Exponential Functions, Percents, NJHS, CS4All, Big Apple Award Nomination

It seems like just yesterday it was summer vacation, and now here we are, with holiday music playing.  Fellow teachers, we have made it to Thanksgiving week!  Looking over my plans from last December, I really enjoyed what I was doing with my classes last year.  Since my pacing is a little different this year, I'm not in the same place as last year, but I think I can make it work.

8th Grade Algebra 1 & Exponential Functions

Currently, my 8th grade Algebra 1 students are wrapping up their unit on exponential functions, which I have really enjoyed this year.  In addition to the Lunar Rover project, they investigated Decaying Dice, Paper Folding, Human Population Growth, How to Survive a Zombie Attack(which didn't go as smoothly as I had planned, and are currently working on their final project, where they are analyzing data from five regions affected by the Zika virus, including total population, number of infected people, and weekly growth rate, (1) come up with a mathematical model for the growth of the virus, (2) determine the critical point when half the population could be infected, and then (3) choose a country/region that they feel should receive aid over the other countries and write a formal persuasive letter to the US government with at least three pieces of evidence supporting their argument.  I got it from my Math for America Social Justice PLT.  I launched it yesterday, and they will be working on it next week, and every student was engaged!  I launched it with this video, then we did a notice and wonder looking at a bar graph and scatter plot of Zika data, and then they began their work with their tables, coming up with their models & discussing implications of their models.  I love the cross curricular & social justice connections and am looking forward to reading their letters.  This project is new to me, but I already know it will be one of my favorites of the year.  After Thanksgiving we begin quadratics.

7th Grade & Percents

My field trip to the Museum of American Finance with my 7th graders last week was fun.  I wasn't totally happy with how the Illustrative curriculum was going with percents, so I decided this week they would work on this Store Sales & Profit Analysis project, and they loved it!  Engagement was high and I was able to check in with students one-on-one and address misconceptions as they were coming up.  I had done a modified version of this last year, but added to it this year and love how it came out.

Next week, they are working on their Hourly Wage project (which I do with my 7th graders every year) only this year I took out the suggested careers (because I feel like in the past it has limited them) and they are going to be researching their own, picking one, modeling it mathematically, and calculating hot long they would make in a day, week, year, and how long they would have to work to purchase various things.  I like that I made it more personal this year as it seems to really hook this class.  After Thanksgiving, we will do a little work with similar figures, and then begin our unit on expressions and equations.

NJHS

This week, we begin sharing info about our new NJHS chapter with our students.  This our first year and I am the chapter advisor.  I was happy that so many students were showing interest.  We just wrapped up the first marking period, and will be using cumulative averages from marking periods 1 & 2 to begin looking at students to invite.  I am really glad that we have been able to bring this program to our school this year.

Memory Makers

I love my elective.  These past couple of weeks, we have been working on making cards & posters showing our gratitude for the people in our lives (friends, family, teachers, etc...).  After Thanksgiving, we will be shifting our focus more on working on the school yearbook (which I am also the adviser for and is new to me this year) and I know things will get busy fast, but I think it will be fun.  I have a good group of students, who are creative, and I know will do an awesome job making the yearbook great. 

CS4All Hack League

This morning I attended a PL for the CS4All Hack League by Games for Change and the Institute of Play and is part of NYC's Computer Science for All initiative.  Myself and the programing teacher at my school went, and even though I was out of my element, I had a great time and learned a lot and am looking forward to supporting him in running a Hackathon at our school next month.  Even though our school isn't fully a part of CS4All, it's nice to be a part of both Computer Science for All and Algebra for All.

Big Apple Award Nomination

Lastly, I was very honored to be nominated for the Big Apple Award this week!  I have never been nominated before, and it was a nice little surprise.  Even if I am not invited to actually apply for it (I'll find out in the winter if I am), I felt very appreciated.

November Updates

I can't believe that it's been almost a month since I have written on here.  In the graph of the typical emotional pattern teachers go through every school year, we are almost out of survival mode and heading into disillusionment (yay! not)  I actually can't complain too much.  I am feeling mostly pretty good about this school year so far.  Here are some things that have been going on in my classroom these past few weeks...

• My 7th graders asked if we could continue our Stock Market Challenge on HowtheMarketWorks.  They have really gotten into it, and I am happy that I decided to go with this tool this year.  This week we will go on our first field trip to the Museum of American Finance, which I haven't been to before.  Since doing a stock market project with my 7th grade classes, I have always wanted to plan a trip somewhere too, so I'm glad these are going together.  I will let you know how it goes, the next time I post.
• My current unit with my 7th graders is all on ratios, rates, percents, and proportions, and I've never fully been happy with how CMP3 works with percents in 7th grade,  so this year I have been supplementing the Illustrative Math curriculum 7th grade work with percents, and, as with all new resources, it's taken some time to flow well.  We have adjusted and gotten into a flow in my 7th grade class, and I think the resources have great potential, so we'll see.
• I am really enjoying 8th grade Algebra 1 this year.  The lessons and projects have been going smoother (last year was my first year teaching Algebra 1) and I am really having fun with it.  Last week, as part of our exponential function unit, my students investigated decaying dice and today they started a project on paper folding to (theoretically) reach the moon (there is also a great TED Ed lesson on this).  I hope to wrap up this unit by having my students analyze the spread of the Zika Virus, as part of my social justice PLT a Math for America.
• I've been using Examplars' Classic 3-Level Math Rubric a lot this year too,  which I am proud of.  I've never really been good with using rubrics in the past, but this one has been working out well.  My 8th graders are really familiar wth it at this point, and I hope to keep using it for projects this year.
• Math Chat Fridays has been going well.  I am so proud of my 8th graders who have already signed up to present.  We have had four students present so far, with two more this week, and the next few weeks have been filling up.  I started Math Chat Fridays after collaborating with the former Living Environment teacher at my school (and fellow MfA Master Teacher) and they are modeled after our own MfA interviews.  Students sign up to do a 10 minute presentation on something that the have done outside research on connected to math. Students have presented on Dr. Who and Probability, non-Euclidean geometry, ties in Olympic swimming (using decimals), and Pascal's Triangle.  Tomorrow's presentations are on cryptography and proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem.  The awesome part is that this isn't mandatory, and students are doing this work on their own.  Any student who presents does get extra credit, so it's a pretty sweet deal, but it's really inspiring to see them talk about complex topics that they find interesting.  This is something I don't think I would have been able to do in middle school, so I am really proud of them.
• I am almost consistently caught up with grading, which is so much better than I was last year, so yay me!
• The NJHS Faculty Council and I are all done writing our Chapter bylaws.  This is the first year of our chapter and my first time in the role of advisor, but I am really pleased with the work we have done so far this year.  We will begin selecting members after the 2nd marking period end in January.  I am so grateful for the other teachers who have helped get the ball rolling on this project and I think we will have a great year with it. 

Unfortunately that's all I have time to write about now.  Hopefully I'll be able to catch up again soon!