This week was exciting for me. I really got to see growth in the students of both the regular and honor's math classes. The student's here at my placement surprise me every day with their knowledge and spontaneity. This week in the regular math classes we got to do some fun interactive activities to apply what we've been doing with percents. On Monday, the students enjoyed playing a "sink the sub" Smart Board game where they applied what they learned with percents in 8.1-8.3. They seemed to enjoy the game and they proved to me that they were really grasping the content. On Tuesday they took notes as we went over 8.4 (Percent Increase/Decrease). They worked well with the examples and seemed to understand increase/decrease with no difficulties. On Wednesday they did an activity with 8.2-8.4 where they applied what they knew with percents to find percent increases/decreases, sale prices, and original prices of items from sales flyer's that were posted around the room. At first, they seemed confused, but guiding them one-by-one through the stations triggered their knowledge and most seemed to pick it up rather quickly. It was a matter of making them think, "does my answer make sense"? On Thursday, we did a lesson on 8.6, which was about applying discounts, commissions, tips, etc. with percents to everyday life. The students seemed to get this with ease. On Friday, they continued applying by doing partner activities where they ordered off menus from Famous Dave's, Chilli's, and Buffalo Wild Wings. Then had to add sales tax and tip. It was nice to see that most of the students got the concept fairly quickly. With Honor's we started off the week on Monday, by continuing to work with Completing the Square. Tuesday we went over loose ends with completing the square as well. Wednesday we moved onto the Quadratic Formula, we used a song from YouTube and the students had the formula memorized by the end of class and they did an excellent job applying it. On Thursday they played math baseball using quadratic formula questions, which they proved to me they understood well. Any errors they made were minor mathematical errors not formula errors. On Friday, we talked about discriminants and how b (squared) - 4ac would tell them how many solutions each equation would have! They got this with ease and many finished their homework right in class with the time given at the end of class.
Last week I made two goals. One was to come up with ways of using multiple assessment. In my regular class the students got formal grades on a concept poster (graphic organizer), daily problems, workbook and worksheet pages, and two different activities we did in class. Informally, I was able to assess them by looking at how well they grasped the concept in class discussion and a class game. These multiple assessment were able to reach learners of all types and hopefully let the students grasp and grow from what we learned. The second goal I made was to research and plan some fun ways to teach Honor's the quadratic formula. I think they enjoyed it and understood the concept well. I used a song to teach them the actual formula and multiple examples on day 1. On day 2 we reinforced the topic by playing math baseball, which most of the students seemed to enjoy and stay involved with. They got to through a soft ball at the Smart Board while they were up at bat. Then as a group solved math problems and I drew sticks to see who would answer the questions. If a team got it wrong the opposing team got a chance to answer for a point.
This week my goal is to try to make sure I am varying my lessons enough with technology. Using the Smart Board for interactive lessons everyday will get old to the students. That's why it's important to change up what goes on in the everyday classroom. My second goal is to start finishing up my online portfolio. I feel like I'm behind on what needs to be done by the end of the semester.
The competent teacher will have, and continually develop, the knowledge and skills in learning technologies to be able to appropriately and responsibly use tools, resources, processes, and systems to retrieve, assess and evaluate information from various media. Coming into this placement I was familiar with some exposure to Smart Boards and I was very versed in using the computer and it's programs, specifically PowerPoint. While at my placement I have applied my knowledge with PowerPoint often for the students. I have also become a lot more comfortable with the Smart Board and what it offers. I would love to take a class on it at some point and become even more well versed with this incredible technology. I was also able to use and become comfortable with the ELMO. This technology allowed me to teach facing the students writing down on a piece of paper that is displayed on the whiteboard. Students really enjoy technology and really relate to it well. They are always interested when technology is used. I can see how important it is to switch up the technology use often. If a PowerPoint is used everyday it is boring, but once a week is fun and new for the students.
PowerPoint, the ELMO, the Smart Board both for notes and games, math stations, geometric solids, menus, sales adds, literature, etc. these are all things I have used to hopefully teach and keep the attention of the students at my placement. I hope that by me using these tools they have learned from these experiences as much, if not more, than I have.
I hope to continually use technology and grow with my capabilities as the years go on. Everyday technology gets better and better and to be effective, I believe I need to continue to learn more and more about what is capable with technology to be able to be used in my classroom.
Tammi, I like the ways in which you're trying to make the math concepts relevant to your students' lives. You didn't let them order beer, did you? I'm glad too that you're using technology in your teaching. I think a challenge in math is to get past the right answer kind of drill games that are so prevalent and to let students show their understanding by creating with technology tools.
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