Rockstar Math Teacher

Rockstar Math Teacher is always posting about different apps that she is using.  She just posted about a new app that she began using, CueThink.  Students are able to approach problems systematically, engage in productive math discussions, and provide and receive intelligent feedback using this app.  She has only posted one post on the app so I will have to keep following to learn more.  She also posted a link to her blog where she provides all the resources she uses.  She posts links to classroom resources, Socrative team tasks, Classflow Self-Paced lessons, Socrative Self-Paced Lesssons, and Showbie paperless tasks, assessments, and guided practice.  I really enjoyed looking at her different resources and found them all very helpful.  She posts so many different things involving technology and I really enjoy learning about the technology she is using.

Looking at Equations Differently

Dylan Kane posted a blog about having students think differently when solving equations.  Solving equations is taught in a very procedural way.  Students are only taught how to solve equations one way and this limits a student's understanding.  Students should be able to solve equations using inverse operations and looking at a problem thinking, "what value (or values) makes this true?"  This is an important question for students to think.  Dylan also gives examples of problems he would have students solve for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.  I really enjoyed this concept.  We normally only teach students procedures and how to solve the problem to get the correct answer.  We no longer teach students to think.  We spoon feed students formulas and never have them ask questions.  Students do not ask "why?" anymore. Students should question what they are being taught and should be made to think in different ways.  Students should not be taught just one way.

Dylan Kane Blog

I really like Dylan Kane's way of giving students problems that are not always review problems or practice problems of the material they learned in class.  He gives students worksheets that do not always involve material they had just learned.  He gave his students POPS assignments.  They are assignments based around Pattern, Order of Operations, and Problem Solving.  He used to try to give them for homework, but found that it just wasn't really working out the way he wanted them to so he stopped.  The other day he kind of ran out of things to do so gave his students one the POPS assignments.  He found that the students who were struggling the previous day with the difficult material enjoyed doing something that was a break from the difficult content and were happy to have something they could complete fairly easily.  He also found the students who normally rush through problems had to stop and think about the patterns.  The students had to discuss the different problems.  He really like the positive class reaction to the POPS assignment and will try to use one every week.  I think this is a great way to give students a break from difficult content and have them think in a different way.  Students should be made to think differently than they normally do and assignments that complete this objective are wonderful.

Rockstar MathTeacher Twitter

Rockstar MathTeacher posts a lot on Twitter.  She posts multiple pictures of the activities she has the students working on.  She had the students working on a Socrative team task where the students were using white boards. She also posts multiple pictures of the paperless tasks she uses.  I really liked her one post of one of her students' "ticket out the door."  It was a reflection on how they did in class that day.  The student wrote that they were proud of themselves and will be working even harder tomorrow.  I think it is a great idea to have the students reflect on how they did during class.  It really gets the students thinking.  I also liked how she actually had them write a reflection instead of just rating how they thought they did using a number scale.  When a student had to write out a few sentences, they actually have to think about how they thought they really did.  I also really liked another post of hers.  She said her students needed a mindset boost so she gave them a writing prompt.  She had the students finish the sentence, "I can persevere through struggle when learning is not easy by…"  She gave the students a sticky note and they wrote their answers and then she posted them all on the board.  I thought that this was such a great idea.  Sometimes students need a little boost halfway through the marking period, or towards the end and this is a great way to take a quick break from math and have them reflect and think.

Dan Meyer's Blog

I began following Dan Meyer's blog.  He has so many different posts.  He will post on a certain topic or describing an activity he did during class and then someone will answer with another activity they did during class that was similar to his.  There are so many ideas on his blog about so many different topics.  He posted about an activity that he did with expressions and equations.  It is a very interesting and engaging activity and I think all students would be interested and surprised by it.  Another teacher responded to his post with another activity for expressions and equations that was just as interesting and engaging.  I really find all the different activities that other teachers use very interesting and I will be keeping them all in mind for my own use in the future.  Another thing I like about Dan Meyer's blog is how he does not just blog about activities he does with his students; he also blogs about things teachers are experiencing.  Every blog I have read has referenced Dan Meyer in some way and he seems to be a very influential person in the math education community.  I will definitely continue to follow his blog.

twitter follower

I began following Dylan Kane and he tweeted a link to a description of a new way he was giving homework. He began giving his students a worksheet with 10-15 problems on it.  The problems are completely mixed practice and mostly involves lower skilled problems.  He wants the students to be able to practice all math and not just the stuff they learned that day or are learning in that unit.  I really like this way of giving homework.  When homework is made simple for students, there is normally a better chance that they will complete it.  It is also very important for students to practice math that they have learned and not just the math that they are currently learning.  Another thing I like about it is that students can still complete the homework if they missed class and have no excuse to not do it.  He says that the new way of giving homework has been really successful.  He finds it most important that students are at least completing the homework and this is happening. I really enjoy his twitter because of the links he posts. I finally found a twitter person I really like!

Rockstar Math Teacher Blog

I really like how this teacher uses guided notes.  Not only does she use guided notes, she also color codes them.  The students find this really helpful.  She also uses color coded wall charts.  She color codes the wall charts to match the students' notes.  She also uses paperless tasks using Showbie and these normally take multiple days to complete.  She can look at her students' work every night and give them feedback so that they are not doing it wrong the entire time.  It is a great way to check for understanding.
She also has pictures posted of her classroom and I really like the layout of her classroom.  The desks are set up into partners and they're all tilted so that the desks all are facing towards each other.The class is very bright and I could see how it would make students excited.  This teacher is very exciting and I really enjoy her blog.
blog

Rockstar Math Teacher on Twitter

I am following Rockstar Math Teacher on Twitter and she has been using Socrative in her classroom. She uses it a lot in the classroom and I enjoy reading all the way she's been using it in the classroom.  She uses it for group both activities and individual activities.  She teaches 1:1 math classes and math support classes.  She also uses a lot of paperless tasks in the classroom.  The students all use iPads.  One of her tweets stated that she does not like math games so she uses Socrative, Showbie, and ClassFlow.  I will have to work with Showbie and ClassFlow to see what a teacher can do with these.  She seems to use Showbie for all her paperless tasks.  It just seems to be a worksheet that the students complete on an iPad.  Students can pick different colors to write in which makes solving things a little easier sometimes.  I enjoy the pictures on her twitter and plan on trying the different apps she has mentioned.

Twitter

I began following Rockstar MathTeacher on twitter.  She does a lot of different things with her twitter account.  Her classroom allows for the students to all have iPads so she uses these regularly and posts pictures of the students doing paperless worksheets.  She recommends multiple different apps and posts things that she has used and what works for her.  The apps she uses look really cool and fun and I would love to try them out in the future at some point.  She also posts some of her favorite responses to her end of quarter poll.  The students talk about their favorite apps they used, what they learned in class, what they had trouble with in class, and other things.  It was really interesting to real students' responses about her class because you can kind of get a feel for her and how she runs her class.  She also posts links to her blog which is also very interesting and goes over her ideas in greater detail compared to just a twitter post.  I look forward to reading more about Rockstar MathTeacher.

Social Media in Higher Education

I really liked the different arguments for social media.  There are always arguments made against social media, but it is unusual to read arguments for the benefits of social media.  I felt that the article made some really good points.  I really liked the point of even though social media has decreased face-to-face interactions, it means that people are more focused on the discussion and what is being said rather than the person who is saying it.  Social media takes away people judging conversations based on appearances and how people talk. I also related to the idea that reading is now taking different forms.  Print is obviously not as popular now, but blogs and online articles have risen in popularity.  People get most of their news from the internet.  People also read things that interest them online more because it is so accessible which does not mean that the amount people are reading as gone down, the content has just changed.  I also really liked all the different ideas for using social media to better higher education.  I feel like a lot of these ways of using social media are already being used which is very exciting. I really enjoyed the article and enjoyed the positive spin on social media for once.

"Reading Film- The story of movies"

I really like the idea of using something that every student is exposed to teach other concepts.  Using something that students are familiar with and get excited about is a great idea.  I honestly never realized how much went into making movies and I think it is a great idea for students to learn this. The fact that students can study different affects of light by studying cinema is very interesting.  Students will also not forget what they learn in this program because it something that they are excited and engaged in.  Film is also something they see all the time so they will always remember because films will remind them of these lessons.  The students seemed so engaged in the videos and you could see them thinking critically when viewing each video.  They noticed things about the film that I would never notice in a film.  It also exposes students to different lines of work.  Many students would not be able to get this experience ever unless they went to a tech school or took a class in college.  The students were already liking the idea of making movies which is very exciting because it shows how much they enjoyed the lesson and the subject.

"Life on the Screen: Visual Literacy in Education"

I absolutely love this article!  His ideas about educating students on expression is brilliant.  I find that there are so many brilliant students, but they have no idea how to express themselves.  It is very common for the really brilliant presenters to use very boring power points with very difficult dialogue.  If these people were taught how to express themselves, there would be more people understanding and gaining knowledge from their presentations.  I also find it very common for lower level students to be very creative.  I watch the students that don't do very well in class and their doodles on their notebooks are amazing.  I spoke with one struggling student and he was telling me how he loved to write poetry and songs.  He really struggled in a math class, but his poems were really amazing.  If these students learned to apply expression to subjects such as math, they might be much more successful.

I agree that we need to teach students how to apply the skills they learn in school more rather than just how to reach one conclusion.  Like he said, you do not want students to just learn geometry, you want them to learn to build a house.  I also liked that he said that the education system was the base of everything.  I have always believed this and there are not many people who do so it is refreshing to see someone not in the education field to make this statement.  Overall, I really enjoyed this article and thought the ideas were really on point.

Why Some Schools are Selling All Their iPads

The arguments against the iPads are very legitimate.  I wish I had more experience with both the Chromebook and the iPad so that I could come to my own conclusion.  None of the classrooms I have been in have been so technology oriented and it is very interesting to read and see pictures of classrooms that are so technology oriented.  I understand how the iPad could be viewed as more of a recreational device.  They are very similar to iPhones and most students have been using them for fun for at least a year or two now so the transition to make it a learning device could be difficult.  The Chromebook is a little different, but I hope to have more experience with it because I honestly have never even used one so it was a little difficult for me to understand the article with no previous knowledge of the device.  I do really like the idea that the Chromebook uses a cloud because I remember it being so difficult when your computer crashed and you lost all the information.  The debate does not seem like it will be concluded any time soon and still needs to be tested.

What Will It Take for iPads to Upend Teaching and Learning?

I really enjoyed all the different perspectives in this article.  I really like the idea of using iPads to change the teacher role so that the teacher becomes more of a facilitator.  The iPads will hopefully give students the responsibility of learning more than most classrooms do now.  If students become excited about learning, and have the opportunity to learn by themselves, they will.  Hopefully the iPads will get students excited so that they will begin teaching themselves.  Teachers do need to feel comfortable with the feeling of losing control and becoming more of a facilitator for this happen, but this is why the organization and the efficiently of the iPad is really helpful.  If a teacher can easily check how students are doing with the material and the classroom is well organized then it will not feel like the teacher is actually losing control of the classroom.

I really liked how the article gave different perspectives of different teachers in different subjects.  Some of the teachers seemed like they were doing really well with the addition of iPads into the classroom, while others seemed like they were still figuring it out.  Using iPads in the classroom is definitely a learning process and will take a while for teachers and administrators to really understand how to get the best outcome with the iPads.  I understand how the iPads can be frustrating.  There are many apps that have to be purchased and if budgets do not allow for these purchases, then it seems a little pointless.  The use of iPads in the classroom is a learning experience and still needs a lot of work, but all the ideas are very exciting and the intentions are good.

Super Stairs

The Geometry Teacher posted an interesting lesson for his Algebra II class.  He showed the students the super stairs video.  Apparently the idea was from Dan Meyer.  The two main questions are how many steps will he run on the super stairs and how long will it take him?  I really enjoy using a video to teach a lesson because it gets students involved more then a word problem from the book would.  This idea could also make students get up out of their seats.  You could even make it a project using stairs in your own school.  Have the students guess and try to figure out a way to solve the problem and then students could verify their guesses by completing the challenge if they like.

New Perspectives

I really liked MathyCathy's first homework assignment for her 7th and 8th grade students.  She asked them to bring in an image that would evoke questions from other students.  Students brought in their image and then had a day where all the students walked around and looked at their classmates' images.  They were asked to write one question on a student's paper in their desk row.  Some of the students had some really interesting questions and she began to notice the students starting view things using math.  One student said that she saw geometry in her shirt. She encouraged her students to keep looking for images that grab their attention and she plans to use the images later on to do a project with her students.  I really liked the idea of her having the students use images that they normally see every day and then looking at them with a new perspective.

More Blogs!

Two of the blogs I began following mentioned using material or an idea from Dan Meyer so I Googled him and found his blog.  He updates his blog constantly and has so many different ideas and teaching strategies for teaching math.  His blogs are normally fairly short, but straight to the point.  He did one activity that touched so many different things, it was pretty impressive.  He had the students doing math, learning Excel, participating, and more.  He had students guess how many malted eggs were in a container, but also gave a smaller container and actually told them the amount of eggs in that container.  He then had the students come up with their own questions about the data, such as who won, who had the worst guess, etc.  The students worked in pairs on laptops and used the data given to them  Excel to find the answers to their questions.  It was a really interesting activity and I am excited to read more on his blog.  His blog has so many posts and so much information!

Story Time

I was looking around for some more blogs to follow and stumbled upon mathycathy's blog.  She teaches eight grade algebra and her students have been solving multi-step equations.  Instead of just giving the students an equation and telling them to solve for a, she had the students tell the story behind the equation.  She had the students create their own word problems after being given a certain equation.  I absolutely love this idea!  This activity gets the students really thinking outside of the box and checks for real understanding of the equation.  It also makes solving equations much more fine.  She said the students were also very excited and said it was hard to describe the energy in the room.  I will definitely be using something like this in my classroom one day.

Activator Lessons

The blog I began following uses activators to begin lessons.  He uses real life situations and quick little stories to open a lesson.  For the lesson on reflections, he began with a story about his daughter.  She was observing the reflection of her cup in the glass kitchen table and asked her father why the reflection is upside down.  He thought this was a great question and used it to open his lesson.  He began the rotation lesson with a picture of a manhole cover that had not been placed the correct way because the yellow lines were not matching up.  He was going to ask his students how a rotation would fix the problem and how many degrees it would need to be.  I really like the idea of using activators to begin a lesson because it takes something students are familiar with and relates it to something in math that they may not be familiar with yet. 

http://thegeometryteacher.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/truly-wonderful-the-mind-of-a-child-is/

http://thegeometryteacher.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/circles-from-cedar-street/ 

Horizon Report

The Horizon Report taught me a lot about emerging technologies in the classroom.  I did not realize that schools were already turning towards a “bring your own device” movement.  I do not necessarily agree with this movement because I do not think it is fair to students that may not have the money to have their own device.  Even though students do work better on their own devices, most students today learn technology very quickly and are familiar with a lot of different types of technology and devices.  I also did not even know what cloud computing was until I read the Horizon Report.  I have used Google docs and Google hangouts in some college courses before, but I had never heard these be described as cloud computing.  A flaw with this method is that all students will need devices in the classroom and preferably at home and students also need good connections at home. 

Games and gamification is not something that is completely new.  I learned from computer games even when I was younger and it was the thing I looked forward to most.  Learning analytics is a very interesting method.  Tracking a student can be very helpful to a student and the teacher.  I really enjoyed reading about the Hackathon that was part of the internet of things.  I find it amazing that high school students can program and develop apps.  Wearable technology is still being developed and has not quite had a huge impact on education ye

Welcome!

I am a math education major at Richard Stockton College. I hope to teach middle or high school math.  I am currently a senior at Stockton and plan to graduate in May 2015 and do my student teaching in Fall 2015.