A new beginning

I really don't feel like I have tried anything new with constructivism or technology and that may be due to the fact that I have a new prep this year: Honors Trig/Calculus. I am thoroughly enjoying this class and relearning all the math that I did years ago. It is amazing how quickly some of it comes back as well as some of it not so quickly. Luckily I have had very supportive parents as well as a great class.
One thing I am using new this year is the webpage for teachers and that is very helpful for myself, parents and students to keep on track. I am very grateful for Karl for putting that all together for all teachers interested. Last year I used schoolrack.com and am much happier using this one affiliated with the AHS website.
That's all for now :)

Cheating??

I just wanted to get a hand count or your ideas/philosophy on the subject of cheating on tests. What do you believe to be a fair and equal punishment/consequence for all students who you catch cheating in any and all circumstances? Do you believe there should be different consequences for different types of cheating? If so, what do you think they should be based upon? I am just looking for your opinion and your experiences with students cheating :)

Blogging Again :)

It's been a while since I last blogged...haven't made the time and am going to now try to blog again on a regular basis. So far lately I have been changing up my Geometry class quite a bit. I have been calling on students (making sure each student gets called on to do this) every morning (beginning of class) on their warm ups. Each student is responsible for teaching the class and explaining why they did what they did to get the answer of their problem. This has really opened up discussion to where the mistakes are taking place as well as giving students confidence in their problem solving processes. After each student demonstates their thinking I pose the question to the class "What do you think about this answer and their process". This has fostered many discussions about how there are different ways to approach a math problem and come to the same conclusion/answer. Although my students were very hesitant to do this at the beginning they are starting (I believe) to comfortably share their responses with the class and it is okay to be wrong. So far so good :)

Blogging in my Geometry Classes

I have come to the conclusion that blogging in my Geometry classes is not working as well as I had planned. They are not seeing the purpose of blogging in geometry and they aren't commenting on other blogs. They have seen the importance of putting the homework assignment on the blogs but again the main purpose for me (the reason I wanted to try this) was to elaborate on the lesson and relate what we were doing to the real world (applications). Students were very vauge when writing about the application to what we were learning. So I have discovered that this needs to be something that we discuss in class. Hopefully this will open my students eyes to relating what we do in class to the real world and how they can apply what they are learning outside of class. We will see how the discussions continue to go with the real world applications.

Homecoming Week and Test Redo's #2

This week has been very stressful and busy with all of our students going crazy over homecoming. I am very pleased with our Wild Warrior Women and their support and whole school spirit today.
On a teaching note: I have decided that I am going to still do test redo's however I have changed the rules on who gets to make up the test if they earn a D or an F. Everytime a student comes in for help I am going to mark them down in my planner and if they come in for help at least two times during that unit and they still don't understand the material then I will allow them to redo the test to earn a 70%. I feel like this is going to get ride of those students who are counting on the redo to bring up their grade that are not putting in the effort prior to the test. This way the students who are really trying to understand and just need some more one on one instruction have the opportunity to show me that they are learning and understanding the material, but just at a different pace. We will see how this goes for this unit :)

Test Redo's

Currently I have thought to myself about what the purpose of an assessment is to me and how I need to make some changes to accomodate my philosophy on assessments. So for my Algebra 2 class my students recently took a test on one of the most essential learnings for the entire course (factoring and finding zeros). Some of my students didn't do well on the test, which made me think about where to go from there.

A lot of teachers (and I have been guilty of this in the past) just move on to the next topic when there are some students who didn't demonstrate their knowledge of the previous content. So this delves into the question: What do you do when your students don't get it? Therefore, I gave those students who earned a D or an F on this test the opportunity to do test redos. The requirements for this is that they must get ALL questions originally missed, correct and then they will receive a 70% on this test.

'This does two things. One, it shows me that they are understanding the material on their own time. And two, in the student's eyes at least getting some credit for coming in for help (a lot) and then retaking the test over and over again in order to bring up their grade. I believe that it also provides a better beginning feeling of success in my class. If a student fails a test...it is very difficult for them to bring up their grade over the course of the year (possible, but hard). Many students may feel a sense of failure and just completely shut off and that is not my intentions.

I have had some difficulty with this in my department because we are disscussing the issue of grades. Every teacher is different and teaches different and there are some teachers that are angry that I am allowing this because they don't. Therefore, their students have lower overall average grades. To me this isn't the important thing!!! I would rather be able to truely believe that ALL my students mastered what I was teaching rather than how many F's or A's my students earned this year. These are conversations that we are struggling with but it is wonderful that we are beginning to have them.

Is Blogging Working

I have been blogging in my geometry classes and so far I feel like they are working for the student that it is assigned to for that particular day. However, my purpose/expectation for blogging in my class is for students to piggy back off of eachother and add comments to one another when they feel the need to add real world applications to what we are doing in class. That isn't happening! I have tried to encourage my students to keep the conversation going but I have often times recieved the comment from my students that they are sick of blogging for classes and don't see the purpose. I have tried to make it purposful in class but I am not sure I have done a good job for a math blog. So I am debating on whether or not to continue having a class blog?? Any ideas?