Ready for round 2?

Second semester is starting tomorrow and I just wanted to get down my ideas on things I will be changing and things I will be keeping…..

New things…

I’ll be using the spreadsheet I modified from @alicekeeler. Although I plan on using Kyle Pearce’s further modified version.

I have slightly modified old my assessment approach (again). I’ll share later.

Kyle and I have been Tweeting back and forth all weekend about spiralling our grade 9 applied classes. We have been teaching using an inquiry based approach (4 part math lesson) and thought that spiralling would fit right in. We’ll keep you posted. Here is my day-to-day plan by topic and task, so far .

I’ll Continue….

a ton of stuff….but here are a few

Keeping my students curious.

Strengthening the connection between algebraic representations and graphical representations using Desmos! 

Documenting my class by taking a picture/tweet for every school day.

Warm ups – To start every class we do a warm up / starter. Most of these starters are math related but for me the most important part is that the starters allow our class to “Gel”. My buddy @Regan_bio is an advocate for always saying we should show our students that we are human and remember they are human too. Take the first 5 minutes of class and be a good human with your kids…..maybe they will be more ready to do some math!

Recently Mary Bourassa has shared her great list of daily warm ups for her grade 10 applied class. Check out her warm ups.

Here’s what we have been doing…

Monday’sEstimation180 – As a class we complete one of these great challenges (10 minutes). We track our progress on Andrew’s / Michael Fenton’s provided handout.

Tuesday’s – Visual Patterns. I choose a pattern for us to determine the equation.

Wednesday’s – Pictionary – Our class is split into two teams. They take turns drawing and guessing objects, sayings, math ideas that I have picked out. Most of the time this is a non math game. (10 minutes)

Thursday’s – Throw Back Thursday — I choose a question / skill that my class has been exposed to in the past and we work on our whiteboards on this as a review question.

Friday’s – 20 Questions. — I pick something and the class has 20 yes or no questions to try and guess what I have picked. We then play a second round where the class together picks something and I try to guess. (10 minutes).

Have an exciting second semester everybody!

Document your days! 180 Photos

Since the first day of school I have been documenting my days one picture/tweet at a time. On Sept. 2, 2014 I decided that I

Day 1 - Math is Like....

Day 1 – Math is Like….

would take one picture of something (fun or boring) going on in my classroom each day and upload it here. Now that the semester is over I wanted to reflect on this process.

The simple idea of me just taking a picture keeps me on my toes. It keeps me organized. It keeps me saying “Everyday we should do something great” It keeps me working towards a better learning experience. I’m the one who’s looking over my shoulder!

It started with pictures….but I quickly realized that once I take a picture I could send it to Twitter! This was great because it allowed me to write something quick about the day and saved server space on my website. And with Twitter’s ability to embed a tweet……this became a quick copy and paste routine.

It’s such an easy addition to your teaching and so powerful. Do it now!

Here is my page of pictures/tweets

Day 90