Blog 5

1.  Discuss what was the most relevant part(s) of Dr. Robert's presentation for you.  What further questions do you have regarding this subject?

I found Dr. Robert's presentation on the use of media and media multitasking of 8-18 year olds very insightful and disturbing.  I say disturbing because I'm just stunned that kids/teens today are exposed to media on average of 7+ hours a day.  As he pointed out, this could make them socially awkward.  It is one thing to be able to communicate with their friends on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, but having a face-to-face conversation is another story.  This could affect vital skills, such as eye contact or speaking eloquently, which is needed to make them successful when they are faced with job interviews or delivering a speech publicly.  Dr. Robert's study on media is very fascinating and I hope he gets the grant to further his study for the next 5 years.  I guess my only question is what other results and effects will he gather if he includes iPads, smart phones, and other innovative gadgets that are revolutionizing technology and media.         

2 and 3.  Discuss the implications for education, for your school community, and for your own teaching.

The question is in regards to the article "More Pupils Are Learning Online, Fueling Debate on Quality".  In the article, I saw some pros and cons.

Pros:
Saves money
Students who were unable to attend school due to circumstances could take the course via online
Higher graduation rates

Cons:
Plagiarism
Online advanced placement courses (because not enough students signed up for the traditional class setting)
Less teachers needed, thus more layoffs

Based on that, here's my take on online courses.  At the high school I teach, online courses are discouraged and frowned upon, especially math.  The school district only grants credit if the student is repeating the class a second time.  Therefore, they cannot take it to get ahead or move on to the next course.  My concern with online courses is that students don't get enough (or any) direct teaching from the instructor.  Is there any rigor on the topics covered?  Does it cover all the necessary topics needed to prep them for the next course?  I feel that students who are deprived of the face-to-face instruction and interaction won't get much from the online course.  Will they retain any information after the class is over?  For instance, I had a student who retook Algebra 2 last summer via online and passed.  However, she had to drop out of Statistics this year during the first semester because she did not have a solid foundation of the Algebra skills.

I think online courses should only be open to highly motivated students (like my 402 classmates) who abides by the rules and maintains integrity.  I have a difficult time seeing students in high school doing this since they are tempted to plagiarize and take the easy way out.  

4. Review the "Technology Resources for the Teacher" document on Moodle.  Explore a minimum of four links with which you are unfamiliar and discuss how each can support student learning in your classroom- now or in the future.  

http://www.dropbox.com/


A new math teacher is coming into my school this year and she mentioned about having this software.  I didn't know what this was until I encountered it here.  This would be very useful for me to save all my important documents (notes, course policies, worksheets, etc.).  I like how you can use dropbox to access your files on another computer or a smart phone.  This could also serve as a back-up copy if I misplaced my flash drive or if my hard drive crashed and lost all my files.



http://prezi.com/


I didn't hear about prezi until this summer when one of my classmates mentioned it during a class presentation for my Master's Program.  A few weeks ago, I got to see how it worked.  I think this is better than Power Point because prezi takes the viewers on a path (journey) to learn.  I know my students would love it and be engaged with the lesson.



http://www.chatzy.com/

Some students may get very impatient and want a response for their question/concern right away when they send an e-mail to their teacher.  This may be the perfect solution for that problem.  Time and date would need to be established to have this work.  Speaking out of context, chatzy could be an alternative solution to the Web Ex requirement for the 403 class.    


http://rubistar.4teachers.org/


I wish I knew about this website a few years ago.  It would have made my life a whole lot simpler to grade my students' projects if I had a helpful, reliable rubric system.  This year I designed a music video project for my Algebra classes.  The challenging part was coming up with the rubric because no other teacher in my department had done it.  In the future, if I design another project, I can use the website to guide me in developing the rubric system.

Interdisciplinary Teaching

Choose a topic you commonly teach, and find at least two resources outside of your subject area that you could utilize to enlarge, broaden, and enrich understanding.  How would you use them?  What are the challenges and value of interdisciplinary teaching and learning?  You must include the appropriate links and/or files.  


One topic I teach in Geometry that can lead to many fun activities is finding the surface area, ratio, and volume of solids (3-dimensional figures).  The solids I cover are prisms (two polygonal bases), pyramids (one polygonal base), cylinders (two circular bases), cones (one circular base), and spheres (circles in space).  If you click on the following link, you will find that I've provided two activities.  Since the blog did not allow me to attach WORD documents, I had to post them on my Teacher WebQuest (which still works after 6 years).

http://teacherweb.com/CA/SMC/MrPang/photo7.aspx

The first activity gives students the opportunity to select a product (i.e. cereal box, bottle of lotion, carton of milk) and change the design (the shape or the dimensions of the original solid).  Once they have changed the design, they need to make an oral presentation and convince the Founder, Owner, President, or CEO of that product why their design is much better than the original one.  Students can work by themselves or with a partner to work out the proposal and details.  This allows the students to get a dose of what to expect in the business world.

The second activity is a lengthy worksheet that allows the student to investigate how solids can relate to science and economics.  Here the students can see why calculating ratios of the solids is relevant to cell biology and the economy rate.

I haven't personally done either activity, but the first one seems intriguing and worthwhile for the students.  I just may assign this project for my Geometry classes this year.

My main concern is if I had English Learners in the class.  Both these projects will pose as a big challenge to them since they are in the process of mastering the English language.  Just look at the text and the instructions of each activity.  I think they would be overwhelmed.


I read the blogs of Christina Baronian, Alex Iwaszewicz, and Mary D'Arcy.

I responded to MJ's blog.  mjdarcy.blogspot.com

Mind the Gap: session 2

1.  Chapter one:   In recounting her journey through many educational reforms, Diane Ravitch makes a number of provocative statements.  Choose two, quote them, and personally respond.  


1st quote: "School reformers sometimes resemble the characters in Dr. Seuss's Solla Sollew, who are always searching for that mythical land '"where they never have troubles, at least very few."'  Or Like Dumbo, they are convinced they could fly if only they had a magic feather.  In my writings, I have consistently warned that, in education, there are no shortcuts, no utopias, and no silver bullets.  For certain, there are no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly."  (pg 3)


Response:  This is very true.  This is the real world, not a fairy tale.  Miracles do not realistically or automatically get handed on a silver platter.  If a positive change were to occur towards education, hard work and excellent decisions need to be made for that to happen.


2nd quote: "I grew increasingly disaffected from both the choice movement and the accountability movement.  I was beginning to see the downside of both and to understand that they were not solutions to our educational dilemmas.  As I watched both movements gain momentum across the nation, I concluded that curriculum and instruction were far more important than choice and accountability.  I feared that choice would let thousands of flowers bloom but would not strengthen American education.  It might even harm the public schools by removing the best students from schools in the poorest neighbor hoods.  I was also concerned that accountability, now a shibboleth that everyone applauds, had become mechanistic and even antithetical to good education.  Testing, I realized with dismay, had become a central preoccupation in the schools and was not just a measure but an end in itself.  I cam to believe that accountability, as written into federal law, was not raising standards but dumbing down the schools as states and districts strived to meet unrealistic targets.  (pg 12-13)


Response: I agree wholeheartedly with Ravitch here.  I like how she illustrates her concern on choice using the analogy of blooming flowers.  Curriculum and instruction would be the top two items on my list to focus and improve on.   




2.  Chapter two:  On page 16, Ravitch gives a brief definition of well-educated person.  How would you characterize a well-educated person?  What should any well-educated person know in today's world?


A well-educated person is someone who has developed valuable knowledge and skills from (hopefully) a solid K-12 and college education.  They need to be able to speak, write, read, and think effectively and critically when faced with a mathematical word problem, a scientific experiment, a literary novel, or any major challenges posed in the other subject areas.     


In today's world, a well-educated person is capable of making the decision that is best for them.  Along with the knowledge and skills they have obtained from school, they must also have common sense.  Without it, they won't survive in the real world.  



3.  Thinking about the class discussion on the book, what stands out for you?  What would you have liked to say that you did not say?


The one issue that stood out to me during our seminar was teaching and prepping the students for what is covered on the standardized tests (CST, STAR).  Since we (as teachers) are held accountable on how the students perform, we are pressured into doing the state's bidding (thanks to NCLB).  I am all for curriculum and want to make sure all the standards are addressed.  I do not like to be "controlled" and be required to teach a particular unit that does not flow or connect with the previous unit just to ensure that my students know it before the standardized test.  


The one thing that wasn't mentioned was study skills and how the majority of students lack this type of practice. This was brought up in my group when we were looking at the ANAR document.  We suggested that teachers should devote some time in class to teach and help students practice & develop their study skills.



4.  Choose one gap you listed from your subject area and identify 3 resources:  a web site, an article, and a book that can help you fill that gap.  List these and discuss what you learned from one of these.  


One gap of my content knowledge that I would like to have a deeper understanding is the concept of pi and why its constant is 3.14.  


A website I found is the following link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ei7KmyTctY.  This is a video of a teacher showing how the ratio of 3.14 is obtained by performing an experiment involving circular objects and a piece of string.  The hands-on activity was very helpful and effective.  I will try this out with my Geometry classes this year.   


An article that helped me solidify my understanding of pi is Making "Pi" Meaningful written by Hillard C. Tripp, published in The Mathematics Teacher.  


The book Math through the Ages by William P. Berlinghoff & Fernando Q. Gouvea devotes a couple of chapters on the history of circles.  It talks about "Measuring the Circle" and "The Story of Pi".    




5.  Your annotations of resources are meant to be both scholarly and brief.  In the blog, discuss in detail why/how any two of these articles were useful to your topic/question(s).  Consider such things as listing specific information you learned that you didn't know before; how this new learning leads to other questions or sources; why this writer was convincing; whether you would seek this writer out for other articles he/she has written, and anything else you'd like to state in a blog that others can learn from and read.  




Korenman, Lisa M. & Peynircioglu, Zehra F. (2007, Spring). Individual Differences in Learning and Remember Music: Auditory versus Visual Presentation. Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 48-64

This research article examines the effects of presentation modality and learning style preference on people's ability to learn and remember unfamiliar melodies and sentences.  Throughout the research, music is brought into the experiment to see how it affects the auditory and visual learning process.  The more meaningful the material was to the participants, the easier it was for them to retain the information.  This understanding between the two types of learning with the musical element is intriguing and helpful towards my research.  I am trying to come up with other methods and practices for students to remember mathematical formulas.


Jarrett, Joscelyn A. (1987, March). A Geometric Proof of the Sum-Product Identities for Trigonometric Functions. The Mathematics Teacher, Vol 80, No. 3, pp. 240-244.


This journal goes into more depth on how to prove the sum and product identities for trigonometric functions.  Each step of the proof is explained in detail and a visual aid is accompanied to illustrate the meaning behind the process.  I think deriving a formula and addressing the origin of where it comes from is very helpful and powerful.  This is one of the practices I want to address in my research.  



6.  Ask Meg a question.  


For our experiential resources, could we also interview former students who have taken Trigonometry or a course of mine?  I figure if I can get responses from both sides of the spectrum this will make my research more rich and worthwhile.


This blog and the previous one took the whole day for me to complete.  Hope the next blog has lesser questions. :)



Blogs I've commented on: 


Jennifer Arnold   jennsmc14.blogspot.com
Ashley Devers     adventuresinmait.blogspot.com
Melina Rinehart   MAIT-MelinaR.blogspot.com
Christina Baronian missbaronian.blogspot.com

State Framework vs CSET

1.  Examine the State Framework and CSET Overview.  Are there discrepancies?  If so, where?  In your teaching experience, how closely have you aligned to the standards?  Deviations?

As I'm comparing the State Framework and the CSET Overview for Mathematics, I see a couple of discrepancies in Algebra and Geometry.  On the Algebra portion of the CSET, we are expected to "know why the real and complex numbers are each a field, and that particular rings are not fields".  This topic is focused in college when you take 'Discrete Mathematics'.  On the Geometry part of the CSET, we must "know the variants of the Parallel Postulate produce non-Euclidean geometries".  In a high school Geometry course, we only cover the Euclidean Geometry aspect.  Non-Euclidean Geometry is more advanced and is addressed in college should you decide to be a math major.  Neither of these expectations are in the standards of the State Framework.  


I've taught Algebra 2 and Geometry for the past six years and I cover most of the standards that are addressed in the State Framework.  The only thing I don't get to cover in Algebra 2 is mathematical induction. In Geometry, some of the standards indicate that students need to prove statements/relationships, such as congruent triangles or Pythagorean Theorem. I don't necessarily derive the Pythagorean Theorem as I dive straight into concrete examples.  If numbers cannot be incorporated into the discussion, then I do spend the time proving the concept (i.e. congruent triangles).     


On the CSET, there is a section where we need to master Number Theory and the History of Mathematics.  Neither of these topics are really addressed in High School Math courses since these are considered college courses.  Therefore, these deviate from the State Framework.

2.  Using the State Framework and CSET Overview, you will examine three increments (Hint:  You have already examined one of the three years) and detail your gaps in subject knowledge.  Choose one or two and SPECIFICALLY state how you plan to bridge the gap.


I have already listed my gaps for Algebra 2 (see hard copy).  I mentioned that I wanted to have a deeper understanding on those topics.  By having that new found knowledge, I can explain those concepts better with ease and confidence.  


In Geometry, I want to expand my knowledge on circles.  For instance, why is pi 3.14?  I could do an activity on pi day (March 14th), in which the students will investigate the ratio of the diameter and circumference using a string and a circular object (i.e. pie).  If they have shown me that their result is in fact the constant 3.14, then they can eat the pie.  :)  


In Pre-calculus, I have some difficulties with the Trigonometric Formulas and Identities.  The main problem is retaining the set-up and where they came from.  If I can derive them or come up with a mnemonic device (preferably a song or a meaningful phrase), then I will learn and not forget it the next day.  Visual aids may be helpful as well.