Insert Clever Math Pun Here

Another post for the Yule Blog Challege!

Strategy #1: Rebekah Paterson had a great post yesterday about creating a space where students feel safe to ask questions. This led to a twitter conversation that reminded me I haven’t blogged this strategy (I guess because it doesn’t seem like a “strategy” to me?). I think I shall name it…

Creeper Teacher

Equipment Needed:
Timer. You could use your phone (BORING) or you could use a timer cube (AWESOME)

Something to sit on. You could use a stool (BORING), rolling chair (FUN, but may not work depending on classroom aisle size), or a creeper stool (AWESOME)

Strategy: On review or practice days, I creep on up to each group, set a timer for maybe 3 minutes and ask if there are any questions (I’ll be using some of Rebekah’s better phrases next time!). The first time around, when they are just starting, if they don’t have any questions, I’ll move on the next group. But after that, I stay the entire time. Students that don’t have questions in the first 30 seconds all of a sudden have some after 1 minute. I can also use that time to look over their work and see if there’s anything they don’t know they don’t know. 😉  It’s also great to limit teacher-hogs (I’ll finish a question if the timer goes off, but no new ones!). I also use the same strategy when I have 5 students wanting help on 8 different topics in a 30 minute study hall.

Strategy #2: Seriously you are the worst teacher ever.

Equipment Needed: Timer (see above)

Strategy: Students are not allowed to use a timer for the first 15-20 minutes of a test. I actually got this strategy from another teacher and I resisted it for a long, long, long time because I am THE WORST at arithmetic. Like, “they let you teach math?” bad. But I’ve grown to really like this strategy because (a) it makes them decide if they should wait until calculator time to do a problem (i.e. “is it a tool I need” versus “everything is a nail when you have a hammer”), (b) makes them less likely to reach for a calculator during class and (c) they still have a safety net of using the calculator when the timer goes off. Warning: the students HATE this with the force of 1,000 suns. But usually most of them come around, and a couple even thank me at the end of the year for making them less calculator-dependent.  (Note: In PreAP Precal, I sometimes do split up calc/non-calc into separate sheets, or just have all non-calc)

So maybe next semester you’ll try to be a creeper teacher or seriously the worst teacher ever!

Another post for the Yule Blog Challenge! (Had to take a holiday break, but now I’m back).  Here are the things I would like to start/stop/continue next semester:

Start: Incorporating more activities, less me talking! I always start off with good intentions, but then….

Maybe it will help if I…

Stop: worrying about “finishing everything.” I’m already stressed about next semester since I am “behind” everyone else, but I’d rather slow down and focus on fewer targets, and also feel that I can take a “breather” day instead of NEW TOPIC. NEW TOPIC. NEW TOPIC. REVIEW. GOT IT? GOOD. HERE’S THE TEST.

Continue: I did spiraling homework for the first month or so, but then… (seems to a be a theme with me, eh?). I’d like to start it again, especially with things from first semester that Precal will need next year in Calculus (they are finally geniuses at trig values and I don’t want them to lose that!).

Ok, so I still have a week until my year-end book round up, so while I’m waiting for my butter to warm up for some cookie baking, here are my quick writeups for #MTBoS12Days.

Book I read:

Illuminae  By Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff  This is the most recent book I’ve been recommending to everyone. Do not be put off by the page count!  It’s all told in “found documents” so it’s a really quick read, especially because you can’t put it down. It’s like the best of every scifi movie/tv show/book was put into a blender and out came this imaginative smoothie.

Book I’m reading:

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton This was a book I’ve had on my (182-item) Kindle wishlist for while, so I bought it when went on sale for $1.99 last week. It’s kept me guessing as to whodunnit. I’m about halfway through and I don’t want to throw it against the wall, which is better than half the books I’ve started recently.

Book I want to read:

The Neapolitan Series by Elena Ferrante I really don’t know much about these, except the fourth (and last) one came out this year and was on a lot of best-of lists. I just downloaded the first one from the library to read as my next book.

Also, I just learned today that in Iceland, it is traditional to gift a book on Christmas Eve and spend the rest of the night reading and eating chocolate. I knew I loved Iceland for a reason!  Merry Jólabókaflóð! 

Join the “Yule Blog Challenge“!

Non-School Related Success: I finished the #500in2015 run/walk challenge!  Now, little did I know when I signed up that the other people involved were all super-milers and were done in May. But I kept at my 10-mile-a-week, 40-miles-a-month plan (except September…I don’t want to talk about it). I walked when it was cold. I did walking workout videos. I started to jog/trot. I jogged 2 miles every single day in April, which involved waking up early. I jogged in the heat. I jogged in the humidity. I jogged around my house. I jogged in the rain. I did not jog on a train. I jogged at school. I jogged up and down our #%*#%#*$ hill a bajillion times. I jogged an entire 10K race with a 10:30 pace (I started the year at a 15-16 walking pace). And I ran my last two miles yesterday!

And now I never want to jog again. 🙂

School-related success: I don’t have a specific success story to share, so here are two survey responses that make all that I pour into the job worth it:

So maybe I don’t have the most exciting activities, and I need to do more SMP3, and I could probably do less lecturing, but at least I helped these two kids become better math people, and that’s what we’re in this job for, right?

YOU GUYS, I finally figured out how to make semester exam and study guide creation 43% less time-consuming and 29% less stressful. And it only took me [redacted] years to figure it out!

Note: Our exams count for 10% of the semester grade. In other words, it is very difficult to change your letter grade by your performance on them. In other other words, the kids have figured out they don’t mean anything and don’t take them very seriously. Therefore, I refuse to spend any more time or effort than absolutely necessary. So here’s what I did:

1) Because I sort of did my own stuff with Algebra II this year (more on that when I have more time), I had to throw out a lot of questions and put some new ones in. But, ugh, writing multiple choice questions, amirite?  But then, *light bulb* I realized I could use questions from old tests and use actual student-generated wrong answers for the distracters. I keep all their old tests, so it took just a few minutes to go through, pick out some good questions, and then look at their work to find “good” wrong answers.

2) Ugh, (mandatory) exam study guides, amirite? And then I’m not sure what is worse: making the key or making 27 corrections to the key. Well, hey, guess what? I already have some great (corrected!) study guides for each test; I’ll just pull my questions from those. But here’s where the genius part comes in (seriously, I had one class applaud me for my brilliance. Are you ready for it?): Copy and paste the title of the study guide and leave the numbering the same as the original study guide. 

For example, here’s how the start of Alg II one looked:

The cleverness lies in the fact that I’ve already posted all the keys and video keys online, so students could just consult those if they were stuck. No new key to make! Or video key!  Woot woot!

And yes, sorry for delaying in sharing this awesomeness with you until the middle of exam week.  But store it in the back of your brain for May and thank me then.