Raising funds & Getting a cool math shirt......

Trying to find funds is always a challenge.  To help support our math team I already ask local businesses to sponsor the team and put their logos on the back of our shirt each year (levels of sponsorship include Nerd level & Uber-Nerd level).  But as the team has expanded to 50% of the HS and MS - it keeps requiring more funds.

And I refuse to let the math team be exclusive - it is inclusive.
I also refuse to sell pizzas or candles, etc.  Cause it does not have a good return for the time required.

Now I am trying teespring.  Here is our first shirt:



Link to order

I will have to update in a few weeks if it worked (or did I at least get enough orders to get the one I order printed).

Teach 15 Reflect 4

So how do we make students really reinforce concepts and ideas we spend our precious class time showing, leading and/or guiding?  How do we make sure they are reflecting on the lesson objective, using the practices  - that they are making connections?  It is an interesting question - I often ask how do I make sure my students understand the concept and embrace their learning - but perhaps I should be asking how do I make students reflect?

Thinking about student reflection was part of a speech from Naomi Harms at a professional event I recently attended - she spoke about the need to only do 15 minutes of teaching, lecturing, practicing, working, etc and then 4 minutes where the students reflect.  That reflection can happen any number of ways - but the key is to allow that time.    And I am now working hard to set up my daily teaching to make sure students are reflecting, and that they are really embracing their learning.

It may seem like a modest change, but after reflecting on it I am hopeful that it can have a large impact in my students.  I think this reflection can have a large payback - the investment is small, about 8 minutes per period - but if students can make their connections in those few minutes then the impact will be much greater than 8 minutes of more lecture, or more practice, or more anything,

Seriously only 4 minutes reflection for 15 minutes of attention, seems too easy.  But when I think about myself - even now as an adult I struggle to pay attention and connect ideas when a lecture or speech is more than 15 minutes straight.  I am shifting my classroom, I had provided time to make connections but never said "Reflect on this," or "Discuss this with a partner," etc.

So I am going to add it and see how the first month goes.  Nothing ventured.....
Finally I just want to thank Juda, JAM'M, WTI and Morgridge Family for making the conference possible - hearing Naomi is making me think about my teaching and work on making it better.  So it was a good day.

Line Week Day 5!

Day 5 was a Monday.  And we simply reinforced the concepts of slope and how to graph.  Even though we focused hard for 5 straight class periods we will need to hit the concept of slope and how it works in real problems again this year.

At the end we can identify slopes and y-intercepts, can graph using slope-intercept method and table method, and just started to understand the idea of slope as a rate of change (with units leading the way!).  Now I feel like students can do some problems at home for practice (solutions are always given) and make sure they can do the procedural side of "y = mx + b"

The conceptual understanding is going to take more work and more practice/struggle -- perhaps Line Week Part 2!