Taking Notes-Diary of a New Math Teacher: 2014

Over the past 5 years, my thoughts on my teaching have changed drastically. I now understand in order to reach students I must change. I must continue to be open to new possibilities. Education is swiftly changing with the introduction of free Open Source educational materials. This summer I had an opportunity to attend the first Open Education Conference in the country -http://www.openedjam.org Open Education simply means free high quality resources for educators and in this day of technology free is definitely good. One of the many take aways of the conference was my introduction to https://www.opened.io/#! . This online resource makes available assessments that are aligned to common core and the alignment to Texas TEKS will be added soon. This resource includes formative assessments in the form of games, activities and videos. In addition, through this resource, teachers can track student progress.

I spoke shared information about www.ck12.org . These resources enables educators to edit existing math and science textbooks, use pre-made quizzes or create personalized quizzes, In addition, this resource includes real world lesson ideas, videos, and study aids.

I do not know a great deal about Open Education so I am enrolling in a class through Stanford University http://goo.gl/xSkjqq I recently complete a course –How to learn Math for Students-https://class.stanford.edu/courses/Education/EDUC115-S/Spring2014/about This class was very eye opening for me as an educator. It explored many misconceptions able learning math.

I am very excited about the opportunity to teach next year. I plan to incorporate new found techniques and activities for students. This year I will be including Texas Instruments handheld technology in order to deliver activities and real-world lessons to my students.

The use of Edmodo is important because I can send assignments from www.ck12.org to my students while they are in the Edmodo platform. The assignments are graded through the ck12 platform and the results are delivered to me in my Edmodo account.

Yes, this year will prove to be challenging for me. My hope is that my excitement about new knowledge will spill over to my students.

I arrived at the conference on Sunday afternoon. It was a rainy day but I had rays of sun shining on me all the way because I knew I was about to experience some life changing training from the best teachers in Texas. On Monday morning, I volunteered for the Smart Board session. It was a very informative session but since I use Smart Notebook resources regularly from my desktop, this session really did not increase my knowledge but it was presented very well with great resources that I can share with others.

The next session I attended was- Integrating Augmented Reality into the Classroom by using the app Aurasma. I think this is an amazing app and I do plan to integrate it in my classroom this year. I would like to use it to guide students on practice problems given in a work sheet document. I have connected with some teachers online that will share their resources and expertise with me.

Attending Flipped Classroom with TI Nspire enabled me to learn about the features of the TI Nspire. The device is no longer called a calculator but a "handheld" and I thought this was interesting information. Using the TI-Nspire, teachers can flip their classrooms by introducing an interesting video and posting it online for students to view at home. Then students would participate in an activity using the Nspire. The Navigation system enables teachers to receive immediate feedback of student understanding and the teacher can project the students Nspire screen for others students to see thereby increasing student engagement.

A polling feature was demonstrated that allowed students to get assignments sent to them from the handheld. The device can save pictures to Microsoft word that comes from the Nspire pictures program

I attended a session entitled "STEM- Why Now"by Cindy Moss of discovery education. This session gave me chills and it was a very powerful presentation for me. She introduced me to a new acronym FAIL- First Attempt In Learning. She also stated that STEM needs to be redefined. Many Educators have different definitions of STEM courses. We know it means Science, Technology Engineering and Math but it can also mean s Strategies That Engage Minds

She stated that STEM jobs are on the rise especially in Texas. Many jobs only require special certification and a few hours of junior-college. Our students merely need an opportunity, an introduction and training in how to think and problem solve. She shared different strategies that can be used in teaching STEM such as making observations and using manipulatives.

I presented the session- Creating, Editing, and Sharing online resources through CK12.org. I had 40 participants and it was really an enjoyable experience sharing this resource. Using this resource I have created an online resource that includes notes, videos, and practice problems for my next unit-Polynomials. I am including that in the resources I have listed below.

I also attended Managing the Connected Classroom and there I was introduced to another acronym-SLATE- which means Sit up -Listen -Airplane mode -Track speaker and Engage in conversation.

Below are some of the resources that were shared. This was quite an enjoyable conference for me.

Here is a link to all the resources I was introduced to

https://sites.google.com/site/tcea2014tr/

-Resouces for Math teachers by Tom Readon

http://teachers.discoveryeducation.com/STEM/ Discovery Education-

Direct link to STEM lessons and resources

http://www.aurasma.com/ This site is about augmented reality. I do not have the presenter notes but you can google to get tutorials.

http://education.ti.com/en/timathnspired/us/home Link to TI Nspire Math Activities and Lessons

Polynomials-Book I created through CK12

http://www.ck12.org/user:Scottvideoeducast/book/Polynomials/r11

www.ck12.org

You can create and edit resources to share with students