Wednesday, April 25, 2012

You Know You are a Teacher When...

As I have been integrating into the world of education, I have been noticing a lot of common things that teachers do.  Here is the list that I have come up with so far:

1. You think that when you wake up at 7am on Saturday that you are sleeping in.
2. You ask your friends if they have any questions when you finish telling them a story.
3. You are suddenly self-conscious about your appearance for work.
4. You laugh about jokes related to your content matter and when you tell your students, they think you are crazy.  (ex: Why was the obtuse angle upset? Because he could never be right!)
5. Germs are suddenly really scary.
6. You carry around red pens with you all the time.
7. You get worried about seeing your students when you go on errands around town.
8. You make graphic organizers to help you make decisions or to organize your own thoughts.
9. You start using acronyms for phrases other than education terms.
10. You think Kleenex and whiteboard markers are valuable.

Feel free to post more in the comments!

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Homework Conundrum

After being back this week from Spring Break, something has really got me thinking about the structure of school.  Homework is a tool used by teachers for many types of reasons, but what is the best use of it?  There is the issue of too much homework, and understanding what students can handle within a night or two, and you have to think about what other classes the students have homework in and what other extracurricular activities they are involved in.  If students get too much work then they might not have the motivation to do it.

The other question is what is the real purpose of homework?  Should it be used to get ahead and for students prepare for the next class or should it be used for extra practice after class?  Could homework be a waste of time since so many students don't even complete it?  And if so do you give them easy problems to practice or do you give them something challenging to make it interesting?

There are even extreme cases where teachers are completely flipping their classroom structure to do homework at school and instruction at home with videos online.  This is seen with an article from The Washington Post.

As of now, my opinion of homework stands as both practice and a challenge, but shouldn't be too much work.  Homework from a single class shouldn't take up more than 20 minutes of the student's time.  I also think it is a time where students should work through the homework and use the tools they learned in class to figure out things on their own that might not have happened in a group setting.  I am still contemplating this and I am sure I will continue to do so within the next few years.  

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Possible or Impossible?



This is probably one of the coolest things that I have ever seen. It is modeled after MC Escher's Waterfall painting, which is an optical illusion about water flowing against gravity.  MC Escher is a well known artist in the mathematical community for his artwork depicting ideas of infinity as well as patterns, fractals and tessellations. 

But what you should be asking: "Is this actually possible?"  The mathematician in me wants to say no, but the video is pretty convincing.  So immediately I turned to my good friend, Google, and saw what this thing really looks like.  If you are curious, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwm-yGCjOjU&feature=related or this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpcIIa2hKRo&feature=related

I might bring in this video to a classroom at a higher level of math to explore the idea of infinity.  It would definitely be a good conversation starter on a concept that is difficult for students to grasp.  Maybe it is an illusion, but it is definitely interesting.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Oh no!

Today I had probably one of my most disastrous lessons while teaching math analysis. Not because I was unprepared, not because it was Monday (although I tried to blame it on that), but just because of what was going on at the time. Well the lesson started off okay, but I had prepared myself for material that was extremely difficult: teaching the students about the Angle Sum and Difference Trig Identities and the Double Angle Trig Identities. The first disaster was a student asked me why something worked. I knew it, but at that moment, my brain just stopped thinking. "Uh oh...how do I explain this??" But as I took a step back I realized a different way of looking at the problem and I was able to explain it to the student.

 Another problem came up about a typo on the reference sheet that was given to students. This was not as bad since I simply corrected it and told everyone to immediately change it on their copy. The worst part of the period was the fact that I had lost track of time. I told the students to work through a difficult identity and right when I decided to go over it, the bell rang. The students had to continue to struggle with that problem until we could discuss it tomorrow.

 Okay, so maybe I am being a bit dramatic, but it is hard to have so many mistakes in one period when you are a new teacher. I am glad that I took on the challenges head on and I didn't want the students to see how much of an issue it was for me. I learned to keep cool in that type of situation and focus on the students learning rather than my small mistakes. I think the class did end up to be a success since there is always time tomorrow to continue with the explanation. Anyone else have any disastrous lessons? Please feel free to share!