One to Many

Sure, 1:1 technology is the dream!! But what about when it just doesn't happen? You didn't quite get that grant? Your district just can't afford that many devices? What then? Can you get 4 laptops? 6? 15? 

I want to start the discussion here. Please be apart of it! 

How do we implement a 1:Many plan?

If you have devices permanently in your classroom that you don't have to check out I'd LOVE to hear from you! How many do you have? What are you favorite activities? Just a quick comment would be great! Or send me a longer email (MrsHestersMath@gmail.com). 

Are you trying to implement 1:1? 1:Many? What's your technology situation?

Please, please, please-- let's talk about this!!! :) 

UPDATE:

It's only been a day and I have some awesome feedback! I love my online PLN - you guys rock!

Let's keep this conversation going!

Please comment below, email me (MrsHestersMath@gmail.com) or tweet me (@MrsHestersMath)!

Some ideas so far...

1. Formative Assessments: get a pulse of the classroom in real time using poll everywhere, socrative, a google form, etc.
2. Do units as projects. Divide students into groups and assign them something to investigate and present. Give a day or two (block schedule) of work time and then allow groups to present. Students take notes on other group's projects.
3. Real-life investigations. Use sites like Desmos to investigate graphs, Mathalicious content for other ideas, Fawn Nguyen, lots of functions/sequences/etc. using visual patters, Dan Meyer 3-act, Emergent Math's PBL curriculums, etc.
4. Student Check-ins. This was a fun emailed-to-me idea where students enter the classroom, sit in groups, and immediately log on to a machine. They pull up a google form (probably through a bitly url) and record who in their group did their homework, what were the most challenging problems, who didn't do their homework, why not, etc. I can see the answers on my machine in real time and discuss the challenging problems. This gives students time to discuss with each other and I can read all responses as they arrive, instead of circulating around the room and possibly missing some responses.

Yes, #3 above is a HUGE topic. I realize that. #3 is the ultimate goal of edtech. But realistically I will probably integrate #3 slowly as I do #1, 2, and 4. To do it well, #3 entails an entire re-vamp of instruction and assessment. Something some districts are still working to make progress towards and individual teachers don't have autonomy to make those decisions. 

UPDATE #2:

    Idea #5. Stations. I am so glad Shelley sent me a wonderful email because this idea has been turning around in my head as well. It's so grateful to get to bounce math ideas around with others!! Here's basically what we talked about. Could we pull off running our entire classroom as stations? We both teach in a block setting (~80 minute classes) which is a long time for junior high kiddos to stay still. They need to get up. They need to move around. We've both utilized stations around the room as activities. 

...But could we structure our entire classroom as stations???? Kiddos are assigned to a group based on who they work with well. We have four groups of about 6 - 24 kiddos per class on average. Through our email chat we came up with these groups: (1) teacher time: mini lesson, interactive notebook time, etc. (2) work time: basically doing homework (3) remediation and extension: this is where the laptops come in doing remediation through MangaHigh or extension through Daily Desmos or Visual Patterns. (4) still tbd. 

So what do you think? Could it work?? A couple of our hangups that I'd love to get your thoughts about...

--1-- What do the kiddos do in "work time" that haven't seen the teacher yet for new material?

--2-- What should station 4 be? We tossed around a few ideas but nothing stuck. Are we forgetting some integral portion of a mathematics classroom?

8th Grade Math: Unit 2

Disclaimer... phone pictures with battery too low for a flash :/ so sorry!! But I can't put off posting these any longer! It's been almost a month that I've benefited from the MTBoS and haven't contributed! :(


Alright, so here's what my Unit 2 includes. This is our table of contents for this unit but it also helps you get a feel for what's ahead.

I'm trying to start every unit with a Unit Overview. This is our overview for Unit 2. I ask the students to revisit the essential questions throughout the unit to monitor their own growth and then formally answer them before our test, kind of like a test review. I hope to continue to get better in this area because it's still not working as well as I envision. Students also complete goals and actions before their unit test. I talk a lot about goals at the beginning of the year because I've found that junior high students don't really know how to set goals. "I want to do well" "I will do well by studying" are typical things I get. I try to teach students how to set measurable goals like "I will answer 3 out 4 questions about perfect squares correctly." And actions such as "I will rework the homework about perfect squares to achieve my goals." Then they can actually assess if they've met their goals. Who knows if they did "well"? What does that even mean? Moving on...

Students are supposed to already know combining like terms and distributive property, but here's my review. Based on awesome ideas: here and here.

Next was the real number system. I used most of this from last year but added a foldable and changed up the right side since it's Math-8 instead of Algebra 1.

Here's the foldable...

And for the right side student's each got a set of 30 cards, cut them apart, and sorted them into rational and irrational. We discussed as a class to make sure everyone had each card appropriately placed and then they taped them all down to the page. The originally sorting idea was inspired by this post. Click on the "rational number" frayer definition to access the sorting activity.

Next was terminating decimals to fractions. I still need to add the second flap for repeating decimals to fractions to this page.

The Irrational Approximations activity came from here.

See what I mean?! I've been living off the MTBoS without contributing. Does this even count as contributing? I'm just showing my combination of all your ideas... oh well!  :)

Next was perfect squares and perfect cubes. We also completed these pages before approximating radicals. We did the real number system, then calculated decimals to fractions and fractions to decimals, then perfect squares and perfect cubes, then back to approximating radicals. I know... crazy and not at all how the pages lay out! By the end, it all came together nicely. :)

Students were just as pumped to have little flash cards in envelopes as these students were last year. Score! And I saw them pulling them out on numerous occasions to study and approximate their radicals with. :) Happy Teacher!!

I printed the cards double sided and the back tells the answer to the root on the front. No chance kiddos are studying the wrong root that way!

Next was solving equations. This was inspired by Sarah's pages over here. Each title on the left flips open to reveal practice problems.

And finally, special case equations. Similar to last year, originally from here.

Alright...there it is! 8th Grade Math, Unit 2.

I'll try to come back soon and upload some documents. I honestly don't have much to upload since my ideas were all pieced together from across the internet. I never like to give freebies on ideas I commandeered (I feel like I pirate when I use that word!) because I don't feel like they're mine to share. Anyway...entire other post there...
We'll see what all I feel like is legitimately "mine" to share.

Happy Sunday! Please leave a comment with a link to how you approach these topics! I'm always looking for new ideas to implement in my classroom. :)

**UPDATE** Files have been enabled again! Enjoy!!

Unit 1: 8th Grade Math

Well hello there! :) Did you think I was gone forever? My last post was August 11th and on August 12th we started staff development. It's been a whirlwind ever since! I had wonderful intentions about posting last weekend on Labor Day, but the Mr. got sick :(

Here are my pages so far this year for 8th grade math. We've started with transformations...

On most days students did some sort of investigation with their teams, then we filled out the left side, then they practiced on the right side getting help from me and their teammates as needed.

How have you taught transformations so far this year? I'd love to see and hear some ideas!!

**UPDATE** Files have been enabled again! Enjoy!!

Updated Parent Handout

After seeing this awesome pin on pinterest, I decided that my old boring parent letter must be redone!




The old one was two pages long and full of syllabus stuff. Now, I work very hard on my syllabus and it's full of good stuff, but let's be honest, when a parent gets TONS of "sign here, and here, and here..." during the first week of school all that good stuff doesn't get read. So I boiled it down into an easy-to-read format that hopefully will get read!

YAY! No more boring!!!!

And no, those colorful boxes are not actually on it. Those are just to protect all my personal info from internet crazies :)

I hope you're having a fun time preparing for the upcoming school year.
Let's make it a great year together!!

Planning Interactive Notebooks

Here how I plan for my interactive notebooks...

Feel free to steal, tweak, or laugh; you gotta do whatever WORKS FOR YOU!!!

Things that I need:

(1) My teacher notebook. This has my unit outlines and usually copies of my tests. It also has my year-long planning pages.

(2) Notebook from last year, if you have one available for ideas. If you don't, Pinterest will be awesome! Heck, pinterest in awesome for ideas even if you do have a previous notebook.

(3) Pencil and pen

(4) blank white copy paper

Alright...here's how I begin.

I first get out my unit outlines and copies of each test for the year. Yes, we make these items ourselves as a district math team. In order to create notes and activities I have to know where my students are going, right?

Here's a little bit of our Unit 1 outline so you know what I'm working with.

The items that I care most about at this point are overall objectives, the bullets about what those objectives mean, and the standards.

I also look at the unit test at this point and see exactly what my students are going to be required to do. I always make it a point to teach beyond the test, but I have to make sure I at least include the minimum!

Once I have my head wrapped around the general ideas, I go to my Interactive Notebook Planning Pages.

These are very simple pages where I  map out the bare bones of a notebook. I love doing this before the year ever begins because I want to make sure there is room for every glorious topic in my students' notebooks.

Now, did I follow this exactly last year? NOPE! Not even close by the end of the year! But it did act a guide for the entire year. I was able to see "okay, I need an extra page here, so I'll have to give up a page back there somewhere." It was really helpful to me. Your free copy is here if you want it.

As you can see in the picture above, these get hole punched and added to my teacher notebook. They stay with me all year long.

Once I have the year mapped out, I start creating the individual pages. I generally start on page 1 of the notebook or day 1 on my calendar. What will I need first? Alright...let's make it! I scour the internet and often steal great ideas from others. If I don't find something I want to use, I create my own. More often than not, I combine multiple ideas I like and create my own stuff.

When I'm creating foldables it's not a very glamorous process :)

I usually cut pieces of copy paper in half because a half-sheet is usually about right for a notebook page. I sketch out my ideas on that piece of paper and then stick in inside the notebook until I actually create those pages on the computer. Here, I've used half sheets but then folded them in half again to represent a double-page spread. Yeah, whatever works. It looks different from day to day. I'll think about what the most important pieces of information are for the topic and design around them. After the foldables and notes are created I make activities, games, homework assignments, quizzes, whatever else I need.

There you have it, the bare bones of my notebook planning process. I hope this helps you get started!! Best of luck in the year ahead - YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

If you fall of the wagon from time to time, it's okay! Don't beat yourself up. We've all been there! Just wake up the next day and try it again. Please let me know if I can help with anything!

Be Kind With Your Speech

 I've been loving all the "Accountable Talk" posters flying around pinterest and teacher pay teachers, so I decided to make my own! 

You know me... I have to make/tweak just about everything I use in my classroom :)

  

So here they are!

Feel free to download them and use as you like!

 LINK

Hope you're having a great week!

p.s. I'm sooooo not ready for summer to end!

Thanks!!

 Well, I have been out of town for a while and then catching up on some things so I'm a little behind. 

I was nominated for the Liebster Award - twice!

 

Thanks so much to Amy at middleschoolminions.blogspot.com and Robin at fliplearnshare.blogspot.com.

The Liebster Award is for blogs with less than 200 followers in order to promote that blog, show appreciation, and hopefully draw more followers. So fun!!

To accept the award you have to do a few things:

(1) Link Back to the Person that Nominated You

Thanks Amy at middleschoolminions.blogspot.com

and Robin fliplearnshare.blogspot.com!

(2) Answer the Questions from your Nominator

Since I have two nominators, I will answer a random conglomeration of their questions.

 From Amy:

1. What made you interested in blogging?

I kept reading all these great ideas online and felt like I needed to contribute if I kept stealing :) Also, it helps me reflect on my teaching, while gaining great connections and feedback.

2. Share your favorite easy recipe after a work day.

Burgers and onion rings. YUMMMMM!!! It's probably so "easy" because the hubby grills the burgers. Is that cheating? haha :)

 

4. Where did you graduate from college and why did you pick that school?

The University of Arkansas - WOO PIG SOOIE! I originally said I didn't want to go there because it was fairly close to home, but when they offered to give me a full ride I couldn't say no. I'm so glad I ended up there (met my best friends and hubby!) and cannot image going anywhere else.

 

5. How do you deal with difficult students and parents?

Patiently. Often times, they just want to feel heard and that their opinions are valued. Don't we all? I try to respectfully listen and then respond with something that makes us seem "on the same team." Once we are working together, everything gets easier. Also, if it's a more drawn-out parent issue, I never deal with it alone. I also try to schedule a face to face conference and include an administrator. 

 

7. What is your favorite television show?

I have a few... Bones, Castle, Biggest Loser, and So You Think You Can Dance. I love them all for different reasons, but I love them all!

 

11. How do you feel about grading? Do you grade everything the kids do or do you do participation grades for some of it? How do you grade their notebooks and homework?

Since I follow a type of SBG (at least in my opinion) I emphasize that all work and activities are for learning purposes. The students' whole goal is to demonstrate that they have learned it, either on the test or retest. Homework, notebooks, activities, investigations, etc. is all just to get them there. With that in mind, I sometimes grade for accuracy, sometimes for completion and effort, and sometimes not at all. You can see my post about retesting here and grading notebooks here. 

From Robin:

1. What was your favorite subject in high school/college?
In high school, definitely math. It was a fun puzzle and I had a fantastic teachers!

In college, math was still great but Anthropology was awesome!!!! Of the four branches, I loved cultural , biological , and paleontology; linguistics not so much.

 

2. Where is your favorite vacation spot?

Anywhere hot and sunny with a beach/pool. I love lounging by the water with not a care in the world!

I do also love skiing...hmmmmm.... okay, tough call.

4.  Why did you become a teacher?

I really respected my great high school teachers and also really enjoyed math. Math has such a negative stereotype that I wanted to help change that. I've also been told I explain things well, so that helps. :)

5. Do you follow your textbook from start to finish?

We don't have course textbooks, so nope! haha. Our district has been using Mastery Math documents for years that we create. We have some of the top test scores in the state (and nation) so it must be working :) (yes, I'm very proud of my district)

10.  How did you choose the title of your blog?

I didn't think about it a whole lot, probably why it's not very creative. Mrs. Hester's Classroom. Yep, that's exactly what I'm here to talk about.

 

(3) Share 11 Random Facts About Yourself 

1. I also have a degree in Anthropology, love that stuff! If I could have my dream job, I'd probably be an ethnographer or Egyptologist. Neither of those jobs work too well with a "normal life" though.

2.  I live in the same town I graduated high school from and will be teaching next year at the junior high I attended.

3. My sweet hubby avoided me the first night we were both hanging out with our friends. He says I was so cute he was scared. Awwwwww. He did a good job too, I don't remember him being there!

4. I was my high school's dance team captain. 5-6-7-8.

5. The hubs and I have a pet bunny and a corgi. I love my fur-babies!

6. I'm super short.

7. I love to color and crochet. The hubby teases me that I'm 8 and 80 all at the same time!

8. I look very young. I tell my students that I have two bachelor degrees, one masters degree, and have been married for 4 years, it helps them figure out I'm older than 18.

9. While I say I love the outdoors, I actually don't. I hate bugs. ha!

10. I have two best friends that I met freshman year of college who also became teachers. We still talk all the time, live in the same area, and hang out frequently. I truly have no idea what I'd do without those girls!

11. I desperately wish my hair would grow out super long, but it just doesn't. :( Never.

(4) Nominate Five More Blogs with Less Than 200 Followers

1. Math Equals Love

2. A Sea of Math

3. Lesson with Coffee

4. I is a Number

5. Mrs. Howard Math

(5) Pose Questions to Your Nominees

 1. What is your favorite thing about your job?

2. What is your morning routine once you arrive at school?

3. How do you decide what to assess?

4. If you weren't a teacher, what would you do?

5. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

6. What is your favorite meal to cook/eat?

7. What is your favorite school supply? You have to choose one!

8.  What is your best tip for new teachers?

9. How do you handle the tardy bell? What is the first thing students do?

10. How many years have you been teaching?

So... there you have it! Thanks again Amy and Robin for this wonderful award!