Mission Accomplished: 100% Engagement!

I'm not gonna lie. I'm a little overwhelmed this year. I have a total student load of 182 and it is starting to wear me down. I started the year with great enthusiasm and lots of creativity, but quickly found myself working 12-14 hours a day in order to prepare activities and keep up with the grading involved in such a high student load. I've got a very rambunctious group of ninth graders in algebra I which has led to lots of parent phone calls and some one-on-one counseling sessions in the hall trying to promote better behaviour. I'm slowing getting the classroom management situation under control and the students are starting to learn that as soon as they start talking, I STOP. They are realizing that the more they talk and act silly, the longer the lesson takes and the less time they have to start their homework in class.

For the last couple of weeks I have found myself in survival mode. Lots of direct instruction and guided practice. The kids are learning, but they are bored and so am I. Yesterday, I just had to do something different.

After a brief lesson on using the distibutive property to solve equations containing parentheses, I had the students scoot their desk next to their partners desk and then gave everyone some low odor dry erase markers (this is part of their school supply requirements). I then put up problems like this:

I gave them two minutes to work the problems out on their desks. I told them I wouldn't help anyone and that they would have to rely on their partner if they weren't sure what to do.

After about two minutes I began to uncover the steps using the "shade" feature of my smartboard. You could hear the moans and groans from the students as they realized their mistakes.

My day was made when one of my students in the last period of the day said "Can we do this more often? I really learn good like this." All the other kids chimed in, "yeah, let's do this again." I said we would definitely do it again sometime and I complimented them on everyone being on task and engaged.

Second Time's the Charm!

The first year I taught at Paradise High School (2009-2010), I taught an Algebra I class that drove me crazy. I posted about this story about a group of immature, love struck boys right here. Go back and read it to get a good picture of the class atmosphere.

When I got my rosters this year, I discovered that three of the boys in that class were in one of my Math Models classes this year. I was really torn. At our school we have the right to refuse to teach any student who has previously failed our class. I really wrestled with whether or not to leave the three boys on my roster or give them to someone else. In the end I kept them and I couldn't be happier.

I had the best experience today. My math models classes were doing an "Around the World" activity today to prepare for tomorrow's test and I was walking around helping and generally making sure everyone was staying on task. All three of these students were working and even being successful on "difficult" word problems. I couldn't help but comment on how much they had improved since their freshmen year and how they didn't even seem like the same students. I told them how helpless I had felt at not being able to help them succeed in Algebra I. I really struggled with that class and had great doubts in my teaching ability due to the 75% failure rate of the class.

One of the boys said to me, "Mrs. H, why would you blame yourself? It's never the teacher's fault! We were just lazy! You shouldn't beat yourself up. You are a good teacher or how else would we be able to do the math we are doing right now?"

Needless to say, I was shocked! They were doing the math! All this time I have believed that they didn't learn anything that year. And speaking of that, how did they learn anything? They didn't do any homework. Many of their tests were turned in blank or half-completed. It seemed as if I was teaching to a brick wall. But here they are as juniors, being successful in my class! Maybe their Geometry teacher finally knocked some sense into them or maybe they just grew up. I'm not sure what happened, but I think it is going to be a great year!

Check This Out

Please stop by and see Jen @ lil Mop Top today for her Teaching Thursdays. She shares a great Pair Share acitivity for reviewing linear equations.

New Student Folders

I want to share an idea that has made my life so much easier this school year. Every school year I get a little flustered when new students unexpectedly show up in my classroom (sometimes in the middle of a lesson.

I want to be able to get them all the information they will need about our class with as little disruption to the class as possible. This summer, I had the brilliant idea to make up New Student folders containing all the information I hand out on the first day, a little note explaining what to do, and a piece of candy.

My note says something like this:

"Welcome to our class. Whether you are new to Paradise High School or you are just had a schedule change, change can be stressful. This packet will explain everything you need to know about this class. Please complete the following steps:

1. Fill out the student information sheet (yellow)
2. Please take home the Parent information sheet and have your parent (or guardian) fill out and return tomorrow
And so on . . .

Before school started, I made up 20 of these and boy, have I been using them! Just yesterday, I had three new students and I expect more to trickle in all this week.

Classroom Arrangement

This summer I was privileged to hear one of my readers, Jen from Lil Mop Top speak at CAMT (Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching). She had so many great ideas, but one of the things I learned from her was how to arrange your desks so that students are in rows and facing forward, but are able to pair up or get into groups of four very quickly and then back to rows just as easily

I arranged my desks like she said. Here is a pic of my classroom (before I'd done any decorating)with my desks arranged in what I call pods. The students sit close to a partner, but are able to turn their desks quickly to group up with the pair of students directly behind them to form a group of four. I call this group of four a pod. There is a good bit of space between the pods.

We have been doing activities this week that are designed to help them get to know their partners and their pod mates. I have been having them get together with their partner and with their pod at various times during the lessons. I have them go back to rows when I lecture so they can focus on me and the lesson.

I love this new seating arrangement. It is really the best of both worlds. Rows for direct instructions, partners and groups for activities.

You've Got To Get This!

Have you guys seen these? I saw them at Target this weekend and had to have them. I cleaned out the shelf (6 packs) and I still want more! I already used them in Algebra I today for a warm-up activity.

What fun activities would you do if you had these???

Our first unit in Algebra I this year is functions. The very first lesson deals with multiple representations of functions and determining whether a relation is a function. The lesson seemed so drab and boring so I used to activities to teach the concepts. I think they worked quite well.

In the first activity I gave the students this paper. The paper has four verbal phrases like the "y-values of the set are four times the corresponding x-value"


Then I gave them a baggie of cut up cards. Each card has a either a graph, a set of ordered pairs, a mapping and a table. Also each card has a random number in the top right corner.

I had the students match each verbal phrase with the corresponding representation. After they found the four cards that matched their verbal description, they wrote the number of the card in the answer boxes below each verbal description.

The only thing I will do different next year is add an equation card so they will have to match 5 cards to each verbal description.

Next, we talked about the definition of a function and I gave them a few examples then I gave them this baggie of cards and had the students (who were seated as partners) designate one desk for functions and one desk for non-functions. I then had them sort the cards into either function or not function. There was a lot of really good discussion that went one. At the end we debriefed and I went over the answers and let them redo their piles. Today, we will talk about the vertical line test, but it should be a breeze for them after yesterday's lesson.