The first couple weeks, we studied the basics of relations and functions (doing my best to follow the required CScope). Since the freshmen and I were new to each other and it was a nice morning, I took the kids outside with a jump rope and I had the kids jump for as long as they could. The main question was "does the amount of time determine the number of jumps I can do?" It wasn't my best work but it did get us out of the classroom and got the kids laughing and interested. All I wanted them to see was that there was a relation, but wasn't focused on it being a function. It wasn't a bad idea, but it wasn't well put together so I need to work on having a better purpose and questioning.
Here's the bad part. This was our first journal entry and I wrote on the whiteboard but didn't copy anything down in my own journal. Bad move. My suggestion to new journalers would be to do what your students are doing WHEN they are doing it. Having a document camera really helps (I didn't have one for most of the year so I attribute much of my failing to the lack of equipment) because the kids can see what you're doing in your own notebook and you avoid transferring from whiteboard to journal or forgetting to transfer. My bad.
So here's the page I created, but didn't remember to fill out. Lesson for this entry- whatever you want the kids to do in the journal, you do it too right then!!!
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I'm a huge advocate of the document camera, projector, and, of course, journaling. Over the past year, I realized that it's not just for journaling. I like to face my students when I teach. I stand at this counter like podium facing my students. Over the paste two years, I have noticed a huge improvement in classroom behavior due to my ability to better manage and interact. Nothing gets by me.
ReplyDeleteWhat about when I use my Promethean board? I use either a wireless tablet or my iPad with the Splashtop program. This allows me to be anywhere in my classroom and control my board or allow my students to do so while staying seated if they like.
This year will have a similar ghetto setup. I have been staring at my setup for 2 days now and can't seem to figure how to be position myself so that I'm looking at kids AND journaling. If I had all the time in the world, I would record video of my journaling and just press play when I got to class, stopping the video now and then when I needed to address a concept or question.
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