...you all have that kid. You know, the one who grates on every nerve in your body. The one that somehow knows every button to press. The one that seems to invent new ways to get in trouble and is always being clever at circumventing your attempts to get him to actually do his work. Or is it just me? :)
Today I was surprised by a visit from that kid from my first year of teaching. I still remember writing a referral which included the term, "musical nose blowing." Yes, indeed. There were other antics, but that moment stood out in particular.
This student is now in college. He came in to visit today and told me he's had a successful year with good grades and is looking to transfer to a school closer to home. He's studying a math and science heavy major and doing well. Yay!
Of all the kids to come back, visit unexpectedly, and give me a big hug, I couldn't have been more surprised that it was this student. And a good surprise it was!
Tomorrow, I get to go see a great group of students graduate from high school. I haven't seen most of them since they left 8th grade, but I'm excited to get to watch them graduate to the next chapter!
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Interactive Notebook Supplies
Next month, I'll be presenting my use of interactive notebooks and Foldables to teachers in my district at our Technology conference. (Admittedly, the "technology" is a stretch, but I'm presenting in four sessions, so I guess it was something they thought people would want to hear about anyway.) I'll be presenting on implementing these notebooks and on making Foldables with MS Word.
@misscalcul8 asked, "Anyone have a list of supplies needed for interactive notebooks?" and I thought I'd respond. It's a good time of year to reflect on what supplies I've used now that the year is wrapping up and it's time to write next year's supply list. I'll break it into two categories based on what I provide versus what students provide; based on the availability of resources in your school and the socio-economic status of the families in your school, you may make other choices. More than half of my students receive free or reduced meals, so I try to keep parents' out-of-pocket costs very low. My students could get these supplies for $2 total at Walmart last summer.
Students provided:
I provided:
What is the most important school supply for your students?
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
@misscalcul8 asked, "Anyone have a list of supplies needed for interactive notebooks?" and I thought I'd respond. It's a good time of year to reflect on what supplies I've used now that the year is wrapping up and it's time to write next year's supply list. I'll break it into two categories based on what I provide versus what students provide; based on the availability of resources in your school and the socio-economic status of the families in your school, you may make other choices. More than half of my students receive free or reduced meals, so I try to keep parents' out-of-pocket costs very low. My students could get these supplies for $2 total at Walmart last summer.
Students provided:
- 1 composition book, cardboard (not plastic) cover strongly preferred.
- 2 rolls Scotch tape (label these with a Sharpie...trust me!) We attached something to almost every page, so if you expect to write directly in the notebook for lots of pages, one roll might be sufficient.
- a few colored pencils or highlighters (They don't need an entire set; three colors will accomplish almost any color-coding you plan to do. Encourage kids to bring left overs from previous grades if they have them at home.)
I provided:
- Lots of glue sticks. On the order of 100, I think. Check Walmart a week or two after school is in session for mark downs. You could have students provide these. I chose to have glue sticks available so no one had an excuse to not attach a page, but I also NEVER gave out tape. I wasn't willing to buy hundreds of rolls of tape, and the kids largely understood when I explained I was not going to buy hundreds of rolls of tape. Most of my kids mooched off their neighbors if they really wanted tape for a particular page. Some teachers use liquid glue and have success. I wasn't willing to wait for it to dry or to police the potential misuse of liquid glue, but it's incredibly cheap, so it's worth considering.
- Ziploc bags (one gallon size). Every student had a labeled bag in which to keep their composition book if desired, plus any tape or colored pencils they'd brought in. I learned that 8th grade kids aren't adept at regular Ziploc bags; the slider kind would be a smart purchase.
- Storage space. I had sturdy bins on a shelf where kids could leave their notebooks if they didn't need them for homework on a given night. We're 160 days into the year and not one of my 80 math students has lost a notebook permanently. A few have gone on short vacations, but they've returned!
- A class set of scissors (and trash bowls to minimize trips to the trash can)
- A set of highlighters and/or colored pencils per table/group. (My kids just weren't all going to have these on their own due to finances, so I had some available to borrow.)
- One stapler per table/group. If you're going to buy these, do yourself a favor and spend the extra money to get the full-strip staplers. I had no idea how much I would loathe the half-strip ones when I have to refill a few of the staplers every time we staple anything!
- Colored paper to help Foldables stand out.
- Gigantic rubber file bands. They're about 7" long. Punch a hole in the back cover of the book near a corner. Loop the rubber band through. Kids can use it to hold the book shut. These can also be used to rescue a book that detaches from its cover. Two students have had this happen this year and I was able to secure the cover by doubling one of these rubber bands around the middle of the book when unfolded.
- 6x9 manila envelopes with clasps. Glue on the inside of the back cover for works-in-progress that don't get glued down immediately.
What is the most important school supply for your students?
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Submitted!
I submitted my National Board portfolio today. Yay! I've been working on it for months and I'm so glad to be done. Results won't come in until December, so I'm just thrilled to be finished for now!
My evening was capped off by two former students, a junior and a senior, stopping by to see me. They work with my school's after school program. The senior remembered that I'd had her class write letters to themselves after listening to President Obama's first inauguration speech. I promised to return them at graduation. So, she came to ask if I still had them; graduation is in two short weeks. In some kind of amazing miracle, I actually knew exactly where they were and went right to the file in my cabinet. I pulled out the letters, handed hers over, and she read it to herself. She was laughing at first, "Look at my handwriting!" Then she started reading and was proud of herself; she accomplished the goals she set out for herself in 8th grade: learning a language and taking Calculus. "I got a 5 on the AP test last year," she told me. Then she stopped reading and teared up. She handed the letter to her friend, who read the last part aloud. "Give [my little sister] and Grandpa a hug." The senior said, "Grandpa died in 9th grade."
When I asked her about post-graduation plans, she told me she's going to my alma mater. :)
That, friends, is what this profession is all about. Whether I get NBPTS certified or not, I took this as a sign that I am doing something right.
Mathematically yours,
Miss B.
My evening was capped off by two former students, a junior and a senior, stopping by to see me. They work with my school's after school program. The senior remembered that I'd had her class write letters to themselves after listening to President Obama's first inauguration speech. I promised to return them at graduation. So, she came to ask if I still had them; graduation is in two short weeks. In some kind of amazing miracle, I actually knew exactly where they were and went right to the file in my cabinet. I pulled out the letters, handed hers over, and she read it to herself. She was laughing at first, "Look at my handwriting!" Then she started reading and was proud of herself; she accomplished the goals she set out for herself in 8th grade: learning a language and taking Calculus. "I got a 5 on the AP test last year," she told me. Then she stopped reading and teared up. She handed the letter to her friend, who read the last part aloud. "Give [my little sister] and Grandpa a hug." The senior said, "Grandpa died in 9th grade."
When I asked her about post-graduation plans, she told me she's going to my alma mater. :)
That, friends, is what this profession is all about. Whether I get NBPTS certified or not, I took this as a sign that I am doing something right.
Mathematically yours,
Miss B.
Monday, April 21, 2014
I need to blog...
So, I'm writing/editing NBCT portfolio entries today and I need a break from precision writing. These next three weeks are going to fly by and I'm somewhat fearful that I'm not going to finish getting everything together the way in needs to be.
I thought I would tell you about a left side assignment gallery walk I did about a week ago. First of all, you should know that I do Interactive Notebooks with the right side as teacher input and the left side as student output. The thing is, I've just started ISNs this year and I had a hard time giving complete control over to kids for the left side, especially since I didn't know exactly how ISNs would pan out. I love ISNs and I still think it's great that I wrote a list of LSA choices last summer, but I think a few of my assignments are a little too "easy" and that I need to somehow make them more similar in the level of effort required before next year (or at least put some in a category that indicates they're going to earn at most an 80% if they're done as written).
Anyway, I gave complete control over for an LSA on simplifying radical expressions. It was mostly successful because it was their last assignment in that unit, so they had the big picture ideas down.
When students brought their work in, we did a mini gallery walk in which they spent five minutes walking around and reading other students' books. Then I asked students to nominate someone who did work that we should all see. Nominees were invited to the document camera to share. Kids are SO eager to brag on their classmates! What made this valuable was that I wasn't the one initiating the praise; I also hadn't graded the assignments yet, so we saw what the students thought was quality work. They selected the songs (including two versions of Katy Perry's Dark Horse rewritten as rules for simplifying radicals), the colorful pages, the comics, and other creative work. I don't think anyone chose to highlight a page that was a plain problem set.
I feel like when I start doing more LSAs next year that offer choice, I'm going to absolutely build in time to do this at the beginning of the year so that students can see exemplary work.
I only have one picture right now, but I'll get some more. Flashcards were popular choices; this student chose to write questions that we ask ourselves while solving on the flashcards. She wrote answers and explanations on the back. The orange is a pocket meant to hold them.
How do you help students grow?
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
I thought I would tell you about a left side assignment gallery walk I did about a week ago. First of all, you should know that I do Interactive Notebooks with the right side as teacher input and the left side as student output. The thing is, I've just started ISNs this year and I had a hard time giving complete control over to kids for the left side, especially since I didn't know exactly how ISNs would pan out. I love ISNs and I still think it's great that I wrote a list of LSA choices last summer, but I think a few of my assignments are a little too "easy" and that I need to somehow make them more similar in the level of effort required before next year (or at least put some in a category that indicates they're going to earn at most an 80% if they're done as written).
Anyway, I gave complete control over for an LSA on simplifying radical expressions. It was mostly successful because it was their last assignment in that unit, so they had the big picture ideas down.
When students brought their work in, we did a mini gallery walk in which they spent five minutes walking around and reading other students' books. Then I asked students to nominate someone who did work that we should all see. Nominees were invited to the document camera to share. Kids are SO eager to brag on their classmates! What made this valuable was that I wasn't the one initiating the praise; I also hadn't graded the assignments yet, so we saw what the students thought was quality work. They selected the songs (including two versions of Katy Perry's Dark Horse rewritten as rules for simplifying radicals), the colorful pages, the comics, and other creative work. I don't think anyone chose to highlight a page that was a plain problem set.
I feel like when I start doing more LSAs next year that offer choice, I'm going to absolutely build in time to do this at the beginning of the year so that students can see exemplary work.
I only have one picture right now, but I'll get some more. Flashcards were popular choices; this student chose to write questions that we ask ourselves while solving on the flashcards. She wrote answers and explanations on the back. The orange is a pocket meant to hold them.
How do you help students grow?
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
Monday, April 7, 2014
Not a math lesson...
...but a French lesson instead. (Math teachers, see if you can adapt this activity to your classroom.)
I am primarily a math teacher, but this year I was afforded the great opportunity to also teach French I for one period a day. It's really been a dream come true, though I can't say that I have everything quite figured out yet. There are definitely some things that I need to do more/better/differently to get my French class to be more like I want it to be. Having never student taught in French either, I was really green at the beginning of the year and finally feel like I have a decent handle on what my expectations should be. In some areas, I've been way too lenient, and in others, I've been way too strict.
Anyway, today's lesson was totally last minute and not something I'd planned out with any great thought. I had introduced some new verbs at the end of last week and I wanted to practice them without a worksheet. I wanted to play a game, but I have 26 students in the class and most games leave lots of students to not fully participate. I also wanted to talk less than I normally end up talking. So, I made my students play Pictionary with a twist. It went like this:
1. I wrote up all of the verbs they've seen so far, one per index card.
2. I divided the class into two equal teams.
3. I called two kids to the front to draw the verb on the whiteboard that I showed them from one of my cards. Several times, kids returned to their seats to look up the definition. Perfect; that shows they're trying to learn!
4. The kids in the audience had to call out the verb they thought was being drawn. Any speaking in English meant disqualification for that team for that round. This happened on the first round, and not again afterwards.
5. The first kid to get the correct verb got to roll a large die (from Dollar Tree) that I have re-labeled with the six subject pronoun groups.
6. The team that won the round recorded the corresponding number of points: je-1, tu-2, etc...
7. EVERY student writes a sentence using the subject and verb from that round, along with a logical object of their choice.
What went well- engagement. The kids were focused and trying to guess the verb as well as doing a good job recording what they needed to build sentences and using old vocab to finish them off with logical objects. Varying the point value based on the roll was a fun way to keep things lively, especially since I seemed to have more of my strong kids on one team.
What needs improvement- clarity of instructions. For the written portion, I had many kids write me "sentences" in which the verb wasn't conjugated at all. I assume my instructions were poor and I'll revisit this tomorrow. I also know my kids are just still feeling new to the idea of conjugating verbs, even though they think that's all we do, so some of them may just be generally confused about how to conjugate these particular verbs. We'll see tomorrow.
Thanks for stopping by. Math teachers, have you ever used Pictionary in your classroom? (I used to use it every year in Geometry near the final exam because we had 300 vocabulary terms.) Language teachers, what other games and activities would you suggest for conjugation?
Mathematically and linguistically yours,
Miss B
I am primarily a math teacher, but this year I was afforded the great opportunity to also teach French I for one period a day. It's really been a dream come true, though I can't say that I have everything quite figured out yet. There are definitely some things that I need to do more/better/differently to get my French class to be more like I want it to be. Having never student taught in French either, I was really green at the beginning of the year and finally feel like I have a decent handle on what my expectations should be. In some areas, I've been way too lenient, and in others, I've been way too strict.
Anyway, today's lesson was totally last minute and not something I'd planned out with any great thought. I had introduced some new verbs at the end of last week and I wanted to practice them without a worksheet. I wanted to play a game, but I have 26 students in the class and most games leave lots of students to not fully participate. I also wanted to talk less than I normally end up talking. So, I made my students play Pictionary with a twist. It went like this:
1. I wrote up all of the verbs they've seen so far, one per index card.
2. I divided the class into two equal teams.
3. I called two kids to the front to draw the verb on the whiteboard that I showed them from one of my cards. Several times, kids returned to their seats to look up the definition. Perfect; that shows they're trying to learn!
4. The kids in the audience had to call out the verb they thought was being drawn. Any speaking in English meant disqualification for that team for that round. This happened on the first round, and not again afterwards.
5. The first kid to get the correct verb got to roll a large die (from Dollar Tree) that I have re-labeled with the six subject pronoun groups.
 |
| On the left: subjects and verbs. In the middle: point values for each subject. On the right: keeping score. |
 |
| Student work |
What needs improvement- clarity of instructions. For the written portion, I had many kids write me "sentences" in which the verb wasn't conjugated at all. I assume my instructions were poor and I'll revisit this tomorrow. I also know my kids are just still feeling new to the idea of conjugating verbs, even though they think that's all we do, so some of them may just be generally confused about how to conjugate these particular verbs. We'll see tomorrow.
Thanks for stopping by. Math teachers, have you ever used Pictionary in your classroom? (I used to use it every year in Geometry near the final exam because we had 300 vocabulary terms.) Language teachers, what other games and activities would you suggest for conjugation?
Mathematically and linguistically yours,
Miss B
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Inequalities Foldable
This week, I'll finally finish systems in my Math 8 class. I say "finally" because we started systems the first week of February. We have had so many snow days, delays, and testing interruptions that it's not surprising we're still working on that topic after two months. My kids are pretty good with knowing what to do when but their lack of fluency with integers is still killing their overall accuracy. We've broken out the calculators 100% of the time, but still they make errors.
Systems is also arguably the hardest unit we have to cover this year because it is one of the most complex with the most steps. I'm hoping that our next unit makes students feel more successful. We're going to spend time on inequalities next. This should be a partial review for them. I put together what might just be my favorite foldable to date and I'm sharing it below.
When I was looking for inspiration on inequalities, I found Sarah's post from the fall about "flipping the sign." I took her idea and ran with it in a slightly different direction (pun intended). I included both instances of flipping the sign on the flip-flops and oriented them in the opposite direction so it would be easy to write the notes on them.
Here are the files. Please leave me a comment if you try them out; I'd love to hear about it. I've changed the fonts to ones I think will be friendly, things in the Arial family. Not as cute, but hopefully you won't have to reformat anything before you print!
What's usually the hardest topic in your course for students?
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
Systems is also arguably the hardest unit we have to cover this year because it is one of the most complex with the most steps. I'm hoping that our next unit makes students feel more successful. We're going to spend time on inequalities next. This should be a partial review for them. I put together what might just be my favorite foldable to date and I'm sharing it below.
Here are the files. Please leave me a comment if you try them out; I'd love to hear about it. I've changed the fonts to ones I think will be friendly, things in the Arial family. Not as cute, but hopefully you won't have to reformat anything before you print!
What's usually the hardest topic in your course for students?
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
Monday, March 24, 2014
The Quadratic Formula
A couple of weeks ago, one of my students casually mentioned that they'd learned the quadratic formula last year when I was using the ± sign. "Great," I thought, "there goes the point of teaching the other methods of solving quadratics if the last teacher just went straight to the formula." Given that quadratics are in no way part of the curriculum for their last class, I was perplexed. I finally got a little more background today. Apparently they did it "one day" and were told they "didn't have to memorize the formula," though one of my girls did have it memorized!
All that is to say that last week we studied solving quadratic equations by factoring and by square roots. Those methods went pretty well. Then we did completing the square. If you haven't ever introduced it as a puzzle using Algebra tiles, you are missing the hook you need. The intro to completing the square goes something like this:
Alright everyone, we're going to play a little game. I need you to please take out an x squared tile and 2 x tiles. You may add ones tiles if you want. Please make a square.
The kids make a square by adding one.
Great. Let's notice the area of the square and the side lengths and note that on our recording sheet. (Use graph paper here to make the diagrams better).
Next, try the same kind of puzzle with one x squared tile and 4 x tiles. Kids will add on 4 ones.
Repeat as needed with other even numbers of x until you have success (or you run out of tiles!)
Would you build a square from one x squared tile, 5 x tiles, and ones tiles? Disaster will strike. Kids will build you rectangles, convinced they are squares until you suggest they measure. Other kids will claim it's not possible. Still others will add negative x tiles in an attempt to make it work. Whining will most likely ensue.
So, why isn't this one working? Let's see what you have tried. Build some unsuccessful models, talk about why they fail. Did you start with this model? Build rectangle (x+2)(x+3). Most kids will say "yes." Why didn't it work? They'll answer that the sides were different lengths. So if this side is longer, could I move a tile to the opposite side? No? That makes the same thing? Hmm...if we start building this with the idea of putting equal x tiles on each of two sides of the x squared tile, what will happen? We'll have one left over. How could we share it equally? There might be trouble here if your tiles are plastic like mine. They were stuck on the idea that they couldn't physically destroy my tiles. One of the kids saw the idea of dividing that tile. We drew the (messy) model of (x+2.5)^2. We made the connection (easily, even) that the b value divided by two and squared provided the c value.
Once we got that far, kids understood the "what should we add to both sides to make a perfect square" aspect of completing the square, which is the only part that is really different from what they already know. My kids have turned out to be pretty confident at completing the square. Today, some of them got to the end of the kite relay. The last problem was completing the square of the standard form of a quadratic equation. I actually had three or four groups get it. The hardest part for almost every group: adding fractions and remembering to get a common denominator. Oh, how we forget the foundational things!
We wrote it up formally in our notes after lots of messy whiteboarding. The kids' first reaction: "You make it look so easy." Sorry, friends! Their second reaction: sheer joy when they realized we'd derived the quadratic equation by completing the square. It was cute.
What's your best tip for teaching quadratics?
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
All that is to say that last week we studied solving quadratic equations by factoring and by square roots. Those methods went pretty well. Then we did completing the square. If you haven't ever introduced it as a puzzle using Algebra tiles, you are missing the hook you need. The intro to completing the square goes something like this:
Alright everyone, we're going to play a little game. I need you to please take out an x squared tile and 2 x tiles. You may add ones tiles if you want. Please make a square.
The kids make a square by adding one.
Great. Let's notice the area of the square and the side lengths and note that on our recording sheet. (Use graph paper here to make the diagrams better).
Next, try the same kind of puzzle with one x squared tile and 4 x tiles. Kids will add on 4 ones.
Repeat as needed with other even numbers of x until you have success (or you run out of tiles!)
Would you build a square from one x squared tile, 5 x tiles, and ones tiles? Disaster will strike. Kids will build you rectangles, convinced they are squares until you suggest they measure. Other kids will claim it's not possible. Still others will add negative x tiles in an attempt to make it work. Whining will most likely ensue.
So, why isn't this one working? Let's see what you have tried. Build some unsuccessful models, talk about why they fail. Did you start with this model? Build rectangle (x+2)(x+3). Most kids will say "yes." Why didn't it work? They'll answer that the sides were different lengths. So if this side is longer, could I move a tile to the opposite side? No? That makes the same thing? Hmm...if we start building this with the idea of putting equal x tiles on each of two sides of the x squared tile, what will happen? We'll have one left over. How could we share it equally? There might be trouble here if your tiles are plastic like mine. They were stuck on the idea that they couldn't physically destroy my tiles. One of the kids saw the idea of dividing that tile. We drew the (messy) model of (x+2.5)^2. We made the connection (easily, even) that the b value divided by two and squared provided the c value.
Once we got that far, kids understood the "what should we add to both sides to make a perfect square" aspect of completing the square, which is the only part that is really different from what they already know. My kids have turned out to be pretty confident at completing the square. Today, some of them got to the end of the kite relay. The last problem was completing the square of the standard form of a quadratic equation. I actually had three or four groups get it. The hardest part for almost every group: adding fractions and remembering to get a common denominator. Oh, how we forget the foundational things!
We wrote it up formally in our notes after lots of messy whiteboarding. The kids' first reaction: "You make it look so easy." Sorry, friends! Their second reaction: sheer joy when they realized we'd derived the quadratic equation by completing the square. It was cute.
What's your best tip for teaching quadratics?
Mathematically yours,
Miss B
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