Fwew, got that rough holiday out of the way and onto another full day of teaching.
In my two Pre-Algebra classes I was teaching the Pythagorean Theorem, for both the ISTEP Countdown as well as my regular teaching class. This helped, instead of spending 25 minutes for the countdown and then trying to teach a regular class, I was able to combine the two and create one lesson. In 1st hour, I taught like I would any other class. After class I realized I had a lot of lost students. I talked with my cooperating teacher, and he had mentioned that I needed to slow down for this class. What I think is a pretty normal pace for students that age is still a little fast for this class to comprehend, as a whole. Some students got what I was talking about almost immediately, but as a whole I had moved too fast. He gave me suggestions for my other class and they worked perfectly. The other class moved much smoother and it seemed all the students knew how to use the theorem, but had trouble with the actual algebraic process to solve for the missing side.
My two algebra classes didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked. 4th period had trouble with the countdown assignment, so that cut into their time. In fact, so did 7th period. Most were still having trouble with factoring in general so I decided to give them a large "review" worksheet of factoring polynomials. Well, it turned out that none of the students could recognize what to look for. I tried assigning them just the evens to get them thinking. I wasn't going to collect it for homework, considering both only had enough time for one or two problems to even look at. Overall it seemed like there was a lot of work to behold on factoring polynomials.
I was asked constantly this day, by the girls, either where my new tie was, or if I had a good Valentines Day, followed by that look with the raising eyebrows over and over.....I ignored those questions basically...especially ones with the eyebrow raising.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Feb. 14th
The one day just about every man on the planet has either paid for chocolate or flowers for a girl, or guy, that he loves or has feelings for, Valentines Day! I was slightly dreading this day, on the other hand. Not because I don't have a whole lot of money to spend on my girlfriend, but because I was certain I was going to get some weird Valentines or something throughout the school day. Not only was it this fun, yet nerve-wrecking, holiday, it was also the first day I was taking over all the classes at one time. Just another reason to be a little nervous throughout the day.
Countdown to ISTEP today was a simple page on completing problems with the use of order of operations. All my classes must complete the countdown work, however, my honors Algebra classes usually take little to no time to complete this task.
1st period class roles around and I was teaching the students how to approximate the square root of a number that is not a square root. On Friday, I had given both of my Pre-Algebra classes, including this one, a multiplication chart up to 25. I showed them how they could use this when trying to decide when the square root they were approximating by which perfect squares it was closest to. Believe me, it is a lot easier to explain it up in front of a classroom than it is to try and explain what I did. While I was teaching I noticed a few students nodding off and sleeping, and it's not because they were tired, but simply because they didn't want to listen. I attempted to wake up or keep the students' heads up and paying attention, but my efforts failed. As usual, once I gave them their assignment, they were clueless as to how they were to complete such a task. Today I helped them, because I give every person the benefit of the doubt. At the end of this class, I handed out Valentines that were simply from Mr. Kerwin, with no specific student getting any certain Valentine. I was a little nervous handing out valentines, thinking students could think the wrong thing if their valentine had a certain phrase on it, so I was advised by a good friend to hand them out "blindly" and give them to all my students with the only thing I write is From: Mr. Kerwin. This worked superbly, my students in first hour loved the fact that they got valentines, since it seemed like many students don't get valentines on this lovers' holiday.
My next teaching class was my 4th hour Algebra I class. We were still working on factoring Polynomials. After the quick 10 minute Countdown to ISTEP, we were right into questions they had about Friday's assignment: factoring using the box method. Mostly there were some questions about the syntax of the activity packet itself, but once I cleared this up, there was really only one question about one of the problems in this packet. I went over it and explained how to factor it, and how it can be related to the previous style of factoring we had done. Today's new task was factoring Special Case polynomials. It seemed to go pretty well, they were just having a hard time determining when this little shortcut would be used, or, more often than not, how to recognize it. I cleared this up in class and gave them their assignment. In this class, I received a Garfield tie as a Valentine's Day gift from a few girl students, or so it seemed. I thought it was a nice and cute gesture. When another student asked "Why a tie?" The two girls that physically gave me the tie said it was because my university supervisor said to where a tie. I handed out my valentines and once again the students were enthused and excited to get my funny and cute Disney, Spongebob, and Cars valentines.
5th period roles around and this class seems to be my class that is going to be the most challenging, discipline wise. It's right after lunch and students tend to be a little more rambunctious, and hard to keep focused. This is my other Pre-Algebra class and they were slightly farther ahead than my other class. Rather than move on I decided to enrich this class on approximating square roots, moving into their books for more problems on estimating square roots. This class flew by, they seemed to be working with me extremely well, this looks bright and fun in the future. There are a handful of students that seem they will ruin it for the rest of the class, but me and my teacher seem to have a discipline plan for that kind of behavior. Handed out my valentines and later found a few ripped on the ground. A little disappointing because I went out of my way to be nice to them.
My last class of the day is another Algebra class. They seem to have more questions about factoring using the box method than my other class seemed to have. Well after I answered quite a few questions about the box method I collected the activity and moved on to special cases. It seemed that this class was having tons of trouble with factoring polynomials. Well usually, I allow most of my classes to work with partners or groups to help eachother with homework. I decided to grade the activity packet, for both a completion and correctness grade. After I saw the effort put forth by this class, I just took a correctness grade. Most of the students had not even put in the answers that I had gone over in class. The students who usually pay attention and do well did fine. It was those "on the fence" students who didn't put forth any effort. I was pretty upset after their class was over. Even on this day, I got pretty mad because students kept interrupting class by talking or making unnecessary comments.
Overall it was a fun and exciting day. Thus started a new chapter in the life of Joe Kerwin.
Countdown to ISTEP today was a simple page on completing problems with the use of order of operations. All my classes must complete the countdown work, however, my honors Algebra classes usually take little to no time to complete this task.
1st period class roles around and I was teaching the students how to approximate the square root of a number that is not a square root. On Friday, I had given both of my Pre-Algebra classes, including this one, a multiplication chart up to 25. I showed them how they could use this when trying to decide when the square root they were approximating by which perfect squares it was closest to. Believe me, it is a lot easier to explain it up in front of a classroom than it is to try and explain what I did. While I was teaching I noticed a few students nodding off and sleeping, and it's not because they were tired, but simply because they didn't want to listen. I attempted to wake up or keep the students' heads up and paying attention, but my efforts failed. As usual, once I gave them their assignment, they were clueless as to how they were to complete such a task. Today I helped them, because I give every person the benefit of the doubt. At the end of this class, I handed out Valentines that were simply from Mr. Kerwin, with no specific student getting any certain Valentine. I was a little nervous handing out valentines, thinking students could think the wrong thing if their valentine had a certain phrase on it, so I was advised by a good friend to hand them out "blindly" and give them to all my students with the only thing I write is From: Mr. Kerwin. This worked superbly, my students in first hour loved the fact that they got valentines, since it seemed like many students don't get valentines on this lovers' holiday.
My next teaching class was my 4th hour Algebra I class. We were still working on factoring Polynomials. After the quick 10 minute Countdown to ISTEP, we were right into questions they had about Friday's assignment: factoring using the box method. Mostly there were some questions about the syntax of the activity packet itself, but once I cleared this up, there was really only one question about one of the problems in this packet. I went over it and explained how to factor it, and how it can be related to the previous style of factoring we had done. Today's new task was factoring Special Case polynomials. It seemed to go pretty well, they were just having a hard time determining when this little shortcut would be used, or, more often than not, how to recognize it. I cleared this up in class and gave them their assignment. In this class, I received a Garfield tie as a Valentine's Day gift from a few girl students, or so it seemed. I thought it was a nice and cute gesture. When another student asked "Why a tie?" The two girls that physically gave me the tie said it was because my university supervisor said to where a tie. I handed out my valentines and once again the students were enthused and excited to get my funny and cute Disney, Spongebob, and Cars valentines.
5th period roles around and this class seems to be my class that is going to be the most challenging, discipline wise. It's right after lunch and students tend to be a little more rambunctious, and hard to keep focused. This is my other Pre-Algebra class and they were slightly farther ahead than my other class. Rather than move on I decided to enrich this class on approximating square roots, moving into their books for more problems on estimating square roots. This class flew by, they seemed to be working with me extremely well, this looks bright and fun in the future. There are a handful of students that seem they will ruin it for the rest of the class, but me and my teacher seem to have a discipline plan for that kind of behavior. Handed out my valentines and later found a few ripped on the ground. A little disappointing because I went out of my way to be nice to them.
My last class of the day is another Algebra class. They seem to have more questions about factoring using the box method than my other class seemed to have. Well after I answered quite a few questions about the box method I collected the activity and moved on to special cases. It seemed that this class was having tons of trouble with factoring polynomials. Well usually, I allow most of my classes to work with partners or groups to help eachother with homework. I decided to grade the activity packet, for both a completion and correctness grade. After I saw the effort put forth by this class, I just took a correctness grade. Most of the students had not even put in the answers that I had gone over in class. The students who usually pay attention and do well did fine. It was those "on the fence" students who didn't put forth any effort. I was pretty upset after their class was over. Even on this day, I got pretty mad because students kept interrupting class by talking or making unnecessary comments.
Overall it was a fun and exciting day. Thus started a new chapter in the life of Joe Kerwin.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Feb. 11th
Ahhh....finally, I had an entire school day with class periods that were sort of normal. I say sort of because of the countdown to ISTEP that was at the beginning of each class. The one downfall to this countdown is that it should only last about 20 minutes each class, allowing for teachers to conduct their normal class after all is said and done. In teaching nothing goes as planned, and in my first class the activity that should,or was planned to, take only 20 minutes ended up taking up the entire 50 minute class period. Luckily the other Pre-Algebra class finished the task in about 35 minutes, leaving only a few short minutes to work on the days work of approximating square roots. My accelerated math class went exceptionally well today since grades were being sent home to parents today.
When it came to the Algebra classes that I had taken over, the countdown to ISTEP task went quite well and took a mere 10 minutes at the start of class. The countdown for today was the use of Order of Operations and the distributive property. It was just a few problems that involved variable expressions and equations. The lesson I was teaching that day was factoring trinomials where the lead coefficient is not 1. If you don't know what that is, look it up online. I explained to them the process with using the box method. At first all was going well, and then all hell broke loose. It seemed that they got completely lost in the middle of my explanation. During my explanation, I even mentioned important things about the box method and how it works. Luckily I was prepared, mentally, to overcome such a struggle and did so with ease. I think the problem was the lack of examples or the fact the process was different than the process we had used before. The "activity" I gave them was something written by someone else but came with 8 steps on how to factor a quadratic trinomial using the box method and a few exploration problems to complete. My original plan would have had them finish that in class and try a few problems out of the text book. Like I said before, and you'll hear it a million times from any teacher, nothing ever goes as planned, and this packet ended up taking longer than expected so the assignment turned out to be just the worksheet. One mistake I made today was something I learned from my 6th grade Social Studies teacher. "Never assume, because it makes an ass out of u and me." Now this wasn't my quote since I censored it a bit and used the word butt instead. I realized after I had said it, that I probably shouldn't have said it, but it's in the past now. I am just hoping the principal's daughter in that class doesn't tell her father what she learned about assume.
In my last two classes, things went smoothly. The ISTEP countdown took only about 35 minutes to complete in 5th hour, allowing some time and instruction for the use of approximating square roots that aren't perfect squares. It seemed the students understood how to approximate the decimal point. I helped one student and he came up with an answer for the square root of 60, and he decided it would be 7.7. In this exercise we were only approximating to the tenths place. I asked him if he thought his answer made sense, and he wasn't sure what to think. I showed him on a calculator what the square root of 60 was. It obviously isn't as simple as 7.7, but it helped him understand that his answer isn't going to be perfect, but it's going to be close. 7th hour seems to be my most interactive and joyful class. Yesterday, as a joke, a girl snapped her fingers toward me in a Z motion. I'm almost positive she was doing it to her friend, but I asked her "Did you just Z me?" I like to joke around with the kids, it loosens things up. I wish I had more of a mean side, but I guess that will come in time. Anyways, today she came in and went "Mr. Kerwin!" and pulled it off again, completely joking and I was having a good time with it.
Like I said yesterday, I inadvertently made fun of a girl's accessories, so today, she got me back with a few words of her own. "Mr. Kerwin, your shirt looks like an old man would wear it." I know she was kidding, and I laughed about it, because she knows that I wasn't purposely trying to hurt her feelings the day before, or at least I thought.
I've been student teaching for 5 weeks already, and it seems like I have barely been there. I would like to say I am ready for the real thing, but I cannot even describe to you how much work a teacher in the Muncie School Corporation does unless you see it for yourself. Since Muncie is a "failing" school, or a school that has poor standardized test scores, teachers are forced to follow strict curriculum and an even stricter enrichment and remediation process to get students to pass ISTEP. It seems like everything is all about the tests, and the the corporation does not care about the students, but rather how much funding they can get the following year.
Goal(s): My goal is to eventually get to the point where I can be completely comfortable in front of all the classes. The Algebra classes were easy to step in front of since most of those students are not discipline problems.
I also hope that I am not a teacher that assigns homework on Fridays. I know this probably isn't the best idea during student teaching or even my first year of teaching. I think right now I am going to stick with small assignments over the weekend, because I believe the weekend is for family and fun, and not for work.
Favorite class?: If I were to choose a favorite class (I feel like a parent that refuses to pick a favorite son or daughter) I would pick either my 2nd hour class or my 7th hour class. I love the one-on-one interaction I can give the students in the Accelerated Math class, and I love the interaction I have with the 7th period.
When it came to the Algebra classes that I had taken over, the countdown to ISTEP task went quite well and took a mere 10 minutes at the start of class. The countdown for today was the use of Order of Operations and the distributive property. It was just a few problems that involved variable expressions and equations. The lesson I was teaching that day was factoring trinomials where the lead coefficient is not 1. If you don't know what that is, look it up online. I explained to them the process with using the box method. At first all was going well, and then all hell broke loose. It seemed that they got completely lost in the middle of my explanation. During my explanation, I even mentioned important things about the box method and how it works. Luckily I was prepared, mentally, to overcome such a struggle and did so with ease. I think the problem was the lack of examples or the fact the process was different than the process we had used before. The "activity" I gave them was something written by someone else but came with 8 steps on how to factor a quadratic trinomial using the box method and a few exploration problems to complete. My original plan would have had them finish that in class and try a few problems out of the text book. Like I said before, and you'll hear it a million times from any teacher, nothing ever goes as planned, and this packet ended up taking longer than expected so the assignment turned out to be just the worksheet. One mistake I made today was something I learned from my 6th grade Social Studies teacher. "Never assume, because it makes an ass out of u and me." Now this wasn't my quote since I censored it a bit and used the word butt instead. I realized after I had said it, that I probably shouldn't have said it, but it's in the past now. I am just hoping the principal's daughter in that class doesn't tell her father what she learned about assume.
In my last two classes, things went smoothly. The ISTEP countdown took only about 35 minutes to complete in 5th hour, allowing some time and instruction for the use of approximating square roots that aren't perfect squares. It seemed the students understood how to approximate the decimal point. I helped one student and he came up with an answer for the square root of 60, and he decided it would be 7.7. In this exercise we were only approximating to the tenths place. I asked him if he thought his answer made sense, and he wasn't sure what to think. I showed him on a calculator what the square root of 60 was. It obviously isn't as simple as 7.7, but it helped him understand that his answer isn't going to be perfect, but it's going to be close. 7th hour seems to be my most interactive and joyful class. Yesterday, as a joke, a girl snapped her fingers toward me in a Z motion. I'm almost positive she was doing it to her friend, but I asked her "Did you just Z me?" I like to joke around with the kids, it loosens things up. I wish I had more of a mean side, but I guess that will come in time. Anyways, today she came in and went "Mr. Kerwin!" and pulled it off again, completely joking and I was having a good time with it.
Like I said yesterday, I inadvertently made fun of a girl's accessories, so today, she got me back with a few words of her own. "Mr. Kerwin, your shirt looks like an old man would wear it." I know she was kidding, and I laughed about it, because she knows that I wasn't purposely trying to hurt her feelings the day before, or at least I thought.
I've been student teaching for 5 weeks already, and it seems like I have barely been there. I would like to say I am ready for the real thing, but I cannot even describe to you how much work a teacher in the Muncie School Corporation does unless you see it for yourself. Since Muncie is a "failing" school, or a school that has poor standardized test scores, teachers are forced to follow strict curriculum and an even stricter enrichment and remediation process to get students to pass ISTEP. It seems like everything is all about the tests, and the the corporation does not care about the students, but rather how much funding they can get the following year.
Goal(s): My goal is to eventually get to the point where I can be completely comfortable in front of all the classes. The Algebra classes were easy to step in front of since most of those students are not discipline problems.
I also hope that I am not a teacher that assigns homework on Fridays. I know this probably isn't the best idea during student teaching or even my first year of teaching. I think right now I am going to stick with small assignments over the weekend, because I believe the weekend is for family and fun, and not for work.
Favorite class?: If I were to choose a favorite class (I feel like a parent that refuses to pick a favorite son or daughter) I would pick either my 2nd hour class or my 7th hour class. I love the one-on-one interaction I can give the students in the Accelerated Math class, and I love the interaction I have with the 7th period.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Feb. 10th
I know I missed yesterday, but I decided just to talk about today instead. Today was the first day that begun the countdown to ISTEP. For those of you who don't know what countdown to ISTEP is, it's basically a 20 minute lesson at the start of every class to either remediate or enrich topics that are on the upcoming ISTEP. This goes on for the 11 school days before ISTEP begins.
Not only was it the beginning of countdown to ISTEP, but it was also another 2 hour delay thanks to the frigid morning temperature of -6 degrees Fahrenheit. With this in mind, I only had 1 1/2 classes where I could do anything besides ISTEP enrichment. To me this kind of stinks, but at the same time, the one class I do get to teach "normal" is my 4th period Algebra class. After the ISTEP lesson on using the more recent answer grids and order of operations, it was on to my extension on factoring trinomials. Today was factoring trinomials with multiple variables. Honestly just an extension, and the students were thinking too hard and making it more complicated than it really was. This class was a little disruptive and had a very short attention span. I also was told that I have a very boring voice when I teach, and that I should work on being more exciting. To be honest, that kind of hurt my feelings, but I didn't let it show. I always thought i was an energetic type of person, but then again, some of the topics I am doing right now aren't the most exciting or fun topics to speak about. Other than that, the students seemed to get it pretty well and I was confident they were ready to move onto factoring quadratic trinomials where the lead coefficient is greater than 1.
The one main concern I have with this countdown to ISTEP, is that my lessons have to be more precise and homework assignments shorter so that it is a fair enough lesson for the students to be engaged and learn as well as have enough time to do homework. I am excited to eventually take over all the classes, but I don't look forward to teach during this ISTEP countdown.
Not only was it the beginning of countdown to ISTEP, but it was also another 2 hour delay thanks to the frigid morning temperature of -6 degrees Fahrenheit. With this in mind, I only had 1 1/2 classes where I could do anything besides ISTEP enrichment. To me this kind of stinks, but at the same time, the one class I do get to teach "normal" is my 4th period Algebra class. After the ISTEP lesson on using the more recent answer grids and order of operations, it was on to my extension on factoring trinomials. Today was factoring trinomials with multiple variables. Honestly just an extension, and the students were thinking too hard and making it more complicated than it really was. This class was a little disruptive and had a very short attention span. I also was told that I have a very boring voice when I teach, and that I should work on being more exciting. To be honest, that kind of hurt my feelings, but I didn't let it show. I always thought i was an energetic type of person, but then again, some of the topics I am doing right now aren't the most exciting or fun topics to speak about. Other than that, the students seemed to get it pretty well and I was confident they were ready to move onto factoring quadratic trinomials where the lead coefficient is greater than 1.
The one main concern I have with this countdown to ISTEP, is that my lessons have to be more precise and homework assignments shorter so that it is a fair enough lesson for the students to be engaged and learn as well as have enough time to do homework. I am excited to eventually take over all the classes, but I don't look forward to teach during this ISTEP countdown.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Feb. 8th
Today was yet another two-hour delay. Sure I didn't mind the days off or the two hour delays when they first started happening, but it's really hard to get anything done in class when you only have 29 minutes to teach and work. Right now my actual teaching time is cut down to about 15-20 minutes. So for my classes that only have 29 minutes, which is all but 1st and 4th on two-hour delay days, they only have a matter of minutes to work on homework. When it comes to homework I don't believe that any child should spend a lot of time working at home to complete it. While it is called homework, I think that what you cannot finish in class, you then take home. Hopefully students get out what they would get out of the assignment whether or not they do 30 or 15 problems.
Anyways, two hour delay days are a big odd, since your class periods go 1 4 2 3 5 6 7. 1st hour is about 40 minutes, while 4th is the the full 60, and the rest are a mere 29 minutes. What's nice about the 29 minute classes is it seems to make the day go by quickly. Then again, that's the bad part about it, because it moves too quickly. I am rearing up for this countdown to ISTEP starting Thursday. According to my cooperating teacher, its supposed to be a 10-20 minute review of what is on the upcoming ISTEP test, for 10 DAYS!! It is not something I am looking forward to. Today, which I most regretfully forgot, was hat day, where students get to wear hats if they donated a dollar for a fundraiser. I saw Kermit the Frog hats, Eoore (sp?) hats, and even Panda bear winter caps. I can tell some students have taken fond of me, especially when one student who rarely talks comes up to me to show me their new shirt. "Mr. Kerwin, check out my new shirt, my Dad got it for me!" Well if you saw this shirt, it would remind you of the Wolf Pack from professional Wrestling in the 90's, Dwight Schrute's epic wolf shirt from the office, or the Wolf Pack shirt from that weird guy on The Hangover. It was a wolf with a background of a wolf howling in front of a moon. Honestly, not my taste, but I thought I would say that I liked it anyway.
My Pre-algebra classes are still in control of my cooperating teacher, and hopefully I will be taking over everything as of next week. I never thought grading papers would be this big of a hassle, and is the only thing I don't look forward to over the course of the next few months. In my algebra classes, where I taught the polynomial division by monomials, is where I enjoyed most of my day. My first, or 4th hour Algebra class gets me the full time. I reviewed some of their previous days homework, and of course they had me do the longest and most drawn out problem on their homework, but I guess that's what I deserve for assigning such a problem. That took longer than I had expected but quickly moved on to dividing with a monomial. They understood the concept and seemd to get what I was talking about. A group of students that always talks a lot, yet turns in their work on time, started asking me non-related questions, as I had mentioned I liked the Kermit the Frog hat someone was wearing. Without really thinking I told them that I can do the Kermit voice, and displayed them my "talent." They got a kick out of it, and they seemed to work pretty well after that.
During one of the passing periods, my cooperating teacher mentioned to me that one student in particular never participated in class for him, and yet since I have started, this student has raised their hand and answered questions multiple days in a row. Maybe I am making a difference, or maybe it's just because I'm young. I hope it's a little bit of the first one at least.
On to my second algebra class, which was only 29 minutes due to the delay. This class had the bad luck of having me rush through my material so they wouldn't fall behind their "twin sister" class. Luckily, they seemed to understand it, at least the students who were listening did. I even had one kid ask me about the Kermit voice from the other class. I would not perform it a second time. In this class students are very responsive, but talkative at times, when I am trying to teach. I think they see me as more of a buddy than a teacher, which can become a troubling thing when I get out there in the real world. Hopefully I can break this trend before it becomes worse. Back to the teaching portion though. Students in this class seem to like me, and they like to get their work done. Luckily for this class, and unknowing to the other Algebra class, they have gotten half the assignments of my 4th period algebra class, due to the shortened class time to finish the assignments. Overall, it was a fun day, especially at the Faculty meeting, where my cooperating teacher won Teacher of the Month for January 2011. I also got to referee the 6th grade girls basketball game at my school, which turned out to be a pretty good thriller.
Anyways, two hour delay days are a big odd, since your class periods go 1 4 2 3 5 6 7. 1st hour is about 40 minutes, while 4th is the the full 60, and the rest are a mere 29 minutes. What's nice about the 29 minute classes is it seems to make the day go by quickly. Then again, that's the bad part about it, because it moves too quickly. I am rearing up for this countdown to ISTEP starting Thursday. According to my cooperating teacher, its supposed to be a 10-20 minute review of what is on the upcoming ISTEP test, for 10 DAYS!! It is not something I am looking forward to. Today, which I most regretfully forgot, was hat day, where students get to wear hats if they donated a dollar for a fundraiser. I saw Kermit the Frog hats, Eoore (sp?) hats, and even Panda bear winter caps. I can tell some students have taken fond of me, especially when one student who rarely talks comes up to me to show me their new shirt. "Mr. Kerwin, check out my new shirt, my Dad got it for me!" Well if you saw this shirt, it would remind you of the Wolf Pack from professional Wrestling in the 90's, Dwight Schrute's epic wolf shirt from the office, or the Wolf Pack shirt from that weird guy on The Hangover. It was a wolf with a background of a wolf howling in front of a moon. Honestly, not my taste, but I thought I would say that I liked it anyway.
My Pre-algebra classes are still in control of my cooperating teacher, and hopefully I will be taking over everything as of next week. I never thought grading papers would be this big of a hassle, and is the only thing I don't look forward to over the course of the next few months. In my algebra classes, where I taught the polynomial division by monomials, is where I enjoyed most of my day. My first, or 4th hour Algebra class gets me the full time. I reviewed some of their previous days homework, and of course they had me do the longest and most drawn out problem on their homework, but I guess that's what I deserve for assigning such a problem. That took longer than I had expected but quickly moved on to dividing with a monomial. They understood the concept and seemd to get what I was talking about. A group of students that always talks a lot, yet turns in their work on time, started asking me non-related questions, as I had mentioned I liked the Kermit the Frog hat someone was wearing. Without really thinking I told them that I can do the Kermit voice, and displayed them my "talent." They got a kick out of it, and they seemed to work pretty well after that.
During one of the passing periods, my cooperating teacher mentioned to me that one student in particular never participated in class for him, and yet since I have started, this student has raised their hand and answered questions multiple days in a row. Maybe I am making a difference, or maybe it's just because I'm young. I hope it's a little bit of the first one at least.
On to my second algebra class, which was only 29 minutes due to the delay. This class had the bad luck of having me rush through my material so they wouldn't fall behind their "twin sister" class. Luckily, they seemed to understand it, at least the students who were listening did. I even had one kid ask me about the Kermit voice from the other class. I would not perform it a second time. In this class students are very responsive, but talkative at times, when I am trying to teach. I think they see me as more of a buddy than a teacher, which can become a troubling thing when I get out there in the real world. Hopefully I can break this trend before it becomes worse. Back to the teaching portion though. Students in this class seem to like me, and they like to get their work done. Luckily for this class, and unknowing to the other Algebra class, they have gotten half the assignments of my 4th period algebra class, due to the shortened class time to finish the assignments. Overall, it was a fun day, especially at the Faculty meeting, where my cooperating teacher won Teacher of the Month for January 2011. I also got to referee the 6th grade girls basketball game at my school, which turned out to be a pretty good thriller.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Feb. 7th
Today was the first day back after a luxurious 6 day ice storm break. Even though it is nearly a week since the storm hit on Monday night, my road is still very dangerous, and was proven to me by how I nearly was unable to accelerate through a 4-way intersection. Anyways, all the students were in a chatter since many of them had not seen one another for much of the "break." As a teacher, I have learned that these 3 days off of school have really put more pressure on me and the other teachers in the math department. We were supposed to have "wasted" an entire day talking about the ISTEP prep tests and what they needed to improve on. Due to the canceled days of school, we were unable to do so. When it came to my student teaching experience, it postponed my duty of taking complete control of both the Pre-Algebra, and Algebra classes. I decided to stick with just teaching the Algebra classes for this week. As you would have thought, review was needed in order to move on and move swiftly. Oh, I forgot to mention, today was also a 2-hr delay, leaving me only 29 minutes for my second Algebra class. My first was still normal since it occurs during the lunch hour. In each class I reviewed special case binomial multiplication as well as using the distributive property. Their task was to complete a worksheet on multiplying polynomials of different sizes, mainly binomials and trinomials. It seemed that the students understood what was going on at first, but when they came upon the harder ones, time was becoming too big of a factor. In each of my classes, I cut the homework nearly in half. I believe that as long as they understand the distributive property itself, I should not need to assign them a ton of problems. I also decided to cut the homework because the more difficult ones had so much work involved, it was taking some kids nearly 20 minutes to finish one problem. I had not done the worksheet ahead of time, and I have now learned that I should probably at least start to work through the problems so I have some sort of sense as to how much time THEY will end up spending on it.
On a different note, I had noticed today that one of the more quiet girls in one of the pre-algebra classes had changed something about her appearance. I wasn't too sure what she did but I told her that she looked different and that I liked it. Immediately, the girl sitting next to her was basically begging me to compliment her. Being put on the spot like that, I wasn't too sure what to say, so then she began to explain to me what was different than before. I had not noticed, even after she explained it all to me. The only reason I noticed the other girl is because she looked relatively the same every day, and today was different. I figure if I lighten up to her and show my compassion, she might open up and get some work done.
Just when I thought the whole crush thing was over, an entire group of girls in my last hour class were just giggling and staring at me while I was trying to teach the review and the somewhat new stuff. So if you are reading this supervisors, this would be the most interesting class to come visit me in.
On a funny note, a cubs fan in one of my classes asked me this "So besides being a White Sox fan, what do you have against the Cubs?" I just laughed and said "Do I need any other reason?" He thought it was funny and we had a good laugh. It's nice to know that the students are truly interested in what you have to say.
On a different note, I had noticed today that one of the more quiet girls in one of the pre-algebra classes had changed something about her appearance. I wasn't too sure what she did but I told her that she looked different and that I liked it. Immediately, the girl sitting next to her was basically begging me to compliment her. Being put on the spot like that, I wasn't too sure what to say, so then she began to explain to me what was different than before. I had not noticed, even after she explained it all to me. The only reason I noticed the other girl is because she looked relatively the same every day, and today was different. I figure if I lighten up to her and show my compassion, she might open up and get some work done.
Just when I thought the whole crush thing was over, an entire group of girls in my last hour class were just giggling and staring at me while I was trying to teach the review and the somewhat new stuff. So if you are reading this supervisors, this would be the most interesting class to come visit me in.
On a funny note, a cubs fan in one of my classes asked me this "So besides being a White Sox fan, what do you have against the Cubs?" I just laughed and said "Do I need any other reason?" He thought it was funny and we had a good laugh. It's nice to know that the students are truly interested in what you have to say.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Jan. 31st
Today was the first official day for me to take over the Algebra Classes I am teaching this semester. I walked into the school around 7:30 this morning with a slew of confidence in my mind, as I had prepared a somewhat simple yet elegant lesson plan. During my first two hours, since I have the same kids for both Pre-Algebra and Accelerated Mathematics, nothing out of the ordinary happened. It seems that I am making a decent connections with this group of students considering I see them for two hours a day instead of one. A few students, on the other hand, seem to have taken a disliking to me. As I am helping a few students during the Accelerated Math class, a class that uses math remediation as its focus, one of the students said to me "I like the way Mr. Blah says it better. Your way is confusing." In a way, my feelings were hurt, but obviously my cooperating teacher is going to be quite a bit better at explaining concepts to our students than I am, so I wasn't that distraught. On the other hand, I can't be that bad....right? Well my thinking when it comes to students is to not guide them to the answer as much as they might guide themselves to the answer. This, apparently, is not something this particular student liked. Oh wow, I started this post off with my first taking over Algebra class and here I am blabbing about Pre-Algebra class. My most sincere apologies....not. Seriously, though, back to the main topic.
I had prepared a lesson for my two Algebra classes multiplying binomials, but this lesson was on multiplying special cases of binomials. It was something that is rarely used, as I had forgotten about such a method since my efficiency with the Mnemonic FOIL was superb. One was the use of the difference of squares while the other technique, or shortcut, was about squaring binomials. I started my 4th hour class off with a little "Bell Ringer" assignment as a way to see what kind of answers they would give me. Many resulted in just squaring the two terms in the binomial separately, which is a common mistake at this point. All seemed to be going well until i showed them the "formula" for squaring binomials. They went ballistic with I-don't-get-it's and this makes no sense, until finally I calmed everyone down and worked out the same problems I gave them by using FOIL, and showing them where the formula is derived from. Luckily, this came with greater success and so I gave them the homework they would be working on. My cooperating teacher and I have the same mentality when it comes to group/partner work and time to work in class. We both know that these students have other classes as well as our class so the last thing we need to do is give them an hour of work to do at home. Anyways, many people didn't even use this "formula" for squaring binomials and were quite efficient as using FOIL. I was fine with this because the use of FOIL is more important than this little "formula." I did go around and let them know how it worked, so that they understood there was an easy way to come up with an answer. Most got nearly finished with the assignment before the lunch bell rang. The only thing that bothers me about this class is there is a pair of students, that I believe make fun of me every single class. I let it slide because they aren't really obvious, but then again, I do have some weird body motions.
Anyways, my 5th hour class roles around after the 30 minute lunch discussion about catastrophic snow storms in recent memory, or about 10-20 years before I was born. Students make their way into class and are constantly asking if I think we will get out of school the next couple of days. Of course I reply with "You are getting out Friday, is a three day weekend not good enough?" They reply with a resounding no. This class went relatively smoothly except for the fact that half the class didn't listen when we were explaining a topic, but then wonder why they don't understand it. I wish I could figure out what is going through their minds, when they think they can pass or do well in the class without paying attention at all. I get stern with a few students for misbehaving, and it was a surprise to some of them, considering I don't get mad very easily. Welp, here I go again on this tangent. Back to my lesson at hand.
My 7th hour, so far, seems to be my most cooperative and fun class to have. They seem to really listen to me when I am in front of the class, and they do a good job at completing their work and goofing off at the same time. During this class, they got even more confused about the "formula" for squaring binomials. I spelled it out for them multiple times until I gave up and decided to just assign their homework. While they were completing it, I walked around and made sure some were using this new technique. The ones who were trying kept leaving out parts. I told them if they weren't comfortable after I re-explained them the "trick," I would let them go ahead and use FOIL. Some understood it the second time through. Some thought they didn't understand it but flew through their homework using the method. I was surprised to find that almost the entire class finished their homework. Today the getting hit on antics have gone down a little bit, well a lot bit, but you understand where I am going with this. Instead of being blatant about it, some of the girls just try to ask me things, sometimes a little too personal that go unanswered, and then they just give me big old smiles. They also give me that "look." Girls and guys know what look I am talking about, I try not to keep eye contact for very long if I get this look, but either way, getting just this is a heck of a lot better than getting my nail drawn on or being asked if I'm married.
I had prepared a lesson for my two Algebra classes multiplying binomials, but this lesson was on multiplying special cases of binomials. It was something that is rarely used, as I had forgotten about such a method since my efficiency with the Mnemonic FOIL was superb. One was the use of the difference of squares while the other technique, or shortcut, was about squaring binomials. I started my 4th hour class off with a little "Bell Ringer" assignment as a way to see what kind of answers they would give me. Many resulted in just squaring the two terms in the binomial separately, which is a common mistake at this point. All seemed to be going well until i showed them the "formula" for squaring binomials. They went ballistic with I-don't-get-it's and this makes no sense, until finally I calmed everyone down and worked out the same problems I gave them by using FOIL, and showing them where the formula is derived from. Luckily, this came with greater success and so I gave them the homework they would be working on. My cooperating teacher and I have the same mentality when it comes to group/partner work and time to work in class. We both know that these students have other classes as well as our class so the last thing we need to do is give them an hour of work to do at home. Anyways, many people didn't even use this "formula" for squaring binomials and were quite efficient as using FOIL. I was fine with this because the use of FOIL is more important than this little "formula." I did go around and let them know how it worked, so that they understood there was an easy way to come up with an answer. Most got nearly finished with the assignment before the lunch bell rang. The only thing that bothers me about this class is there is a pair of students, that I believe make fun of me every single class. I let it slide because they aren't really obvious, but then again, I do have some weird body motions.
Anyways, my 5th hour class roles around after the 30 minute lunch discussion about catastrophic snow storms in recent memory, or about 10-20 years before I was born. Students make their way into class and are constantly asking if I think we will get out of school the next couple of days. Of course I reply with "You are getting out Friday, is a three day weekend not good enough?" They reply with a resounding no. This class went relatively smoothly except for the fact that half the class didn't listen when we were explaining a topic, but then wonder why they don't understand it. I wish I could figure out what is going through their minds, when they think they can pass or do well in the class without paying attention at all. I get stern with a few students for misbehaving, and it was a surprise to some of them, considering I don't get mad very easily. Welp, here I go again on this tangent. Back to my lesson at hand.
My 7th hour, so far, seems to be my most cooperative and fun class to have. They seem to really listen to me when I am in front of the class, and they do a good job at completing their work and goofing off at the same time. During this class, they got even more confused about the "formula" for squaring binomials. I spelled it out for them multiple times until I gave up and decided to just assign their homework. While they were completing it, I walked around and made sure some were using this new technique. The ones who were trying kept leaving out parts. I told them if they weren't comfortable after I re-explained them the "trick," I would let them go ahead and use FOIL. Some understood it the second time through. Some thought they didn't understand it but flew through their homework using the method. I was surprised to find that almost the entire class finished their homework. Today the getting hit on antics have gone down a little bit, well a lot bit, but you understand where I am going with this. Instead of being blatant about it, some of the girls just try to ask me things, sometimes a little too personal that go unanswered, and then they just give me big old smiles. They also give me that "look." Girls and guys know what look I am talking about, I try not to keep eye contact for very long if I get this look, but either way, getting just this is a heck of a lot better than getting my nail drawn on or being asked if I'm married.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)