Today my Grade 10 Essential Math class was introduced to their unit project to conclude their unit on Measurement Systems.
If you can remember back to my previous posts, they created board games as their unit project in their last unit on Personal Finance.
Here is what they were tasked with today:
- Time For A Change -
The United
States is the only leading nation not using the metric system,
despite
doing business with metric countries thousands of times a day.
Your
mission is to create a persuasive Public Service Announcement (P.S.A)
designed
to convince the United States to convert to the metric system.
Your
P.S.A can be in the form of a(n):
- Recorded Podcast
-
Filmed or Performed Commercial
- Filmed
or Performed News Interview
-
Informational Video
-
Series of Poster Ads
-
Newspaper/Magazine Article
-
Multi-Media Ad Campaign (shorter video, poster, shorter article)
_____________________________________________
(If you'd like a copy of the full assignment with specifications and assessment rubrics, just leave a comment below, I'd be happy to send one your way!)
I am really excited to see what my students come up with!
I only see my Grade 9 math class 3 days a week... Now, I will note that although this is a high-school class, it is not broken into semesters and I will see them all year long. The problem, however, is that these 3 days are back-to-back Monday to Wednesday. This means that my students do not have math for almost 5 full days with the way our class times are laid out.
Furthermore, our school functions on a 5-day cycle which means that anytime there is a holiday on a Monday, I only see my students 2 days a week. To put this in perspective, we have a potential of 38 school days in the months of September & October. If there was no holidays, extra-curriculars, etc, we would potentially have 24 math class. The way our holiday & extra-curricular schedule has worked out, however, we will only have 19 classes (3 of these have less than 1/2 the students in attendance due to other extra-curriculars).
Now I realize that 5 missed classes may not seem like a lot but when there is such a long time-gap between math classes, I find that I am spending a lot of time re-teaching information when students return because they have forgotten. To make it even more scary, I only see my math class FOUR times between now and November 18th when report cards go home.....
What can I do? This scheduling set-up makes me nervous for the year to come.
After a 9 day hiatus I am finally back in the blogging world.
Trust me, it is not for a lack of writing topics... the opposite actually.
Since I last posted my life has been a whirlwind of activities:
- In-school meetings
- Supervising student council dances
- Driving 3 hours to watch our football team play their first play-off game
- Driving an additional 3 hours to attend a PD session
....
....
....
Oh ya... all of those were on the same day actually (but trust me, the remaining days were just as busy. On top of that, our home internet went on the fritz!
This weeks started our back-to-back short weeks as Monday of this week was Thanksgiving and this upcoming Friday is our provincial professional development day, S.A.G.E. This week seemed to go by very quickly even though I didn't actually teach that much. Most of my classes are nearing the end of their units and I had 2 classes write their unit tests on Friday. Two things that I think went really well this week are:
1 ) Introducing Formal Lab Reports in Science
- We have been working with the Scientific Method since the beginning of'
the school year and we have practiced a few different methods of
"Communicating our Results". We've had sharing circles, made posters,
completed blog posts, and made presentations in class. This week,
however, I wanted to introduce formal written lab reports with my students.
- On Wednesday we completed a very simple diffusion experiment as a large
group. I purposefully chose a simple experiment so that my students could
focus on the details of a written report and get used to the format.
- On Friday we began discussing how a lab report is organized and
brainstormed the details that should be included in it. This week I would like
to complete our rough drafts and eventually get them typed.
2 ) Incorporating a Solid Routine for my Special Needs Students
- I have two students in my classroom that are involved at an adapted level
in Science class but are on a completely different program for math (at
about a Grade 1 level). I try to have them work on their program in the
classroom as much as possible but there are times where my teaching is
just too much of a distraction for them and the EA takes them out to a
quiet space.
- While I realize that this is necessary for them at times, I want to have them
included as much as possible. This week my EA and I worked together
to develop a math routine for them that closely mirrors our class routine in
math. When we complete mental math at the start of each class they
complete calendar time. I really like this set-up because this allows them to
stay in the classroom with their peers for the start of each class. From there
they either stay in the room or step out depending on how much classroom
discussion and louder activities we are doing.
- I am really happy with the way this has been going and they seem to be
responding positively to it as well.
Week 6 Update:
Last week I shared that I wanted to work on differentiating instruction for my Grade 9 math class. The way this week played out, however, didn't really allow for me to work effectively towards this goal. Monday was a holiday and Tuesday I was attending in-school IEP meetings all day so there was a substitute in my class. Since we only have math Monday-Wednesday, this didn't allow me to work that much on this goal . As such, I am keeping this goal for an additional week. I am also getting evaluated again (this time in Grade 9 math) so it will be good timing to try some new activities
One of our school goals is to build in classroom spirit activities/routines for our students as a way to help foster school spirit and classroom community. One activity that I came up with for our class is #FunShirtFriday that I've seen on Twitter.
Every Friday, I encourage my students to wear a "fun shirt" to school. Over the summer I found a lot of funny and interesting shirts online related to math, science, art, and teaching in general so I was pretty excited to share these with my students.
To take this spirit activity one step further, we have begun charting our class #FunShirtFriday participation using a bar graph. Our final math unit of the year is Statistics & Probability so I plan on creating a project out of the data that we'll collect throughout the year!
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Today both my Grade 8 and Grade 10 math classes had unit tests. Of course, this shirt had to make an appearance.
We're at that point where the majority of my classes are finishing up their first units and preparing to move on. As such, I wanted to share some of my favourite projects and activities from some of my classes.
Grade 8 Art
Our first project in Art this year was a Famous Artist Research Mobile. Students picked an artist of their choice, created mobile using their pieces of art, and included artist bio's and references on the back.
These are now laminated and permanent fixtures in my room!
Grade 8 Science
In Science we explored cells and systems and did an interesting comparison between the Cell Theory and the Aboriginal Medicine Wheel. While the Cell Theory breaks down life into microscopic calls, the Medicine Wheel breaks down life into four central components. We created two illustrations to compare these two perspectives.
Grade 10 Math
My Grade 10s have been working on board games as their unit project for Personal Finance. They were asked to create a board game that could be used to review the skills related to personal finance, types of wages, payroll deductions, and income equations. I completely forgot to get pics before some of them got taken home but here are the ones I got today!
Movie World
- How to Train Your Dragon, Finding Nemo, Despicable Me, Spiderman -
Lunch hour... in any other profession I've been involved in this meant that I left the premises (or at least moved to a cafeteria/staff room), ran personal errands up town, went to the gym, relaxed and enjoyed my food, etc.
Lunch hour... in the teaching profession, however, is a somewhat less-structured continuation of the rest of your day. As soon as that 12:00pm bell rings you are:
- Supervising extra-curricular activities
- Providing extra support for students who need to catch up
- Meeting with colleagues or admin
- Holding meetings with students
- Making phone calls home
- Photo-copying
- Preparing for your afternoon's class
This list goes on... and on... and ON... before you even factor going to the bathroom... not to mention actually eating anything that resembles a full lunch.
Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my job and this is the first time in my life where I don't consider my job to be work. There can be days, however, where I notice my patience lessening, I notice my frustration growing, and I feel tired thinking about the next set of 25 students that will come through my door.
This is when, I as a professional, need to shut the door to my room. I need to dim my lights, turn on the radio, and actually sit and enjoy a meal (even if it is only 20mins out of the hour). When that door opens, I am back. I am clear-headed. I am ready to approach my afternoon with positivity and openness.
Teachers can fill a hundred different roles throughout the day (teacher, secretary, doctor, psychiatrist, coach, chef, disciplinarian, philosopher, politician, comedian, etc) but all of those roles are always to benefit the children we have the joy of spending our time with. With this in mind, if you ever have one of those days where you notice your patience lessening and you are losing sight of yourself... I remind you that sometimes you just need to shut the door...
Holy moly, has it really been 3 weeks since I had a Resources To Start Off Your Week post?!? It seems like it has been forever. I have been posting, I just have been posting other awesome things on Mondays... Anyways, today is Thanksgiving and I was reminded of how thankful I am for all of the amazing people who are willing to share their ideas and experiences online. To honour this, I wanted to make sure that I shared some resources with you! As always, I will be adding these to my lists of resources under the Fav Websites heading.
1 ) U of A: Aboriginal Science Education Resources
- This page features a lot of awesome resources for teachers who are
interested in incorporating Aboriginal perspective into their science
classes.
- By clicking on the Aboriginal Lesson Resources, users can search
through resources specifically designed for high school biology or
elementary classes. Even if you are not teaching in one of these specific
areas, I think this website has a lot of helpful ideas. http://www.cmaste.ualberta.ca/Outreach/AboriginalScienceEducation/
AboriginalLessonResources/Biology20AboriginalResources.aspx
2 ) Periodic Table of Videos
- If you are a science teacher then this website is for you! The
Periodic Table of Videos does exactly what it says, and presents
a video for each of the elements on the periodic table.
- When you click on an element, students not only get to see the
atomic number and symbol, but they also get to watch a video
about the element.
- This is a great option for your visual learners and can even be
used as a sample if you are interested in creating a similar project.
- http://www.periodicvideos.com/
Twas' the week before the long weekend... That's right, it is Thanksgiving this weekend! Not only that, but it is also our community's big rodeo event and our school's Spirit Week. All together, this resulted in our student's having that "Friday afternoon" mentality ALL week long! It was a bit of a nut house, but we all made it through unscathed. Two things that went really well this week are:
1 ) Having My First Evaluation!
- On Monday I had my very first evaluation as a first year teacher.
I was asked to submit a list of possible dates that fit my schedule
and my principal decided to evaluate me on Monday morning
during our Grade 8 math class.
- I was nervous in the sense that I wanted to do well, but wasn't
worried about how the actual class would go. We spent the first
half of our class doing a student lead review of fractions &
integers and finished with a discussion on rational numbers.
- I was given some verbal feedback (about 2 mins) but no written
report. I believe my principal needs to come in at least 3 times
before I get a full feedback report.
2 ) Being Asked To Share My Unit Plans at Our Staff Meeting
- This week we had a staff meeting which focused on
Backwards By Design planning, which is one of our school goals
this year. As a new teacher, this is a method that I was taught in
university while a lot of our teachers are only just being introduced
to this idea.
- With my recent education in mind, my principal asked if she
could use my unit plans as a sample during the staff meeting. Now,
my unit plans are by no means "perfect" (and I don't believe they
will ever be) but I was still a good feeling to help out some of the
other teachers in our school!
One thing that I want to work on, however, is differentiating the instruction of my Grade 9 math class. The group of students I have this year have such a large gap in-between them that it is getting to the point where one group of students in now completely bored and checking out, while the others are still struggling. (they are also my biggest class) I am thinking that I will divide them up into 2 (if not 3) groups and begin rotating my discussion so everyone is working on a concept that they are challenged by. My only concern is that this might widen the gap and I will not be able to have large-group projects again.... what are your thoughts?
Week 5 Update
Last week I shared that I wanted to work on completing the Respect in School online course. All of our teachers, support staff, and students eventually have to complete this course and I, embarrassingly, forgot! I am happy to report, however, that I finished up the course early in the week and am officially caught up
I am participating in the wonderful #MTBoS World this fall as a way to learn more about teaching and assessing math as well as to connect with math educators and grow my PLN. As a new math teacher (teaching Grades 8, 9, & 10 math) I am interested in learning as much as I can and am so thankful to all of the wonderful educators who are willing to share their experiences online!
First off, if you haven't heard about #MTBoS (or the MathTwitterBlogosphere), it is an 8-week series of missions designed to connect dedicated math teachers who are willing and interested in sharing their tips, tricks, and experiences. Sounds awesome right?! You should definitely head over to their Wordpress site and learn more about it!
Mission #1: The Power of the Blog
What is one of your favorite open-ended/rich problems? How do you use it in your classroom? (If you have a problem you have been wanting to try, but haven’t had the courage or opportunity to try it out yet, write about how you would or will use the problem in your classroom.)
As a first year teacher, who is new to math, I don't have a large resource of open-ended questions that I have been drawing from. I can, however, share a question that I posed to my Grade 8 students last week that got them really excited about math and got them thinking out of the box (including my reluctant learners)!
I came across the following video via one of my YouTube subscriptions, Numberphile. I was immediately engaged because it got me thinking about math in a way that I hadn't been before. As we had been discussing integers and fractions in class, I decided to share the question with my Grade 8 math class.
*Note: I did not show them the video on the first day, I simply presented the question:
"The following series 1-1+1-1+1-1+1-1+1-1... continues forever, using your knowledge of integers, what do you think the answer(s) to this question might be?"
I had some students say that the answer would be 1, some said 0, some said 2, and I had some students that were unsure. The following day, I showed them the video that I had seen online:
This was the first time all year that I can honestly say that ALL of my students were excited about math! The possible solutions to Grandi's Series got them thinking about math differently than they had before and the fact that the video ends with a challenge had them even more engaged. They are planning on completing the Thompson's Lamp experiment on their own at lunch this week to see how it turns out!
I have always been a fan of including video clips in class as a differentiation method to meet different learning needs but I hadn't specifically thought of videos that ended with open questions. This is definitely something that I will want to explore more with my students as we progress throughout the year!
On a side note, my students decided to feature this video and question on their class blog and Dr. James Grime (the man featured in the video) actually saw it and commented to them! It was so exciting to see their enthusiasm and surprise when they checked their blog comments this morning!
So, I have officially completed Mission 1 of the #MTBoS journey! I look forward to connecting and sharing with you!
September is behind us and here is my first 2 Stars & A Wish post of October. Teachers always say that the year goes by so quickly and I definitely understand that now! It honestly seems like yesterday was the first day of school and it is almost already Thanksgiving. Two things that went well this week are:
1 ) Reinforcing our Risk Free Environment Policy
- I do not have a formal list of rules in my classroom, but I do
have a Risk Free Environment Policy that reads as follows:
"Our classroom does not discriminate on the basis of disability,
gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or any other means.
It is of the utmost important that every action we undertake]
demonstrates respect for those around us. If at any time a
situation occurs that does not illustrate this practice please bring
it to my attention. I strongly believe that we are all part of a team
within this classroom and if I witness a situation that does not illustrate
this practice we will address it as a class."
- I have one class that is still working towards understanding what this
actually looks like in the classroom so this week, instead of having
science class, we worked on this policy. We had some really good
group discussions about my expectations and what this policy might
look like in a classroom, school, life setting. We then made posters
that we displayed in the front hallway right by our main office!
- I am so proud of the growth I witnessed in my students in such a
short time and had the absolute best class ever with them on Friday!
2 ) Having My Students Get Excited About Math
- I came across a video this week via my YouTube subscriptions that
really bent my brain and got me thinking about math in a different way.
Of course, I immediately began thinking of ways that I could share this
with my students. I was worried because the video was a little outside of
what we are studying and is a geared towards an older audience with
more background information but I wanted to try it; and I am glad I did!!
- Here is the video I shared with them:
I hope you actually took the time to watch it because it is awesome,
but if you didn't, it shows you that 1-1+1-1+1-1+1-1+1-1... = 1/2
I know, crazy, right?!
- I presented my students with the series 1-1+1-1+1-1+1-1+1-1... on
Thursday and got them to guess what they thought the answer could
be and why. On Friday I began explaining the series as it is explained
through the video and I immediately had some students dozing off &
giving me blank expressions. As soon as we began manipulating the
variable, however, (and students began seeing where the answer was
leading them) I had every students engaged!
- My students were yelling, "My mind is blown!", "How can that work?"
"We need to show this to people". It was definitely an awesome
experience :)
- If you want to discuss this video, or Grandi's Series, please visit the
blog post my students wrote about this; they love getting comments! http://mrstsclassroom.blogspot.ca/2013/10/what-would-grandi-say.html
One thing that I will be working on this week, however, is completing the Respect in School online course. All teachers, support staff, and students (once they reach a certain age) are required to complete the online Respect in School course. As a new staff member, I was asked to have this done by September 27th and, embarrassingly, I completely forget about it! After a friendly reminder from my principal, it is now my priority for this week and hope to have it done ASAP!
Week 4 Update
Last week I shared that I wanted to work on keeping my students up-to-date in regards to their grades and missing assignments. I am happy to report that I was able to get all my grading up to date and printed off current achievement reports for my students in my high school classes. There was definitely a few students who had forgotten about missed assignments so those marks might have been eye-opening, but I am happy that my students are up-to-date and well informed. I made sure to remind students about making up work, completing corrections, and the lunch-hour math development sessions I hold.
One of our school goals is to build in classroom spirit activities/routines for our students as a way to help foster school spirit and classroom community. One activity that I came up with for our class is #FunShirtFriday that I've seen on Twitter.
Every Friday, I encourage my students to wear a "fun shirt" to school. Over the summer I found a lot of funny and interesting shirts online related to math, science, art, and teaching in general so I was pretty excited to share these with my students.
To take this spirit activity one step further, we have begun charting our class #FunShirtFriday participation using a bar graph. Our final math unit of the year is Statistics & Probability so I plan on creating a project out of the data that we'll collect throughout the year!
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My Grade 8 class decided to begin featuring a weekly math post on their blog, which started today, so my "fun shirt" helped celebrate this event! (It was also hat day at "S-School" today too). If you would like to see their first "Mathlete Friday" post, and maybe even participate in their challenge, you can follow this link: http://mrstsclassroom.blogspot.ca/2013/10/what-would-grandi-say.html
I am writing this post from my brand new Microsoft Surface tablet that I got from my husband for my birthday! I've really wanted a tablet for quite some time because I am always online doing something for school or for the blog but couldn't decide what brand I wanted. I have an iPhone and really like the way it functions... but I haven't had awesome experiences with the iPads we have at school. While I'm a fan of awesome apps (who isn't), I spend 95% of my online time on my blog, reading other blogs, researching for school, or on social media. It is also important to note that I've always had a PC and our school is all PC as well. Point being, if I was going to invest in a tablet, I wanted it to meet my needs (not just be a shiny toy that still required me to go to my computer).
After using my Surface for the week:
- I LOVE the snap-on keyboard and built-in screen stand
- I love the available USB port as my school has inconsistent internet
service and I can't rely on cloud storage
- I use PowerPoint presentations in all of my classes for my visual
learners and create my assignments on Word so it is awesome that
the Surface comes with Microsoft Office
- I LOVE the setup and interface of the Twitter app
- I LOVE that I can save files, pictures, & music using an organization
system that I'm familiar with
- I don't like the snap-on power cord as it seems to snap off easy
- I don't like the lack of apps... but again, this isn't what I use my
tablet for
- I don't like that the speakers are fairly quiet
Overall, I am so pumped to have joined the tablet world and can't thank my husband enough for such an awesome birthday present!
My Grade 8 Science class has been learning all about Cells& Body Systems (you can check out their blog here) and lately we've been discussing the difference between Plant Cells & Animal Cells. After working with the appropriate vocabulary and completing labeled illustrations, we decided to create 3D models of the different types of cells... using edible materials!!
As a class my students brainstormed an ingredient list, set a budget, and put themselves into groups of 4. We even went shopping for the ingredients as a class during our math period! Today was the physical creation of the cells and I can say that they turned out pretty darn good... and delicious! Students were required to create a model that showcased a cell with:
- Cell Membrane
- Cytoplasm
- Nucleus
- Mitochondria
- Vacuole
- Endoplasmic Reticulum
- Cell Wall (for plant cells)
- Chloroplasts (for plant cells)
I also asked that each group submit a written legend so that their model is clearly understood.
here is how they turned out:
If you haven't encountered a "Currently" post before, it is just a fun post at the beginning of each month that serves as a way to share what is Currently going on in your life! You can link up and share your own "Currently" post by visiting the wonderful Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade.
It is finally my favourite month of the year... October!! I LOVE October! October means that fall is officially here, the leaves are changing, my birthday is in October, Thanksgiving is in only 12 days, Halloween arrives, hunting season is upon us, football is in full swing, my husband starts hockey in a few weeks... well you get the idea. Needless to say, I will be loving every day of this awesome month!
