Another One Bites the Dust

Another MAIT course is just about history! I submitted my final version of my Personal Learning Theory paper tonight and just finished up my portfolio! Take a look. I'm very proud of the work I've done this semester. 

 

I'm most pleased with the direction my global collaboration project is headed. My students are currently interviewing and submitting their own real-world math connections via a google form. So far, the furthest we've got is a New Zealand Scientist in Antarctica. I had to do a little bit of work to contact someone in Antarctica, but it definitely paid off. The students seem excited to find their own connections! We've emailed the White House and are keeping our fingers crossed to be able to add President Obama to the map!

I think we're all looking forward to a relaxing class period at Scott's house again this Monday!

Time to get down to business

It's been a very busy week! Between a 45 page yearbook deadline, St. Patrick's Day, My Classroom to Yours, a 10-mile race yesterday (yes I'm crazy and now it hurts to move), and my research paper I've been a very busy person!

I love going to "From My Classroom to Yours" each year, and this year was no different. I got to meet a few people from the EHC class, see Amy sell the MAIT program, discuss putting micro chips in old people (so that they don't go missing) and attend 4 workshops. My favorite workshop by far was Sue Ross' QR codes workshop. I knew what QR codes were before attending (we've discussed including them in the yearbook that link to videos of school events) but hadn't thought about using them in my classroom. My first plan of action is to add one to my syllabus that I give out on the first day of school and to the parent info I give out on Back to School Night that links to my classroom website:

I could see these working well for a web quest...

In other news, like I said I ran a St. Patrick's Day 10 mile race from Margate-Ventnor-Atlantic City and back yesterday. It was painful, but definitely something I'm glad I did. We celebrated last night by attending a boxing match at Bally's. My husband's college roommate is a professional boxer (and Jersey City fireman) and was on the lineup for the St. Patrick's Day fight.

 

 

"Paddy Boy Farrell" wins

So now I'm off to finish up my research paper rough draft. See everyone tomorrow!

Math Around the World

So, Michelle presented her map of technology in class this past week and a light bulb went off in my head!! I immediately went home and made my own map to go along with my PLT. My map is going to be a project for my students to interview a family member or family friend and find out how they use math in their career. We will place push pins in the locations of their jobs and provide a brief description.
Check it out: Math Map

Karl is thinking of joining forces so that we can hopefully go global! I'm so excited!! If you'd like to contribute to my map, or know someone with a cool job/in a cool place, let me know!!

Long time, no post

So the last time I blogged was before our presentation. Glad to have gotten that done and over with on the first night! Although we (mostly I) experienced just about every tech. issue under the sun, I think it went pretty well!

Outside of class, I had the pleasure of seeing the high school's production of Seussical! It was awesome! Andrew and Alyssa were our very own stars! Way to go guys!

One reason I'm glad my team went first for the presentations was that my husband and I (mostly him) were hard at work this weekend, finishing up our bathroom renovations! Bill did 100% of the work on his own- from the electrical to the plumbing to the construction. They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so I'll let the before and after shot do the work:

We're mostly finished now, all that's left are the frame less shower doors and some shelving and decorations!

Presentation Day!

It's just about time to present our lesson on Cognitivism! We will be one of three groups to present on the first day. While I'm a little nervous presenting without having seen another presentation, I'm definitely glad to get this large part of the semester over with early on!

Karl, Julia and I are meeting one last time today to go over everything and practice our presentation. I have learned so much about Cognitivism, and hope the others in both classes can profit from the lesson.

In other news, I'm also working on getting my PLT outline done. I've decided to work on finding a solution to the age-old math question, "When will we ever need this??" As a math teacher, I hear this question quite frequently. I have found, though, that it is mostly asked when my students find a unit particularly challenging. They get frustrated that they are "getting it," and decide they'll never need it anyway, so why bother? I hope to find ways to incorporate the "why's," and "when's," of each topic into my lessons so that they know the answer before they'd ask the question.

I found a few cartoons I enjoy:

See everyone tomorrow!

Theories, Theories and more Theories!

This past week we briefly reviewed the theories. I was glad we did. Although though I've taken multiple education psychology classes, I always forget which theorists go with which theories, and the specifics about each one.

After working on the "pre" portion of our project, I now feel like an expert on Cognitivism though! It's very interesting to see how the theory connects to what I do in my classroom. I didn't realize how many of my teaching habits include Gagne's 9 instructional strategies. I also found it interesting that all of the examples of how to use Cognitivism in the classroom that I found were math related.

In class this past week, we also had a tutorial of Google Sites. We will be using these for our portfolios this semester. I am excited to make this change, I wasn't thrilled with the portfolio section of Blackboard from the last class.

For this upcoming week, I am excited to finish planning our lesson for our presentation next week. We already have a pretty good idea of what we're doing, we just need to put it all together!

INTC 5110

We're baaaaaaack!! Tonight was the first night of our new class: Learning Strategies for Instructional Technology. We completed the basics- profiles, skype names, syllabus reading, and blogging of course!

We discussed the syllabus and the four main components of the class. The major project this semester is our Learning Theory presentation. Karl and I chose to present on Cognitive theory. We chose one of the earlier presentations, so we need to get right to work! We will be working with another MAIT student from the EHC cohort, Julia. The three of us are all math teachers, so I look forward to creating a lesson that encorporates Cognitive theory AND math!

Once we had that all wrapped up, we worked on a "group graphic" of the way we learned as children and the way we learn now. Alyssa, Andrew, Karl and I worked together to create a crest of the way we learned now:

We learned through memorization (times tables on a record), flashcards (more memorization), humiliation (we didn't want to be the worst kid in the class during games) and discovery of information.

Then, we created a crest of the way we learn now:

An overwhelming majority of us described ourselves as "mokey see, monkey do" learners that need to see the task once, then try on our own. We also included the updated versions for learning information: web 2.0 tools. The other ways we learn include drawing on previous experiences and replicating what we see being done.

I look forward to this new semester and the projects we will be completing!