Math Teacher Must Haves

Due to a previously mentioned grant my school received, I basically have free reign for supplies/resources for the math classroom. I obviously have no idea what I need. So here's what I currently have:

Rulers
Scissors
Protractors
Compasses
Markers
Crayons
Colored Pencils
Electric Pencil Sharpener
Graphing Calculators
Individual white boards
Tangrams
Pentaminoes
Document Camera
SMART Board
Projector
2 Printers (1 is color)
4 Student Computers (that we never use)
Kagan Timer
Geomirrors
Student Response System (Clickers)
1 Flip Video Camera

Basically I want supplies that are durable, sustainable, and reusable. But then again, I want to take advantage of the money while we can. Here are the ideas I've found/heard so far.

Classroom Laptops (Don't know how to use them)
Ipads (Have one, not really a fan, rather have laptops)
TI-Inspire and Navigator (scared of these!)
CBL/CBR data collection devices for the TI 83/84 (not sure how to use this)
Deluxe Probability Kit
Geometry Reproducibles (Book)
Folding Shapes: Solids and Nets
Geometric Solids (Are these the same as the above?)
Geoboards (Recommendations? What size do I need?)
Algebra Tiles (Recommendations?)
Easy Smartboard Teaching Templates (Book)

Any other ideas? Professional development is kind of iffy so for now I'm looking more for manipulatives, books, supplies, etc.

What should every math classroom have?

My Favorite Lesson of All Time!

I've never taught a unit on transformations before so I started from scratch. Wait, all my lessons are created from scratch. Just sometimes it's someone else's scratch. I digress. My unit only covered reflections, translations, and rotations and I discovered I suck at teaching rotations. But, my translation lesson went over really well and my reflection lesson was probably the my best lesson idea ever!

Here's what I did. In explicit detail. With bullets. Download PowerPoint here first.

• Using the questions posed [slide 1] have students answer and discuss. You should get some pretty interesting information. Sum up the discussion by telling students that most fashion models usually have very symmetric features. Also, a study was done using babies. Pictures were put up and babies tended to stare longer at the faces that were most symmetric, alluding to the fact that symmetric faces are more attractive to the eye.
  
• [Slide 2] names the objective. [Slide 3] Have students guess which face is the real one. The real face is always the one on top (this is for you to know and them to find out!). The bottom left is the left side of the face reflected and the bottom right is the right side of the face reflected. As you go through [slide 3] through [slide 9] discuss the similarities and differences. Ask students which pictures look realistic and which don’t. Point out birth marks, shadowing, eye shape, mouth shape, etc. Basically, make the conversation as interesting as possible.
  
• Now go to your internet browser. Ask the students to pick a celebrity famous for being attractive. Google their name to find a picture. The picture needs to be of them facing forward and preferably with both ears showing (which is harder if the person is female). Classroom management tip: You might want to do this ahead of time or where the students can’t see. You never know what type of picture might come up! Copy the url to the picture you’ve found. Then go to the website http://www.anaface.com. Paste the url into the box that says Enter Image URL. Click submit. Then place the dots as directed. Have the students help guide you. Then click next. The site will analyze your picture and talk about vertical and horizontal symmetry. This is a good place to introduce those as vocabulary terms as well as introducing a line of symmetry.
  
• [Slide 10] Put up your picture. Your face. I inserted a 10 x 10 table with a red border and no fill over my picture. Now we start talking about where the lines of horizontal and vertical symmetry would be. Ask the students how we decide if the eyes are symmetrical. What about the ears? We want to lead students to measuring the distance from each eyes to the line of symmetry and comparing the lengths.
  
• Before advancing to [slide 11], I had students guess what rating the site gave me. I had previously analyzed my own face and took a screenshot of the website. I put it on the slide to save class time. We want to the next slide and talked about the different aspects of symmetry. I used my own face so that no one else would be offended by the negative comments.
  
• Now pass out the notes worksheet. I picked celebrities that I knew my students liked. Please change any of these to pertain better to your class. Have students use a ruler to draw a straight vertical line. Then draw dots in the center of each eye. Use the centimeter side of the ruler to measure the distance from the left eye to the line. Then measure from the right eye to the line. Repeat for each celebrity. Students may get bored doing the same repeated action. If so, jump straight to the geomirror. Have students put the mirror part on the line of symmetry. Have them look at the left and the right side to see the difference in symmetry.
  
• Have the students do the back of the worksheet on their own, using the geomirror. For left-handed students, they will need to turn the paper upside down.
  
• To end beautifully (pun intended), have the students complete the exit slip [slide 12] on scrap paper. This brings us back to the beginning of our conversation.

OMG if the students did not eat this up!! During this whole unit, I heard students talk abut how math was actually fun now and they looked forward to this class and it went by so fast. It was encouraging to finally find something that they truly enjoyed.

And for the record, their exit slip answers brought out really good comments on what their opinion of beauty was. I shared ALL of them the next day with the whole class.

Students also loved the geomirrors and borrowed them throughout the day to use on their own pictures and yearbooks and so on. They wanted to use them every day!

Does It Work? Wednesday

I sent this as an e-mail to a group of teachers but I would also like to pose it to you my friends!

What do you know about College Preparatory Math?

I am the only algebra and geometry teacher at a small school and I am only in my second year of teaching. I have been creating my lessons every night on my own, loosely based on common core standards and the textbook. Except I hate textbooks. I am working with an instructional coach for the first time and so I feel like other parts of my teaching are improving and I'd like to improve my curriculum as well. I'm intrigued by CPM, College Preparatory Math, and I just have some questions that I would love to have answered by teachers that are using this curriculum already. Thank you in advance for answering any of these questions and any feedback at all is much appreciated!

• What were your first impressions with CPM and how have they changed over time?
• How complicated was CPM to implement?
• What changes did you see in your classroom dynamic and student behavior after starting CPM? What has the student response been to CPM?
• Is CPM recommended for a range of ability levels, from remedial  to gifted?
• Does it seem strange to you that CPM homework assignments are based on past concepts instead of current concepts? How does that work for you?
• When assessing, do your tests include questions from the lesson and the homework? Did you or do you implement team testing and individual tests?
• In your opinion, do students stay actively engaged? Is the material appropriately challenging?
• Do students learn to better think, problem solve, and reason?
• Do students take notes in addition to the work they do in class, as a team, with partners, or on their own?
• Have you seen an improvement in state/benchmark test scores in a single year or over time? (I hate to ask this but it is something my administration is very focused on this year and while I do not want to teach only 'to the test', I would be doing a disservice to my students to ignore it.)
• Are students learning and retaining information any more/better with CPM than with a previous curriculum?
• Overall, what do you think about CPM and what else do I need to know?

This, My Friend, Is Learning

I really do attribute the frustration I felt in my last post to the change in weather. I felt a lot better the next day. Also, I was put on another team. Yay another meeting! (insert pom poms and back flips). We've now started student support teams. I am on the freshman/sophomore team since I mostly teach underclassmen. It actually turned out to be the most productive team I've been on yet and we've only had one meeting.

We look at data to see which students have 5 or more absences and who are failing. Then, as a team made up of teachers, administrators, guidance counselor, coaches, and social worker, we brainstorm. We compare student behaviors in different classrooms and collaborate on ways to connect with the student, get them involved and engaged, and hopefully create some new positive experiences at school. I felt hopeful because we talked about some of the students I was so frustrated with previously.

I recommend you go back and read the comments from my last post. What I took from them is to focus on the positive and that will change my outlook which will influence the classroom culture. Also, I know that I have improved 100% in my teaching since last year and I am offering my students the very best of me.  It is their choice to learn. I will do my best to influence that choice while accepting that I can't make it for them. And when they are ready to learn, I will still be teaching at a 100% better level than before.

Another positive thing that I did was to have a discussion with the class that I dread the most. We talked about other teachers they like and learn from and what I gathered is that I need to do a better job of breaking things down step by step. I also need to give students more chances to do examples in front of me during class so I can correct and redirect. (I threw that in just to rhyme. My flow is getting rusty.)  I have not been assigning homework. We decided that if I assign 2-5 problems a day, I still will not letter grade them but I will check for completion. We will go over the problems in class so students can correct their mistakes. If you get 3 zero's which is basically 3 missing assignments, you get a written office referral. This is a rule that other teachers enforce which I'm not sure I was aware of, but that seems to work for the students. They agreed that the amount of problems was low enough that there really was no reason not to do it. And once again, the consistency monster roared it's head. They liked classes where the teacher did what they said they would do and enforced the rule at 3 missing assignments- no more, no less.

What I am learning from all of this productive frustration is that, I need these feelings. Enduring these feelings is helping me get to the place I need to be in order to really implement classroom management. It is helping me to distance myself from taking every hit personally. I can now be more objective and stay firm.

This is the way we are doing things. Each choice has a consequence. You decide. You live with the consequence. You suck it up and take it like a big kid.

If you don't like it, make another choice. If you do like it, then keep making the same choice.

This, my friend, is learning.

Every Day for the Rest of My Life?

Very frustrated.

I don't know why this is getting to me so bad today, but it just is.

What do you do with kids that just do not care and will not try and only put forth the smallest amount of work possible?

We've been doing some partner work on a slope worksheet that I stole borrowed from Mimi. It's a great activity and the kids handled it pretty well. For the most part. But I had a few in each class that just copied off their partners and have no idea how to do any part of it. They don't care, they just want to be done. But I explained to them, I don't grade classwork. What is the point in copying? I told them if they plan on copying to just save their ink and do nothing because it's pointless. I explained that what we do in class is practice for the test.  I told them they can choose to do nothing but the consequence to doing nothing is a bad grade. And they stare at me.

I keep thinking that once they start failing, they will wake up and realize that they have to put forth some effort. But alas, it is not the case! They are okay with failing as long as they don't have to do anything. I don't know how to deal with this. How do I teach the rest of the class knowing these few are falling farther and farther and behind. How do I look them in the eye when I know they are not learning and I am not doing anything about it? I am supposed to care. I am supposed to remediate. I am supposed to engage them. I am supposed to create individualized interventions. But what is the point if they aren't going to do anything? Is this a classroom management problem that I am not handling correctly? That is totally possible so you can tell me if that's true.

I thought not grading class work and homework would help but I don't think it has. I don't really give homework, I never have, I just can't rationalize it in my head. But if we assess what we value, am I implying class work and homework are not important?

How am I supposed to do this every day for the rest of my life? How do I face these students that are failing? And I am letting them. And then we are supposed to do RTI interventions and I am thinking, I cannot possibly face these students a minute more than I already do. If they aren't learning in my class, maybe I am the problem? But in a small school, there really is no other options.

I do not want to lesson plan. I do not want to spend every night thinking of creative ideas and activities that they are not going to care about. I do not want to rearrange my room and put tape on the floor and set up fun stations and play games and so on when it makes no difference. THEY WON'T CARE ANYWAY.

And a few of these kids are so far behind that I just no there is no way to catch them up. I can't do it and stay alive. How can we go back and teach so much and still move forward?

Again, I don't know why I am so irritated today but I just can't shake it. I took a nap, watched tv, ate dinner, ate chocolate...and it still is just weighing on me.

Is this a frustration I have to learn to live with?