Portfolio

Welcome to my Professional Portfolio Page.  You will see a short description of the artifact as well as a link for the document.  The artifacts are organized by type: Classroom Activities, University Assignments, and Miscellaneous.

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Classroom Activities 

Pi Math Night at HDA
I planned an implemented a family math night on March 14th, 2013 at HDA.  It was a 2 hour event which included exploring various topics of math as well as celebrating with Pie.  See my blog post for additional information:  Pi Math Night Details.






Body Plotting Lines (2012/2013 at HDA)
Graphing can be difficult to students especially with students that can be spacially challenged.  I did some research online and found this body plotting idea.  I drew a x/y axis on the blacktop outside of my classroom and labeled it from -10 to 10 in each direction.  I first taught students the slope intercept format in class and used this to practice graphing.  I placed students into groups, and assigned one student to be the y-intercept.  I then wrote an equation in y=mx+b form on a small white board and told the students to graph the line starting with the y-intercept person. 

Online Games and activities (2012/2013 at HDA)
Since I work at a digital school, I have the luxury of using online games and resources to demonstrate a concept in math.  One of my most recent favorites is GeoGebra which is very similar to Geometer's Sketchpad but it is free.  I used it to demonstrate parabolas and their shifts. 
Here are some other online resources I have used this school year in addition to ALEKS and Khan Academy:

Pre-Algebra
http://www.math-play.com/One-Step-Equation-Game.html
http://illuminations.nctm.org/activitydetail.aspx?ID=10
http://www.math-play.com/Decimals-Jeopardy/decimals-jeopardy.html
http://www.math-play.com/Two-Step-Equations-Game.html
http://www.quia.com/rr/380806.html
http://www.quia.com/mc/906428.html
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/fractions/GreatestCommonFactor.htm
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/fractions/LeastCommonMultiple.htm
http://www.quia.com/ba/53930.html
http://www.math-play.com/soccer-math-multiplying-fractions-game/multiplying-fractions-game.html
http://www.arcademics.com/games/dirt-bike-proportions/dirt-bike-proportions.html
http://www.arcademics.com/games/dirt-bike-proportions/dirt-bike-proportions.html
http://www.math-play.com/Simple-Interest/Simple-Interest.html
http://crctlessons.com/square-roots-game.html
http://www.ixl.com/math/grade-7/area-of-rectangles-and-parallelograms
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=116

Algebra 1
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=146
http://www.mangahigh.com/en_us/maths_games/algebra/straight_line_graphs/find_the_equation_of_a_line_given_the_gradient_and_a_point
http://www.quia.com/rr/438640.html
http://www.geogebra.org/en/upload/files/UC_MAT/LindaJohnson/parabola.html

Mayan Math (December 2012)
To celebrate winter and the "end of the world" I decided to teach my students about the Mayan Number system (a strange base 20 system) and their calendar, to show to them about why it isn't going to be the end of the world on 12/21/12.  I gave them an activity which required them to do simple arithmetic with stones (1's), sticks (5's) and shells (0 or place holder) in the vertical place format that they used.  To reward them for their work I gave them hot chocolate which was something that the Mayan's had, just not as sweet.


Remembering FOIL with Foil (2012/2013 at HDA)
Sometimes the system of FOIL can be difficult to remember, so I found this nifty idea online and it seemed to work.  I cut up pieces of aluminum foil and handed one to each student.  I told them to write the acronym of FOIL on their piece of foil and write out what each letter means. They then glued it to their notes. 





Adding Rational Expressions with Different Denominators
What is more boring to students than working with rational expressions.  As a person who loves math, I am the first to acknowledge that this is a horrible but necessary topic to learn, and can be boring.  Last semester, I came up with a clever way to have students practice this concept without using a worksheet.  I gave each group of 4 students strips of a problem, each strip representing a step.  They had to arrange the problem in order of the steps and then justify each step on the whiteboard.  Here is an example of the end result.  (Algebra 1 at Carlsbad HS)







Algebra Tiles and working with Special Products
This lesson allowed students to think about the material in 2 different ways.  Students were able to work physically with algebra tiles to understand factoring polynomials (see picture) which helped the visual learners. (Click for Lesson Plan)  With the special products, I created a worksheet that forced students to look for the patterns that they saw when the used traditional FOIL methods.  Students worked in groups for this activity and shared their ideas and methods with the class as a discussion.  You can see the worksheet I created here.

Review Jeopardy
Often times review classes can get boring and repetitious, so I decided to play a review jeopardy with my students.  I did this with a powerpoint presentation with linking the pages for the problems within the jeopardy grid.  At the school that I was at, we had buzzers and we used small whiteboards for group responses.  Each student had the opportunity to buzz in and respond.  See my powerpoint here.

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University Assignments

Integrated Thematic Unit (ITU)
This is a unit that was created with a classmate that integrates both math and literature with the 1884 novel Flatland and looks at the spaces that we live in that we can't actually see like time, the internet and different dimensions.  You can see it here.  It was developed as a project for a University class, and could be implemented.







Educational Philosophy
This is a paper on how I believe I should set up my classroom and teach my students math.  It is from the perspective of how the famous mathematicians learned and how that can be replicated in a modern day class.  Click here to view.

Case Study
In this case study, I observed and interviewed a student that was dual identified (both an English learner and had an IEP).  I was able to understand this students issues and how he learned which allowed me to understand more of my students.  Click here to view.


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