Math 371 Technology for STEM Educators

As my peers sought trips to tropical paradises, I spent Spring Break in one of my favorite places, home. The place in which I call home is the suburbs of the Twin Cities known as St. Michael, Minnesota. During my break, I consumed my time pondering my blog topic and visiting my alma mater, Saint Michael-Albertville High School (STMA). In doing so, I heard a rumor that STMA had implemented a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program, commonly known as Project Phoenix within the community. This quickly caught my interest as I had recently acknowledged that BYOD programs existed, so I took initiative of conducting an interview with the principal. The principal of STMA High School is Bob Driver. Upon his fifth completed year as principal, he comes equipped with a background of over a decade in English teaching and being voted the 2014-15 Central Minnesota Principal of the Year. In short, Mr. Driver possesses the qualities necessary to determine what is beneficial for the students of this decad...

Hey everyone! My name is Andy Ott and I'm a 2014 SDSU grad. I teach 6th grade in a high needs area in Northwest Oklahoma. I had a fantastic education at SDSU and it did a great job preparing me for the world of teaching. As a relatively recent grad I thought I had a good handle on this whole teaching thing. I had handled student teaching well and I soared under the tutelage of Mark Kreie at Brookings High. I got to Oklahoma on my own and very quickly realized that my education wasn't over just yet. Today I'd like to share 3 things I had to learn the hard way, through experience. 1. Classroom Management. I thought I had management  down after leaving student teaching. The transition from affluent high school to low socioeconomic status middle school proved me wrong. To be fair to everyone, this is one I'm still working on. We had talked about the 4 types of management during student teaching. I think we all pegged what our "type" was. Little did we know w...

In the Math 371 course, we have spent a fair amount of time investigating various technology tools and apps.  One thing that I think all of us want to have by the end of the semester is a list of the ones that we like best and that we are most likely to use.  One of the criteria to make our list is that it is free--after all, these are future teachers on a budget. I am sure that we will add more by the end of the semester. Math Apps/Tools ·          Desmos—graphing calculator and more ·          Geogebra—graphing utility does 3D as well ·          Brainscape—flashcards covering various topics, some of them math ·          Sushi Monster—feed your monster by answering addition and multiplication problems correctly ·          U Protractor similar to Angle Me...

If I were asked to describe my ideal classroom at the beginning of PS1 last fall, I would have portrayed a room with tables instead of desks, a smart board in front of the class, lots of visual and physical manipulatives, a no calculator rule—like in the Calculus sequence at SDSU, and most importantly me in front of the class lecturing each day with fully engaged students.   As we learned about different teaching methods, I was constantly saying to myself, “I understand how this method would work for English or history but not math.   By the end of the 2015 fall semester, I had developed a few ideas that would differentiate my lessons, but I was still stubbornly holding on to the idea of the traditional math classroom. Now when I think about my ideal classroom, most of the physical aspects are the same, but my approach to teaching is much different.   I realized how stubborn I was being about how math should be taught, so now I am forcing myself to become more aware ...