Reflections of a Techie

Forces in Water Bottle Rockets

I just submitted a donation request and am keeping my fingers crossed.

Force and Motion is the unit I'll be starting in April and know that to do is much better than reading.  I am hoping to  integrate the design, testing and analysis of water bottle rockets.  The thing is that some of the consumeable supplies are expensive....certainly recycled 2L bottles aren't. 

We'll see but I want to DO science...not just read about it.  I also think it will be a great way for my students to work on their graphing skills in science, testing and journaling their results.

First of several Pi or Pie Days

With only 3 days left before spring break, we thought it perfect time to celebrate math.  Heck we've been toiling away in test prep and they've gone about as "fer" as they can go. 

Our 6th graders teamed up today with 8th grade partners to explore that mysterious ratio of pi.  We started off by reading aloud from Sir Circumference....moaning at all the puns and enjoying the language.   Then we saranaded them (yes, lots of rolling eyes but when we realized we weren't quitting we were encouraged to sing verse 2) with Oh Number Pi . 

Next we looked at the phenonmenon by having them use 5 different sizes of cylinders and lids...cutting bits of string for the circumference and the diameter.  Comparing how many diameters it took to make one circumference.  Here was a place the 8th graders could help get things taped into their math journals.  Download circumference_activity.doc

Then we worked with Sticky Pi.  It's a very cool activity.  You get rolls of 1centimeter graph paper...so the paper is about 3 feet wide.  They create the independent axis by tracing the diameters of many containers.  Then the dependent variable, circumference, goes on the y axis.  Students showed circumference by taking masking tape and cutting a piece of tape that fit around the container...then they aligned that tape with the end of their diameter.  Amazingly, they showed a linear relationship...lining up.  This activity was fabulous because the 6th graders could benefit from seeing how it worked everytime and the 8th graders appreciated the nuance of the fact that the rate of change was about 3+ everytime.

The 43 minutes was far too short.

I liked collaborative 8th grade partners.  They really pitched in and helped our 6th graders...and I wasn't sure how that would go with almost 150 kids in the cafeteria all working on the same activity.  It was great.

Tomorrow is PIE day.  That will be great, too....much less waist friendly...but fun nevertheless.  We saved the rest of the read aloud to eat with our pie.

Reg Weaver's Lettter---By Any Other Name May Still have Thorns

Warning...I thought I had found an encouraging note, but was more of the same old, same old.  One of those eye catching side bars in the President's Viewpoint letter in the March, 2008 issue of NEA Today..."Too many teachers...have been denied professional pay for too long."

Hurray I thought.  He's finally going to take the jump and acknowledge the possibilities of pay for performance systems.

Wrong....after a flowery intro the article says..."Yet much of the conventional wisdom and public discussion about teacher pay is misleading"  (OK, I thought I agree with that) and then "The result is misguided policies that divert attention from addressing the root cause of teacher turnover and stagnant student achievement".  I know I'm a hopeless optimist because I know better than to read this letter because it usually just makes me mad.

What?   Later he says.."The question isn't how to differentiate pay between teachers.  The question is how to pay teachers a salary that encourages the creation of a great public school for every child".  And then he launches into a laundry list that sounds as apple pie as it can be but is really nothing more than dragging feet and throwing cold water on the idea of pay for performance.  At least in my opinion.

To me it IS about differentiating teacher pay.  It's about saying that we do not all do the same thing and that we cannot all be thrown together into one lump pile and paid as if we are interchangeable widgets. 

To me the question IS about differentiating pay so that every teacher can be compensated according to how well they do their job.  Because to assume that we are all the same just seems dumb to me.  We are not the same because our communities and students are not the same.  We sound foolish when we try to simplify this incredibly complex task down to getting more training and experience.  It's well beyond that.

That is the status quo.  It is where we pay teachers for staying in their position another year regardless of what they did with their students during that year.  It is the status quo where you get a pay raise because you completed graduate hours regardless of how useful or useless those hours are to your job. 

Wake up.  The status quo is not enough.  It's terrible.  It's why people are not coming into our profession, it's why they aren't staying and it's why I want to find other systems that will pay teachers according to how well they did their jobs.  Yes this system was a huge step forward for teachers but that was years and years ago.  It needs revamping and revitalizing.

Let's take a cue from the current political revolution that is going on right now. Regardless of which candidate you support, it's clear that democracy is alive and well if you can go around the entrenched machines and communicate with the grassroots.  I  think it's the dawn of a new era of politics and I hope teachers are at the front of the line ready to explain their position and explain their ideas.  Instead of having to talk through old world machines, it may be our opportunity to take the place at the policy making table and advocate for ourselves.

World Maths Day

Maths...not math.  Be clear about that.  It was the smallest of things that hooked my students into wanting to know more.

More.  That's a mild understatement.  World Maths Day was March 5, 2008 and we participated in a world wide celebration where students did math problems.  Not terribly fancy, but highly engaging.  Simple concept.  Students from around the world answered 182,455, 169 questions correctly on 3/5/08.  That's a lota math questions and it gives you a scope of what this was all about.

Student logs on with user id I created for them and is matched with 1 or 2 other students.  These students could be from the UK or India or Malaysia or ANYWHERE.  A big world map scans for other student at your level and then zooms in to match you up.  Feels like a roulette wheel and adds to the fun of the drill and practice.  When we were practicing, there was about 11,000 Mathletes online at any given time....as I've gone back and checked the website I still find anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 of them online practicing.

Then it's off....answering questions around the four biggies.  I mean addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of course.

My students answered 12,000+ during the warm up phase.  I had students from other teachers' classes asking me to create a log in for them so they could participate.  So it was definitely infectious.  Then when the calendar turned March 5th somewhere in the world the contest was on.  And stayed on until it was no longer march 5th anywhere in the world.

The class results page says that they answered 2, 173 questions correctly on March5th and that there was a 67.9% improvement in # of correct answers over the course of the day.  Honestly we would have answered more questions but we had internet connection issues and couldn't get online for a big chunk of the day.  One student improved 225%!!!!  boy that's a jump....makes you wonder how bad they were when they started!!!!

The big ah-ha for me was their enthusiasm to do rote math drills.  They loved it and they loved finding out who was their competition.  I heard them talking in halls, at lunch and after school about that "one kid from Australia" or "UB from the UK".  They had gotten to know some of the names and looked forward to matching up with them. 

Here's the simple power of the internet.  Take something we already know is important to do, something that is low interest for students on worksheets and turn it into something that is high interest and self-motivating.  I loved this.  Wish there was another maths day coming soon.