December Reflections

Successes:

• Geometry - I "flipped" my classroom for the Congruent Triangles unit! Here is the webpage I created to hold all of the information for the unit.  We finished the unit the week after Thanksgiving, I was behind the other two course teachers, but I got caught up thanks to the videos! 
• Geometry - We finished this unit about 2 weeks ahead of where we did last year. I spent time in class doing vocabulary enrichment activities as many of the students struggle with vocabulary. 
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - KAHOOT has made this unit so much more fun! I was able to present information to students using Kahoot as we went through the process of graphing polynomials on the calculator! If you don't know what kahoot is, go to getkahoot.com! 

Concerns & Possible Solutions:

• Geometry - Vocabulary Review - How can we create a comprehensive final on vocabulary to hold students accountable through the end of the semester without having to change all of the individual standard scores? 
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - Even at the end of the unit, students were struggling with how to find the vertex of a parabola given the different forms. I expanded the unit review, so that students would have more practice before the final. 
• Reassessment Deadline - As a math teacher, I'm not available for students to come in my room for tutoring during ELT. Next semester, this will still be an issue since I have so many kids in my room. How can I get more students to take advantage of reassessing? 

Questions:

• How can I get students to stay off their phones while I am instructing? Our current technology policy is that technology should be put away when a student enters a room. Students are struggling because they aren't always paying attention completely because they are responding to a text message....
• Is it possible to create a "Comprehensive" standard to give a final at the end of the semester, that is comprehensive of all standards? If we come up with an attendance policy, perhaps this could be an incentive for students with perfect attendance or >90% attendance in my class period. I'm worried that our students aren't prepared for comprehensive finals in college. 

November Reflections

Successes:

• Geometry - I "flipped" my classroom for the Congruent Triangles unit! Here is the webpage I created to hold all of the information for the unit.  At first, the students were very reluctant to watch videos. The students that want to do well, really liked this way of learning. They were able to come to class with questions on concepts that they didn't understand. I was able to address these concepts while students that didn't complete the "homework" were getting caught up. I was also able to spend more time in class helping students identify and practice different concepts. 
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - We started a HUGE unit on Graphing Polynomials. Students began with trying to come up with the Vertex Form of a parabola by doing an exploration activity. I really liked this, and so did they! 
• I attended the GKCMPA Algebra 2 EOC Workshop and learned so much information!

Concerns & Possible Solutions:

• Geometry - Congruent Triangles - I need to find a way to get students to watch the videos. Right now, I don't have any accountability factor, they just don't get as much time to practice in class.  
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - This UNIT is HUGE! I've been trying to give a lot of small formatives, I just need to figure out a way for students to keep track of their progress through the unit...I really like giving formatives that are specific to each separate objective. 
• Algebra 2 - Graphing Polynomials - Students aren't doing any practice outside of class. Most of this unit is centered around the graphing calculator. Can I create 2.0 practice for homework that doesn't require a calculator? (Calculating the vertex and axis of symmetry?)

Questions:

• How can I get students to stay off their phones while I am instructing? Our current technology policy is that technology should be put away when a student enters a room. Students are struggling because they aren't always paying attention completely because they are responding to a text message....
• Recurring because I still don't have an answer: How can I hold students accountable for homework? I need to still go over it to make sure the students that do the homework can check the answers they got.

October Reflections

Successes:

• Geometry - Angle Pair Relationships - I made an alternate version of this foldable. I pretty much followed Sarah's explanation. I had the students pick two colors and we colored all the "big" angles first while we talked about vertical angles, then we colored the "small" angles while we again talked about VA, then linear pairs. I then asked them to form names of the other relationships after I explained the concept of the transversal. They put names together before we looked at and filled out the chart on the other side of the foldable. I also told them by the end that all of the "big" angles were congruent to each other, "small" congruent to each other, and "big" + "small" = 180 (linear pair). The students held on to this foldable through out the unit! 
• Algebra 2 - Systems of Equations - Each of the 3 ways to solve a system was introduced differently. Students were comfortable with each of the different ways independently. They had a hard time differentiating how to solve a system when they weren't told which way to use. 
• Algebra 2 - Factoring - Taught the asterisk method for factoring a trinomial. The students really caught on and bought into this rather than expanding and factoring by grouping. 
• Parent Teacher Conferences were very beneficial for me as well as parents. We still have quite a few parents that don't understand our system of SBL. 

Concerns & Possible Solutions:

• Geometry - Logical Reasoning - Many students scored below where I had wanted them to on this summative. Many of these concepts are difficult and perhaps we need to spend more time on them, rather than moving quickly through this unit.
• Geometry - Angle Pair Relationships - Students scored higher on this summative than the LR unit, but still not high enough. 
• Algebra 2 - Students don't fully understand the concept of factoring. There is a large misunderstanding of what the process does. Since this was my first year teaching kids that had already seen factoring, I didn't focus on the foundation of factoring. When I introduce factoring next time, I will make sure students have an understanding of the basic terms. 

Questions:

• Should I be spending more time on 2.0 level material vs 3.0 level material? Is there a right way to do this? 
• Recurring because I still don't have an answer: How can I hold students accountable for homework? I need to still go over it to make sure the students that do the homework can check the answers they got.

September Reflections

Successes:

• I was able to set up the gradebook correctly. Categories for each unit have been set up. I like this method so that teachers and students can see exactly which standard an assignment or activity goes with. 
• Geometry - finished first unit on Points, Lines, and Planes. Students did very well on the vocab section. I need to re-evaluate the 3.0 objectives and how they are presented/taught so that the students are more successful at that level. 
• Algebra 2 - finished second unit on Linear & Absolute Value Inequalities. We were able to study for the summative using whiteboards. The boards I have are clear sleeves, so the front is a white sheet of paper and the back is a coordinate plane. I was able to give equations/inequalities to solve as well as graph two variables on the coordinate plane. The students really enjoyed this. 
• I survived Homecoming week (somehow). 

Concerns & Possible Solutions:

• Points, Lines, and Planes - Next time I teach the unit, I need to focus on the difference between segment/angle addition and segment/angle bisectors. The students had a hard time differentiating between the two on the summative. 
• The start of the Logical Reasoning unit needs to be redesigned. We started with patterns, which should be a good introduction, but the students later struggled with this. I struggle with teaching "old" information because I feel like the students should already know the material and often times they don't remember. 
• Algebra 2 - The second unit builds directly from the first, this would have been a great unit to flip the classroom with. I was in the middle of volleyball and Homecoming planning, so it didn't get done. I need to do these videos and design leveled practice either later this year or over the summer so that next year this unit can be done in a flipped classroom setting. 

Questions:

• Is sending emails home to parents effective? I've been sending update emails and usually don't get any responses. 
• How can I hold students accountable for homework? I need to still go over it to make sure the students that do the homework can check the answers they got.

August Reflections

Successes:

• I created a "fun" syllabus for both Algebra 2 and Geometry! The students and parents loved it! 
• On the first day of school, we didn't talk about the syllabus or the class. I had previously had about half of the students, I felt it was important for the ones I had last year to know about my summer (and my surgery), and the students that were new to me needed to know about me. I showed an iMovie that I created and narrated with pictures from my summer! 
• Set-up a missing work file for each class when students are absent. Each day has a file and what is completed during that class period is dropped in the file at the end of the day. 

Concerns:

• Students weren't immediately put into a seating chart. This is a concept I still struggle with. I want to be able to find out who their friends in the class are, but I want them to be successful as well. I put the Algebra 2 students in a seating chart after our first Summative when their grades weren't where I wanted them to be. 
• Students are still struggling with basic algebra operations and solving for a variable. 
• Some of the Algebra 2 students are bored because the first two units are Algebra 1 material. 
• I haven't been untilizing the online rubric. It was ready for the review days for the summative. (I haven't had time to make the videos ahead of time due to volleyball.)

Possible Solutions:

• Continue to do basic algebra problems for bellwork or exit tickets. 
• Offer the "4.0" students time to work on projects while other students are practicing the 3.0 level objectives. 
• Plan ahead for upcoming units, make one video a day on plan period. 

Questions:

• Will students use the online rubric? 
• How can I get parents more involved so that they can see their child's progress to the summative? 

Formative #Success

Today in Algebra 1, we were working on Adding and Subtracting Polynomials. I am unable to get students to do work at home, so we spent time in class practicing. I had a worksheet from Kuta, the free one of course, ready to go.

In my first hour class, we worked in Khan Academy and some students worked on the worksheet independently. By the end of the hour, I was working every problem with the students to keep them focused.

In second hour, I didn't give the students the option of Khan. I started class by handing out the worksheet and I let the students know they would probably want a separate sheet of paper to work the problems on. We worked the first problem together on the board. I then asked the students to get in groups of 2-3 students they could work with for the remainder of the hour. Once students were in groups, I handed each group a different color of post-it notes. I had on the board, the number of each problem to be worked on the worksheet. Students wrote just their answer on the post-it note and put it on the board.

Pros of this activity:
1.  I could see immediately if a group was getting the correct answers and I didn't have to check every paper! If a group got the answer wrong, I took them their post-it and looked at what they had written on their paper to see if it was a re-writing issue. If it was incorrect, I looked at whoever didn't write the post-it's paper and asked them to find the mistake.
2.  Students were talking about every process and double checking each others work.
3.  I could be anywhere in the room and knew exactly what problem each group was on.
4.  The students said, "THIS IS FUN!" They want to do it again!
5.  We completed an entire worksheet in class, without hesitation.
Last but not least,
6.  It became a race to see which group could get the most questions correct...the FASTEST.

What I will do next time:
1. Require different handwriting on each post-it. This will slow down the pace of the activity. Normally you don't want this as a teacher, but then you know that the smart kids aren't the only ones working the problems and writing down the answers.

This is what it looked like on the board:

Right now, I don't have any other things to improve this activity!

Feel free to contact me with questions! 

Shelby

We made it.

It is finally Winter Break. And, to all of my teacher friends, we made it. Those of you that aren't first year teachers, you know how difficult that first semester is.

This semester was filled with challenges that I couldn't have gotten through without the help of my friends and family.

My Parents - for getting constant help and support, every day.

My Sister - for always ending up on my side.

Meg - for our dinner dates and vent sessions every time they were needed.

Veronica - for letting me come visit, just to get out of the house, even if I didn't stay long.

Courtney - for our lunch/dinner dates when we could squeeze them in.

Taylor - for our dinner dates and best friend chats catching up on life outside the classroom.

Vickie - for always knowing when it was time for a break and making sure I was staying above water.

Sterling - for allowing me to be at 5th Q. But way more importantly, the Grader, what a lifesaver!

Madison - for starting our career together, and helping each other make sure we have it all under control!

Sam - for little bits of encouragement just when I needed it.

My Co-workers - for all of the support in my first semester. I wouldn't want to have gone through it without the daily support and help from you!

My Ohio Family - for the best Thanksgiving Break yet. It was the perfect break before winter. I'm glad I got to see everyone and we had a blast at the wedding reception.

This list should be much longer, to everyone that has helped me through my first semester teaching, thank you. Please know that your help doesn't go unnoticed.



I'm looking forward to an even busier second semester as I start my Master's Degree and coach Club Volleyball!

- Shelby