Differentiated Instruction Site

http://www.noycefdn.org/pom.php

This site is a great example of differentiated learning. It catches the student where they feel most comfortable starting. The site gives a math problem and then develops the problem into different stages A, B, C, D, and so on. I got this from my twitter friend johntaig.

This site has caused me to think about the way I present problems. I'm wondering if I should have a extention whenever I give a problem. For instance, if I give a problem to the class, I should consider posing a thought provoking question at the bottom of my queston to extend their thinking. Wouldn't this be great for that student who is always done early to chew on something that is a little more difficult, yet helps promote understanding?

See the example below

What do you think?
Dave

Email Your Students Day 1

Welcome back to a new school year! Homework Assignment Number 1 was to have my students email me a few things about themselves. First, they had to write their name and class in the subject line. Second, they wrote some activities or interests that they have. Thirdly, they had to go to my website and find a quote that was posted there and explain it's meaning. Not a huge deal for the students, and a great amount of information for me. First of all, they realize day 1 that they can email me to get some information. I think this is a great thing. Secondly, I have found out some information about them that really helps me to get to know them. They feel a little more comfortable sharing about themselves in an email compared to talking in class or writing in class. Right after the emails started coming in, I really felt as if I knew them better. Lastly, I made a distribution list of the whole class off of these emails so that I can send information out to them when I need to. I did answer each email. I commented on things that they wrote. It took a little time, however, I really enjoyed it. By the way, my quote was this: “Attitude is the mind's paintbrush. Create a masterpiece.” Author Unknown

I

Uno Stacko Final Exam Review

My brother in law gave me this idea. It is a uno-stacko review game. Uno-stacko is like Jenga. Here are the rules
1. Groups of 4.
2. Give a problem to the class.
3. Give time for them to solve the problem.
4. Call on someone at random.
5. If they talk you through the problem correctly, they pick two tiles.
If they don't get you through correctly, they pick four tiles.
6. If the tower falls when you are working on it, EVERYONE in the class gets extra credit, EXCEPT that persons GROUP of FOUR.
7. The students really get into it.
8. And yes, I have had students that want to knock it over and give the rest of the class extra credit. It never has happened yet.

Give it a try. Here is the video for it.

Pop Goes the Weasel and the Quadratic Formula

I thought I would show a video of a couple of students singing the quadratic formula to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel. The students really like this. Give it a try.

Inside or Outside the District?

Ben Grey has a great blog post that has prompted me to think about the question of housing our student and teacher work in or out of district. http://bengrey.com/blog/2009/04/technology-guidelines/ Thanks for the great post Ben.

Should we keep our students' work and our teachers' work within district? Why or Why Not. Is their a compromise on this issue?

My thoughts keep waffling on safety and collaboration. What do you think?

Finding the Regression Curve of a Sin Graph in Precalculus Class

Wow. Today I approached Precalculus class a little different than last year. I asked my students to work in groups and guess the average high temperature in Naperville for the month of January. Then I gave them the answer which happened to be 32 degrees F. Then I asked them to find the average of all the months of the year. When they had finished this they graphed it with the month being the x-axis and the temperature being the y-axis. Then, in their groups I asked them to make as many observations about the graph as they could. We spent about 5 minutes going over many ideas such as there is a max point, and it is periodic, and then someone said it. They said it looks like a sin graph! Awesome! This made my day.
Then I had them draw in the midline and tell where exactly it hit the y axis and it's meaning to the problem. Quickly the students found that this was the average high temperature for the year.
We covered other things like the midline and the amplitude and the phase shift. The period seemed boring to them, but was an important fact.
Then, we looked the actual graph that www.weather.com has on it. We went to the site and typed in our zip code 60565. Then we scrolled down to find AVERAGES . This gave this terrific graph.
Then I asked them to predict what the graph would look like from Honalulu HI. They used all kinds of precalculus vocabulary with each other and described how it would be different.
We looked up other cities like Barrow AK, and Death Valley CA. We also looked up Sydney Austrailia and found that the graph was shifted over significantly.
This lesson was different than last year because they were very interested in their own predictions. I think they were much more engaged.
Thanks to my colleague Kevin Bell for introducing me to the www.weather.com site.

Reaching for a Star

My father-in-law gave me this awesome quote and I thought I'd share it.

I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are;
because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.
I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far;
for a might have-been has never been,
but a has-been was once an are.
Milton Berle

I'm going to give this quote to my students when I get back from spring break.