Teaching in Hard Times

Well, it's not the first post about being a teacher in hard economic times, but I can say, as several of my friends find themselves either
A) Out of work
or
B) worried daily about the potential of soon being out of work.

It's yet again good to be a teacher! I actually had noteworthy conversation with one of my friends, a guy who recently lost his very lucrative wall street job, and he asked me what we teachers are going to do to help out--are we going to take a reduced pay or what? And I couldn't help but chidingly respond to him: "Are you going to give back all of your bonuses from the last decade?" Well, I could tell from his grin that he got my point!

If you need a teaching job, go her for teacher placement services. I've used both NAIS and Carney Sandoe(for private school job hunts) and can recommend both.

The TI 89 Graphing Calculators: They can do anything!

I have taught Math for many years and have generally used the TI 84, TI-83 Graphing Calculators--pretty cool calculators that can do neat things like add imaginary numbers and output the results in reduced form etc.. But the TI-89 is like getting used to a whole new machine. When you first encounter it, you might not even know how to use it as the main screen's menu and interface is completely different. However, if you work your way through learning it, the 89 can really do some powerful things including algebra! This of course raises the issue of whether or not it is appropriate to use such powerful machines to take a test; many tests, in fact, do not allow the 89's to be used. So before you go out to buy a graphing calculator like the 89, you should first make sure that it a) can be used on any standardized tests that you take and b) isn't too fancy for your own tastes.

Red Ink--is it that bad?

I recently had some professional development that focused on ways to cultivate positive relationships with students, something that all teachers (ideally) value; it's always a fine line to both support students's ideas while at the same time maintain respect for the truth during class discussions-- as a teacher in the classroom leading a discussion, you'll inevitably get some responses that are way off and, no matter how you cut it, are just 'wrong.' ...navigating these kinds of classroom discussions is definitely a skill that improves with time and experience.

There was one point during the PD that I just can't buy: that students' self esteem is effected by using red pens to correct their errors... that the very choice of ink color (red) is a factor that can demoralize students. The argument put forth, as best as I could tell, was that since red has been used so often to correct students that this ink color is a psychological trigger for students, one both demoralizing and damaging.
I must say that I wholeheartedly disagree with this. I use red pen simply to distinguish the color of my remarks from the color of the student's ink. Oftentimes, the comments that I write in red are quite positive or neutral. In the end, I believe that a teacher's rapport with students is what will demoralize or uplift the students' response to your feedback, regardless of whether you use red ink, blue ink or pink ink.

Teacher Resources Reviews I : Math Resources

I wanted to take some time to write about quality resources for teachers and try to get the word out about some cool things I've seen that might help you in the classroom as much as it's helped me.  One of the coolest math teacher resources  that I've encountered is Drexel's Math Forum . It's one of the first stops for newbie math teachers. On the forum, you can find all sorts of threads relating to instructional technology, teaching methods, and even content based threads about math.  

Grade for this resource:  A-  (All right, all right I have high standards!)

Budget Cuts and Teacher Jobs

If you've got any sense of what's going on in the world, you know that the US and many other countries are in a recession, and you might be wondering if your teaching job is secure.  Interestingly enough, teaching is considered one of the more recession proof jobs  Nonetheless, even schools are tightening their belts and in some cases cutting down on their workforce.  From talking to teacher in other disctricts, the first jobs that are cut are, not suprisingly, the teacher aides, and some schools are also cutting down on the ranks of teachers. 

What does this all boil down to? If your the lowest person on the totem pole, especially if you don't have tenure, you might want to update that resume, to start networking with other teachers (A good place to meet other teachers is at www.facultyu.com --a social network for teachers!) 

When all is said and done though, we are in a much better profession than most during these tough economic times. My good friend, an investment banker, who for years has made much much more money than I... is currently unemployed.  If you're a teacher and looking for a job, here are some good teacher placement services--I've personally used Carney Sandoe, Independent School Placement and OlAS at one point or another (see previous link for more info).

Math B: Thank God it's Ending!

Today, I sat down with the rest of the math teachers in our department to grade the January 2009 Math B regents. I found myself thinking "Thank god the Math A and Math B sequence is coming to a close this year" For those of you who are ignorant (blissfully so) of what has been largely seen as a failure: the math A and Math B sequences divide up the traditional Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II sequence a little differently.  Rather than devoting one year to each of the aforementioned subjects,  Math A covers algebra I and some geometry. Math B covers the rest of geometry and Algebra II.  With few exceptions, schools teach these courses over a year and half. Anyone who has ever prepared a student for an end of the year standardized test like the New York Regents might immediately see the issue. There is a long amount of time and a large amount of material covered by the test.  At the end of June when studetns sit for the test, they must remember things from about a year and a half ago!  The Math B is particularly tough for most students becuase it covers a lot of  'real math' and the curve is much less forgiving than the Math A.  You also invaraibly get some curve ball questions like the logarithmic regression question, question 33.  The thing that was most annoying about this question is that you had to take a natural log regression--and natural logs are not even in the Math B curriculum

Having taught the course for years, I wondered to myself "Did I just not know that natural logs were on the curriculum." In the end, no teacher in our department could find anything about natural logs in the state's published curriculum! All you can wonder is ' what were they thinking when they wrote that question ?'

Math Games: Ingredients of effective math games

I love making learning fun, and as a math teacher I often tried to create and/or use math games. All teachers know the value of a game. Putting questions into a jeopardy format, can make the must dull math like scientific notation , SOHCAHTOA, or a lesson on a parallelogram into something fun. Teachers of all disciplines would probably agree that turning a regular, chalk and talk lesson into a competition or into a  game increases the overall enjoyment of learning and power of a lesson.

That said, I was reading up on what researchers have to say about the value of learning with games. These researchers point out that embedding education into a game is a tricky task, and that oftentimes, game makers do not do a good job:

Although there are many excellent educational games on the market, some 'purchase children's motivation at the expense of learning,' says Lepper. For example, he has seen some games that provide the most gripping graphics when children lose, thus motivating them to intentionally forfeit the game as well as learning that might occur. (source)

I must admit that I've seen this problem in some games, but more often I have seen the opposite: dull games with poor graphics that just aren't all that fun! Now, I'm referring specifically to math games online, something that I've explored quite thoroughly as math teacher. The best site that I have found so far is themathgames.com; their games do a good job of making learning the objective of the game. For instance, look at this fraction game called fraction balls, you must use your dexterity to drop a fraction ball into the proper jar. As you can probably tell from the picture, you must use your dexterity and you mathematical knowledge at the same time! Now that's a fun and effective math game!


Another good fun game is Math Blaster. Although not an online game, Math Blaster requires you to use your skills and your knowledge simultanesouly. You can buy math games like math blaster at www.mathstore.net.

In the end, a good math game requires the player to 'play' the game while at the same time employ his or her knowledge. If the fun of the game is divorced from the learning, the game will probably flop. For instance, consider a game that has you shoot ten bad guys then in between levels asks you math questions on addition. Such a math game has thoroughly divorced the learning from the fun game play. A child is likely to find the math part annoying. An ideal game combines game play action and content knowledge at the same time!

A good resource  about online math games :  http://www.squidoo.com/math-games-online