Just A Math Teacher

In an attempt to stay on top of my work, I have prepared this blog post about two weeks before it is due! While there are other things for me to do, watching videos was about all my brain could handle at the time. First I wanted to watch Peter Lilijedahl's video about Building thinking classrooms. Here he explored areas of the classroom that could be altered to create a better learning and thinking environment for students. These areas along with his proposed solutions are below: Full disclosure: I also watched the videos that I could find on YouTube because it meant I could watch then at 1.75x speed I saw some of these strategies being used when I was on placement, and they were really valuable! Two of the great pieces of advice from this that I gathered were using random groups and vertical non-permanent surfaces. From there I moved on to Teaching as Professional Work  which, sadly, I could not watch at 1.75x speed. One of the things I grabbed from this video were th...

Hi everyone! We've had three classes since my last post: for one of them I led a station for students to learn about misrepresentation of statistics; another I participated in stations (so easy), and I missed the third to remain at home during a wintry Armageddon. Last post I wrote about how asking good questions is important to engage students and keep them focused on a task. This week I want to discuss the mathematical questions we ask. Also in these last three weeks, I submitted a math problem for other students in my class to dissect. Not going to lie, I think I killed it. Apparently my teacher did too, since I got a shoutout during the Armageddon class: Look mom, I'm famous! Part of what made this question fun for me is that this is something people will actually ask themselves when driving! People want to know if they will be late, and using a little bit of math they have the tools to figure it out.  When Chari (my teacher-student friend) and I ran a stat...

As a student, sometimes there are days where you don't want to learn. You might go through your day of classes, take a couple notes, play on your phone at times, and stay quiet in the back row of the class. While it may be good that the teacher could carry on with their lesson uninterrupted, you (the student) will leave that day without having learned anything and will have to reread your notes come test day to understand the material well enough to pass. This is not an ideal situation. I have to admit that I was once one of these students as well. While I may have done well in my classes, once I thought I understood what was happening I mentally checked out of the class. I've learned that many students (especially at the university level courses) do this as well, and would actually prefer you don't ask them questions so that they "don't have to think as hard". This, to me, is the reason asking questions during your lesson is so important. Asking que...

Welcome back to the blog ladies and gentlemen! Or should I say, lady and gentleman (since I think only 2 people read this these days). Christmas and New Year's have past, but the memories from my first placement remain. Thankfully, nearly all of my memories of placement were good! I was fortunate to have an associate teacher who know her stuff (and who liked me - what an awkward time next semester would be if she didn't) and students that I've built good connections with. I think something that I really took from my experience in two weeks is that students care to try for a teacher who cares for them. I've known that this applies to other settings for years; leading programs at summer camps, tutoring students, etc., have taught me that people will automatically work harder if they see you're working hard. However, to date these were all programs which students voluntarily entered, so I wondered if the rules would apply to an involuntary program. They did! Tu...

Almost 25% through teachers college, and I still think I want to be a teacher so that's a good sign! As I reflect on the first half of this first year, I have come to appreciate this course. Do I appreciate the 5-8pm classes after my 8-11am class in the morning? No. But as far as course content is concerned, I think I have learned some valuable skills and concepts to take into my first 10-day teaching block. Most importantly, I have grown to understand math in its visual forms and not solely in its algebraic forms. We used algebra tiles to explain completing the square and it was straight up MIND BLOWING with how easy it was. I guess the Greeks were up to some good stuff in their ancient geomtry-based math discovery days. I believe that these courses, so far, have helped me to expand my thinking beyond what would be typical of a math-proficient individual. Someone from my group accessing their artistry in math class. Me, attempting to access an artistic side. At leas...

I forgot to post last week ... I apologize to my six fans. Truthfully I found this week's lesson more interesting to write about than last week's anyway, so maybe it's for the best. In class today we played games. All class. All. Class. Not a bad way to get a university degree right? In this interactive session on engaging students in their learning, we played a Hedbanz-esque graphing game, along with a Guess Who graphing game and a puzzle solving game (also with graphing). Although it sounds repetitive, each of these activities were very engaging! In fact, I was only able to take a couple photos of the lesson at all. The Hedbanz-type activity. The goal: to draw your graph and/or write in vertex form. The Guess Who activity, after the professor ruined our fun. To me, these games are an amazing alternate form of assessment and observing students' knowledge. With the online games, teachers are able to observe what each of the students are doing i...