Welcome to week 2 of the blogging initiative! The week two blogging challenge is to simply blog about one of our favorite things. Called a “My Favorite,” it can be something that makes teaching a specific math topic work really well. It can be anything in teaching that you love! It can also be something that you have blogged or tweeted about before. OK sounds great!
I've been teaching for many years and over the years there have been many favorite things. I especially love working with teenagers (most of the time) and love teaching math (especially when we delve into the "why" of things). So I'll try to keep my favorite list short but I can't just write one thing....
One of the best parts of teaching is seeing how students think and how they break down a problem/concept. I've always worked hard at asking open ended questions a lot and asking why a lot in class. This is just an every day favorite thing for me about teaching math. It can be hard work holding back and not explaining things to students, certainly if they get stuck i give hints or suggestions on some path they can try. It's something I've always done and in the early years got some resistance from other teachers. So I love that all the latest common core math practice standards naturally promote this type of teaching. Yay!
And my new favorite thing has a few sub-topics (will try to keep this short). I LOVE using interactive student notebooks (ISN) in my classes! I don't use them to "drive" my lessons. Instead they are used to summarize topics after we've explored and figured things out. We no longer have a textbook in my Algebra classes (waiting to see what becomes available for the new common core curriculum) so these are invaluable reference tools for students. My PreCalculus students do have a textbook but the ISN is still a great supplementary resource for them. It also appeals to my creative side. And to my student's creative sides. I don't get too fancy with foldables, just creative enough.
Managing the ISN in my lessons is made so much easier by a few things that are also FAVORITES:
Document Camera - great for displaying what we are filling in. Most of our teachers do not have one so I had to beg to get this and it's only on loan from our school library. They are so wonderful about doing this for me.
Supply Baskets - any supplies we might need (scissors, colored pens, highlighters, tape) I have at the ready for students in little baskets.
I've blogged a bunch about using the ISN in my classroom and a lot of my posts on certain topics show how the ISN supplements the lesson. I just started blogging in June 2015, here is my first post that highlights my use of interactive student notebooks.
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