This is me finally getting around to making a blog, which I only said I was going to do...about a year ago (so, you know, a pretty good introduction to what kind of person I can be).
I've been stealing (shamelessly) from amazing people like Sam J Shah (Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere) and Amy Gruen (Square Root of Negative One Teach Math and Dan Meyer (dy/dan). BUT now I will start giving back! (*disclaimer: the quality of my submissions is not necessarily equivalent to theirs*)
A little about my student context: I am a 3rd year teacher of math (Applied Calculus and Algebra 2 Trig Honors) at an affluent public school in Orange County, highly ranked and with an active parent presence. I have a digital learning coach this year, which means I was assigned to a cool math tech wizard who helps me make awesome things! (Desmos Activity Builder is quickly becoming my favorite...)
At my school, Applied Calculus is 85-90% seniors who mostly earned B's, C's (and some D's) in PreCalculus and can't move on to AP Calc AB but still want a fourth year of math. (there are a few that earned A's but want an "easy time")
Applied Calculus is my favorite class to work with, but it wasn't always that way. As a first year teacher I was handed this class to teach pretty much by myself with no standards and no curriculum besides a student copy of a textbook. That much freedom was daunting! Unfortunately (due the the workload I had in addition to that course) I stuck with "what I knew" and approached the class from a direct instruction approach, following the order of the textbook making sure we "covered everything" even though we didn't even have the pressure of a standardized test to worry about! The following year I rewrote everything from scratch, not following the textbook but making my own "Units" of study based on topics I thought were more beneficial for my students, allowing time for application projects.
It's not perfect, but I'm much happier with my student outcomes and behavior when we don't just follow the textbook for the sake of doing so because that's we are (and I am) used to doing. I am still working on making it meaningful for them and engaging them more as self-directed learners.
Some things I am interested in improving are:
- Planning student centered lessons
- Creating a positive, supportive classroom environment
- Increasing student talk time
- Improving student writing and explanations of core concepts
- Classroom management of "situations" and problem students with positive reinforcement
I'm not sure what this blog will turn into, but I hope you are along for the ride!
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