New Year

It's the first of the year! In 2 days, I will be back at work and getting ready to the new term.

I'm excited to be teaching 2 sections of Financial Algebra again - I've learned so much the first time around and already have so many thoughts and ideas on how to make it better for the second time. That being said, I'm also finding that I am already overwhelming myself with wanting to create new lessons and repackaging old lessons. The past two weeks, I've spent many hours working on a HyperDoc to familiarize students with Google Suite (suited for High School students) and repackaging a career introduction (skills, interests, and abilities assessments). I think that I have finally got them completed! I'm still working on a document to go into Sheets (since we are doing finance, we use it often and I found the first time around that students had no experience with the application). And, I need to still figure out the details of our first project - career research. We did a different project for this unit, but with the additional time we have, we thought it would be better to really have students research the career they are thinking about since we will use it throughout the year. I'm hoping that I will be able to get them finished by Tuesday, but it isn't looking promising since the other 2 took so long for me to "perfect."

More time than I anticipated has been spent working on a strategy session presentation I volunteered to give. Back in November, I attended SDCUE and a session on HyperDocs. I had heard about them, but I wanted a better understanding. I had implemented a few in my class, and really enjoy the freedom it gives both myself and the students. So, I'm presenting a session about HyperDocs to any teacher that wishes to find out more! I finished my slide deck and thought that I was ready to go. But then I finished reading The HyperDoc Handbook: Digital Lesson Design Using Google Apps by Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis. I felt I could make it better. I thought, if I'm giving a presentation about HyperDocs, wouldn't it be best to example it with them? So I created a Form that could go with the session. I gave opportunities for participants to Explore, Apply, and Reflect. I ask participants to explore already made hyperdocs for their content area. Then I ask for them to include the hyperlink. I will have them apply by really thinking about a lesson they plan to do this spring that maybe they could repackage. Finally, they will reflect on the idea of HyperDocs. In having participants search and include a link to a HyperDoc, I wanted to make sure that information was available for teachers to access, so I created a new Sheet and used the ImportRange function so that only those responses from the form would be visible to anyone that has the link. It's simple, but I'm pretty impressed with myself in pushing this further. My hope is that my colleagues will push themselves so that we all can push the students to achieve more!

Now that I have procrastinated an additional half-hour on the lessons I still need to work on, my resolution for this Spring Term is to Blog at least once a week with some of the resources we are using for Financial Algebra. I think we are doing some awesome stuff, and while we haven't created everything ourselves, it would still be good for me to share what we are doing.

I'm Thankful!

In honor of Thanksgiving next week, I decided to write about what I am thankful for:

• An AMAZING Math Team at my Site and in the District.  The road hasn't been easy with our implementation of CCSS, but we stick together and work harder so that it's the best for our students.
• A FANTASTIC AVID Site team.  Our Coordinator works so hard on a limited budget.  We've raised hundreds of $ so we can take the kids to UCLA and UCI next month.
• Two TA's (and an acting TA) who are the BOMB.  Without them I would be drowning in paperwork and even more stressed.
• A soccer team and athletic program that have allowed me to contribute, even with my other commitments.  
• My Freshman AVID students who remind me every day why I teach!!  They drive me crazy sometimes, but we are a family. Below you can see the pictures I presented each student with positive words their classmates used to describe them.
• And of course my family who supports my long hours, stressed nights, and extra spending.

2014 Fall Freshman AVID

My CMC-S Reflection

October 24-25 I got the opportunity with some of my amazing team members to attend the 2014 California Mathematics Council South Conference in Palm Springs. The focus of the conference this year was "Common Core Mathematics: Building Competent and Confident Problem Solvers."  This was my first time ever attending this conference, so I didn't know what to expect.

Streets of Palm Springs

So first, Palm Springs doesn't seem to have much going on!  Everything was close and within walking distance, so that was super nice. But not too many options for food around us.

Here are the sessions I attended and my take-aways:

1. The Art of Questioning: Transforming your PLC.  

Session Description: When we analyze student work collaboratively, we build a toolkit of questions from a broader perspective. Practice teaming to develop push and probe questions to use for making instructional adjustments and serving all learners to make sense of problems.

Reflection: Working ahead to decide on questions that can get students to think and question more. Also working with a team to develop (we all don't need to do everything!) Really looking at what students do and mistakes they may make to understand what is going on and those misconceptions they may have. Don't just give the information to students.

2.  Attacking Finance Problems Algebraically

Session Description: Hybrid of algebra 1, 2, probability, statistics and precalculus topics form the basis of this UC a-g level 'c' approved math modeling course in financial problem solving. Reading, writing, discussion and projects are an integral part of the course.

Reflection: FANTASTIC session!  This would be a great course for us to add to our District after Integrated 2. Would allow students another math option, especially those that are not ready for Integrated 3.   Spoke with publisher and requested a copy of the text also. Will request information for UC approval so that we can bring it to Math Leadership, Curriculum Council, and the Board.

3.  Statistics, Sports, and Real Research

Session Description: Perform an experiment from a new multi-disciplinary course integrating CCSS Statistics, Sports Analytics, Sports Medicine and authentic student research.

Reflection: Additional course we could consider adding to our math classes. Would bring variety and offer additional options following the Integrated sequence. Students could be taken before an AP Stats class. Not sure if this would work too well right now at our site, but could be considered in the future.

4. Desmos: Infinite Graphing Power

Session Description: Supercharge students' problem-solving toolset with Desmos, the free online graohing calculator. Learning more about Desmos and the capabilities of the program within our classroom.

Reflection: WOW! Can do so much with this program in our math classes. Takes a little bit to set up a problem, but then students can link to it and explore the graphs - important with transformations of graphs - and discover the effects of changing "things" in the equation without actually graphing by hand. Can also insert a table of information, do linear regression. Great for exploring EVERYTHING! Can do graphs in radians and also set up polar graph instead of grid. Discovering equations for "real-life" math pictures too (parabolas - bridges)

I attempted to attend the session on using Google Forms for Assessment, but it was already packed and full before I was able to get there. One of my colleagues was able to go though, so we were at least able to share information.

My amazing Team (minus 1 who we missed dearly)

I was happy to have the opportunity to attend (and the funding to make it happen for all of us).  I look forward to going again next year!!

Something New

So, I'm taking on a new role in teaching this upcoming school year.  Well, really it started just before this last one ended.  This past school year I was "Co-Department Chair," but I am now officially the Department Chair.  Our school has been around for 5 years now and has been growing exponentially.  I was hired there only 2 years ago.  Just before I got there they had 5 teachers in the department - next year we will have 9!  Our enrollment is going up by about 300 students.

I'm nervous about taking over the department.  I don't have as much experience as some of them, but I think I'm a leader and can really get our department on the same page and moving forward as we implement Common Core (disclaimer: we actually work really well together.  We collaborate regularly and typically are on the same page).  I think the key here is getting us organized and to be together as we implement Common Core.  Like many districts, we aren't just shifting to Common Core, we are also shifting our course sequence as we are going Integrated (that discussion will be for another time).

I've spent the past couple of weeks using the internet to see what others are doing with Integrated Math for Common Core.  I was able to find some great ideas out there for so many other things, but not as much as I was hoping for with Integrated Math.  So, I decided "why not become a resource for others?"  I have a lot of great ideas of my own to become a better and more efficient teacher in the classroom.  And, as we implement Integrated Math, maybe I'll have some ideas for other's.

Now, I'll add "Bloogger" to my something new hat!