Home from Vacation :)

Do you ever have a whorlwind week that just exhausts you? :) If so, then you've been on vacation with my parents!!! I had to take naps and they were still going strong! (Mom is 71 and stepdad is 77)

Hubby and I went up on Friday night when he got off work and had a lovely dinner with my Dad/Stepmom before heading over to my Mom's house. Mom lives about an hour away from us and she wanted to leave Saturday morning at 4am to head to Wisconsin. My stepdad's sister lives there and is not in the best of health, so we wanted to make sure to see her while we still had the chance. As with all vacations, we had a couple of false starts before finally setting out about 4:45am. We drove for 11 hours total (plus pit stops and breakfast), arriving in Madison about 5:30pm. We went to see my aunt for a few minutes before checking into our hotel.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast, then it was off to the House on the Rock. I love this place! For $26, you can tour the entire grounds, including the world's largest carousel, the circus room, the streets of yesterday, the infinity room, etc. It is an amazing experience, but you are soon overwhelmed by all of the *stuff* that this guy collected. On the way home, I was worn out - we had spent about 5 hours touring through all of the grounds, so we stopped for dinner then did a bit of shopping. Madison has a 2-story Walmart, which was fascinating to me :) The first floor is a parking garage and you ride up an escalator to the store upstairs. When you come down to your car, there is even a escalator for your shopping cart... hubby wanted to keep riding that just for the cart fun :)

On Monday, we started our day with breakfast at Perkins, which is a neat diner-like chain with excellent food :) Then we were off to the aboretum (sp?) before going to Henry Vilas Zoo. The Zoo is in the middle of Madison, not too far from our hotel and is totally free. We did leave a donation of course! It was one of the best zoos I've ever been to! We spent about 3 hours there, then off to lunch at Culvers, which is a burger chain up there. Then we were off to Cave of the Mounds, just west of Madison for a tour. I have always been fascinated by caves - they are such geological marvels!

Tuesday, we started our day at Perkins once again, then off to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens and the Butterfly hatchery. Oh my goodness - what a GORGEOUS place! I could have spent all day in the gardens with a book and the waterfall beside me! Then off for a bit more shopping. On Sunday, when we had headed to the House on the Rock, we had noticed a cheese factory on the way, so we went to the Arena cheese factory to purchase some gifts. Since we were so close, we went to Talieson, which is Frank Lloyd Wright's homestead and took pictures of his home, the Midway farm, the Hillside school, and Unity Chapel, where he was orignally buried. His remains are no longer there, as his last wife's dying wish was for him to be buried in Arizona with her at Talieson West. Since the Talieson tour was $80/person, we stayed on county roads and took pictures from public access areas :)

Wednesday started the long trek back home. We left Madison at 5:30am and got back to Mom's about 6:00pm. Hubby and I pulled into our driveway about 7:30pm and totally exhausted. This weekend is a time for rest and school work :)

I will get pics uploaded as soon as I can! Between us and Mom, we took over 800 pictures this week!!!

I think I'm getting old because if I don't write it down....

This week, I've been reading various teacher forums and message boards (teachers.net and atozteacherstuff.com). One of the posts that commonly appears is about organization, lesson plan books, etc, so I decided to share my lesson plan book.

I have tried all sorts of commerical lesson plan books but they never worked for me. I needed an "agenda" of sorts to keep me organized - complete with lots of to-do list space, however I could never find one that fit my needs. (See Dan Meyer's blog dy/dan for more on to-do lists)

Thankfully, with the power of the internet, I was able to do some searching for agenda formats and piece together one of my own. I print out a year's worth (52 weeks) of these sheets, hole punch them and put them into a presentation folder - one of those that looks like a regular 3 prong folder w/ an acetate cover. Each week, the current sheet is on top, with older ones cycling to the back. I love this format because I have room for all of my to-do lists, appointment reminders, things that have to be done on a specific day, etc.

Two other must-haves for me organization-wise:
Printfree's yearly calendar - This is vital for me when dealing with pacing of my courses.
Monthly calendars for my students - I love these Word calendars because I can type my plans into them, print them out and hand them to my students for reference.

What do you use for organization?

P.S. - I had some more rambling thoughts last night but didn't want to make a new post :) So here they are...
I'm always on the lookout for new posters :) Here are some free printable ones if you have a color printer or you can save them off and take them to Kinko's to be enlarged...

Also, I really want to foster positive thinking in my classroom, so yesterday I found a you-tube video that I think I may show at the beginning of the year as kids are filling in their info sheets. I also thought about showing similar videos right before tests (during the passing period) to help the kids think positively. Any ideas??

Lack of Motivation....

I have 3 weeks until I report to school... however, due to changes at my school, I'm not quite positive of my schedule yet. I know I will have 1 hour of AP Stat at the HS, the uni class of Intro Stats, but I don't know yet how many Geometry classes I will have at the HS because I may have to take on an AVID elective class. With 3 weeks left in summer and lots of uncertainity, I have not been as productive as I should be :( I know I need to get things to the copy shop ASAP, but until I know how many sections of Geometry I will be teaching, it's difficult to send things to the copy shop because I don't know how many copies to make. Thankfully I redid all of Geometry last year, so I don't need a lot of prep time this summer to whip it into shape.

That all said, I am struggling with getting things done. The ideas in my head keep swarming and I can't make them stop. I spent some time last week brainstorming with a friend, but that just made the confusion in my head worse :) I hate having to pin down to an idea because a better one might come along soon.

To make matters worse, I have had a very disjointed summer - this past week and this next week are the first time all summer that I have been home for two weeks in a row. Today (Sunday) is the first weekend all summer that I haven't just returned from a trip or prepping to take a new one.

What I'm suffering from is due to lack of motivation.... not even the school supply aisle has cheered me up :) So, instead, I'm turning to you! Help me out - what new things are you doing in your classrooms this year? What ideas do you have to share with others?

Nose to the Grindstone...

It hit me yesterday... the kiddos come back in one (yes one!!!) month!! EEKKK!!!!! All together this summer, I have been gone for 3.5 weeks for staff development (and another week for meetings at my school), so it has been a very busy summer and I've not had a lot of down time overall. Starting this week, I am "home" for the rest of the summer (other than 5 days vacation w/ my family), so I'm trying to get things off my to-do list and sent to the copy shop.

One of my previous posts dealt with some changes I wanted to make. Since I value your opinions, I decided to post some of the changes as I get them finished....

First up is my previous notebook idea...
I knew I needed to come up with a rubric/grading sheet to help make life easier. I decided to modify my old assignment sheet and expand on it to list out the materials I wanted in their notebook and in the order I wanted it to appear. Here is a copy of the newly revised Unit 3 assignment sheet. I should also note that I decided to collect notebooks each unit rather than quarterly. This may end up being a hassle, but I'm willing to try it.

Since one of my goals this year is to work on study skills, I am requesting evidence of student note-taking as well as a summary sheet for each chapter that forces them to reflect on that chapter's material. The summary sheet is an adaptation/compilation of Power Notes from AVID plus I-can statements from a blog I read last week plus a bit of self-assessment and peer tutoring. I hope it works as well as it does in my head. heheh

I would love to hear your thoughts!! I look forward to your comments :)

A Week at a Glance

First I must apologize... I had planned to document the AVID summer institute, but I did not. We were busy from the time we got up til the time we went to bed. Morning strands (content areas) lasted from 8-12 each morning, then we met with our site teams in the afternoon. We had 8 people from our district on our site team, so after lunch each day, we met back at the hotel around 2pm to have our site team meeting. Typically these meetings lasted until 5ish, then we met for dinner around 5:30. Thankfully our hotel was within walking distance of the West End as well as the trolley to West Village and Uptown. While this was an exhausting week, I always come away feeling very energized for the new year. I love working with other teachers in my strand as well as my site team.


On Friday, our presenters had us write ourselves postcards, with one side decorated with a "mind map" of our week. On the other side, we wrote ourselves a note to remind ourselves of the ideas we had this week that we wanted to do next year. I thought it was a very neat way to finish out the week.

Now to leave you with some quotes from the workshop...
"If, as teachers of mathematics, we don't take the time to teach them [students] how to read a math textbook, no one else will" - Jim, presenter

"I'm a much better tutor in classes I don't know well because I question more. In math I have to bite my lip to not tell them the answer" - Jim, presenter

"If learning is not taking place, neither is teaching" - Keynote speaker

"If a student fails 2 classes, 1 of which is Algebra 1, they have an 80% chance of dropping out" - Keynote speaker

"There are no shortcuts to a place worth going" - Eddie, luncheon speaker

"Don't look down on someone else unless you are helping them up" - Eddie, luncheon speaker

As always, I appreciate you stopping in to read about my adventures. If you have the opportunity to go to an AVID summer institute, I encourage you to go. It is one of the most professionally rewarding experiences of my career. Now I'm home for a few days (yay) before going away for the holiday. Until next time, take care :)

Streetcar Named Matilda

Well, here we are at the AVID summer conference. We left the high school yesterday in 2 vans to venture down to Dallas, TX for the conference. Other than a short (ahem) detour (aka, we were LOST!), we made it here without too much drama. It was nice to visit (aka gossip) with other teachers from the school about the goings-on since Memorial Day.

Today, roomie and I got to sleep in (woohoo). There were optional meetings starting at 9:30am, but neither of us were required to be there, so we were able to use the time to sleep in, read, take a walk to Dallas's West End shopping district, etc, before going to register for the conference. After registering, a few of us visited while waiting on the keynote speaker. The keynote was presented by the super of Midland ISD and I felt his speech was very well done. Then it was off to the first site team meeting. Our district director (DD) split us into two groups. She kept the teachers that were new to the AVID program with her to learn about the background, our goals, etc. The remaining 2 teachers and myself have been involved in the program for a while and our goal was to define the curriculum for each grade level. We got a lot done, so we headed back to the hotel a bit early to type it up.

The hotel is a nice hotel in downtown Dallas - however, internet access costs $15.10 a day!!!! It is complimentary to the "president club members", so I quickly joined the (free) President's club and talked them into letting me have internet access now instead of on my next visit LOL!

We all met for dinner in the lobby and took a vintage streetcar named Matilda (built in 1927 in Australia) to the West Village for dinner. It was a delightful ride and I took pictures, but they haven't arrived in my email box yet :) We visited for a while at dinner, then took a different streetcar back to the hotel where it's now time to curl up with my book and crash...


Tomorrow we meet in the mornings for our "strands", which are content level (mine is math obviously), then another site team meeting in the afternoon. I am looking forward to the morning strand, I really learned a lot last year.

As with all adventures, I'll update you tomorrow :) Until then, have a great day!

More Rambling Thoughts...

Due to this summer's schedule, I am having to fit in school work whenever I can. My last day of school was May 27th, had the next day off, then meetings on the 29th and 30th. Got another few days off before leaving for the reading on June 4th. Got back into town June 12th and slept for a couple of days (seriously!), then I'm off this week. I leave again Sunday for another workshop and will be back on the 27th. The following week is the 4th of July and we'll head to the lake for the weekend, then I'll stay and work with my sister the next week, then I'm off for a couple of weeks before vacation with my family. Then it's August *sigh*. I'm tired just thinking about it!

Anyway, due to the craziness listed above, I'm working on school items at a somewhat leisurely pace, yet with the ticker in the back of my head counting down the days....

Since I now have a new homework policy (thanks ap-calc listserv!!) and have plans to teach how to read a textbook (a vital skill IMO), I then needed to figure out how to assess the notes.

Notebooks....
I've never had students turn in their binders mainly because it was rather intimidating to see 30 binders stacked on my desk. However, due to the note issue, I think I am going to have the AP stat kiddos turn in their binders 4 times a year (fall break, winter break, spring break, and after the AP exam). Each quarter then, I will assess their notebook for the material from that quarter. I want their binder organized in sections (Important Papers [syllabus, formula sheet, calendars, etc], Unit 0, Unit 3, Unit 1, Unit 2, ..., AP Review, etc...). Within each unit, the work should be in chronological order (assignment sheet, vocabulary list, chapter notes, chapter HW (which is of course optional), chapter handouts, chapter quiz/project, next chapter's stuff, test review). And.. instead of the "retake" idea for homework, I will have the HW in their binder be extra credit towards that quarter (which is such a small amount that it doesn't mean anything, but they seem to think it does! LOL). That means I will need a rubric and maybe a table of contents (?) for checking student organization. If you do a notebook in your class - can you share a rubric???

Late Work...
Another issue that annoys the heck out of me is late work. In the past, I have given my stat kiddos some control over this, but I've not found that it works too well. I had been giving them "late passes" that they could use when they needed to in order to turn something in late. Most kiddos though, try to abuse this policy, so this year I'm going back to what I do for my geometry classes. It is due the day it's due. If you turn it in 1 day late, it's automatic 80% credit, after that it's 50% credit. In Geometry, I actually go around and pick up paper from each student. If they don't have it, they fill out a form for me documenting why they don't have it ready on the due date. It works rather well in Geometry, so I'm going to give it a shot in AP.

Review Quizzes...
One of the mandates of my district are "Essential Elements"... which simply means we have to identify in each of our courses what we consider to be vital information. For several years, in AP, I've done vocabulary for these EE's. Another district mantra is "Don't give them permission to forget"... in other words, many kids simply "rent" the information for the test and don't really "own" it for the long term. Part of our district's goals is to make sure students retain for the long term, therefore our assessments are supposed to be cumulative. I do have some cumulative elements in my AP class, but not so much on assessments, so this year I am merging these two district goals into "Review Quizzes". Each week, I will give a RQ that has 5 vocabulary words and 5 AP-style multiple choice questions from anything we've covered so far. (Oh - and we have to do an item analysis on these for the purposes of remediation *g*).

and my last new change...

PODs...
For the past couple of years, I've done PODs (Problem of the Day). These have been multiple choice questions, but since I am putting the MC on the RQs, I am changing the PODs to be more conceptual type questions from their reading and lecture notes. For example:
1) Your classroom "buddy" was absent when we learned how to check for outliers in a dataset. Explain step-by-step how to do this process for your friend.
2) What is the main difference you should look for when determining if a probability distribution follows a binomial model or a geometric model?
3) How are segmented bar graphs related to the chi-square test for two-way tables?
4) Name some advantages and disadvantages to creating a stemplot.
5) If you need to take a sample of our HS population, describe a way that you could do this using a cluster sample.
etc....
Each Friday they will turn in their POD sheet and I will pick a random day to grade. I'm hoping this daily writing practice will help them in learning technical writing - which should help on tests, quizzes, and the AP exam.

Well, I think that's it for now... as always, if you have feedback, I'd love to hear it!