when the roof cave in and the truth came out…

…I just didn’t know what to do

Filed under: daily blogging, lesson planning, lyrics, music, song

unit plan overview

I am teaching the third subunit of the second unit in Mathematics I. The third subunit focuses on rational and radical expressions. The goal of my unit was to make the students feel like radical and rational expressions are not scary, and in fact pretty fun. When I was told what unit I’d be teaching, the first sentence out of the teacher’s mouth was, “Good luck, the kids hate fractions.” I am hoping that I can change the student’s perceptions regarding rational and radical expressions.
The first day I am teaching, we will be working through and discovering rational expressions using polynomials in the Just Jogging Learning Task. The learning task is a great way to let the students discover how to manipulate rational expressions. The students are given something familiar that they have seen before, the distance formula, and simply manipulate it by adding variables. In order to increase conceptual understanding, the students can work in pairs and communicate math to each other.
We have four days allotted for operations on rational expressions. Although the resources I were given were extremely procedurally based, I have added conceptually challenging questions and thought provoking statements in my lessons. I am hoping for the students to not just accept what the text book tells them and try and fully understand the material. To support conceptual understanding, I have reworked some of the Lassiter worksheets and instead of 30 “procedural” problems; the students will have a limited number of problems to do outside of class that will still check for understanding of the material. The first week is wrapped up with a Jeopardy game to review the operations of rational expressions. Although the worksheets and exercises may appear to be conceptual, students will continually be challenged to think why they are doing steps of solving rational expressions, rather than just following the textbook’s rules.
The second half of my subunit deals with radicals. I never really thought about how fun radicals could be. The students and I will be discovering the rules of the radicals through many trial and error steps. We will discover why rationalizing a denominator is helpful, and why simplifying radical expressions can help mathematicians. Helping the students understand why teachers ask them to simplify will hopefully help motivate the students to actually want to learn how to simplify.
The unit conforms to the GPS and NCTM standards by continually challenging the students to reason through their problems. Instead of just listing the excluded values in a rational expression, the lessons challenge the students to know what the excluded values tell us about the expression. I am a huge technology person and wish there was more I could do with technology. If this were my own classroom, I would try and do as much possible with technology. I believe that technology is one of the best ways to keep students entertained and keep their focus in mathematics.
I have been met with some resistance regarding procedural and conceptual understanding. By going into a very successful school that has taught procedural for years, it is hard to justify the importance of conceptual understanding; however I believe that after my unit the students will desire to know why they are performing operations, rather than just performing them. If this were my own class, I would rather create future mathematicians, and not just mathematical robots.

Filed under: daily blogging, class, lesson planning, math, unit

even if the sky is falling down

It’s late. I know. Where are my days going? I feel like I am getting nothing accomplished and yet I have so much to do. My to do list keeps growing and my accomplishments list isn’t. Lesson plans keep stacking themselves up, and yet I feel like I have so much to do.

Okay a confession – the past three days I’ve been listening to 1 song hardcore.  I’m so ashamed of it, but its irresitible.  For some reason, it makes me smile. It makes me happy. It makes me want to get up just get crazy.  The song is “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus.  It’s a song that will just make you bod your head, move your hips, do whatever it is you do when you’re feelin’ a song.  The music video was released last night for it and I was highly disappointed.  She’s slutty in it… but it still makes me happy. And that’s what counts.

So my life consists of lesson planning, class, debate, and sleep.  I don’t have a social life anymore. At all. It’s starting to bother me a little but I think I can get over it.  For a social life, I’d need to cut one of those aforementioned activities…and only 1 is eligible to be cut.. and we all know I can’t do that – my body won’t let me.   I do have to say, I”m very proud of myself for not forcing myself to go to some tournaments – it will be a battle this year, but I’m going to make it through this.

I need to get back to this blogging thing. Its something that is different in my day. I need different right now.

Filed under: daily blogging, busy school, class, debate, happy, lesson planning, life, music, sleep, work