A good change has come...

Wow... So this has been quite a while since I have posted. Most change has been centered around my role at my school. At the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, we scrambled to fill a math position and this left us in a screeching halt looking for a math teacher... A few came and went with trial and error and at the end of the first term of the school year, we finally found a HQ Advanced Math Teacher. She works wonders with the kids but due to her limited teaching schedule, she is only a Part Time teacher. This left us with a wonder of where we were going to put all of the rest of the kids who weren't in Geometry or Algbera II.

At the end of the second trimester, I was sat in my bosses office, said that I may be putting my foot in my mouth and offered to take on the Pre-Algebra and Algebra I courses fulltime. We talked it over and within a few days, we were looking at scheduling classes for the third term.

Boy was this an undertaking!

Not only did I take on the Pre-Algebra and Algebra I courses, but I also tested out a course in Technical Mathematics, a STEM based math class with the hopes of this being a Dual Credit course with our local community college in the future.

Last year turned out to be quite a success. Kids worked in math through proficiency since I had SO many students on SO many different levels of skills and understanding. It was chaos and most people would have run scared, but the chaos worked for me. As the kids and I progressed through the term, the chaos became a little less and soon it was a structured and we both succeeded.

This year I am teaching math full time and it has been great for me to move from Social Studies to Math. As I watch the State of the Union address tonight, I definitely miss teaching Government as one of the big things we would do in class afterwards, was to watch and analyze it. 

As I write this, I look forward to the first major project of Technical Math (my Dual Credit college class) of the term that my students begin tomorrow. They are getting the feel for the speed and the demands that a college class has. We are working on creating raised garden beds with students focusing on drafting, 3D drawing and basic carpentry skills. Skills that will be useful in the future. Skills that apply math in an engaging way. Skills that students are able to demonstrate in math without a regular test.

Photos of their projects will be coming soon and I am excited to share their experiences with you.

Talk to you soon!

Chelsea

Welcome to My Classroom

Dear Dialog,

Today I had the opportunity to take pictures of my classroom. It is still a work in progress. I plan on creating a "Graduation Tree" where my homeroom kids will paint their hand print on the tree and sign their name and year inside of it once it dries. This will happen towards the end of the year.

Now, I have three quotes on my walls. These are my themes in my room for the year. This years are:

"I can't teach you anything. I can only teach you to think."

When teaching Social Studies, more importantly History, I could care less about dates and facts. What I want kids to be able to learn is how to see what caused it. How to analyze a primary document. How to interpret what the original author meant over 100 or 200 years ago. I want them to be able to have a productive and meaningful discourse with multiple people and have the skills to do so. Teaching someone to think is a lot harder than teaching someone facts or dates and that is what I aspire to do.

"You will never get where you are going until you decide where you want to be."

This is a big one for my kids. Due to the economic down turn and the overall low socioeconomic status, the majority of my students tend to have a hard time deciding where and who they want to be after high school. This year I am really going to focus on helping them find something that they might want to do or study because without knowing or at least having a general idea of what they might like to do, they are less likely to get that college degree and obtain that higher salaried position that will provide for them and their future families.

"Education without desire, is no education at all."

I feel that in order to enjoy what you study, you have to like what you study. I am trying to make my lessons a lot more kid friendly. My focus has been on creating units that they specifically would want to learn about and projects they would actually want to complete, not just a regular assignment.

My room gets loads of wonderful natural sunlight, has five computers for student use, three whiteboards that get tons of use by me, 20+ mini whiteboards for my students to solve math problems and do mini pop quizzes in Econ, a NowBoard which is a much cheaper but just as good version of a SmartBoard and LOADS of storage space that works wonders!

Lastly, I leave you with some student art that hangs next to my desk. These are some of the extra special items I have collected over my now, soon to be three years of teaching in addition to my student teaching.

I hope you like my room just as much as I do!

Love,

Chelsea