Signed Numbers

* taps mic * Is this on?  I haven't been here in years , but there is so much that I have been reading, thinking about, and planning in the past few days.  I needed to get some of it out.  Maybe this will forever live in drafts, or maybe, just maybe, I'll be brave and #pushsend. I crawled out from under a rock and started using TweetDeck on my computer last week.  For years I have missed the #MTBoS community, but have felt that it was too overwhelming to keep up with on top of all the typical day to day activities.  Also, I joined Twitter back when I was one of two math teachers at my school.  That community was my lifeline during my first 3 years of teaching.  Now, I have a workroom filled with teachers in real life with whom I can and should collaborate.  The richness and depth of these workroom discussions are not usually the same as what I found online, but it is still critical to support and develop these relationships. Now comes to the r...

It seems Khan Academy (henceforth referenced as KA) has a pretty bad rap in some math teacher circles.  I understand that the videos are somewhat lacking in the engagement factor, and motivating students with points and badges can seem somewhat elementary.  I also see that KA tends to focus more on a procedure/pattern than actual problem solving.  All that said, I will be using KA this year in my resource classroom.  I have a group of students that are in my class for numeracy skill building/strategies instruction.  I'm supposed to be teaching them 25 mins/day and allowing them 25 mins/day to work on their homework or classwork.  I have students of all grade and ability levels in one resource class, so lesson planning becomes difficult.  Twenty-five minutes is not a long time when you think about it, seemingly less when you think about real problem solving tasks. Enter KA.  Each student can be working on exercises related to what their indivi...

For those of you that don't know, I'm about to start teaching at a new school in a new state.  I will be still be teaching high school math to students with special needs, but those special needs are not necessarily deafness or blindness.  I am very excited to work with a math department as opposed to one other colleague (even though she was fabulous).  All in all, though, it's a lot of transition. Here are some things I have learned in the process: - I'm not as good at transitioning as I like to think I am - I have a difficult time making any kinds of decisions when there are so many unanswered questions and uncertainties ahead - It's really difficult to transfer certifications between states - I'm not sure I entirely know what I'm getting into, but I'm still excited - I am *not* a detail person I went to a workshop hosted by the district I'll be working in.  It was great to collaborate with teachers from the different schools and create ma...

Recently in Trig, we've embarked on the task of graphing sine and cosine curves. Before this, we constructed the unit circle and students became familiar with the exact values of sin and cos at the special angles. To introduce the parent graphs, I used an activity that I found at Kate' s blog last year (who I'm sure got it from somewhere else, but I don't know where). To first see the "unwrapped" unit circle that is the sine (and later, cosine) function, students used yarn to mark intervals along the circumference of a unit circle, then used spaghetti to measure the y (later, x) value at each place. They then transfered these lengths of spaghetti to an x-y plane with x intervals of length matching the circumference intervals. This was a great picture for them of where the shape of the sine function comes from. One student even explained it (works much better in ASL), as though you've taken the bottom half of the unit circle and spun it around to make up ...

Here's an analogy and the most recent joke going around my department: Some of our kids get upset when they don't get all A's (understandable). My students are not all "on-level". In fact, most of them are not. In English class, they are accessing high school content at modified levels based on their independent and instruction reading levels as determined by the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI). These reading levels range from pre-Primer through High School, and the teachers adapt their materials accordingly. Students that read at the pre-Primer level can still get a grade of A in English by doing the work and improving their reading and writing skills. Math is a different beast. Students are learning high school math content. You cannot change the Algebra 1, Algebra 2, or Geometry standards. You can modify the methods used to teach the content. You can create guided notes with picture support for vocabulary and explanations written in language they can ac...

The Writing Committee at my school developed a task for this school year to help encourage writing across the curriculum in hopes of improving our students' writing abilities. (Students who are deaf, on average , are significantly below grade level in reading and writing. Some suggest it stems from lack of access to the phonology and patterns of spoken English, upon which the written form of English is based. Others suggest it is a symptom of language delay stemming from lack of access to a full language during the critical period for language development. Many oralists have cited ASL as the cause for low literacy rates among deaf people, but other research has shown that a strong foundation of ASL can actually support English reading and writing ability. It's all about language ).** Anyway, each class is required to submit 4 writing assignments for each student (one per quarter). Not too demanding, but there is an additional requirement that the writing assignments be of spe...

Sarah got me thinking about different kinds of graduate level programs after she commented on my last post. I also posted a tweet when I found out the program I had been eyeing has been closed. Our dialog (and some other tweets that have gone back and forth since then, has prompted me to want to do more research to see what's actually out there. I have come to a couple conclusions: I do not entirely know what I want to study I am afraid of making the wrong decision and finding out in 15 years that I am not marketable for what I actually want to do There might not be a program out there that fits my ideal The options I am looking at (so far) are either a M.A. in Deaf Education (with a focus in secondary math education), or a M.A/S in Mathematics Education (as long as there is a program that doesn't require me to a. have a BS in Math or b. student teach in order to get math certification...I already teach math...kthx). Pros for the Deaf Education program would be that...

I'd forgotten how humbling it is to make something and then send it to another person for feedback. As I was making my derivatives test yesterday, Sam mentioned that he would like to see it to compare with his. As I was writing the test, I was adding specific questions to target certain skills, but I also became highly aware that someone whose teaching I highly respect would be looking at this test very soon. It made me nervous! I'm in the very early stage of my career so I feel like I don't have anything to offer these teachers who have been at it for years. I become self-conscious.  But I sent it anyway, despite my insecurities, and hopefully he'll have some feedback on how it could be better. *smile* Thanks for making me strive to be a better teacher.

Wednesday I gave a test in Calculus. It was covering limits at a point, at infinity, one-sided limits, continuity, etc., even some free fall questions leading into our next unit on differentiation. The day before the test, I was nervous that the test was not going to go well. Review, things that should have been easy, was like pulling teeth. I was starting to doubt myself and my teaching. During the test, I was looking through some stuff in my classroom and I happened upon my limits test from when I was in high school. I got a B+, and there was a calculator and no-calculator portion. I instantly thought, "Arg! I should've made a no-calculator portion!" Instead of dwelling on that, though, I just looked it over and found my mistakes...very interesting ones. Since the class finished the test with time to spare, I decided to show my test, and look at my mistakes. Looking at the problems I answered incorrectly, I asked the student to decide where I went wrong and what the ...

I've been a bit frazzled lately. I feel like I'm constantly running around at school and I don't have time to get my head on straight. When I sit down to work on planning the next day's lessons, or creating materials, I get sidetracked by other things that I *know* must be done while I am at school . I then leave the rest of the planning and creating for time over the weekend or at home. I'm not really liking that strategy. I know that, as a teacher, it is almost innate within me to bring work home and to think about work when I am not actually working. I seriously think it's in our genes or something. What I don't like, though, is that I feel ineffective in the time I do have at school. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to manage planning time more effectively? How to use resources available online and from textbooks to develop lessons without feeling like you're recreating the wheel every time you make notes for a new topic? I'm at the b...