New Year Procedures

I didn't really make any new year's resolutions this year but over the break, I did find a couple new procedures that I implemented at the beginning of our second semester.

I borrowed this idea from Dan Greene at The Exponential Curve. He called it the Readiness Checker. Students get a stamp/sticker for each day that they are prepared at the beginning of class. After 9 stamps, the readiness checker magically turns into a no homework pass. I made my own Magical Homework Pass that has 4 on a page. When students get all their stamps, they cut the grid off, write their name on it, and staple it to the homework that they don't want to do. At the bottom of each grid shows a picture of what I want them to have: a pencil, their homework or current packet, a calculator, and seated at their desk. If I want them to have anything else (i.e. ruler, marker, whiteboard, etc) I throw up a PowerPoint slide that tells them what to get. I mainly did this as a way to get students to bring a pencil to class because I decided to quit giving mine out to the same students day after day. It is also a nice way to get things started. I've been using it for two weeks now and it is a far from flawless process but all the students have been willing to do it and enjoy the anticipation of that sweet no homework pass. And they DO NOT let me forget or skip them!

The next idea came from the book Conscious Classroom Management by Rick  Smith. It is a homework tracker chart that is a visual of who is doing their homework. (I also downloaded the font A Bite which looks much cooler than what you will download. Sorry.) This is mainly beneficial for when parents or administrators come in. I have my own chart that I use to check the students homework for points. Then I transfer that to the homework tracker by writing a C for Complete, an I for Incomplete, and a 0 if they turned in nothing. I admit I am behind on updating the tracker chart and so far I would estimate this has had zero effect on the students. But I am thinking that by the time March P/T conferences comes around, it will be nice to refer to. Do you think it is embarrassing for students to be able to see other students' business? Or is it motivating? I made my own charts because I didn't want to buy those huge pre-made posters that are seen in elementary.

This is the chart I mentioned above that I use to check homework for points. Someone sent me a template similar to this before I started my first year teaching (sorry to the nice lady whom I can't remember!) and I've tweaked it to fit me, like using my favorite colors. I have students in alphabetical order by last name and the number in parentheses is the number of students in the class for that period. I have a points possible row up top so I remember what the homework is out of. For days that we don't have homework, I write none so that I know I didn't just forget to check. I only check homework for completion so while I am circulating the room for stamp fest, I carry my clipboard and write how many problems the student did out of the total possible. Then when I am done checking, I show the answers to the homework and work the ones students have questions on. It also updates the date on it's own. Pretty nifty Excel formula I dare say.

For those of you who have been keeping up with me along the way, maybe you'll remember that I am not a big fan of homework. And now I'm creating homework charts left and right. What happened? I tried a unit from the CPM curriculum and found that each lesson had homework from previous lessons that were basically review problems. Kind of like Saxon I suppose. The last couple weeks before break, I assigned these problems as homework to students. I didn't put any grades in the grade book but I went around with my clipboard just the same, checking for completion. The students didn't rebel against me because the homework was (hopefully) previously mastered material. If not mastered, at least familiar. At the beginning of this semester, I told them that was practice for a new procedure. Homework is now worth 10% of their grade (school caps the percentage at 10%) and thus the enticement of the magical homework pass. I've now went back to designing my own lessons and trying to create homework problems that are similar to what we do in class so that students feel like homework is a continuation of practicing what we did in class as opposed to alien territory. I don't know if this is correct or whatever but now I know my students are practicing or at least thinking about math a bit more than they were. The amount of problems I've given range between 2 and 8. Mostly hovering around 4. If I were estimating percentages (since I left my papers at school and can't accurately calculate), I'd say I've had about 80% of students turning in their homework every time. Pretty good for the first two weeks.

And the last thing I have to add about homework: I feel like most of our class time is devoted to students working in teams to figure things out, learn new concepts, and make connections. Although I always try to incorporate time for independent practice, I feel okay about giving homework because I feel like it is an extension of that. If they spend time together 'making discoveries', it seems logical that they can independently practice what they now know to be true.

And now for the last thing I have to add about anything: I wanted to share my lesson plan template. We, as a school, have been shifting to using the 5 step  lesson plan:  Clear learning target (aligned as always), Activating Prior Knowledge, New Learning, Practice (both guided and independent), and Summary (for retention). Being the fan that I am of OCD, tables, and all things turquoise, I created my own template.

Happy New Semester!

My Favorite Way To Teach

Break your students up into teams of 4. (It's recommended that you have one high ability, two medium, and one low)

Give each group a piece of construction paper: red, blue, yellow, or green. Have one student tape it to the edge of the desk.

Have each student within the teams pick a color: red, blue, yellow, or green.

Give students a handout of problems.

Pick a problem, not #1, to start with. That way students can't jump ahead because they never know what problem you will call out next. (Crafty, I know.) Or else they will jump ahead and do the entire worksheet. Ah, can't stop the overachiever. Give students one minute, no talking, to attempt the problem on their own.

Then, tell them to talk it over with group. Get an answer and an explanation. Circulate the room and make sure each person in each group can explain how to solve the problem.

Now...bring in the big guns:

Click go. The timer randomly chooses a color aka the team. Click go again. The timer randomly chooses a color aka the team member. The team member now stands, addresses the class, and explains how to get the correct answer.

The end.

Advantages

1. Giving students one minute to start on their own gives their brains time to warm up and start thinking. 
2. You already know the benefits of team work. 
3. Giving each team member a color and then randomly choosing who explains is the best part. It's not a personal attack, it's random. It's not focusing on Johnny or Suzie but on the blue team member. They have a team to rely on help and explanation, so they aren't left hanging.
4. Accountability exists. No one knows when they will be randomly chosen to 'teach' the class and (almost) no one wants to risk looking stupid in front of their friends. So a little intrinsic motivation to learn.
5. Students teach other. They come up with better ways to explain, they come up with more than one way to explain, and they are just more willing to hear each other. 
6. They feel like they are doing less work because they are in groups and have some freedom to talk. Except they are doing more work, and in my case, harder work.
7. Time goes by faster. For them and you.
8. Your job becomes checker and correcter vs. lecturer.
9. They are discussing math. They are participating, they are asking questions, they are making connections. Instead of you giving them the bridge to walk on, they are building it piece by piece. (I made that up myself)
10. It is MUCH easier to plan. And impressive to your superiors.

Disadvantages

1. Your chairs might get out of order. I mean, for those of you who may be anal about that sort of thing...

SBG #Fail

Today I gave up on SBG.

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!