Posts

My Desmos Activities

-
Desmos Activities for my Integrated 3 Course (numbering of sections is based off of CPM): 1.1.3: Investigating Functions  Students will be introduced to the concept of families of functions and will further develop their understanding of what it means to investigate a function as they begin to investigate a family of rational functions. 2.1.1 Transforming Parabolas  Students will learn to write equations of parabolas in vertex form and connect their work to the graph. 3.1.2: How Can I Use a Graph to Solve an Equation? By the end of the lesson, students will be able to understand how graphs can be used to solve equations and how graphs can be used to check for extraneous solutions. 3.1.3: How Many Solutions Are There?  In this lesson, students will recognize that algebraic solutions to systems of equations correspond to points of intersection on a graph. 5.1.2: Inverses Exponential Vocabulary Quick activity to review exponential vocabulary words. Desmos Activities for my
Post a Comment
Read more

Who's The Daddy?

-
Image
Today, students solved the most ridiculous problem I've ever written. We've been working on writing exponential functions given 2 points and an asymptote the past couple of days in IM3. I wanted students to understand how useful models can be (they give us an equation we can plug values into). When students came in today, I gave them each a "case file" from "my lawyer friend" who wants their help in a case. Inside there were the following: a letter 2 plane tickets a patient lab chart a fake Wikipedia article Students then worked on solving for an exponential equation to model Amanda's HCG level using the information on the patient chart to create this, along with the info from Wikipedia to know that the asymptote is k=5. They can then use the exponential to work backwards and solve for the date of implantation (Feb 11), subtract 8 days to get the date of conception (Feb 3), and then subtract a couple more days to get the day of
Post a Comment
Read more

O.G. Mistake

-
Ah... practice structures. I'm of the mind that there is nothing more boring and dreadful than giving students a kuta worksheet and asking them to finish it (not that I haven't done that before in a time crunch). By adding some type of game, scavenger hunt, or structured student interaction on top, I can improve engagement and the amount of feedback students are given. But I'm bored  of all my current practice structures. And, like all of my ideas, I thought of a new way to spice up a worksheet as I was falling asleep last night, thus keeping me up. Anyway: here it goes: I'm calling it O.G. Mistake, but I'm more than open to a better name for it. Here's how it works: Make a worksheet with numerical (or algebraic expressions) as answers, and hang up posters around the room with the question # on the front written really big, and the answer written on the back, as well as what number goes in the blank for the next problem (more on that in a bit). Whit
Post a Comment
Read more

Daily Reflection

-
Image
Students came back to school on Wednesday, which was also the first day of the 2nd semester. I opened by asking them if they normally write resolutions in the new year, and to write an academic and a personal goal for themselves for 2018. Then I talked about my own resolutions, and I began by admitting something to them.  I hate binder checks. I hate them so much that even though I said I was going to do them periodically last semester, I just... didn't. And, the longer I waited to do a binder check, the more overwhelming it became. Not doing regular binder checks became a source of embarrassment, but not enough to overcome my laziness. They are a PAIN, and they don't even seem to work. When I actually did them last year, they took me hours upon hours, and most of the classwork looked copied at the last minute anyways. So, over this winter break, I finally admitted to myself that I'm not going to do another binder check, ever.  Here's my new policy for ch
1 comment
Read more

Rookie Mistakes

-
Image
I saw this on twitter and it really caught my attention. I'm a third year teacher and I'm constantly finding myself thinking that I thought I would feel more self assured by now. In my first year teaching, I was so excited to write cool lesson plans and try out new ideas that I wasn't sure were going to work or not, but I kind of figured that eventually, I would have all my classroom procedures down by now, and be a totally organized teacher with a clear unit/year plan all the time. My classroom would be beautiful, colorful, and neat, and students would be learning way more from me. Since it's my third time teaching Integrated Math 3, I really thought I would pretty much have my curriculum map finished, and I would only be slightly tweaking what I did the year before. Instead, I find myself re-planning entire units all the time. I know I have improved as a teacher, but I was under the impression that a few years in, I'd find my groove and pretty much have my
1 comment
Read more

Starting the Quadratics Unit After Break

-
Image
I'm a couple days away from Winter Break! I'm really looking forward to having time off and to have time to plan cool lessons that I can take my time to think about and not have the pressure of planning 2 one-hour lessons every day. I'm going to teach a quadratics unit when we get back in Integrated Math 2, which I'm excited about. I'm not a huge fan of how the book introduces it (I find it really cheesy-- you have to make a brochure for parabola customers... huh?) I'm thinking of starting off with a strategy I got from my best friend/roommate, who's actually a government teacher. The idea is you give your students a table with a box for letters A-B, C-D, etc. Then you give them a topic and have them think of any words related to that topic. I'm thinking of giving my students the prompt "words to describe a graph" and hoping they think of words like increasing, decreasing, domain, etc. Then, I want to play a game of "graph scattegories
2 comments
Read more