My Web 2.0 Journey

Saved by twitter

2012-01-29T12:46:00.003-05:00

I know I've said it before, but if you're not on twitter (or don't appreciate it), then you really need to try it out. Not only have I gotten so much more for my teaching career through the community I've become a part of, but I've made *friends*. These are people who I've never met, have never spoken to, yet when I tweeted about a personal crisis I was having last night, they stepped up and offered all kinds of support. I'm happy to say that the crisis has passed and I think things will be ok, but having all of those kind words and thoughts offered was invaluable.

From the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. You all know who you are.

Trig Identities!

2012-01-23T12:50:00.001-05:00

Three precalc classes is too many. Know how I know? Because I'm getting a little tired of trig identities. It's admittedly my favorite part of the year.... but by the third time each day that I have to show/talk about/help with identities, I'm over them.

I was trying to think about something I could do to make them a little more fun... a puzzle? Some sort of interaction? (Like I have, You have) But I didn't get anything together for it. So I guess we'll just finish 'em up in the next day or two (I'm going to a conference on Weds and will be out) and then move on.

C'est la vie. (Did I spell that right? I took German in high school.)

I hate to complain about my favorite class and my favorite topic. So I'll move on.

Just scored some brownie points with my principal - and I like to store them up for the future when I might get myself in trouble. :) I was checking out the county ed website that lists all of their seminars (of which I'm attending on Weds) and noticed one called Performance-based Assessments for Mathematics that is being offered in April. I sent her an email asking if it would be possible to attend; just got a response saying that my department head is going to talk about it today.

I haven't had my iPad usable since October (don't remember if I mentioned that or not) and have some new news on it... Here's what's happened so far.

1. Dropped a bowl on it while cooking in mid-October. Oops. Got a pretty pattern on the glass but the iPad itself worked fine, thank goodness.

2. Took it to an Apple store because I'd heard that sometimes they just swap 'em out. No dice.

3. Just before Halloween I took it over to the Tech person for the district so she could take a look at it.

4. Emailed her in early December because I hadn't heard anything... she responded by saying that it wasn't something they could fix at the district level (no duh) and it would be $350 (that I would have to pay) to send to apple to fix. I asked if I could have it back so I could try and find a cheaper fix. She agreed.

5. Got the iPad back our first week back after break. They'd sent it off somewhere and the glass is entirely off the front. Found a replacement glass on ebay that I ordered... hoping that a $41 fix will work!

6. That week I plugged the iPad in to charge it. No reaction. Tried a different charger, same result. My guess is that when whoever removed the glass took it off they did something to the electrical component.

7. Emailed tech lady again about the lack of charge almost two weeks ago. Nothing heard back.

8. Forwarded that email to her again and very nicely said that maybe it had snuck past her. She replied today (and she's been very good about responding to my multiple problems!) and said that if I get a quote to get the repair done to forward it to her and they'll issue a PO.

So here's where I am. They want me to find a fix for the part of the iPad I didn't break. Where do I start?

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2012-01-21T19:35:00.001-05:00

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2012-01-14T19:39:00.001-05:00

First Class Ice Breakers Using Mobile Devices

tags: firstday byod
challenge.bmp (1108×713)

tags: precalc triangle
square root of negative one teach math: Logarithm Love

tags: precalc logs

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Miscellany

2012-01-12T08:34:00.000-05:00

I'm cleaning out my desk today.

The results:
1. 5 rolls of tape (masking and scotch)
2. 5 containers of white-out (I'm assuming they're all dried out)
3. various school ids
4. a multitude of rubber bands, paperclips, and rulers
5. pages of stickers
6. old thank you notes from students
7. senior pictures of kids (many of whom I can't remember names... feel bad about that!)
8. several years of evaluations
9. a water gun
10. 2 decks of cards
11. a timer (which I'll take home for my boy! need it for that nightly 15-minute reading time!)
12. various cd's and dvd's of who-knows-what

And all of this would be in addition to the stuff that I actually knew was there!
Want to do know what I'm doing the rest of the day?

(I'm not a total slacker - I've spent the previous 3 days grading, planning for the next couple of weeks, and getting copies made.)

I <3 exam week!

Looking ahead

2012-01-09T09:06:00.000-05:00

Today's our first day of semester exams. We always have exams the second week back after our winter break - I really wish we could do them before going on break, but it's always been this way and probably always will. My first class of precalc kids are currently working on it (I just finished up the answers and was pleased to only find one easily-corrected mistake on the test itself.... probably a record for me!). This is the first time I've split an exam into calculator and non-calculator portions even though my tests normally are. I'm happy with the non-calculator part but think the calculator part is too easy. Oh well - that can be fixed for next year!

In the next month or so we'll start scheduling next year's classes. I've already started thinking about this a bit because for the first time this year we have an AP Calc BC course available. It was a last-minute thing last year so I didn't have time to really think about who should be in it; a handful of my precalc kids really stood out and wanted to take it. This year, though, it's constantly been in the back of my mind who I think is ready and able.

There are still some obvious choices. The kids who fly through everything with straight 98+ grades and love to actually think about math are definitely in. There are two types of students in particular that I'm going to struggle with.

Type 1. The under-achievers. I have a few students this year who are obviously very very smart.
Two problems:
1. They're more of the "out of the box" type learner. They look beyond the typical problem to the "what if" type situation. It's an awesome thing to see, but when going to such a straight-forward-prepare-for-an-AP-exam type class (with a teacher who is very by-the-book, notation-is-key (because she has to be to get them ready for the test)) I don't know how that would work.
2. These kids are under-achieving. They're not my highest-scoring students. In fact, one of the smartest thinkers has gotten B's both quarters because he doesn't really pay attention to the details. That could be a problem.

Type 2. The sophomores. I have 2 sophomores in my classes (out of 94 total kids). One does ok and I'll definitely recommend him for Calc AB but not BC. The other does great but I don't think she's really learned anything since being with me. She does a lot of outside work with math and was involved in some sort of college summer program. She was moved into my class a month or so into school after starting out in our college prep precalc and blowing everyone else out of the water. She's done really well in my class (A average on tests and quizzes) but doesn't work. Most days in class she sits with her head down (sleeping?) and homework completion is iffy. It's really hard for me to see what's going to happen when she hits something that she hasn't learned previously. (She just asked me what multiplicity means in terms of zeros and didn't know why the zeros don't matter when talking increasing/decreasing/constant.) I feel like she's just relying on what she already knows.

My plan is to give the kids the opportunity to tell me what class they're interested in before I start giving my input. I'm going to give them this document to help them get an idea of what's involved and them get their feedback. Hopefully some things will shake out from there!

Finishing Up

2011-12-19T20:58:00.001-05:00

We have some crazy two days ahead of us at school and I'm just hoping to hang on long enough to make it to Wednesday at 2:15! (And then another couple of hours until my 2nd grade basketball team's practice is over... always an exhausting exercise!)

I'm not seeing one of my precalc classes tomorrow and am determined to get a quiz in (solving right and oblique triangles) so I needed a day that isn't vital but isn't a throwaway day, either. Today during my tutoring period in the library I found a cute little map of the North Pole. I wrote in some values on the map, came up with a story to match Santa's trip around the village, and hopefully it will work well enough that the kids can practice their solving triangle skills while determining Santa's distance traveled. Here's what I ended up with:

We'll see how it goes!

My Algebra 1 kids are taking a test (I'll get them started on some exam review stuff on Wednesday) and Algebra 2 kids are reviewing for their Quadratics Quiz on Wednesday.

Two more days....

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-12-17T19:34:00.001-05:00

Geogebra Applets Used in PreCalculus and Calculus

tags: precalc geogebra applet

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-12-10T19:35:00.001-05:00

the best educational videos | Utubersity.com

Interesting: the best educational videos available on YouTube, organized in an easy to find way to watch and learn. http://t.co/zDyF0eIB
Honors Pre-Calculus - Chapter 4

tags: precalc wiki
Unit Circle Applet

tags: precalc unitcircle applet
Biorhythm Graphs

tags: precalc biorhythm
WebQuest: Finding the Equation of a Sine Curve Using Biorhythm Graphs: created with Zunal WebQuest Maker

tags: precalc biorhythm

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Loooong week.

2011-12-09T14:12:00.001-05:00

I swear it should be January by now. This week has taken forever to get through!

Kind of a weird day today. They held a breakfast during first period today for all of the kids who are "Anderson Achievers", which means their gpa is above a certain value, they are involved in school activities, and they have no discipline referrals - basically all of my precalc kids. I had 8 kids left in a class of 30 and that was because they forgot to turn their application forms in. We had a quiz yesterday over graphing trig functions and I didn't want to start anything new without the majority of them here, yet I have 2 more precalc classes later in the day to deal with. I refuse to bow to the pressure of the "Freeday Friday Funday" (which seems to be a staple at our junior high) and was searching for something to do.

Here's what I ended up with. It uses the idea of a person's biorhythms to create sine curves showing their cycles of intelligence, physicality, and emotion. We had a discussion about this being only a theory (so it's not something you'd bank on) but the kids enjoyed plotting the sine curves to determine their "high" and "critical" days. (There are gobs of them online if you want to check them out.)

A couple of comments:
1. One girl said her dad had had a long talk with her about this - she was skeptical (thank goodness) but was excited to show him what we'd done when she got home.

2. Had a lot of discussion amongst the girls about the emotional cycle (28 days) matching their periods. (And by that I mean their periods.) Oh, the things they'll talk about.

Had a quiz today in Algebra 1 about solving systems by graphing and using substitution. We've been working on this all week and everyone seemed fine. Until they got in class today and did the typical pre-quiz freakout. I'm seriously tired of that one! I posted all of the worked out answers on the class blog last night and I'm guessing maybe 1 girl actually checked her answers on it. The others decided to wait until today to check in class.... and then of course had questions. Sometimes I wonder why I do the extra work! Just hoping that it helped out that one girl.

I got a new student in Alg1 this week. A move in. From China. Who speaks no English. She's 17 and I'm sure has taken this level of class before, but because of the language issue they didn't want to start her in anything higher. We've exchanged "hi"s and when I said "How are you?" she stared blankly at me. Poor thing. Had a discussion with the kids about how isolated she must be feeling; they're being extra-nice to her... or at least as much as they can be!

Introduced imaginary numbers in Algebra 2 today. I'm guessing that 7th period on a Friday wasn't the best time for that; they were pretty much freaking out and in major resistance mode. Monday should be fun. (Not.) We didn't get to the idea of using the conjugate to simplify fractions, which is probably a good thing.

Lots of grading to do this weekend; precalc graphing quizzes from yesterday and Algebra 1 quizzes from today. I'm totally graded out - having 90+ precalc kids kills me when I grade assignments. I just finished up their temperature regression equations from last week and a sine/cos graphing applications packet that was due on Monday. And now the quizzes. Ugh.

8 days until Christmas break! Hope I make it.

Plea for help.

2011-12-06T20:52:00.001-05:00

k8 needs help.

Check it out.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-12-03T19:35:00.001-05:00

Cornu Spiral -- from Wolfram MathWorld

tags: cornu_spiral parametric precalc

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

What's the temperature in Denver today?

2011-12-02T13:14:00.001-05:00

Happy December!

It's my goal in precalc this year to have the kids apply knowledge whenever possible. We haven't been able to do that a whole lot (at all?!) so far in trig, so it was nice to get to graphing sine and cosine curves.

We've spent a couple of days graphing with periods, amplitudes, and horizontal and vertical shifts, so I'd assume that 90% of the kids could do that without a problem. Give 'em an equation and they can graph it.

Yesterday I gave each student a strip of paper with the name of a city and their average daily high temperatures for each month (found them here). I also gave them a full size piece of graph paper and a half-sheet of directions/questions for them to complete.

It was amazing the thinking they had to do. Everyone seemed comfortable with having 12 as the period of the graph, but how exactly do you fit that into the equation? (Some kids put 12... or 1/12...) What happens if you set January as month 1? Uh oh - a horizontal shift! And what trig function is it showing? Sine? Cosine? Has it been reflected?

Something that had become almost automatic for them turned back into a thinking game.

Nice.

Today I told the kids (after they'd turned in their results) that I didn't want to grade them all. After being accused of being lazy, I passed the graphs and equations out (making sure that no one got their own) and told them to grade it for me. (Had to give them some directions, too, of course.) They plotted the data points on their calculator, typed in the equation, and had to figure out what was wrong.

More thinking?! Oh my goodness.

First were the problems actually graphing the functions on the calculator. Check your mode. Did you remember to type the variable? Adjust your window?

Then the identifying of the equation errors. Graph isn't wide enough? So what's the problem? Could you fix it?

Graph isn't tall enough? Is in the wrong place? How could you fix it?

I also had the kids rate the equations on a scale of 1 - 5. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were very generous with their scores. Someone who hadn't even included a sin or cos in their equation (or a variable...) was given a 4 out of 5. Wha?! And then one girl was given a 4.5/5 because (although her equation was virtually perfect).

I'm happy to say that I think most kids have a better understanding of the different transformations of a sine or cosine equation and what exactly they do to a graph. Hopefully.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-11-26T19:35:00.001-05:00

Polar Function Grapher - GeoGebra Dynamic worksheet

tags: geogebra polar

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Trig stations

2011-11-22T11:13:00.001-05:00

I'm at the point in Precalc where I would normally give a quiz over trig values without using a unit circle. But with today being the last day before Thanksgiving I didn't want to cram in a quiz without knowing they were ready. And I definitely didn't want to move on with something new!

So I pondered. I have a unit circle turkey coloring page that I could give, but that would've taken about 10 minutes... and I definitely didn't want to leave them 35 minutes of free time! I also had a couple of other fun-type stuff that I could give, but again, nothing that would take the whole period. So I decided to set up some stations and give the kids some options. They had to choose at least two options plus one required one. I gave each of them a quarter-sheet with the stations listed so that they could keep track of what they'd done (and I could make sure that they did what I asked them to do!). Here's what I ended up with:

Station 1: War
I copied a deck of cards (cut them with the help of a student aide - thank goodness for her!) and set up 3 stations of max 3 kids each. Standard War rules apply. (Some of the boys had a bit of an argument during 1st period and a bottle of water was thrown. Silly boys.)

Station 2: Radian, the Turkey
This used to be Radian, the Snowman, but that was when we didn't get to the unit circle until December. I altered the picture a bit so that the kids could make a turkey out of it. I'm going to post a bunch of them on the wall so that they can enjoy the pretty pictures. :)

Station 3: Trig Dice Game
Several years ago at an OCTM conference I picked up several sets of 1" foam dice. On half of them I taped the 6 trig functions and on the other half I taped special angles. The kids roll one of each, answer the question (correctly, hopefully) and move along the game board. I usually give them pieces to move around (or have them use a coin) but today I pulled out my white-board crayons which erased awesomely on the laminated game boards.

Station 4: Trig Dot-to-Dot
In theory I like dot-to-dots, but this one didn't work out so well. There are unrationalized and rationalized answers on it, so the kids weren't sure which ones to use (eventually we figured out it should've been the rationalized ones). And the answer is a picture of a barn.... not quite so obvious.

Station 5: Row Game
I definitely like the row games - it's basically two columns of problems but each set of problems has the same answer. The kids didn't think they were so much fun, though.

The required station that everyone had to do was to fill out a unit circle in less than 4 minutes. It's amazing at how quickly they're able to do this now! So cool. And very neat to see how proud they are of themselves when they get it done the first time (or faster than the last time).

Two other activities that I thought about including: a Trig Crossword Puzzle and some Trig Cut-Ups. Maybe next year.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-11-19T19:34:00.001-05:00

Teach21 Project Based Learning

tags: pbl alg2 alg1
RT Teaching College Math: My

RT @busynessgirl Teaching College Math: My collection of Algebra Games (Digital and Non-Digital) http://t.co/u… (cont) http://t.co/tv0c7iBv
Collection of Math Games

tags: math games

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Two more days...

2011-11-18T12:32:00.001-05:00

It's felt like months since we've had a day off of school (except for weekends, of course, which are normally so crammed full of stuff that I am able to relax more during the week!). That Labor Day to Thanksgiving stretch is certainly a killer! But can you believe that it's almost Thanksgiving already?! Yikes.

Working on trig in precalc and it seems to be going pretty well! I've taken a page out of Ms. Cookie's book ( I referenced it here) and have been giving them a unit circle every day to practice with (writing degrees, radians, ordered pairs). I don't know if I'll go so far to "grade" it, but they are definitely appreciating the value of knowing all of the points and angles around the circle. On day 1 I had 3 kids (one in each class) complete the entire unit circle in 4 minutes. On day 2 I was up to about 12. Niiiiice.

Yesterday was when I introduced reference angles for the first time... but I let the kids come up with their importance. After our unit circle 4-minute frenzy, I gave them this half sheet:

I was really pleased with some of the relationships they saw in the angles. Recognizing the reference angles with our special radian angles was a piece of cake (and I'm embarrassed to say I'd never made the connection before!) and in two of my classes they saw that all of the degree answers were the same value from the x-axis. Hopefully that will help the idea of the reference angle stick!

I'm heading to my alma mater tomorrow (Miami University!) for a math competition. Our calc teacher takes a group of kids each year and I've never been able to go until this year. I'm not going as an official chaperon, but I am riding the bus (ew) because it's totally out of the way for the calc teacher to come to school then drive to Oxford (she lives halfway between the two). Should be a fun time - I know most of the kids she's taking (I think there's 9 of them) and it's supposed to be a pretty day. Besides, any day that I can get a bagel at Bagel & Deli is a banner day!

Just gave a factoring quiz in Algebra 2... I feel like I've rushed a lot this year with them, but it's so hard to slow down because they're all doing so well! I'm almost 2 weeks ahead of where I was last year and feel like they haven't missed out on anything. My plan is to include factoring on everything we do now so that they don't forget it when the time comes when we actually need it. We'll see how that goes. :)

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-11-12T19:34:00.001-05:00

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Trig! (almost)

2011-11-09T12:46:00.002-05:00

Pam Patterson just sent me a link on twitter that's AWESOME. It's a list of assignments (with linked activities) that a teacher named David Pleacher gives to his precalc classes (who just coincidentally are using the same book that I do!). Heaven. I actually have quite a few of the resources he uses, but it's always nice to find some new ones!

We talked about the unit circle today in precalc - it's nice to be able to bring together all of the "random" things we've been doing the past week (like radians/degrees/special right triangles). I always like the kids to know where the ordered pairs on the unit circle come from, so I hand out notecards, we draw the special triangles to fit in our unit circle, label the sides, and voila! The ordered pairs. There's always the awkward moments where the kids are trying to see through their notecard to find the 30 degree angle so that they can draw the triangle. Today (after doing this twice already... and multiple times for the past 10+ years) I had a revelation. WHY NOT USE PATTY PAPER? We have a ton of it (so I'm not scrounging up note cards) and it's see-throughable. I can't believe this wasn't obvious to me years ago. I grabbed a box from the math department office and used it 5th period without a hitch.

My Algebra 1 class finished up Barbie Bungee today... and boy, them working with Barbies was quite different than my Algebra 2 class. They looooved it. Barbie had quite a few more accidents, though - and that was just on our walk to get to the final bungee location! Needless to say, they were quite excited about our "field trip" to the football field for the big drop.

Factoring today in Algebra 2!

What a big day it's been.

Missing students

2011-11-07T14:27:00.001-05:00

I've had three types of students miss multiple days here lately. I've broken them down into three categories...just because I like to think like that. :)

1. The ones who disappear without word for 3+ days. I later find out they've gone on a vacation. These are the type that, upon return, are shocked to find out we moved on without them. Had one of those return today... he didn't even dare ask me if he'd missed anything, thank goodness. He was out for all of last week.

2. The ones who are gone for 3+ days and ask for assignments in advance (and continue to remind me about it, because my memory isn't the greatest when it comes to stuff like that). I like them even better when the work's all done when they come back! One of my students went on a cruise in the first month or so of school and came back with every assignment done. Little did I know that he would not complete another assignment! (Ok, that's a stretch, but it's not too far off!) Related to that is the students who contact me about assignments after being out several days - those are emails that I welcome! One of my freshmen was absent for 3 days last week and emailed me asking if I would send her what she'd missed. She came in today without missing a beat.

3. The students who are gone unexpectedly for long stretches (either from illness or some other emergency). I found out over the weekend that the father of two of my students passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. You really just have to feel so badly for the family. One of the students already arranged for a friend to pick up the work (and I guess was concerned about getting behind). I'm not sure what will happen with the other. I hate to think of them spending time on their schoolwork right now (honestly) but it may be a nice way to feel somewhat normal. Hope they're ok!

Pumpkin pi!

2011-11-01T22:06:00.000-04:00

Create a Free Slideshow

Math tweeps

2011-11-01T16:44:00.003-04:00

I created a gdoc today to try and organize the math people on twitter. I'm leading an inservice session next week (along with @mseiler and @dhausberger) and thought it might be helpful to have a list of people on twitter for math teachers who want to get started.

Please add yourself to the list if you're not there already! Thanks! :)

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T21:41:00.001-04:00

Pumpkin pi, anyone? :)

(It's amazing what kids will do on the last day of the quarter for extra credit!)

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-10-29T20:34:00.001-04:00

Secondary Math CCSS Resources | Jordan-Granite Consortium

tags: ccss
fuck yeah mathematics

tags: precalc rollercoaster
111023_1hi.jpg (792×1225)

tags: salary realworld
Math Teacher Mambo: Calculator Precalculus

I'm also going to start the 100% or 0% quizzes soon. I want them to have quick and accurate access in their heads to the sine, cosine, and tangent of all the special angles given in radians (including on the axes). I give them a 10 question (14?) quiz and I take it with them the 1st time. I tell them that I'll give them twice as much time as it takes me, and they have to get 100% or it's a 0%. They can take it as many times as they want throughout the 6 weeks. This forces them to have a super fast grasp of it.

tags: precalc unitcircle

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

One class down...

2011-10-28T08:51:00.003-04:00

Just finished first period and I wanted to make some notes on it before I forget what happened. It was truly a whirlwind! I'm thinking that half of the class walked out without a clue of what had gone on.

1. Started out showing my facebook powerpoint. When looking at the quartic regression slide, one of the boys (let's call him Fred, because he'll be back!) brought up the idea of Myspace, which I had intended to address as well (thanks to @DaveLanovaz last night, who made the same comment!). Someone else questioned why the logistic regression equation didn't give a correlation coefficient. I told him I didn't know why; I'd looked into it last night and couldn't find out. Fred (who is taking AP Stats) told us that the correlation coefficient is found by taking the log of something (he lost me here) to turn the equation into a linear equation. Because the logistic equation had already been taken a log of, you couldn't do it again. Hence no correlation coefficient. Or something like that. (@druinok let me know (late!) last night that maybe my regression equations weren't the best as the calculator uses least squares regression which would affect the vertical aspects of the equation. I decided that instead of redoing all of my slides I was just going to let it slide. Ha. :) )

2. Flip the paper. The other problem they were to work on last night (thanks to @JackieB!) was to find the area between f(x) = e^x and g(x) = ln x in the interval [1/2, 1]. We talked through strategies... plot some points, draw a graph, cut up the shape into shapes we know to find their area. Fred kept referencing integrals (I kept putting him off), other ideas were a trapezoid and a triangle, a big rectangle minus two triangles, and two triangles. Then I let Fred talk. He's a great kid - the kind who is constantly running up to the board to do his "thinking". He's very very interested in all things mathematical and is currently taking AP Computer Science, AP Stats, and Honors Physics (in addition to Honors Precalc). He explained the "idea" of integrals (dividing up the shape into smaller trapezoids of which you have an infinite number of pieces) and was very theoretical. Then another girl (who had asked me yesterday if this was an integration problem) came up to the computer and talked through something more "concrete". She showed an integral, made up a function, showed exactly what it was she was finding in terms of the area, and found her area. Did I mention she's a sophomore who's come up through college prep and was just added to my class a few weeks ago because the trig teacher thought she needed more of a challenge? And did I mention that she takes extra classes on the side because she likes math? Anyway. The other kids in the class were stunned. Some totally tuned out because they had no idea what was going on and some were interested and amazed that they were seeing a classmate do this.

3. New stuff - modeling exponential functions. Not so exciting, but I was able to get the rest of the class to tune in.

Crazy class.

Phew.

(A year ago this never would've happened because I wouldn't have given them the opportunity to think this way. Shame on me.)

Facebook regression

2011-10-27T21:16:00.001-04:00

It turns out that using an exponential function to model the facebook population wasn't the best choice. Check out the results!

Facebook results

View more presentations from Kristen Fouss

(Can you tell I had fun making this? I love the results of this question!)

Catching Up

2011-10-26T14:32:00.000-04:00

So a few days ago I was happy that I was all caught up in everything. Today? Not so much.

Friday's the last day of the quarter and I've got a stack of papers thiiiiiis high on my desk. Projects (kinda) that I collected from my precalc kids today, Algebra 2 systems of equations quizzes that were taken yesterday (which I should've graded last night but just couldn't bring myself to do after spending almost two hours carving pumpkins with the kiddos), and a myriad of make-up and late work that needs to be added in.

[side note: There's just something about random papers that annoys the heck out of me and I hate trying to figure out where they go and why. I was actually considering this summer coming up with a half- or quarter-sheet for the kids to staple to their late/make-up work saying when the assignment was due and why it is being turned in late. I might consider that for next quarter.]

And so I can avoid actually getting any real work done, there are a couple of things that went well today.
1. My principal stopped in during my 3rd period class for what I guess was a formal observation (although I thought that we were supposed to be notified about them, but oh well.... I'd rather be surprised so I don't stress about it). It was probably the best class for her to be here for, which was nice. We spent quite a bit of time reviewing last night's assignment (solving exponential and log equations), took a little side trip to Wolfram Alpha to see if it would tell us about the origins of the term "natural log" because one of the kids was insisting they were abbreviated ln as a result of being Napier's initials (um, no), then went to google translate to check the translation of natural logarithm into French and Latin. Hey, you know it's all about 21st century learning, right?

Then we went over a couple of the questions they still had about the Risky Business project that was due today (and that was seriously all for show - I never intended to do that with them but thought she'd appreciate the assignment. She did! She loves that kind of thing) so we did a bit of that before I gave them tonight's assignment.

2. One of the days I dread the most in Algebra 2 is the day when we first start Linear Programming. It's such a process that the kids really don't like it... and today was that day! After a bit (ok, a lot) of whining about how long it was going to take them, the kids really settled down and hopefully will do ok on the problems I gave them to try tonight.

3. Over the summer I'd put together what I could about the number of people on Facebook through the years. I found something like this and typed up a list showing how many active users were on through the years. Today (as we're finishing up with exponential functions and logs) I finally checked the values that I had and was delighted to find that the numbers are almost a perfect exponential function! Nice. So tomorrow I'm going to ask my precalc kids to come up with the date when Facebook has 1 billion active users. Should be interesting!

I'm out of stuff to say. Guess I should get to work! Boo.

Musings....

2011-10-24T22:00:00.001-04:00

I'm actually somewhat caught up on work tonight right now, so wanted to jot some things down that I found tonight (while cleaning up my 1000+ google reader. Sigh.).

1. Another gem from Ms. Cookie. Love her. I'm so happy that she's back to teaching precalculus this year! Love this idea....

"I'm also going to start the 100% or 0% quizzes soon. I want them to have quick and accurate access in their heads to the sine, cosine, and tangent of all the special angles given in radians (including on the axes). I give them a 10 question (14?) quiz and I take it with them the 1st time. I tell them that I'll give them twice as much time as it takes me, and they have to get 100% or it's a 0%. They can take it as many times as they want throughout the 6 weeks. This forces them to have a super fast grasp of it."

2. A salary/when-are-we-going-to-have-to-use-this pic from Dan Meyer. Love the coordinate plane involved. (And you have to love Dan's comments, too: Good news about learning second-year algebra and trigonometry, though. It seems you're well-positioned for a career teaching second-year algebra and trigonometry. (See also: careers in physics.))

3. I gave my precalc kids something like this the other day in which they found a quadratic equation relating the drop and speed of roller coasters. While whittling down my reader, I saw this post shared by Kate Nowak that I'll definitely (try to remember to) pull up if I give that again next year.

4. It seems as though I didn't learn last year when giving a project the last week of the quarter. On Friday I handed out a "Risky Business" activity (not really a project) in which they kids will use logs to determine the risk factor involved in several different activities (which I have been waaaaay too helpful on. Seriously need to stop that!). I've had several students ask about watching/acting out the Tom Cruise underwear scene from the movie... I've denied that, but I think I'll show the Alf version tomorrow. I wonder if they'll know who Alf is.

5. Got an email from our district tech-type lady about leading (helping? who knows) a Twitter PD session on our next inservice day. I detest speaking in front of people so this is already causing me anxiety, but I agreed. Now I'll just need some help from you all in trying to decide what to say. Luckily there are some other math teachers at school (@mseiler and @dhausberger) talking too so I won't have to go solo. I'm thinking of trying to find Sam Shah's talk he did a while ago about the blogotwittersphere and showing it... :)
[Found it! And he called it the Blogotwitterversphere]

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-10-22T20:34:00.001-04:00

What is the Limit to Human Population Growth? : The New Yorker

tags: precalc exponential

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

End behavior!

2011-10-14T11:53:00.000-04:00

Blogging is so not on my list of things to do today... but I had a comment that I couldn't resist posting!

My Honors Precalc kids did their Polynomial Photo project last week (or so) where they used geogebra to fit a polynomial function to a picture they'd uploaded. (Links here and here.) I added some requirements to it this year - instead of just finding a polynomial, they also had to find its zeros and end-behavior. When I entered the grades for the project on our online gradebook, I included in the comments what they'd left out so the kids could see why they didn't get some points.

One of the girls came in today saying that her parents sat her down last night to have a "talk" with her. They'd seen "end behavior" as a comment and thought that it referred to her behavior in class. She then had to explain exactly what end behavior is and why she missed her points.

I thought that was hysterical! (Keep in mine that this is a good kid who LOVES math and wants to be some sort of mathematician in the future.)

***************

Another "Fun Fraction Friday" in Algebra 1 today! Although they complain about fractions, I honestly think these silly freshmen would be disappointed if we didn't do them. When I see kids in the hall before class on Fridays they always ask if we're going to do Fun Fraction Friday. So funny.

And to make it even better, today I gave them a bunch of word problems, too! (like, "this train left point A at this time traveling this speed... when will it meet the other train") It was a momentous day for us. And yet they still had fun, thought that solving the consecutive integer problems was "cool", and the other word problems were "so easy". Seriously? Who are these kids?!

**************

Looking through the results of the fractal activities from last week (I know, I know. I'll never catch up.) The last question they were to answer was "What's the relationship between fractals and complex numbers?"

One boy's answer:
It's complicated, but they're trying to get it together. Fractals has a problem with commitment but he loves complex numbers and wants the relationship to work out. Complex numbers loves fractals just the same as she did when they first met, every kiss to her feels just like the first again, she wants fractals to put a ring on her finger but she doesn't want to rush him.

Total BS? A funny way of getting around finding the real answer? He's lucky that it's Friday and I'm in a good mood. :)

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-10-08T20:34:00.001-04:00

AMC 12 Problems and Solutions - AoPSWiki

tags: amc
1a A Gory Puzzler (VIDEO!) 3 : 49Thinking Mathematics!

It took them 35 minutes of exploring different ideas but my kids in class today solved the Gory Puzzler: http://t.co/NVNDqC7e

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A few comments.

2011-10-05T12:56:00.001-04:00

I'm actually ready for 7th period today (this is my plan period, and I'm usually getting ready for my last class of the day!) so I thought I'd post a couple of things I've been thinking about.

1. I had a nice comment from a fellow math teacher yesterday while I was running on the treadmill (less than 2 weeks until my half marathon!). He said that as a football coach he talks to a lot of the guys about their classes and how they're doing and has never heard anything bad about my class. The guys all enjoy it and think I'm a great teacher and explain things well. So nice to know!

2. In precalc we just finished up the fractal unit that I put together (here). The kids enjoyed it; some got into it more than others, of course, but it was at least something new for most of them. A few people said that it's changed how they're looking at their surroundings, checking to see if things are forming fractals at all. I thought that was pretty cool! I scrambled and found some of the long skinny balloon-animal balloons (on clearance at Target! woo hoo!) and several groups made a tetrahedron balloon fractal (check out Vi Hart's instructions here) that I hung from the ceiling. Just in time to look good for conferences. :) Or not so good, in some of the cases!

3. One of my Algebra 2 girls (who is totally rocking it right now... somewhat surprising to me because I had her older brother last year and he really struggled) asked me the other day if I was the only person who teaches the Honors Precalc class. She was kind of upset that I am because she said it's making her want to take the class. (I think there's a compliment in there!) I told it was really early to be deciding that and we'll talk about it later in the year, but at this rate I think she's a shoo-in.

4. Parent conferences are tonight, so it's one of those 13+ hour days that you only dream about (or have nightmares about!) over the summer. We went to all appointment times this year (as opposed to our normal division of some walk-ins and some appointments) and mine are all full. I'm not looking forward to the constant talking but at least the evening will go quickly!

5. I keep getting emails that people are adding me on Google+. I'm honestly wondering why (and where these people are coming from!). I haven't been on Google+ since it first came out and have posted a total of probably 2 comments. Anyone else this way? I'm perfectly happy with Twitter as a professional resource.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-10-01T20:34:00.001-04:00

life: rough notes on interest rates, loans, etc

My new project for exponential growth, car loans, depreciation, etc.: http://t.co/cQRHEZwO. How can I make it better? #mathchat, #math

tags: mathchat math
Father of the Bride - Hot Dogs/Hot Dog Buns - YouTube

tags: ratio alg1 youtube

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Fractals

2011-09-29T20:50:00.000-04:00

It's been kind of a weird week. Everything was going well and (fairly) normal until yesterday when I got a call after school that I needed to pick up my girl at her school. Turns out their bus (which none of the kids were on yet, thank goodness) had been in an accident and wasn't drivable. Something little, but it threw off my whole afernoon.

Today I got a call at school around 12:30 saying that my boy had fallen at recess (while going after a ball during his kickball game, I later found out) and hit a permanant tooth on the blacktop. The tooth was bleeding and kind of loose and he was really upset. I arranged for a sub for my last class and headed out. After a trip to Dairy Queen for a milkshake (he'd missed lunch!) we headed to the dentist to get it checked out. Nothing was obviously wrong but we were told to keep an eye on it. I'm just hoping it doesn't turn gray/black!

This year I'm on a quest to do fun/applicable/new stuff in precalc. I saw in my precalc book (which I've used for probably 9 years and never noticed before) a lesson on fractals and thought I'd give it a shot. It took me a while to figure out how/what to do, but yesterday I decided to give google sites a shot. Here's my first attempt - check it out to see what you think! I'm using it basically as a webquest - I set up different pages with information/videos/activities for the kids to complete and write their responses on a separate page.

Here's what I'm planning to give them:
Fractal

A cubic pattern

2011-09-27T12:43:00.000-04:00

I don't post much about the actual math that we do in class, but I gave my precalc kids an assignment yesterday that showed this (what I thought was) cool pattern in cubic functions.

It started with a function.

f(x) =

Their paper showed a graph and asked to find the zeros. We picked out 2 and 4 (checked with synthetic division) and ended up with 3/5 as our last.

Then it went through a process to build the cubic polynomial if you know the zeros (without doing all of the messy binomial multiplication).

Step 1: Factor out the 5. (This only works if the leading coefficient of 1).

Step 2. Find the product of the zeros.
(Which is the opposite of the constant term.)

Step 3. Find the sum of the zeros.
(Which is the opposite of the quadratic term.)

Step 4. Find the sum of the pairwise products (this totally confused most of the kids... ) which is .
(Which is the same as the linear term.)

So if you have the zeros of a cubic polynomial with leading coefficient of 1, you can use these patterns to find the polynomial itself. I thought that was pretty cool (and I found a couple of kids that agreed with me. The others not so much.).

The next problem was to find a cubic polynomial with zeros at 5, .(It ends up being f(x) = if you're playing along at home. :)

Oh, and a couple of other things happened today:
1. Got a new girl in my honors precalc 1st period class. She just moved in from a school on the other side of the city. She "didn't have a clue" as to what we were doing and had been solving linear systems in her old school. I gave her a copy of the summer work that the precalc kids had done for her to look through; she asked if there were notes somewhere that she could use because she didn't remember any of it. Oh my. I actually emailed a friend who happens to teach at the girl's old school to do some checking; she said she should be fine (is just kind of "flaky") and was going to check with the Honors Alg2 teacher to see what they'd been doing.

2. Had my first "I'm overwhelmed" crier in another precalc class. This student had been absent for a couple of days and hasn't made any effort (that I've seen) to make things up. She told me when looking at their review for tomorrow's quiz that she didn't know any of it. I told her to come after school and we'd work through some problems; hopefully she'll have calmed down enough to realize that she does know it and was just stressed out.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-09-24T20:34:00.001-04:00

Watch Patty's Calculus Videos episodes on blip.tv

announcing PATTY"S CALCULUS VIDEOS! free, in-depth explanations on all the important topics! http://t.co/urvOM0td pls RT
(Mathhombre) Miscellanea

Target Practice - Game time. Keep track of what you notice as you play. a. Warm up. Show a target function.... http://t.co/Oh4XYlTR
Facebook Hits 175M Active Users

tags: facebook
An Infographic on Facebook Facts and Figures (History & Stats)

tags: facebook

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Freshmen.

2011-09-21T12:28:00.003-04:00

I wasn't excited last year when I heard that I would be teaching the Honors Algebra 1 class this year. I tend to like the upper classmen more... but going from my Integrated (aka general) Algebra 1 to Honors was a move up.

I'm formally admitting that I was wrong. Today in class we were able to review some problems, take a quiz, and go over a new lesson. Do you think I could've done that last year? Ha! The new lesson was on Solving One-Step equations, which all of the kids are familiar with and I probably could have skipped. Tomorrow's solving two-step equations and I'm not going to be here, so I'm trying to decide what kind of notes/assignment to leave them. I'd like to leave an assignment on which they can check their answers... I need to check my puzzle/pun worksheets to see what I have.

What really has amused me is the seriousness in which they take correcting their homework answers. Someone asked me the other day if she should mark a problem wrong on her assignment because she wrote a number in a different form that I did (maybe she didn't reduce a fraction or something - I don't know). I told her not to mark it wrong but to make sure she reduces (or whatever) in the future. She was relieved. And they're really concerned with how to organize their notebooks... I feel like I should have some sort of set method, but I know every student is different and I don't want to tell them one set way to do it. Is that bad? As long as they're organized and keeping stuff I'm happy.

(Oh, and I just noticed today that they all have graphing calculators.... gotta love it!)

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-09-17T20:34:00.001-04:00

Free Online Lesson Planbook Software for Teachers

tags: lessonplans
The Dragon Curve or Jurassic Park Fractal

tags: dragon fractal
Interactivate: Patterns in Fractals

tags: fractals
Cynthia Lanius' Fractals Unit: A Jurassic Park Fractal

tags: fractal

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

How big is your foot?

2011-09-15T12:59:00.000-04:00

I've done some crazy stuff in precalc so far this year (and I'm sure it's driving some of the by-the-book kids nutso just like it would've driven me nutso when I was in high school). Today I threw a couple of questions at them to see how they would react.

1. How long would it take to pass a ball down a line of 457 people?
2. The world's tallest man was 2.72 meters. How big should his foot have been?

It was fun to see the changes in the classes (3 of 'em.)

Question #1
First period really got into it. They quickly arranged 10 people in the front of the room and passed the ball (which I conveniently had in my car... thank goodness for soccer practice last night!) down 5 times. Then they averaged their values, figured out their time/person, and multiplied to figure out 457 people. I think their final answer was something around 3 minutes, 23 seconds. And then as we moved on, 2 boys sat next to each other and passed the ball back and forth 457 times (yes, really). They were off the time by 2 seconds.

Third period took a different approach. They started with two boys about 5 feet away from each other throwing the ball back and forth 10 times. (Their interpretation of "pass".) Some of the other kids from the class intervened and decided they wanted more people in a line... they started out with 10 people in the room then asked if they could go in a hall. We ended up with 25 people in line passing the ball a variety of ways (hand to hand, rolling on the floor). Very funny to watch... and noisy, too. Sorry to my neighbors! After averaging all of the times they came up with something under 3 minutes.

Fifth period (Remember how boring they are? I'm still going with that.) was blah. A couple of kids were involved and had to drag others in to participate. Eventually we ended up with 22 people in a line in the hall passing a ball. In almost near silence. They did it a couple of times, were content with the results, and headed back to their desks. Wake me up when it's over, please. I forget their final time... I think I was sleeping.

(It was funny to me, though, that for the most part the kids were really concerned about getting the fastest time possible. The question mentions none of that.)

Question #2
Again, a winner. I showed a picture of Robert Wadlow (the man who I was referring to) and gave the kids free rein.

Gotta love the socks!

In first period, everyone got up to start measuring. They made a big chart of height, footsize, and ratio and went from there. My idea was for them to do a linear regression (and I gave out directions on how to do that) but their numbers were so crazy that they ended up with a negative slope and 25 cm as their final answer. (Then we got off an a discussion of his weight and BMI. A couple of kids had me checking their BMIs, too.)

Third period ended up at about the same point (with fewer people contributing their values), got a much better equation, and a final value of 51 cm.

In fifth period not too many people were jumping up to measure (surprise!) and they were all boys of about the same height and footsize. We decided we needed some variance (but they were determined to stick with people of the male persuasion) so we sent a couple of girls down to a freshman health class to grab a couple of little freshman boys. Very funny. The data ended up kinda crazy and they ended up with a 43.74 cm foot.

(In case you're wondering, I found some information saying that he wore a size 43AA shoe, which we looked up and determined that was about 49 cm.)

Random today stuff.

2011-09-13T13:58:00.000-04:00

1. I arranged my desks in groups today. Kinda liked it! It gave me much more room to wander about. I think I'll do that more often. (My Algebra 1 kids loved it, but they were also noisier than usual. Hmm.)

2nd class

1st class

2. We broke out the trashketball in precalc. Two classes were pretty successful at it, one was kinda boring (but it's also hot and kids are seeming kind of drained). I had them make up team names, which is usually pretty fun. The boring class was boring - Team Jeff, Team 1, etc. Bleh. But one boy in that class did ask if we could play every day. Um, let me think about it. No. In one class someone hit a 3-pointer from the corner to win the game at the last second - very exciting!

boring class

3. Our network was down about 4 hours this morning so I was happy not to have anything planned that I needed to get online for (except the normal access to our gradebook, attendance, email, etc.). And luckily I'd even planned ahead a bit and got my Algebra 2 test printed yesterday afternoon... if it had been earlier in the day (instead of last period) and I hadn't been able to print anything I would've been hurting. Instead, the only thing that affected me was not being able to print out notes for the Algebra 1 kids. They'll live.

4. Had a walk-through type visit today from our assistant principal. I realized later that I'm not even on his observation list, so I guess he was just wandering around to see what was going on. It was during the first trashketball class and we were having a good time (while learning!) so I'm hoping he got a good impression.

5. Early dismissal tomorrow and a precalc test. Those two don't normally mix well. I made up the precalc test to be what I think of as pretty short, so hopefully time isn't an issue. Then Thursday I have another short day because I'm going to a district tech-type meeting. At least the non-normal schedule changes make the week go quicker!

My Week...

2011-09-11T21:49:00.000-04:00

Last week was really a mixed bag for me.

Personally, the death of some friends' 3 year old (from drowning in a pool) really threw me for a loop. I felt so horrible for them as a family but also tortured myself with the thoughts of "What if that were me?". The funeral on Friday afternoon was especially tough, of course. I know their healing will be a long time coming, but I'm glad the week is over. I spent some time over at their house this evening and was comforted to see that they're doing a little better. The mom is still taking the little girl's blanket with her everywhere she goes and is only eating a few bites a day, but she's also not constantly wracked with sobs. Baby steps.

Professionally, I had a great week at school (considering). I felt really good with my classes and finally know (almost) everyone's name. I don't know why I've struggled with this so much this year... maybe it's the bigger-than-normal classes? Maybe it's just not trying as hard? I don't know. But I think I'm good now. I also felt better prep-wise; there were actually a few nights where I didn't do any work and didn't regret it the next day! Until tonight, of course... I just typed up a review for my precalc classes (which I'll need 1st period) and didn't do any grading or Algebra 1 prep. Oh well. So tomorrow I may be regretting this! (But I was glad to be able to spend time with friends who need all the support they can get right now.)

I also fit in a 9+ mile run this afternoon... I'm so ready for this hare-brained idea of running a half-marathon to be over. One more month. What was I thinking?!

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-09-10T20:34:00.001-04:00

Reflections of a High School Math Teacher

#ed331 I found this website to have some great teaching ideas. http://t.co/ZeaDrU7

tags: ed331
Interactivate: Function Machine

tags: alg1 function_machine

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-09-03T20:34:00.001-04:00

1st HL maths class tomorrow. Topic: sequences. Th

1st HL maths class tomorrow. Topic: sequences. Thought this would be a great starter http://t.co/4FgHdJJ #mathchat

tags: mathchat
f(t): Absolute Value Both Rigorous and in Context

tags: alg2 absolute value
Math Connect-the-Dots Puzzles

tags: connect-the-dots
Combinations of Functions

tags: combinations precalc
Math

tags: quiz alg2 precalc flashcards alg1

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Precalc box project

2011-08-30T09:40:00.000-04:00

What's the biggest box you can make out of an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper? Go.

That's the question I posed to my precalc classes yesterday. The first class kind of just stared at me for a minute, then thought of some questions.
1. What does biggest mean? (we decided volume, not surface area)
2. What's a box? (um....)
3. Does it have a lid? (we decided no for simplicity's sake... but today figured it out with a lid)
4. What shape? (we went with a rectangular prism, but one boy wanted to do a cylinder, so he did! love him.)

As a class we came up with a net of the box on the board, labeled some values, and came up with a formula for its volume. But how do you find the maximum volume? Someone suggested graphing the volume equation... but then what? What does a cubic look like? How does it have a maximum if it goes up forever?

That lead us to a discussion on the domain of our volume. The polynomial itself will go to all reals, but that's not applicable for our box. Once we had a good window, we talked about how to find the maximum value (without tracing on the calculator) and what that ordered pair represented for our box.

At this point, everyone grabbed a piece of cardstock (cut in different sizes so they had to work independently), measured, and proceeded to maximize their box. (Question - what do I do with 90+ small open-lidded boxes?)

Today I had them do some checking for me. Everyone grabbed a constructed box from yesterday, measured it, and entered their values into a google spreadsheet that I'd set up. It was a little crazy with 14 people trying to enter their numbers all at the same time (because they kept typing over each other) but it was fun to see all of the data come in. Then they were to come up with the maximum volume for a lidded box (after we drew a net and found a volume formula together)... though I'm not sure the net we came up with would maximize the paper, it was fun to see them think through what it would need to look like!

I actually did this project at the end of last year when we were doing limits and derivatives in precalc. They then had to find the derivative of their volume function and determine where it would have a maximum (by setting = 0). I'm going to keep one of the pages they filled out leading them through the process and give it back to them in May so we can do the limit and see that it's magically the same value that the calculator gave us! Crazy how that works.

(Much thanks to Luajean Bryan, who showed us this project at NCTM!)

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-08-27T20:34:00.001-04:00

Science of NFL Football | Lessonopoly.org

tags: nfl precalc alg2 vectors parabolas
Home

tags: math activities resources
Websites with Math Humor

tags: math songs

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Two down... how many to go?!

2011-08-25T15:02:00.000-04:00

Two days down, and I think my body's in shock.

Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating. I'm feeling my feet and legs ache... I'm feeling my tummy rumble (lunch was at 10:15!)... and I'm feeling my body all yucky and covered in sweat - gotta love having no a/c when it's 90+ outside! I literally was dripping around 7:45 this morning (but it actually got a little better as the day progressed because the humidity subsided a bit). And did I mention that I could totally go home and go to bed? 5:20 am is inhumane.

But my first two days back have gone pretty well. The kids seem nice (except one boy in a precalc class who I can already tell is super annoying... and I knew that after the first 10 minutes in my room!) and have been working for the most part. I assigned summer work for precalc and it was nice to jump right into factoring, solving, graphing, etc. without the normal foray into "here's what you should know" stuff. I'm giving a quiz tomorrow which could be interesting (especially after grading all of the kids' summer work!)... honestly, what kind of "honors" kid doesn't do half of their assigned work? Or just writes answers (which I posted online for them)? Maybe this will help my classes decrease in size a bit - I've got 32 in two of the classes and 27 in the other.

One thing that hasn't gone well is the technology component. (I know - shocker!) I had a wireless hub in my room which didn't seem to be working well except for the 5 minutes after I unplugged and replugged it. Our tech people came in and determined that the hub was causing problems all around me, so it's now gone. Yesterday was actually ok without it, but today's been a disaster. I wasn't able to wirelessly connect to my projector and have lost my connection to the network numerous times (which means I haven't been able to print or get online). The tech guy was just back in the room and tried a new hub to no avail. He said the engineer is supposed to come in on Monday and hopefully will get things back up like they're supposed to be... but I'm sure we all know that that's doubtful!

I'm a little at a loss with my Algebra 1 class. There are only 22 kids and mostly girls and they all seem very sweet. I gave them a fun problem to start class today (there are so many girls with cats and backpacks, etc. How many legs?) that they seemed to enjoy, then I handed out a skills review page just to see where they're at. It had adding and subtracting with negatives, order of ops, and some simplifying/distributing with variables. We got through most of the first two sections without a whole lot of problems although there was some surprise that yes, sometimes you will need to divide before multiplying, but what I heard from them with the algebra section let me know that we'll basically be starting from square one with variables. At least I know where they're at! Kinda.

I'm done rambling and I want to find some a/c. And a snack.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-08-20T20:35:00.001-04:00

13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

tags: precalc fibonacci
Yummy Math | We provide teachers and students with mathematics relevant to our world today … and it's delicious

@MathBratt With CCSS there r less standards tested, so u don't have to cover everything. Activities correlated to CCSS: http://t.co/183132G
Pls help me build: iPad apps for Math Teachers lis

Pls help me build: iPad apps for Math Teachers list. Share & add ur favs here: http://t.co/XNVH0Ym Pls RT TIA #mathchat

tags: mathchat
NPR's Math Guy - 78 Archived Episodes bit.ly/pMf2j

tags: edchat mathchat
Degrees of Separation: Your College Major Matters More Than Ever - Education - GOOD

RT @GeekStats: Avg US college grad will earn $2.67 million in a lifetime; those w just high school diploma $1.3 million - http://ow.ly/5Zt9C

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Ask and you shall receive

2011-08-16T23:22:00.001-04:00

It amazes me how generous people can be when you just take the time to ask.

Case #1. My previously-mentioned paper folding escapade with my Algebra 2 kids last year. All it took for me to get 2 large (!) pieces of paper was an email and a special trip to pick them up. For free.

Case #2. I've been doing some searching this summer to find new projects I can use in Precalc. I've had a little luck finding stuff online and have run across a book called Projects for Precalculus every time I search. Unfortunately, this book doesn't seem to exist in any stores. I did, however, find the email address of one of the authors of the book and decided to write. I said I was a precalculus teacher and was interested in his book but wasn't able to find it for sale anywhere. He responded back today and said that it was out of print and then he sent me a copy of the book on pdf. Can you imagine?! Twenty-six precalc projects now at my fingertips. For free.

Case #3. One of my twitter friends sent me some files today that I'll be able to use in precalc to help the kids get ready for the AP Calc format. Twitter. I can't say enough. If you're not on twitter, get on it. If you're not hooked up with a good group of teachers to help you, let me know. You're seriously missing out. And you know what? It's free.

Memory loss

2011-08-14T20:45:00.002-04:00

With opening day just a little over a week away, I'm trying to get a little more specific with what I want to do starting out in each class... and yet when I sat down to do that, I couldn't remember exactly how I'd opened last year. Thank goodness for this blog! Just checked out the archives and found my description of what I did last year (it's here). Whatever did I do before blogging? :)

****

I typed that a few hours ago with the best of intentions to get some work done tonight for Algebra 1 (my kinda new prep). And then I got distracted with my first day stuff. Last year @lmhenry9 made up a prezi to show the kids the answers to her Quiz about her and I thought about doing that but it would've taken me forever to make (I'm not the most proficient with prezi). So I fell back on the good old powerpoint. And 3 hours later, it's done! (Seriously?! Obsess much?!)

Fouss by number

View more presentations from Kristen Fouss.

It was fun to make, though, and hopefully the kids will enjoy it. :)

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-08-13T20:35:00.001-04:00

http://www.casioeducation.com/resource/pdfs/unit02.pdf

tags: precalc rational_fns
A Quadratic Project Idea « Algebra Funsheets: Creative, fun algebra worksheets

tags: precalc quadreg
http://www.abac.edu/gclement/MATH1101/Resources/UnitIV/RCRegProj.pdf

tags: precalc quadreg rollercoaster
http://www.gwinnett.k12.ga.us/PhoenixHS/math/grade10/Unit06/Unit6%20-%20Task%205-full.pdf

tags: precalc quadreg catapult
Lines of Reflection: Instantaneous Rate of Change

tags: precalc derivatives
QR Code Treasure Hunt Generator from classtools.net

tags: qr
Folding Paper in Half Twelve Times - StumbleUpon

tags: alg2 paper folding
Free Technology for Teachers: NPR's Math Guy - 78 Archived Episodes

tags: podcasts
Doodling in Math Class: Squiggle Inception - YouTube

tags: vihart youtube squiggle fractal
tumblr_llesroksev1qic2kco1_r2_500.png (500×375)

tags: alg1 orderofops
Physicist writes a better formula to predict baseball success

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Revealed: The mathematical formula that predicts the best age to get engaged | Mail Online

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Predicting how tall your child will be - iVillage

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Predict your day of birth

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Boy or Girl? Methods to Predict Baby’s Gender | Home Remedies

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
and then all tomorrow, need to print these: from

@cheesemonkeysf and then all tomorrow, need to print these: http://bit.ly/pfT1iL from this site: http://bit.ly/nnCuTV (love this site!)
I pad teaching: www.teachwithyouripad.wikispaces.
Volumes – via 3- and 4-Pyramids with Equal Edges | CTK Insights

From CTK Insights - Engaging math activities for the summer break - Day 16. Read it now at http://tinyurl.com/3r3tm5c
Stock Valuation Formula (DCF) (with Graph and Calculator Link)

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Energy Savers: Estimating Appliance and Home Electronic Energy Use

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Mortgage calculations -- how loan amortization works

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Weight and Height Conversion Formula - Metric / Standard

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Machin's Formula

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
BMI Formula - BMI-Club

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Michigan Child Support Formula

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
BMR Formula

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Bridge Formula Weights Calculator - FHWA Freight Management and Operations

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Formula for Celsius and Farenheit Conversions

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Calculate distance and bearing between two Latitude/Longitude points using Haversine formula in JavaScript

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
THE FLESCH READING EASE READABILITY FORMULA

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
NOVA Online | Trillion Dollar Bet | The Formula that Shook The World

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
How are ads ranked? - AdWords Help

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
NFL - Total Quarterback Rating shifts the way we see the position - ESPN

tags: alg2 alg1 formula
Virtual Math Tutor: Garth Turner's formula of the percentage of one's net worth a home should represent

tags: alg2 alg1 formula

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

When will I ever use this?

2011-08-13T13:24:00.001-04:00

@druinok sent me a formula the other day on Twitter that predicted the amount of time between insurgent attacks in battle. She asked me when I thought we'd be able to use this in Algebra 2. I thought that it looked more like a precalculus application (when dealing with sequences) and may show it then, but it also got me thinking that I'd like to find some formulas that people actually use outside the classroom.

I did a little bit of research online and this is what I came up with. If you have any more, please pass them on! :)

Real applications of formulas

View more presentations from Kristen Fouss

One more week...

2011-08-12T16:00:00.001-04:00

I'm currently sitting at home looking out the window at a beautiful sunny (yet awesomely pleasant!) day. Sigh.

I'm also sitting with three computers open in front of me. How times have changed!

My husband doesn't work on Fridays (they work long hours Mon - Thurs) so my plan was to spend a childless morning at school today starting to get ready to go back. That plan changed around 7 this morning when he received a phone call asking if he could work. So much for having no kids around! I would have put off going into school but I'd planned on meeting with one of the guidance counselors at school to talk about a student I'd had last year in precalc and not recommended for AP Calc who now wants to take it. Bleh.

So the kids and I got ready and headed down the road (with a stop at Dunkin' Donuts for a healthy breakfast!). They were really good, but it's really hard to do any work with a 4- and 7-year old around, even when they have their Nintendo DS and a tv tuned into Nick. We made it a couple of hours and I got a few things done but still would like to get back to school sometime to finish things up - I hate waiting until our "work day" before school starts because something else always comes up!

A couple of weeks ago I thought about giving the kids labels with a QR code and the address of the class blog on it (read it here) so after the kids and I left school we went to Staples to see what kind of labels they had. I ended up picking up a pack of Shipping Labels (2" x 4") that I think will do the job. It turns out that there's a sit online (www.avery.com/templates) where you can design your label without downloading anything and they even have a QR Code generator! Perfect.

I guess I should try out the code, though, before I print a bunch of them (which I'm going to wait to do until I get back to school) and have it not work. It was super nice and easy! :)

Or you can play with some of their options... I just made this one (inserted an image I'd saved of a QR code previously set up). Cute, right? Even if printed in black and white? Does the QR code need to be a certain size? I'll need to check that out...

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-08-06T20:34:00.001-04:00

Math Can Predict Insurgent Attacks, Physicist Says : NPR

tags: formulas alg2 precalc
PRECALCULUS NOTES

tags: precalc
What’s the Question? « Learning to Fold

tags: classroom openers warmups
A Difference: How would I prepare to teach a BYOD class?

tags: byod

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Getting down to business...

2011-08-03T13:40:00.000-04:00

It was rainy this morning, so the kids and I stayed home to hang out (instead of our planned trip to the pool). What better time to get some work done?! The kids were amazingly good and have played together nicely ... while making a mess of the house, of course! But beggars can't be choosers!

Anyway, I've been trying to finalize what I'd like to do in Algebra 2. I'm going to go with the re-quiz option for them (if they sign up and do some review work beforehand). Now I'm going to have to go through my quizzes and tests and make sure that all of the learning topics are addressed, which is a great check for me! Am I really assessing what I want to?

Last year I put together a list of topics and assignments for each section in each chapter, so all I had to do was tweak it a little bit to fit my needs. Here's the Chapter 1 sheet:

Alg 2 Ch 1 Assignments

After trying to figure out how to format quizzes, this is what I came up with.

Quiz 1

Now I just need to decide if I quiz over the last half of the chapter, too, in addition to a chapter test. I wasn't planning on letting them redo tests... but if I don't just quiz the last half then they won't get that chance. Maybe just let them reassess the topics that hadn't been quizzes yet?

So much to think about.

Ideas and opinions welcome!

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-07-30T20:34:00.001-04:00

WebQuest Projects, Pre-Algebra, Edition, Mathematics, Glencoe

tags: alg1_project alg1 webquest
Algebra Explorations

tags: alg1_project alg1
CNy9J.jpg (2644×2730)

tags: batman equation
Design Movie - The Backpack Designer

tags: alg1 scale ratio video
The Data Library

tags: data project alg1_project alg1
Workshops and Projects

tags: precalc projects
Precalculus Units - Pre-Calculus

tags: precalc projects
Precalculus: A Study of Functions and Their Applications - Contents

tags: precalc projects
Project Index

tags: precalc projects
http://toperkin.mysite.syr.edu/quizzes/spr10/lab1.pdf

tags: precalc linear project
Hunting the Hidden Dimension | NOVA | PBS Video

tags: mandelbrot fractal pbs video
How to Plot the Mandelbrot Set By Hand - wikiHow

tags: mandelbrot fractal complex
Phillips Exeter Academy | Courses and Materials

tags: Exeter problem solving
Real World Design Challenge

tags: RWDC realworld problem solving
southmathpd [licensed for non-commercial use only] / FrontPage

tags: resources math wiki
http://www2.edc.org/mathproblems/problems/printProblems/ekSciNot.pdf

tags: problem solving

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Back to what??? Already???

2011-07-29T15:46:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that August starts on Monday. How depressing. All of the things I've been putting off all summer (because I had so much time to do them) are now haunting me. Ugh.

A couple of recent thoughts:
1. I really like the idea of using a QR code to help the kids get to their class blogs. I was thinking of just putting it on their back to school rules paper, but they hardly ever have that.... so then I thought about stickers! My plan now is to buy some sheets of stickers, print the QR code on them (and hopefully have enough room left on the sticker for the web address itself) and then give them to the kids to put on their school planner (which each kid receives the first day of school and is expected to have every day thereafter). As long as I can get the printing thing down, I think this'll work. Yay me! :)

2. I think I've finally decided how exactly I want to do quizzes in Algebra 1 and Algebra 2. It's somewhat SBG-ish without going full blown. I'm going to break down the quizzes by topics and enter those grades separately in my gradebook. So then we have the advantage of seeing exactly what a kid is struggling with. Then, one day a week (which I may push to two if I get a lot of participation) I'm going to offer them a chance to retest those topics. They'll have to let me know the week before what they want to retest and when they're going to do it (either a select period with one of our math teacher tutors or after school). When they retest they'll have to turn in some review problems that they've completed showing they have done some additional work to help in figuring out their problems (maybe quiz corrections, maybe those problems that are in the back of the book... I'll need to decide that) and their retest grade will replace the original. Because I'm just offering that one day a week I'll probably let them retest two topics at once. Thoughts?

3. I just realized this morning (yeah, I'm a little slow) that I'm teaching a new class this year. Well, kinda new. Last year I had an Integrated Algebra 1 class (read: general) and this year it's Honors Algebra 1 (which really isn't honors, but definitely isn't general). I'm going to have to step it up a bit! Ack.

4. I found some new resources for projects the other night...
Algebra 1 Webquests
Algebra 1 Explorations
Workshops and Projects
Project Index from PBL Pathways
Precalc Resources

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-07-16T20:35:00.001-04:00

Curriki - ProjectBasedPre-Algebra-FlippingFun

Just found a project-based prealgebra site. http://bit.ly/oLTo8X @aanthonya @lmhenry9 @jrykse @mrautomatic #mathchat

tags: mathchat
Kinesthetic Math | www.MathEdPage.org

@jreulbach thought of you and @lmhenry9 when I read this earlier :) http://bit.ly/q93exy check out the graphing lines idea
QR-Code Generator

tags: qr code

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

I'm alive!

2011-07-14T00:33:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to jot down a couple of things while I'm thinking about them...

@druinok and I were discussing a week or so ago about using warm-ups in class. I'd put together a bunch of different ones for precalc on slides (link here) and thought about using them on "Warm-Up Wednesday". But then what about the warm-ups for the other days? @druinok suggested that I call it "Mind-Bender Monday" and switching them to Monday instead, and we decided that we'd need names for the other days too. And there I was stuck.

Thank goodness for Lisa mowing her lawn today! :) I've never done it (hubby would never let me... his precious mower would probably take a beating) but I'd imagine that it gives you some time to think. She came up with Mental Monday (for logic puzzles, sudokus, brain teasers, whatever), Testing Tuesday (to get kids ready for OGT), What-we've-been-doing Wednesday (with recent review material), Testing Thursday, and Free-for-all Friday (anything goes).

I don't have kids to get ready for the OGT (our sophomore state-wide test) and was trying to think of something else for Tuesday/Thursday. So how about "Think-about-it Thursday" (a preview of skills they'll need soon) and "Turn-around Tuesday" (which we could use as another review day... this one courtesy of Lisa again!)?

Anyway. Something for me to ponder.

I haven't done a whole lot of work lately... I think the only math I've done is while running (how many more miles should I go? how long will it take me? if I keep at this pace will I hit my goal?) and planning for our cruise that hubby and I are going on on Sunday (!!!). We've been trying to plan excursions, so we've been checking out prices and times and all that fun stuff. It's going to be weird to be so out-of-touch for a week. I refuse to pay for internet or cell phone access, so it looks like it'll be no electronics for 7 days. Guess I'm going cold turkey!

And I thought my google reader was overwhelming now.... can't wait to see it in a week!

Bon Voyage!

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-07-09T20:35:00.001-04:00

This is a rabbit hole I can get lost in...

This is a rabbit hole I can get lost in... - gjmueller: Collection of BBC shows about math. http://goo.gl/RLPju

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

July 4th already?!

2011-07-03T18:16:00.001-04:00

Ok,so it's not July 4th. But it is the 3rd! I normally see this holiday as the beginning of the end. I mean, summer's virtually over! But I can't complain. I'm currently sitting outside, typing on my iPad, watching the kids play on the Slip-n-Slide. The only thing that could better is if I had a beer...and the fridge is awfully close!

The kids and I are going to my grandparents's cottage for the week with my folks. There's not a lot to do there, so a lot of time is spent lying around, reading books, and just basically wasting time. I decided that I'm going to take a couple of schoolbooks (along with my no-brainer fictions) and my laptop and actually get some planning done!

I had some thoughts at church today (I know, I know. Probably not the best time to be thinking and taking notes about school!) that I wanted to get down on paper to help me think about further.

(My son just asked if bats can walk. The things that go through his head!)

In Honors Algebra 1:
1. Set up some weekly "special" days. How about "Warm-up Wednesdays" and "Fraction
Fridays"? If Friday happens to be a test or quiz day then they'll show up there instead. For the warm-ups, I'm going to incorporate them into more of a daily thing, but I'll make Wednesdays fun, like a brain teaser or something more extended.

2. Notebooks. I've always encouraged the kids to keep a notebook, but for the past few years I've strayed from doing anything about them. When dealing with these freshmen, though, I think it's important to get them off on the right foot. Now I just need to decide how to "do" them. Collect and check every chapter? Every other chapter? Every quarter?

3. Projects. I would like to set up some quarterly-themed research projects for the kids to present. Maybe something like Math in Careers, Algebra Topics, etc. I'd like to offer a variety of ways to present (like video, song, board game, prezi, PowerPoint) and schedule 2-3 a week. There's only 22 kids in the class, so the scheduling should work out ok.

In CP Algebra 2:
Aside from the projects, I'd like to repeat the stuff with the warm-ups and notebooks. With the warm-ups, though, I'd start with Fraction Fridays and transition to Factor Fridays.

In Honors Precalc:
I'm still struggling. What do I want to do? I'd love to make this a more individualized class, but with 3 classes of 30ish that could be tough.

And the big question is what do I want to do with sbg? I would like to incorporate some of the aspects of it (especially since we have math tutors during the day that I could give the reassessments to for kids who sign up to take) but I'm not ready to abandon the book organization of topics and such. Something more to think about over the next few weeks!

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-07-02T20:34:00.001-04:00

ImageBase, free images, public domain, free photos

tags: images pictures
Audioboo

tags: audio audioboo podcasts
http://www.mcrel.org/pdf/mathematics/0121TG_writing_in_mathematics.pdf

tags: mathematics writing

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-06-25T20:35:00.001-04:00

The Textbook Free Math Classroom

I really like this LiveBinder http://t.co/YQG5RWq that SkipZ shared this morning #livebinders #math

tags: livebinders math
Transformed Educator: How to Have Students E-Mail Assignments to Folder in Box.net

Blogpost - "Have students e-mail assignments to a Box.net folder" http://bit.ly/jwzXuP Really cool!!!! Makes teachers life simple @wfryer

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Some resources I've collected lately...

2011-06-19T23:48:00.000-04:00

Stella's Problems http://ohiorc.org/for/math/stella/

Ohio Resource Center > for Mathematics Educators > Problem Corner > Problems http://ohiorc.org/for/math/problem_corner/problems.aspx

Wonderlic Sample Test
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oiAGLcVF4bwruFRnTNAwUMo5nMKNGeNRoyt_FhoKOP4/mobilebasic?pli=1&hl=en_US

Precalc projects:

http://www.math.tamu.edu/~poage/pres3.html

http://www.mecca.org/~halfacre/MATH/proj.htm

http://mythagon.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/wcydwt-response-%E2%80%93-boat-in-the-river/

How to use Advanced Algebra II
http://cnx.org/content/m19435/latest/

Writing in Math Classes
https://edisk.fandm.edu/annalisa.crannell/writing_in_math/index.html

Checklist https://edisk.fandm.edu/annalisa.crannell/writing_in_math/checklist.html

Guide to Writing https://edisk.fandm.edu/annalisa.crannell/writing_in_math/guide.html

Perfect Cans https://edisk.fandm.edu/annalisa.crannell/writing_in_math/perfect_cans.html

Cold Beer https://edisk.fandm.edu/annalisa.crannell/writing_in_math/cold_beer.html

Myron1 https://edisk.fandm.edu/annalisa.crannell/writing_in_math/Myron%28calc-I%29/myron1.htm

Two weeks down...

2011-06-19T23:36:00.001-04:00

I have to admit that I haven't done a lot of school work so far this summer. Did I say a lot? I mean any.

I have been busy, though! The kids and I have been to Coney Island (our local swimming favorite) several times, a local water park several times, Kings Island several times, the library, strawberry-picking, baseball games and practices, dance rehearsals and recitals, and the zoo. That's work enough! They're spending this week with my parents so I'm hoping for some time to get some thoughts down and some pre-organization work done... along with some quiet pool time, some quiet reading time, and some napping time. Hmmm.... maybe I'll call my mom and see if she'll keep the kids an extra week! :)

A couple of things that I want to think about this week:
1. SBG. I thought about it last year and wasn't ready for it. Now I'm thinking I may try it in a class. I have two "singleton" classes this year - CP Algebra 2 and Honors Algebra 1. I think both of those would be prime candidates and now I just need to figure out which class to do it in.
Pros for Algebra 1: The topics are easier (for me), the class is more of a stepping stone and needs to be known backwards and forwards
Pros for Algebra 2: A LOT of fundamental math that the kids will need for future classes... and those ideas aren't always made so clear for them (or the importance of them, anyway)

2. I really want to organize my Precalc stuff. What do I want to cover when? How do I want to cover it? I've bought some time with my summer work... now I just need to take advantage of it!

I was just playing with a website called Flubaroo, which uses google docs to do a self-grading quiz (and will even e-mail the students their results!). That could definitely be a cool think to use, especially when checking these kids on their summer work. Hmmm....

Oh, and I've officially had my first back-to-school dream (nightmare?). It was depressing... normally they don't happen until at least August!

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-06-11T20:36:00.001-04:00

YouTube

tags: precalc sinecurve pendulum
Take It To The Limit

tags: sbg
2011-06-08_121049_Appointment_Book_2_1011.doc

tags: alg2 sbg
2011-06-08_121121_SBG_Gradebook.doc

tags: alg2 sbg
Algebra II

tags: alg2 sbg
Algebra 2 Assignment Sheet

tags: alg2 sbg

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-06-04T20:36:00.001-04:00

YouTube - Graphing Quadratics made Ridiculously Easy (Mathematics: James Tanton)

tags: alg2 quadratics
Half Marathon Training Schedule: How To Train For A Half Marathon: Half Marathon Calendar: Shape Magazine

tags: halfmarathon
matching card games for alg2

matching card games for alg2 http://bit.ly/lu7Y6r

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My #summerlist

2011-06-01T09:56:00.000-04:00

Of course it would end up being 90+ degrees during the last week of school. Ugh.

All sweatiness aside, here's what I'd like to do this summer:
1. Sleep. More than 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night will be a welcome change. I'm actually thinking that I'll need to set my alarm to get up at a reasonable hour each morning. (8 or 8:30, probably) Otherwise my children will spend their mornings watching Sponge Bob and eating poptarts.

2. Read. Haven't been able to do much of that this school year and I have a pile of books waiting for me!

3. Run. I started running in January 2010 as a way to lose weight. I'm down 16-ish pounds and now need to go shopping for some new shorts. (Yay me!) But the most surprising thing (other than that I've stuck with it, which is amazing) is that I enjoy running and am now planning on completing a half-marathon in the fall. But that means I'll have to start training for it this summer; my every-other day 3 mile runs aren't going to cut it!

You know how "they" always say that teachers "only" work 9 months a year? Yeah, I wish. Here's my school summer work:
4. I totally want to re-do my precalc class. I'm the only one teaching the honors precalculus next year, so I feel like that gives me a lot of freedom.... and yet pressure, too. I started by giving summer work for the first time ever - hopefully that will reduce a lot of the review work that we do starting out the year. My goal is to get more project-based in class, so I'm trying now to compile projects into one document. Here's my starting place. If you have anything to add, please let me know! :)

5. Same thing in Algebra 2. I don't feel like I made it fun this year (except for my sparkling personality, of course!). More projects? More activity? The hardest thing for me will be that I only have one Alg 2 class next year, so I may not want to invest my time in it. Shame on me.

6. I have a new course in the fall - Honors Algebra 1. This year I taught the general level so I have the basic bones of the class, but I should be able to do a LOT more with these kids. Projects? Investigations? Real-worldy stuff?

Let's see if I can fit this in with trips to the pool, zoo, King's Island, a cruise (woo hoo!), and baseball games. I think I need a nap.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-05-28T20:35:00.001-04:00

50 Fun iPhone Apps to Get Kids Reading and Learning | Medicine. Technology. Web.

tags: apps ipad
YouTube - Calculus is Insane- Rough Draft

tags: cal youtube video
Mathematical Analysis and Its Discontents, or: WTFCYDWT?!? « Sarcasymptote

tags: precalc alg2 regression
Graphing Stories « I Speak Math

tags: graphingstory
dy/dan » Blog Archive » Remember These?

tags: graphingstory dydan
Algebra 1 Projects

tags: alg1_project
Math Projects

tags: alg1_project
Algebra Cubed - Project List 2006-2007

tags: alg1_project
Algebra 1 Tech Project

tags: alg1_project

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Conic Cards (a summarization)

2011-05-26T13:17:00.000-04:00

My first Algebra 2 class just took their quiz on Conics (which they learned from using the conic cards... see here and here and here). I thought it went pretty well - the kids acclimated quickly to working and learning on their own. I enjoyed hearing them learn and discuss and figure things out.

All in all, a great couple of weeks. (But we'll see when I grade the quizzes, too!)

I gave them a half-sheet to write down some feedback/suggestions on after they took their quiz. Here are some of the comments I received:

1. What did you think about using the conic cards to learn about conics? (What was good? What was bad?)

I thought it helped for the most part. At times I wished we would've had written notes to look back at.
It was good that we had to learn somewhat independently. Somewhat bad because we are not used to learning this way.
I liked it forced group work and made it really simple.
It was good I learned quickly and easily.
It was great. I learned because I had to. Math is typically very boring for me and I can't help but fall asleep during lessons no matter how much I fight it, but the cards kept me focused.
I liked it b/c we were in groups and it was something different.
It was harder to learn that way, but it was okay.
It was in between. I liked working in groups but I always feel like I learn better from teachers.
I didn't like the fact that we basically taught ourselves.
The cards were confusing at first but they helped me see what each category needed and what they look like.
I didn't like it at first but after the 2nd day I understood and got used to the pattern. I think it worked well.
I liked them. It was something different than notes everyday.
I liked it I think it really helped me get the information.
It was a good way to switch it up. The only bad part was not really having notes.
I thought it was a good idea. I understood how to deal with conics using the cards. I also like how it was more visual learning.
I liked them. It helped to show the similarities and differences between all the equations.
Visual learning and somewhat kinetic, more teamwork
I liked using them because it made me pay more attention. It was great practice, too.

2. Do you think I should use this lesson again next year? Are there any changes you would make to it?

All yes's for the first question.
Review with you teaching at the end of each class making sure everyone knows what they are doing.
Change groups each day.
Although you seemed stressed running around it worked well.
I think you should just maybe help a little more. (I'll consider that one a success! :) )
I would spend a bit more time on hyperbolas.
It made more sense to me when my peers were explaining it than when we went over it as a class.
I think that it would be nice to use the last 10 minutes of class to review the topics to make sure everyone understood.
Explain it more before we start, it was a little confusing in the beginning.
Yes but with notes.
Maybe a little more time explaining it.
Add a sheet with actual formulas to keep, not just on a card.

So I definitely will be doing this again. I think giving a formula sheet for them to fill out is a great idea, as is a little summarizing at the end of each class.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-05-21T20:35:00.001-04:00

Infoporn: How Flatscreen TVs Get Cheaper | Magazine

tags: alg2 exponential precalc
Precalculus

tags: precalc projects
Precalculus Final Exam Description.doc - Powered by Google Docs

tags: precalc projects
http://mathstudioweb.uccollegeprep.org/UCCollegePrep/MathStudio/Projects/PC_Unit3_Project.pdf

tags: precalc projects
Projects for Precalculus - Contents

tags: precalc projects
PreCalculus Final Projects

tags: precalc projects
http://faculty.piercecollege.edu/yoshibw/talks/cmc3-10/K-Yoshiwara-CMC3-2011Handout.pdf

tags: alg2 discovery_learning
Online converter - convert video, images, audio and documents for free

tags: converter media mediaconverter
Using Google Docs on the iPad | Tablets | Macworld

tags: ipad gdocs
I Love Charts – Ben Greenman’s Museum of Silly Charts

tags: charts humor
Resources

http://bit.ly/iXV6vw The livebinders with APPS for teachers keeps growing! check it out on my webpage here! #toprankin

tags: toprankin
Real Life Vectors- Planes Landing In Crosswinds | Great Maths Teaching Ideas

tags: precalc vectors
PreCalc H

tags: precalc
Algebra2

tags: alg2
ResearchProject

tags: precalc projects
http://beta2.schoolworld.com/EastBrunswick/files/filesystem/PCH%20Summer%20Assignment%2010-11.pdf

tags: precalc_summer
http://mendham.wmrhsd.org/WWW_FILES/19/85/LINK_DOCS_85/Advanced%20Pre-Calculus%20Summer%20Packet.pdf

tags: precalc_summer
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/sherwoodhs/precalc.pdf

tags: precalc_summer

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Conic Cards

2011-05-19T14:55:00.000-04:00

A month or so ago I was reading Square Root of Negative One Teach Math where she referred to using something called Conics Cards in class with her Algebra 2 classes. (Here's her original post and here's a follow up.) I'm not a big fan of conics (zzzzzzzz.....) and seeing as how we have 10 days left of school, I wanted to find something to spice 'em up.

So I e-mailed Cindy Johnson, the lady who Amy gave all credit to for making the cards. She was kind enough to e-mail me lots of documents: the cards, the assignments, the NCTM description. Amy helped out with even more information. I copied, laminated, cut, assembled, and typed.

And yesterday it began.

The idea is that the kids are given a deck of cards with equations, graphs, and "information" about the four types of conics. They use their reasoning powers (and a little guidance from a packet) to match up an equation with its graph with its information. It's a great idea (I thought) and put a lot more of the learning on the kids.

It didn't go that great. See that last sentence I wrote? It put a lot more of the learning on the kids. Some of them had some big issues with that. They're so used to being spoonfed what they're learning that they didn't even know where to start. I did a lot of walking around to groups and explaining things. (And I freely admit to the spoonfeeding...that's definitely something I need to work on early next year. Be less helpful.) Today they came in; we reviewed the idea of the parabola and how everything fits into the equation, and everyone was happy. Today's lesson was on circles and everyone knew what they needed to do. They were able to match up the parabolas and then worked on the circles with no problems.

Much much happier today - them and me.

(Let's not talk about the one boy who sat and played with my rubber band the whole time.)

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-05-14T20:35:00.001-04:00

Thanks to My students will be trying to determine

Thanks to @ddmeyer My students will be trying to determine "Will the Tennis Ball Hit the Garbage Can?" http://bit.ly/iqzFsO
http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/pdf/Calculus_Cheat_Sheet_All.pdf

tags: calculus
Sweeney Math: f(u) Calculus Song!

tags: precalc limits song
The Mary Celeste « Zero-Knowledge Proofs

tags: reasoning Mary_Celeste
f(t): The Description of the Wondrous Canon of Logarithms

tags: precalc logs
No Homework Grade! No Way! | A Recursive Process

tags: sbg homework_grade
Precalculus project ideas

tags: precalculus projects pal
TEACHING|chemistry | My Top iPad Apps (May 2011)

tags: ipad
Deal Or No Deal Game Show, TV Show - Play The Deal Or No Deal Game Online - Online Games - NBC Official Site

tags: alg1 dealornodeal
SMART Exchange - USA - Deal or No Deal

How much fun would this be for an end-of-the-school-year review activity? I used to love Deal or No Deal :) http://fb.me/V9s2IBmh

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

EOCs. Boo.

2011-05-13T13:22:00.000-04:00

(Warning: I'm whining here.. just need to get it out.)

My district decided this year that we were going to give EOC tests this year in Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2. Ok, that's fine. But here are my problems with it: we're giving the tests in the beginning of May (our last day of school is June 3), we're giving it in addition to our final exam, and the test itself basically means nothing. Sure, I can count it as a grade, but there's nothing high-stakes about it to really make the kids care. For the kids who care about their overall grades, that's fine.... but in my general-level Algebra 1, it's basically a day of torture for me.

I noticed on the Algebra I test that there were several topics that we actually didn't cover during the year (like simplifying radicals and probability) so this week we did a review each day of different topics. I spent a couple of days on probability (we rolled dice, flipped coins, and played Deal or No Deal), one day on graphing lines/inequalities, one day on writing equations of lines. I worked hard each day to come up with some review problems to go through in class and for the kids to practice with.

So today is test day. First, a bunch of the kids (and I only have 9 students here to take it) were surprised to hear that we were taking a test. ("What? You didn't tell us! We have to take a test?") Then they were mad because it was scantron and 48 whole problems.... even though I told them to take as long as they needed and I would give them more time to work on Monday.

I passed out the test in sections. The first section is non-calculator... which is great except that I've let them use calculators all year (because quite a few of the kids can't work with positives and negatives). Two of the students finished the test in approximately 5 minutes. They tried to turn it in and I refused. I sent them back to their desks and told them to actually work on some of the problems. (One girl insisted that she had. Uh huh.) When I finally gave them part 2 (after a couple of other kids who seemed to be legitimately working finished the first part) they both sat with their heads down, didn't open the book, and turned it in a few minutes later. One student "didn't hear" me say three times that they could write on the test and also "didn't hear" me say that the first part was non-calculator.

The one thing that I do appreciate right now is that there are two boys still working. These two boys are the smartest ones in the room but some of the laziest. (One of them dropped down from College Prep for 2nd semester because of his behavior (but that's a whole different whining session) and the other insists that he's going to take an Honors level math class next year... I offered him college prep but I don't know that he's going to go for it.)

My one savior is my autistic OCD student who is currently down in a special ed classroom working on the test. It will probably take him a week to do it (even though I cut out some problems) because he's so meticulous and feels the need to do things over and over until he feels like they're right. And he'll score the highest.

Fourteen more days. Fourteen more days.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-05-07T20:35:00.001-04:00

Deal or No Deal Probabilities

tags: alg1 dealornodeal
I Want to Teach Forever: Lesson Idea: Probability using Deal or No Deal

tags: alg1 probability dealornodeal
Not a project but you could explore different math
How to Convert Video to Work With iPad iMovie | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

How to Convert Video to Work With iPad iMovie http://bit.ly/jrFrhk via @silverstar22b #yam #iPad

tags: yam iPad
Sine Of The Times: Angry Parabolas

tags: angrybirds alg2 precalc
Math Teacher Mambo: Radical Like Terms

tags: radicals alg2
Apps in Education: 50 really useful iPad 2 tips and tricks

50 really useful iPad 2 tips and tricks http://zite.to/ljZ6D5 via @Ziteapp

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

10' x 20' paper.... #WCYDWT?

2011-05-06T08:39:00.001-04:00

I have the paper. (See blog post here.) It traveled around in my Flex for almost a week... barely fit from back to front, but the important thing was that it did fit even with the windows shut. We've had crazy rain here lately and I didn't want to be driving around with open windows! I had a couple of kids bring it into school yesterday so they could get an idea of exactly what it is we're dealing with.

I have one class that's really excited about this crazy paper - they've been asking every day if I have the paper, where it is, and when we're going to use it. I didn't want to go outside, though, without some tasks to do with it. Our main goal is to determine how many times we can fold this paper. But I'm sure that there's some other math "stuff" we can do too. So I left it up to them. Yesterday I asked the class to give me 2 - 3 ideas that we could choose from.

Ideas for our 10’ x 20’ piece of paper:
1. How many times can it be folded? (submitted 10 times)
2. How many “normal” pieces of paper would fit on the paper?
3. What’s your words with friends name? (This boy's been bugging me about that for a while now... I told him if he got a 100% on our next quiz I'd play him.)
4. If we trace our hands all over it, how many hands can we fit?
5. How many times can you fold the paper long ways?
6. How many times do you have to fold it to be the size of a normal piece of paper?
7. We can draw pictures on it.
8. We can make a cootie catcher or push paper.
9. We should fold it and run across it to flatten it out.
10. What will the surface area be/how much it grows or decays?
11. How many normal notebook papers could fit on this big piece of paper?
12. What is the area of the paper?
13. Decorate the paper, keep it in the room for future generations to see.
14. Can we make an airplane that can take flight?
15. How thick will it be after folding it as many times as possible?
16. What is the circumference of the fully folded paper?
17. How thick would it get if we folded it 8 times?
18. Make a paper airplane and see how far it can fly.
19. What is the surface area of the paper?
20. How many Mrs. Fouss’s can fit along the paper?
21. What’s the area?
22. What’s the perimeter?
23. How big of a cootie catcher could we make?
24. Does width and length affect how many times you can fold it?
25. How many people can we fit on the piece of paper?
26. Make a paper airplane it throw it off the roof.
27. Find the area.
28. How many sections will it break up into?
29. Is it possible to make a giant origami shape?
30. Giant cootie catcher!!!!!!
31. How many pieces of paper it could make.

My weekend task is to narrow this down and decide what it is that we will be doing...

Again, big big big thanks to the kind people at SMART Papers who donated this giant piece of paper to us. :)

Seniors.

2011-05-04T07:57:00.000-04:00

I just sent an e-mail of the like I've never sent before. I have a senior in one of my honors precalculus classes that has done just about nothing this quarter.

Dear Mrs. Anonymous -
(Your student) decided not to take today's quiz and is sitting with her/his head down. S/He hasn't done an assignment in approximately a month and currently has a 23.5%. We started a unit on calculus a week or so ago, so it's really a shame that s/he's not working along to try and get a head start on what s/he'll be learning next year.

With about 3.5 weeks left in the school year and considering that (your student) earned the minimum of 55% last quarter, please consider this e-mail my notice that s/he will not be passing the semester. I hope s/he takes the opportunity this summer to review a lot of the knowledge that s/he'll be expected to enter a calculus course with.

I've dealt with this student all year in actually doing assignments. S/He was in my college prep Algebra 2 class last year and while they're very bright, doesn't do any "unnecessary" work. S/He got into this class against my recommendation and has definitely shown why I thought it was a bad idea. S/He has yet to complete any projects that we did in class (and isn't that the fun stuff?!) and assignments are iffy. I've been in touch with mom before... this is what I got last time:

I had encouraged her/him to drop the class, but s/he is considering staying to learn what s/he can because s/he will be taking Calc in college next year.

I think the seniors are already admitted in their colleges and get senior itis the last semester, it must be hard to keep them motivated. Hopefully everything works out as it should. (Name) is an adult, 18 years old, going off to the Marines and college in the fall so I certainly don't want to battle anything with her/him in her/his senior year. I am confident s/he is a smart (wo)man and will be able to do whatever s/he applies her/himself too, that is her/his only difficulty, applying her/himself.

I hope that when my children are this age I can be the parent that runs the middle road.... not the helicopter, hovering parent but not the total hands-off, it's totally up to them parent. It's sad to me that this kid has no guidance about what s/he should be doing right now.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-04-30T20:35:00.001-04:00

iPads in Education | Scoop.it

tags: ipads
Cal Armstrong: ""... but with the growth o…" « Deck.ly

"... but with the growth of PLNs, perhaps you are not only hiring one person in isolation, but also the acces… (cont) http://deck.ly/~sEHKp
Free Technology for Teachers: How to Create Self-Graded Quizzes in Google Docs

tags: self-graded precalc_summer
http://www.hartdistrict.org/westranch/2010%20Summer%20Assignments/H%20PreCalc.pdf

tags: precalc_summer
Pre Calculus Summer Packet 2007

tags: precalc_summer
http://www.stfranciscatholichighschool.org/summer10/files/Honors%20Precalculus%20Summer%202010.pdf

tags: precalc_summer
Balachov_Precalc.doc - Powered by Google Docs

tags: precalc_summer
UHS Precalculus / Trig Summer Work

tags: precalc_summer
Nichols School • Pre-Calc Summer Work

tags: precalc_summer
http://www.mbhs.edu/departments/math/Honors%20Precalculus.pdf

tags: Precalc_summer
A Teacher’s Worth Around The World [Infographic]

tags: data statistics
http://www.achieve.org/files/ADPAlgebraIPracticeTestSpring2009.pdf

tags: Alg1 ADP eoc
5 Free Calculator Applications for iPad

5 Free Calculator Applications for iPad http://bit.ly/ecBNQC
SearchReSearch: Clever trick to make YouTube videos fill up the browser

tags: youtube
An exciting MISTAKE « Teaching ninJa

tags: alg2 alg1 linear cbr cbl

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Factoring schmactoring.

2011-04-27T20:08:00.001-04:00

I swear I titled a blog post this exact same way a few months ago because I was complaining that my precalc kids can't factor.

Right now we're factoring in Algebra 1. It wasn't something that I was looking forward to; we've been struggling a lot lately with both behavior and material. (I'm still trying to forget about the weeks we spent solving systems. Sheer torture.) Last week we talked only about GCFs, which I thought were going well until I graded half of the quizzes. There were 4 - 5 kids with 100%+ (I had a couple of bonus problems) and everyone else was below a 50%. A little disparity, anyone?

This week we've been factoring quadratics (just ) using the X-box method. We make an X to find the two values whose sum is b and product is c (have you seen the product-sum puzzles on ilovemath.org?) and then make a box to finish up the factoring. I was worried that it was going to be too much writing for the kids but things seem to be going well. Today's plan was to practice some more.

I wanted four of those five kids to do a little more today, knowing that they would get bored quickly with doing the X-boxes... and that's when they go crazy and drive me crazy. (The fifth boy is super smart but is autistic and OCD. I didn't want to push.) so I wrote up a sheet with a combination of GCF and trinomials mixed up... and problems with both a GCF and then a factorable trinomial. I had the chosen few work on the first couple of x-box problems with the rest of the class so I could make sure they were comfortable, then gave them the second sheet. The amount of work and concentration that they showed that assignment was amazing! The one boy who is constantly up and around and bugging everyone else got every problem done... with help. I didn't have to tell him one time to sit and work and stop talking.

Him on the way out the door: You know, I just get everything down and then you make it harder.

Me: Yep. Think about how much smarter you’re getting!

Him: Think about how much harder I’m working.

Me: Yes!
:)

I promised him tomorrow would be more of the same... and then I'm going to move them on to solving the equations that they're factoring! Hopefully this will be the end of the behavior issues....

I can't believe that I almost forgot! Got my new ipad today at school! Woo hoo! Now if any of you can tell me how to use it in class I'll be forever grateful :) (Someone on twitter mentioned that I might be able to use it with geogebra... definitely need to figure that one out!)

Random stuff

2011-04-26T08:48:00.002-04:00

1. We started limits yesterday in precalc. I'm taking it slowly - just did them graphically yesterday, numerically today. It was actually kind of funny... we were doing . I set up a table so we could see the values from both the left side and the right side, and we ended up getting an answer of 4. I could see wheels turning. Finally one of the girls was like, "Can't we just plug it in?" Yes! Big sighs of relief ensued. Of course, then I had to show them that everything's not pluggable.

(I found the latex editor here.)

2. As we were discussing last night's assignment (checking out graphs and limits from them), one of the girls asked if we could watch Mean Girls in class. After discovering that several of the kids have the movie at home, I said sure (at least the part where they reference limits!), we'll do that tomorrow. They were all pretty excited until they realized that the juniors have an academic awards breakfast tomorrow during first period and won't be in class. Then they got mad. :) (Several asked if they could skip the breakfast!)

3. I got my possible classes for next year from my department head yesterday. Because of people moving from our school to the other school in the district, there's no one else that wants to teach the Honors Precalc. (Can you imagine?! It's my favorite!) So it looks like I'll be teaching all three of those (down from 4 total this year, 2 are mine), 1 college prep Algebra 2, and I'm picking up the Honors Algebra 1. I'm iffy about the Algebra 1 - I've taught the Honors class before, but the problem is that it's not really honors. The "real" honors kids are now taking Algebra 1 in 7th grade. The next level takes "Honors" Algebra 1 in 8th grade. So these are kids whose parents want them in an honors class but weren't ready for Algebra 1 when the brightest of their class was. Twice. And they're freshmen. Double whammy. The good thing about the class is that I'm getting out of teaching the Integrated Algebra 1 (our general level) but unfortunately, that means my class size will go from 12 to 22-ish. Yuck.

Getting back to NCTM

2011-04-23T21:42:00.002-04:00

I've avoided it long enough - I need to get back to summarizing my NCTM trip before I forget what all happened!

Session 2: Trig Tricks You’ll Love (with Ann Coulson)

I got there late but was in time for sin/cos spaghetti, trig cut-ups, patty paper exponential folding, patty paper conic folding. The place was packed – I sat in the “gallery”. People seemed to be enjoying the session, but I'd seen it all before. I left early.

Session 3: Supporting Productive Struggling in the Mathematics Classroom (with Susan May and Kathi Cook)

Problem: Anxiety about Algebra 1 (Students have trouble transitioning to hs level, math)

Students don’t believe they can be successful

Must address student motivation in tandem with academic skills

Academic Youth Development – help students work on concept skills and identity at the same time

Mathematically proficient students… make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

How do you build students who persevere?

Students who persevere… understand the role of challenging tasks in learning.

Understand that setbacks can be a natural part of learning

Engage in self-monitoring

Learn from setbacks and struggles

Two views of intelligence: fixed and malleable

Fixed: (Their intelligence is their identity… whether good or bad)

Avoid challenges and seek easy successes

Desire to look smart at all costs

Worry about failure and question their ability

Malleable: (Have control and can change their intelligence)

Pursue and enjoy challenges

Careless about “looking smart” and self-instruction

Engage in self-monitoring

Need to break the cycle of kids thinking they’re stuck. (Carol Dweck , 1999)

Metacognitive strategies – internal dialogue prompts… chart in packet

Make a plan, Monitor work, Evaluate

Delicate balance between productive struggle and frustration… need to baby step kids into it.

The Bucket Problem (How to split up 8 liters using only 3 liter and 5 liter containers)

(Use clip from Die Hard)

Strategies: clarify question, trial and error (brute force), discuss with others

Why do we need persistent learners? Because the problems get bigger.

Problem solving tool is intended to be used side-by-side when they’re working on a challenging task.

And then you move on to problems that might take several days to solve….

Miles of Tiles: The Value of Persistence

5 levels of problems (A, B, C, D, E)

Your role as a teacher is to help them be a problem solver, not to tell them the answers to the questions.

www.learningandtheadolescentmind.org

AYD: www.agilemind.com

Neuroscience for kids: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html

Problems of the Month: http://www.insidemathematics.org/index.php/tools-for-teachers

NOYCE Foundation

These are my (somewhat disjoined) notes from the session... there's a better summary at Lisa Henry's blog.

Session 4: Fortifying the First Five (with Robert Gerver and Richard Sgroi)

Need some help getting your class started? Check this out. This was the one session I attended where the documents were online. Isn't it nice?

Session 5: Student Centered Projects to Enrich a Precalculus Class (with Masha Albrecht and Dan Plonsey)

These two had some great examples of student projects for precalc. I need to get together a list of these and the ones from my last session to help me plan out my precalc course next year. They gave a handout (but no link, darnit).

Session 6: Conics with patty paper and the TI-Nspire (don't know name of presenter)

Using the TI-Nspire to mimic the paper folding that is used to illustrate conics. I was getting a little frustrated with it and left early. I definitely need to see if I can borrow one from school for the summer (we have a new class set that no one knows how to use) and figure it out.

Session 7: A Day in the Life of a Fractal (with Neil Cooperman)

zzzz..... Oh, sorry about that. I was expecting a lot more out of this session. The speaker went through a lot of the upper-level math that creates fractals and examples of them. What I was looking for was how I could use this in my classes (I'd just done something with the Koch Snowflake in class in regards to the geometric sequences formed) and he didn't hit that at all. Fortunately, in the last 5 minutes his wife stood up and showed us a website she uses with her 6th grade classes to create fractals. That saved the session from being a complete washout for me. The website is Aros fractals.

Session 8: The Unit Circle and Geogebra (with Zyad Bawatneh)

I'm wondering if this was the guy's first presentation... he seemed very unorganized, though he did have a flash drive to share his presentation/documents on (I'm glad that I'd taken my laptop and actually had a battery long enough to use it during the session!). He went through the "making a sine graph out of the unit circle" process (that I do in class using string and spaghetti) using geogebra. It was pretty cool and showed me that I need to spend some more time with geogebra this summer.

Session 9: More Precalculus Projects (with Luajean Bryan)

GREAT ideas. Need to summarize them for my own use. We were given a book of her projects (including student work, rubrics, etc) and a disk with all of the files on it. Very cool.

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-04-23T20:35:00.001-04:00

http://www.pctm.org/magazine/PiecewiseFunctions_Storm.pdf

tags: alg2 piecewise
http://fac.southwestern.cc.il.us/collindw/courses/Math203/PDFConcepts/piecewiseLimits.pdf

tags: precalc limits
http://kinetigram.com/micds/Maple10Tutorial/ExploreCalc01/TexPdf/ExploreCalc01TexPdf.pdf

tags: precalc limits
MAC1147 - Handouts & Worksheets

tags: precalc
Screen+shot+2011-04-07+at+5.30.04+PM.png (566×240)

tags: amc_alg1
The Arlington Algebra Project

tags: Alg1 ebook
50 Fabulous Web Tools for Group Projects | Rated Colleges

50 fabulous web tools for group projects: http://www.ratedcolleges.com/blog/2009/50-fabulous-web-tools-for-group-projects #projects #web 2.0

tags: projects web

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Thanks!

2011-04-23T17:15:00.000-04:00

I was just checking out my blog stats for the last year and was amazed at what I saw for the past year.

I realize that these numbers are nowhere near some of the blogs I read, but honestly, I'm still amazed that anyone actually reads this. Thanks to those of you who take the time!

Prom is in the air!

2011-04-21T10:25:00.001-04:00

At the school where I teach, some of the kids go crazy in asking each other to prom (and answering those queries). Sometimes they get the teachers involved.

A couple of days ago, one of my students from last year stopped in after school to ask if I would help her out in saying yes to prom. Her date is in one of my classes this year. Of course I agreed - I'd never want to stand in the way of young love! (gag.)

She brought in a list of statement that she wanted me to say to the class. I was to have them stand up and if the statement wasn't true for them they were to sit down. It started out pretty general (you're taking precalculus; you're a boy; you're a senior. . .) and after 7 or 8 of these we were left with only the intended recipient. As the winner, he was given a 5 lb bag of flour with a note on it that said to look inside. The girl had told me she thought he'd wait until he got home (because I didn't want a big floury mess) but the other kids urged him to open it up and check it out. He headed up to the trash can (thank goodness) and slowly emptied the bag. Nothing in there.

Today the girl came in with a pretty red flower and asked me to give it to him in class. So as we were getting started, I told him that there'd been a mistake yesterday and he'd gotten the wrong flower (flour... get it?). It had a note taped around the stem.

Overall, a cute idea. I guess the days of just asking and saying yes are gone!

Super size paper

2011-04-19T08:18:00.001-04:00

I'm going to divert from NCTM talk for a post... I'll get back to it, I promise!

Yesterday in Algebra 2 I wanted to take a day and give them a chance to ask questions. We'd started exponential functions last week right before I left and then they had a couple of activities about them while I was gone Thurs/Friday. I knew there would be some questions (that were hopefully cleared up in class!).

So after taking questions, I showed them a clip from Mythbusters where they dispell the myth that a piece of paper can only be folded seven times. Here's what I showed.

Then I gave them all pieces of patty paper and had them start folding. We looked at the number of layers and the surface area. They all seemed to enjoy it while looking at the exponential functions formed.

Of course, then, there were a bunch of kids that wanted to give it a try. On the clip they have a football-field size piece of paper.... I'm not sure where to get that! Where did I go? Twitter. It seems as though a bunch of the kids are now on twitter, so a couple of them pulled out their phones and tweeted the question. Almost immediately I had a response from @sarcasymptote, who said that his dad is local and works for a paper company. He suggested that I contact them about it. (I did... we'll see what happens!)

The funniest thing is that when the kids found out that I was on twitter, we started comparing numbers. They were super jealous when they found out how many followers I have and how many tweets I've made.... they finally realized that I'm cooler than they are! :)

I also heard from @jamestanton, who did something like this with his kids in class, but they used a roll of toilet paper. That could be an option if the kids are really interested... though we don't have a miles-long hallway to work with!

I just got response from Smart Papers!

Ms. Fouss,

Thank you for your email and thank you for your service in educating our
future generations. Your class project sounds interesting.
What SMART Papers could give to you is a sheet of paper approximately
10ft' wide, the width of our paper machine. We can vary the length. How
long of sheet do you want?

Woo hoo!

And we're off....

2011-04-17T20:09:00.002-04:00

NCTM, Day 1

1st session: Differentiating for Gifted Learners

Craig Russell

hcrussell@uni.illinois.edu ; http://www.uni.illinois.edu/~hcrussel

University of Illinois Laboratory high School

He started out by telling everyone that it was "National Poem in your Pocket" day and gave us a little green piece of cardstock with a poem called "Mathematical Mind" on it (written by a former student). Ok....

His take on gifted students:

NCLB has left behind the gifted students.

NAGC: “Regular classroom curricula and instruction must be adapted, modified, or replaced to meet the unique needs of gifted learners.”

CCSS: No references to what to do with gifted students.

What he does: Daily group work; group work often differentiated; group assignments change at least once per unit; homework assignments include required and suggested problems, most include “alternative” problems (required for certain students if going to calc, etc.); assessments may be differentiated

How do you select the "gifted" students?

Students self-select for “alternative” homework

May be based on pre-test results (determines groupings in classroom… ex. change focus from graphing linear equations to parametric equations, etc.)

Students may be “re-directed”, both on in-class work and on homework

Assessment: continual, with evidence for parents

“open questions” and “parallel tasks” allow for self-selection and re-direction

Differentiation basics:

1. Product: gifted students may produce more sophisticated work with less structure in instructions

2. Process: Gifted students learn through exploration, problem solving

3. Learning Environment: Different students have different learning styles and respond to different stimuli

4. Content: Gifted students can learn more, at greater depth (not nec just moving faster)

1. Product differentiation:

Student choice vs teacher choice (mandatory or suggested?) on projects

Amazing Race – Roadblock. Choose one of two options. (Create or Crititque)

Smaller-scale activities may be more open-ended for some students

Tests/quizzes may cover enriched curriculum

Amusement park: students choose which ride, with knowledge that some are tougher (design ride… basic is roller coaster, pirate ship is easiest, double ferris wheel, scrambler (toughest) – rates of change, parametric eq, accel, vel

2. Process differentiation:

Problem-based learning

More open-ended problems, less clearly defined

Different resource materials

More emphasis on “why” than on “what”

3. Learning Environment Differentiation

Flexible furniture locations – grouped or individual

Access to technology

Whole class vs small group instruction

Time allocation: “sweep” or “anchor” activity/exploration

4. Content examples

What product might be expected:

Modular arithmetic

Absolute value inequalities

Multi-variable functions

3-d conic sections

Hyperbolic functions

Partial fractions

Differentiation by adaptation

Math forum pow
QELP (from community college in nw) – environmental data sets keyed by math topic

Differentiation by unit:

We do this now: What are the goals? How much classroom time is devoted to each goal? What lesson activities do you use? How will learning be assessed?

We also need to think about: With which of the unit goals are gifted students already comfortable?

What additional goals (enrichment? Acceleration?) related to this unit might be appropriate for gifted students?

Should (or could) the planned lesson activities be differentiated?

Challenges

Time

Materials (time?)

Peer/parent pressure

Balance: time for pre-testing, de-emphasis on “routine”

Some lessons learned

Develop a “few” differentiated lessons per year

Study non-traditional textbooks: COMAP, Core Plus, SIMMS, IMP, UCSMP, Discovering Geo, college texts (iffy?)

Use conferences to examine the literature

Look into NCTM Illuminations and math forum PoW

Find a partner

Rewards

"Differentiating an insipid curriculum results in a differentiated insipid curriculum." – Carol A Tomlinson

Thinking about how to differentiate for gifted students actally caused us to think about how we challenge all students, and we have tightened our curriculum overall as a result.

***************************************************************

Overall, I enjoyed this session - it gave me a lot to think about. I'm not usually one who enjoys the philosophical-type talks, but this guy was entertaining and kept me interested. I've tried to do a bit of differentiating in precalc this year by offering options for assignments, but there's obviously so much more I could do. I'd like to incorporate pre-tests next year and differentiate based on those, but that's a big plan that will take a lot of work to pull together.

More to come:

Trig Tricks You’ll Love

Ann Coulson

Supporting Productive Struggling in the Mathematics Classroom

Susan May and Kathi Cook

Student Centered Projects to Enrich a Precalculus Class

Masha Albrecht and Dan Plonsey

Fortifying the First Five

Robert Gerver and Richard Sgroi

And this was just from Thursday!

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-04-16T20:35:00.001-04:00

Tools for the Common Core Standards | News about tools that are being developed to support implementation of the Common Core State Standards

Http://commoncoretools.wordpress.com is doing the analysis of standards across grades and domains by CCSS writers. #nctm11

tags: nctm11
"For the arithmetic sequence, we start with a, the
"In our generic geometric sequence we start with a
matt komorowski

tags: alg2 gigabyte exponential
MacdonaldTechForTeachers - iPad Apps for Education

tags: ipad
Making Mathematics: Pascal’s Triangle Resources

tags: pascalstriangle precalc
2008-jan20-Coloring_pascal_triangle-Eugenio_Hernandez.doc - Powered by Google Docs

tags: pascalstriangle precalc
Math Forum: Exploring Pascal's Triangle

tags: pascalstriangle precalc
Math Forum/USI: Pascal's Triangle

tags: pascalstriangle precalc
Pricing

tags: precalc sequences

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Before I get in too deep...

2011-04-15T22:14:00.000-04:00

I got home this afternoon from a fun two days at NCTM. I have several (8? 9?) pages of notes and other worksheets to sort through before I post any thoughts, but I was just catching up on my google reader (it was around 480... ugh) and wanted to pass along a few items I read that are definitely sharable.

1. A post at dy/dan by Dan Meyer referencing a clip from The Daily Show. Just thought it would be fun to throw at my Algebra 1 kids and have them check the math.

2. Kate Nowak at f(t) brought back Qbert (created by Jason Dyer last year in a response to a challenge thrown out by Kate to create something fun for the binomial theorem). I'll be covering the binomial theorem on Monday in precalc and it might be fun to use something like this with them. That's assuming I find the time this weekend to check it out.

3. A semester review project from Mimi at I Hope This Old Train Breaks Down (which I think I'll refer to now on as IHTOTBD because it takes me forever to type that :) ). They're going to make a geometry magazine.... I thought that sounded cool! I guess it's time to think about what I want to do for the kids to review this semester - that'll definitely be on my list. A guy mentioned to me today at a session that last year he had the kids each pick a topic and they were to make a 5-8 minute presentation on it. He said that most made videos and they LOVED it. Another on my list.

4. I don't know where she finds the time, but Julie Ruelbach just made her first imovie with her class singing their Equation of a Line song. So cute. So totally can't see my high schoolers even giving it a shot. :)

5. I'm going to be hitting conics soon with my Algebra 2 kids and just saw this post on Square Root of Negative One Teach Math from Amy. It talks about a deck of conics cards that she says really helped her kids understand (and like?) conics. Definitely something to try! (I just e-mailed the originator and asked for the files.)

One last thing before I crash. I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden my google reader looks different. It used to have the navigation stuff in a column on the left side of the screen. While I was just reading, I guess I clicked something and that's gone. Does anyone know where it went and/or how to fix it?

How much will it cost?

2011-04-12T14:05:00.000-04:00

I'm heading off to Indy tomorrow after school and was wondering if the gas reimbursement money that school is going to give me will be enough to cover the cost of the gas for my car (which is sky-high right now around here...).

So I decided I'd let my Algebra 1 kids figure that out for me.

I googled directions to Indy from school to get a total number of miles one way (122). I found the specs on my car to give them an average mpg, and I gave them a chart showing the price of gas at some local stations.

It was a fun little exercise, especially when they figured out that I'll get a nice little overage! (I recall there being a nice mall in downtown Indianapolis....)

Change of plans!

2011-04-11T10:33:00.000-04:00

I spent waaaaay too much time in class today having to go over arithmetic and geometric sequences. Unfortunately, I didn't have time for mathematical induction (which I know I'll need lots of time for) so for probably the first time all year the kids didn't have an assignment to work on. They were rather upset.... not. I'm hoping that the cheering and applauding didn't disturb the classes around us!

I'm going to be out on Thursday and Friday for #nctm11, so not getting done what I wanted to today changes my plans. Originally, I was going to do this:
Mon: Mathematical Induction
Tues: Review/practice
Weds: Binomial Theorem
Thurs/Fri: Review all (plus sequences) for quiz next week

I found this picture on flickr... the caption said
it's from a subway station in Portland. Random.

Now what I'm thinking is this:
Mon: Sequences
Tues: Mathematical Induction
Weds: Review/practice
Thurs/Friday: Exploration into Pascal's Triangle

This new version will probably be more fun for the kids (hopefully). I'm going to give them some stuff about the history and patterns in Pascal's Triangle for Thursday then the application of it (expansion of binomials, combinations) on Friday. I think this'll work.

When I decided to do this during my plan bell 2nd period today, I checked out my links on diigo as a starting point (they're here if you're interested). It's so nice to have resources available!

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-04-09T20:35:00.001-04:00

YouTube - Escher's Tessellations

Escher's Tessellations - Great showcase of the master's works http://ow.ly/4sh7t
Wolfram Demonstrations Project: Fun with Koch Snowflakes

tags: koch fractal precalc
Free Technology for Teachers: 7 Good Sources of Mathematics Videos

tags: videos
Free Technology for Teachers: Maths Master - Instructional Mathematics Videos

tags: videos
Requiring Algebra II in high school gains momentum nationwide - The Washington Post

tags: alg2 eoc
MEGAVIDEO - I'm watching it

tags: precalc criminal_minds fibonacci sequence
I was taught the acronym Orange Hippos Always Have

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

What a week! And my new bird.

2011-04-08T14:34:00.001-04:00

This has to have been one of the strangest weeks of the year (never mind that it's our first week back after spring break!).

1. I was only here 3.5 days. I had a sick boy at home on Tuesday and was out for a half day on Thursday because we had to grade the practice OGT that was given to the freshmen. (Oh the fun.) The good thing about the grading is that it usually only takes us as a department about an hour, but we're out the whole afternoon. That gave us another 1.5 hours or so to catch up on work, chat, and keep tabs on the Reds score.

2. My sub for both days was a retired teacher from school that's a peppy, fun, interesting lady. The kids normally really enjoy having her here, and she likes being here. She actually sat with my Algebra 1 kids both days and did the work with them. She had a ball doing it (she told me) and they're still talking about how much they like her. (And my Algebra 1 class was crazy amazing this week. They were so good.... I asked them what was up with that and they told me it was because they like what we're working on now. Freshmen.)

3. I was looking over some Algebra 2 assignments (solving radical equations) this morning and noticed that a lot of the kids are making the same mistakes, so I pulled out an old favorite activity of mine that I definitely don't use enough. I copied down a few problems, worked them out, and made copies so everyone had one. The key was that every problem had a mistake in it.... and of course they were mistakes that I was constantly seeing. (Note to self: error analysis is the way to go!!) They got really frustrated with me as they were trying to find the mistakes because they didn't see what was wrong.... I'm hoping that I made some headway today!

4. As I was grading those assignments, I noticed two that were identical. (Ugh... more cheating.) One of the boys involved was the first in the room, so I asked him about it. He denied copying and said they'd worked together. We had a little talk about the difference between the two (copying vs working together) and he continued to deny. The other boy involved was in the room at this time and wouldn't answer the question to say that there was no copying involved. Boy #1 sat in his seat and pouted the whole class. I was surprised, though, that at the end of class (after everyone had left) he stopped at my desk to tell me that I was right; he'd copied and he was sorry. Said he just gets so caught up in the moment that he lies and then regrets it later. I was really amazed at the maturity of that and gave him the opportunity to do the assignment over the weekend. Hopefully he won't do that again to me.

5. (This just happened as I was typing) One of our math teachers is going to the other high school in our district next year to teach because of different cuts that have occurred. I have her daughter this year in Honors Precalc. I know the daughter has enjoyed having her mom here and is bummed that mom won't be here for her senior year. The daughter just came into my room offering me presents - either salt & pepper shakers or a foam bird that she'd made in an art class in exchange for being her "mommy" next year. Isn't that sweet? I was going to offer my services anyway (though I said I'd stop short of lending money because I never have any) but thought it was cool that she asked. :) (I chose the bird, obviously.)

duh.

2011-04-06T10:17:00.003-04:00

Student after returning from missing 2 days: "What did I miss?"

Me: "Nothing. We just sat here and waited for you to come back."

Student: "Really?"

Duh.

(P.S. - If you don't "get" twitter or think it's dumb, check this out.)

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-04-02T20:35:00.001-04:00

square root of negative one teach math: Puzzles!

tags: puzzle review
emth

iPad apps for the Maths classroom - RT @republicofmath: It’s been great fun using an iPad during Maths... http://tumblr.com/xku1yb7cyw
square root of negative one teach math: Super Speedy Quiztastic Fun

tags: alg2 precalc logs
DesignatedDeriver - Calculus Clipart

tags: clipart
f(t): Force Vectors and Youtube for Educational Purposes

tags: precalc vectors f(t)
YouTube - TOP TEN Crosswind and Scary Aircraft Landings

tags: precalc vectors
Cool math Lessons - Calculus - What's a limit?

tags: precalc limits
Pauls Online Notes : Calculus I

tags: precalc limits
Mathing...: A Comic Guide to Limits Part 1: When Limits Exist

tags: precalc limits
Think Thank Thunk » How I Teach Calculus: A Comedy (Limit Definition of the Derivative)

tags: precalc limits
iPad apps for problem solving « Brave new world

tags: ipad
Quick Tips: Mathematic Resources

Here's a great #math site with lots of links and all types of resources! Everyone should bookmark this site! http://bit.ly/hx3cuQ #mathchat

tags: math mathchat

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Hi ho! Hi ho! It's back to work I go.

2011-04-02T15:17:00.000-04:00

Don't you think that the week of spring break is the quickest one all year? (Unless it's winter break, anyway.)

I didn't have a whole lot planned for break except for a 2-day vacation from my children. Unfortunately, my mom got sick and sent the kids home early. (She's actually still in the hospital but is expected to go home on Monday, thank goodness.)

I did a little bit of work while I was home. In my Integrated Algebra 1 class we're going to start factoring soon... and I'm not looking forward to it. At this point, the only thing I'm looking forward to in that class is June 3rd. Is that horrible? I'll keep going and try to keep as peppy as I can and find stuff that they might actually enjoy doing, but they're dragging me down....

In precalc we're going to do a little bit of sequences and series then jump into limits. It's been several years since I've had the opportunity to get to limits, so I was doing some searching the other day to see if I could find anything interesting to at least intro them. (They'll get the boring version next year. Oops. Did I say that?) I had some help from @mrhodotnet, @samjshah, and @dansmath (in my comments here). Still trying to piece things together.

There was a conversation (on twitter, of course) about what you expect students to know when they take a certain class. For instance, I would expect anyone entering Algebra 1 to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers (like fractions, negatives, etc). With my class this year that was a dumb dumb dumb assumption. At this point in the year I make sure they all have calculators; they can usually do the algebra, it's the adding and subtracting that messes them up. Julie put a request on her blog for topics that she called "Math's Greatest Hits".... what do you think they should know?

After my frustration in precalc earlier this year about them not being able to factor (see here and here) I made up a list of all of the skills I would expect my students to have when starting out the year. I gave a copy to the Honors Algebra 2 teachers who would be sending kids my way. My plan is to quiz them in the first week of school on some of those skills and if need be, get them reviewing on their own. Here's my version (if you have any suggestions, please let me know!):

Precalc skills

#nctm11 tweetup

2011-03-31T16:35:00.002-04:00

If you're heading to Indianapolis in a couple of weeks for #nctm11, there's a tweetup scheduled for Thursday evening. Check out this link for more info.

Take it to the limit!

2011-03-30T11:47:00.000-04:00

I skipped enough review stuff in Precalc this year that we're actually going to have a good chunk of time to introduce some limits. I haven't gotten to this point for several years and am looking for ideas.

How do you introduce the idea of a limit? I found Shawn's idea of using rolly chairs and stop watches to find speed and steer them towards the idea of a rate... which leads to slope... which leads to a limit.

I honestly don't know if I could pull that off (especially the rolly chairs thing).

Any other ideas?

Going to #nctm11?

2011-03-27T22:20:00.001-04:00

I set up a google spreadsheet to see who's all going to NCTM in Indianapolis in a couple of weeks and what sessions they're planning on attending. If you're going, feel free to add your agenda!

Here's the link.

New phone for a day :(

2011-03-27T17:13:00.000-04:00

I ordered a new android phone last week and was super excited when it arrived at my house on Friday afternoon. Actually, it's not a new phone - it's a refurbished one (but it's new to me!) and I got it for free from my phone company. I had a lot of fun playing with it and organizing it and downloading stuff (hello, Angry Birds!). That fun lasted approximately 24 hours.

I was pumped about how well it fit into my back pocket (it's nice and slim) until I had to go potty. Stood up, heard a splash. Seriously?!

So now I'm trying to dry it out. It's been in a bag of rice for a while, but the former white dots have turned pink (on both the phone and the battery) which, from my research, means that there's been water damage. I'm hoping that the rice will fix the phone - I'd be ok with just having to buy a new battery for it.

The good thing is that I still have my old phone and it works fine, so if the new one's not salvageable, I still have a phone. But I feel like the cell phone gods were just teasing me.....

Things I've Tagged (weekly)

2011-03-26T20:35:00.001-04:00

Free Technology for Teachers: Quickly Grade Quizzes With Flubaroo

tags: gdocs quizzes
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

tags: shuttle nasa
AP Calculus AB - Ms.Roshan's library

tags: apcalc
Parents as Partners in AP Success « AP Lead Teacher's Blog

tags: firstday
Nothing Works | MathEdPage.org

tags: sbg

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

finally.

2011-03-25T14:20:00.002-04:00

The last 2.5 hours has seemed like 2.5 years.

Fortunately, it's finally 2:15 on Friday, March 25th.

Happy spring break!

(I'm getting my quarter grades turned in before I leave... we have a new policy that no one may receive less than a 55% for a quarter average (which I think stinks bigtime). I just had to give a boy 219 extra credit points so he had a 55%. Sound fair?)