Comics in Math & CS Education

Teaching computer science and continually developing as a tech-centered educator, I am always looking for ways to teach students while incorporating my passions. I have been able to connect with students on gaming, and one other connection that is always on my radar is my passion for comic books. I have been an avid comic and pop culture enthusiast for much of my life. It started when I was 6 years old, with Saturday morning cartoons, watching X-Men: The Animated Series. After that, I became a devoted comic book collector and found enjoyment in reading different titles. In my personal collection, I have over 5,000 comics and graphic novels. Students can throw me off topic anytime they want because of my enthusiasm for superheroes and understanding of the comic book world. I’d say X-Men by Marvel Comics is my mainstay and favorite group of outcast superheroes. 

Using comics in education is nothing new, but it does still have a distinct flair. Comics have been created for everything from history and English, to financial Literacy and science.  I’ve been following and have been friends with Tim Smyth for several years now. His posts on Twitter (I’ll never call it X) inspired me to dive into more comics in my classroom as well. Tim is a middle school social studies teacher, a few hours away from me in Pennsylvania. He has a host of resources on his website, Teaching with Comics, that anyone would find valuable. In addition, he hosts a Facebook Group for like-minded educators and has written a book with lesson plans and how-to tutorials for making successful connections between learning and comic books. Mathematics is not an easy topic to find comic book references in, so after several years of comic book enthusiasm, I have only ever seen a handful of math-related comic titles. One comes from Practical Money Skills. They partnered with Marvel Comics to release 3 one-shot comics on personal finance, found here: Practical Money Skills Educational Comics.

Textbook by Tim Smyth, "Teaching with Comics and Graphic Novels"

With computer science at the forefront of everyone’s career skillset, educators are on the lookout for ways to connect their students to engage with the content. Power On! by Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis is written by computer science faculty at UCLA, and champions the ideas of inclusive, equitable learning of computer science. The story follows four teens in California, engaged in learning computer science and finding their way in the world. It is a very relatable and diverse story that helps all students find themselves as computer scientists. Read my Goodreads Review Here: Power On! Review

Comic by Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis, "Power On!"

Another great set of books I found while at a local Comic-Con, written by JP. Jackson. In Growin’ in the Garden, JP shares a story about a set of twins in a futuristic society that explores the biomes and world around them. In the second comic, they are set to explore viruses, and can be purchased by the end of this year.

Comic by JP Jackson, "Growin' in the Garden"

Math and science are not exclusive to reading and writing, so finding engaging comics and opportunities to help students read is a cross-curricular approach to STEM learning. These examples are just a few of the ways I have incorporated comics into my math, and some could with their own science courses. I hope to build a library for students to engage in meaningful literature. My next goal is to create some lesson plans incorporating the characters of some of my favorite books. One such lesson in development is about how fast Quicksilver runs to save all the X-Men from an explosion in the last X-Men: Apocalypse film.

What Teaching Needs Now!

When I proudly declared I wanted to go into education, after my senior year of high school, I thought I was doing it for all of the right reasons. I wanted to give back to society, and the impact that education had on me growing up, the goal was to educate the youth and help them find their path. Then after 14.5 years in the classroom, I transitioned into higher education and an administrative role. My impact on education has grown tenfold what I had as a classroom teacher, and I always want to support the efforts of those in the classroom. The Secondary Schools Team at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology is a dynamic group of exemplary professionals who are continually supporting high school teachers and students in the very thing I wanted to do as a teacher, help students develop a path.

Teachers need to pivot, in an age where information is readily available at your fingertips, and people can find massive amounts of information at any given time. We need fewer standardized tests for rote memorization, we need more time to collaborate and build engaging authentic lessons with our peers, and we also need time to reach students where they are. ChatGPT has shown that AI can help us use algorithms to find and write in detail. AI can be used to spark creativity and learning how to navigate new platforms is especially important for all learners. The moral implications should also be explained, in that the individual's creative rights are important, and so too is the advancement of knowledge use.

Made with AI Comic Factory

Gone are the days of needing to know absolutely everything by memory. Now we need confidence in finding the correct processes. So, to fix say an outlet you should be able to find DIY information, with skilled professionals who are not going to cut corners, but make you able to fix something simple up to the correct code. AR glasses can be used by technicians to facilitate fixing machines and wiring within a manufacturing plant. (See Vuzix: Field Service Glasses)

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels: Link Here

Education needs to adapt and become the problem-solving, critical-thinking, confidence-building vehicle behind all modern industry changes. Multiple-choice, standardized tests, are a thing of the past. Absorbing and analyzing information in a digestible format makes learning so much easier. During a webinar I attended in 2017, a presenter stated that human beings are visual learners. Hence, learning from videos or images broken down into steps helps us learn more quickly. Reading and interpreting a text is a learned behavior, and although some are successful that way, not all learners can learn processes through reading alone. Another book I just read, Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, gave multiple case studies on how learners who had multiple points to recall information in short assessments or self-questioning, learned material better. Teachers need to practice new quick learning and recall skills with students and get rid of re-reading until they understand practices. Practical use of knowledge is how recall becomes long-term and useful. 

One tool that resonates with me personally is the use of scholastic esports. Gaming to learn, gamification, game design, competitive gaming matches, and setting up intermural and external esports tournaments are all great pathways where games can be used to leverage learning. Students can think critically, use problem-solving skills, collaborate, and build leadership skills all in scholastic esports programs. Students don't have to be great gamers either to get into the space, there are support roles that are highly needed, and when developed can be used in a multitude of careers in the future, including social media and marketing. Education needs to embrace gaming and tools like it for teaching students. Scholastic uses of games can help connect to students who might have a harder time connecting with their learning. 

Photo by Yan Krukau from Pexels: Link Here

Why Video Games?

This week was William Penn's 2022 Senior Graduation Ceremony. I also experienced my first ever Harrisburg University Graduation Ceremony. I enjoy seeing my students showcasing their success, and watching the speeches they get to make. But as I have been reflecting a lot lately, and looking back on my teaching career, I go back to why I think video games are useful tools, and where could I find inspiration to hook students with the content I link to gaming. There is one story in particular that helped me realize the power that gaming with students had. 

WP Graduation Speeches C/O 2022

Knockout City Team Spring 2022 - Honorary Polo Given to Me!

As Graduation of 2015 was ending, we all processed out of the auditorium and deposited our caps and gowns back into the rental pile. It was the first one I volunteered to attend and help as a teacher, volunteering, to direct the aisle of students who sat next to me. As I was dropping off my own cap and gown used in the commencement I heard a student calling my name, "Mr. Gibson, Mr. Gibson! I really want you to come to meet my mom!" Of course, I couldn't say no to the excitement in the voice, of this one student, with having me meet his mother. As we both navigated the sea of parents, friends, and family in the lobby, we finally stood in front of his mother, the student promptly said, "Mom! This is Mr. Gibson, the teacher I have been telling you about!" His mother began sobbing and reached out to embrace me, and through her tears of joy I heard her say, "Thank you so much for helping my son Graduate!"

In the Library ready fo C/O 2015 Graduation!

After a long embrace I looked at my student and had a puzzled look on my face, he responded with, "Man, I was going through some rough times in the middle of this school year, and you pushed me to do better!" I had this student the year before, and when I saw his report card in my class, I just said "Come on man, I know you are smarter than this!" We also had another shared connection, in comparing characters and progress in the mobile version of Injustice. We shared a connection through gaming, he would also stay after for game club sometimes to talk video games or ask for help in another class. This rapport led me to be able to say something when he wasn't performing at a level that I knew he could. I knew he could do better and I believed in him. That was what he needed to push through and get his diploma. I had no idea he was in need, but I was able to help regardless. 

Video Game Club circa 2019!

Throughout my entire career I know I have helped numerous students and made connections with gaming, but this moment is one that will always stick with me. I was amazed by the connection this student had with me, and how much one little act of caring could stick with a student. He and I are still in communication to this day, and I couldn't be prouder of the young man he became! Video games are more than entertainment, they are a way to connect with other human beings, and I have also researched and developed, ways to learn from video games. 

Blog #5 ESL 509 - New EdTech

After a great 4th of July Week and some much-needed downtime from grad work, I am back at it!

This week my Google Alerts brought me an interesting article from Proactive Investors, Lingo Media Corp is building a new English Language Learning tool.  They are a print-based publisher from China, looking to expand how they teach EL students.  The article cites in the world today there are 1.6 Billion people learning English as a Second a Language right now.  The media literacy giant is trying to break into a new market with its program that will be unique.  Harmantas, has some inside details about Lingo Media Corp’s program, stating “A major differentiating feature of the product is Lingo’s speech recognition technology that allows users to analyze pronunciation and simulate real-life conversation scenarios. Users can record and compare themselves with native speakers to match their pronunciation.”

With technologies based on assessing and giving realtime feedback on an L2 student's English speaking skills, students will increase their English acquisition.  Technology is on a rise and new ways of educating our students are making everyday tasks more authentic and meaningful for EL students.  Courseware introduced by established companies looking to break through to a new way of learning should be highly looked at by educators.  Some technologies can help enhance a classroom and even create an easier job for the teacher who is looking to add some mechanics where work can be easily replicated by a machine. 

I really enjoy looking for new technologies for use in any classroom.  EdTech is a passion of mine and I think a wide variety of technologies can be used to assist in all student learning.  Personalizing the learning allows student choice, gives the student a voice and empowers their learning.

Blog #2 ESL 509 - EL Students and the Four Skills

During our fifth week of class, we were assigned to read Robert Blake's journal on using, "Technology and the Four Skills."  The reading had us investigate technology to help teachers effectively and deliberately teach EL students reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.  Each of the four skills is necessary for a class with EL students.  Teaching students a vocabulary heavy course like Geometry I have found that I do need to find ways to make students interact with the vocab in different ways.

Speaking and Listening

Out of the four skills, two that lend themselves to one another are speaking and listening.  Students in a classroom who need practice speaking and listening to the English language.  One article that I found useful in my Google Alerts this week came from Study International and had a list of Top 4 Apps to Help International Students Learn English Effectively,  one of the comments from an App developer, FluentU, was really interesting and stated that it, "uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the English language and culture over time."  I really liked the perspective and see the app as something that could be useful in our EL department.  Students can interact with videos, musical numbers, commercials, news and inspirational talks with subtitles and quizzes that adapt to the student's level of English.  

Getting Social in the Classroom listed a lot of great technology apps to use with students and inspired me to think of ways that I could get students to practice using the vocabulary in Geometry in an authentic way.  Using Flipgrid, I could have students post vocabulary pre-view videos and then interact with one another by responding after listening to one or two recordings of their peers.  Students could then practice using their English skills in the mathematics classroom, and use the technology to listen to others in the classroom.  Students would be able to listen to one another, critique their expertise and engage with one another in listening and speaking about content.

Reading and Writing 

The Top 4 Apps for learning English Effectively also had an interesting use for Google Translate, using it Live to translate menus, signs or even museum exhibits.  This tool would have been useful for the group of students that I had the pleasure to chaperone in Annapolis, Maryland.  Students could have used Google Translate to quickly translate the wording on the plaques that were displayed in and around the capitol building.  The Google Translate tool can also be used within the mathematics classroom to help translate word problems in the mathematics classroom as well. 

Getting Social in the Classroom using social media to help engage students is described as an authentic way to get students to read and write in the classroom.  In my first blog, I talked about how I wanted to use Edublogs as a tool for student writing.  The one app in my reading that piqued my interest was the use of Twitter.  I have been using Twitter to connect with educators around the world, and the thought of linking student writing with the use of a specific hashtag.  Geometry students could connect to one another across my periods, and Tweet out real-world mathematics connections.  The beginning of the school year my classes could have a competition to find the best hashtag for the Geometry class, and I could then curate the Tweets for the classes to read online on my website.

With all of the online digital tools and applications on mobile devices, there are tons of ways to enhance and support the speaking, listening, reading and writing of my EL Students.  I am looking forward to using some of these tools in the future.  

Adventures of a High School Math Teacher

Recently I have been struggling with students working in my class, they are pre-occupied with a lot of other things, district championship football, plays, music recitals, fall break, and just about anything but Geometry.  I had the opportunity to have our new Math Coach come and visit my 4th Period classroom, and she saw students acting out at their worst while I was trying to direct instruct.  I thought the entire afternoon went horribly wrong, but she had nothing but positive things to say and assist me with her feedback.

She stated they were all distracted and she could see that in my College Prep Geometry Course.  She also said she saw a lot of the students respected me and to make it an expectation that students work properly.  It really made me feel accomplished that there was a sign of respect in my classroom, as well as her only looking at the good things in my classroom, I did not see them in my own analysis of how the class had gone.  She mentioned taking a moment to speak with them about their abilities and the future I wanted for them.  That Geometry is the content, but the ability to sit and refrain from other distractions, that practice for their future careers, the soft skills they could learn from me, were crucial.  She stated that if I just re-iterated that cell phones and talking out during the middle of a meeting would get students fired from a job, then maybe they would start to listen and practice what good active learning was supposed to look like.

Cell phones have always been an issue, and a challenge she suggested was for 15 minutes of no cell phones.  Then 20 minutes, and build up to the whole class time.  Although cell phones can sometimes be useful, putting education and professionalism first is going to be key in making sure my 4th period can learn at the level they were required to learn.  I look forward to this conversation Monday with my students and I am excited to see how they respond to my request.

First Marking Period - Data & Committing to Life Long Learning

Recently the Keystone scores for Pennsylvania were released, and our Algebra 1 scores were not where we would have envisioned them.  Our English Language Arts scores saw growth, and a 9% gain in overall Proficiency, along with the Biology exam that is now given in PA.  Math took a 2% hit, although the numbers of students in the below basic category dropped and increased their scores, we need to re-examine the way we teach mathematics.  We believe student scores will increase if the math department increases the writing proficiency in Algebra.

In my Geometry course I am committed to help increase the perserverance in writing mathematically and technically.  To foster those skills I am utilizing more task problem sets to practice skills in Geometry.  Recently students investigated the use of areas in carpeting and tiling a first floor of  a house.  I used Carnegie Learning's Geometry course when I student taught and have found continued uses for the problem sets that are available in their old books.  I bought a student edition off of Amazon for $10 and have been using specific problem sets for my course to enhance the classroom rigor and relevance.

Carpeting & Tiling a Floor- Using Task Problems to investigate
area in a Geometry Classroom while increasing
writing in mathematics. 

I also am expanding my classroom set-up, with a new use for the white board in the back of my classroom.  After participating in a  Twitter conversation with some other professionals across the United States about mathematics and education, one topic really stood out to me.  What do you do with good student questions?  One educator said he had a Pressing Questions board, and I thought to myself, well I have a blank White Board in the back of my room, let's utilize it and discuss more questions with students. One question led us to a whole class discussion and deeper thinking while looking at a drawing on GeoGebra to illustrate what happens when polygons increase their number of sides.  My visual learners were fully engaged in the discussion and said they would like to use GeoGebra themselves.

New Pressing Questions White Board - Use questions students come up
with that cannot be addressed right away, or that are good enough
to keep coming back to. 

Students were also introduced to the use of Geogebra to start manipulating and working with digital drawings of mathematical concepts.  I enjoy teaching my students how to work with protractors and compasses, but this tool is much more efficient and easily understood, especially for my visual learners.  Throughout the school year I plan to utilize more Geogebra in the classroom to model mathematics in the real world, and maybe even in uploading photos for my students to modify and work with.   However, I'm finding that using our district network is making it difficult to continue with some of my ideas and the work I'm doing in my graduate courses.

Collage of Student Projects
Triangle Angle Sum, Interior Angles of Polygons
& Angle and Segment Bisectors

The only catch with all of the work in my courses I would like to continue with, is the fact that I cannot modify anything with my students and have them complete work in their own Google accounts, where everything can be saved to a cloud.  The school district I work for restricts the useage of student log-ins for any type of e-mail or account log-in.  Once we become a Google School I will be proud to share with them in all of the uses of Google tools in the classroom!  I even went so far as to become a Google Certified Educator, Level 1, and hope to continue this school year to gain Level 2 and even Trainer status to compliment my future master's in Information Technology Specialist.  I have a lot on my plate and continue to keep trying new things as an educator because I know my students deserve the best.  I want to inspire them in a way they have not been before, to look into technology and mathematics as a career and life-long learning process.

Topology Assignment for my Grad Class,
the computer lab system I work with, when
it works. 

Student Rapport

William Penn Senior High School, College Street Entrance

After thinking about the start of my eleventh year of teaching, of all the places I could have ended up with my career I never imagined this small town country boy would ever be successful in an urban education setting.  While I feel I will never have the perfect test scores, the high achieving grades from my students or become teacher of the year, I hope my students would all agree with me that I am successful in educating them.  In education the term prior knowledge is a buzz word that is applied to pre-assessment.  With every student I teach I not only look for prior knowledge but utilized the background of my students in reaching their needs.  I like getting to know each of my students and helping them learn the content of Geometry as well as thinking and planning for their present and future.

Wearing Black to support minority students in the community!
 - A student led initiative. 

Through taking online courses and experimenting with different content, I have started to prepare them for the real world with advancing their background in technology by incorporating more mathematics learning involving computer programs.  Growing up in this technologically advanced world we have seen the emergence in fractals from their usefulness in computer generated images (CGI), from film to video games, it is every where around us.  Fractal Geometry is not a term heard in every single school curriculum, it is in every computer animated image, but I have incorporated it with Logarithms to help my students prepare for diverse fields of study and pre-calculus.  As well, it allows  the chance to be artistic and creative in a sometimes otherwise thought of mundane classroom.  Through GeoGebra I have been able to bring precision and problem-solving skills to life in my classroom.  Utilizing Google Docs I have built in collaboration and peer editing projects.  With online research I have been able to bring ratios into social justice.  It is my hope that students come out of my classroom with a little bit more of an understanding of how critical thinking with mathematics can apply to their lives.

Video Game Club 

Fractal Geometry - Students creating 3-D Sierpinski Triangles
and Menger Sponges before the holidays.

Using indirect measurement to calculate heights in Penn Park!

On top of teaching relevant topics, I always want my students to know I am a person just like them and will join in with their antics at times.  I strive to make them understand that I see them as human beings and care about not only their education but their well being, because honestly not everyone of them has that at home.  In our district students come hungry, are homeless, struggle daily and all in all do not open up to many.  I want my classroom to be a safe and inviting place.  Students know my passions and I proudly display my dorky habits of comic books, video games, and love of math, learning, and my family.  I coordinate with my co-worker and friend, Nick Naugle to run a Video Game Club where students can stay after school, organize tournaments or just play games, we have also gone to the local arcade to enhance their experience in gaming.  I participated in a student led protest to the treatment of minority students by others in the county.  During my 3rd period last year we created a Mannequin Challenge Video, which got twelve thousand hits on Facebook! (We went viral!)  And yes I know, this does not relate to education, but sometimes you just have to have fun because at the end of the day these young adults are still kids, and they deserve these little moments.

 

Viral Video on Facebook! Just having fun with the kids...

Students playing in Penn Park after their project is done.
Teenagers like the playground just as much as kids!

As I reflect through this post it is not my intention to brag about my accomplishments in my classroom, but to recount my past years in growing as an educator, to help others understand teaching is not always about the content.  Sometimes you need to bring life into the content and make the student's education a part of their human experience.  All too many times I hear stories about educators who try to bend the will of their students to the demands of the curriculum and their own strict procedures.  I am not like most teachers.  Through years of trial and error, I have found that if I want students to learn I need to meet them where they are, and teach them what they need to know in order to be successful in their post-secondary decisions, be it college, technical school, career or military.

Students working on GeoGebra and also using
Maps/Ratios to figure out social justice problems.

Although not every interaction is positive, I have always enjoyed getting to know each student, even those that are a bit of a handful.  I enjoy working with every student, creating meaning in our days together and observing their unique character qualities as they mature.  I teach about 125-150 students in a school year, and if I feel like I can reach at least one, I have had a successful year.

YCCOSP Stem Academy

While working with the YCCOSP Program (See my first Blog on my summer work) I have been given a lot of autonomy to create learning activities for my students.  This past Spring we had a chance to help design and implement a Saturday STEM Academy.  For four Saturdays, students were immersed in activities in Chemistry, Biology, Engineering and Mathematics.  Professors from York College of Pennsylvania created meaningful learning experiences for the YCCOSP students in the STEM field.  Since our school has discontinued all courses in computer science our students are never given the chance to experiment with coding or different computer programs.

While researching for a graduate course I found several articles on Edutopia about using Scratch coding from MIT to teach coding and mathematics.  Scratch is a basic system and teaches students coding using building blocks on the online coding program.  Several of the students had been through my Geometry class and had learned about the use and concept of Fractals.  Since our students have never been exposed to any type of coding programs I decided they needed to gradually be given steps to learn how to use the Scratch programming and scaffolded their learning activity with three different tiers of difficulty.

The first assignment took students through the basics of scratch code and taught them how to make the online icon do the simplest of moves to create a given polygon.  (Easy Scratch Coding Edutopia Blog)  The second assignment was then the intermediate level of coding which had students create a code to have the icon make a  random polygon and then name it based on the parameters given.  (Intermediate Scratch Edutopia Blog)  Finally students took the program to create the Sierpinski Triangle, a fractal program that made a recursive pattern within itself.  (Advanced Scratch Edutopia Blog).  From each of the blogs I found I created instructions and questions for the students to complete each level of difficulty in coding with the Scratch program.

Students were then tasked to share their code to their college Google+ account.  In the YCCOSP Math STEM Community that I created, students explained what they created and shared it with the world.  This allowed for another deeper conversation about the way one needs to convey themselves online and in social media.  I informed students that the sharing of their code and what their creations did, since it was put online they also had to understand that their words would be able to be seen by others in the social media.  This simple step created the sense that they as digital citizens must be precise in their wording and represent their own selves in a positive academic manner.


The Saturday morning was filled with a lot of fun and students were very involved in the program. Students who had never seen code in their academic career were exposed to a new programming method that can help teach students.  Students were very successful in coding their projects and even commented that they enjoyed learning and "playing around" with the website.  The program ran very well and in the future I hope I can create as meaningful of a set of projects as I have here.  You can get all of my documents used in my TpT store for free! Coding Projects for STEM Mathematics

YCCOSP 2017 Summer Reflection

The YCCOSP Program

For the past three years I have worked for York College of Pennsylvania as an adjunct professor and as a summer mathematics instructor for the York College Community Opportunity Scholarship Program.  The summer program is designed to help our students succeed in an accelerated curriculum and prepare them to enter college.  The program offers enrichment to students who apply to the program from William Penn Senior High School. The groups that are in the program are either entering their sophomore, junior or senior year of high school.  I work directly every morning and afternoon with the Rising Sophomores and Juniors teaching them more mathematics problem solving and critical thinking skills.  They also take a course on reading and writing to help develop those skills.  The Rising Seniors take an entry level writing college course and can earn course credit with successful completion of the class.

The program is designed to enrich and has no set curriculum so I have the freedom to design whatever I want for the students to create and learn.  Working at William Penn and knowing the curriculum we offer helps me in structuring the summer class for the students' success for the upcoming school year.  The program helps emphasize critical thinking skills and advancing SAT preparatory skills.  Students in the program are either going into Pre-Calculus their junior year or doubling up their sophomore year with Geometry and Algebra 2.  We worked this past summer on skills involving critical thinking, problem solving, polynomials, geometry basics, trigonometry and even some statistics.  The ten students were also broken into three teams that were tasked with a culminating project called "Design a Winner."

2017 Project: Designing a Winner

Each year the students showcase what they have learned and/or worked on, so this year I found a project online through Curriki using geometric skills to, "Design a Winner."  Students were tasked with building a multi-sports complex with set criteria.  The question  was designed as open ended and each team created a company name, then they had to start preliminary designs, proposals, 3-D models of the final design and showcase mathematical computations they used to help in their designs.  The beauty of the project was that it tied into what is going on in the community already. We begun by reading the YDR article "Rutter's cornfield could become sports complex."


Students also got a special treat because there is one of the largest sports complexes in the nation right down the road from York in Lancaster.  We bused the group down Route 30 to the Spooky Nook Sports Complex, where two experts lead us on a tour of the facility and gave us facts and figures to start the teams on their brainstorming creativity.  Students took to Instagram for a scavenger hunt on the tour and documented the trip with facts and pictures of the facility to use in their projects.  Students then took to using Sketchup to complete 3-D models of their projects.  (Educators can get the $600 program for free with proof of employment by a school district!)

Reflection

With the program running for 5 weeks and only Monday-Thursday time was limited on the project.  What made things run more smoothly was dividing up the aspects of the project between the student writing class time and mathematics class time.  Students wrote proposals, created Powerpoints and designed pamphlets for advertising in the writing class. They then created their model, used mathematical ratios and proportions to scale their models and created a poster to show off their designs and calculations in math class.  All components were then put on display during the showcase finale.  Students were also tasked with writing and orally practicing their proposal so they could discuss and answer questions about their project with the staff and parents who came to view their work.  

Students working on their project.

The last week I was really worried about how the project would turn out because I felt like we had rushed everything to be done on time.  We did not get to use trigonometry to talk about angles in the complexes the students were creating nor did we complete more calculations that would have intensified the math, but the students were excited to use the Sketchup program and learn about new designing software.  The thing that also did not help was that I did not have time to approach and have the campuses IT download or purchase a subscription to Sketchup for the students, I took my own personal laptops, I had 2, for the students to use and one student brought his own and downloaded the free version of Sketchup Maker.  The designs that came from the students were pretty amazing, although the time did not permit tons of detail they did come up with some interesting beginnings of designs.  

Athletic Era and their Project Design

The students were innovative and worked diligently in and out of the classroom, some utilized the Google Document Apps features to collaborate on one pamphlet or slide show at all times, which I did not even have to suggest.  By the end of the program my fears of the students being unprepared quickly subsided by looking at the posters and listening to the students discuss their designs to various YCP faculty members and their parents.  The students had a great sense of what the project was all about, they had stunning posters, great rate changes and an even better understanding behind design.  One group thought so much about the culture of York that they wanted to create a complex in the formation of a rose, since we are the White Rose City.  

AGibso and their Project Design

Although I did not feel like we got through everything that could have been done with the project, the time that I had with my students was invaluable in re-fueling the fire that makes me want to teach.  The inquisitive creative teams that I worked with were fun and impressed me with the work they completed.  The students did such a great job this summer that I feel a sense of pride in their accomplishments, plus I feel rejuvenated and ready to take on my regular geometry classes again! 

Clock Work and their Project Design

#ObserveMe

While working on my graduate courses and finding new professional development pieces for my coursework I stumbled upon this new movement, #ObserveMe.  I decided to go all out for the last few weeks of school and try out the new tool.  I found a generic observation form for mathematics, and then created a Google Form that was linked to a QR code outside of my room.  The Google Form contained a few questions a colleague could give me feedback on.

The objectives I wanted feedback on were:

1. Improving questioning skills to further student problem solving skills.
2. Have students persevere in making sense of problem solving.
3. Create meaningful activities for critical thinking and problem based learning.

With our district being inner city urban youth, we are constantly under scrutiny from all sides and from that we were tasked with creating a teacher to teacher observation tool within each building.  Through all of the meetings about what it would look like, and Distributed Leadership meetings that we were going this route, but we never got into the full use of the teacher observation and collaboration tool.  Since I found the tool I figured why not give it a try and open up my classroom to others.

Data Wall

Since I joined the Distributed Leadership team at William Penn Senior High School I have been pushing myself as an educator to do more for the school, and I have seen progress be made.  Simple things have helped change the culture in the building and letting students know where they are academically has been one of them.  The art teacher in my building came up with her simple data wall that the district had asked us to put up.  She had the template and I just copied and used it.  (Her class art can be shown here! The Muddy Bearcat )  My data wall is simple and lets students know how each class's grades are doing compared to one another.  I color coded the dots on each sheet to match up with those that are being used in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to show Blue for A's (Advanced), Green for B's (Proficient), Yellow for C's (Basic), Orange for D's (Below Basic) and Red for F's (Little to No Work).