I started a blog in 2007, but even then, I wasn’t quite sure what to write about. It just seemed cool to have a blog. Then it became clear that no one was reading it. Somehow that fact changed the experience for me. Similar to the tree falling in the forest, “Was I writing a blog if no one, but me, was reading it?”
Fast forward to Fall 2011, I decided that I would write a professional blog since I had begun to follow all of these great math teachers on twitter and read their blogs. I decided to get permission from my district which took a while, and then I took a while….and then I moved! So as the summer meanders to a weird finish since I am not revving up for teaching, I saw a twitter post about the blog challenge. I thought it would be perfect to give it the go!
I have predominately been applying for positions locally which seems to take hours. I am also trying to go a different direction, which means I have been applying at colleges. On Friday, I applied for a position as a Saturday Academy Instructor with Upward Bound at Sonoma State. Wow! They wanted a course outline (written in engaging language), CA standard, assessment plan and cost of field trips!
I decided to go with the Common Core Standard F-IF.4 which is about interpreting functions. It was strange to create a written lesson plan for an unseen audience. I found the “stacking cup” lesson on the internet (thankfully!). Students have 5 styrofoam cups (upside down) and need to graph the function and estimate how many cups it takes to reach to the ceiling. It is a great project to visualize slope and y-intercept. I worked through this lesson at a workshop and loved how many componets it had. The students can explore “rate of change” with something physical.
Hmm…how do you end a blog post? TTFN
Any post that end ttfn makes us bff4l. Good luck with the job hunt.
soph