My fellow precalc teacher told me after school today that she had her kids working on the tablets (a cart somehow lives in her room unless someone else signs it out) on graphing exponential and log functions. Then I guess she was projecting some of their answers so the class could check. Nice idea when you have a class set! Anyway, she projected one kid's graph just to see this written at the top of his screen:
"Holy shift! Look at the asymptotes on that mother function!"
She said she couldn't help but laugh, but chastised him for the "mother function" bit. I can't imagine what I would've done besides pee my pants giggling.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Oh, poor blog, how I've neglected you so.
I've been crazy busy lately, both with school-work and with home stuff. My boy's 5 billion activities (or so it seems) have temporarily abated so I currently have a few moments to let you all (and myself) know what's going on!
My Algebra 2 class is slowly chugging along. The kids started out the quarter horribly (with a 65% class average on our first test) and while things aren't great (a 73% class average now) I think they've learned a lesson and have started to work again. There are, of course, some exceptions to that, but aside from forcing them to come see me for extra help and camping out by their desks while they have time to work, there's nothing that I can do! I hope they see the light before it's too late. We have a test tomorrow (over systems of equations) that we've been reviewing for for ages, so hopefully things will continue to pick up.
I tried a couple different activities in class to help review that I got ideas for from twitter. @k8nowak has posted before about using a Row Game - she makes two columns of problems with the same answers. The students work through the problems in pairs (each doing one column) then compare answers to make sure they match. It sounded like a great activity (and would probably work in a different class!) but with these guys not so much. They didn't want to pair up, didn't want to work, etc. Bleh. Here's a link to the sheet.
Today I arranged the rooms in clusters (as we called them) of 3 desks apiece (there were 8 clusters). @msgregson e-mailed me some sample review cards that she'd used on solving systems and matrices which I altered to fit my needs - I made four different cards (2 copies each) and laminated them. Then each cluster had 8 minutes per card to solve before we rotated the cards. This seemed to work better (except for those kids who just can't get in gear right now). The kids talked about what they were doing and what was right/wrong (I wrote the answers to previous cards on the back). I'll definitely be doing that one again! (I can't find the file on my computer... hopefully it'll pop up!)
In Precalculus we just finished a chapter on logs and exponential equations. The test was Friday, so I'd been trying to think of something we could do for these two days this week before Thanksgiving (and wanted to try something new). I found a link for the International Slide Rule Museum which said they have class sets of slide rules that they'll mail out for free. I contacted the site and very promptly received a response... and a set of 30 slide rules in the mail! Of course, I didn't know how to use a slide rule, so I set to learn enough that I could teach (always a harder task than we can imagine!). Today was day 1 of Slide Rule class... one precalc class was pretty receptive and seemed to enjoy themselves, the other whined and complained and basically made themselves pains. Oh well! It was interesting! Here's a link to the lesson that I put together (but couldn't print because our network was down!).
Phew. That at least gets me caught up for this past week! :)
I've been crazy busy lately, both with school-work and with home stuff. My boy's 5 billion activities (or so it seems) have temporarily abated so I currently have a few moments to let you all (and myself) know what's going on!
My Algebra 2 class is slowly chugging along. The kids started out the quarter horribly (with a 65% class average on our first test) and while things aren't great (a 73% class average now) I think they've learned a lesson and have started to work again. There are, of course, some exceptions to that, but aside from forcing them to come see me for extra help and camping out by their desks while they have time to work, there's nothing that I can do! I hope they see the light before it's too late. We have a test tomorrow (over systems of equations) that we've been reviewing for for ages, so hopefully things will continue to pick up.
I tried a couple different activities in class to help review that I got ideas for from twitter. @k8nowak has posted before about using a Row Game - she makes two columns of problems with the same answers. The students work through the problems in pairs (each doing one column) then compare answers to make sure they match. It sounded like a great activity (and would probably work in a different class!) but with these guys not so much. They didn't want to pair up, didn't want to work, etc. Bleh. Here's a link to the sheet.
Today I arranged the rooms in clusters (as we called them) of 3 desks apiece (there were 8 clusters). @msgregson e-mailed me some sample review cards that she'd used on solving systems and matrices which I altered to fit my needs - I made four different cards (2 copies each) and laminated them. Then each cluster had 8 minutes per card to solve before we rotated the cards. This seemed to work better (except for those kids who just can't get in gear right now). The kids talked about what they were doing and what was right/wrong (I wrote the answers to previous cards on the back). I'll definitely be doing that one again! (I can't find the file on my computer... hopefully it'll pop up!)
In Precalculus we just finished a chapter on logs and exponential equations. The test was Friday, so I'd been trying to think of something we could do for these two days this week before Thanksgiving (and wanted to try something new). I found a link for the International Slide Rule Museum which said they have class sets of slide rules that they'll mail out for free. I contacted the site and very promptly received a response... and a set of 30 slide rules in the mail! Of course, I didn't know how to use a slide rule, so I set to learn enough that I could teach (always a harder task than we can imagine!). Today was day 1 of Slide Rule class... one precalc class was pretty receptive and seemed to enjoy themselves, the other whined and complained and basically made themselves pains. Oh well! It was interesting! Here's a link to the lesson that I put together (but couldn't print because our network was down!).
Phew. That at least gets me caught up for this past week! :)
Monday, November 2, 2009
I received a Google Wave invite from a follower on Twitter... but now what? My username is klb925@googlewave.com, so please add me if you have it! I'm thinking that it's like Twitter and it's all about who you follow and who follows you. Time will tell!
I started probability today in my general classes; instead of just going right into the new info, I had the kids all grab a white board and marker and eraser and told them to draw 5 dashes. I set up the random number generator on my virtual TI (on my tablet... I mean, on my colleague's tablet - I still don't have mine!). Their goal was to get the biggest number possible by placing the digits as I gave them. The kids seemed to enjoy it - they wanted to add additional spaces and then we switched to the smallest number possible. I gave the student in each class with the most wins some extra credit. After we finished, we talked about the probability of making the number 99999 - they were amazed to find out that you'd have a 1 in 100000 chance of getting 5 nines in a row! It was a great intro to what we'd be talking about. Many thanks to Dave Marain at MathNotations for the idea!
I started probability today in my general classes; instead of just going right into the new info, I had the kids all grab a white board and marker and eraser and told them to draw 5 dashes. I set up the random number generator on my virtual TI (on my tablet... I mean, on my colleague's tablet - I still don't have mine!). Their goal was to get the biggest number possible by placing the digits as I gave them. The kids seemed to enjoy it - they wanted to add additional spaces and then we switched to the smallest number possible. I gave the student in each class with the most wins some extra credit. After we finished, we talked about the probability of making the number 99999 - they were amazed to find out that you'd have a 1 in 100000 chance of getting 5 nines in a row! It was a great intro to what we'd be talking about. Many thanks to Dave Marain at MathNotations for the idea!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
I had an e-mail from my principal last week saying that she was going to be out observing in the next couple of weeks and asking when a good time to come might be (in the next couple of weeks? really? can we narrow it down a bit?). I responded saying that anytime we don't have a test or quiz will be fine (which is true) but it also got me thinking that I need to find some activities to do to help spice things up. I think I've done a pretty good job of that so far this year (and I've been working hard to try and do it!) but I'm sure everyone realizes that being observed in class is just more incentive to do better.
In Algebra 2 we just spent 2+ painful days on piecewise functions. I was having a bad day when we started and don't think I explained them that well, but I really don't understand why they're so hard. One thing that really annoyed me that first day was that I started out with a chart of t-shirt prices (you know how when you buy stuff like that they get cheaper the more you buy? perfect piecewise function!) and we talked about how much it would cost for 8 or 15 or whatever, then wrote the piecewise function to match. (Wasn't that a good start? I thought it would be.) So then 2 minutes later as we were graphing a pw function, one of the kids said, "When are we ever going to see these?" I just scrolled up to the top of my sheet and circled the problem we'd started with. Didn't say a word. He was like, "Oh."
Anyway, today we moved on to translating functions. There aren't any good "life" problems that involve translating functions that I'm aware of, but I wanted to try some different activities for them, so I put a call out on Twitter asking if anyone had anything. I got three responses back, two of which consisted of my class lesson today. (Yay!) @msgregson sent me a copy of her Parabola Story then @dgreenedcp sent me a link to his translating function material that I pulled a worksheet from. My plan was to do the worksheet tomorrow, but we didn't get to the notes that I had ready, so we'll do them tomorrow and the worksheet I think will fit for tonight. We'll see how that goes! I <3 twitter!
My idea for tomorrow (originally) was to do the worksheet (that I gave tonight), then play some bingo with the cards that I made from this site. That might wait until Monday....
In Algebra 2 we just spent 2+ painful days on piecewise functions. I was having a bad day when we started and don't think I explained them that well, but I really don't understand why they're so hard. One thing that really annoyed me that first day was that I started out with a chart of t-shirt prices (you know how when you buy stuff like that they get cheaper the more you buy? perfect piecewise function!) and we talked about how much it would cost for 8 or 15 or whatever, then wrote the piecewise function to match. (Wasn't that a good start? I thought it would be.) So then 2 minutes later as we were graphing a pw function, one of the kids said, "When are we ever going to see these?" I just scrolled up to the top of my sheet and circled the problem we'd started with. Didn't say a word. He was like, "Oh."
Anyway, today we moved on to translating functions. There aren't any good "life" problems that involve translating functions that I'm aware of, but I wanted to try some different activities for them, so I put a call out on Twitter asking if anyone had anything. I got three responses back, two of which consisted of my class lesson today. (Yay!) @msgregson sent me a copy of her Parabola Story then @dgreenedcp sent me a link to his translating function material that I pulled a worksheet from. My plan was to do the worksheet tomorrow, but we didn't get to the notes that I had ready, so we'll do them tomorrow and the worksheet I think will fit for tonight. We'll see how that goes! I <3 twitter!
My idea for tomorrow (originally) was to do the worksheet (that I gave tonight), then play some bingo with the cards that I made from this site. That might wait until Monday....
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The good news about my tablet coming home was short-lived. The day after I wrote that, the tech guy in the building came up to my room (in the middle of class) to tell me that he had good news and bad news. Uh oh! The good news was that my tablet had arrived back at the building. The bad news was that he was checking it out and the mousepad (my original problem) still didn't work. He was boxing it back up and sending it back to Toshiba. :( I haven't heard anything since.
I'm hoping that it's back by Christmas.
I really shouldn't complain. If I didn't have a tablet to use then I'd definitely be having issues. I do, however, have a loaner tablet, so things have been proceeding pretty normally (although this one has issues sometimes when I have too much going on). I set up a new folder on the desktop to keep track of all of the stuff I'd normally keep on my C: drive... at quick count, I have almost 125 items in that folder. Wow! A lot of the items are pdf's of Windows Journal notes (I create a .pdf so I can upload it to embedit.in and then post in on my class blogs), but that's still a lot of work done in the last month!
Speaking of Windows Journal... I've abandoned my attempt at using OneNote. I love the idea of it, and it definitely kept me organized. There were just some aspects of it that didn't make it easy to use.
1. You can't scroll easily when writing on a blank sheet. Like if I were giving notes in class and wanted to scroll up so the writing wasn't too near the bottom of the board, it would move everything up and you wouldn't be able to see any writing. For the kids who are still trying to catch up, though, it wasn't a good thing.
2. When you print out a page, the lines don't come along with it. That really stunk. I like to prepare an outline of notes to give to some of my classes, but I didn't like how they don't have the lines to help them out. I did a little bit of research on it and found that there's no easy way to get those lines on the page! Boo.
3. Printing worksheets to it just wasn't pretty. Often I type something up in Word then want to print it to OneNote (now Journal) to write on in class. Maybe I'm being picky, but it just didn't come out nice! I had to re-size documents to make them fit the whole page... then they'd be all pixel-y. If it took up too much of the page I'd lose the title. There just didn't seem to be a nice way to do it all at once!
OneNote just wasn't meant for me. There are some things I miss about it - especially the nice drawing tools available right there on the screen (unlike Journal). If I were a student and had a tablet I would definitely give it a shot! But for me, I think my experiment is over. I'm a Journal girl.
On a different note.... I'm amazed at how busy I've been so far this school year - I just can't seem to catch up! Today's the first day all year that I've been able to sit in the library after school (doing my duty) with nothing to do. It's wonderful! I haven't even opened my Google Reader for several days, though, so everything's not as rosy as it could be. :)
I'm hoping that it's back by Christmas.
I really shouldn't complain. If I didn't have a tablet to use then I'd definitely be having issues. I do, however, have a loaner tablet, so things have been proceeding pretty normally (although this one has issues sometimes when I have too much going on). I set up a new folder on the desktop to keep track of all of the stuff I'd normally keep on my C: drive... at quick count, I have almost 125 items in that folder. Wow! A lot of the items are pdf's of Windows Journal notes (I create a .pdf so I can upload it to embedit.in and then post in on my class blogs), but that's still a lot of work done in the last month!
Speaking of Windows Journal... I've abandoned my attempt at using OneNote. I love the idea of it, and it definitely kept me organized. There were just some aspects of it that didn't make it easy to use.
1. You can't scroll easily when writing on a blank sheet. Like if I were giving notes in class and wanted to scroll up so the writing wasn't too near the bottom of the board, it would move everything up and you wouldn't be able to see any writing. For the kids who are still trying to catch up, though, it wasn't a good thing.
2. When you print out a page, the lines don't come along with it. That really stunk. I like to prepare an outline of notes to give to some of my classes, but I didn't like how they don't have the lines to help them out. I did a little bit of research on it and found that there's no easy way to get those lines on the page! Boo.
3. Printing worksheets to it just wasn't pretty. Often I type something up in Word then want to print it to OneNote (now Journal) to write on in class. Maybe I'm being picky, but it just didn't come out nice! I had to re-size documents to make them fit the whole page... then they'd be all pixel-y. If it took up too much of the page I'd lose the title. There just didn't seem to be a nice way to do it all at once!
OneNote just wasn't meant for me. There are some things I miss about it - especially the nice drawing tools available right there on the screen (unlike Journal). If I were a student and had a tablet I would definitely give it a shot! But for me, I think my experiment is over. I'm a Journal girl.
On a different note.... I'm amazed at how busy I've been so far this school year - I just can't seem to catch up! Today's the first day all year that I've been able to sit in the library after school (doing my duty) with nothing to do. It's wonderful! I haven't even opened my Google Reader for several days, though, so everything's not as rosy as it could be. :)
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