Positive comment from a student....

This story happened awhile ago, but I am just remembering to write about it now....

It is not often that I have a student admit to me that they like my interactive notebooks.   Or rather a male student admit to me that they like it.  :)   A lot of the girls like the organization of my notebooks and several have come back to me to buy a graphing notebook for geometry or precalculus because they want to do it in their next class. They even ask for copies of my table of contents and other papers we use to set up our interactive notebooks.   I know I can't convert everyone but it warms my heart when a student says they like the way my notebook keeps them organized and show me how they are still using it!

This year I had a senior student tell me how much he hated keeping the notebook last year in Algebra 2.  However, he went on to say that he really appreciated it though this year, when he was studying for his SAT's and was able to easily find some topics he had to review in his Algebra 2 notebook thanks to the Table of Contents I have them keep.  I may have done a little dance in front of the class!

This year I have that same student in my Business Math class.  Instead of a graphing notebook though, I have this class just use a composition book.   But because he learned to love my Algebra 2 notebook, he chose to use a graphing notebook instead.  :)  Again....brought a smile to my face.  It's the little things they say and do that make you realize you make a difference.

3 Dimensional Graph Projects = awesome!

So I was a mean teacher!  I gave my Algebra 2 students a project over Christmas break.  I assigned them the task of creating a 3-dimensional graphing system, using a box and the materials of their choice.  I blogged about assigning it before Christmas and now I am posting some pics of some of the final projects as promised!

 

I have never assigned this before but my students this year were having ALOT of trouble seeing three dimensions.  I fully understand how hard it is to see 3-D on a 2-D piece of paper.  This was my greatest struggle in Calc 3 in college!  Took me all semester to be able to draw washers and cylindrical shells.  My goal was that if they drew the system and graphed a line in 3-dimensions, then they would be able to understand it a little more.   

<<<<  A few students took some shortcuts and only did one octant. Although I did not feel this satisfied, the "system" requirement, I will adapt my rubric next year to ensure there are no more misunderstandings.  

Here are some more examples of my students work.  I think they turned out fantastic!  Especially as they had no model or even internet examples to look at for help. 

 I'm sure I'm not supposed to have a favorite, but if I can....this one would be it.  Maybe because he was the first one to send me a picture over Christmas break.  Or maybe because the line actually looks like a plane, with the axis going through the plane, instead of just a triangle.  >>>

<<<< This one wins best design!  Myself and several of the teachers in my department thought that this one had the nicest look to it.  Especially since he took into account the Christmas break theme!  It would be considered perfect if the axis were perpendicular versus on an angle. 



<<<I love that this student offset the axis to make it easier to build.  Showed some smart thinking!




This one is cool because the student has the x/y plane there to help with understanding. >>>>



If you are interested in completing the project you can find it HERE.

My favorite thing is....whiteboards!

So I'm going to try and jump on the Explore the MTBoS 2017 Blogging Initiative! bandwagon.    

I'm not very good at remembering to blog every week, but it is a new year and my goal is to try some new things.  So here we go....

Although I don't blog much, I usually only blog about my favorite things.  In the past, I have I blogged about my favorite website game, Kahoot.  If you haven't tried it yet, you really need to!  It's so much fun for the students!  You can read more about it HERE.

I have also blogged about my favorite in class game, the Grudge Game.  This was a lot of fun to play in class but does take some prep work.  Not something that can be easily played on a whim, but definitely worth the time to set it up!  The kids LOVE IT!  It gets exciting and the students are very engaged.
  


But for today, I think I will pick my favorite classroom activity...which is using my whiteboards.  A few years ago, I purchased a set of whiteboards for my classroom and they have become my favorite form of formative assessment.  I love to use them in place of worksheets or homework.  And they also make great review activities as well.

When I use them, I make a set of problems, anywhere from 12 - 16, and hang them around the room.  Sometimes I will have the answer on another card, forcing the students to answer the problems in an order I created, but usually I just put the answer on the back of the card so the students can flip it up to check themselves.  There are lots of ways to use these but I have found the latter way the easiest for me.  It allows those who understand to keep moving and time for me to work with those who struggle.  A third way is to keep the answers to yourself and the students have to show you their work and answers.  This helps you see who is understanding which problems and what problems they are struggling on.  The only downside to this way is that your attention is on everyone and so it is hard to help the students who need a little one-on-one.   

 

One catchfall to this activity is that my students are terrible at putting the caps back on the markers tightly when they are done.  I go through a lot of expo markers and they are not cheap!   At NCTM this year, I splurged and bought my self a new set of markers from the Markerboard People.  They are supposed to be longer lasting and not dry out as easily as the expo markers do.  So far we are doing great with them, but I am also trying to be more diligent about checking the caps too!  My next splurge is to get myself a new set of dry erase boards from them.  I love their boards!! Check them out at http://www.dryerase.com/.   

#MTBoS #MtbosBlogsplosion