CEDu 533 Class #3

CSS are such an easy way to save time and a way to avoid cramping in your hands. It is much easier to define something once, than over and over again. Using CSS is another new language to learn, you don't need to type is as frequently as html. I think the most helpful CSS would be the external as well as the embedded. The embedded would be helpful when working on my school website where I am unable to create any external CSS. We shall see, taking this class as made me want to change the website to be able to format it the way I would like to.

Another aspect we looked at this class were Java applets. These would be a great add-on to my website to make it more user friendly for students. By adding the graphing calculator to the website, should would be able to complete most of the assignments without the TI-Calculators. This would be handy for those students who are sharing a calculator with a sibling or even a parent.

The last topic we examined on our own were e-portfolios. This reminds me of my undergrad experience. We were the first cohort, to go through with the revamped requirements. We created our teaching portfolios with Dreamweaver. It was the first time I created a web-page, let alone a web-site. I have an entire flash drive devoted to this endeavour. There was a lot to learn and a lot to upload... every image, thumbnail, converted interactive geometry sketchpad activities, lesson plans, and linked examples of how we met the standards. Lately the e-portfolios have been discussed in a regular classroom setting. Students create various portfolios, much like they create for English class from the writing they have done throughout the years. Portfolios are a way for students to organize what they have learned and more powerfully, reflect upon it. In mathematics, I feel that it might be a little time consuming to add artifacts to the portfolio. Students would be able to scan artifacts, or create various projects to showcase their learning. I feel that many students would benefit from reflection since math is sometime blamed for being so disjointed from everyday life. This would force students to reflect on where they have seen the concepts around them, as well as how learning something difficult could change how they would approach future problems. I feel that using an e-portfolio would force me, as a teacher, to be more creative with assessments. The sequential nature of mathematics sometimes makes this difficult. I feel pressure to ensure that my students have been exposed to everything so they will be successful in the next class. Well, I can always give it a shot and see.

CEDu 533 Class #2

This week we spoke about tables. This was the perfect thing to discuss because as a math person, I can get a little particular about the way I want to present information. On my website I wanted to be able to create a table to insert information about dates, assignments, and topics we are discussing in class but was unable to successfully make the table reflect the information I wanted it to. Now, I'm going to try to give it a shot.

When we were working with a group it was interesting to discuss both good and bad websites. There were many examples of great websites, which I frequently go to. We also explored some bad websites which started to make me worry. Would my website considered the good or the bad kind? Our school district has a style sheet they would like us to use and some teachers use it while others don't but as I'm learning more html I am more willing to play around with it and manipulate it until it is a website which is easier to use and more functional. We shall see how it turns out.

HTML - Week 1

WOW WOW WOW! I know it was different but HTML is a different language. They are new abbreviations associated with it, which sounds a little like texting language. I enjoy the logic sense of html; for every beginning, there must be an ending, and if there isn't it won't work out. I know that is the math side of me, but how can I repress it. The TryIt website was so helpful because you can immediately see what is working and what isn't, then it's just working the puzzle until it's fixed.

Our school provides us with Internet software to work on our own website for school. I have has so many different conflicts with taking the class but have always wanted to make one, to give students one additional outlet for help. I have used Dreamweaver software to build an on-line portfolio when I was in my undergrad program at Madison, and found it much easier to work with than the one the school district provides. This is why I am excited to be able to know and use the html aspect of editing because I feel it is much easier to troubleshoot that way than in the standard view mode. I feel this will allow me to create a better website which is easier to go through and interact with. After working on the group assignment this week, I am much less scared to use html. Let's see what is next week.

Research Round 2

Well, it's all over. I am excited to be completed with the research aspect but now the "fun" stuff begins, how to express the data in charts and figures. I feel pretty comfortable with the software I can utilize and enjoy creating figures but it's the matter of doing it. I am very interested to see how students did. As of right now, by merely looking at the median, it seems that the control class did 2% better than the treatment class. There was also a mean difference of 2% as well. I have yet to put in the pre-test and look at those. I will be interested to see how it turns out. I also think the study might have been better if it were to be performed over a longer period of time. We shall see how Chapter 4 & 5 play out.

Research

The research has started and the data is pouring in. I has been interesting doing research and teaching at the same time. The research requires that the actions be rigid and structured while teaching required fluidity and changing to the requirements of your class. I have struggled with this a little bit throughout the part of the research I have done. I am finding new aspects that I wish I would have investigated as well or will have to after this. Mostly, the age level of students which I have, I feel, would be interacting with the independence portion of this better if they were older. Most of my students are freshman and I feel that the maturity that upper-class students frequently possess would allow them to be more self-motivated to discover why and how for problems they do not understand. I also wonder if there would have been fewer questions if this was done with older or more advanced students.

Another fun issue that has been a pitfall of some of the data has been the fabulous H1N1! The delightfully weak immune systems of sleep deprived high school students has meant that many of my students have been missing lecture, homework, quizzes, and practice problems. Hopefully this gets under control soon, because it's difficult for both students and teachers when they are gone for extended periods of time.

We shall see how the research turns out.

Week 5

Formulas, formulas, formulas. Today was another day we spent working with Excel. Excel is such a great product for people who are afraid of working with formulas or who want to have some extra help. There are so many great features of excel which make figuring out formulas so much easier and less cumbersome than determining the value of of the formulas using a pencil and paper, or even the use of a calculator. The formula for the t-score should have been very intense if we were not utilizing the capabilities of Excel. I enjoy working with an excel spreadsheet for this purpose and I hope that all the people in our program can appreciate this. The computations could be done without its help, but would just take so much more time. I hope we get a new formula next week.

Correlation

WOOO HOO! Formulas. This past week we started discussing the correlation of statistics. We explored correlation tables and while we were looking at them I was thinking how great this lesson could have been if there would have been a SMART board. As we were going through it, we could have been highlighting the rows and columns pertain to the information in an excel spreadsheet and their intersection would have become more clear. Sometime visuals, like tables, aren't visual enough for visual learners. They need the difference to be highlighted so it stands out from the rest of the data. We are currently in the process of getting a SMART board for our department and I would be definitely suggest this to the AP Stats teacher.

Last week I was a little disappointed that we weren't able to finish the calculations of the Spearman formula on the excel sheets. Hopefully we will be able to continue them this week, while it is over the head of most people through the symbols alone. I look forward to doing some more calculations this week with T-Tests.

Week 3

This week we have continued our discussion of measures of central tendencies as well as the z-score. I really enjoy talking about these because it helps students become more critical of the statistics they are presented. Using the measures of central tendencies and the z-score, I encourage my students to examine flyers and adds to Gauge if the message they are being presented is accurate. This fosters their development as an analytical world participant. This also increase their core content knowledge by requiring them to select a point of view and express their ideas orally or on paper, which fits the NCTM standards. Similarly, the project we were asked to complete for class by comparing pre- and post-test scores of a study for 6 different test. I hope that people in our class are not feeling as overwhelmed. When we start bringing the equations aspect of stats, that is when I love it. Give me a good equation any day! We'll see what we get this week.

Central Tendency

Mean, median, and mode are the three measures of central tendency and something I discuss with my students, in all of my classes. Students have seen these statistical measures the most throughout their math careers. The mean is the most familiar to people because they know it's addition and subtraction. These can also be determined on a graphing calculator. Taking this class had encouraged me to examine how I can utilize the graphing calculator more in my classroom. Throughout the year we do sections on statistics within a chapter, and I would be interested to see how the students would handle utilizing the graphing calculator more. I guess we will see how it goes.

STATS!!!

When I tell most people that I am a math teacher I get one of either the following responses; "oh I love my ___ math teacher" or "OH, I hated math when I was in school, I was never very good at it!" The later is usually more frequent. I has been a while since I took a statistics class, 2001 to be exact. Bob Wardrop was the professor who taught from his own text book. The class was made up mostly of students who were going to apply to the business school so he was responsible for making statistics accessible to a variety of levels. Needless to say, it was not as mathematically rigorous as my other courses.

Stats is such a great area of mathematics. It is accessible to most people and gives those who work with it a power to be analytical. It will give you a way to find the lies in the truth that someone presents to them through statistics. I hope that will start to be more critical when presented with statistics.

Class this week was a little overwhelming. So many terms! 4 hours of class time means that we can be introduce to 4x's as many terms as we present our students during a class period. While I teach some aspects of statistics in my various courses, we often to not use the terminology to the extent that we did in class. This makes me a little anxious to have to remember and keep straight all of the terminology and which words correspond with which way to categorize statistics. We shall see what the first quiz is like.... hopefully I'll do okay.

Let it begin...

The research is officially going to begin.  At the end of this class I have many feelings; excitement, anticipation, and already a sense of accomplishment.  When we began this class I felt a little overwhelmed but knew that the way it was structured I would be able to work through it in stages.  At the end, turning in such a large packet has given me the sense of accomplishment.  I am anxious to hear back from our AD council as well as the IRB committee.  I am crossing my fingers that everything is okay.  I will be interested to see how the students in my Algebra 1 classes will work with the computer-based practice.  I will also be interested to see how the dialogue within the class will be changed by the introduction of computer to the classroom as well as the change in venue.  I guess by the end of October we will know.

Research

We are at the beginning stages of doing our research project.  There were so many different topics to choose from but picking the one that fits in the time constraints helped to narrow it down.  There are many different papers that need to be prepared before the research can actually happen.  It is interesting to see how much needs to be done in advance.  The amount of forethought and preparation needs to be exact is one aspect to ensure the quality of the study.  

I am also really interested, at this point, to determine the results of my study.  I am interested to see how my students react to this study.  I guess only the study will tell. 

Wrap it Up

This course has been a good refresher for me. Many of the things we covered were discussed in my pre-service program. It was a great reminder because it is easy to get into a routine of assessing and the type of activities I assign. I need to start varying my instructional strategies more frequently that I currently do. I know that my mathematics students would appreciate it. It should be apart of good teaching practice and I feel that I do an okay job of this on my assessments but should try to do a better job of this with informal assessments, mostly homework. I do run into difficulty when students need the concept for a higher leveled concept because they do need practice and I need to ensure that they have a firm understanding of the material. This class has inspired me to look at my curriculum to see when i could integrate more student-directed learning opportunities. A fine summer goal.

Professional Development

Ongoing professional development is essential for sustaining professional growth. Teachers need to stay on-top of technologies and techniques to create better lessons to engage their students with. We do not conduct our daily lives as we did 5 years ago, nor should we be doing the same with our teaching practices. I feel it is important to belong to a professional organization such as the Wisconsin Math Council and NCTM. These organizations provide professional development, both locally and nationally. They are also great communicators of information. With my membership to NCTM, I am subscribed to a professional journal which allows me to get ideas to incorporate into the classroom. Professional development does not need to mean going to weekend long conferences, while Green Lake is a blast, it can be as simple as searching on-line and seeing what is out there. I also find it helpful to have meaningful discussions with colleagues and because we have a common office, this is frequently done. Teachers need to make a concerted effort to stay current with the times, as difficult and uncomfortable as it may be at times. If I continue to do this, I feel that I will stay "professionally young," but with more wisdom. :)

Self-Directed Learners

This module has helped me think about self-directed learners and the role of differentiation because it reminds me there is more than one way to learn.  When I was in college differentiation and multiple intelligences were a major consideration when planning lessons to teach.  This module has reminded me I need to incorporate a variety of instructional methods in my classroom.  I also need to incorporate more lessons that let the students take the lead in their own learning.  Students need to discover some aspects of math to encourage higher order thinking skills but this is sometimes difficult in higher level math.  Many of the concepts would not be able to be discussed without direct instructions.  I feel that while direct instructions may be necessary, there needs to be a variety of ways which the information can be presented to allow more student access the lecture.  This will also inspire more students to get involved, which is one of the ultimate goals.

Student-Centered Assessment

This module has helped me to think about student-centered assessment because typically it is not in the front of my mind.  Typically my assessments, both summative and formative, are an opportunity for me to assess where my student's knowledge has evolved to.  It is so easy to get into the routine of homework, homework, homework, mid-chapter quiz, homework, homework, homework, review, test.  In math, just because you were tested on the material does not mean that the information will not come up in another chapter.  Refocusing my attention on student-centered assessment has allowed me to create better assessments.  The structure in mathematics is very important to most students, mainly because mathematics uses that side of the brain.  I believe that through different types of questions and other types of assessment.  I have been inspired to utilize journals to help students think about what they have learned and to help them process the information.  I think this module has helped me to think of various assessments that I can implement throughout my units.  Utilizing various assessments will help me to encourage growth of student knowledge better.   

The Digital Divide

Who's got it, and who wants it.  The digital divide is exemplified as I continue on with this grad school program.  I learn about many different ways to integrate technology into my classroom as well as work on student's 21st century skills.  The sad thing is that I don't have the means to incorporate all the wonderful finds I have discovered.  Especially with the economy the way it currently is our district has tightened the reins on department spending.  I think one of the things I can do to help with this is priorities all of the technologies I want.  I feel that I need to find unique ways to use what I have but also become creative with the ways in which I can get funds for the technology I would like to incorporate into my classroom.  This includes searching out and finding grant money for the items that our department can't afford.  There are many other digital divide issues that go on at our school.  One of which is not having the library open after school long enough for students to use it productively.  I am typically after school late, by the standard of most of the other teachers, so students will typically pop in after school to type something on the other computers in the math office.  The school needs to realize that students might not have the adequate access at home to use computers for their classroom requirements.  I know I don't have all the answers but it's important to at least bring them to our attention.

Project Based Learning

Project based learning is a great way to build motivation into the lesson for students to learn key concepts.  Experiencing hands-on activities allows students to explore, through various means, and work towards acquiring knowledge using prior knowledge as well as new skills to complete the task.  If students are working in groups on these tasks they will work on their comprehension by processing the information and trying to reason their views with others.  These activities are also great because it is an easy way to reference knowledge by talking about the experience.  I believe that this is a great experience to have in a math class because it allows the content to be more accessible.  I feel that it would be great to strive to incorporate at least one a semester in each class to begin with and then weave them in more and more.

Digital Stories

Overall our experience with digital stories will be different for each one of us. I feel that there are a couple situations that I could implement digital stories into my classroom, but not all too many since I teach math. I have created a WebQuest for my students to explore and discover fractals with and I believe that this could be changed to incorporate digital stories. For the project students would need to explore four different viewpoints of fractals; a historian, an artist, a mathematician, and an applications expert. Examining these four different viewpoints will encourage them to analyze fractals as well as how they have been and are used today which are significant sections on Bloom's Taxonomy. Instead of having students create a PowerPoint I could have students create a digital story about the information. For our school it would be difficult because we do not have microphones on the individual computers. I believe students would work on many important 21st century skills such as building a quality presentation through images, video, the spoken word and/or music.  

Podcasting in Math

Podcasting is a unique way to share information with other through the spoken word instead of the written word.  I think podcasting could be used in a variety of classrooms but I feel that there is a limit to how many times it can be used in mathematics.  I think podcasts could be a great way for students to explain to other what they might have missed during a class period.  I believe that it is difficult to understand mathematics without visualizing how problems are solved which makes it difficult to incorporate podcasting into the curriculum.  I would be interested to find out how other math teachers are using them in their classes.  I find that it would be a beneficial way to do some professional development but other than that I find using it in mathematics it would be difficult.

Digital Stories and MATH?!?!

Really?  How can stories and math some how become combined within one curriculum?  I think they can be successfully.  I think that I will be able to implement digital stories into my curriculum as content preview for particular sections.  It would also be a great way to show students how the math that we are discussing in class is seen in the real world.  I also believe this would be a great way to show students how the various mathematical concepts are applied in various occupations.  This also might be a powerful assignment for students to complete on their own.  Have the students discover where math is seen in the world and what types of occupations utilize the mathematics we have studied throughout the year.  I am excited to try to incorporate these into my classroom and test them out with students.  We'll see how it goes.

Digi Stories and Voicethread

This past week in class we were able to look at digital stories as well as work at creating our own digital story on Voicethread.  This was a very interesting site but I felt there were some problems with it.  The story that we watched was about a little girl explaining her haircut.  It was a cute story but it was frustrating because it was supposed to be a sequential story but was continuously interrupted by people's comments about each slide.  It was a little frustrating because I just wanted to hear the story and not listen to what everyone else had to say about the story.  I am not sure if that can be fixed by not allowing people to make comments on individual slides except for the last one, but that will be something to figure out.  I feel that if this wasn't possible, Voicethread would be create to use for teachers if they are just seeking a reflection on a particular aspect of what was done in class that day or during that unit.  There are many other possible applications for digital stories, but not necessarily on Voicethread. 

Digital Storytelling

I can see a use for digital storytelling in the classroom, even in mathematics.  I could use to share biographies of mathematicians.  The digital stories could also express how theorems and formulas are derived.  Showing students video, audio, and photographical representations of events could help students to visualize and understand how mathematicians come up with their discoveries.  I would also use digital stories to showcase how conic sections are able to be seen in the real world.  Many students are unaware of the mathematics around them.  Presenting the images through a digital story will allow me to engage the students in a way that I might not have been able to  when presenting examples on the overhead.  

Last Week of Class

It always amazes me how other professions do not share as much as we do.  Other professions requires people to watch out for numero uno!  Educators recognize that sharing is and collaborating is one of the most effective and efficient ways to create the best possible lesson plan.  At my high school all the math teachers share a common office.  This was the best situation to come into as a first year teacher.  During my first year, not only did I have one mentor that was looking out for me, but I had seven other teachers there to discuss with, bounce ideas off of, and most importantly collaborate with.  That is how I feel much of what we have done in this class has been.  Through collaborative sharing and exploring different applets, technologies, and techniques we are becoming better educators.  I have really enjoyed examining  having the set time to investigate different applications, especially Rubistar.  I believe that providing students with clear expectations will allow the students to succeed and produce better work, but I never enjoyed making them.  This website has premade rubrix which can be modified and individualized. 

            Another interesting component that we looked at this week were WebQuests.  I think, when appropriate, these are a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom.  WebQuests allow students to take on some of the responsibility of learning as well as allow them to use and develop technology skills to become better 21st Century learners.  I will try to find different WebQuests and/or create my own which will work within my curriculum.  Most of the time WebQuests are not the most efficient and effective way to teach math, it can be a very useful tool if it can serve the same purpose as a lecture.  I look forward to incorporating these into my curriculum.  

The hardest part about not being in this class is the responsibility I will have to place on myself to seek out the curricular resources we were exposed to.  We were given the tools and know-how, now it's just putting that into practice.  

Internet Safety & Social Network

The Internet is a vast unknown for most people, which is why some of us get sucked into exploring different sites for hours on end. I was in college when Facebook first came out so I have used Facebook for 4 years. I have had to make the transition between having my college life displayed on Facebook to monitoring it and having discussion with friends to determine if we were going to edit our profiles because were are educators. As Facebook has advanced, the ability to use different setting has given me a sense of peace of mind knowing that I have more control over who is able to see what on my profile. I feel fortunate that I have the enough sense to actually set those up, but many of my students don't think like that.

As a math teacher, I do not have many lessons for my students on the computer, however, I do know that part of my job is to address additional issues, social issues, that aren't part of my curriculum. I feel that it is important to talk take the time to talk to students about these issues be it a short Mrs. O'Brien P.S.A. or a quick class discussion. Because I am a young teacher, many students may take what I say differently than what their parents say. Today in class we had a little side bar about Facebook in my Honors Algebra 2 class. Many of the students had questions about the New Berlin student and we talked about it. It was a good lead in to a discussion of protesting themselves on the Internet. They seemed engaged in the conversation and some students made comments about how they had gotten talks from their parents about the issue last night. Somehow hearing it from a 26 year-old that has a Facebook account made it a little more real to them. There are opportunities out there, even for math teacher, to take a couple minutes to address life issues.

Week #2

Work time is the best things possible. I have really enjoyed being exposed to the websites we have talked about this week. Between Thinkfinity and Knowledge Network, there are so many more resources available to me now. Before this class I was a bit lost when I was searching for curricular resources I was just searching the Internet, but now I have trusted resources saved to me delicious account to start my search off right. I really enjoyed getting to know Web Quests on Knowledge Network. I wasn't very sure what Web Quests were or how I could utilize them in my math classes, but I have learned what they are and can see the validity of their use in mathematics. Just having the time to explore these sites and examine a small fraction of what is available to me, I am happy to have these in my back pocket.

The other topic we examined this week was the on-line quizzes. Most of these are hit or miss for me. With mathematics, especially high level math, it is frustrating that some websites will only let you type in letter and do not have the ability to input math equations with proper symbols and proper format. It is more efficient to type quizzes in Microsoft Word and find a different means to post it on-line. It is just interesting to me that most of these sights are geared towards Educators, yet they left our one of the main curriculum areas. Ugh. This is one of the largest factors I examine when looking at these sights. I did, however, find that the flashcards would be very helpful and handy when working with my students. It would be nice to have a set of those for each chapter. We'll see.

Time to explore....

Searching The Internet

This week in class we discussed the Internet and Internet searches.  The Internet is such a great resource for teachers, if others are willing to post and share their activities.  It always astounds me the amount of information that is out there for the taking.  There are many great ideas for curriculum subjects if you are willing to spend the time to look.  Many of the activities that are out there might not fit perfectly with the curriculum you are aiming to teach, but that is part of teaching; flexibility and adaptation to meet the needs of their class.  There are so many wonderful applets that I can incorporate into my classroom and it is handy to have them pre-made for me.  While it might take some time to sift through various lesson plans, it saves more time in the long-run.  I am excited to frequent these websites such as Thinkfinity.org and IDEAS.  These websites are easy to navigate and will allow teachers the ability to quickly search for activities  to implement in the classroom.

I look forward to using these cites to aid me in class and adapting the material to aide my student's learning.

Overall

There is nothing like a class in which you learn by doing.  I really enjoyed how the class time was spent.  We discussed and learned new applets and programs.  After that we were given time to explore, work with, and figure out how it could be implemented in our own classrooms.  Allows us time to make these our own was very helpful to be and allowed me to process it better.  When you see how easy it is to implement and where to put the technologies into the curriculum, it was much more applicable.  Using the blog was a great way to allow and force us to reflect on what we had done and learned in class.  It was also fun and technologically satisfying to be using this type of medium to express my thoughts.  Overall I really an pleased with the masters program so far.  I am excited to be learning new techniques and technologies  that I can use in my classroom.