Warm-Ups in Math Education

The purpose of warm-ups in my classroom is to get students calmed and focused for class as well as review concepts from the class prior. My warm-ups are roughly 5-8 questions, the first few are reviewing the concepts from the past class and the last few are more difficult problems that connect to the lecture. They take about five minutes as not to waste time, but to make our time in class most efficient. Warm-ups give me time to take role and handle any other things that I need to do before class starts while keeping the students on task and getting them focused on math. The problems are all done individually and we go over them as a group to answer any questions or clarify any confusion.

Appropriate Use of Technology? 2-3: Bagel Algebra

I selected the “Bagel Algebra” activity where a bagel company in Virginia displays a sign in their shop comparing their bagel prices to their competitor’s prices using a proportion. You show the students the sign and give them time to think about the sign and what the math being done tells them. After a few minutes, pair up students to talk about what the information means and try to get the pairs to agree on an answer. Then bring the whole class together to discuss what they have come up with. Lead a discussion about what the variable x stands for, what the purpose of the sign was, etc. so that the students fully understand the purpose of their sign and the logic behind it. The categories to describe the lesson plan that were used in this assignment were: learning objectives, materials, instructional plan, assessment options, extensions, teacher reflection, NCTM standards and expectations, and references. The teaching strategies used in this assignment are teaching through student exploration and analysis because the students are making logical conclusions based on the information given where the teacher is only leading a discussion that is the students mostly participate in. There is a lot of critical thinking in this lesson because the students are analyzing data and trying to make sense of it. The problem solving in this lesson mostly is used in the extension of this assignment where students are creating their own justification for how much a bagel should cost using proportions. I think that this lesson had all of the proper components, but you could add a few things to it to make it more interesting. If I were teaching this assignment, I would change a few things about it. The first thing I would change is talking to the students about the actual price of the other stores bagels. The lesson shows you how much their oppositions bagels should cost, but doesn’t show you their actual prices, so it just makes the student think the other place has cheaper bagels and the original place is dumb for putting the sign up because it would probably lead business to their competitor. The other thing that I would change is I would get students to come up with a reasonable weight for a bagel (the weight given is almost two pounds, which is insane) and do the problem over using the same information, but with a different weight and see if the problem changes at all. It would be a good chance for them to see how changing multiple variables makes the problem different.

2-2: Standards, Standards, Everywhere: Algebra

The NCTM, Common Core, and CMP standards blend together in most cases when dealing with algebra. In their words they aren’t exactly the same as each other, but the goal of Algebra in middle school is mostly the same. Common Core goes much more in depth with their standards than the other two, but they still all cover the same standards for the most part. All of the standards talk about: • Using equations and expressions to solve real life problems • Graphing and solving linear equations and relating them • Use tables and graphs to analyze equations • Understanding variables and their relationships to a problem There are many more, but these seem to be the biggest concepts that are most closely related between the standards. The differences in the standards are mostly the way that students use all of the different standards and how they use them. CMP is mostly about connecting concepts and relating concepts to real life, NCTM seems to be about making things simple and understanding concepts at their most basic level, and Common Core has to do more with analyzing concepts and figuring out what they mean. All of those styles are pretty similar and the three standards are very similar in my opinion.

Task 1-1- educ 533- Best Practices Research

Here is a link to the best practices in education website that I found. The website has a list of the nine standards for best practices in education with explanations on what those standards entail. These standards are very appropriate for most settings. I think it is a good overview about all of the bases teachers need to touch to give students a successful education. Obviously you don't need to do all of these perfectly to be a productive teacher, but these have been found the most effective parts. Most of them are pretty obvious like strong leadership and curriculum and instruction, but there are a few that are a little more surprising. If I had to guess the nine, I probably could have come up with half off the top of my head, but a few things like parent/community involvement and supportive, personalized and relevant learning would not have been things I thought of off the top of my head. The surprising parts were more the idea that they were not really things that I have seen being very relevant in the schools that I have visited or been a part of. The ideas are great, but carrying them out seems to be a monumental task if I have not been in an environment where I have seen all of these working together, especially when this information is readily available to anyone with internet. I am growing more and more frustrated with public education because it seems like what I am learning is what all teachers with master's degrees have learned and there is something about teaching that draws you away from what you already know will work. No one has told me why teachers do that and that is what I am most interested in learning right now. If you have all the answers to a test, you can't fail right? Here is a link to my best practices in instruction site that I found. My main impression of what this website talks about is what the student needs to do to be most successful. I think it is trying to get you to implement these values into students like test taking and homwork strategies, but you can't force them to do it. It would be more effective to learn strategies on how to get students interested in putting in extra time to doing well in school. Not all students are motivated to do well. I like some of the strategies this website has to offer, they are mostly things we have already been taught but they are good refreshers. Things like "identifying simiarities and differences" and "cooperative learning" are good reminders to relate to students on a level that makes the material relevant and appealing and to also help them to work together. A classroom is a team, the teacher is the coach and the students are the players and you can't win if everyone isn't working together.

About Me

My name is Jeremy Milliron. I am 24 years old and I live in Bend, OR. I have been married for two years this Sunday to my wife Cassie. We have a one and a half year old Beagle/Pitbull puppy named Dexter (he is named after the TV show because we love it). I am working at Pepsi right now pretty much just sitting on a fork lift all day which is actually kind of awesome. I am beginning my fifth year of coaching Mountain View High School's freshman boy's basketball team. I have been coaching ever since I got out of high school and I really like doing it other than a few times a year when it is insanely frustrating. My interests involve basketball (watching, playing and coaching), football (watching and playing fantasy football), good beer (I live in the beer capital of the world, it would be blasphemy not to love it), and watching TV (Modern Family, It's Always Sunny, Dexter, etc.). I am into anything that makes me laugh or smile, I would say that having fun is my biggest hobby. I graduated with a bachelor's in mathematics at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) last year and am at Willamette now. When I am done I will be able to teach middle school and high school math and hopefully someday get my PE credentials. At this point I prefer to teach high school because I coach high school basketball and have really had fun with that age group. High schoolers are realizing their dreams and creating future goals, but also very impressionable which makes the role of high school teachers so important. I want to teach because I feel like I have a gift for teaching and it is the only job that I can see myself having for an extended period of time. It is hard to explain (as I am sure it is for most people), but someone who is a teacher probably knows what I am talking about.