ED 7718 Reflection of Unit Plan

     I really enjoyed being able to share my plan with other teachers on Wednesday night.  Most of the time when I am planning out a lesson, I just try it out and see the after effects.  This was a nice way to see what may or may not happen before I even try the ideas out.  An even nicer piece is that one of my "critical friends" is also a mathematics teacher so she could give me some real insight on what I might get from the students.

     My group was very kind about giving me ideas of what was missing from my lesson.  My unit plan is to run a total of 4-5 days.  I have a rubric for the "culminating" project but they helped me see that I did not have rubrics written out for any of the other assignments.  Therefore, I plan to add these rubrics into my unit plan.

     I also was able to talk about the fact that I would like my students to blog at the end of the unit, but I am not sure that they will be able to because of the access to the blogging sites.  Therefore, I tried to see if there were any other options I could look into where the students would be able to comment on the unit.

     I did enjoy the us of "critical" friends as they helped me realize I need to be clearer in my expectations of what I am asking for.  This has helped me look at my unit plan in a different light and I plan to tweak it before I teach the unit to my students.

Geometry-Parallel Line Unit Plan

High School Geometry and Online Reading Comprehension Unit Plan

Online Reading Comprehension Unit for High School Geometry

Online Reading Comprehension and the Math Classroom

Math online reading comprehension can be used in any mathematics classroom.  The following is a unit that can be used for Geometry.  This unit is designed to integrate online reading comprehension into a lesson from Geometry that may not usually use Online Reading Comprehension.

Geometry Unit Plan:

Parallel Lines, Transversals, Common Angles, and Online Reading Comprehension

Overview and Day 1:

This unit will focus primarily on a re-introduction to parallel lines.  Students will have already learned about parallel lines in a previous chapter, but we will now incorporate transversals and the angles that are formed from these lines and transversals.  The students will be required to complete online research using online reading comprehension strategies.

Students will use the internet to complete a series of questions relating to the definitions of parallel lines and transversals. Day 1-Defining Parallel Lines Using the Internet Questionnaire

Materials Needed for Day 1:

• Each student will need a computer with access to the Internet
• Parallel Line Definition Sheet

Day 2:

Students will use Geometer’s Sketchpad, a program designed for geometry curriculum, to draw two parallel lines and a transversal.  They will then measure the angles that are formed from these three lines.  Day 2-Geometer's Sketchpad Activity on Parallel Lines

Once the students have measured the eight angles that are formed from the parallel lines and transversal, the class with discuss how the angles are related.  They form Alternate Interior Angles (equal), Alternate Exterior Angles (equal), Corresponding Angles (equal), and Same-Side Interior Angles (supplementary).

At the end of class, the teacher will discuss with the students how these lines and angles will relate to tomorrow’s lesson and how they will use the internet for their searching.   The students’ assignment for homework will be to use what they learned in class and apply it to parallel lines and measurements on their own.  Day 2-Angles formed by Parallels Homework Assignment

Materials Needed for Day 2:

• Each student will need a computer equipped with Geometer’s Sketchpad

• Parallel Line Question/Information Sheet
• Parallel Line worksheet

Day 3:

On Day Three, students will be using Google Earth and Google Maps to find two parallel streets in their town that are parallel and are intersected by a third street which we call the transversal.  

The students must find their streets and have them approved by the teacher.  This must be printed out in class so that the students can reference it in the future.  There are many streets that will fall under these definitions, so the students need to look carefully for streets that fall under this category.

Once the students have found their streets, they must then zoom into the map to find the landmarks that are located at the eight “corner” angles that are created by the two parallel lines and the transversal. Parallel Line Project Outline

Materials Needed for Day 3:

• Each student must have a computer with Internet access
• Access to Google Earth/Google Maps

Day 4:

Students will complete the conversion from Google Earth to their own version in class using online tools.  In the past I have given students a choice of:  

• Drawing streets neatly on construction paper using color and decoration
• Using a computer to draw the diagram
• Constructing a three dimensional model to portray the diagram.

This year, I want the students to use technology to increase their overall reading comprehension and skills.  The students can use a variety of tools such as their own blogs, websites, prezi, coggle, microsoft word or publisher, or any other tool approved by the teacher.Day 4- Parallel Line Project Rubric

Materials Needed for Day 4:

• All students need access to computer with internet
• Use of online tools for creation of new map
• Final Project Rubric
• Teacher needs access to email for students to send projects.

To conclude the unit, students will work on a short essay that they will then share to a class blog where other students will be able to comment.  This essay is a chance for the students to reflect on the unit.  I would like the students to provide feedback to myself as well as their peers.

Common Core

The following Geometry Common Core standards will be addressed within this lesson:

Transformations and the Coordinate Plane

CC.9-12.G.CO.1 Know precise definitions of angle, circle, perpendicular line, parallel line, and line segment, based on the undefined notions of point, line, distance along a line, and distance around a circular arc.

CC.9-12.G.GPE.5 Prove the slope criteria for parallel and perpendicular lines and use them to solve geometric problems (e.g., find the equation of a line parallel or perpendicular to a given line that passes through a given point).

Congruence, Proof and Constructions

CC.9-12.G.CO.9 Prove theorems about lines and angles. Theorems include: vertical angles are congruent; when a transversal crosses parallel lines, alternate interior angles are congruent and corresponding angles are congruent; points on a perpendicular bisector of a line segment are exactly those equidistant from the segment's endpoints.

Students may use geometric simulations (computer software or graphing calculator) to explore theorems about lines and angles.

Week Six Discussion Response EDUC 7718 (Paskov)

1.   Conversation, discussion, presentation.    What are they and how do they appear in your professional life?    If you were to diagram the power relationships in each of them,  what would the diagrams look like?     Which are technology-enhanced and which technology impeded?   Is there anything about the current status and role of these in your present professional situation that you would like to change?

In my professional life, conversation, discussion, and presentation appear every day.

As teachers, I think that these three items are crucial to our profession in order to continue the day to day process of teaching.  Without conversation among students, colleagues and parents we would be unable to complete our lessons.  Without daily discussions, the students would be left confused and without presentation, they would be left to teach themselves.  Therefore, we need these items to continue on our daily lives as educators.

Conversation:

In my school we have ninth grade teams.  I am a part of one of them.  Each week I meet with the other ninth grade math teachers to converse about the curriculum and where we all are in the subject matter.  We are currently formulating pre and post tests to collect data for our students so that we can pinpoint the weak areas that we can try to overcome in the upcoming years.  

We are taking are previously made district made Common Formative Assessments (CFA’s) and pulling out the most important topics.  From these topics we are formulating multiple choice questions for the students to answer.  From these pre and post tests, we hope that students will increase their scores by  at least two questions.  We have created a Google Doc to collect this data across the curriculum for all of the teachers so that we can visualize the difference in scores amongst all of the subjects.  This is a nice way to offer conversation as well as discussion of why the students are not performing as well as they should.

Discussion:

Being on the ninth grade team gives me team meeting time each day.  We use this time to discuss plans for struggling students or students with behavior issues.  We meet with parents, students, guidance counselors, and administrators to help get these students on the right track for their ninth grade year.  

As we discuss students we access their grades and attendance issues on a large screen projector and analyze them as a team.  This then gives us an idea as a “team” of teacher where the student are struggling and how we can approach their weaknesses.   I think that this particular part is technology enhanced.  Without the technology of PowerSchool, we would not be able to view the students’ schedules and grades.  Technology gives us the upper hand and lets us be one step ahead of the students so that we can bring them in and speak to them before their troubles worsen.

Presentation:

There are many different times where teachers present to other teachers using the new technologies that have been given to our school.

As I read through Turkle’s readings I realized that many of us are falling in to this category of always being online.  I am completely guilty of one of those teachers that attends a faculty meeting or team meeting and has me cell phone on my side checking emails and text messgaes throughout the majority of the meeting.  As Turkle stated, “Parents say they are more stressed than ever as they try to keep up with email and messages.  They always feel behind.” (Turkle, page 164)  I often feel the same way.  I teach five classes right in a row since my conference period falls in the morning period.  Sometimes administration or other teachers get upset with me because I did not respond to an email in an efficient and timely manner.  I try to get back to my colleagues as quickly as I can but I am certainly pressed for time as I am constantly teaching and do not have time to check email all of the time. Some  teachers have their school email sent directly to their mobile devices, but that is an option that I have decided to not choose at this time.

Checking phone messages is a whole other topic.  In our school, we do not have phones in our classrooms so we are to share phones with the other 100 teachers in the school.  There are about five phones that we can use amongst the faculty.  This leads to late responses and upset parents.

2.  Feedback.    Please describe what sort of feedback you want from me.   I am trying to challenge your thinking with the comment feature running throughout the text, but that forces you into Google docs.-- a limitation, ----while the global comments features in the other formats don’t seem detailed enough to me.   Maybe it’s my age: I am missing the private conversations before after and during  face to face classes.  What are your thoughts and suggestions?

I really enjoy getting feedback from you in the form of Google Docs.  I think perhaps this is the reason I continue to use Google Docs.  You are very descriptive with your feedback and your grading.  Your feedback is timely and well organized.  You do not simply use the rubric as a guide, you actually complete it as a chart.  This is helpful for me to see where I went wrong and what I could fix.

It is interesting to find out that as we struggle with using different mediums in our coursework, you are struggling with different mediums as you leave us feedback.  I personally think that the choice of using Google Docs really works well as a place for leaving comments and you can then attach the rubric.  However, if we branch into different mediums, leaving a comment becomes very detailed and can not be left at each point.  It is a possibility to continue to provide the feedback rubric in a Google Doc even though we may be using different mediums?

My choice of medium

This week I have chosen to post my response on my blog.  I wrote my response in Google 

Docs first so that I could make sure everything was in proper placement.  Google Docs is 

something that I have grown accustomed to, but I wanted to try to use a different medium as 

suggested for this week’s response. I will be interested to see how feedback is left in this format.    

My New Website!!!

I decided to try to work on my digital hub a bit tonight.  I just got curious as to what some sites look like and then I started to fiddle around a bit.  I ended up getting more involved in it than I thought.  I created a site within Google Sites since all of my information is in Google.  I have created a Classroom website that I am going to try to use through my school.  The website address is below:

https://sites.google.com/site/mathwithpaskov/home


It is a very rough draft of what I would like to see in my website as I have not uploaded a syllabus or submitted my claases that I teach or their assignments, but it has some bones to it.  I am looking forward to working on it more and more.