Sunday, September 16, 2012

New Blogger Initiative - Week 4

Welcome to the fourth and final week of the New Blogger Initiative. Over the past month, we have met so many new math bloggers and I am so happy to have been involved in this project! Thank you to Sam and Julie for getting this project off the ground!

Now it's time to introduce you to my last batch of new bloggers. Please take a moment, visit their blogs, and leave a comment for them.

Kristin - Hoppe Ninja Math Teachers Blog

Kristin (@kristinabc123) has a blog named "Hoppe Ninja Math Teacher Blog". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "Search and Shades" and the author sums it up as follows: "Search and shades are great for practice, reviewing, and remediation. I've bought the books and made my own!"

A memorable quotation from the post is: "I love Search and Shades, and most of the kids do, too."

My thoughts... Wow! I have used the "quilt block" books before, but I've never thought about sitting down and making my own. A huge thank you to Kristin for sharing these very cool worksheets!

Rebecka Peterson - Epsilon-Delta

Rebecka Peterson (@RebeckaMozdeh) has a blog named "Epsilon-Delta". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "Writing Piece-wise Functions" and the author sums it up as follows: "I stole ideas from Maggie and Bowman to review my Pre-Calc students on peice-wise functions and function transformations. We had some great ah-ha moments, and students did better on this standard than I've ever seen them do on previous tests."

A memorable quotation from the post is: "Success! Finally!"

My thoughts... Rebecka's post comes at a perfect time for me as I'm smack dab in the middle of piecewise functions in Algebra 2. It's also a perfect tie in to practice the parent functions and transformations that we've done recently. I love how the blog-o-sphere does my lesson plans for me!

Mr. Carby - Change Over Time

Mr. Carby (@NateilCarby) has a blog named "Change Over Time". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "Favorite Classroom Phrases" and the author sums it up as follows: "A brief glimpse into how I communicate with my students. I'm a little rough around the edges. I'll get it right one day."

A memorable quotation from the post is: "I understand what you're saying, but then I don't understand what you're saying"

My thoughts... I have to agree with Mr. Carby about the memorable quotation. That one is my favorite on his list as well :) I think I might try this with my students. I think it could be very telling to ask the students what my common phrases are.

Bruce Ferrington - Authentic Inquiry Maths

Bruce Ferrington (@BruceFerrington) has a blog named "Authentic Inquiry Maths". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "The Difference Between Area and Perimeter" and the author sums it up as follows: "Kids get easily confused about the difference between area and perimeter. So I asked them to give me some ideas about how to avoid confusing the two very different concepts.."

A memorable quotation from the post is: "Seems just about every text book you open introduces area and perimeter at the same time and from my experience this often leads to confusion for the kids."

My thoughts... This is the second time recently that I've read about the confusion with similar concepts when they are presented at the same time. I think I will definitely have to be more careful about this as I teach concepts throughout the year.

Carey Lehner - I Am A Teacher. This Is My Journey

Carey Lehner (@careylehner) has a blog named "I Am A Teacher. This Is My Journey.". The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled "Our PLC Group" and the author sums it up as follows: "This post describes the PLC goals that our group has this year."

A memorable quotation from the post is: "I am looking forward to improving my teaching and hopefully that will impact student learning. I believe this PLC group will allow me to do this."

My thoughts... Carey is the second person recently to recommend the book Embedded Formative Assessment. This book was already on my Wish List, but it just moved further up the list. Thanks Carey!

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