What About Algebra 1 With Ms.Lupher

What is the essential, non-negotiable content for your chosen teaching field? Who determines that? How will you find materials to teach that content? What do you think those materials will include?

The government controls the content on whether what they want to be the standards such as the common core standards. Non-negotiables for my major of mathematics would be to focus on major work. For the benchmark assessments it would be to devote at least 50% to prerequisites for postsecondary work. Then to make sure the assessments connect practice standards and content standards. Also, to assess college and career readiness. The materials I will use will include book work, but also online or in class activities that are hands on. I will also use materials that I am familiar with and have used throughout the years. These materials will include text books, khan academy, demos, my mathlab, and PhET simulations. Also, past examples of materials I’ve had teachers use with me.

Tool #1:
Create a "Get to Know Your Students" activity to be used in the first weeks of school or whenever a new student joins your classroom. Describe how you will use the activity and what you will do with the information.

A “Get to Know Your Students” activity that I would use is a Spinning a Classroom Web. At the beginning of the year, I will focus on the idea of everyone being unique. On the first day of school, students will use their chairs and create a circle. I will begin by saying that I am going to say something about myself that is unique or something that is special (I tell the students that it is ok if others have the same ideas, but that we want to try to find ideas that make us different), and a hobby that they like.

I grab a ball of yarn and I tell them one thing I think is unique about me and my hobby I will then hold my end of the ball and throw the ball to someone else in the circle. That person will say something unique and a hobby, hold a part of the string and throw the ball to another person. By the time the ball of yarn has made its way around the circle, everyone will be holding a part and it will look like a web. When we finish, I will ask the students, "What did we make?" They will of course say that we made a web. I will then ask them to tell me about the web. Through discussion, I will eventually have them discover that, even though we are all unique and special, we are all connected to each other like a web, because we are a class.

Tool #2:
Create a short assessment that you could actually use during the second week of school to determine the skill levels of your students. The assessment needs to be something you have found online or something you have created, but please do not use the VAK survey.

For the assessment I chose to do high school Algebra 1 test. I would create a test similar to the one presented in the URL, but only choose about 5 questions from it that I think the students will be learning about and see how much they know. I would make sure to have the students show all of their work.

http://www.algebra-class.com/support-files/algebra-practice-test.pdf