I love finding ways to improve my classroom! I previously used www.proprofs.com for online quizzes but I recently received an e-mail that told about some upgrades to the site,so I checked the site out again. I realized for a small monthly fee (after my free trial), I can put a course together very easily on the site. Under "Training Maker", I was able to create a course. I used the course name as the unit I am currently teaching, in this case, Rational Functions. Under the course, I created chapters.

The first chapter is the first topic for Rational Functions. I was able to add a pdf copy of a blank notes sheet, embed my videos that I create, and add quiz questions to check for understanding. I broke each chapter into sections so that students watch part 1 of the chapter, then answer a question, watch part 2 of the videos, then answer a question, etc. I can download a report telling me who completed the quiz questions as well as how long they took to answer the question. The students can receive immediate feedback to determine if they are "getting it". 

*The article above is in expectation...

A good friend of mine makes wooden blocks with sayings on them. One of her latest says, "Expect Awesome Things". I told her I had to have one. We should expect awesome things. Today we will begin our review for TAKS. I can't help but thing about expectations. Are my expectations the same as my students? Are some expecting to just pass? Or, do they have expectations of something awesome, like getting commended on TAKS? I hope the students will set high goals for themselves, encourage one another, and evaluate their progress as they strive towards their awesome expectations of themselves.  Dictionary.com has one definition of expectation as

It has been a difficult week for students, parents, teachers, and our community. 

A young man came in to my room for tutoring this morning. I realized he may have wanted more than tutoring when he asked me how I was doing with the loss of one of our students. The conversation went on to other events in his life, including the loss of several family members. I am glad we had the opportunity to talk and I am glad he opened up. I was reminded that students have struggles, just like adults. It was a reminder that students need help processing some of the struggles. And, sometimes they just need someone to listen to them and to care.

Not long after, I was faced with another student struggling. This student was not in a place where he could do well on the test I was about to give him. After talking through what was going on, I made the decision to have him wait to take the test.

I am reminded of my high school days. My mother had cancer when I was in school. She passed away before my junior year. Honestly, some of my friends didn't know how to respond. Most teachers didn't seem to care. I remember one day my junior year, reaching for the necklace my mom had given me. It wasn't there. I asked my teacher if I could go look for it. She said no. I was a compliant student, never got in trouble, but this was too important to me. I walked out of class to find the necklace. As I reach up now to fiddle with the beautiful cross my mom gave me when I was 13, I can't help but be reminded of the teacher that didn't seem to care. I don't want to be that teacher.

Thanks for the reminder, students, that you deal with some hard situations and circumstances.

Thanks for the reminder, students, of the amazing college professor I had, Dr. Hunter. He called out the gifts in me. He invested in me. He cared when I struggled. He helped me to believe in myself because he believed in me.

Thanks for the reminder, students, that I became a teacher to invest in you. To call out the gifts in you. To help you find purpose for your life. To let you know that someone cares. To let you know that someone believes in you.

 

 

To help the students put application to their knowledge of exponential functions, students were asked to use the internet to write equations that represent the growth of five countries. Then, they predicted the population of each country in ten years and include what factors may have contributed to each countries growth/decay. The final part of the assignment was to write the equation for world population growth using two sets of data, predict the population in the year 2010, and to determine what effect the world population will have on the environment and economy.

 

With TAKS just around the corner, I decided to create a website for our students for TAKS review. My team has agreed to try the flipped classroom model for the review so I wanted to provide the other teachers with an organized presentation of the material. For each objective I will have an instructional video (using www.screencastomatic.com), a student note sheet, and a worksheet. I have included an additional tab with a TAKS chart, a Quizlet with math vocabulary, an online TAKS study guide, and a presentation on calculator strategies.

I think this is a great time for the flipped model as it will allow us to work with small groups of students and provide more individualized instruction to any student that needs it. Students will watch the videos at home and take notes on the note sheet, then we will work through practice problems in class. I think to add  little competition and fun, we will have a game of Jeopardy (www.jeopardylabs.com) and a QR Scavenger Hunt (http://www.classtools.net/QR/).

Pleasantly surprised by these amazing grades on classwork from a normally struggling class. So proud of my students work on exponential functions!

We ended our week with a formative assessment: a QR code scavenger hunt. Students formed groups of 3, one student needed to have a QR reader on their phones (I had them download a free reader like RedLaser the day before). Each student picked a role: time-keeper, clue-keeper, and scribe. The students were give clues that I wrote to help them find the codes, calculators, and answer sheets. Students left the classroom in their groups and found the locations of the codes from their clues. They scanned the codes that were linked to text files that contained exponential application problems. As a group they worked through the problems and wrote down their answers.

As far as teacher preparation, this was one of the easiest activities. I used a site, http://classtools.net/QR/, that creates all the qr codes from the questions I input. I printed the codes and laminated them. I wrote the clues, printed copies for each team, and taped the qr codes around the school. I created a PowerPoint slide with the rules and we were ready for the funt.

The students really enjoyed the activity and asked to do it every week!

 

A little perspective from the students:

 

I began a trial period of flipping the classroom this week. The basic idea is to flip the normal class day. For homework, students watch instructional videos that I created and put on youtube. I linked the videos and copies of notes in Edmodo (the site we have used all year for assignments, notes, videos, and asking after hours questions). Then, the next day during school, the students work on practice problems from the previous night's videos. This allows me to help students during class and check for understanding as they work. For the students, it allows them to watch, rewind, pause, etc. the notes. The videos are less than ten minutes, so when students are working, busy with school work, or extra-curricular activities, they can still have time to watch the videos without other normal distractions that take place in the classroom. The students have been working hard in class and seem to enjoy the new concept. One student yesterday was asking for the classwork as soon as she was done the with warm-up.

I expected a little resistance, which is normal with change, but have been pleasantly surprised. I e-mailed parents to let them know of our new arrangement.  I have since received more feedback from both students and parents to let me know they like the new concept. One parent wrote:

"I appreciate you trying this new method and am happy to say this worked really well for my daughter last night. It's helpful for her to have the flexibility of pausing/rewinding the lesson as necessary; I believe it maximized her learning."

 

We have parent/teacher conferences next week and I found a great site that helps with the scheduling of the conferences. I choose the date and time intervals and created an interactive schedule from the site www.doodle.com. I then sent out an e-mail to parents that I would like to schedule meetings with and also sent an e-mail to all parents with a link to the "Doodle" schedule. It allows you to maintain privacy, add a comments section, and allow only 1 participant per meeting time. I love tools like this that make our job as teachers a little bit easier.