Math in real life

I have heard from a couple of students that have sent out emails asking different professions about when they are going to have to use math. I have not received too many yet but this is an email that I got from a student about his project which gives me more hope that this project might have some success.
I AM SOOOOOOO EXCITED, I GOT A REPLY FROM THE TROOPER, AND HE SAID THAT HE WOULD LIKE TO COME TO OUR SCHOOL AND TALK TO US ABOUT HOW HE USES MATH EVERYDAY. I THINK THIS WOULD BE VALUABLE FOR OUR CLASS TO LEARN FROM A TROOPER. WHEN I READ THE EMAIL FROM HIM I TACKLED MY FRIEND IN EXCITEMENT, NEARLY SENDING HIM TO THE ER. I SHOUTED FOR ABOUT 5 MINUTES, THEN WROTE TO YOU. I CAN COORIDINATE WITH THE TROOPER, HE GAVE ME HIS CELL PHONE, AND I CAN CALL HIM TO ARRANGE A DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT A COOL ASSIGNEMENT, YOU ROCK!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that there are more students that have similar reactions to this project and I will continue to post information about all this as I get it. I am going to attempt to get this visit set up so that this trooper can come and speak to my class and maybe some other classes as well.

Algebra effort

I am seeing more and more that there is a growing seperation of the number of students that are working hard and not working hard. It seems that there are students who are prefectly okay with not understanding what they are doing and spend a lot of time at night writing stuff down on paper to have the illusion that they understand. What can I do for a student that does not want to put an effort into learning math? Most of these students are in Algebra 1 where they are building a foundation for all their future math classes. I guess this is start of the year frustration and I am hoping that I can change some habits that they have devoloped in the past. Have these tricks worked in the past to get these students by?

Why math?

I decided to start the year with a new project for all of my math classes. This project is an attempt to answer the eternal question with math, "When am I going to use this?" I asked all the students to pick a profession that they are interested in pursuing. Then we developed an introductory paragraph for every student to email out to a person that works in that profession. Here is the paragraph and questions that my classes and fellow teachers came up with:

Hello, my name is your full name here, from Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado. I am currently taking Algebra 2, and we are trying to discover some real world applications to mathematics. I am hoping that you can share some of your experiences to enlighten my fellow students and me on why math is important. I would appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to answer the following questions.
1. How do you use math in your profession? Outside of your profession?
2. Are there any experiences – academic or otherwise - that particularly helped you learn and apply math in your profession?
3. What specific advice would you give to someone thinking about entering your profession if they want to help prepare themselves in the best possible way?
4. Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently as a learner?
5. Please add any additional comments or questions that you feel you would like to share.
Thank you for your time,
Your name here

I am hoping the students will come up with a variety of ways to make some contacts and get answers to these questions from professionals who are currectly working in the field. I am not sure how this will turn out but we will see. Once I have compiled enough responses, I am going to create a wiki page to share everything.

Get involved in the conversation

I am sitting at an education conference at my high school with teachers from all over the state. I am looking forward to the roundtable discussion where I will have the opportunity to sit down with other teacher in math and science to discuss different options for my classroom. Why am I not doing this more often? I need to discuss more often with more people and take advantage of the internet in order to do this. I need to make this a bigger part of my education. This might be a goal for next year.

student focus

On the last day of the semester, we were reviewing for finals in my Algebra 2 classes. The previous day, there was a lot of talking and little work getting done. I allowed my classes to listen to their idods in class while they were working. I was amazed to find out that the music helped them focus on their work. I always thought that the music would be distracting to the students while they are focusing on their work and the opposite is true. They worked much better with music. I have decided that my classes will be allowed to listen to their music in class during the time that they are working individually on assignments. It seems to be working so far.

group work

I have noticed that when I have the students in my class work in group or with partners and I tell them that it is a quiz or test, you cannot stop them from asking questions. When we are in class going over the same things as a homework assignment, only a few of the students are asking questions. Maybe I need to have them turn in one homework assignment that would be counted as a quiz. I still think that we are covering too broad a range of topics in all of our math classes and we really need to find out what the essential learning are for math and really develop some real life learning from those lessons. There is too much going on and there never seems to be an end goal of purpose in mind for math for these students. Too many of them believe that they are never going to use math again in their lives and since teenagers know all, you are unable to convince them of anything else.

Vision...

We began a discussion in our small 21c group last week that really got me thinking about vision. We were asked to think about something that we could change in the school that would really make us proud and to think about what the school will look like in 5 years. We were discussing a lot of positive changes but I think that we are at the point where we are in need of a more drastic change in order to adapt our school for the future. We need to make better use of technology in all of our classes (me included). I think that means that every student and staff member needs to have a laptop with Internet access at all times. I also think that these students will better be able to meet their full potential if they are not forced to be in a classroom for a set amount of time each day. When the school was started a group of educators came up with the variable schedule which was a revolutionary way for high school students to learn. Now I think it is time for a more open learning environment where students are able to spend the amount of time necessary to learn the material that they need to learn. Why does a student who is great at math but struggles in English need to spend the same amount of time in both classes? Would that student be better off learning the math in a shorter amount of time and then be able to go to work with an English teacher on things that they are struggling with? I propose that there is a way to make the learning environment at Arapahoe more open so that students can learn the things that they need according to what their needs are and not according to a bell.