XKCD based lesson: The Coordinate Plane

Ever since I first saw this xkcd cartoon, I wanted to use it in a lesson. I finally put that together this year. I used the cartoon as a way to help convey the idea that points on a coordinate plane are a way to easily visualize the relationship between two different variables. The purpose of the numbers is simply to quantify those relationships, if such a quantification is necessary. I then had students make their own graphs for homework, with variables of their choice. If I had more time to spare, it would have been nice to do this in class (and the outcome would have been better, I think).

This lesson (Unit 4, Lesson 5) and others can be found in my box.com widget to the left. I recently updated Algebra 1, Units 3 and 4.

Here are some examples of the students' work.

Brilliant!

Students were asking why we have to learn interval notation. I was going on about ease of communication and writing things more simply, but I wasn't getting anywhere until one student piped in with this gem: "Oh, it's just like texting". As soon as she said that, the rest of the class produced a collective "ohh...". Why didn't I think of that? I used it in the following class, and it worked well.

Newsflash: Students Don't Study

The results from my first Algebra 2 comprehensive test were (predictably) bad. Though they were even worse than I was anticipating. The test included a reflection that asked students, among other things, if they felt that they were well prepared for the test. Most of them were honest and said that they didn't really study. I gave students the option to create and use a 1-page study sheet for the test; less than half of them bothered to do this. It's an ongoing battle trying to get students to see and believe that there is a connection between their actions and the grades that they receive. Many students wrote that they thought they would be able to pass the test without studying. I hope that this is a wake-up call for them. I know that they want to succeed in the class - I have to do a better job of teaching them how to study and convincing them that studying actually has a purpose.

Algebra 2: Power Equations

I had a great Friday. My Algebra 2 classes went well, though the Keynote took about 10 minutes longer than I wanted. But, the slide where I showed them how you can use the Pythagorean Theorem to locate root 2 on the number line was quite successful (I think). They agreed that we could construct the original square out of a 1' x 1' piece of wood. Then, after we use the compass to map out the length of the diagonal, I showed that we could cut a piece of wood that is exactly root 2 feet long. I'm really trying to drive home the idea that irrational roots are still real amounts, and this slide made their brains hum.

And my single Algebra 1 class is starting to go really well. Over a week, and not a single referral. And, only once did I ask a student to step out of the class to calm down. I've got a TA who helps out by checking and logging homework, and then assisting students during practice time. I taught her a couple years back in Algebra 2 honors, and she is now one of a handful of seniors taking Calculus at a local junior college. Plus, I have another former student senior who has decided to use her free period to come every class and sit with Kate, and Kate is very happy with this arrangement. We learned the first part of the order of operations (aside from parentheses and exponents), and though they all surprisingly had heard of PEMDAS and knew that multiplication and division come before addition and subtraction, only about half knew the "left to right" part of it. So, when we got to that example, a big debate erupted, along with "you wanna bet"s and so forth, but it was all done in a positive way. And when the answer was revealed, the kids who were fighting for the wrong side were gracious about it (though I did make it extra clear that they could have been right too, and mathematicians just had to pick one way to do it). They were my last period of the day, and as a gift to them, when I got home I made a positive phone call home to every kid in the class. It took about an hour or so, but I'm hoping that it will turn out to be a good investment in furthering our class culture. The parents were very grateful to hear from me - even the ones who almost had a heart attack when the math teacher was already calling home. I had to do some quick assurances that "todo esta bien, no hay problema!"

On Monday, we will be solving power equations in Algebra 2. Nothing too fancy, but we will be doing Showdown for the first time - one of my favorite collaborative activities. Here are the files:

Lesson 5 (solving power equations)
Lesson 5 Keynote
Keynote Quicktime

Prepositional Nightmare: Anywhere a Cat Can Go

One of the problems with block scheduling is that, when you lose a day of school, it throws your whole system off. Due to community day on Thursday, and spring break starting on Friday, periods 1 - 4 met twice this week, but 5-6 only met once. So, it was time for a slush lesson. Sorry, I mean "enrichment". I find these hard to do well, because if it is something worthwhile - such that you can justify spending 80 minutes of time with periods 1 through 4 - then you want the other periods to see it to. And if it isn't worthwhile, then why not just have a pizza party or something? But you'll never catch me throwing away a lesson like that. There's just no time to waste.

So I decided to experiment with correcting a linguistic problem that bothers me, but is not necessarily mission critical. That is the reversal of terms when saying division and subtraction problems out loud, confusing divided by with divided into, and my personal favorite, "subtract 7 to both sides". I know that part of the problem here is the somewhat arbitrary nature of prepositions, and I've been told that fluency with prepositions is one of the last things to develop when a person is learning a new language, and can take many years of practice. When students make these mistakes in class, I tend to repeat their words back to them, using the correct language, but not making a big deal out of it. My thinking here was that I could do a lesson on it, and then, when they make those mistakes in the future, I can just say "remember the correct way to say that?" and jog their memory, instead of launching cold into an explanation again and again.

I did the lesson. Nothing fancy - just some explanation, some practice, a little board wars (which I typically shun, but it's a slush lesson, so what the hey) and some delectable Easter candy prizes. Yesterday, the students were pretty non-enthused about working on prepositions (shocking, I know), and board wars was so-so, although there were quite a few kids who were very motivated to win the giant bunny lollipops. Today, I had some pig- and ducky-shaped candies to give away, and I think I struck gold, because the minute I showed them to my class, they freaked out and got super-focused. I don't really like bribery, but I think it's probably ok to break form on the day before vacation.

In any case, we were well into the first round of board wars when the phone rang. When I picked up the receiver, I heard some students say "Mr. Greene, we're in Algebra class right now and we have a question." I was pretty confused, until their teacher came on the line. He had them on speaker phone, and said, "My students are telling me that I'm not speaking like a mathematician." (Speak Like a Mathematician is the phrase I use with them for all matters linguistic.) They were all laughing in the background. I finally got what was going on, and said, "Hold on, let me put you on speaker phone here." When I did that, his class erupted in a cheer, which my class could hear, and they were shouting hellos back and forth (although nobody knew who was in each class). They quieted down, and I had them ask me the question - it seems that their teacher said "subtract by 7", and not only did they notice the mistake, they had enough confidence in themselves to call him on it. So I settled it for them, all the kids shouted goodbye to each other, and we went on to an excellent board wars competition.

Later, when talking about it with the other teacher, he told me that he had actually read a problem that said "reduced by 7", but the students swore he said "subtracted by 7" and he decided to play it up for them and call me since he knew I'd been working on it with them. Moments like that are really cool (and potentially powerful), and they can't really be planned out. I love when the last class before a break is a really good one.

p.s.
Does anyone else remember the phrase "anywhere a cat can go"? I still remember it from 7th grade French.

p.p.s
Funny cat videos. My classes loved these for the physical humor. But if you've ever had a cat, you'll see that the cartoonist captures their behavior really well. Enjoy!

Welcome

Most of our students are English language learners, but most have Spanish as their native language. As of a few weeks ago, we have a new student who is a refugee from Myanmar - she showed up in my SSR period and in my Numeracy class. Not only is language a huge barrier, there is also her difficult past. Working in her favor, however, is a massively strong desire to learn.

An article came out in today's paper which gave us all more insight.

Here is the text of the article (if the link is bad).

Orphans survive wars, find safety in Bay Area
REFUGEE CHILDREN ADOPTED THROUGH UNITED NATIONS
By Rebecca Rosen Lum
Bay Area News Group
Article Launched: 02/18/2008 01:33:04 AM PST

Kate's smooth brow buckles when she thinks about the soldiers who muscled their way into the house where she lived with her grandmother - plundering belongings, forcing their attentions on her and ordering them to prepare meals.

"The soldiers make me too sad," said Kate, discriminated against as an ethnic minority in Myanmar. "I don't like."

One day Kate, now 16, fled to the home of sympathetic friends in a neighboring town. She learned soon afterward that the soldiers killed her grandmother in retaliation.

After a desperate flight through underground channels of Southeast Asia, Kate has found a lasting safety: She now lives with a family in San Jose. "Baba" and "Mama" are the Rev. Ben and Anne Daniel; she has three siblings.

As rain pounds on the roof of Ben Daniel's church, Kate sits comfortably between her new parents, a delicate girl with shiny black hair and a wide open smile. She has been here little more than a month, but she says this is home.

"Everything OK," she said. "Not tired. Not scared. I happy."

Kate is one of a trickle of refugee orphans finding homes with Bay Area families through a special program of Catholic Charities, one of two agencies that contracts with the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees to place the children.

In such countries as Liberia, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal, children have been driven out by armed conflict or pressed into service by government militias and rebel groups - as combatants, sex slaves and virtual pack mules.

If an adoption always includes risk and reward, these adoptions offer a double dose of both.

Preparing food is now a source of surprise and delight for Kate. She likes oatmeal with hot sauce. At first, she dissolved in giggles at the sight of Baba popping up a skillet of popcorn on family movie night. (Men don't cook in Myanmar). Now they fix dinner together.

Kate dropped out of school after her fourth year to help her grandmother farm corn and beans. She asked to start school the morning after she arrived: "I want right now," she said, laughing. She studies music with Anne and says she hopes to become a minister, like Ben.

Kate's odyssey hardly seems likely for a child, but it is mirrored throughout countries where war and strife have made homelands unlivable. Many have been persecuted for religion, ethnicity, or political affiliation. They have been separated from their parents or seen them killed. The children escape brutality by guts, wit and luck, walking for miles, hiding in jungles, riding on the backs of sympathetic elders to safety - mainly, in refugee camps.

Five million refugees have fled their homelands, according to Refugees International, a non-profit organization. If one includes those who are trapped in their home country, such as in Darfur, that number balloons to 14 million. They can't go home in many cases because home is no more; their villages have been destroyed.

Tracy Weiss read all she could get her hands on about the conflicts that racked the Eastern coast of Africa after she agreed to adopt three siblings from Monrovia, Liberia.

When she picked them up from Mineta San Jose International Airport, Sadiki, the eldest and tallest, stood in front, "scanning everyone, looking for danger in every direction." His sister Maryama tucked in behind him, holding a bag, the U.N. signal for a refugee arrival. Antimana, called "Ansu," crouched behind his two siblings. They wore donated clothes - Ansu, a 1930s-era man's suit.

"I said, 'Hi. I'm your new mom,' " Weiss remembered. "Ansu was the first to break into a grin."

The trio has been living with Weiss in Los Altos for three years and - Maryama counts on her fingers - six months.

Rebels executed the children's Mandingo father, as well as Sadiki and Ansu's mother. The children and Maryama's mother ran from rebels, living in the bush, moving constantly, sometimes getting separated. They settled for a time in Bo, a village in Sierra Leone. Sadiki - he thinks he was 3 or 4 - made many friends there.

"Then things got bad if you are not a citizen," said Sadiki, now 18. "We had to find a way to stay alive."

Sadiki's earliest memory is of a village in chaos, with people running everywhere to escape the approaching rebels. Alone, he held up his arms in hopes someone would carry him to safety. Someone did.

He thinks the family spent five to seven years on the run.

Chatting one afternoon, Sadiki's new mother asked him if he had any photos from his earliest years.

"Mom," he said evenly. "You are running with a whole stack of things on your head. You step and you fall in the river, everything gets ruined."

They eventually made their way to the Bandajuma refugee camp, where his stepmother died from complications of diabetes.

It took them some time to get used to the idea that they could make the four-block walk through their wooded suburban neighborhood to school without getting mugged, that loud pops were not likely to be gunshots. Weiss had to quickly abort a July Fourth trip to see fireworks in San Francisco when the multiple blasts badly shook the children.

While life here brings a sense of safety, negotiating the social minefield of a new culture can prove dicey.

Language is a separator at the outset. Then come the mutual misconceptions of American kids and the newcomers.

The refugee orphans are surprised to see all Americans aren't wealthy and white. Alternatively, few Americans have had to run for their lives.

"One kid said to me, 'Did you ever fight a lion?' " Sadiki recalled, howling with laughter. "I said, 'Yes, two.' "

Many don't even know where Africa is, Maryama said, and they know much less about the violence that devastated her homeland and scarred her family.

"I can't be angry at them," she said. "They don't know. When they know, they care."

Caught Being Good

If you're a Harry Potter fan, you've probably noticed that classroom management at Hogwarts isn't much of an issue. Sure, they get to fly around and do magic all day. And parent involvement seems quite strong. But what else do they have that keeps the young'uns in line and focused on getting to a four-year wizard college? An entirely hassle-free incentive system. I'm talking, of course, of the Hogwarts' House Cup, and the constant cries of "10 points for Gryffindor" and the like.

At DCP, we've only formally developed negative consequence systems (detentions, referrals, contracts, etc.). These work to an extent, but not for all students, and not in all cases. For a while now, I've wanted to get a positive system put into place as well. I thought that this would help increase student buy-in, especially for the freshmen making the transition to DCP and becoming a college-prep student. So, combine this need with our students' love of getting points, use Hogwarts as a model, and presto-hey you've got the "Chalice of Pride"!

I got some other teachers together, and we made a plan for this at the beginning of the year, but we haven't been able to get it off the ground until now (time, time, time...). We originally had a more complicated setup, but the lack of magic wands put a damper on our plans - the system had to be totally easy for the teachers, or it wouldn't fly. So here's how it works: each freshman tutorial class (there are 5) is competing for the Chalice of Pride. Students can earn a Ganas Point (i.e. a "caught being good" ticket) for any behaviors that really demonstrate one of the school values. This is simply handed to the student by the staff member. The student then must put the slip into the clear plastic locking drop-box that is assigned to his or her tutorial (these are attached to the wall in a central location). At the end of each month, we tally up the slips in each box, and the winner gets to display the "Crest of Community" and claim bragging rights. At the end of the year, the tutorial with the most total points earns the "Chalice of Pride" and a field trip (like a day at the beach, or whatever floats their collective boat). We're in day 3 of the system, and I'm starting to see slips in the boxes already. I'm looking at this as a kind of experiment in positive incentive systems - clearly, it can be done more effectively - but we have to start somewhere.

Continuing on with the positivity trend, we've also updated our homework checker system for the new semester. For the past few years, students have had to carry a homework checker with them to each class; it got marked each time they didn't have their homework, and then the checker would be looked at by the tutorial teacher and the parents. Of course, this would cause students to "forget" their checker on days when they did not have their homework. Therefore, we gave detentions to students for not bringing their checkers (to force them to produce them), and this really never led anywhere good. So, we made a simple switch to stamping their checkers when they do have their homework, with some simple rewards attached to getting a certain number of stamps over the 6 weeks. The rewards and reward-levels were created by the student council: 85% = prizes like stickers, candy, etc.; 90% = a free homework pass; 95% = free dress day and double lunch. We also started this on Monday, and so far, it seems to be working well. Students really want the rewards, and they are making sure to get their stamps. Even if they miss a homework, they will still be more likely to produce the checker the following class period so they can get the next stamp (in the past, they knew we would just mark all missing homeworks when they finally brought out the checker, so some students never would).

Who knew how effective stamping and stickering could be in high school?

A case study: freshmen's ability to listen...

(Background: cell phones are not permitted. If seen/heard, they are confiscated until parents pick them up.)

{Phone rings; I answer}

Me: C, they need you at the front desk with your cell phone, because your sister got hurt and they don't have your mom's cell phone number.

C: (Looking angry) But I don't even have a cell phone!

Me: They don't want to take your phone, they just need your mom's number.

C: But I don't have a phone!

Me: Just go...

(5 minutes later)

C: Mr. Greene, do you know why they wanted me? My sister hurt her leg, and they needed my mom's number!

Me: That's exactly what I told you.

C: You did?

Happy Tofurkey Day

If you've read my blog in the past, you may have noticed I haven't been writing much lately. I've had some bad health problems over the past few months, which have made it difficult for me to get anything but the essentials done. It's finally under control, and I am feeling relatively human again. I am thankful for strong drugs and medical advances!

So, my lack of energy along with the typical November doldrums have made my freshman Numeracy classes less effective and positive than I'd like. I hope that this mini-break will give us all a chance to recover a bit, and come back to end the semester strong. Here are some of the major things I need to work on:

1) Multiplication Tables.
I decided not to focus on teaching the tables this year to the whole class, as it is a waste of time to the 1/2 to 2/3 of the kids that know them. And, I'm not sure how to do it really effectively for those that are in high school and still don't know them. ALEKS doesn't deal with multiplication tables.

I've given students who need them 12 x 12 tables to keep in their binders and look at as they do things like reducing fractions. I need to find a way that they can actually work on improving, and I think this will be different for each student. Some combination of flash cards, games, incentives, and quizzes will be needed. But how to work this seamlessly into the class? Hmm... Needs more thought..

2) Classroom Culture / Readiness
I've posted about this in the past, and my readiness checker was working very well. But, recently, class hasn't been getting started very efficiently. The students recognize this, and freely admit that, now that they are well into school and have made friends, there is a lot more temptation to hang out between classes and avoid getting into their classroom or seat in the room until the last possible second.

I don't sweat it if we miss out on the first minute or two of class, but more seriously and annoyingly, school supplies seem to be growing ever more sparse (kids don't have pencils or binder paper, and act shocked when I ask them to take these things out!). It's like they buy some new stuff in September, and when they're out, that's it for the year. Also, binders have gotten to be a mess (i.e. holy terror) again - and that's for the kids who still have binders.

I need to come up with an incentive system to get this all back on track - and a way that forces me to stay on top of it.

3) Problem Sets - Singapore Bar Models
I overshot greatly with my initial stabs at assigning students problem sets. My goal was to get them started on longer-term planning, while assessing their ability to use the bar model method to solve word problems. My initial idea was to assign ten problems on Monday, due the following Monday. I would grade and return them, and they would have till the following Monday to do revisions to increase their scores. Sounds reasonable? Well, it was still way too much for them to handle. The second time around, I made mandatory progress checks during the week, to help keep them on track. I got more turned in the second time around, but they were still not very good. And, there is a big problem with cheating. Unfortunately, students don't really understand all the time what cheating is, and it's hard to get them to see it. I want them to work together to help each other; many of them think that copying someone's answers who is "helping you" isn't cheating. This is going to require a lot more coaching. Here are my initial ideas for how to run problem set #3:
- Reduce the number of problems from 10 to 6.
- Continue with the progress checks, for regular homework credit.
- The day the assignment is due, give a one- or two-question quiz with selected problems from the assignment, but with numbers changed. This will help me see which kids actually understand the work, and which kids copied.

What we have to watch out for (a partial list)

San Jose, though a relatively safe city overall, does have a significant gang problem. Our students are generally not involved in gangs directly (though we do get the occasional hard core kid), but their communities are infused in a wash of red and blue, and gang symbols are everywhere. We work hard to keep this out of our school, so that all our kids can be and feel safe, and part of that means clamping down on the little behaviors that can flare up into big problems. So, aside from all of the normal things a teacher needs to watch out for, here are some others, any of which will get a kid put on a strict "gang contract" (which usually means that further behavior will end them up in a discipline committee meeting to discuss their behavior and their desire to remain at DCP).

• Red or blue markings on clothes or shoes


• Red or blue hair rubber bands, red or blue pens sticking out of pockets or used to hold up hair, red or blue nail polish and makeup


• Students writing in red pen (blue is too ubiquitous to try to prevent)


• Crossing out 3s or 4s; replacing "e"s with "3"s or writing "e"s backwards


• Using the numbers 3, 13, 4, or 14 inappropriately


• Showing problems with colors (i.e. a student given a blue whiteboard marker to write with who refuses and trades for a red)


• Certain tags like Sur, Norte, 408, ESSJ, Sharks


• Markings at the base of the thumb (3 or 4 dots)


• Roman numerals XIII or XIV, and clever ways to write them, such as dotting your "i"s with an "x", like in the word "live"


• Certain hand gestures


• The UFW eagle has also become a gang symbol. I had a couple of students building it out of unit cubes last week!

There are more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. It may seem trivial or ridiculous to watch out for these things, but it is amazing how serious they can be, and how they can lead directly to students getting physically intimidated or hurt.

My life just got a bit easier

Every year, a handful of juniors end up having a free period due to various scheduling reasons. But, we don't let them sit idle. Instead, they become TAs. This may sound like a cruel thing to do, but they really seem to love the responsibility. For us, grading endless quizzes, for example, just isn't quite as entertaining as it used to be. But for them, it is a brand-spanking new rush of power! Ahh.. remember that first A you gave? That first F? Can you smell the red ink? Ok, I use DCP purple and orange... They even seem to like things like organizing files and cleaning lab equipment. Go figure.

I just got a TA assigned to me during my one Algebra 2 period. She was in my Algebra 2 honors class last year, and earned an A+. She'll be grading the daily homework quizzes, grading other quizzes from my Numeracy class while I lecture (ok, she can do her own homework if I don't have anything to grade that day...), and helping tutor students in the class during individual/pair/group work time. She starts tomorrow and I am psyched.

DCP Student in the Mercury News

I am still on vacation and having a great time. I just checked my email and found out that a student of ours, who recently attended the Mosaic Journalism Camp at SJSU, had a piece published in the Merc about the difficulty undocumented students face due to their inability to get financial aid for college.

The readers' comments are predictably negative (i.e. calling for her and her "entire clan's" deportation and so forth). However, the chancellor of UC Berkeley agrees with Dulce :)

Here is her piece if you don't have an account at the Merc:

College door closed for talented undocumented students
By Dulce Martinez

Mayra, a 17-year-old who graduated recently from Downtown College Preparatory in San Jose with top grades, had hopes of going to a four-year university and becoming a lawyer. There is only one problem, which she can't fix.
She entered the United States illegally when she was 4 years old after her parents determined that if they stayed in Mexico they could all starve. As an undocumented immigrant, she's ineligible for government financial aid.
At her high school, Mayra was in Leadership, a program for students who help with campus activities. She was a member of the associated student body and MEChA, a Latino student group. She prepared and distributed sandwiches and water to day laborers in front of Orchard Supply Hardware while they waited for jobs.
Mayra thought that she was as American as anyone. She never thought that being an illegal immigrant was going to be a problem until she applied to a university. Then she found out that she qualified for almost no aid. That limited her college choices.
"I feel that it's not right that I worked so hard to improve my future and now I'm not sure what would become of my plans," said Mayra, a tall, brown-haired and brown-eyed girl from a poor Mexican village.
I know many teens who, like Mayra, had their dreams destroyed when the U.S. Senate turned down the latest immigration reform bill. They shattered the hopes not only of illegal immigrant students in San Jose but also, students living all over the country.

Another deserving undocumented immigrant student who worried about her future is Perla, a thin "jarocha," or native of the Mexican state of Veracruz.
Perla's parents smuggled her into America when she was 9. Also a 2007 Downtown College Prep graduate, she has all the qualities universities look for: She participated in student government, passed Advanced Placement classes and tutored struggling students. And yet when it came to applying to a university, she had all doors slammed in her face. "I feel betrayed by the country I call my home," Perla said.
When the Senate derailed the immigration bill, they punished innocent young people who had no input in their family's decision to enter this country illegally. Undocumented immigrant students in schools are not treated any differently than citizen students. They are always told that they can succeed, become lawyers, psychologists or teachers. But that's a lie if they are not able to attend a college because they don't qualify for government financial aid. I have met many students who have an unclear future waiting for them. Some decide that there is no point to working so hard and they start falling behind and start hanging out with gangs.
These undocumented immigrant students never rest because they are afraid that they might get deported at any second. It is not fair because they have worked really hard educating themselves, learning our country's history, speaking our language, contributing to their community, taking the hardest classes. They don't deserve to be treated so badly.
What happened to the American dream? For these students, the dream became a nightmare and now they have no choice but to remain here, stuck in the lowest ditch in our society because they can't go back to a country they no longer consider their own. All people are created equal, but did Congress think about that when it put the lives of thousands of undocumented students on hold?
Members of Congress should face the problem with their heads up high instead of running away and hiding. Is this what America wants, to destroy the hopes of so many bright and hard working young people who want to become productive citizens?

Last Day

Another year, come and gone. We had an end of the year assembly today that was super long - about 2.5 hours. There were lots of recognitions of student successes, good-byes to leaving teachers, the Numeracy Project played, I presented the winners of the Algebra 2 treasure hunt, and we saw the DCP mini-movie (once it gets published to the web, I'll link to it).

I gave back the finals to my Algebra 2 honors students - all of them passed the final but two, and everyone did end up passing the class. Here's how the course grades were distributed:

10|6
9|0 0 2 2 4
8|0 1 2 2 2 5 5 6 6 7
7|0 4 7 8 9
6|
5|

The student with the 106% is a math monster... She's gotten more than 100% on just about every single assessment I've given (she always gets the bonus question, and usually doesn't miss any regular credit). She is also one of the pair who found the treasure. When I gave out class awards, she won the "I'll know more math than Mr. Greene in a few years" award.

After the assembly, there was a pizza lunch (along with food tasting from our new food company for next year, Revolution Foods), music, dancing, soccer, yearbook signing, and so on. I did photo shoots with different students, informed kids that need to take summer school (I wanted to tell them first before they got a notice in the mail, and encourage them to look at it as a chance to improve their skills), and got a marriage proposal from the student I wrote about in my previous post! I declined, but told her I'd be happy to help her make a study plan next year instead. I got some notes of thanks, and the best student gift ever: some of my A2H boys called me over, clustered around me, and gave me a bird-cage shaped present wrapped in toilet paper and tape. They said it was in appreciation of all that I've done for them this year. It was a Transformer from the new movie coming out this summer (they remembered me talking about my love for Transformers all the way back to the functions unit, when we did transformations and translations). This year, like all years, has had its fair share of challenges and problems. But it was nice to end it like this - out in the sunshine, shaking hands and giving hugs, congratulating students, and wishing them a good summer.

Tomorrow, I'll finish cleaning out my classrooms and packing, and tomorrow evening is graduation. Then, the year will really be over. I can't believe that I've been here for 7 years now, but I don't know how I can ever tear myself away from these kids.

Next week, I'll be helping facilitate a math/pedagogy workshop for all the elementary and middle school teachers in a couple of local school districts. The education department at San Jose State got a large grant to put this together. I don't know how it will go, but it will be very interesting. I'll post what I can about it as it happens.

The end is near...

Like many other people, I've felt the frustration that comes along with the run-up to finals. Students who know they don't have a chance at passing have checked out; lots of students are still on the fence, but you can't manage to get them all on the greener side. Teaching new material is fun and exciting; reviewing old material again and again is, well, not. Especially to those students who seem to think you are still teaching them new topics. But I know that this is all part of the game, and I am not too discouraged. Some students will fail, but they'll have another shot over the summer or next year. Ultimately, most will be fine. And, there have been lots of success stories this year too - those students who I wasn't sure had it in them yet, and yet they found it.

My algebra 2 honors class, though, has been and continues to be the best class I've ever taught. (I haven't told them that yet - when I do, I know I'm going to get lots of "awwwwwws!") They have been working hard this past week getting ready for the final, and I haven't even had to prepare anything for them. I decided to see what would happen if I just handed out blank copies of the old unit tests and midterms and let them work and ask questions. It's worked amazingly well, and I'm pretty sure that every single kid is going to not only pass the final, but actually pass the class. If every student passes the class, it may be a first in DCP history!

To celebrate their hard work, tomorrow I will stop class a bit early so I can thank each student, say a few words about them, and present them with an award that I whipped up in photoshop:

Staying on top of blogging is like solving a greased Log

Or something. Ok, I haven't posted in a while about what's going on in class. So a summary:

1) The STAR Search(tm) treasure hunt is in effect. The idea of giving away puzzle pieces for each correct answer on the daily 10-minute 5-question warmup has worked really well. Most of the teams are nearly complete with their puzzles, and a few have worked it out already. It was the smiling face of another teacher (photoshopped to make him a bit harder to recognize) with the text "Find Me!" and "Make my noise of disgust." (He has a patented barf-noise he makes whenever PDA is observed in the halls). So a couple teams have done this, and are now working on puzzle #1. I'll post them all eventually, but this one has them reviewing concepts of the real number system from unit 1. There are a bunch of true false questions that they convert to 1s and 0s, and then must research binary to figure out what number is being represented, which will lead them to the next teacher based on a look-up list. An insight into DCP student critical thinking: one student asked me today what to do, because he got the 1s and 0s, but didn't understand how to get any of the numbers. I asked him to read me the title of the puzzle. "There are only 10 people in the world: those who know binary and those who don't." He looked at me. I asked him if there were any words in the title that he didn't understand. He said, "binary". I suggested that finding out what that means might be a good place to start.

2) In Algebra 2, aside from the treasure hunt, I am now desperately trying to get them to grasp logarithms before the STAR test next week. The proximity of the test has forced me to teach the unit totally out of order, and it bums me out. On the test, they only need to be able to evaluate basic logs, change the base, use the log properties, and spot incorrect lines in a log simplification problem. There is nothing about the log function and its domain, the inverse relationship with exponentials, solving real log or exponential equations, and so forth. The order I would have preferred would have been:

1. introduce the concept of exponentials with a "trick" problem like a lottery or the grains of rice on a chessboard type thing
2. develop an understanding of exponential functions - growth and decay, and maybe some translations and transformations
3. present word problems (population growth, interest, depreciation, carbon dating, etc.) and model them with exponential functions
4. use these models to help students realize that we don't have a tool for finding the x when we know the y, and why we need one - springboard to the logarithm operation
5. develop a feel for how logs work, by estimating their value to being between a pair of consecutive integers; compare the log operation to the nth-root operation
   
6. convert back and forth between log and exponential form, and solve basic log and exponential equations
7. learn how to change the base of logs
   
8. go back and use logs to answer the questions in the word problems that we previously couldn't
9. derive and learn the properties of logs, drawing parallels with the properties of exponents
10. use the properties to solve more complex log equations, including discussion of domain and extraneous solutions
11. explore the graphs of log functions
12. use that as a lead in to a brief unit on inverse functions

So instead, I jumped in at 5 and continued with 6, 7, and 9. Then, after the test next week, we'll go back to 1 and move forward.

3) I have a student teacher now, and he is taking over the instruction, as of today. It's really cool to work with someone like that, and help them learn how to become a teacher. But I didn't realize how hard it would be to change my own work habits (I can't just plan where and when I want to), and it's difficult to know how much to do versus how much to let him do, knowing that he's got to try things on his own, yet also wanting to make sure that my students learn the material. He's got a great natural patience and rapport with the students, and once he gets the teachable stuff down, he'll be on fire.

4) We're in Spirit Week now. Yesterday was boy-dress-like-girl-girl-dress-like-boy-day (umm... student council came up with the themes...) and today was dress-like-your-culture-day. Lots of sombreros and mariachis walking around, and apparently "hoochie" and "jeans and t-shirt" are cultures too. I abstained yesterday, but today I wore my bar-mitzvah talit and kipah, which always leads to the expected questions: "You're Jewish? Really? Do you speak Jewish? What's Jewish? etc." Today, a freshman took one look at me and said, "What race are you supposed to be?" Tomorrow is class color day (Go purple! Sophomores! Wise Fools!) and the Numeracy Project will be playing; I'll be doing my world-premiere version of "Slope Is Rise Over Run" (The Animals). That will lead into "y = mx + b" (borrowed from Semisonic), and then the ever popular standard "Sweet Home Alameda".

0% APR!

My algebra 2 students today marketed their credit cards to the Freshmen during lunch. We set up tables outside of the cafeteria, and my students had copies of fliers with their advertisement on front and their disclosure on back (which I photocopied from a real solicitation, used white out on the card names, fees, and APRs, and then filled in with the information they chose). As the freshmen came by, my little salesmen and saleswomen began shouting out the virtues of their card, while slandering those of their competitors. I heard things like "No, don't go over there! They'll just raise the rate on you later. Come to us - we have 0% interest and no minimum monthly payments!"

Some Freshmen made the mistake of signing up for the first offer they saw, and then wanted to change later. I told them they couldn't - once their name is signed on a contract, they can't just say "oops, just kidding!". One girl was really mad ("There was a back side? I didn't even know! That's not fair!"), and I told her she should go talk to the company and try to work out a deal. I listened, impressed, as they worked it out: she was given the choice to switch to the company's other plan, or to keep her original card and then cancel it without charge after a month.

Overall, the Freshmen took the whole exercise very seriously. Many were concerned about getting the best deal, and came to me asking which they should pick. I told them that I didn't know - they had to ask the companies if they had any questions - and they did! My favorite sales pitch: "Hey - you were at my quince! Come sign up with us!".

If you're interested, here are some of the names of the cards my students offered:

Mexican Express
Paiza Express
The Green Card
Genie
Reality
Viso (Platinum)
Viso (Gold)
Smart Latino
Red Foxx
High Five

Intersession Update

I haven't posted for a while, in part due to my new Perplexcity obsession. But today seems like a good day to write.

Period 1: Slam Poetry

We had a guest presenter come today to run the class - Mark Pinate. He's a great performance poet who also teachers classes. He performed a couple pieces for the kids and then did a workshop with them where they wrote some pretty good "I Am" poems. Tomorrow we'll revise their work, and Thursday he'll come back to help them work on their delivery.

Period 2: Algebra 2 Honors

We continued to practice completing the square. This year I am using the traditional method, as opposed to a new method I read about and tried last year. It was a good idea, but the kids found it very confusing. Then, I showed them how to prove the quadratic formula. They followed it the whole way and were asking questions when appropriate. At the end, I pointed out how much math they really needed to know to be able to understand the proof, and we talked about how far they've come. They spent the rest of the class working in pairs and groups on practice problems, and they were all working really hard. At the end, I overhead one of the students say, "I feel like I really accomplished something today." That may sound like an ordinary statement, but not one that you really hear coming from a student all that often.

Period 3: English 1 Review

We had a great start to the class: I had a fresh new seating chart, now that I know the kids, and they started off on their prompt decoding quietly and with a lot of focus (for 9th graders, anyway). We got through the agree/disagree activity reasonably well (where they had to move to one side of the room or the other depending on if they agreed or not with a statement pertaining to their new essay). Then, we were transitioning into reading the articles for evidence when a couple of girls wouldn't stop talking to each other. I went over to refocus them, but then I realized that they were arguing. They weren't listening to me and started to get a bit nasty, so I tried my severe voice: "Ok, that's enough. Stop." But then they started to really swear and stand up, and I got worried. I started to lead one out of the room to cool off (my hand lightly pushing her back), but as I was doing so, the other girl's friend began shouting taunts, and the girl I was taking out turned around and lunged back in. I had to drag her out by her arm to prevent her from attacking the other girls. I got her to the office, got back to the room with the principal, and had her take the other two girls. I tried to go on with the lesson for a bit, but I guess I had a lot of adrenaline going (man, it's scary to watch kids go into that red zone) and I was shaking a little, so another teacher stepped in to run the class for about 10 minutes while I calmed down and told the admin what had happened.

Now I ask you, what other job has this kind of daily excitement and variety?

Finals Results

The results of the Algebra 2 Honors final:

10 | 0
9 | 6
8 | 0 1 1 4 4
7 | 1 1 1 4 4 6 6 8
6 | 1 1 5 6 9
5 | 4
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |

For a final exam, that's fairly solid. Students did worst on the most recent material, which makes sense, because they haven't had enough time to let it really sink in. Next week, we are going to need to review factoring and dealing with the various forms of parabolas. Then we'll learn to complete the square and prove the quadratic formula.

Every student in the class ended up passing with a C- or better (a new first for me!), so that is something we will definitely celebrate next week.

The biggest success: the boys who shook my hand, looked me in the eye, and thanked me for helping them get prepared, both after the review sessions and after getting their tests back. Usually the girls are pretty vocal about their appreciation; the boys tend to wave, put on their iPods/cell phones, and rush out the door (not to generalize, but...) So I kind of smiled on the inside when these boys conveyed their awkward gratitude - it was a milestone along their paths to maturity and they didn't even know it.

Radical Butterflies from Hell

We used to have our fall finals at the end of December, right before the students went on break. In the past couple of years, we have moved them to after break in order to keep the same schedule as the rest of the schools in our district. This has both positive and negative effects, the latter obviously being that two weeks of vacation tends to sap the content knowledge out of even the most diligent students' brains. Most teachers spend the first week back reviewing everything, since finals happen Tuesday through Thursday of the second week (this coming Tuesday is my Algebra 2 final).

To make it a little more fun for my class, I decided to hold the First Annual DCP Algebra 2 Honors Fall Final Review Math Olympics, and I told them that the ceremony for the bronze, silver, and gold winners will be nationally televised (I'm still tring to come up with the prizes. I wonder, if I take them off campus for lunch, is that a prize or a punishment? Please leave a comment if you can think of any good prizes that 10th graders might enjoy!). The students are in teams of three and needed to come up with a team name using a type of number, along with a place to represent in the games. We have, for example, the Imaginary Mathematicians from New York City, the Radical Mexicans from Michoacan, and the Radical Butterflies from Hell; the Real X-tremes from Hawaii are currently in the lead. Each day this week, there was a series of events to review key concepts, and each homework was a set of multiple choice STAR-type problems that counted as additional events.

Today (Saturday), we had a terrific review session. I told students I would be at school at 10:30, and many were there by 10:15. I had most of the class show up (only about 5 or 6 didn't), and they stayed until after 2:00, ordering pizza for lunch. We pushed the tables together into one big conference table, and they all sat around it, going over old tests, doing their homework, working together, and asking me questions. I really need to recognize the whole class at our next school assembly for such high quality effort, work, and behavior. I'm proud of how they're coming together as a class; I hope (now more than ever) that they all pass the final.

The name's Overun. Rise Overun. But you can call me Slope.

The year ended with a great assembly. The dance classes performed their jazz dance final, complete with white gloves and top hats. The group of students working with local "guerilla-style theater" group headRush performed their one act play that they put together; the play focused on Mexican immigrants coming to the US for a better life, and the difficulties they encounter, along with the next generation's difficulties in dealing with gangs. The student body loved the play and quite a few of the teachers ended up with wet eyes (as one of the "actors" told us later, the DCP staff is too sensitive). The students working with headRush loved their experience and have decided to keep the project going, even though headRush's fellowship with Montalvo (where they are currently artists-in-residence) is coming to a close. The new theater company will be known as "Teatro Lobos Unidos" (I think I may be their club advisor). Finally, the world-famous Numeracy Project made our yearly debut (Rise Overun is my stage name) with Back in SSR, Equis Cuadrada, and Honor Roll-a.

On the last day of school, students were totally high on the promise of sweet freedom that lay just around the corner (so was the staff, to be quite honest). The day went pretty well, though students got more and more restless throughout the day. For me, the kids I taught during the last period before break was my honors Algebra 2 class. I was interested to see how these students would behave. They actually did spend most of the period getting their work done. I knew lecture would be a waste, so I had them work on a packet to practice graphing parabolas; they had to graph the absolute value of quadratic functions; graph quadratic inequalities; and solve quadratic inequalities graphically. They did pretty well, but some of them looked like they were about to explode out of their skin. Toward the end, when I was trying to get their attention to explain the homework and what would happen when they got back from break, one of the students wouldn't sit down. I asked the class what would happen to him if he made me keep them past the bell. It didn't take long for him to sit down after that!

One other thing: presents. On the last day of school, there are always students who bring in Christmas presents for their teachers. Only a few students in high school still do this (I assume many more do in elementary school). The spirit behind this is really touching. Our families don't have to get us anything, and many don't have the budget for extra expenses. The presents are usually little trinkets like a box of candy or a bottle of hand lotion. This year, I received a few boxes of candy (the staff room is always piled high with open candy boxes during this time of year). One student gave me a mug filled with marshmallows (other staff later had to explain to me that it was a hot-cocoa making kit!). But my most interesting gift was from the student who gave me a plaid golf scarf and a set of XL men's thermal long underwear. A bit odd, but very sweet.

The year is over, but not the semester. When we get back from break, there will be a week of classes for review, and then final exams. I didn't get to finish my current unit, so I think I will actually have to give the unit test in the second semester, after the final exam. That will be a bit odd, but I haven't gotten the chance to teach students completing the square yet, and I think I can't chop that out.

I'm out of town now, visiting family in Cleveland and then St. Louis, and I probably won't be posting much more until the beginning of January. Happy holidays!