Week 3: #mtboschallenge -- 3-2-1 Sunday Summary

I really want to try one of the Saturday prompts, but usually don't remember them until Sunday and I don't have many pictures of my classroom for this week. So hear is my Sunday Summary.

3 -- Day Weekend
Happy Labor Day! I can't believe how necessary this respite is after so little time back. I had actually been at school for 12 straight days before yesterday's day off. I was helping with LINK Crew and freshmen orientation, then our in-service days, then setting up the classroom over the weekend, then the first week of school. In previous years, we started with students on Wednesday and then had a three day weekend right off the bat; that always felt silly. This year, we started with students on Monday. A three day weekend is just what the doctor ordered.

2 -- Weeks Until My Baby Girl is Due
Monday was the first day of school and Tuesday my wife was 37 weeks pregnant (full term). I already had a lot of nerves and anxious excitement for getting back to school, but the nervous feelings skyrocketed on Tuesday when I realized that officially it could be any day now. There haven't been any signs of movement, so I think we still have some time (due on the 16th).

The strange thing is that I'm not even worried about being a dad. I've pretty much accepted that I'm going to learn on the job and get pooped on a lot. Plus, I'm good friends with the guy that did this (Parents name their twins Ghostface and Raekwon in tribute to rap group), so I don't feel the bar is impossibly high.

(They're pretty cute kids though, and he's actually an awesome dad.) I am most worried about leaving my classroom for two weeks. I am still trying to establish the climate in the classroom and get students to trust me, and I just don't trust my class to subs.

1 -- #amazeballs Goldmine
@druinok and @gwaddellnvhs conspired to share their folder of AP Stats resources with me. I have been following their blogs (http://blog.mrwaddell.net/, http://statteacher.blogspot.com/) and twitter feeds and been quite impressed with their work. I have also been impressed with their generosity and willingness to help. I have stolen things from them one piece at a time, and I am very excited to see what they have in store for me, I just need to clear dropbox space.

180 Blog: Day 5

First week is in the books and I am very pleased with how the week went. Today was rather eye opening. I was chatting with a fellow math teacher after school today in my classroom, when a student came in and asked if she could sit at one of the desks while she waited for her mom. Of course this was OK. The student is in the other teacher's class so they started chatting. The student told us about all the health problems that she has had, all the school that she has had to miss, and how teachers at the school have been very uncooperative. The student has had medical complications and multiple surgeries in her life. She missed all but 5 days of her freshman year and most of 8th grade as well. She was on Home and Hospital and worked with a tutor during that time. She said she emailed her teachers while on Home and Hospital and she couldn't get a response. It made me realize that some of these kids are dealing with issues that would cripple many of us adults. It's not enough to teach our subject, we have to teach each student. It is hard, but we have to place the person first.

No picture today. What can I say, I'm a (forgetful) rebel.

AP Stats
We did JellyBlubbers today. I didn't anticipate how long it would take to show students how to use the random number generator and random number table so we ran out of time with the stratified and clustered samples. We'll finish it up on Tuesday. This actually works out pretty well for me since I forgot the value of the population parameter. I can't find the digital copies of the material that I use so I'll try to remember to scan the materials on Tuesday. It's a nice activity to show the different sampling strategies.

A student told me that today is the 30th anniversary of Ghostbusters and that she and her friends are dressing up as Ghostbusters and going to see the movie. What a cool kid.

Algebra II
We went over properties of exponents.Nothing special here but I did see an A-ha look in a student's eye when talking about negative exponents. That was a first for me. I started with
x^2*x^3 = xxxxx = x^(2+3)
then
x^3/x^2 = xxx/xx = x^(3-2)
then
x^2/x^3 = xx/xxx = 1/x
x^2/x^3 = x^(2-3) = x^-1


Algebra I
Yesterday, I called home on two students who aced the quiz and left a message telling their parents home awesome they were. I heard the two students talking about it today. The messages I left were super awkward. I am absolutely terrible on the phone in general, and even worse with parents but I'm glad I did it.

The student that I pulled out of class to talk to on the first day is getting much more involved in class. He's been up to the board several times, raised his hand to answer questions, and today, even smiled!

The student who got suspended on the second day of class returned. It's definitely going to be tough getting him on track but we had a good day today. We talked. He was respectful and compliant, though he struggle with he classwork. Got to play the long game.

180 Blog: Day 4

My principal cracked me up today. He's a pretty frank and dry person so I have no idea if any of this was intentional, but I certainly enjoyed it. He sent out an email trying to organize the bell schedule committee for this year. I asked if it was possible to discuss changing the start time (We start at 7:50) since the American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended later start times for high school students. (Also, I don't want to keep waking up at 5:45). Here is his reply:

Excellent response.

Later in the day he sent an email about some PD.

Good to know it won't be a problem.

Algebra I &II
We took our first quick quiz today. It's a weekly five question quiz that students are allowed to retake on Mondays after school. I like them. It's a new thing for most students and I hope they take advantage of it.

AP Stats
We did the Frog Census from @druinok. My students couldn't count the g's correctly either. Tomorrow we're doing Jelly Blubbers. I'll try to post the Jelly Blubbers sheets tomorrow. Students liked doing it last year because they got to actually experience the different types of sampling techniques.

One of my Stat students from last year came in after school today. She is a senior and currently taking Pre-Calc. They are working on symmetry of equations and she was having a rough go of it. I showed her Desmos to help her connect the algebraic work to the graphical representation. She definitely left feeling better and said she'll probably see me again tomorrow. The part that I am most proud of is not that I was able to help her (that's my job, after all), but that she trusts me enough to come ask for help even though "I'm not her teacher anymore."

I'm really looking forward to the weekend. I'm enjoying writing about my teaching but it's cutting into my reading about others' great teaching.

180 Blog: Day 3

I've stolen so much stuff (teaching ideas) lately and today I felt like I put it together to make it mine. Hat tip to @mathymeg07 and @MrHonner for help on HW questions.

AP Stats
I tried @gwaddellnvhs sciencedaily.com idea. Students read an article and identified the W's. The conversation was a bit better today. I'm working my butt of on Stats, but I think I need to get out of their way and see what they give me.


Algebra II
I tried out my new procedure for homework questions and it went over pretty well. The idea is students circle the problems that they have questions on in red pen, then, as I stamp HW, I can take a picture of the problem and discuss it as a class. Today was the first day introducing it to the students so the timing was off, and there was a big lag between the end of Estimation 180 and the end of stamping HW. As I was stamping, I noticed that in the first 8 students, there were 7 different answers. In a quick attempt to occupy the students, I told them to talk to their group members and come up with a group solution. They talked to each other about the problem and figured out many of their mistakes. The part that really struck me was that they didn't stop at the first problem. They talked about all the problems! They asked each other questions, they helped each other solve problems. By the time I posted the first HW question, the person who made the mistake shot her hand up and corrected her work. Another student not only identified the error, but also identified the thinking that lead to the error. Here is the work, can you spot it and tell what the student was thinking?

They multiplied 2 times 3 thinking that they were simplifying parentheses rather than doing the exponentiation first. In fact, as I look at it again they also made a mistake with their subtraction. Hmm...

I used the Google Drive app on my phone and I downloaded the Google App on my computer. I could take the picture with my phone and it was waiting for me when I got to the computer. It was pretty slick.

Algebra I
Their HW was to classify some numbers. I had students trade papers with their partner. I put three sections on the board for agree, disagree, not sure, and I then called on students to put their partner's number on the board. We had a good discussion on the square root of 3. They plugged it in their calculators and they got 1.732050808. It stopped and repeated. I turned to the higher power of Wolfram Alpha. I think it got the point across.

180 Blog: Day 2

I did the syllabi today in all my classes. I put it off yesterday because I didn't want to bore the students, but man, did I make up for that today.

This year, the department got together and decided that we would allow students to retake chapter tests in Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. In the past, department "policy" was against retakes. I put "policy" in quotes because we would say that we didn't do retakes and apparently, individual teachers would do them anyway. I didn't allow retakes, except for two cases in AP Stats, because I was trying to abide by policy even though I disagreed. I was stunned when the overwhelming majority of the department not only voiced their support of retakes, but said they already did it. We're only allowing students below 75% to get back up to 75%. I would like to switch to standards based grading and allow retakes for full credit, but I'm happy that we are moving to a focus on the learning and communicating about our practice.

My wife is 37 weeks pregnant today, which is officially considered full term. I am planning to take two weeks off to be home with my wife and the baby when she is born, but I am no where close to feeling comfortable enough to leave my classes. The baby's not due until the 16th and first babies tend to be late (I hear. Bad stat teacher, no data to support claim.), but the idea of full term hit me like a ton of bricks.

AP Stats
We're using BVD. Students read Chapter 1 last night and I reinforced Think-Show-Tell by showing a music video from last year's students. It is pretty amazing, but I don't feel comfortable linking it here. It's Van Halen's "Jump" with lyrics "Might as well Think/Show/Might as well Tell". I tried to steal @gwaddlenvhs (How do you make twitter handles possessive?)  www.sciencedaily.com activity but I ran out of time. We have had two hour block periods for at least three years, but have just switched to a regular 6 period day -- my timing is way off.

Algebra II
I introduced them to Estimation 180 as suggested by @StrangeKathleen. I had a lot of fun with it, especially since I am taller than Mr. Stadel. We did Sidewalk Patterns from mathshell. Timing was all screwed up and we'll have to finish tomorrow.

(Not very interesting photo. I feel weird taking pictures during class)

Algebra I
Timing was screwed up again. Didn't get through all that I wanted to. One of my students was already suspended for two days for ...(drum roll, please)... cutting class! I don't get it.

180 Blog: Day 1

I fully intend to fail at maintaining this 180 blog, however, today is not my day of defeat. Today was Opening Day, and I was just as excited for school as I would be for the SF Giants home opener. I had a big ol' goofy grin on my face as I drove to work until I turned down the street to get to school. I was nervous, I was nauseous, but there was no turning back. I had a flash of panic when I saw all the cars in the parking lot and thought "Oh, crap! Did I miss daylight savings!?!" What a ridiculous thought, but our parking lot is never that full that early. I managed to compose myself and had a pretty great day. And now to the highlights...

AP Stats
We did the Hiring Discrimination activity from TPS. The students executed the simulation well and talked it over with each other, but I was pretty disappointed with the class conversation. I think that I am too eager to respond to students' comments and so I take up too much of the conversational space, even though I am trying not to. I also didn't do a good job of eavesdropping on the groups' discussions so I could say "I overheard such and such" or "Jimmy had a really good point." I do use equity cards to call on students but I don't use them frequently enough. Hey, maybe that can be a focus this year. The other issue is that I have the type of desk with chairs attached and they are arranged in groups of four. That means that many people have their backs to each other and that may restrict whole class conversation. I'd really like to have desks with detached chairs. I don't know if that would make it any better, but I'd like them.

Here's the dotplot that the class produced. Their homework is to write up the results. We will go over it and I will introduce them to the 4 pt. FRAPPY scale.

Hat tip to @gwaddellnvhs and @druinok for ideas and resources.

Algebra II
This was the most engaged day of Algebra II I've ever had. We did the Wolf, the Goat, and the Cabbage problem and the Mutilated Chessboard problem. They talked well. They stopped talking well. I love the wrong answers they came up with; throw the cabbage across, knock out the goat and the wolf, throw the cabbage in the river. Good stuff.

I have three students in my Algebra II that I have been trying to keep an eye on for the last couple of years. Now they are in my classroom everyday! Good luck keeping a low profile.

Algebra I
I did the same activity in Algebra I as I did in Algebra II. I would say it went well, but not as well as Algebra II. It was hard to keep some students on task or motivated when their first idea didn't work. I forgot how challenging Algebra I can be. I haven't taught it since my fist year (currently working on year four).

A junior in my class was sitting slumped down in his chair not doing anything. I went by his desk a couple of times and prompted him to get started and asked him questions about the problem. The third time I asked to talk to him outside and he complied. We talked a little bit about his history with Algebra. He said he knows the stuff but didn't like his teacher last year. I told him that if he knows the stuff, then he won't have any problem with me this year. I asked him to trust me and to give me a chance. He agreed, we shook hands. He still didn't get much done, but his posture changed. I hope I can make a connection, but it may be too little, too late since he's a junior in Algebra I and in serious danger of not graduating.

I really should have had manipulatives for the Mutilated Chessboard problem.


You can find any and all day one materials here.

Week 2: #mtboschallenge -- 3-2-1 Summary

Hello, world! This is my very first entry into the blog-o-sphere, so I hope you forgive my lack of polish. Tomorrow is my first day back to school with students. I am very excited to see the familiar faces and to meet the new ones.

3 -- The Hour That I woke Up Last Night

There was a 6.1 earthquake in Napa which is about 30 miles from where I live. My wife, the cat and I are fine. The dog was totally freaked out. The only real damage was the booster rocket on my Lego spaceship was damaged. Launch was delayed. Repairs were made. Situation normal.

2 -- Days of Meetings

I think I am fairly lucky that we didn't have to endure in-service training, but we did have exhausting PLC meetings. I told my wife "After the last couple weeks of meetings, I am done with adults and ready for kids." I was shocked and horrified a few seconds later when I realized that what felt like a couple of weeks was only a couple of days.

1 -- Stack of Summer Reading

I read a lot this summer.

1-- Great Year

I am totally cheating because this is my first post so I can claim I don't know the rules (I actually don't know the rules).

My wife put this on my back board for me. She is amazing and continually surprises me. This was supposed to be where my quote of the week will go, but it will be tough to erase that. It's going to be an awesome year.