I have been taking Angela Watson's 40 hour teacher workweek course and I love it!  This month we are encouraged to consider jobs that students can do to take some pressure off of us - this is a weird idea for high school (for me and perhaps some of you), but I'd sure like to try it! I have some ideas floating in the back of my head, but I'm not sure I have things quite right yet.  I am looking for suggestions in order to really finalize in preparation for the year.  Not that I won't change it once we get started, but just that I have a solid starting place. Background:  I ..read more

Things will be changing at my school next year.  Don't worry, I'm still happily planning on being in my same position, but I will be losing several coworkers as well as my principal.  I am very sad to lose so many wonderful, compassionate people.  I have enjoyed working with them and some of them are my dearest friends.  But apparently this stage has come to an end, and there are things to look forward to in a new year, so here are some of them! 1.  Our bell schedule...I think every year our bell schedule changes a bit.  Hopefully this one is a keeper :) 2.  ..read more

First Day of School Plans with #SundayFunday Numbers About Me: For the past several years I have enjoyed doing a "Numbers about Me" activity with my students on the first day that then turns into the cover of their notebook.  I have refined it over time, but last year I made it into a card sort and I think I'll keep it like that this year.  I really enjoy starting the year with a card sort because it is something that I do often in class. I start with 10 numbers and units that describe me, but I separate the numbers from the units.  They work as a table to try to match them ..read more

Goals with #SundayFunday I am expecting to have four different preps this year.  I am used to having three, so this is causing me some anxiety.  However, I'm trying to stay calm and not allow my job to consume my life.  I'm having some problems balancing my passion for work with my personal life.  My children require a lot of work and attention and so I need my work to not invade that. I'm hopeful that with #SundayFunday I can do all this and blog some more than I did the past year!  I'm excited to set some goals for this year.  But maybe I should just set goa ..read more

Someone shared this article on twitter, and I was excited that NPR thought the flawed educational system needed addressed:  Teachers Are Stressed, And That Should Stress Us All Then I read the article.  It doesn't recommend systemic changes that are necessary to ensure teacher well being in the United States.  It just suggests that teachers change themselves by learning to be more mindful.  What a load of crock!  So I alternatively title it "Teachers Are Stressed; The Should Fix Themselves" I'm not opposed to mindfulness.  I think it is a great tool for both stu ..read more

Before #TMC16, I had asked for some help with lesson ideas for unit conversions.  Anna Vance (@typeamathland), replied with this introduction that she has used I was thinking this is pretty awesome!  How can I make it better?  How can I use it to create a cohesive lesson on unit conversions.  I got another good idea from Gregory Taylor (@mathtans) that I would like to incorporate as well: At TMC, I got to talking a little more with Anna, and we had BOTH been trying to find a way to make the conversions a little more manipulative for students.  I was still thinking ..read more

At TMC16, I went to lunch with a group to discuss SBG and Interactive Notebooks.  We ended up mostly talking about SBG, which was great because I got a new idea!  Jessica Breur (@BreurBreur) shared how teachers at her school use tracking sheets for the students to reflect on how they are doing with each target and record scores the teacher has given them.  Then at the end of the unit the teacher collects and keeps them.  I asked her to share with me, and she kindly did! While looking at all her resources and thinking through it all I was thinking about how it would make a ..read more

At TMC I really felt pushed to have my students doing more reflection, which I had already been thinking about.  I want them to have "math journals" where they can reflect on what we're doing in class, their homework, and "I see math" entries.  I didn't go to Anna Blinstein's "Journaling and Writing in Mathematics" session, but maybe I should have.  There were a lot of sessions I wanted to go to, but didn't, so I've committed myself to look over their resources on the wiki.  I wanted to take some notes while looking over Anna's slides, so here they are.  Also here is a ..read more

I've been working on my learning targets for this coming year and linking them to reporting standards.  My goal is that the learning targets will be somewhat evenly spread out among my eight reporting standards.  I'll present them unit by unit here, but first I should let you know what my codes for my reporting standards stand for. NQ = Number and Quantity SSE = Seeing Structure in Expressions ER = Exponents and Radicals CRE = Creating and Reasoning with Equations IBF = Interpreting and Building Functions LER = Linear and Exponential Relationships SID = Statistical Interpretation o ..read more

So, Sarah Carter and I chatted on twitter some about practice structures, and she totally beat me to blogging about it.  Read her post here.  She also calls for you to submit the practice structures you use. My goal is to generate a reasonable list of practice structures that will be efficient for me to use and also beneficial for my students.  Ones that make them think, move around, and engage in their learning.  Efficiency is an issue because I don't want to always spend 15 minutes explaining a new structure.  There are lots of options out there and if I'm always do ..read more