A Day in My Life as a Teacher

Week 1 of the 2016 Blogging Initiative!

We often get caught up in our day teaching, and often don’t take the time to be in the present. So we have two options that with that goal in mind. Choose whichever floats your boat and blog about it!

Option 1: We rarely take the time to stop and smell the roses. Even on the most disastrous of days, good things happen. And these good things, when you’re on the lookout for them, pop up. All. The. Time. So for one day (heck, do it for many days), keep a lookout for the small good moments during your day and blog about them. We bet that by keeping an eye out for the good, your whole day will be even better!

Option 2: A few years ago, some people in the #MTBoS wanted to share what their teaching lives were like. Partly because we all work in different schools, and so we wanted to get a glimpse of our friends-in-action. At the same time, we also wanted to battle against the idea that teaching is easy. We wanted to share what it is like to be a teacher with non-teachers! So we all blogged about a single day of teaching — from start to finish. So for the first week of the blogging initiative, we thought you blogging about a day in your lives would be a great way to start getting to know each other!

Okay a blog post all about a day in the life of a math teacher - how exciting! (LOL). Certainly easy to write as I've lived it. So yesterday January 11, 2016. 

5:20 AM Phone alarm goes off (I've got to find new wake up music - this is sooo annoying). No snooze for me, this is the latest I can sleep....

5:25 - 6:40 Shower, get dressed, feed the cat, make my morning smoothie (today it's a healthy caramel apple smoothie) & assemble my lunch and then head to school.

6:50 Arrive at school - check my mailbox and head up to the third floor to my classroom.

7:00 Students start arriving, one in particular from my Applied Algebra class for extra help on what he missed last class (others are there for my first block class with quick questions about the test they'll be taking once class starts). 

7:33 to 8:55 -  First block - PreCalculus.  We're having a test on unit 3 "Circular Functions". After the test students are working on mid-term exam review (they have an outline of topics with suggested review problems in their textbook) and their graphing calculator design project (which I promise I'll be blogging about soon - such a GREAT project). While students take their tests I correct their study guides (mostly just for completion but some perusal for correctness).  After the test I walk around and give assistance on projects. One student is making the slinky dog from toy story and needed help with the functions for the feet. 

She decided to use log functions and I was helping her with the transformations to get them in the right position in her image (she had already established the stretches and reflections needed but couldn't get the shifts exactly as she wanted). I will include her final result in my pending blog post about this project.

9:05 to 10:29 Second block class - Algebra One. This class also has an assessment. Unit 5 end of unit quiz. It's a short unit, only one week. Focus is on creating scatter plots and trend lines (by hand & using graphing calculator) and analyzing the results (linear regression, interpolation, extrapolation, correlation, causation?, outliers & influential observations). We go over the homework first (basically I check to see if there are questions - I post the homework answers on my website so I don't have to read all the answers. Students have to check their answers but only about 1/3 of the class did). After the assessment students work on their midterm exam packet and I start to answer questions. We got through a little review of unit 1 (sequences) and students told me things they had questions on so I could prepare some problems for next class. Exams are coming up this Thursday.

10:35 to 11:03 I actually went to lunch with the math department today! I usually only make it about once a week but things are a little lighter this week with exams coming up (no lessons to really prepare until classes start again on January 21). The big talk in lunch was about powerball lotto - the jackpot is huge this Wednesday, over a billion $! So of course everyone is buying tickets and/or contributing to a pool. I wish I had time to go to lunch more often but often use that half hour to get a few things done (use bathroom, run copies, clean up classroom and set up for next class on A days). So today was a treat to hang out and talk with grown-ups.

11:08 to 12:20 This block is my prep block for the day. A nice long prep I know. I usually devote my prep to parent communication & planning. We don't have textbooks for Algebra & Geometry at this points so we are creating materials for our classes. Since I've been teaching my Algebra Ones for a few years I have a lot of materials created but I'm always tweaking them. I save all my correcting for outside of school (at home in evenings or weekends). Today I had to do some exam modification work for my Applied Algebra class. It's a small class but 12 out of the 14 students have an IEP (individualized education plan) that calls for a variety of modifications. In general I create all the materials for the class so that the modifications are covered and everyone gets them. But then I have to create packets for the "exam proctors" - most of the students start/take the exam in an alternative setting. So I organized that. And finished sending out exam materials to my math department coordinator. And gathered data on my latest assessments in Algebra One (unit 4 test and performance task) for my coordinator. And took care of some parent contact tasks. Checked email. And double checked what cupcake recipe I'm going to use for the cupcake baking contest our faculty does at a faculty luncheon the first day of exams. This year I'm going with Lemon Meringue Cookie Cups.

12:20 to 12:32 set up my classroom for my next class. This is my Applied Algebra One class and I have a special seating set up for them. I put 15 desks around in a squared off horseshoe facing the main whiteboard with three smaller groups of desks behind them. We start in the main horseshoe to go over homework and have general whole class discussion. then the smaller groupings are used for independent or group work. Generally my classroom is set up with 6 groups of 5 desks each. But I learned this class needed the horseshoe set up to help them with focus and attention. It works really well with them and once they can work independently on a concept they can move to a "table" grouping. Some stay in the horseshoe grouping the whole time because they need constant monitoring. I have a teacher's aid in that class. He's great but doesn't know the math so I give him answer keys with my lesson plan. I work more closely with the kids who need that constant one-on-one while he just monitors that the rest of the students are staying on task and checking answers.

12:38 to 2:00 Last block of the day - my Applied Algebra One class. Today we wrapped up the "rate of change" concept with a quick review of the homework and a quiz. Then we came back as a full group to review more for the exam. Today we focused on unit 2 expressions & equations.

2:00 to 2:15 Run down to guidance to check in with a counselor about a students, stop by the mailboxes to distributed the Applied Algebra One exam packets to the special ed teachers.

2:15 to 3:15 Math Department Meeting - today we learned more about the whole school SATs that we are just starting in CT as our high school "standardized test". All juniors will take the SATs on March 2. So we learned about the logistics of that schedule. And talked about the PSATs (all 10th & 11th graders took that in October and scores are out) and how we can help students use information about their scores to guide their SAT preparation. I'll be spending more time on learning more about the new SATs & using collegeboard.com and Khan academy in my classroom on our next PD day February 12th.

3:15 to 3:30 head home

3:30 to 5:00 some home "stuff" including a 30 minute fitness walk around the neighborhood. Brrr it was cold - in the mid-30s with a lot of wind. Gotta do my exercise to keep up on #FitBoS! 

5:00 to 6:00 some correcting of quizzes. Not much time to do this tonight as I have book group later and I'm hosting. Most of the food is all partially prepped but once book group starts I won't get any more work done. So I didn't get much done.

6:00 - 10:00 set up, book group 7 to 9:30 and clean up. Our book was The Nightingale. 

10:00 to 11:00 read to unwind, then finally to bed (to start all over again the next day....)

Pretty busy, but probably pretty boring to read about. This was a lighter day really because of midterm exams coming up and not having to do much prep right now. Fortunately with exams we get the afternoons "free" (no students) so we can correct exams and I get a lot of prep done then for the first weeks of the new term.