photo journal blogging

In a future lifetime I would love to a wildlife or travel photographer; never mind the fact that I have never taken a photography class and can't work a real camera.

Kids are into technology and cells phones and taking pictures of EVERYTHING these days. I wracked my brain trying to figure out how to work this into a learning environment. Finally in a flash of coherence and brain synapses it came to me!

For each SOL topic we cover in 6th grade, have students go out into the real world and find something they can take a picture of that relates. Then they can upload the picture and explain in a paragraph post how the picture relates to the math. This idea means they will have to reflect how their math can be used outside the classroom. It also gives them a reason to use technology for school.

My hope is that this will open students up to new career ideas and college choices they never would have considered before because "math is boring".

Over the summer

During the summer semester I created a lesson asking students to do something similar to the international grocery price activity. Each participating class would have been posting a page to a website about class size, diversity, supplies etc. Being able to do this with Web 2.0 would be even more ideal. Teachers is classrooms all over the world could start math blogs that are easily updated and followed.

Students could take turn writing a blog and posting about a classroom experience they wanted to share with all their followers and it could turn into a bloggin pen pal situation with comments.

Podcasts

The only podcast I listen to is not at all educational or appropriate, however it is entertaining and keeps me up to date on news from my home town. The radio show that I listen to has helped me think of podcasts in different ways. There are formal podcasts, discussion, interviews, etc... Sixth graders would have a great time creating interviews or doing discussions, they cannot be serious enough for formal podcasts and I wouldn't want them to be!

I envision having them pick one of our SOLs and discover the "founder".
They will research the topic and find the person responsible for discovering it. Then they would research the person and conduct an interview about the person's life and how their math is useful today. So not only are they discovering the history they are also searching for real world connections. I think I am going to develop this idea into my podcast lesson plan for class! Not often I get good ideas :)

Technology in the MATH classroom

For the first time since becoming a Loudoun teacher I feel like I am using the Promethean board as it was always intended. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your opinion, I am in a classroom with a wall that opens. This year there someone from my team that also teaches math is on the other side of the wall. Last month we decided to open the wall permanently.

In the beginning we were using it like a game to keep the kids attention, one teacher talked from either room and we both wrote on our boards. We would trade throughout the lesson to keep the kids focused. Finally my coworker decided to project from one computer onto both screens. Now our boards are connected so when something is written on one it shows up on the other. Instead of standing at the board we use a wireless slate to write on the boards.

The purpose of this is to have 3 teachers in the classroom as opposed to a team taught class on one side and a gen ed class on the other. We have a permanent help station in the middle where the wall used to be, so at any time during the lesson if a student is lost or falls behind they move to the middle and get one on one or small group help. We are continuing to build on this idea and transition the kids into feeling like this is a "normal" classroom experience.

Blogs and wikis are still on my mind and how I can use them for math. I may have an idea soon where students have homework groups on a blog. We would create 7 groups to keep the amount of students smaller and match them up with people that are not in their classroom to spark new conversations...the wheels are turning. Thoughts would be helpful!

blog, blog, blog, blog, blog

It is my hope that this blog will help me focus and generate better reflections about my practice, my school, and my career path as an educator. I often sit in class and listen to all the great ideas people use in their classrooms and become frustrated because there doesn't seem to be a way to make it work in a math classroom. This frustration is probably what my students feel when they don't "get it" or say they hate math.

Identifying with my students is the first step to becoming a better teacher because I will have an understanding of what goes through their minds as they sit in my classroom. Using this concept will not only help me differentiate lessons better, but it will also alleviate any boredom or frustration felt by students.

Personally I need to become a better reflective practitioner, long term. Right now it is easy to tweak a lesson from class to class through the day, but fixing a whole unit sometimes seems impossible. Our first FACTS unit has not gone well. We had grand ideas and a great project for the SOL, but when it came time the students had no idea how to do the basics. Instead of spending 30 minutes or less teaching the skills needed for the unit, we spent at least an hour working in groups and practicing each days. The unit project has now gone from a week long station based plan, to a 1 day plan for students that passed the test with flying colors so they don't have to be bored while the students who failed retake in class.

A change-

Frustrated by the lack of effort from our students at home, we created online review packs for each test. The review pack is posted at least a week before the test. We encourage students to start working on it ASAP and retake it until they receive a 100% so they are fully prepared for the test. This was also created so that students could become interested in what we are going to be learning, in hopes that they would research different math things at home to help them do well.

Results-  

Some students took advantage of this opportunity and many did not. It is easy to tell the difference in test scores, by how hard the students worked at home in addition to working in class. We are going to continue to use this method because it works over all. We are going to add to it by creating short videos with examples of how to solve problems and then short worksheets for students to do at home with videos to check their answers.