Friday, May 1, 2009
Final Post
At first, I did not believe that I would find any interesting or useful information from blogging. The truth is that I have learned a lot of useful information from blogging. Others provided me with great ideas and mny resources such as websites and books that I did not know existed. Hearing from the experience of other first year teachers has been especially rewarding and useful as well as getting advice from seasoned teachers. I hope to keep this up for the rest of my career and look forward to the next informative blog post/comment. Any others have reactions to their blogging experience?
Monday, April 6, 2009
Blog Journal Entry 9
New Teachers Times
04/06/2009
Advice for Beginning Teachers
I started a new post today as a place to write any useful advice for beginning teachers. I had asked Steve Sibol, the JMAP editor and publisher, if he had any advice for beginning teachers. He wrote me back with a few key points of great advice. His email gave me the idea of started a new post based on this type of information which I believe will definitely prove very useful for all of us beginning teachers. Hopefully we'll get some great advice!
04/06/2009
Advice for Beginning Teachers
I started a new post today as a place to write any useful advice for beginning teachers. I had asked Steve Sibol, the JMAP editor and publisher, if he had any advice for beginning teachers. He wrote me back with a few key points of great advice. His email gave me the idea of started a new post based on this type of information which I believe will definitely prove very useful for all of us beginning teachers. Hopefully we'll get some great advice!
Blog Journal Entry 8
New Teachers Times
04/06/2009
Regents Exam Preparation
Since my last comment I have gotten some nice feeback from a few individuals. Mr. Alcarcon wrote about his need to figure out which sections would be the best to choose to skip and we talked further about this discussion in the "What Topics are Most Important?" post. Jeffrey Yanez mentioned these small regents review booklets that his school has been using that are only about $2 each. I know which ones he is talking about because I used to use the same type when I was in high school. I'm going to check around my school and talk to my principal, hopefully we may have some of these left over or I can have the students get their own. Sooophisticated mentioned trying to speak with the principal about any money that may be available in the budget for review materials or if there are any arround and Young Soc 139 also said to try the coach's office, book room or library. These are all great options that I will be taking full advantage of at my school. I thanked the commenters and asked Jeffrey Yanez if he found out where the books may be available. I also mentioned that I contacted Steve Sibol, the JMAP editor and publisher, about the latest regents exams and resources. I informed everyone that he has published the January Integrated Algebra exam in final form and also created these "regents books" which are a compilation of all the past 156 regents questions which you can sort by date, performance indicator, type and at random. I know that these latest resources will prove very useful for me and everyone else.
04/06/2009
Regents Exam Preparation
Since my last comment I have gotten some nice feeback from a few individuals. Mr. Alcarcon wrote about his need to figure out which sections would be the best to choose to skip and we talked further about this discussion in the "What Topics are Most Important?" post. Jeffrey Yanez mentioned these small regents review booklets that his school has been using that are only about $2 each. I know which ones he is talking about because I used to use the same type when I was in high school. I'm going to check around my school and talk to my principal, hopefully we may have some of these left over or I can have the students get their own. Sooophisticated mentioned trying to speak with the principal about any money that may be available in the budget for review materials or if there are any arround and Young Soc 139 also said to try the coach's office, book room or library. These are all great options that I will be taking full advantage of at my school. I thanked the commenters and asked Jeffrey Yanez if he found out where the books may be available. I also mentioned that I contacted Steve Sibol, the JMAP editor and publisher, about the latest regents exams and resources. I informed everyone that he has published the January Integrated Algebra exam in final form and also created these "regents books" which are a compilation of all the past 156 regents questions which you can sort by date, performance indicator, type and at random. I know that these latest resources will prove very useful for me and everyone else.
Blog Journal Entry 7
New Teachers Times
04/06/2009
What Topics are Most Important?
Mr. Alarcon provided me with a great link to a "crosswalk" documents that gives a nice breakdown of what we need to cover for Integrated Algebra this year and any of the differences from last year. Jeffrey Yanez mentioned that he has found the past regents exams very useful because he can look through them and get an idea of what is always covered and what is not covered very often. He also provided me with a link to this information. Both of these resources will prove very useful during my compilation of regents review resources. Another contributor, Young Soc 139, agrees with all this but of course reminds us that anything could be covered at any time and just to be careful not to omit something because it has not yet been covered. Definitely some good advice to keep in mind. I responded and thanked for the advice and also told them that I have been checking out the standards a lot more closely lately to see what can be omitted from my textbook and found that only radical expressions without variables in the radicand will be covered. Also only addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of these types of expressions must be known. Definitely cuts down the amount of chapter 11 from the pearson textbook that needs to be covered. Mentioned that I have to go back and reteach only those topics from chapter 11 because my students bombed the test... I think it is definitely because I put too much information on the test and half of it is not required by the standards. I have been trying to hold my students to the "higher" standard but this time I think it was just too much for them in too little time. I'm asked for any tricks or advice for what they will be using or what has worked for them during the radical expressions topics.
04/06/2009
What Topics are Most Important?
Mr. Alarcon provided me with a great link to a "crosswalk" documents that gives a nice breakdown of what we need to cover for Integrated Algebra this year and any of the differences from last year. Jeffrey Yanez mentioned that he has found the past regents exams very useful because he can look through them and get an idea of what is always covered and what is not covered very often. He also provided me with a link to this information. Both of these resources will prove very useful during my compilation of regents review resources. Another contributor, Young Soc 139, agrees with all this but of course reminds us that anything could be covered at any time and just to be careful not to omit something because it has not yet been covered. Definitely some good advice to keep in mind. I responded and thanked for the advice and also told them that I have been checking out the standards a lot more closely lately to see what can be omitted from my textbook and found that only radical expressions without variables in the radicand will be covered. Also only addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of these types of expressions must be known. Definitely cuts down the amount of chapter 11 from the pearson textbook that needs to be covered. Mentioned that I have to go back and reteach only those topics from chapter 11 because my students bombed the test... I think it is definitely because I put too much information on the test and half of it is not required by the standards. I have been trying to hold my students to the "higher" standard but this time I think it was just too much for them in too little time. I'm asked for any tricks or advice for what they will be using or what has worked for them during the radical expressions topics.
Blog Journal Entry 6
Math Notations
04/06/2009
Dave marain said that he was a retiring teacher and was not too up to date on the NYS standards but gave me the name of a man I could contact who is very up to date on the NYS standards as well as Algebra. He gave me some great advice about seeking as much help as I can from veteran teachers and to ask them as many questions as I can. I definitely have been doing this already this year. He also recommended visiting Achieve/ADP websites for some resources on regents review including a full practice test that they will be adding soon. I responded to Dave thanking him for his help.
04/06/2009
Dave marain said that he was a retiring teacher and was not too up to date on the NYS standards but gave me the name of a man I could contact who is very up to date on the NYS standards as well as Algebra. He gave me some great advice about seeking as much help as I can from veteran teachers and to ask them as many questions as I can. I definitely have been doing this already this year. He also recommended visiting Achieve/ADP websites for some resources on regents review including a full practice test that they will be adding soon. I responded to Dave thanking him for his help.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Blog Journal Entry 5
New Teachers Times
03/25/2009
Mr. Alarcon left a nice message about how he had his students purchase the Barrons Regents Review PowerPack. I will be telling my students that as well but I know many of them will not actually do it. I know some of my more motivated students will find it very useful. I liked his idea of making every test cumulative and will definitely be using that next year. I only did a cumulative mid-term and they will be having a cumulative final. It definitely makes sense since the regents tests the students on everything! I'm happy to hear that Meridyth is pretty much up to the same point as me and that we plan on using about the same amount of time for regents review. She also has been going straight through the chapters from the pearson book. I'll be interested in hearing if and which chapters or sections she may have skipped. I know some of it will not be covered but I do not know if I may have missed some that will or covered some that won't. Her idea of the online powerpoint regents review is great also... I think that some of the software I got from pearson my have something like that but I'm interested in finding out exactly which one she is referring to. Hopefully they will respond with some of this information.
03/25/2009
Mr. Alarcon left a nice message about how he had his students purchase the Barrons Regents Review PowerPack. I will be telling my students that as well but I know many of them will not actually do it. I know some of my more motivated students will find it very useful. I liked his idea of making every test cumulative and will definitely be using that next year. I only did a cumulative mid-term and they will be having a cumulative final. It definitely makes sense since the regents tests the students on everything! I'm happy to hear that Meridyth is pretty much up to the same point as me and that we plan on using about the same amount of time for regents review. She also has been going straight through the chapters from the pearson book. I'll be interested in hearing if and which chapters or sections she may have skipped. I know some of it will not be covered but I do not know if I may have missed some that will or covered some that won't. Her idea of the online powerpoint regents review is great also... I think that some of the software I got from pearson my have something like that but I'm interested in finding out exactly which one she is referring to. Hopefully they will respond with some of this information.
Blog Journal Entry 4
Math Notations
There are twice as many girls as boys: 2G = B or G = 2B?
03/25/2009
I wrote back to the comment that was left and thanked the responder. Since I could tell that he obviously has a lot of math experience I asked him if he had any pointers for a first year teacher. I mentioned that I would be starting regents review in a month and a half and hoped that he could help me with some suggestions of what has worked for him. Hopefully he will reply with some great advice and ideas... we'll see.
There are twice as many girls as boys: 2G = B or G = 2B?
03/25/2009
I wrote back to the comment that was left and thanked the responder. Since I could tell that he obviously has a lot of math experience I asked him if he had any pointers for a first year teacher. I mentioned that I would be starting regents review in a month and a half and hoped that he could help me with some suggestions of what has worked for him. Hopefully he will reply with some great advice and ideas... we'll see.
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