Algebra 6.3 day 3

Reflection

Today, I had some success with the gradual release model.  I started the students in seminar, had them do a warm up that was to jog their memory of our last lesson on multiplying with exponents, and gave them a problem they could do that would prepare them for today’s lesson.  The warm up was effective because several students didn’t recall how to do what they’d learned on Monday.  (We had no class yesterday due to the math HSPE).

The lesson went as planned. Students worked in pairs or groups of 3, compared answers, and helped each other.  I’d changed the PowerPoint so that it was clearer on what they should write in their notebook.  I also wrote the homework on the board, under today’s date, so that they could write this down as soon as they entered class.

After doing 2 examples, one guided and one on their own, I let the students work independently in class and called on a smaller group of 5 students who all had trouble getting the “constant multiplier” on the last quiz.  Of the 5 students, 4 participated actively, 1 said she had a headache and would not participate.  I reviewed several examples with this group and by the end of the examples, all were finding the constant multiplier.

The time got away from me, or I would have had the students do an exit task.  Next time, I’ll assign a timekeeper so we have time.

Lesson Powerpoint lesson plan is in notes section of Powerpoint

EDTC6535 Educational Technology Creed

My name is Mary Eun and I am a high school math teacher.  This is my Educational Technology Creed for use by me as a guide and for use by my students, their parents, and my administration to understand my philosophy.

I believe our students must be prepared to continuously learn and innovate in order to stay competitive in a highly connected international economy and to help create new types of jobs that do not yet exist. (Education, 2006)

Our students’ futures require skills to quickly adapt new technologies, the understanding and skills to use the technology ethically, and the understanding and practice of responsible social online behavior.

I believe that through the use of technology, teachers have offer more authentic learning experiences because our students currently use digital information and technology extensively and many enjoy using digital information and technology outside the classroom.

I believe teachers can better address the diverse needs of our students by using technology and providing equitable access to digital tools and resources.  I believe that because internet access is available at public libraries, and because more and more homes have internet access, teachers can and should offer additional opportunities to learn using the internet.

I believe teachers can, and should, help students learn to safely, legally and ethically use digital information, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.  We can do this by modeling responsible use, by fostering the understanding of positive and negative consequences through examples, discussion and online resources, by providing opportunities for students to practice ethical use, and by providing individual feedback.

I believe students’ online social interactions are powerful and can potentially do great good and great harm.  (Willard) Because of this, I believe students should be taught digital etiquette and responsible digital social interactions.  I believe teachers can foster this development by creating opportunities for students to understand potential negative and positive consequences.  This can be done through research and class discussions of case studies.  Teachers can provide online and in-person resources to address damage that has been already done, and can provide resources to model responsible online social interactions.  Teachers can emphasize the importance of avoidance of harm to others and enforce moral values and social expectations in all class interactions, whether in person or on a class website.

I believe there is tremendous potential for student growth and satisfaction by collaborating with each other.  I believe teachers can create opportunities for global awareness and cultural understanding by facilitating online collaboration using technology.  I believe teachers can help students develop collaboration skills through discussions of case studies, opportunities to collaborate, group feedback, self reflection, and individual feedback.

Bibliography

Education, T. A. (2006, January). Reinventing the American High School for the 21st Century. Retrieved October 23, 2009, from The Association for Career and Technical Education: http://www.acteonline.org/uploadedFiles/Issues_and_Advocacy/files/ACTEHSReform_Full.pdf

Willard, N. (n.d.). I can’t see you – you can’t see me. Retrieved 2009, from Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use: http://csrui.org

Communication with families

This is the 2nd week of my own classes, and the 2nd week of developing classroom culture.  One tool that I’ve been using extensively today is communication with families.

I left a voicemail with a family today because the student hasn’t turned in any work.  This student is also highly disruptive, but I am first trying the approach of letting that student know I am in communication with the family.

I left another voicemail today because the student would not relinquish her cell phone.  It was disappointing to find that each phone number we had was disconnected.  I assume this is due to moving, but I am not sure.  I emailed the attendance office who was able to find current numbers for the parent.

I sent three emails to different families ask for parent’s help in getting their student to stay quieter in class.  I asked for any ideas that they had.  Last year, I had great success from sending e-mails just like these.  While I seldom get a reply, I almost always see a difference in the student the next day.

I had the benefit of calling home just as a student came home, and the mom asked me to hold while she proceeded to loudly reprimand her son.  Some of what she said was “you let the other boys be the class clowns” and “she has her high school diploma.”  I now know that graduation is important to his mom and something that he is expected to do.  It is helpful for me to understand this about this student.

I was in a parent conference this morning.  All the student’s teachers were present, as well as the parents, the student, the counselor, and assistance principal.  It was a crowded room.  It was clear that there were trust issues between the student and the parents.  The student is capable, but easily distracted.  When the student asked me to send an email home saying that he’d turned in his homework today, I understood more about how doing this for him would help.

In my 4th period Algebra class, I sent home a very different homework assignment.  I printed out the assignment, handed it out, and had them read it.  I did not verbally give the assignment.  What I wrote was a short paragraph saying, “We as a class will not be able to cover the required materials that will be needed for future math classes because it’s too noisy and we have too many disruptions in the class.  Clearly, I’m not  giving you what you need.  Write and tell me what you need from me, and what you are willing to do to help yourself and this class.  Write it, sign it and have your parents sign it, because I might need to enlist their help.”   This last sentence really got to the students.  A couple of students then reprimanded the others in class and said that they need it quieter to be able to learn.   I was thankful that the students raised their hands and cooperated in a good discussion facilitated by me.  We then went back to the day’s lesson, and the noise level was very reasonable and the participation was excellent.  After the lesson, I gave them feedback that I thought the lesson we’d just had went well and that I could work with that volume level.  When asked if they could also work with that volume level, most of the students raised their hands.

EDTC6535 Wk 7 Podcasts and Productivity

This week’s reading was focused on Component 2.3 Select and Use Applications: Use productivity tools and common applications effectively and constructively.  The reading was on podcasts.  While I subscribe to a few podcasts for fun through iTunes, this week I explored podcasts and videocasts for potential application to my students.

I can see the usefulness of using online lessons and podcasts as an extension of the classroom.  Studies at various colleges have shown enhanced experience for students and higher quality work. (Ovadia, 2007).  I especially liked the Drexel University chemistry professor who podcasted lectures and then used classtime to review problems. Certainly, not enough of my 9th and 10th graders will listen to podcasts to make it something I can require.  However, I like the idea of giving students options and using tools that are already embraced by student culture.  Some students learn by listening, and those are the ones that I’d be interested in fostering an interest in math by subscribing to math podcasts.

While I am not in an environment where all my students have iPods or internet access from home, I have been considering creating a Google site for my students with links to podcasts and videocasts.  For example, I could send a student who is having problems with solving multi-step equations to http://www.mathtrain.tv/play.php?vid=100 .  While it’s probably needed by the students I send, the fact that it’s made by 6^th graders, might make it feel embarrassing. I have been thinking about adding links to various online videos.  There are a number of Algebra videos on Youtube.com.  They are fairly dry, but perhaps watching a video a few times, even if it’s at the library, might make the words more familiar.  Again, it gives the students choice if they want to watch another teacher explain it a different way.

Bibliography

Ovadia, M. (2007). Poducate me: Practical solutions for podcasting in education. Retrieved 11 14, 2009, from Poducate me: http://poducateme.com/guide/index7.php

EDTC6535 Wk05 Ed tech and critical thinking reflection

This week’s reading on the iste wikispaces site (Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making) was great for a couple of reasons.  First, I found a lesson plan that I would use (Scenario B, with the suggestions made by Thomas D. Wright).  I gave an assignment like this last year, but much simpler, and the next time I give it, it will have more of the higher cognitive demand tasks that were suggested.

Second, it’s a great example of online collaboration.  Perhaps because we are developing our own website, I am now more aware of how clearly the owners of the site gave direction: “Select Edit This Page to comment on which of the following scenarios best represents the standard that refers to Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making. How would you modify the scenario to better represent this standard?”  How wonderfully clear!  And it helped that the collaborators were doing what was asked: making suggestions to the scenarios to make them more authentic and require higher cognitive demand.  It gave me a model for the clear directions I want our site to give.

Regarding using technology to improve critical thinking:  In one of the classes I’m observing, students used CBR’s (gadgets that detect speed and send the data to a graphing calculator) and graphing calculators to develop their understanding of inverse variation and graphs.  The experience was consistent with what I read in the articles about developing Critical Thinking with technology: the need to plan is great, and we should keep it simple to start with.  Part of why the need to plan was greater is because of all the unexpected obstacles that came along (students putting in batteries backwards, students playing with the CBR’s like toys, many student groups and just one teacher floating between them , just to name a few.)  The pre-activity lesson was well done, in my opinion, by having the students make conjectures about what they expected to see.  The activity portion was a bit chaotic, even though the teacher had recruited several students from a previous class to help this class.  Even though it was chaotic, it was still a more authentic experience than graphing data from an equation by hand, or watching a more traditional lecture, such as can be seen here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_90IciEE5E

On a different note, I am becoming a fan of Delicious.  Reading through what fellow students have found in their searches, I really appreciate the well written notes!   I can see how much time it’s saving me to peruse the sites and how much higher quality my results are than from a Google search.

Bibliography

Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making. (n.d.). Retrieved Nov 2, 2009, from iste wikispaces: http://nets-implementation.iste.wikispaces.net/Critical+Thinking,+Problem+Solving,+and+Decision+Making

Diversity in America Banks Chapter 1 and 2

In “The Canon Debate, Knowledge Construction, and Multicultural Education,” James Banks says that there are 5 types of knowledge, and that teachers need to reach beyond school textbooks to bring a transformative multicultural education to the classroom.

We are introduced to the idea of positionality, an idea that says that knowledge is influenced by the relative position of the knowledge maker in social class, gender, race, economics, politics, or other important relational position.

He describes the goals of 3 groups: Western traditionalists who want to preserve the traditional canon, multiculturalists who think women and people of color have been marginalized, and Afrocentrists who think African culture should be given center stage to motivate African Americans.  He says there’s been a debate that’s been going on that hasn’t been productive but instead has been divisive.

Banks introduces the idea that students should understand all types of knowledge and be involved in the debates about knowledge construction.   They should be taught to understand their positionality.  Banks states, “Teachers should help students to become critical thinkers who have the knowledge, attitudes, skills and commitments needed to participate in democratic action.”  He describes multicultural education as “an education for functioning effectively in a pluralistic democratic society.  Helping students to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to participate in reflective civic action is one of its major goals.” (Banks, 1996)

The 5 Knowledge types are as follows:  Personal/Cultural; Popular, Mainstream Academic, Transformative Academic, School.   While they are interrelated, school knowledge in textbooks avoids controversy and is heavily influenced by mainstream academic and popular knowledge.  Transformative academic knowledge challenges mainstream academic knowledge, with ideas that knowledge is not neutral but is influenced by the positionality of the knowledge creator, and that knowledge construction has a purpose of helping people improve society.

While he does not go into great detail about the democratic classroom, Banks does refer to it several times and states that a multicultural education involves the total school environment, not just classroom knowledge.  He leaves it to the teacher to consider the types of knowledge when planning and teaching a multicultural curriculum.

The examples he gives are well suited for courses in history, social sciences, and language arts.  When I consider the math classroom, I will be taking personal and cultural knowledge into consideration.  One idea that stuck with me is that some students have a culture that says doing well academically is betrayal to a group they belong to.  This statement rings true, especially of some of my gang-involved students and some highly social students.  I don’t know what to do with this insight, but I can start with the recognition of it.

Banks says one goal of multicultural education is to transform the school curriculum so that students not only learn the knowledge that has been constructed by others, but also learn how to critically analyze the knowledge they master and how to construct their own interpretation of the past, present, and future.  Sounds like a good education to me.  I usually think about this type of cognitively demanding work as what one would do in college, but I can see how it can be engaging to some high school students, and it’s especially needed if some of these students won’t be going to college.

I was glad to see Banks suggest that teachers look at their own personal/cultural knowledge.  It makes sense that if we are to talk about it with our students, and this topic can be quite foreign, then we should personalize it to make it relatable.  I still have a hard time seeing how the 5 types of knowledge fit into a math classroom, but I can see how knowledge construction might.  One example is to have students make up different story problems that they can relate to, using the math principles we are studying.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Banks, J. A. (1996). The Canon Debate, Knowledge Construction, and Multicultural Education. In J. A. Banks, Multicultural Education Transformative Knowledge & Action (pp. 3-22). New York: Teachers College Press.

Diversity In America 10-20-09 Journal Entry

After reading the first 2 chapters of Banks’ Multicultural Education, I thought about my current students, what I know of my world today, and what I want for my daughter.

Regarding my students, the question I asked myself is, “are my unsuccessful students not succeeding because of cultural divisions? Will they learn more if they owned the classroom more?”  It’s true that I don’t have a democratic classroom.  While I’ve been gradually giving my students more voice, it’s still more autocratic than democratic.  If the students owned the classes more, would they own their own education more?  This is a question that was raised but just lightly addressed in the readings.  I’m currently observing a class with another teacher that is about as democratic as I’ve ever seen for a math classroom.  I am noticing that the students are learning about good citizenship, and am looking forward to how the class evolves in its math understanding.

I have to say that what I read about personal and cultural knowledge, specifically related to how some students have a culture that says doing well academically is betrayal to a group they belong to, rang true.  I wondered if this statement is true for some of my African American, Hispanic, or low performing students.  I can think of two specific Hispanic students last year who were very good at math but chose to be in less challenging math classes.  I had interpreted their decisions as choosing to be with their friends instead of choosing to be where they’d be better prepared for their futures but potentially with people they didn’t know.

I mention my daughter because I think the choices I make for her do reflect my values.  Initially, I had her in a Montessori where she flourished in her academic abilities, but she was going to a predominantly White school with some minorities.  The Asian and White mix is what she gets at home.  She is now going to a public school with more minorities than Whites, with a large Hispanic and mixed race population.  I see that while I can help her academically, school provides opportunities for social development, and I think she needs to be comfortable working and playing with people of all backgrounds to really flourish in her life.

One key point for me was to read that at the time the book was written, multiculturalists saw our nation as divided, and want to bring it closer together, while Western traditionalists saw the nation as united and feared that multicultural education would cause divisions.  More than a decade has passed, and it seems to me that because our nation’s foreign-born population has grown, we see a lot more diversity and are influenced by a lot more diversity.  Because I see our nation as more divided than united, and because I think it is part of a teacher’s responsibility to help students develop critical thinking skills and participate in the democratic process, I will put myself leaning toward the multiculturalists.

Wk02 Technology Standards, Blogging

The 9 page introduction of the Washington State K-12 Educational Technology Learning Standards was useful for understanding how technology fits into the state’s learning goals, and what these goals are.  I found the framework of the Integration EALR and the Digital Citizenship EALR helpful for my understanding.  I think of the technology goals as falling into either of two buckets:  using technology to do the work we want (EARL 1), and learning how to use this technology with good judgment (EARL2).      

The blogging articles in Coming of Age (pages 29-31, 35-36, 49-55) were just what I needed for inspiration.  Reading about the successes and the great potential is encouraging me to keep going even though it’s been a technologically frustrating week.  I’ve seen how some of my students come alive when they’re on the computer.  For these students, they were in the classroom because they had to be, but being in front of a screen is where they want to be.  In one case, it was the only time I received any work. 

I’ve been coming across the term authentic learning and recently did some research into it.  It looks like one of the requirements to be authentic is to have value beyond school.  It makes total sense that educational technology greatly increases our chance to make learning authentic, because what is done outside the classroom is very often on the computer, whether at work or at home, and often at both places.

All of my students have some proficiency in technological literacy.  They all gain some in a 9^th grade tech class, as well as in earlier schooling and outside of school.  I’ve had my students research data in the computer lab and all have some proficiency.  Making connections between technology and math should be easy, but currently we are using books and paper.  Some of the textbooks are online, so it does help to avoid lugging the heavy text books around, but not everyone has access to Internet at home, so it’s not a solution for all. 

Technological fluency is another matter.  This requires higher cognitive demand, and I expect my students span the range from hours wasted on simple games to hours focused on new creations. 

I’m most interested in accessing other math websites, so I searched for “pre cal.”   It still makes Google’s first page, although it’s no longer the first result.  I’m looking forward to exploring this site http://pc40s.blogspot.com/ further.

The screencast and Youtube videos are great for awareness and understanding the concept.  However, I found that I need to supplement them with my notes or a print out of directions.  For example, I recalled that there was a way to get a count of characters in Word.  However, I didn’t want to watch a video for 15 minutes for the 3 seconds I needed.  The next time I watch a screencast, I’ll be pausing it here and there, and writing the time and a description of the info I may want to come back to.  I wonder how my students keep track of scenes they want to see again? 

On a personal note, when reading the differences between technology literacy and technology fluency, and reflecting on my struggles with these past two weeks with Delicious, Sidewiki, Google groups and Google sites, I have to admit that the world has been moving much faster than I have.  It’s been humbling and frustrating.  Just because I spent much of my days on the computer for years and years does not mean I’m able to do much of what is needed in the Web 2.0 world without difficulty.  It really pointed to how I’d gained enough technological literacy to do just what I needed, but didn’t do much in technological fluency, especially when it comes to adapting.  I’ll be working on Component 2.4:  Adapt to Change over this quarter.

Lastly, the learning curve has been time consuming.  Unknown to me, there was a problem between Delicious and Internet Explorer, causing IE to closing every time I close a tab.  While we’d been told to install Firefox during week 1, no explanation was given, so I saw no reason to change.  After a week of this problem, I finally reached out to the group and found out about known incompatibility issue.  I won’t be making this mistake again, and will be reaching out much sooner next time.

 

References

Washington State K-12 Educational Technology Learning Standards December 2008. (2008). Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.   

Retrieved from http://www.k12.wa.us/edtech/techstandards.aspx

 

Freedman, Terry. (2006). Coming of Age: An introduction to the new world wide web. Terry Freeman, Ltd.  Retrieved from http://fullmeasure.co.uk/Coming_of_age_v1-2.pdf

Follow up on Oct 6 post – rubrics

My proposal to have the students use the rubric on a mock project was initially met with hesitation. My mentor was concerned that it might take too much class time, which is the only time the students had to work on this project.   I proposed that I take just 5 minutes of class and show the basic ideas, and answer questions individually but not from the class as a whole, thereby maximizing in class work time.  We agreed, and I proceeded to make two examples: one done very well and one with common mistakes.

In class, I got a volunteer to notify me when 5 minutes was up, and as a class evaluated a handful of criteria from each example.  Both models were useful.  The one done well reinforced the standards we expected.  The one done with mistakes gave the class a chance to review key concepts and skills of the chapter.  Having a model of the result of the project gave students a firmer grasp on the project. Because everyone was grading, there was almost full participation.

I ran over by a couple minutes, but I thought the 7 minutes were well spent.  My mentor agreed, and suggested that we do the same for the second class.  (Yay!)

With the second class, I was surprised at the generous scores they wanted to give the work done poorly.  I disagreed with the 8 out of 10 point for effort and showed why I’d give 5 points for showing the work, but couldn’t give more because the concept was not understood.  This was valuable for calibrating expectations and avoiding future conflict.

We added to the assignment and required that a self-assessment be attached when they turned it in.  I will try to attach a Word file of the assignment.  The rubric is on page 2 and is about a half page long.  Chapter1_project

Learning from EDTC 6535 self-assessment

Completing the self-assessment for my Educational Technology class was a highly educational experience.  Having me grade my own work showed me what I need to do far more effectively than giving me the rubric and explaining it very carefully.  What a great insight to take to my classroom!   

While this particular lesson learned did not require technology, it did have the effect of having me closely examine the rubric when I had initially glossed over some details.  It’s expected that my students will zoned out here and there, and I’ve seen it happening while going through the details of a rubric.  When I saw the students zoning out, I felt both empathy and exasperation. Empathy because the details can get tedious, and exasperation because they were missing out on how to get the grade that showed they’d worked hard.  I hope that some of these times can be prevented by having the students doing their own grading.

We are currently having the algebra-geometry classes do their first project.  It is on collecting, analyzing and displaying data.  In addition to giving them the rubric and assignment, I’ll suggest to my mentor that we have the students use the rubric on a mock project.  The intent of this additional step will be to ensure the students really notice each item being graded without having to pay for the learning with an assessment score.