I text my students. Do you?

Having taught as an online math teacher for over 9 years, I have learned that texting is the much preferred way for my students to communicate.  They do not want to talk to me but they don't mind texting.  This way they can communicate with me while at a sporting event, or their job.   Frankly, I have learned to like texting as well.  It is not as instantaneous as talking but it gets the job done. 

What is weird is that in the 9 years I have been teaching online I have never given my cell phone number to my students that I teach face to face.  Part of it is that I see them daily so they don't really need it.  And the other part is I don't really trust them not to prank me.  :)   I am in constant war with myself over this. 

But I think I have found my happy solution!  Remind 101.  I LOVE IT! 

This website allows me to send out mass class announcements to my students and their parents.  You can use it to "Remind" everyone of an upcoming test, end of marking period, project due date, whatever!   Best of all.... it allows them to respond to me as well.  I have the settings set to text me to my phone so I get a notification immediately and then can respond by text as well.  And if I don't want to have texts sent to my phone, I can turn them off as well.  I love that if they have a question at 6:00pm they can ask me.  And if I have the time and availability, I can answer.  

But my best use of remind was when I took my class to Hersheypark on Friday.  Instead of having students have to find me at 12:30 to check in, the teachers took a selfie and sent it out as an announcement to the students that it was time to check in.  The students had been told to take a group selfie in front of the ride they were at and tell me their names and location.  It was great!  And my principal loved the pictures I forwarded to him of the kids as well.  Here is the selfie the teachers took to start the check-in!

 

Kahoot! Have you tried it?

 
My department was lucky enough to spend part of our last professional development day at Lehighton Area High School having a meet and greet with their math teachers.  It was amazing!  Math teachers from two different schools getting together to talk about their subject.  Professional development does not get better than that!

We talked about Common Core and Keystone exams; we talked about curriculum for various courses and we talked about formative assessment.    The last was the most interesting to me.   I am big on using whiteboard in my class but I am always looking for something to change it up.  And since our school has gone 1-1 with Apple Air Macs, the push to use more computer-based assessments has increased.

My friend Terri is a teacher in the LASD and while we were talking she showed me the online website Kahoot.  It is an online formative assessment tool for students.  It is multiple choice based so a great help in preparing students for those standardized tests!  It reminds me of an online-based clicker tool.  I immediately liked it and couldn't wait to use it in my class. 

To begin you need to go to GetKahoot.com and sign up for a free account.  Using it is easy after that.  They have over 7million public kahoots that you can play with your class or even copy and edit to personalize for your own class.  Or you can just create your own from scratch.  You can even insert images if you'd like.  I have created my own and I have borrowed some.   I duplicated one just for keystone exam review and it has the questions from the SAS portal.  Why recreate my own?  :)

I have used it several times in my class and I like the ease of use.  What I like about it.....
My students LOVE IT.  They love competing with each other and yet they are quick to praise each other.    They laugh at their wrong answers and groan at difficult ones.  

What don't I love?  With clickers you can see how each student did and get a report on them.  With kahoot, you don't get individual reports.  Just a bar graph at the end of each question on how many got them right/wrong.  And this disappears VERY quickly.   You also can't stop the quiz to discuss a question if you don't have it on the manual option.   So I often screen capture the questions with my MAC so I can review the ones they get wrong afterwards. 

All that said, I do like it as a quick, different type of formative assessment.  I can't use it everyday as it takes a bit of time, but I am working on once or twice a week to help review materials.

Try it!  You won't be sorry!

Field Trips

I teach math but sometimes it is nice to just do something out of the ordinary.  I was lucky enough last week to be a chaperone on a trip to NYC with my school's Spanish Club.  Now I don't speak Spanish (I only remember how to count in Spanish.  Sorry, Senor!)  But I did have a great time!  The food, the city, the culture, and the kids were just amazing! 

My group had 7 students, 4 of whom I was fortunate enough to have taught at some point.  And I was lucky enough that they wanted to explore.  As this was my first trip to the city, I was excited to see everything we could squeeze in!  The highlight of our trip though was visiting GMA.  We got up and went to stand out front at 5:30am.  Thank heavens for Starbucks!  We were invited backstage to listen to the band the Lumineers and even made it on screen, although you really have to squint to see us in the corner of the TV.  :)   After the band played, Ginger Zee came over and took pictures with us.  She is absolutely the sweetest person! 

Other highlights:  touring Times Square, Central Park, and a ballet.  We ate amazing food, and had many laughs.  What a great perk to my job! 

NCTM - Philly!

I'm so excited! I was accepted to present at NCTM in Philadephia, October 31 - November 2!  My topic is using the Frayer Model to help increase Algebra and Geometry understanding.  It is just a burst session but what a great way to start!   

I love my Frayer Model!  I use it ALOT in my Algebra 2 classes and I think I would use it daily if I taught Geometry!  This has transformed the way I introduce new topics to my classes and how I explain vocabulary.  It is such a simple graphic organizer but can be used in so many different ways! 

 Look back to my post on Introducing Quadratics for a specific example.  Click HERE.

Intro to ThisGraphing Quadratics Foldable

I have a few favorite designs for foldables.  I love a door foldable and I love a tabbed foldable.   Both of these are just great ways to organize multiple pieces of information about one topic.   For my foldable on graphing quadratics, I used a 3-door foldable, but had the doors fold down.  I left a little area at the top for a title, so that they don't fold the paper directly in half.  By this time of the school year, my students are so used to my foldables, I don't even have to tell them what to do!  :)
 

I use this foldable in conjunction with my Frayer model for quadratics.  It usually take 2 days to cover this with my regular class of Algebra 2 but I can do it in one day with my CPAlgebra 2.   This is just the overview and then I do an additional day for graphing using the intercept/vertex methods.  Next year I want to add in a lesson on teachers.desmos.com to help support the graphing portion.  I will probably do it as a review for this year though.  If I do, I'll blog it.  :)

In the picture below, I define parabola as the shape of a quadratic but when I taught it, I didn't like it and changed it to the graph of a quadratic....which do you think is preferable? 

Intro to Quadratics - frayer style

For me, my entire notebook is becoming all about the Frayer model.  I absolutely love it!   I find it is the best way to explain what things are because you can compare them to what they aren't.  I might have a slight addiction to them but that is just because they are just so darned easy to use!

So using one to explain Quadratic equations was easy for me to do.   What a great way to show examples of equations and graphs, and non-examples.  And it even helped start the students thinking about the similarities of the quadratic equation and the absolute value function!  The minute I drew it as a non-example, they started asking questions.  Don't you love when that happens?  :)

Exponent rules Grudge Game

Exponent rules.....teaching them is another necessary evil.    I LOVE solving problems with exponent rules!  They are like a puzzle to me.  But my students hate them. They don't "get" them, they say they don't know where to start.   And now I have a structured study hall, where I help the students with their classwork...and the students in there hate them too!  Every year students come to me in Algebra 2 and they don't remember the rules.  But we use them so much in Algebra 2 that they really need to learn them.  I figure it is like learning the grammar rules for writing.  Something you need to know in order to do the next thing.   So in the spirit of "if it isn't working, change it", I decided to change up my teaching. 

So this year when I taught exponent rules to my classes, I used the Grudge game to introduce them, adapted from Nathan Kraft's Blogpost.  Click HERE to see his original post.  I did this on Day 1 and I absolutely loved it!  The kids were engaged and competitive and they did great!  They even showed they remembered some exponent rules from Algebra 1.   I usually don't like games in my classroom but this one was fantastic!   All the kids participated.  I did bribe them a bit with candy, but hey, you gotta do what works right?  End of day 1 was FANTASTIC!    This is going to be great!

Here is the PowerPoint (Dropbox) I used to play the game.  Feel free to change it.  But at least it gives you a place to start.  :)    The image to the right shows the rules I used to help me remember how to play it for future use.  I love this game so much, I can't wait to try it again.  :)




So continuing with the need for a change,  I also changed the exponent foldable I usually use to a book of exponents, modeled after Sarah Hagan's from Math = Love.   I liked the way she laid it out and hoped that it would work better than then one I used last year.  Although I love the book, and the layout, I'm not entirely sure it was better than the one I used previously.   My students still struggle with the rules and the test they took showed they still have gaps of understanding. (I gave the test before Christmas so my post is a little out of date. ;)  )






So back to the drawing board for next year and for reassessing.  But I am keeping the game.  I think that was the perfect introduction to exponent rules for Algebra 2.  However,  I need to rethink the rest of it.

Feel free to share your success with exponent rules with me and others!  :)