Mathsational

I spent most of my summer taking two grade classes to earn a PDE endorsement in Online Learning.  However, during the time that I had free, I found time to work on my courses for this coming school year. First, to help with student self reflection, I created this document .  The document will be used at the end of each station in my hybrid classroom .  Students will also reflect on the work that they do outside of class.  I want students to track the resources they used when stuck as well as reflect on how well they understood the assignment.  I will be using this tool as a replacement for grading classwork and homework for completion.  I will spot check student work occasionally, but for the most part it will be largely self reported.  This assignment will be worth 5% of students' overall grade. I also reevaluated how I would weight grades for  my class.  85% of the grade will be standards based .  These grades will come ...

I typically spread my course info and getting to know you type stuff throughout the first four days of class.  I then save the second half of each class for actual content.  I feel like I do better to set up the expectations for the class if my students see content and have a homework assignment from day 1. That said, we have a class called 'primetime' at my school.  This is basically like a home room, but we only meet 9 times per year.  We meet for progress reports and report cards as well as other special information (graduation practice info, locker cleanout, etc) throughout the year.  I will be meeting with this group for two hours on the first day of school.  One hour of that time is for class meetings and the other half is planned by the teacher.  Typically we read important passages in the handbook and give out school documents (free and reduced lunch, picture day, yearbook order forms, parking pass applications, and such). This year, I was ...

I am about to start my 13th year of teaching high school math.  Every year, I buy way too much stuff for my classroom.  (My school does not provide us with very much in terms of physical supplies). This year, I am actually buying only a few things.  Of course there are some things that I will make as well.  Here are my must haves for the new year. 1)   Patty Paper  - for paper folding constructions and other activities from Patty Paper Geometry .  I already have the book, I just need to refill my paper supply.  This book is great for discovering geometry in a low tech, hands-on way.  Sure Geometer's Sketchpad is great, but sometimes physical is good too. 2)   The Classroom Chef  - I received this order a few weeks ago but was finishing a grad class.  I have a conference this week, so I'm hoping to start reading next week.  I follow both Matt and John on twitter, so I have high expectations.  I think their boo...

This is my first year participating in Blaugust.  I started my blog just over a year ago and at that time I was not quite ready to attempt to blog daily for a month.  Honestly, I have a conference coming up later this week, so I may not even get through one week of daily blogging, but I'll try. I like to blog in general, not just as part of an initiative.  Very few people actually read my posts, but that is not why I write.  I write to help myself reflect on and serve as a record of my teaching.  I'm also completely in love with the #MTBoS.  I joined twitter first and spent about a year being a consumer in the #MTBoS.  At first I just lurked, then I started to reply to other peoples' ideas and requests for help.  Eventually I found that 140 characters was not always enough for me to share my ideas and Mathsational was born. I like to share the resources that I create and I like receiving constructive feedback.  I feel like I finally ...

Another practice structure that I use about once per chapter is color-by-number.  I typically find the coloring pages on Pinterest.   Here is the board that I have been using to collect images for future activities. I usually choose with the problems by using Kuta software or by pulling from a pre-existing worksheet. I number the problems to match the numbers in the color-by-number picture.  Then I match the answers to the appropriate color.  Students solve each problem, locate the matching answer and color the numbers in the picture with that matching color. Somewhat surprisingly, these activities are well liked by my students.  If too much time passes, they ask about when we will do another.  I personally like the pictures that you can not identify until after they are colored, but my students seem to prefer cartoon characters. Here is one example that I used last year to have students practice factoring trinomials in quadratic form. Here is...

My goal during the summer is to blog at least once a week.  I've failed pretty miserably with this so far this year.  One of my goals was to blog about my favorite practice structures.  Let's be honest, a lot of the content in high school math is either inapplicable (I'm looking at you polynomial long division) or requires lots of practice to build fluency.  So, although I do like to try to do one project with honest to goodness real world application for each unit or marking period, I still need something engaging to do with kids to help them practice. The practice structure that I am sharing today is Old Maid. I love having my kids practice the most basic skills (ones that require little to no writing) by playing card games.  One sad side note is that I usually need to give directions on how to play these games because apparently, parents don't play games with their kids anymore. So, I just now created a new version of Old Maid for my first unit in algeb...

I borrowed this lesson from John Stevens .  As a quick side note, this is what I love about the MTBoS community on Twitter.  You build a network of creative educators from literally all over the world and your own lessons improve because of the sharing that happens. Now, my students and I live in central Pennsylvania.  We have the occasional earthquakes, but they are they type that only the most observant people even notice.   Here is a link to our most recent earthquake. This is  John's original lesson.  On his page, you will find links to his Slides presentation, lesson plan, and student handout as well as notes about how he implemented the lesson. I started with showing a San Andreas movie trailer. I asked if anyone had seen the movie.  I asked is any of them felt the earthquake that we had the previous summer.  These questions lead to some lively conversation. I showed them some maps from the USGS website that show intensity in ...

I was inspired by  @samjshah  to create an activity using logarithms and earthquakes for my algebra 2 classes.  Sam wrote about Earthquakes, Richter Scale, and Logarithms here . I did a little googling and ended up with this activity.  I still had some questions, so I emailed USGS and got a quick and through reply.  The reply resulted in this activity.  I have not tried it with students yet, but I'm really excited to do so next year.  Please feel free to check it out and give me feedback before I try it in the classroom. Here is the student document if you'd like to use it. Enjoy.

The origins of Barbie Bungee seem to be unknown, at least according to this twitter conversation. Looking for the earliest known copyright on Barbie Bungee. WHO INVENTED THIS THING?! https://t.co/CIayCEHJVC — Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) October 21, 2015 I've seen it done in classrooms since I started teaching circa 2004, however, advancements in technology have made it soooo much more fun.  Many students have smartphones capable of taking slow motion video which adds to the engagement. Here is what I did on my most recent go-round. I did this lesson with a class called Survey of Math.  It is our remediation class for students who did not pass our state exam on algebra 1.  Most of the students seemed to enjoy it, especially the end when they dropped their dolls. This group even wanted to try to get closer to the floor and wanted to add the new data point and recalculate their regression line. Some of the interesting things that happene...

I modified this activity from one done by Matt Vaudrey and John Stevens .  I believe that they used the activity to study Pythagorean Theorem and the distance formula.  Here is a write-up of John’s lesson.  I used it to have students practice solving simple trigonometric triangles involving angle of elevation. I started the lesson with the same video that John did.  I asked the kids if they had ever been on a zipline and if so where.  A few kids had stories to share.  I asked them about what would make a zipline ‘good.’  This led them to the safe and fun metric.  They knew that the zipline needed to be both safe and fun if people were going to enjoy the ride. I set up a mini zipline in my classroom.  The starting height was fixed at some random value because I already had a command hook stuck to one of my cabinets.  It was at about 147 cm.  The zipline was just fishing line.  I used a carabiner and velco me...

I came across this activity in the #MTBoS community through twitter.  The activity seemed very outside the box for me and my students and I was nervous to try it.  Many teachers have written about their experiences with implementing this lesson, but Jenn's is the most detailed and helpful that I found.  The basic idea is this:  Students make a set of parallel lines and a tranversal with masking tape on the floor.  You review the angle pairs alternate interior, alternate exterior, same side interior, same side exterior, corresponding, vertical).  Have students place their feet on the appropriate angles in their tape diagram. In the post mentioned above, Jenn shares some awesome videos with fun music and angle pairs.  It works just like Dance Dance Revolution from there.  I tried it with my 11th graders as a review before we started parallel line proofs.  They had a grand time and really got into it.  I recorded one of the dances ...

Recently, my honors algebra 2 class studied radicals.  Among other things, we needed to build fluency in using operations and using radicals to solve equations.  Here are a few of the resources that students used during class to practice. Simplifying radicals board game:   I can not remember where I got this board game template.  At one time, I googled something  like “free printable board games” and downloaded a bunch of them to use once each unit.  In general, I print some practice problems using Kuta Software and cut up the worksheet to make problem cards.  I print and laminate the board game to use year after year.  I use dice and bingo counters that I purchased online.  This is a simple alternative to a worksheet that the kids always seem to enjoy.  The board games work best when the problems are quick.  The game part is not fun if the kids can only complete 2-3 problems and don’t actually get to move their gam...

This lesson may not make sense to some of you, especially if you do not know me or what a hybrid classroom looks like.  You can read more about my hybrid classroom on the Hybrid Learning and MTSD Training – Hybrid Learning tabs of my blog. The short version of this information is that my students learn by traveling through 4 stations over a period of 2 days.  The first day consists of a 5 minute warm-up, two 20 minute stations and a 5 minute closure activity (usually an exit ticket).  The second day consists of a 5 minute warm-up, one 20 minute station, one 20 minute whole group activity and a 5 minute closure activity.  Sometimes the whole group activity is a lecture, sometimes it is a quiz, and other times it is a group work assignment or project.  The warm-ups and exit tickets might be review of a specific skill or a fun MTBoS warm-up.  Check out the MTBoS Resources tab above for more information. The first of the 3 stations is the indepen...

  My favorite classroom tool is Doceri.  It does cost $30, but I use this iPad app every day, so it was well worth the cost.  You need a computer (laptop/desktop), wireless network, and projector to use Doceri.  It basically turns your computer into a whiteboard.  You can control your computer and any files remotely from the iPad.  I use this feature for PowerPoints during class.  You can eccentrically take a screen shot of whatever is on your screen (or use a number of included backgrounds such as graph paper) and then write on that image.  I use this feature most often.  I will make a PowerPoint presentation of my notes each day and then use Doceri to annotate each slide.  You have a ton of pen style/color choices so you can color code and highlight important parts of your class notes.  Doceri can save each annotated image and you can email it to yourself in PDF form.  This can become a document to post on your cla...

This past week was the last week of classes for this semester.  Some of my classes are full year classes while others are semester courses.  Either way, this seemed like a good time to make some changes for the new semester and to allow students to give some feedback about those changes. I gave my students a quick exit ticket on our last day of class.  I asked them to think back on the year so far and to tell me one thing that they liked about our class that they would like to keep the same for the new semester.  Then I asked for one thing that they would like to change for the new semester. Now, I must preface their responses by saying that I teach in a very non-traditional classroom.  I use hybrid learning.  You can read more about it on the hybrid page of my blog.  Basically it involves students rotating through various stations throughout the lesson.  Students have more freedom than they have ever had before and some of them fail mi...

Recently, I had a short twitter conversation with a teacher about eliminating formal review days before tests.  I responded that I no longer give traditional unit tests, so I also no longer do traditional review days. Instead, I give a cumulative quiz once every 4-6 school days.  These quizzes are heavy on recently learned material and light on content that was taught longer ago.  I use a form of standards based grading, so I use my gradebook every week to decide which older topics my kids need extra help with.  Those become the items added to what would otherwise be a traditional quiz.  You can read more about how I implemented standards based grading if you like. Since I also use hybrid learning, I then work a review of the older topics into my stations.  During small group instruction, I check in with students about new material and we usually practice on individual whiteboards.  I mix in a few of the targeted review content as well....

One of my favorite resources is the  Mathematics Assessment Project .  These are scripted lessons, which at first was off-putting to me.  However, once I implemented a few lessons (with modifications as I saw fit), I accepted them as exemplary lessons.   While I don't always follow the script, I do believe that the lessons have been vetted and shown to be well thought out.  I like the script as a starting point and I like having a model to work with.  I especially like the common misconceptions and the suggested questions that could be posed to students. Here are two of the most recent lessons that I have used in my classroom. Defining lines by points, slopes, and equations My favorite part of many of these lessons is the collaborative section.  This lesson contains a matching activity where various information is missing from some of the pairs.  Students can more easily match the pairs with all the information given and then expand t...

Here are two more activities that I have tried in class recently. Linear Inequality TIC-TAC-TOE: I borrowed this activity from @MathBerts and adjusted the directions to make it work in my classroom.  Since I teach in a hybrid/station based classroom, students need to be able to complete their assignments without a teacher leading the activity.  Most of my students enjoyed the activity.  I had just one problem in that I had small groups of kids all using the same game board.  I would recommend possibly copying each board on a different color of paper to alleviate this issue. Domain and Range Go Fish: This activity is a real winner.  The kids LOVED it.  I can't explain it, but every time we play go fish, they go nuts (in a good, on task, highly engaged sort of way).  Shockingly, the first time we play Go Fish, I have to do a mini-lesson on how to play.  Kids can be so deprived these days :(  This activity really helped my...

We all know that it is important for students to understand content deeply and be able to apply what they have learned.  However, there is still a need for basic skill practice from time to time.  My students hate worksheets as much as I do, so I've tried to come up with some more creative ways to practice skills. Some of my favorite alternatives to worksheets are board games, color-by-numbers activities, and task cards.  Here are some examples that I have used recently. Angle Addition Board Game:   Directions and Questions    I put out the directions and the cards and allow students to choose one childhood board game.  Right now I have snakes and ladders, trouble, and candy land. Angle and Perpendicular Bisector Color-By-Numbers   I have collected some color by number images here that I pull from for these activities.  Then I just copy and paste some worksheet problems to create the activity. Area and Perimeter Task Cards ...

I tried this activity today.  The kids took turns being the reader and the drawers.  The reader read the the symbolic phrase using proper vocabulary then the drawers tried to sketch the described diagram.  The reader used the image on their card to check their teammates responses. I found this idea on Sandra Miller's blog . Here is a sample of the student work. The kids really seemed to enjoy it.  There was a lot of laughter and learning while solidifying their understanding of notation and vocabulary.  The kids finally started to see the importance of the differences in segments, rays, and lines.