Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Cool Math

www.coolmath.com

This website is really great! It has great resources for both students and teachers.

Brain Boosters

I was looking around and found this site. It has some really good Brain Boosters but a lot of them would probably be for high school or middle school students. Enjoy

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/brainboosters/?pID=brain

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Sorry

Hey guys... sorry I've been MIA the past 2 weeks!I have been working a lot on our group project but that is no excuse! I posted two things and I'll do better the next two weeks! Hope you are enjoying your last couple weeks of school!

Picasa


This is a collage I made using Picasa. Picasa is really fun and pretty easy to use. You can make different styles of collages or even make movies. You should try it out.

Simple Techniques to make you a good teacher

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126743261&sc=nl&cc=es-20100516

I really liked this article. I think everyone should check it out if you get a chance. Or, even better- buy the book :). The book is called "Teach like a Champion: 49 techniques that put students on the path to College" by Doug Lemov. This article is just an interview with the author and it talks about some of the topics in the book. The author researched "good teachers" and listed out techniques they used to be successful. One way he found the "good teachers" was by looking comparing poverty levels to test scores- those teachers who had classes that were high in both he considered a good teacher. To summarize some of the techniques in the book, he says to teach kids how to pass out papers. This seems like a very minute detail, but he has seen papers get passed out in 10 seconds. This can save 41/2 days of teaching a year! Teach kids how to organize a binder. He has a technique called 100%- everyone follows directions and there are no excuses. Another technique is called "Cold Call"- just means to call on everyone, not as a punishment but to make sure all students are engaged. Positive Framing- Start by assuming the best from everyone and students won't quit on you because they know you believ in them. The techniques are more about teaching students to be lifelong learners- teaching the student, not the lessons.

I have this book on my list of books to read! I'll let you know how it is whenever I get around to it!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

My website

I added some things to my website. I work on it daily because I upload my notes for the day and I am always updating the calendar. I have told my students about it and they think the notes will be great. Next year, I'm going to try to figure out how to make sure students use it. I was thinking of having one assignment a week (or maybe an extra credit assignment) posted only on the website and not announced in class. Or I also thought that I could post something on the website and have a bonus question on a test or quiz relating to that post.

Let me know if you have any other ideas on how to make sure students take advantage of the website.

www.mrsmartinmath.weebly.com