Resonate

I read almost exclusively non-friction books, often on topics relating to technology and academics. My latest reading is Nancy Duarte's Resonate. It guides presenters to give public talks using methods of storytelling. I am not as good of a storyteller as some of my friends or other teachers. I hope this book will give me some insight on this key skill.

(image from http://blog.duarte.com/)

Studying

On two separate occasions on Friday, I chatted with two staff members (one administrator and one groundskeeper) at school who expressed their concerns for their respective 15-year-old son's academic progress. From what I know of these two guys, my guess is that they are both great fathers, so I asked them why that is the case. Each agreed that the variable is laziness. I asked them both what they did as parents to address that, they both admitted that they got angry with their sons, and had a serious talk with them.

Last week, a counselor said that a lot of students don't know how to study. I didn't say anything at the time, but I think we shouldn't equate not studying with not knowing how to study. Ultimately, I think effort goes a long way. We are each responsible for our own efforts and motivation.

(image from Lulu Blog)

Success

I shared this 3-minute TED video with my students.

Happy Bidding

I bought about a dozen scientific calculators last year to reach a class set of 36 calculators. I didn't bother doing a check-out system, and as a result, a few were sadly lost and vandalized. I think I have only about 28 remaining. It is frustrating, the calculators aren't cheap. To do the trigonometry section, I wanted the students to use calculators and not charts. I have recently been bidding on used machines on eBay, trying to buy at a lower price. Hopefully, I can keep my class set throughout this year.

Wannabes...

I did a quick game of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" with my AP Stats class recently to review key concepts. Games are fun; when done appropriate, they help engage students. Teachers need to be mindful, however, of the academic nature of that the activity. It's perfectly okay to play a game, but don't force a lesson into a game (or vice versa) without a purpose.

Staff Development

Our faculty had an ambitious agenda today. In addition to several all-staff meetings, there were three 40-minute time slots during the day, each with three workshop options that allowed teachers to choose. I attended a SnapGrade introductory workshop by Mr. D. and Mrs. H. They are both excellent teachers, two of my favorites, in fact. Their session went well, and I learned the availability of a powerful tool. I attended a Cornell-Notes session during the second slot. Having heard about this technique for a long time, it was nice to see an expert (Mr. V.) demonstrate the spirit behind this note taking technique. Lastly, I went to a Poll Everywhere workshop. Mrs. L. showcased a website that allows the audience to text answers to a site, which instantaneously displays the polling.

While I learned something new in each of the three wonderful workshops, I was still very frustrated throughout the entire day. I feel that it was extremely unproductive. Aside from the three workshops, all of the other information can be presented in a much shorter time. I understand that the spirit of the staff development is to sharpen teachers' skills. Nonetheless, having heard from many other teachers' comments, we really feel that Staff Development Days are painful and drain our spirits. One teacher posted on Facebook: "I hate staff development days!!! The only thing I develop is a headache!"

I shall just move on and focus on my work. When the time comes again, I strive to provide teachers with a valuable session that is worthy of their time and attention.

Staying Focus

More than ever, I am trying to focus on my own work. Speak no evil, hear no evil. We concluded the first five weeks of the school year. Everything has gone very smoothly, I am blessed with wonderful students. This is only the beginning, though. I read an article about Kobe Bryant visiting UC Irvine's athletes for an interview. During the interview, he was quoted as saying: "Rest at the end, not in the middle."

What's His Face?

This is one of my proudest lesson components that I created. A picture is on PowerPoint is placed behind squares with math problems on them. Students must answer the problem correctly before the squares are removed. It's a silly game, but it gets students' attention. I recall the afternoon that I come to this idea. Using PowerPoint 2003, it took me around four hours to build this activity on the computer.

Back to School 2010

From 6:30pm to 8pm, teachers get 10 minutes to present our class to parents and guests each period. I used this opportunity to share some of my teaching philosophies and teaching methods. This year, in addition to reusing some of the slides from the past, I emphasized on my new developments in using the TI-Nspire. I demoed some of the programs to show guests its powerful features. During the last session, I visited a fantastic presentation by a science teacher during my prep period. Very inspired.

TI-Nspire Debut

The TI-Nspire is a very powerful teaching/learning tool. After attending a three-day training over the summer, I gain an understanding of its capabilities and its operating system. I will use it in my stats class to visually explore our first quiz's results. There are many resources online for further TI-Nspire exploration which I strive to incorporate in my lessons.

Link Crew Follow Up

I had the pleasure of attending the Link Crew follow-up training this past Thursday. It was a seven-hour event. I arrived very early to the beautiful Laguna Hills. I studied and read for about 40 minutes at the quiet second floor lobby of The Hills Hotel. BoomerRang Project's Carolyn Hill hosted an energetic event. She proved again that she is an agent for positive change.

Throughout the whole process, however, I have the following thought: the success of programs like Link Crew is essentially contingent on the failure of the public educational system. If the educational system is good, defined as providing what students need, then there would not be any demands for programs like Link Crew, AVID, or THINK Together. My analogy is that the public school system is a pipeline. Our students are the precious water, leaking ever so rapidly from this pipe. These supportive programs, fantastic as they are, attempt to catch the leaking water. How can we measure our success or progress as educators? Catching a full glass of leaking water? Or having no leaking water?

Made a Mistake

So far, I feel pretty good about the content of AP Stats. Truth be told, I've studied it many times and for countless hours on my own. Additionally, I've taught/tutored it numerous times. I still made a mistake today, however. I said that the sum of the deviations will always add up to zero. While this is true for a distribution of data, it doesn't work out in a frequency table. My student, Valerie, pointed it out during the lesson. And I'm glad she did. Gotta be more careful next time.

An Old Machine

On Saturday, I finished cleaning the 15 old calculators left behind by a retired teacher. I was able to revive four of them. Three of them are TI-83 Pluses, and surprisingly, the lone TI-82 is also in working condition. In this era of handheld devices, the TI-82 an ancient model. I'm not sure if its operations are suitable for AP Stats, but it's nice to see its durability.

AP Statistics Teacher

Two weeks in the books, and it still feels a bit surreal that I'm teaching statistics. It's been a dream of mine for about a decade and it feels a bit spooky that it's going so smoothly. So far, I've covered graphical displays, measures of center, and measures of spread. I am blessed with some amazing students.

A retired teacher left us with about 15 TI-83+ graphing calculators. They were not well maintained and are now in horrible shape. Many had broken screens and the battery compartments are rusted with leaked battery acid. It was a little upsetting to see such valuable resources go to waste. I spent a good amount of time this morning cleaning and restoring the conditions of these calculators. Luckily, I was able to revive a couple of them. I will go in again tomorrow to see what I can do with the rest. A portion of my students don't have graphing calculators, so hopefully, I'll be able to get a couple more TI-83's to work.

I am reminded of my uncle who would clean up old cameras that he discovers at antique shops, as the art of photography is his passionate hobby. Teaching is my art and these calculators are the brushes for my students.

TI-SmartView

This year, I face a new challenge of teaching three different classes. I have Geometry, Algebra II, and AP Statistics. I appreciate this assignment. While I don't feel that I'm at my highest spirits, I strive to continue to improve. Today, I incorporated TI-SmartView during statistics. Later in the year, I hope to be able to throw in a few demonstrations of the TI-Nspire and UCLA's online resources.