Mathsational

This year I've taken on the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to post one tweet per day showing a glimpse inside your classroom.  I'm also putting the tweets together in a biweekly blog so that I can share the resources that I'm tweeting about. Day 151:  Today we had another one of our weekly cumulative quizzes. Weekly quiz day #teach180 pic.twitter.com/viDHPLYafg — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) April 26, 2017 Day 152:  Today in geometry we practiced finding the measure of inscribed angles (and angles formed by a tangent and a chord) as well as their intercepted arcs.  We did this with a game of BOOM!   Here are the cards if you'd like to use them.  I got the idea from this TpT page.  The BOOM cards come from Rachel Lynette . Today in #geomchat we practiced using inscribed angles & intercepted arcs with a game of BOOM. Thanks @RachelLynette for the idea #teach180 pic.twitter.com/XhSY92jbvA — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennif...

This year I've taken on the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to post one tweet per day showing a glimpse inside your classroom.  I'm also putting the tweets together in a biweekly blog so that I can share the resources that I'm tweeting about. Day 131: Today we had our weekly cumulative standards based quiz. Quizzes today #teach180 pic.twitter.com/2BQHXBMDWw — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) March 27, 2017 Day 132:  Today in algebra 2 we practiced finding inverses graphically with Mishaal Surti's Desmos assignment.  For whatever reason, my kids understood this much better this year.  I give credit to to awesomeness of visualizing with Desmos. Today in #alg2chat we practiced finding the inverse of a function graphically. We used @MrSurti 's @Desmos activity #teach180 #MTBoS pic.twitter.com/dSuyN4LaGF — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) March 28, 2017 Day 133:  Today in geometry, we used Khan Academy to practice finding the area of com...

This year I've taken on the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to post one tweet per day showing a glimpse inside your classroom.  I'm also putting the tweets together in a biweekly blog so that I can share the resources that I'm tweeting about. Day 111:  Today was another one of our weekly quizzes. Testing today #teach180 . Just saw one kid do a fist pump, so it must be going well :) pic.twitter.com/IKFbB6q1pt — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) February 23, 2017 Day 112:  Today my geometry students finished up their transformations project using  +OZOBOT s.  The kids cheered as the bots successfully completed their courses :) Wrapping up our #geometrychat @OZOBOT transformations project today #teach180 . Thanks to MTEF @ManheimTownship pic.twitter.com/FqHEjt4yH5 — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) February 24, 2017 Day 113:  Today my algebra 2 classes used ExploreLearning's Gizmo to practice graphing and writing equations of circl...

This year I've taken on the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to post one tweet per day showing a glimpse inside your classroom.  I'm also putting the tweets together in a biweekly blog so that I can share the resources that I'm tweeting about. Day 71:  Today was another quiz day.  There is sooo much grading to do at once when you choose to quiz all classes on the same day each week. Week 13 quiz today #teach180 pic.twitter.com/EzlgyBs60o — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) December 15, 2016 Day 72:  Today in geometry, we reviewed lines in slope-intercept form using ExploreLearning's Gizmo.  This is in preparation for working with the equations of parallel and perpendicular lines while reviewing for our midterm. Today in #GeometryChat we reviewed slope-intercept form of line with @ExploreLearning #teach180 pic.twitter.com/bdt6B9ltJF — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) December 16, 2016 Day 73:  Today in algebra 2, we played +Desmo...

This year I've taken on the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to post one tweet per day showing a glimpse inside your classroom.  I'm also putting the tweets together in a biweekly blog so that I can share the resources that I'm tweeting about. Day 61:  Today was a quiz day.  I give cumulative quizzes on each fifth day of class.  However, next week I'll be skipping the cumulative quiz in favor of a benchmark test to help my students prepare for midterms. Today is another fun filled quizzing/grading day #teach180 pic.twitter.com/MfiPBgM3ph — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) December 1, 2016 Day 62:   Today in geometry, we practiced using properties of parallelograms with a chain activity.   Here is a link to the activity if you'd like to give it a try.  I wrote about this type of activity here if you want more info. In #geometrychat : properties of parallelograms with a "chain" activity (the answer to each question tells which Q to...

This year I've taken the #teach180 twitter challenge.  The goal is to tweet one picture from your classroom each day.  I'm also blogging bi-weekly about those tweets/activities. Day 41:  Today was a quiz day.  I give cumulative quizzes on every 5th day of class as part of standards based grading/teaching/learning.  This response made me particularly happy.  I learned about CPM's Giant 1 a few weeks ago.  I used it this year to teach simplifying radical expressions and students picked up the idea faster than ever! So close. Glad I learned about the CPM great big giant 1. #teach180 #alg2chat pic.twitter.com/oHFfY2OBrI — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) October 27, 2016 Day 42:  Today in geometry we practiced triangle proofs again.  This will probably be never ending with  frequent revisits all semester.  Proofs are something that my students find 1) boring and 2) difficult.  Any one with solutions to those problems, I'm ...

This year I've taken the #teach180 challenge.  The challenge is to tweet at least one picture from your classroom each day of class.  I'm also putting those tweets together into blog posts every other week and adding links to resources so that others can use and modify the activities if they like.  This has been a great experience so far.  It has given me the chance to reflect on my work more frequently. Day 31:  Today my algebra 2 students practiced factoring by grouping by solving a tarsia puzzle.  I wrote about tarsia puzzles here and here is a link to the activity.  You will need to download the tarsia software before opening the document. Today in #alg2chat we practiced factoring by grouping with a tarsia puzzle #teach180 pic.twitter.com/aNxDUlUunw — Jennifer Abel (@abel_jennifer) October 14, 2016 Day 32:  Algebra 2 students practiced factoring trinomials in quadratic from today though a color by number activity.  I wrote abo...

I try to use technology both to make my classroom job easier and to engage students. I use technology in my daily presentations via Doceri.  It is one of the few paid resources that I use.  I wrote about it here .  The main way that I use Doceri is as an interactive whiteboard and as a document camera in conjunction with Reflector .  I also use Doceri to create instructional (flipped style) videos for my independent station. Another resource that I like is puzzle makers.  I like to create these activities in Tarsia.   Tarsia  is a free resource that I wrote about before. The main ways that my students use technology is through my LMS of choice, Schoology and for self paced instruction via EDpuzzle .  Schoology is just the resource that I use to post assignments and resources.  EDpuzzle allows you to assign video lessons to students and receive feedback through embedded questions. I also like to use DESMOS and Gizmos .  DE...

I need to admit that I got behind in Desmos world.  I noticed all the posts about activity builder on Twitter in the past year or so, but I did not choose to get involved.  Then I saw the announcements of polygraph and marble slides.  That did not get me to jump in either.  Maybe it was because I was reading much of this during the school year and I was too busy with 3 new preps to try to keep up with Desmos.  Fast forward to a little over a month ago when I saw tweets about card sorts on Desmos.  Now that got my attention.  I bought in within seconds.  I even created nearly a dozen lesson seeds for the upcoming year.  Now I LOVE Desmos.  In fact, whenever I plan an activity in the future, I'll probably ask would the assignment benefit from being Desmosfied?  Some things are better on paper and will remain that way, but I'm looking forward to turning some of my assignments into activity builders. I anticipate that kids will r...

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 ...

(Since posting originally posting this, Meg made me a star!) I often have preservice teachers visit my classroom.  I’ve worked with college freshmen experiencing their first time in the classroom as an educator and student teachers during their final semester of college as well as everywhere in between. I always feel like I can always do a better job helping these students transition into their professional lives.  Spending some time now thinking of my top tips for new teachers will hopefully prepare me to be a better mentor. Here is my list: 1:  Do whatever you can to keep a work life balance.  This is different for everyone.  I personally like to take my college classes over the summer because I enjoy sleeping 8 hours per night during the school year.  I know even more teachers that prefer to keep those 8 weeks of summer completely free of school related work to recharge.  You have to decide what is best for you.  ...