1. Where and what will I be teaching in the new school year?
I can now finally say where I'll be working. I will be remaining in my current district, in LA County, and working at the main high school in the district.
This is the school I visited back in November, the school whose AP Calculus teacher I visited in order to gain ideas on how to become a better teacher myself. Now we'll be working at the same school -- and he, a 20+year veteran, is now my department chair.
Coming into today, I still didn't know what levels of math I'm supposed to teach. Our schedules are supposed to be posted on Aeries (the same system where grades are posted), but mine isn't -- likely because I'm new here. I didn't know for sure until the chair posted the schedule for tomorrow's department meetings.
I will be teaching Integrated Math I and III this year.
It is generally known that Math III is essentially equivalent to Algebra II, while Math I and II are an integrated version of Algebra I and Geometry. So this is the closest I've gotten to teaching my favorite math, Geometry, since my teaching career began.
And that's why I'm returning to my original blog -- my Geometry blog -- starting today. My Stats blog will no longer be active. (And on second thought, I admit that I should never have left my old blog, not even when I taught Stats last year.)
The first day of school will be Wednesday, but today is a PD day. Therefore it counts as a Tina Cardone "A Day in the Life" post for the special day "a PD day":
8:00 -- I arrive at my new school. The principal serves the teachers a hearty Welcome Back breakfast.
9:00 -- I visit the first of three PD stations in the gym, where the principal talks to all of us about policies and procedures.
10:00 -- I visit the second of three PD stations in the library, where we hear of emergency procedures and activities.
11:00 -- I visit the third of three PD stations in the cafeteria, where we learn about our academic focus for the 2022-23 school year.
12:00 -- I finally make it to the office, where I receive the key to my new classroom. It's located on the second floor of one of the few two-story buildings on campus, on the southwestern corner -- very similar to the location of my classroom at the old charter school. (All middle school classes that year were upstairs, since we we co-located with a district elementary school on the first floor.)
2. Is Blaugust back?
Well, here's your answer:
And you know what that logo means -- Blaugust is back! Here's a link to the blog of Shelli -- the creator and leader of the annual Blaugust challenge:
https://statteacher.blogspot.com/2022/07/mtbosblaugust-is-back.html
Well... years ago, hubby decided he was going to blog EVERY DAY and has now been blogging every day for like 9 years or something. He decided to challenge his online community to try it for one month and I decided to give it a shot. (I should mention here that I've never successfully completed the challenge...)
Obviously, as teachers, time is short in August as we prepare for a new school year and blogging often falls by the wayside. We would love for you to join in, so feel free figure out the platform that works best for you and try it out! Maybe it's a traditional blog like this one, maybe it's a micro-blogging platform like Instagram, maybe it's some other platform that I don't even know about. But ultimately, the Blaugust challenge is about personal reflection and sharing ideas with others in the community, regardless of platform choice! :)
Last year, I was hired at my new school in August and ready to participate in the Blaugust challenge, only to be disappointed that Shelli wasn't doing it last year. This year, I'm ready to be a full participant in the newly restored challenge.
In theory we should be blogging all 31 days this month (even though, as Shelli admits, she's never done so herself). Of course, it's already August 8th, and I won't be making 31 posts this month. I was waiting until I got the full information I needed about my new position -- otherwise I'd have nothing to blog about this month.
So anyway, this is my first Blaugust post.
3. What is my first Blaugust prompt?
Shelli reminds us that we don't need to follow all her prompts. But I always enjoy doing following the prompts as part of the challenge! Since today's the 8th, let's look at the eighth prompt from her list:
8. Write a post related to pandemic teaching.
That's an interesting prompt to start the 2022-23 school year, since it immediately raises the question, is the pandemic over? This sounds like a prompt better suited for the 2019-20, 2020-21, or 2021-22 school years that were more definitely affected by COVID-19.
In fact, let's look back at how I handled the pandemic during those three years:
- 2019-20: Everything shut down in March. I was a substitute teacher at the time, and so as schools were closed and replaced by distance learning, I found myself with no work at all that spring.
- 2020-21: Many schools reopened under the hybrid model. I gained a long-term position at a middle school, teaching Grades 7-8 from September through January. I returned to day-to-day subbing the rest of the year as schools gradually added more days of in-person learning.
- 2021-22: I gained a full-time position at a tiny magnet high school, where I taught Calculus, Statistics, and Trig. Weekly COVID testing and masks were required for part of the year as the number of cases increased and decreased during the year.
Each year before COVID-19, a new class of freshmen joined the school, but no new students were added since the start of the pandemic. So by the time I got there, only Grades 11-12 were still attending the school. The seniors graduated, and the juniors were transferred to the flagship high school for their final year.
Over the years, I've thought about what I want my own classes to look like, but I wasn't sure whether those ideas would make sense during the pandemic. The next few questions here in this FAQ are all about my plans for the upcoming school year based on those ideas.
By the way, you might be wondering about my COVID What If? stories -- that is, what if the pandemic had occurred back when I was my students' age? Well, most of my kids are freshmen or juniors -- in order to match the n + 3 year, I must place the pandemic at COVID-92 for my freshmen, COVID-94 for my juniors. Both of these are tricky -- there's already a COVID-91 What If? that I like, mainly because the dates line up exactly (as it's 4 * 7 years before COVID-19). As for COVID-94, this sort of clashes with my COVID-96 What If? for last year's seniors.
But once again, there will only be a COVID What If? if I'm convinced that the pandemic is ongoing -- for example, if two pandemic-related policies are implemented (say masks and required testing).
4. What will be my cell phone policy?
We all know that cell phones in the classroom were a growing problem even before the pandemic. As I wrote in my March 23rd post, I believe that 2012 was the inflection point, five years after the start of the iPhone, when phones switched from a minor problem to a major problem. So the pandemic only sped up what was inevitable anyway -- during distance learning, students developed the bad habit of spending most, if not all, of class time using their phones, and they brought that bad habit back into the classrooms when they reopened.
And from the perspective of a math teacher, there's another problem with phones besides their existence as a distraction -- the use of calculators to answer basic math problems. Many older people lament how young cashiers can't even calculate their change because ever since their middle school days, they've only ever done arithmetic on a calculator -- more often than not, the calculator on their phones.
One idea that I've posted on the blog is "Technology 1955" -- on certain days, students will not be allowed to use phones, calculators, or anything invented before 1955. The year was chosen because it's the birthyear of three important inventors -- Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Tim Berners-Lee.
All three developed the technology that many of today's teens can't live without -- but as young teens themselves, they obviously couldn't use modern technology to do math problems as they hadn't invented it yet! So they had to know how to solve math without a calculator -- and they applied the math they learned to build the technology that made them famous.
My original plan was to have one day, say Monday, be "Tech 1955." The next day would be "Tech 1973" (the year that those born in 1955 graduated), when simple calculators would be allowed, but still no cell phones. This would be followed by "Tech 1991" (the year that those born in 1973 graduated), and so on until full tech, including phones, are allowed on Fridays.
But of course, that will be an uphill battle. Ever since the start of pandemic distance learning, it's unlikely that many of these kids ever went more than one waking hour without using a phone, and now I'm expecting them to do so now in a 90-minute block. Yet Mondays aren't block days -- so no-phone Mondays won't be as painful. Therefore, my plan is to establish "Tech 1955" on Mondays. The rest of the week, phones will be allowed, except perhaps on certain Fridays (the other non-block day) when I give a no-phone quiz.
I believe that I'm not the first teacher to invoke a year as part of a no-phone policy. The year that this other teacher chose was 1995. To me, this is ironic -- 1995 was the summer before my freshman year. I was running near a river for Cross Country practice when I fell in the water. A driver used her car phone to dial 911, and I was rescued and rushed to a hospital. It never occurred to me that we'd go from having a cell phone saving my 14-year-old life, to a time when 14-year-olds feel that we're ruining their lives just for suggesting that maybe they shouldn't spend 100% of their waking hours on a cell phone -- yet that's where we are now.
Again, the idea behind the phone policy is that without the math they're learning in my class now was used to develop the technology that powers the phone. In other words, without math, cell phones wouldn't exist at all.
5. What will be my food policy?
Cell phones in the classroom expose the generational divide -- the young members of Generation Z were taught that they can't go a few minutes without a smartphone, which is difficult for members of generations who grew up before the invention of such phones to comprehend. On the other hand, food has existed longer than humans have on this planet.
When I was a young student, I never ate in the classroom -- unless, of course, it was one of those very rare days when there was a classroom party. I ate breakfast in the morning, then not one bite until it was snack break, then not one bite until lunch break, then not one bite until I got home. Sometimes if I couldn't finish my lunch before the end of the break, I ended up throwing it away -- I'd much rather discard the rest of my lunch than break the "no food" rule. So that's why it annoys me so much when I see students eating in my classroom.
During the pandemic, students had to wear masks in the classroom -- and thus they definitely weren't allowed to eat food during class. And so for much of the year, I hid my "no food" rule behind the general pandemic rules.
But in March, the mask rule was lifted. I was considering implementing a separate "no food" rule at that point -- but it didn't help that the first mask-free day happened to be Pi Day, a day filled with eating pies and other special treats for the day. Since it didn't look good to implement a strict "no food" rule on Pi Day, I ended up not having such a rule at all (except for two weeks in mid-to-late April when there was a slight virus surge).
And indeed, that raises another question -- will there be certain days when I bring treats to school, such as a candy incentive, and how will that affect a possible "no food" rule?
A long time ago, I was considering bringing candy to school. In order to avoid bringing too much or not enough candy, I would assign each period a day of the week to have the candy incentive. For example, first period might be Monday, second period Tuesday, and so on up to sixth period on Friday. By doing it this way, I'd be passing out candy when the students need it the most -- first period on Monday when they are still hung over or influenced by the previous weekend, and sixth period on Friday when they are influenced by the following weekend.
But now I'm starting to wonder whether this is introducing needless complexity. Instead, I should just buy a barrel of Red Vines, and then hand them out to all classes on Monday -- with Red Vines earned based on their performances on the quiz the previous Friday. Then as for the "no food" rule, small snacks will be allowed on Mondays since I'm passing out food anyway, and then it's no food the rest of the week. (This also makes it easier to remember -- food is allowed on "Tech 55" days when phones are not allowed.)
The Red Vine incentive also goes back to how I did it at the old charter middle school six years ago -- except that there will be one additional level:
- One Red Vine for getting an A on a Hero Quiz
- Two Red Vines for being the most improved on a chapter/unit test
- Three Red Vines for earning an A on a regular quiz/test
The Hero Quizzes will also be the quizzes on which calculators are forbidden ("Tech 55"). Phones must be kept away until a grade of A is earned on the quiz, which I grade right away. Those who earn anything less than an A must keep working on it until an A is achieved.
6. What will be my homework/interactive notebook policy?
I've already mentioned interactive notebooks in my previous posts. When I entered my new classroom for the first time this afternoon, I found some old papers from the previous teacher in my desk. It was a scoring guide for a notebook check. So by inspecting this paper, I get to learn more about how to implement interactive notebooks.
Anyway, my predecessor graded a total of 16 assignments in this notebook check -- ten from Chapter 6 on systems of equations, and six from Chapter 7 on basic geometry (Triangle Sum, Pythagorean Theorem, and Congruence). Based on these topics, I assume that he taught Math I last year, perhaps based on CPM, a well-known integrated text (since I see a CPM textbook code still on the board). Each of his assignments took up one or two pages, and each was worth ten points, for a total of 160 points for this notebook check.
OK, so that's Math I -- what about Math III? Well, even though the department meeting isn't tomorrow, the agenda for the meeting is already posted today. Apparently, the math teachers are supposed to divide into CT's ("curricular teams"???) based on our subjects, and I was assigned to the Math III CT. So I'm already getting lots of info about the Math III course:
First of all, the Math III leader has already revealed his grading percentage weights:
And notice what's missing from that list -- interactive notebooks. The conclusion is inescapable -- there are no notebook checks in Math III.
But didn't I find a notebook check in the teacher's desk? Yes -- but that was Math I, not III. I glean from the info on the board that all five of my predecessor's classes were Math I.
But hey -- didn't my partner teacher (at the old magnet school last year) use interactive notebooks in her own Math III class (from which I got the idea of implementing them myself this year)? Yes -- but she isn't here, so she's not in charge.
I'd already anticipated that once I moved to the flagship high school, I'd be a member of a full math department, and so some decisions (like grading weights) will have already been decided for me. In fact, there's already a complete first semester pacing guide, filled with activities. Even this week's opening activities are already listed on the pacing guide. I was already looking ahead to the Sara(h) activities (from Sarah Carter and Sara Vanderwerf), but I must do the activities listed on that pacing guide instead.
I can start working out how many points each assignment is worth. There are four chapters to be covered in the first semester, namely 1, 2, 3, and 5. (Chapter 4 is a Stats chapter that we're skipping -- all the more reason to post on my Geometry blog rather than my Stats blog this year.) If the total is to be 1000 points, then that works out to be 200 points in each category. This turns out to be 25 points per quiz, 50 points per chapter exam, and 100 points each for the midterm and final.
Then again, the department might tell us how many points each assessment is worth -- and then we must set the weights in Aeries in order for the percentages to add up. I hate doing this because it makes the points seem deceptive -- but once again, when department leaders say "jump," I ask "How high?"
Meanwhile, the assessment retake policy is stricter than my partner teacher's last year. She allows for 75% of the points to be recovered on her retakes, but here we start at 75% for the earliest quizzes and then lower the percentage to 55% as the first semester proceeds, with 65% on the chapter tests. (I assume that there are no retakes on the "midterm" or "final.")
It also means that I can't do the first quiz of the chapter as a "hero quiz," so I've already contradicted what I wrote in this post. Moreover, "Tech 55" might not work on Mondays if the assignments are on either DeltaMath or Desmos, neither of which existed in 1955. (While technically I could still have a "no phones" day on Mondays, students can still do arithmetic on their Chromebooks during those assignments, eliminating one of the reasons of having a "no phones" day.) And I'm wondering whether I can even fit Warm-Ups or Exit Passes in the Math III grades.
So far, I've mentioned the CT meeting for Math III. Apparently, I'm not in a CT for Math I. So it's possible that I have a little more autonomy in running the Math I class. Thus much of what I've mentioned in this post (notebooks, hero quizzes, Tech 55, and so on) might work in Math I -- unless, of course, a leader tells me tomorrow that I can't.
(Note: In order to avoid confusion, if I learn that I can't implement notebooks or anything else that I've listed in this post in Math I, then I'll just edit it out of this post.)
There's one more thing I must say about my Integrated Math classes. Last year, my partner teacher told me that she had to give district Interim Benchmarks in her Math III class. While my predecessor left a mention of Benchmarks on the board for Math I, they don't appear on the Math III pacing guide (unless the "Midterm" mentioned there is really the Benchmark -- and before you ask, even if Benchmarks aren't included in the grade, they should still appear on the schedule). Assuming that there are any Benchmarks this year, they will be in October, February, and May.
7. Am I still reading Jim Peterik's Songwriting for Dummies?
I wasn't going to go far past Chapter 12 anyway. The chapters past 12 are all about how to make money from these songs, while 12 itself is called "Writing for Stage, Screen, and Television" -- which, of course, I won't be doing much of. Instead, I'll be writing math songs for the classroom.
Since Chapter 12 is the last chapter of Part IV of the book, it feels as if I should discuss this chapter briefly, in the name of completion -- and so I will. Here's how it begins:
"When a songwriter dreams, sometimes his flight of fancy takes him to a gilded Broadway theater where his songs are being performed by the cast and orchestra of a long-running, live stage production."
Let's skip up to the section on songwriting for television -- since, after all, the first songs I'll perform aren't my own songs, but are from the 1980's-1990's PBS math show Square One TV:
"Many songs have languished on shelves until some visionary director discovers it while station surfing in his Porsche and decides to feature it in the next episode of his series. Sometimes all it takes for a great song to be recognized is one person in a position of power to hear it at just the right time."
And as I wrote before, some of Square One TV's songs were performed by real music groups (such as the Fat Boys), while other songs were sung by the cast yet fit the genres (such as country). Interestingly enough, "Mathnet" -- a subprogram of Square One TV -- had a few cases that revolved around music and songwriting.
In "The Problem of the Passing Parade," where a famous rock musician is kidnapped so that he'll be forced to perform with a college marching band. "The Case of the Unkidnapping" was about an aging Broadway star who faked her own kidnapping in order to steal money of the production of her show. A memorable scene from the end of this episode is her final capture, where the Mathnet team members run up on stage to perform an impromptu Broadway song about her impending arrest. And in one last ep, "The Case Off the Record," a music producer fakes the sales numbers from his songs in order to make them appear more popular than they really are, so that radio stations will play them more often, which will lead to real sales.
Returning to the Peterik chapter, the author also writes about songwriting for commercials. It's notable that one of the songs that I performed in math class, "Plug It In," was originally based on a commercial jingle, for Glade Plugins air freshener.
The chapter ends with songwriting for musicals. Peterik quotes composer Dennis DeYoung:
"Even when the play finally opens, there is inevitably fine-tuning of songs and scenes. Showboat was written 75 [by now almost 100] years ago and they're still fooling around with the book!"
Now that I know what school I'll be working at. I can now announce my music schedule. I'll perform songs on block days. Since each class meets two block days per week, I'll prepare two songs per week and then sing each song to each class once.
The block schedule doesn't start until next week, so my first songs are next week. My original song "Heroes and Zeroes" will be my first performance, and then this will be followed by songs from Square One TV for the rest of Weeks 2-4, with original tunes returning in Week 5 in September.
Once again, I must be careful to avoid parent complaints about my music. As I wrote before, I won't bring my guitar to school until Week 5, so the Square One TV songs in Weeks 2-4 will be vocal. Then again, I didn't mind not singing last year because it's mainly younger students who enjoy my music -- usually middle school or the younger part of high school. This year, with Math I on my schedule, I really want to make sure that those freshmen will get to hear my songs.
Thus most of my songs this year will be geared towards Math I. Oh, and do you remember those songs I wrote all summer for a Math 8 position that I ended up not taking? Well, I've said before that there's lots of overlap between Common Core Math 8 and Integrated Math I. Therefore I was (unwittingly) writing for my new Math I class all this time! (I'll probably still sing the Math I songs for the Math III juniors anyway -- and from time to time, I might throw them a bone and perform a Math III song -- especially if there's one already written for them, such as "Quadratic Weasel.")
That concludes our reading of Jim Peterik's Songwriting for Dummies. It was an enjoyable read, and I'll continue to use the principles I learned in this chapter as I compose math songs throughout the year.
8. What is today's Rapoport question?
Today on her Daily Epsilon of Math, Rebecca Rapoport writes:
Find R(3, 4) + 1 where R(3, 4) is a Ramsey number.
This is a pure research question. Frank Ramsey was an early 20th century British mathematician who made the following discovery:
In any party of six, there exists at least three mutual friends or three mutual enemies.
Thus R(3, 3) = 6. And R(3, 4) would be the smallest party at which there exists at least four mutual friends or three mutual enemies. It was proven using brute force (that is, on a computer, checking all possibilities) that R(3, 4) = 9.
Therefore the desired answer is 9 + 1 = 10 -- and of course, today's date is the, um, eighth? Rapoport admits that she made a typo on the calendar. The plus should have been a minus -- and 9 - 1 = 8, which really does match today's date, the eighth.
I'll continue to have Warm-Ups and Exit Passes, with the date as the answer. Of course, I won't give them Ramsey theory problems -- and especially not Ramsey theory problems with errors.
Occasionally, Rapoport will give a problem that matches what I'm teaching in my classes. Otherwise, I won't post any problems from her calendar on the blog during the school year.
9. Who are the other Blaugust participants?
Shelli, the leader of the Blaugust challenge, made a Blaugust post that doubles as part of her "Made 4 Math Monday" series:
https://statteacher.blogspot.com/2022/08/geometry-reference-sheet-mtbosblaugust.html
Here she makes a Geometry reference sheet that students included in their interactive notebooks. Even though I teach Integrated Math, I could do the same when Math I reaches the Geometry units. Based on my predecessor's class, Geometry appears in Chapter 7. According to the board, the Chapter 9 retake was just before the third and final Benchmark. Thus Chapter 7 might be right after the second Benchmark, at the start of March. So I could include something like Shelli's reference sheet then -- assuming, of course, that I do interactive notebooks at all.
And joining me with his first Blaugust post today is Stephen Dull:
https://tweakingfornoreason.wordpress.com/2022/08/08/august/
Dull writes about many things that are on his mind this month. He describes a PD that's in some ways similar to my 11:00 PD today -- both of us are focusing on "linguistically diverse" students (that is, English learners).
And of course, the teachers on his chart correspond to Harry Potter teachers -- "The Warm Demander" is McGonagall, "The Sentimentalist" is Flitwick, and "The Elitist" is Snape. (I'm not quite sure who the "Technocrat" is -- maybe Professor Sprout, who knows her Herbology but isn't quite as caring as McGonagall is shown to be.)
10. What will be my new blogging schedule?
I'm aware that blogging is a dying medium. And so I'm reducing both the length and number of my posts, as follows.
First of all, there will be no more super-long posts (like today's post) during the school year. Most school year posts will contain only the Blaugust topic and the song of the day -- and the song will contain only the lyrics and either a video (if it's from Square One TV) or a link to Mocha EDL code (if it's an original song). The only longer posts will be "A Day in the Life" posts -- there will be both monthly and special posts.
And now I'm usually posting twice per week. The two posting days will be two of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday -- the block days, depending on when Math I meets (so I'll decide when I see a schedule).
There are three more "A Day in the Life" days coming up this month -- "first day of school" (which is Wednesday), "Back to School night," and the monthly posting day. I'm still confused regarding whether there will be monthly minimum days this year (they were alluded to in the 11:00 PD). Instead, I'm considering making the 17th my monthly posting day. Like the 18th last year, the 17th this year avoids most weekends -- only September 17th and December 17th are Saturdays, and there are no Sundays.
Like Dull's school, my school is also having a freshman orientation today, but ours is tomorrow. I've decided that I won't post on freshman orientation day (despite my having ninth graders this year), and so my next post will be on Wednesday, the first day of school.
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