Diversity

I have 17 students in my 4th period class.  There are 8 boys and 9 girls. Of these students, 14 show up regularly to class. One of my students rarely ever shows up. In my opinion, 7-8 are higher achieving and there are about 3 low acheiving students. The rest are average,

Differentiating between the different levels can be challenging. For example, last week we were working a matrix problem as a whole class. Each student had to take a turn at the board working out a step in the solution. My high achieving students were working ahead and would stay atleast 4 steps ahead of the rest of us. My low achieving students "had no idea what we were doing" (although we had been doing this for quite some time). My dilemma was dealing with those that were behind while also trying to work with the "fast ones."
Usually, I will use grouping to differentiate. The high achievers usually stick together and work fast and go farther. The low achievers usually work together. This works pretty well. The high achievers usually require no attention. They only need to verify their answers. That gives me the opportunity to work specifically with the ones that are behind.

Tech/Action Research

We use technology in our classroom. The students are welcome to use their calculators for everything. They are also required to use their calculators for specific topics. Everyone must have their own calculator because we do not have a classroom set. My class also uses clickers. However, we have not used them much.
My calculus class uses the computer lab. They have gone in there several times this semester to research mathematicians and make Prezi's. These have been really fun and interesting projects. These have also prepared them to make presentations and share with their peers in college. They really enjoy the break from the traditional classroom.

My action research is centered around motivation. My idea is that students become more motivated to work in a game-like setting. If we can make math fun, students will stay interested.

Parental Involvement

Since all three of my classes are full of seniors, I do not see much parental involvement. My mentor teacher has emailed home when Calculus students have not done any homework. Surprisingly, she did not receive too big of a response from parents.

My school also had a open house day. Parents were able to walk through their students' schedules and meet teachers. Of the three classes, we have about 44 students. Of these 44 students, only about 5 parents showed up for the open house.

Though this should be very outrageous and surprising, it is not. When I was in high school, my parents were not very involved in my academic life. They expected me to do my homework and pass my tests all on my own. My parents were really more involved and active with my sports life. I must remember that this is the case for several of my students.

We will all have those parents that want to know everything and check grades constantly. Then, we will also have those parents who don't ever want to hear from a teacher.

Let's Assess

"Assessment" is a word that every single one of my students hate....well those that know what that word is. They all dread "test day." However, what they don' t realize is that they are assessed way more than they know. I assess my students everyday in several ways.

1. When we go through instruction, I am constantly monitoring my students and making sure they are getting it.
2. After we do a problem, I ask my students to do a "thumbs up/thumbs down" assessment.
3. I grade the papers my students turn in.
4. I look over the homework they turn in and see if they are getting these correct.

Overall, my students are being assessed way more than they know. Assessment is more than just a final exam.

My class

My first period class is amazing. It is all seniors in CP Calculus, and there are only 9 of them in here. Since there are 9 students and two teachers (my mentor and I), everyone stands a very fair chance of understanding the material and receiving help. My students are also very cooperative. I assign them to groups and they work with whoever with no complaints. This is great. We played a review game and everyone honestly worked together and helped each other. This made me so happy. There are a few students that have made A's on everything. There is only one student who is a bit of an underachiever and one other student who constantly falls behind. However, with our help and the help of her peers, this student is able to catch up.

Math...interesting?

I got the chance to teach the entire day last week. I was in control of all three classes. I was extremely excited. I knew that calculus would run smoothly. It is a great bunch of kids and there are only 10 of them. I was not so sure about third and fourth period Finite. During my plan period, I looked at the notes that were prepared for class. It looked just like any other normal day. However, I really wanted to engage the class and make things interesting. To do this, my mentor teacher and I came up with some really interesting example problems. I was supposed to teach exponential growth and decay involving half life and doubling. Here are the problems we came up with:

1. The zombie population doubles every 6 hours. If there are only 4 zombies at this moment, how many zombies will there be in 2 days?
2. Welcome to college, girls! The freshman boys are AWAY from home and NO LONGER BATHING. The number of guys you would even consider dating is dropping by one-half every week. If you had an initial list of 50 potential hotties, how many would still be on your list after 28 days?

The last example problem really excited the class. The students really enjoyed it and everyone got into it. I ended the lecture with a last thought. I told the boys to keep showering. I told the girls that math can help them find their "hotties."

Overall, this was a very successful day. The main thing that I learned was that if we can make math interesting, useful, and realistic, then the students will pay more attention and be more involved.

Too easy

I remember being a high school student. It was fun and I didn't have to work very hard at all. However, I feel like I still took tests very seriously.
Some of my high school students in my finite classes take the tests serious, but they do not take advantage of all of the resources I provide them. For example, every test has had a review that looks very very very similar to the actual test (i.e. they have the same type of problems exept different numbers and answers). Thus, there are no surprises on the test. If my teachers had done this for me, I would have been so happy. However, some of my students do not even finish their whole review. Then, they miss problems on the test. There has been a direct correlation between the test scores and whether or not the review was completed. Some even ask if they can finish the review after the test. But this misses the whole point of letting the review prepare you for the test.
Overall, this just shocks me a little. My plan is to keep providing the students with a review. The review will not be accepted after the test. My mentor teacher grades the reviews pretty harshly too. I plan to have a talk with my class and let them know how fortunate they are. This kind of work ethic will not cut it in college. Maybe I should give them a test without a review?

Reflection 1

So far, my experience in my classroom has been really great. I am really enjoying seeing the teaching side of high school.
There was one experience that struck me in a surprising way. I have two senior finite math classes. As we went over a new section, the students needed to find the x-intercept. I thought that this would be a review for them (after all, these students all passed algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2.....and they're seniors!). The whole class was lost and could not do it. OK, so we probably needed to review a little. That was fine. I taught the class how to set a "y=mx+b" equation equal to zero and solve for "x." These students were completely lost. They could not remember their basic algebra skills (move b to the other side and divide by m). This struck me as surprising because these students will be in college next year and their professors will not take the time to review something as simple as that. This class will be more work than I thought.