Last days

I am in the last days of my practicum experience. After being in the same classroom every day for seven weeks leaving is hard. I have become attached to the students and seeing them every day. I can't imagine what it will be like when I have been with the students for an entire year. It is hard since you are with them so much in the classroom. I only hope that I have left some impact or impression on the students. That is one of my goals as a teacher. I want the students to have learned some math, but I also want them to have learned about working together and getting along with each other. During this last week, It so wonderful to hear that the students are sad that I wil be leaving. Leaving also got me thinking about some fun and educational ways to wrap up the school year. I was able to find one website that gave ideas such as creating an autograph book of their classmates. I would love to have had a keepsake of my classmates from every year. That idea can be found at http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/newteacherlastday.html. Generally, I am sad to say goodbye to my students. I also fonud a website of some ideas that middle school teachers threw out for the last day of school. That website is http://www.middleweb.com/MWLISTCONT/MSLlastdays.html. The last day should be something fun and memoable in my opinion. It should leave the year on a good note. I only hope by the time we get to the end of the year that I have made some kind of postiive impact on the lives of the students.

Cooperative Learning

This week I have taken the time to do some cooperative learning in the classroom. For an assignment for my middle school math methods class, I interviewed three students who worked together to solve a difficult problem involving patterns. Part of our assignment was to see how they interacted and worked together. I noticed that it was a struggle for the students to work together cooperatively. They seemed to each work independently and then consult one another to check their work. Working cooperatively seemed to be a chore. I also taught a cooperative learning lesson that involved the students working together on an experiment which eventually created a linear equation. I grouped the students in groups of 4 or 5 and did not let them select their groups. After doing some of these cooperative learning activities, I began to see how some students really enjoy working independently on assignments; however, some of the students really enjoyed the time to interact and work together. I was also shown the importance of teaching the students how to work together. Cooperative learning can be a wonderful tool in the classroom, but the students must interact positively with each other. I was able to find a website that I think really helps with some ideas for cooperative learning such as grouping, teacher's role, and different strategies. The website is http://www.pgcps.org/~elc/learning1.html. From my experience I learned how important grouping can be for cooperative learning. Each student needs to have a role and be responsible for explaining the activity. This makes cooperative learning a valuable and enjoyable tool for the students, specifically in the math classroom.

A new unit

This week the students took a test over linear functions and equations. The students did not score so well on the test. Many of the students received F's. I think dealing with linear functions and equations is difficult for an eighth grader because it has many algebra concepts involved. Looking back I don't know what we could have done to improve those test scores. Many of the problems stem from students missing class and not getting all of the material necessary. Well, the students also started a new unit this past week. They will now be working on geometry. They all claim to like and understand geometry. We shall see. Many students struggle with geometry; however, it is a necessary concept for the students to understand. There are a multitude of geometry concepts to teach. I think there are a variety of tools available to help students learn geometry. One tool that I have found useful in my classes at Ball State is Geometer's Sketchpad. It helps the students to find out qualities about different geometric objects. One site that I found that seemed like a good one was http://www.mathsnet.net/geometry/index.html. It has different games and tutorials available. I also like the use of miras to teach reflection and symmetry. I think the students need this more active learning. I am excited to see where the teacher goes with geometry and what else i can learn from her.

Missing Homework

I have already blogged about the attendance problems in the middle school, but another aspect dealing with attendance became apparent to me this week. Many of the students fail to turn in their homework as well. This week my supervising teacher and student teacher decided to take one day to give students the opportunity to catch up on missing work. I noticed that only two of the students were entirely caught up on their work. Some of the students were missing assignments because they had missed class. Others were missing assignments simply because they had failed to turn them in. My teacher does not have a penalty for late work and most of the students were able to get caught up on their work after one day. She shared her frustration of not being able to get students to turn in assignments. I think this is particularly hard in a math class. The one thing I did notice was that the students turned in their homework more often when they had ample time to work on it in class and ask questions. Students then appeared more comfortable with the material and willing to turn it in. My goal as a future teacher is to have students turn in all their work on time. I want to find ways and possibly incentives for more students to turn in homework.

One website I found to help improve the amount of homework turned in is http://www.ed.gov/PDFDocs/hyc.pdf. The website suggests ideas such as giving the assignment a purpose and creating assignments that are challenging for the student.

Having students complete their homework is essential. If it was important enough to assign then it should be important enough for the teacher to try to get the students to complete it.

It's more than basketball

This week I decided to check out the 7th and 8th grade basketball games after school. I had heard so much about the team because the students and teachers always talked the day after gameday about what happened during previous night's game. It is great to hear how passionate they are about basketball. Plus, it gives the students and teachers something positive to connect with on a personal level. The students and teachers also talk about the other sports that go on in the school. When I went to the game and was able to see that personal relationship myself. The students who were there came up and spoke to me. It was great to engage in conversation with them outside of class. I learned so much about the students. The students and I then had something in common for the next day in class. I appreciate my students so much more after seeing them doing an activity that they enjoy. I also noticed that those students also work to improve themselves in the classroom, so they are still eligible to participate in their activity. It confirmed for me the importance of students being involved in afterschool activities. I want to coach and teach. Going to the basketball game continued to confirm how much I enjoy being around athletics and how much I want to coach. It also showed how that involvement can be positive for the school as a whole.

In my searching of the importance of extra-curricular activities, I was able to find a couple of websites.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr237.shtml
This website by Education World is a great starting place for information. It links to many websites to read information on extra-curricular activities.

http://www.nlts2.org/reports/2003_04-2/nlts2_report_2003_04-2_ch4.pdf
Here one can find some more benefits of extra-curricular activities.

Technology in the classroom

This week I was introduced to the use of the Smart Board in the classroom. The teacher used it to graph some linear equations as well as for the Bellringers at the beginning of every day. The classroom that I am in is equipped with some top notch technology such as laptops, graphic calculators, and the Smart Board. In my opinion, a challenge of having technology in the classroom is using it effectively and not just to say that technology is used in the classroom. It must produce a valuable learning experience that cannot be duplicated easily on paper. I believe the students will like using the various types of technology because it is something different as long as the activity has value and is not confusing. I think almost everyone in the class needs to have or be able to conveniently share the technology or it will not be useful. I hope to integrate much technology into the curriculum that I teach.

http://www1.center.k12.mo.us/edtech/SB/SB.html
This website has some tips for using the Smart Board.

http://www.nctm.org/about/content.aspx?id=1242
This article has information on using calculators effectively in the younger classrooms.

http://www.ericdigests.org/2000-2/graphing.htm
This resources talks about the use of graphic calculators at the middle school level. That is what the students have in the classroom that I am currently in.

Missing students

After being in the classroom for a couple of days, I realized that attendance is a major concern especially for first period. One day this week about a third of the students in the class were absent. The other days there was always at least one person absent. Having class without all the students present makes teaching difficult. At the end of class, my supervising teacher spends time going over the work she is missing from students. Being that middle school students are already reluctant to turn in their homework, retrieving work from absent students makes it even more difficult. I decided that I would see what I could find about attendance. I think it is so crucial for the students to be in school. It is hard to learn when you have missed some of the material.

One of the first websites I found was http://www.nwrel.org/request/2004june/. I found this after looking at the Indiana Department of Education website. The website had great information on why students don't attend school and strategies to encourage attendance. The website says that poor attendance may be an indicator of a student who may drop out of high school. This shows that improving attendance at the middle school is crucial so that students stay in school as opposed to opting to drop out when they have the chance to in high school.

By searching google for ways to improve attendance, I was able to find a few resources. One resource that I found was at http://www.education-world.com/a_admin/admin/admin442.shtml. This explained some ways for teachers to use incentive programs to improve attendance at different levels. I found this website useful for information for my future classroom.

I also used the state website to find data on attendance. The data said that the middle schools with the higher attendance rates alos had the higher percentage of students who passed both parts of the ISTEP. That may not be a surprising statistic, but I think it proves the significance of attendance to success in school. I found this information on data about attendance at http://www.doe.state.in.us/asap/data.html.

Attendance is a major concern. I think it is important for teachers to discuss with their students their reasoning for missing school. Sometimes it may not be the student's fault. As a teacher, I hope to just be supportive and show each student the value of being in class.