Writing lasting material

It makes me laugh that we invest time in our teachers, but rarely invest time in the resource bank of a school.  This causes a massive information loss each time a staff member leaves the school and requires significant effort to regain capacity back to the previous level.

We are at present putting material together for our after school classes and the lack of extension resources is amazing.  The most common response is that extension classes after school are usually just repackaged classroom material at a higher level.

This can't be right.  If a student seeks extension it's because they want material not found in the classroom - this is one aspect of summer school success we have.  We don't just teach year 11 material to year 10's, we repackage it such that it is context specific, timely and interesting.  One of the joys of an after school class is that you are not confined by syllabus and delivery points and you can delve into topics in a little more detail if students are interested.  Hopefully students that didn't quite get it can now see where the majority of students are.  Students that have a solid understanding can draw connections to other areas of mathematics and other learning areas.

I believe the resources I seek have been written and are sitting in drawers around WA.  I understand why teachers are proprietary about their resources.  Little time is given to developing resources and they have to be done in your own time.  DOTT is taken up with marking, meetings, behavioural resolutions, recouping sanity time and parental contacts.  It leaves little time for planning and developing of resources.  If schools were better able to value what after school programmes could achieve, monitored what they did achieve, set goals to maximise future achievement and provided time to prepare resources to meet these goals then just maybe a few more students in the middle would find success and a few more high achieving students may be able to seek the stars.

Given the changes in curriculum, I'm not writing material to fit state or national curriculum, IB or NCOS.  I'm sticking to topics that can be used across year groups and ability levels.  The first two topics students have asked for are Linear functions (lower school) and Vectors (upper school).  I've designed a written format and a method of delivery and I have some material on Finance that I can bend into this format.  We'll see how it goes tomorrow and Tuesday.

There are opportunities "beyond the classroom" where schools can and do make real differences.  It's a shame that all too often it is because of individuals rather than by initiatives by the school itself.

CAS calculators

The importance of using calculators appropriately cannot be underestimated.  Percentages and compound interest are two of the most misunderstood topics in year 9 and 10 and many student errors could have been prevented with effective use of calculators.  This year my year 9, 10 and 2C classes all did compound interest at about the same time.  All three classes were able to use the CAS calculator to construct the equations required for reducible interest. 

Teaching calculator usage in year 9 should prevent some of the errors in year 10 and 2C because:
a) they will not be struggling with "how to use the calculator" next year (modes, cell referencing & formulas)
b) they will be able to calculate percentages of amounts with or without a calculator
c) they will be able to work with the idea of a period of time and know that this needs to be consistent across an equation
d) they will be able to work with interest periods other than annually
e) they will be able to identify simple and compound interest problems

There are many times calculators are inappropriate but in this context it is an engaging tool and the novelty helps focus students on a fairly dry topic.  It is unfortunate that the 2C class did not have this benefit as they are struggling with remembering what compound interest is and how reducible interest relates to it.  Finding time in the curriculum to promote appropriate usage is well worth the effort as this is one of the occasions where a calculator/spreadsheet is used in a real life context over pen/paper.  A good series of worksheets can be found at classpad.com.au under the intermediate tab.  It does take some patience but students will quickly learn how to create spreadsheets well.  I would also show students how to use the fill range tool (under the edit menu) to make the process a little quicker.  It may be worthwhile to use MSExcel first in a computing lab.

It is obvious that many students have not seen how spreadsheets can be used in computing classes or are not making the cross curricular connections of how that knowledge could apply in mathematics.

A byproduct of the classes is that it was a good assessment checkpoint to see if they understood how to apply percentages of amounts and whether students could see how it fits within a multistage question.  The tens did very well making the transition from spreadsheets to the compound interest formula and I now anticipate that it will be an easy transition to finance mode for more complex worded questions.

Calm before the storm

Crossed the half way point of the term and things finally calmed down for a few hours.  Most of my nine's have now completed their NAPLAN revision and we have a few lessons up our sleeve for the end of term.  They're settling down now that they are starting to realise

a) don't come to lessons unprepared or you will have to sit down the back doing lines and redo the lesson at lunch time.
b) don't do homework or you will stay in until it's done
c) refuse punishment and the number of lunchtimes double - the first with me and subsequent ones with the team leader.

It's old fashioned but the results speak for themselves.  Students that do their work feel good about themselves and students that would otherwise have fallen through the cracks are slowly coming online.  The next lesson is using the CAS calculators - so at least it will be a break from NAPLAN preparation and book work.

Our academic extension class started this week and the first five year 9 and 10 students experienced linear algebra ala aliens. We created bullets using linear equations and shot aliens with them.  Using CAS calculators made this quite fun experimenting with different spots on the hill (the hill was the y axis and we modified c for different points on the hill) and changing the angle of the laser (modifying m). Next lesson we'll use a series of linear equations to reflect bullets off mirrors.  I hope to extend this to matrices later as it is an obvious fit (even if it is only linear equations).  We'll do four lessons of this and then do some isometric and oblique drawing outside to help them visualise objects in 3D before starting some ballistics using quadratics and calculus before revisiting linear equations (with the ice cream example) and optimising some finance solutions.  At the end they were asking whether we could go for two hours instead of one (groan!).

A number of EPW's went out for my 11 and 12's including the Finance EPW I wrote over the last four weeks.  It seems common that 2C students don't know how to use their calculators and teachers are not confident an investigative approach is the best way to learn them.  Three teachers in my small group have all raised concerns about the EPW (seemingly without reading it) but we shall see how it goes.  Given that the answers are provided, online links to assistance has been given and they have a week to investigate, I lack understanding why this is so hard.  We shall see.

My tens are confidently using spreadsheet and finance mode on the CAS to solve a variety of compound interest and repayment problems.  I hope they don't face the same issues as the current year 11's when doing 2C and 3A with regards to using the calculator.

As always 1B's seem to underestimate the difficulty of the course and seemingly need to fail a test before they realise that they need to study.  I'm pretty sure my bunch are not going to top the three groups this time - but I have hope yet that some in class revision will turn them around.

A profession that consumes the individual

One of the things to consider as a teacher is how isolating the career can be. As someone responsible for 100 students and their individual well being, it can be easy to fall into the trap of allowing the job to consume all of your available time to effectively respond to their needs.

The better a teacher you become, the more you realise you can do. The more pressure there is to perform.

Focusing on one class leads to deficits in other classes. These deficits are then questioned and you start to doubt your ability and there starts a downward spiral difficult to arrest on your own.

Then there are personal considerations when faced with students that relate directly to your life story. The child that is facing issues that you faced as a child and believe you can make a difference to their lives. A laptop computer given on loan, buying a student text, giving a few minutes extra tuition, making sure they have enough money for an excursion, advocating for a student - I know teachers regularly do these things. Knowing that it would be difficult to enjoy your weekend and satisfy your conscience if you didn't act when you had the opportunity.

Another trap is allowing a deficit of time to let you lose your support network. Being consumed by teaching can lead to a one dimensional person, having only one interest and thus having limited interest to others. This can make it a lonely profession especially when the majority of conversation you have is with minors.

It doesn't just affect you, it affects those around you. Supporting a teacher is a full time occupation. You come home tired and spent. Events of the day can overwhelm you. It can be a real pressure cooker at times, especially around TEE and reports or when the playground is on fire.

Somebody told me about the monkey analogy and how if someone passed you the monkey - it was important to pass the monkey to another (yes it was an admin person). As a metaphor for problems I think as a teacher, the tribe of monkeys needs a support network capable of dealing with them. Admin sometimes needs to remember this.

Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned. Maybe I have to look at it a bit more like a job and less like an opportunity to make a difference. I wonder if I would be able to do it anymore if I thought about it that way.

It's no wonder many teachers are a little bit more than strange.

A bigger worry is that you fail to notice it after a while :-)