Curriculum materials and resources

Math Department - Access to computer carts, use of document camera, white boards, manipulatives such as wood blocks in a variety of geometric shapes, calculators.  Most of this depends on what you come up with on your own.  
 School District - The district has planned course statements that list the curriculum for each course.  


Virtual -Classzone.com is our publisher's website that has tutorials, power points, practice tests & problems. good resource

Closure

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/37930180" width="500" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

After watching the video I had intended to use for my closure example, I decided that this older video was a better one to go with.  It turns out to be more of a transitional example as I am moving from general parallelograms into more specific types.  Knowing what I know now about closure, I would have made the following changes.  1) I would NOT ask rhetorical questions because I am not really assessing how well they understood me.  For example, I would NOT ask "so you guys remember all of the characteristics of parallelograms, right?" (and then just keep moving on) Rather, I would call on a specific student to list the characteristics, preferably an average student.  I did it a second time later on where I said "opposites are also equal, right?"  Next time, I should say, "why is this true" or "what do we know about opposite angles in this type of figure?"  To me, closure is an opportunity to assess students' understanding of material from prior lessons.  I do not feel like I did my best job on this closure piece, but as a result of my awareness and the feedback from my mentor teacher, I have since improved.  I now feel confident in my ability to assess students during the closure process and I understand how to go about it.  It was important that I moved around the classroom to keep students motivated and provide them guidance and then I also came back to them later to share their answers, keeping them accountable.

Professional Development

The two organizations are:

Oregon Education Association (http://www.oregoned.org/site/pp.asp?c=9dKKKYMDH&b=123024) Participation with this organization would help keep me up to date with news in education, various issues, conferences, and other events. They have created a table for mathematics teachers to use that compares common core state standards with current Oregon state standards that would also be a useful tool.

National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (http://www.nctm.org/) Participation with this organization allows access to common core standards, journals, and lists of conferences that are being offered around the nation. The organization also offers one-time 60 minute informational seminars for professional development.

The websites that I use for ideas and help with instruction are:

Khan Academy www.khanacademy.org - offers real time data reports to track student's progress. Teacher can easily see how students are doing in all different areas. Students are challenged to achieve mastery in various areas and the site tells them how far they have to go. Also, students learn through discovery using interactive tools before they actually learn a skill through direct instruction. I think this helps with professional development because they use simple teaching methods that can be applied by all math teachers. It is a reminder that teaching is not about showing, but about learning through discovery and guidance.

www.emergingedtech.com - This is one of my favorite websites as it offers ways to utilize technology in the classroom to improve engagement and learning outcomes. Use of technology in the classroom is relatively new and becoming more popular, but we must all learn how to use it to our full advantage. One of the best ways to do so is through Twitter and forum posts on this website. Topics and videos are searchable as well, making it an easy tool to use for professional development.

www.mathplanet.com - offers a variety of resources for teachers including instructional videos and sample problems with explanations. Forums are also available for discussion if teachers have questions or want to discuss topics to gain insight from other professionals.

Routine - Intro to new topic

D. McKae Teaching introduction to rectangles/squares from Dave McKae on Vimeo.

The past 2 weeks we have been learning about parallelograms and now we are transitioning into special types of parallelograms, mainly rectangles and squares. We want the students to understand that all of the characteristics we learned about parallelograms still apply to these shapes because they are also parallelograms. Furthermore, students will learn new properties of these shapes to help them solve for missing sides lengths, segments of diagonals, and angles.

The students were asked to collaborate with a partner and list all of the characteristics they could think of for each shape.

D. McKae Teaching Intro to Rectangles/Squares - two lessons

Feel free to watch the initial introduction and then skip to about 4 minutes where I bring the class back together to talk about the lists of characteristics they came up with.

http://vimeo.com/37930991

http://vimeo.com/37930180

Data Sheet for Pre-Test 1

https://docs.google.com/a/willamette.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnTsET_iQhiMdHc1R2JrMUFKNVJSWENEWk82NGR1VkE#gid=0

Dave's Algebra 1 pre-test

Integrated 2 warm-up by Dave McKae

I learned that I do a good job of covering the important concepts, scanning the room, and including all students in the discussion process. Each pair of students created their own list of characteristics and was called upon to share one characteristic.  

Due to the fact I walked around, most students were engaged with the process of making the list and I made sure to call on each group to participate in sharing. I do not believe they would have been successful in doing this without encouragement or guidance from me. They needed a little guidance and encouragement but most of them contributed some sort of work.

I addressed a variety of abilities by knowing my students and spending more time with the groups who needed more guidance. I also guided them more when they were sharing answers if I knew they were struggling to express something.

My biggest challenge was assessing students' understanding of prior knowledge before jumping into the next topic. I should have spent more time and gone slower before leaping forward. The assessment component is the piece I have worked the most on since taking this video and my mentor teachers have given me positive feedback and noticed a big difference in my teaching.