I remember how helpful the graphing calculator was when I was in high school, particularly 11th and 12th grades. In 11th grade we learned how to graph sin, cos, and tan functions. I remember having a difficult time remembering how high to put the graph and how to know when one full cycle had occured. My teacher showed us how to do the graphs in the calculator and that was extremely helpful for me. That way I could double check my graphs and be sure that my graph was hitting the correct spots. Also, in 12th grade we graphed polar functions (which to tell you the truth I don't remember much of), but what I do remember is that they were strange and again I had a difficult time graphing them on my own. The graphing calculator was very helpful as I needed to know exactly where the graph would hit and what type of shape it formed.
Before I begin teaching I definitely need to become more proficient on the graphing calculator again. I would love to be able to show my students how to do something on the graphing calculator so that they could visually see how something happens. Many students learn visually, so this would aide to their understanding. Especially during graphing units where the particulars of the graph have to be known, I would show my students how to graph using the calculator as an additional tool to help them master graphing. I still would have them learn to graph on paper, but with the graphing calculator as a guide to getting the graph correct.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Why do I need to blog?
This is a difficult question for me to answer because I am not a fan of blogging. However, as I am thinking about how I could use it in the classroom it does have its benefits.
1. Personally, blogging can be use as a way to reflect. Reflection is very beneficial as it can help a teacher grow and make lessons and activities better for their students. For student teaching we were required to keep a journal to reflect upon the day's activities and I found it easier to set up a blog rather than type in word and print out each journal. Since it is so simple and can easily be set up, blogger is a great way to reflect, especially for those who are reluctant reflectors (Me!!!) anyway.
2. I think that blogger could be used for classroom group work. A teacher could assign a math problem and instead of using class time for the students to work together they could do it as a group on blogger. My idea is that one person would begin and share some ideas about how to begin the problem and then another group member would respond to the presented ideas and agree, disagree, and add to the discussion. This process would continue until the group "solved" the problem to the best of their ability. I think the group would have to be limited to 2 or 3 in order to have good discussion and problem solving occur. Also, the problem used for the group to solve should not contain too many equations because that would be difficult for students to type into the blog. Using a blog to do group work is a nice way to be sure that all members are participating. In a classroom setting it may be difficult to determine if every member participated, but on blogger you could easily see who tried and who took the time to think about the problem and then begin to solve it. I think this would need a few trial runs before the students were able to successfully work with blogger to solve a problem in a group, but I think it has many benefits!
3. The last way I think blogging could be used in the classroom is for teachers to communicate with their students. As students are doing their homework they may have questions that arise that will prevent them from moving on or completing the work. If they "blogged" a question to the teacher they might get an answer to their question and then be able to do the homework. The only problem with this is that the teacher would need to check frequently through the night to see if anyone has posted. I think that Christa mentioned that if you connect to your email address you could get an email stating that a student posted, so maybe that would be the direction to go. From my experience of being in the high school, many students said to me "I didn't understand anything" as I checked off their homework. Obviously I know that isn't true, but if this blogging set up was in play, then the students would have no excuse for not getting help and would be more responsible for their grade that they would be given on their homework. This might be more of a pain than something helpful, I'm not sure, but I think it would be worth a try and if it fails then the teacher can scrap it or modify it enough so that it works for both the students and the teacher.
1. Personally, blogging can be use as a way to reflect. Reflection is very beneficial as it can help a teacher grow and make lessons and activities better for their students. For student teaching we were required to keep a journal to reflect upon the day's activities and I found it easier to set up a blog rather than type in word and print out each journal. Since it is so simple and can easily be set up, blogger is a great way to reflect, especially for those who are reluctant reflectors (Me!!!) anyway.
2. I think that blogger could be used for classroom group work. A teacher could assign a math problem and instead of using class time for the students to work together they could do it as a group on blogger. My idea is that one person would begin and share some ideas about how to begin the problem and then another group member would respond to the presented ideas and agree, disagree, and add to the discussion. This process would continue until the group "solved" the problem to the best of their ability. I think the group would have to be limited to 2 or 3 in order to have good discussion and problem solving occur. Also, the problem used for the group to solve should not contain too many equations because that would be difficult for students to type into the blog. Using a blog to do group work is a nice way to be sure that all members are participating. In a classroom setting it may be difficult to determine if every member participated, but on blogger you could easily see who tried and who took the time to think about the problem and then begin to solve it. I think this would need a few trial runs before the students were able to successfully work with blogger to solve a problem in a group, but I think it has many benefits!
3. The last way I think blogging could be used in the classroom is for teachers to communicate with their students. As students are doing their homework they may have questions that arise that will prevent them from moving on or completing the work. If they "blogged" a question to the teacher they might get an answer to their question and then be able to do the homework. The only problem with this is that the teacher would need to check frequently through the night to see if anyone has posted. I think that Christa mentioned that if you connect to your email address you could get an email stating that a student posted, so maybe that would be the direction to go. From my experience of being in the high school, many students said to me "I didn't understand anything" as I checked off their homework. Obviously I know that isn't true, but if this blogging set up was in play, then the students would have no excuse for not getting help and would be more responsible for their grade that they would be given on their homework. This might be more of a pain than something helpful, I'm not sure, but I think it would be worth a try and if it fails then the teacher can scrap it or modify it enough so that it works for both the students and the teacher.
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