Welcome!

So I've decided to keep you all informed about student teaching through a blog. First off I will not be talking about my students by name for confidential reasons I will be referring to them as a number so I know who I'm talking about for my own sanity. 

My first school is pretty awesome. I'm at Cobleskill-Richmondville Central School working with Team 7 or the 7th grade team and they are awesome. My cooperating teacher is great. He's working hard and giving me the option of trying to let me run the classroom my way when I start teaching. He has great resources and is really helpful. 

So here's my first week of school!

Tuesday 9/2/08

Not exactly school but our first staff development day. We had the usual welcome back speeches, introductions of new teachers (i was not included in that list but that's ok) a slide show of what teachers did over the summer (including pictures of an 8th grader who is recovering from cancer) and our keynote speaker... Dr. Bird this guy was awesome. The entire audience was in tears from laughing so hard. He was introduced and he walks on stage and starts his bit talking about his size... he's 4''9' and hysterical. There are a few videos on his page and I'm sure they match up with his performance. After lunch we headed back to the middle school and did a little work in the classroom. Granted there wasn't a whole lot to do but we were at the school till around 2.

Wednesday 9/3/08

We started off at the middle school did a group activity to get to know the new teachers and all that jazz it was fun. Wondering around not really knowing what was going on. We did a few other need to do things before getting started on a new school year. Had a team meeting and a department meeting, met the rest of the math department and they seem like a really cool group. 

Thursday 9/4/08 D-day 

Thursday is when the kids arrived. We had our AM classes, Advisory (Homeroom) to Period 6 (I think, it's been a long week). In class my teacher, Mr. B introduced himself and me to the class, handed out index cards and a class expectation list. We talked about the Smartboard for a little while then got to business. We had the students fill out index cards that had the following information on it:

Name

Address

Contact Name

Contact Phone/Email

Math Teacher from last year

A goal for Math this year

Something interesting about you

These cards were to see what the kids were aiming to do this year and to help us get a little familiar with them. After lunch we started something the school calls a PBIS kickoff. During the kickoff we walked around to different parts of the school and re-learned how to be: Safe, Respectable, and Responsible. The students get tickets for doing something they are suppose to be doing. They can then "spend" the tickets on snacks, drinks, bracelets, or other gadgets that you often find in a video arcade. This year they have a BMX bike worth $250 that the kids can put their tickets in and try and win it. There is also a bass guitar, I haven't seen it yet but it seems pretty cool, the kids can win that too. So after walking around the school we had the school picture taken on the hill then the kids got ice pops and then were dismissed.

Friday 9/5/08

Friday was just thursday in reverse.

Monday 9/8/08

Monday was day one of classes and we hit the ground running. We handed out our first textbook "Accentuate the Negative" We went over Extending the Number line 1.1 "Playing Mathmania" and 1.2 "Winning the game" the kids were doing well adding and subtracting numbers without even knowing it. We used number lines to help students add and subtract, we gave them the number line so they can visualize moving up and down the number line.

We reviewed Mean, Median, Mode, and Range to help with homework problems. While Mr. B was talking about these topics and the students were working on problems I walked around and answered questions to help the kids get comfortable with me and the materials.

Tuesday 9/9/08

We started the day off with a meeting with the principle. At the beginning of the school year he likes to meet with all the grade levels to go over expectations for the year. In class we we introduced 1.3 "Measuring the Temperature" and getting students to use a vertical number line.

Wednesday 9/10/08

We started using a 2 minute timer to help the kids get ready for class. The would read the directions on the Smartboard and get ready for class. with a follow up about opposites and trying to help the students recognize the opposite of a negative number is the same number only positive so the kids will have some knowledge when we do absolute value next week. 

Thursday 9/11/08

We used the 2 min timer again and gave out candy and tickets to the first table that was ready for class to start. For the first 2 math classes I went and observed the 6th grade math teacher and how he runs his classroom. He starts his math class with a 3 minute timer to take homework out, copy down the assignment for that night and do the do now. He then goes over the do now, he makes the students switch with their partner and if they get all the questions right and have their first and last name on their paper they get a point, whoever has the most points at the end of unit gets 3 points on their quiz or test the next highest 2 points and the third highest 1 point. After going over the do now and the homework he goes on to notes. He goes over notes answers questions then gave the homework assignment.

The 8th grade teacher has a do now, but no timer. He reviewed the do now by having the students come up to the board and explain how they got their answer. After the do now they went over homework. They spent the period working on the homework which was ok with Mr. V because they were working on solving equations.

Back in our classroom we did basically the same thing. 2 minute timer, review homework, notes. It's a structure that works well for these students. We went over 2.2 "Inventing a new model" using counting chips. The chips, red and black, helped some students visualize the different numbers in a different way from the number line. 

Friday 9/12/08

Friday we reviewed homework and had a "let it all sink in" day. We only did 6 problems but had every student do those 6 problems then had them draw either a number line or chips on a transparency and had someone from each table come up to the overhead and explain what they did and how they did it to the class. For the afternoon classes I went over homework and felt comfortable enough to continue with the lesson. I was able to teach 3/5 classes that afternoon. I'm having trouble with classroom management, mostly having students full attention and having the mini conversations going on while I'm talking. 

So that was the first week. I'll try to update once I get home everyday so everything is fresh and not such long posts.