Math 371 Technology for STEM Educators

As someone who has grown up having a very strong passion for many different subjects in school and having many different hobbies and interests outside of the classroom, I understand the importance of branching out into other fields of study.  My interests include but are not limited to mathematics (obviously), most sciences, history and social sciences, analytical writing, visual arts, and performing arts, such as band and theater.  Don't get me wrong, I was no valedictorian or prodigy who could do almost anything with great ease, but I always felt as though my strengths were very diverse.  At that time, and honestly only until just recently, I had always wanted my strengths to be less diverse and more singular.  In other words, I would rather have been very strong at one discipline rather than average/mediocre at many.  Though at the time this idea sounded logical, nowadays, I couldn't feel more different.  The reason is that now I realize how much each st...

Throughout the time I’ve been in the education system, especially high school, there have been many classes in which we “warmed-up” before our class lecture or activities began. In elementary school, this idea was usually limited to vocal music, band, and physical education, or a class at the beginning of the day. All of these were quite valid classes to warm-up for. Once I got to middle school, there was one more class that added to this idea, and I’m starting to realize why. Once I got to middle school, both math teachers started each and every class period with a set of problems on the board, called our “Problems of the Day,” or POD for short. These problems were usually recall from previous sections or even previous courses we had taken. The POD’s became a staple in their classrooms until I graduated, as I had both teachers for all of my math classes. At the the time, my student mind viewed these problems as tedious and pointless, as it just took time out of our time to lecture a...

From the teachers that brought you, "Stand in front and lecture," and "Here's the answer now figure it out," comes "Everyone quiet whilst you work, I don't wanna hear any talking." Starring Generic Math Teacher, and a special guest by the Social Studies Department. One of the largest perceived problems of math classes in high school, and, frankly, in college is that the lecture lifestyle is the life for the common teacher or professor. The variability in day to day teaching life is somewhat limited and the lifestyle becomes a staple in the everyday life of both students and teachers. Most movies purvey math classes as boring, and there's a large social stigma behind math because of the fact that it doesn't hold the interest in people who don't receive structure well.  Something that I love to emphasize is a combination of fun activities, gamification, and lecture-style teaching in a course to help progress the students not just ...

Everyone knows there is a difference between Elementary Education (K-5/6) and Secondary Education (5/6-12). They are different in many different ways including content, what the school day consists of, and how to gain back the students attention if off track. Today I will be talking about the different type of strategies used to gain the students attention back if starting to get off track.  Starting with Elementary Education, which consists of Kindergarden-5 th /6 th grade. The different types of strategies that I have experienced/seen are as follows:  ·       Repeat the clap rhythm  ·       Saying then answering  ·       Announcing that he/she will wait for the class               I’m guessing we all know what the repeating the clap rhythm strategy is from either our days in Elementary or from us seeing younger c...

Through some of my classes I've noticed that some of the teachers wont give help just answers. And while the answer is nice to have just giving it and nothing else doesn't help with trying to understand the material. I haven't experienced this in any of my math classes but in the ones that I have the teachers are confused that the test don't go as while as they planned. And on the other end of the spectrum their are the teachers that move so fast through the material expecting the students to understand right away because that teacher understands it already. So what I'm saying is as a teacher you need to find a middle ground for explaining your material. But that middle ground is going to change from student to student, because in some cases if you give the answer the students might be able to see where they went wrong and some of them might be able to understand it with a quick explanation.

I want to talk about something that I have seen in my classroom observations, notation. I have seen a few teachers who put little to no emphasis on proper notation. I've even seen a teacher evaluating an expression without using any equal signs! So, the question should be if we actually do need to stress the importance of notation. I think that the answer to this question should obviously be yes. There are a lot of different reasons that we should emphasis the importance of notation while teaching math. First off, it makes learning a whole lot easier. When I observed the teacher who hadn't used notation, I was genuinely confused as to what the goal of the lesson was. I would consider myself very strong in mathematics, and I think that there might be something wrong if I don't understand what is going on.  There is also the issue of your students wasting their time doing a lot of work that means nothing if it has bad notation. Bad notation can lead to total misunders...

       One of the biggest questions I have asked and hear a lot is how to improve student’s engagement. Even for longtime teachers, it can be something they want to improve. Thinking back on my own experiences when was I most engaged? I think several of these very engaging classes can be found with the teachers that still make me want to come back after all these years. Some of the best memories from school were from teachers that may have taught like a pirate. From my Latin teacher reenacting Pompeii with a miniature city and pop volcano to my English teacher that made us act out Romeo and Juliet. Both were able to bring the lesson to life and we took a stronger hold to it because of it. Here I am going to take a bit about the book Teach Like a Pirate and what you can do to be an engaging pirate teacher.        In Teach Like a Pirate, Dave Burgess talks about teaching in three circles. The first is content, this is what you as the teache...

As a freshman, I attended the South Dakota CTM Conference in Huron; at the very end of the last day, I attended a session by Sheila McQuade, a teacher at O’Gorman High School in Sioux Falls, in which she described her experience of flipping a classroom.  While each teacher has their own style, in general, a flipped classroom combines teacher-created videos and interactive lessons with help on homework during the hour of class time. Students’ homework is to watch the assigned video lecture and take notes; when they come to class the next day, they are to work on assigned problems, worksheets, etc. and ask any questions that may arise. Sheila had a presentation prepared about the ups and downs of flipping her classroom. She went through the process of creating the videos, pointing out which software and programs worked best for her. She found that her biggest obstacle was keeping up with making all of the videos for her students to watch and take notes on. The biggest thing t...

Suppose you ask a question to a classroom full of math students. Two students raise their hand. One is a little black boy, the other a little white girl. Which one do you call on? If you call on the boy, you may be accused of discrimination for not allowing the minorities to have their voice. If you call on the girl, you may be accused of being sexist, not allowing women to have their voice. Now say you choose the girl, and she gets the answer wrong. Students could then use that to support the false idea that woman cannot do math. The same is true for the boy; if he gets the answer wrong, one could use that as evidence to support the false idea that minorities are stupid and cannot do math. Now suppose you ask a question to a classroom full of students. Two students raise their hand. Now which one do you choose to answer the question? By stripping the question of all the racial and gender information, one can think about alternative factors. Which student is more likely to have th...

Today I want to write about a certain student that we are all very familiar with. As future math teachers, we all know of the student who is convinced that they do not have the “math gene”. By this I mean, the student that thinks that they are incapable of learning and doing math. As a tutor, have been working with a student who literally believes that he will not pass his math class because he was not capable of learning the material. For his privacy, in this post I am going to call him John. I tutored John in college algebra last semester, and now I have him again this semester. Last semester, John barely showed up to his tutoring sessions, and when I asked him why he wasn’t showing up he told me that it was because he thought it was pointless and that he wasn’t going to learn it anyways so there was no point getting extra help. Personally, I think that the reason he was doing so poorly was because he wasn’t letting himself learn. John had one last session last seme...

              When I was a kid, my mom would do this thing where she’d pick out a random person in the mall or airport and then tell me his/her life story. At first, I was quite amazed. I would think, is my mom psychic? Eventually I grew up, and I realized she was just joking and making up some elaborate story. Despite her stories not being real, I learned to watch people and see if I could learn anything about them by noticing small things.               Teaching is a career in which we never stop learning. We’re constantly changing (and hopefully improving) the way we go about instruction. I have been watching teachers my whole life, but I have really focused on watching them starting my sophomore year in high school when I decided I wanted to become a math teacher.               I...

We live in a society today that is predicated on technology. So it is only fitting that, in many ways, education is now reliant on technology. While I am all for the use of technology in a classroom, I think it is best used as a means to supplement teacher instruction, rather than replace it.  Throughout my experiences growing up, I know several teachers that have based their entire lesson plan around a video or diagram they found on the Internet. But then, the impossible happens; technology stops working (for whatever reason) and it’s like we have lost our ability to breathe. I am as guilty of this as anyone else, when my phone or laptop suddenly experiences issues at the most inopportune time. However, as a teacher in a classroom, there are several ways around this dilemma. Take the information that was going to be presented in the video and/or diagram and relay it to your students based on your understanding. Or, perhaps proceed with new material and show your students the ...

As a teacher or pre-service teacher, it can be very beneficial to attend various workshops, seminars, and/or conferences. Back in high school, I did not understand why all my teachers would miss a day or two of school to attend a conference. Some of them wanted to while others were upset about it because they were forced to attend. So, I kind of got the idea in my head that workshops were annoying or were somewhat a waste of time especially if you already knew how to teach the material to your students. My perspective has completely changed after being in the program here at SDSU. In October of 2018, I attended the NCTM Regional Conference in Kansas City. Not only did I attend seminars focused on how to incorporate better teaching methods into the classroom, but I also attended workshops focused on technology resources for teachers. These technology resources were aimed at aiding and furthering instruction in the classroom. These sessions really opened my eyes to what I as a teach...