The teaching community on Twitter has been one of my favorite things of the past year. However, I am little shy with my own blogging and sharing with MTBoS. I signed up for the MTBoS challenge and I am excited to get started! Here it goes, challenge post number one:
Day In The Life
7:00 Get to school - make answer key for AP Calculus and enter in grades from yesterday make sure all copies are set and ready to go.
It is Wednesday which at my school means a block day. Each period is 90 minutes but we only have four of them and then on Thursday we have a block day with the other three periods. This year my schedule is such that I teach all four of the periods on Wednesdays. Its a marathon where I sprint the whole time!
Period One - AP Calculus
This class is all seniors. Aka all "we are done with high school lets talk about college" students. I love them dearly and am not ready to see them go. I have taught them since their sophomore year in Algebra 2.
Start class go over homework answer any questions.
Move on to notes. We looked at Trapezoidal approximation of areas under the curve.
Then we got to the fun stuff. We spent time comparing Right, Left, and Midpoint Riemann Sums, with trapezoids and actual integrals too. Loved it. We did it with general curves with no numerical values and with tables of values. They worked together in groups to decided if something was an overestimate or underestimate. I love the number sense in calculus. So fun.
Ended class with an exit quiz that was interrupted by a fire drill. Cool, there goes their exit quiz and they are thrilled.
Fire drill - walk out in a line silently take attendance and wait until the all clear. We stand near the elementary schoolers and I don't know who is harder to keep in line, a 7 year old or a high school senior!!
GOOD PART OF MY DAY - Turns out the students were disappointed that they didn't take their exit quiz. They were looking forward to showing that they knew what to do! Love that
Snack Break - 10 to 15 to whose counting minutes for snack break. We do not have a bell system so there is usually someone to tell them when class is starting. Snack break usually gets fuzzy. My vote is they have phones with alarms but oh well.
Period 3 - Algebra 2
This class is made up of Sophomores. I'm pretty sure they are BFFs with everyone in this class because they love talking just not about math. The other day I told them that they were allowed to talk to their neighbor while working on classwork and one student informed me that they only talk when things are hard and they don't understand. Well I think talking about math is important so looks like that my cue to up the rigor and/or richness in this class! ;)
Start class with checking homework, passing back papers, stamping homework, answering questions.
Warm-up on the board they start it independently then talk to each other. Volunteers show their work on the board. Go over as a whole class. Notice that one girl is out of dress code, but its a new rule and I can't remember it perfectly...send an email to another teacher checking the rule.
Notes
Extraneous answers when solving rational equations. This is fun because we already explored graphing simple rational functions so they know what an asymptote is but they don't necessarily know why there is an asymptote. Plus we are still working on how to say the word asymptote.
Somewhere in here my ipad was acting up. My ipad is where I write notes and through airplay and apple TV it is projected onto the board. Silently praying as I try to trouble shoot come on work work work please work. We are a one to one ipad school. I have a rule in my classroom that you can only respond to broken technology in one of two ways.
1) Say nice things to the ipad. "Pretty ipad nice ipad"
2) "Its still loading, Yay, that means I'm learning patience!" Or "Its not working yay I get to ask my neighbor for help!"
The positive responses have helped the atmosphere so much. If things don't work it is no longer super frustrating and chaotic. Normally the students are either not phased by it or they are laughing saying nice things to the ipad or the projector.
Some good connections where made today. I am hoping to do an open middle or some sort of discovery activity on Friday to reinforce the connections made today.
End class with an exit quiz
Period 5 - Algebra 2
This class is made up of Juniors. We are small school that starts tracking for math in 7th grade. This group has been discouraged of the past couple of years in math so I try hard to make math accessible and fun. They are "behind" the other period one day because they really needed to spend an extra day reviewing factoring but they are all set now!
Notes Solving rational equations
Because they are a day behind I am not sure if I should introduce extraneous solutions or not. I decide to be honest with them and tell them we will play it by ear and it will be ok to see how it goes. They were good sports and we ended up with plenty of time for everything! They did great.
GOOD PART OF MY DAY - my algebra 2 classes are back in step with each other yay!
Somewhere in here I get an email confirming the new dress code rule. Hmm need to track down the girl and give her a detention. Definitely my least favorite part of my day :( I hate giving detentions.
Lunch - on Wednesdays we have a staff meeting during lunch. Yep you read that correctly. No break!
Period 6 (I know I know 1, 3, 5, 6, makes no sense but it works best for our school haha)
AP Calculus. Repeat of period one but this class is SMALL and two students are absent. We normally sit together at one table which is really two tables pushed together but I think today we could've done one table for the six of us. They did all the same fun stuff it was great. This class is more relaxed because of the small group setting so in-between problems they tried to think of food that starts with a letter C. Crackers, chips, crisps, cheese, cake...we had fun. Not mathematical but it is good for the small class culture to just go with it. They are funny and they are really good about including everyone in the class. Definitely a good way to end the long day.
GOOD PART OF THEIR DAY - told them first period didn't take their exit quiz because of the fire drill and tell them they don't have to take it. One student still takes it for fun haha
3:05 End of day ... technically
3:06 One student hangs back until the other students have all left to talk about college. She is feeling torn between two schools and isn't sure how to choose. We talked about them a bit but I really tried to encourage her to think about where she wants to set up home for the next four-ish years. College is usually school, work, home, friend's house, gym, and everything in-between.
3:30 phone call with credential coach.
I have my credential but in the state of California your credential has to be cleared. This phone call was a post observation phone call. Everything was thumbs up so onward with the next task!
4:15 Now on to prepping for tomorrow's class. This includes lesson planning and grading for Precalculus block schedule tomorrow. We are going to be graphing trig functions which is my absolute favorite math to do!! It has always been my favorite math but a few years ago when Dan Meyer introduced his three-act math I tried to write my own three-act math for this topic. My style is a little different than what is now on www.101qs.com but it still made for great conversation in my class. I should probably blog about that lesson soon.
6:30 Home - checked emails, responded to my awesome MTBoS mentor and did this challenge :)
