interesting things (I'm doing the homework, too), and we'll all have a snippet of more information than we otherwise would have. 

Thursday

Five Moment Memoir

* My weekly breakfast at a local diner started my morning off right with good puzzles in the newspaper and one of the 2 regular waiters remembering my "usual" order.

* Did not like my lunch of leftovers that contained mashed potatoes and Indian Dal Lentils (hello extended stomach in the afternoon).

* Walked with my teacher friend to a local Pharmacy that "does coffee" and enjoyed the 70 degree January temperature and laughter and sinful potato chips (that go so well with the said coffee).

* Went out to dinner with same friend and our visitor from Boston that was observing and commenting on our invention progress.

* Had illicit ice cream at 10 pm after I got home from work after writing subplans since I'll be out on Friday for an APCS 2-day workshop.

Hmmmmmm, food. The love of my life. Sorry husband.

Five-Moment Memoir

I was reading my "O" magazine this morning on the treadmill, and an article by Sarah Beauchamp struck a nerve (can that happen in a good way?) ... maybe it's better to say the article "spoke to me" ... (not as in "hey, chubby, set the pace a little quicker on the treadmill", but as in "what a great idea you're reading about"). It was called "The Five-Moment Memoir". In it she wrote about how every day she committed herself to sifting through the highs and lows of her day and recording in her journal 5 moments of that day.

So ...

* Got a great idea while walk/jogging on the treadmill this morning in my on-going effort to be healthy and fit and strong.

* Had a funny conversation with a great student P. who for some reason I pretend to her face that she's evil and then she smirks her knowing smile at the joke and maybe banters back with a witty rejoinder.

* Had success in APCS with this in-class assignment that I pulled together last minute (like most days ... the "last minute" ... NOT the "success"), and students who otherwise are lost in class and cheat and such were calling me over to check their answers, and I put their work on the document camera as a "key" while saying whose paper it was:



* For once had NO students stay after school for tutoring, so I enjoyed some surprise free time to prep for the next day.

* Finally found a good book to read from the school library, and enjoyed a few minutes of relaxation in the evening enjoying each page.

Stress Relief

When my students came back from break, I knew they would start back on that cycle of school/lack of sleep/stress. I made one of my first assignments a "make a ceiling poster that gives advice on how to reduce stress". I gave them stock paper, and here are a few results. Yes, there were "last minute bad" ones, but mostly they were this creative. For the last few weeks, I see various students in all my classes gazing at the ceiling. Free eye-candy.

Shadows......

I recently realized that it's almost that time again in Geometry: TRIG. And with trigonometry comes shadow problems .... and by problems I mean the math kind and the understanding kind. I wrote last year about the fact that something I took for granted (knowing how shadows work) is not necessarily in my students' skill set. In fact, with my new crop of cute little 9th (and 2 8th) graders, I posed the following "pre problem" the other day in class:

1. In your notebooks, draw a line representing the ground.
2. Then draw a stick figure that is you somewhere about a third of the way in from the edge.
3. Then draw a sun high up away from you.
4. Now, draw your shadow as accurately as you can based on 1-3, and draw extra markings on your paper that convince me of what your planning process was.

Then I walked around and just glanced at their papers without saying "yay" or "nay". In my brief pass around the room, I saw all sorts of correct and incorrect thinking.

So, we just had a 3-day weekend, and before it, I assigned the following "project" to them (as a precursor to what they'll need to know later):

Every hour on the hour that the sun is up, measure your shadow as accurately as you can and jot down the time and the length. They then brainstormed, and we shared out ways to do this if you don't have a ruler or such. Then I asked them to jot down some things they thought may happen (to look at later).  I told them I was going to do the homework, too.

I haven't had them back in class yet, but I already know some changes I'd possibly make to the assignment for next time: It doesn't necessarily have to be ON the hour, but record the exact time you do it once every hour. Also, a kid had an interesting idea: stand in the same spot and notice the position change in your shadow (seems cool, but it would negate the way I measured my shadow). Coordinate with another geometry class at a different latitude and or "place" in their time zone and see what the differences are (if any) for "same heighted" people.

Anyway, I'm curious what they come back with, and if they've learned anything. I'll have to have some follow up questions and follow up drawings to assess. My plan is to get all the data on a spreadsheet and see what the function looks like. I'm guessing since they probably all fudged the times it will be wonky. I'm also curious what will happen when we get to problems such as:

You are standing such that the end of your shadow coincides with the end of a ______ shadow .......... and how they'll draw the picture THIS year (2 suns? 1 sun?)...

Parallelograms

We started our Special Quadrilaterals Unit the other day, and parallelograms were our opening act. Last fall, I found large, 250 straw, $1 each bags of pretty colored straws, and I had an inkling that I could use them for geometry. My original idea was to use them later on for the 3D units when I was talking about edges and vertices and faces and such. BUT.

I was playing around with cutting off pairs of congruent straws and putting them together. I had extra resistors hanging around (resisting the trash can, ar ar ar), and I made this:

 that can be squished to this:

connected with this:

My vision is that they can keep bringing this to class, and we can continue to reinforce the properties, and they can MAYBE not mix up rectangle/rhombus/parallelogram/etc. properties.

Don't burst my bubble.

My coworker had the brilliant idea that then we could use spaghetti for the diagonal investigations.

This was their homework:

Sayonara Vacation ... It's Been Fun

And so it ends ... sleeping enough ... lounging around and reading books ... doing puzzles .... thinking about teaching and what to change/fix/keep/do next semester ... not-enough-movies ... lots of visits with friends ... All sorts of vacation goodness (well, except for the lack of good matinee-going opportunities).

I played around with making videos for TeacherTube for my computer programming class. I like the fact that they review the uploaded videos first before they allow them to be activated. I don't like the ads that are shown on the videos, but I guess it's a necessary evil. I do like that you can skip the ads after 5 seconds or so.

I'm trying to improve my Haiku website for the APCS class, and I was including links to various topics. I couldn't find short, to-the-point videos of what I wanted, though, so I made some. Let's see if I can keep it up. I also had a hard time finding enough resources for QUICK, easy-to-read sites on the specifics of Java programming. For some topics, there are great things I've found, but for others, I guess I have to search a bit harder. We do have a textbook, but I don't like the style. Sheesh. Picky, picky. Oh well, it's fun scanning things and seeing how others do stuff and picking and choosing what I want to create. And as ever, always feeling like I'm not going fast enough, and we're not going to cover all the AP stuff, and they're not going to understand stuff deep enough. Oy! I guess that's the plight of the first year you teach a class.

I have one "non mathy" assignment I'm going to give my seniors the first day we get back. It's their Spring semester, and they're seniors, and as a school, we're piling some more things on them, and I know they're going to be stressed. I've also noticed that the Ambigrams my geometry kids made last semester that they put on the classroom ceiling tiles STILL have various students looking up at them. So. I'm going to give each of my seniors (well juniors and seniors because it's in one class), a 12x12 card stock sheet and they have to decorate it and give one idea on stress relief. Something that's quick to do or something they've found effective or what not. I'll put some other requirements on it, but that will maybe be some source of help to other kidlets when they get overwhelmed in the next few months. Or .... I'll just have a nicer ceiling to stare up at myself. Win Win.

*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.

Trig Derivatives in Calculus

I find it fascinating that once you ask a student to find the equation of the tangent line to a trig-type function (say y = x*sin x) at x = pi, they completely blank out on finding a point on the line. What? I plug in pi? That's outrageous! Whoever heard of such a thing? Craziness. I vow to keep hammering away at equations of tangent lines this year. File...

Snips & Snippets

Okay, this 5 different preps thing and the club after school and the InvenTeam meetings and the NHS co-advising and the other start-of-the-year shenanigans is starting to make my eye twitch. I need to remember to take deep breaths and do my best and not worry about wanting everything to be perfect. I have to embrace a constant state of frantic-ness. I keep picturing myself with horse blinders on and JUST worrying about the present moment and juggling at most 2 or 3 other things in the back of my mind.

It's going to be great. It'll ALL be fine.

On a positive note. Love my students. Even though some of them are a pain in the patootie, they're still fun pains, and we've known each other for at least 2 years, so we can banter back and forth about our "loathing of each other". Ultimately, at my school, everyone really is trying to do their best, and we don't have to worry about sneaky, mean-spirited behavior, so I know I'm very fortunate in that respect.

And when there is bad behavior, I/we have to remember that the behavior ISN'T the person. It's just one aspect of the person. I kept scrunching my face and shaking my fist at the kid (in my mind) with a "what are you thinking?" and a "do you know what horrible behavior that is?" and a "what kind of upbringing did you HAVE?" and all that.

Then I just redefined the whole kid as THE PERSON WHO THINKS THAT IS OKAY TO DO. I have to remember (and it's a struggle, and it took me a while this time, and I don't know if I can keep it in mind consistently) that this is just ONE aspect of this student. They have many good qualities, and this was just one thing. They need to be called on the rug for it, but if no one does it, then they maybe don't realize how bad they've made others feel. I shouldn't write off the student. MUST. Keep. Remembering. This.

Computer Science Activities

I'm still finding my sea legs on how to best teach the material. I want the students to learn by doing, so we explore a ton. I haven't perfected a way for them to have easy, ready access to past information, though (without searching through tons of worksheets or old programs).

A student suggested a "goals" portion on each sheet, and I think it's a great idea, so I incorporated that. Also, through Haiku (an online teacher-type site our school purchased for us), I put some practice quizzes. I like it because I can see who and how they did. We JUST had our first quiz on strings and math, so I'll see how it's sticking.

Here are three recent activities on random numbers, a Math Quiz Project (that I've had good feedback on), and for loops:

Chugging Along

I'm still trying to get my groove going for my AP Calculus flipped class. I love it because the kids actually have time and energy now to do hard problems since they're doing them in class. I also like that I've had conversations that clarify things for the students. BUT. Here's an enlightening conversation I had on Friday. The kids had watched videos and took notes on the product rule and on the quotient rule. There was a day of practicing the product rule. Then then next time they were practicing the quotient rule.

My basic flipped calculus class structure is:
Take the IR quiz (fast immediate recall type questions).
Get started on the new practice problems to reinforce what you "learned" on the video.
I walk around and answer questions and make sure they are getting it.

So.

The students were working on these problems:



A student calls me over and asks: so how do we know when to use what rule ... product rule or the quotient rule.

Oy!

I guess I was making assumptions with this particular group of students that EVERYONE would clearly see when to use what.

I think writing this out has made me want to change up the class structure.

Possible New Structure:
Take the IR quiz (fast immediate recall type questions).
Use my guiding questions to have a discussion with your table about various key important parts of what you learned from the video and how it ties in to previous learning. (I think I also want to use this as an opportunity for students to talk with students OTHER than the ones at their table)
Journal about your understanding for about 3 minutes in your ISN.
Get started on the new practice problems to reinforce what you "learned" on the video. (possibly have less problems since they seem to be having a hard time finishing the ones I give)
I walk around and answer questions and make sure they are getting it.

Now that I write that, it seems obvious. Oh well, it's a learning process for me, too. I still like the flipped structure, but it's a work in progress for me.

Funnies of the Week...

* In Digital Electronics, we're working with resistors. In case you don't know, they're color coded with these TEENY TINY bands of color where red looks like orange and brown could be black or it could be brown. A student was needing a particular resistor strength, and I couldn't read the colors with my aging (47) eyes. A kid asked me why I wasn't wearing glasses. I mentioned that it was vanity, and if I got new glasses I'd have to get bifocals, and I wasn't ready. One kid asked, "what are bifocals?" Another kids started being helpful .... "it's these glasses you'll see old people ....." and she stopped ... and we all laughed ... some less genuinely than others.

* After school, another student was in for tutoring. I've had her for 5 different classes, so I've known her for a long time. She's Hispanic. She wanted help, and after I was resisting going over to help her, she jokingly said, "bring your big booty over here." Hah. .... "no! That's a compliment!". ..... (okay, 2 for 2 .... old and fat)

* Another kid in precalculus was lamenting the fact that I called a homework sheet, "Quadratic Quirkiness". "Please don't ever use the word 'quirky' again" she pleaded. Huh? Why? "Quirky sounds like Quaid, and I hate Dennis Quaid." Okay ..... Then she listed reasons. Okay then. Of course I had to mention 'Quaid' a few times in class that day. Her friends also ratted her out, so "J Lo, Paltrow, ...." are also on the list.

Saved!

I guess I should periodically look at my old files. I know what I'm doing tomorrow in calculus (after a brief intro for "easier" problems).

Group Projects

I'm not so good at assigning group projects (mostly because I side with student opinions of them and mostly because I'm a control freak and like to do things myself, so I don't like working in groups). But. I realize I may be doing the students a disservice by not allowing them the periodic struggle of working with others.

I've come up with this sheet that I think I'll add to my next group project. I'm SURE I'll assign one. Soon. This year. Some time.