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.