Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Jersey
LOL. Greatest blogger ever, haven't done any blogging in the longest time. Oh well, you win some you lose some. Anyway, since my last blog, totally graduated from college, on took 6 years and 50000 beers, and I just got back from a trip to Spain. Legendary trip to Spain I should say with the family and it was possibly the best trip to Europe I have ever had. Well now I am writing my blog from Jersey, in America. Yes, sweet old America the beautiful with English speaking natives. Nice to be home and nice to be in my hometown again, though I do miss living in my apartment on my own. Soon enough I will be out of this house and on my own again but for the time being I am stuck here. Anyway, I will be trying to post on more of a regular
basis and we shall see how that works out. In the meantime, here is a picture from Spain that I really enjoyed.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Spring Break Anyone?
All of my amigos are gone on spring break.
Here I am, in Fort Wayne, Indiana during my University Spring Break. Some buddies went to Miami, others up to Michigan, and my roommate gone to Texas. What have I been doing with all my free time? Becoming a better teacher.
I have spent most of my free time working on lesson plans, looking up ideas for various concepts in the classroom, as well as searching for something that will capture the students and really engage them. Last night, I was looking through the entire internet for a cool Pythagorean Theorem project for my advanced math students to do during ISTEP testing days. Turns out I did not really find much that I enjoyed or that I thought they could accomplish without lots and lots of help.
Instead, I have decided to create my own project, and today was the first day they had to work on it. Actually, it was not much of a project, more like a problem I just made up, which they obviously knew because the question asked, "What is the longest straight path that my frog can swim in his tank?" I had a video that went along with the question, which was of my albino frog, Lionel, swimming up and down ferociously in my fish tank.
We had just covered a few worksheet problems, you know those ultra boring and non-related to anything questions that you can find in the teachers resource in your books website. They handled those pretty easily, since they are basically hand-feeding the students, and it only takes a sliver of intelligence to plug one number here and one number there. Instead with this project, I had them come up with their own ideas, form their own questions and make calculations themselves.
After the video was over, I asked what information they would like to know. Some asked pointless questions, like why I had my fish tank look like Bikini Bottom, or what the names of the other fish were. Suddenly, one student asked what the dimensions of the tank were, so I happily changed to the next slide where I had the dimensions of the fish tank. I asked them to get to work and to show their work.
Most were quick to multiply Length times Width, even though they were not asked to find Area or anything like that, which was confusing. I reminded them that we had just finished practicing Pythagorean Theorem and that they should be able to use that to find some unknown length. After I said this, they asked if they should find the Hypotenuse of one of the glass sides, and I asked them if they thought that was the longest part of tank? They sat there and thought for a little bit and I was happy to see that they had a puzzled look on their face.
Only thing about having this project today is that the periods were so short, so before I knew it the class was over and they had forgotten all about Lionel and his training regiment. So hopefully tomorrow they will be able to solve this and we can keep moving forward.
CM
Here I am, in Fort Wayne, Indiana during my University Spring Break. Some buddies went to Miami, others up to Michigan, and my roommate gone to Texas. What have I been doing with all my free time? Becoming a better teacher.
I have spent most of my free time working on lesson plans, looking up ideas for various concepts in the classroom, as well as searching for something that will capture the students and really engage them. Last night, I was looking through the entire internet for a cool Pythagorean Theorem project for my advanced math students to do during ISTEP testing days. Turns out I did not really find much that I enjoyed or that I thought they could accomplish without lots and lots of help.
Instead, I have decided to create my own project, and today was the first day they had to work on it. Actually, it was not much of a project, more like a problem I just made up, which they obviously knew because the question asked, "What is the longest straight path that my frog can swim in his tank?" I had a video that went along with the question, which was of my albino frog, Lionel, swimming up and down ferociously in my fish tank.
We had just covered a few worksheet problems, you know those ultra boring and non-related to anything questions that you can find in the teachers resource in your books website. They handled those pretty easily, since they are basically hand-feeding the students, and it only takes a sliver of intelligence to plug one number here and one number there. Instead with this project, I had them come up with their own ideas, form their own questions and make calculations themselves.
After the video was over, I asked what information they would like to know. Some asked pointless questions, like why I had my fish tank look like Bikini Bottom, or what the names of the other fish were. Suddenly, one student asked what the dimensions of the tank were, so I happily changed to the next slide where I had the dimensions of the fish tank. I asked them to get to work and to show their work.
Most were quick to multiply Length times Width, even though they were not asked to find Area or anything like that, which was confusing. I reminded them that we had just finished practicing Pythagorean Theorem and that they should be able to use that to find some unknown length. After I said this, they asked if they should find the Hypotenuse of one of the glass sides, and I asked them if they thought that was the longest part of tank? They sat there and thought for a little bit and I was happy to see that they had a puzzled look on their face.
Only thing about having this project today is that the periods were so short, so before I knew it the class was over and they had forgotten all about Lionel and his training regiment. So hopefully tomorrow they will be able to solve this and we can keep moving forward.
CM
Friday, February 24, 2012
It is almost March 2012
It is almost March in the year of 2012. The last time I posted was at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year back in August. Seems like a century ago since I have last posted, and I am glad to tell everyone out there in the interweb world that I am in a different place in my life. I am so close to graduating, even though I have been close for the last three years. Last semester was my final semester of classes, and since January I have been Student Teaching at Blackhawk Middle School. So far it has been amazing, I think the timing of my student teaching could not have been any better. I was really meant to be at this school at this time and everything I have done has led up to this point. I was paired with an amazing teacher, a teacher who is an expert in the technology that is used in the classroom. I had no idea how to use a Promethean Board or the program that came with that technology. My cooperating teacher is an expert and I have learned how to use this board, but I still have much to learn about the rest of its uses. Also, outside of the technology, my teacher is fantastic and extremely helpful with giving me ideas and supporting me in my learning process. He is a strong and confident teacher who really knows how to work a classroom, and I hope that one day I will be able to teach like he does, or even better than he does some day.
I am in a 6th grade math classroom. There are 5 classes throughout the day. 3 of the classes are regular math classes, and 2 of them are advanced math classes. The kids are great, each class has their own personality as well as their own unique learning styles. We have 55 minute periods, and most days it does not seem like enough, but there are other days where the classes are too long!
I have had the class all to myself for the last four weeks. I have been teaching since January 5th and today makes four full weeks of teaching all on my own. It really has been an experience and I have been learning a lot.
Anyways, I will talk more about this education thing that I am going through some other time. It is a little late but I will leave you with a song I have been in love with for the last few days.
I am in a 6th grade math classroom. There are 5 classes throughout the day. 3 of the classes are regular math classes, and 2 of them are advanced math classes. The kids are great, each class has their own personality as well as their own unique learning styles. We have 55 minute periods, and most days it does not seem like enough, but there are other days where the classes are too long!
I have had the class all to myself for the last four weeks. I have been teaching since January 5th and today makes four full weeks of teaching all on my own. It really has been an experience and I have been learning a lot.
Anyways, I will talk more about this education thing that I am going through some other time. It is a little late but I will leave you with a song I have been in love with for the last few days.
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