Last Day of Summer!

So tomorrow we start our inservice at school and I am not looking forward to waking up early again. I am lucky in that I only have to be there for the morning because I have comp time from my summer training, but I will probably stay and finish up the rest of my room. I hope to post pictures tomorrow of my classroom. For now, here are pictures of the before. I am lucky and have a fairly big classroom, but it started off really white and boring.

I get 6 computers in my class for projects and stuff!

This is a view from the door of my desk.

And a view of the left side of the room from the door.

I have circle tables this year and I am excited about the 

group environment they will lead to, but am nervous about

individual work time.

The TV doesn't work and the door leads to a mechanical closet.

The view of my class from the front board

And the door from my desk.

I am excited that I have a bulletin board in my room. Now

I just have to decide what to put on it...

The trays were leftovers from last year. Most of them were

a little broken or roughed up and teachers were throwing them

away. The magazine holders I got at a thrift store for a quarter each.

I bought two bottles of spray paint and turned the ugly black and green

into blue and pink. $10 project! I'm all about saving money :)

I bought myself a laminator this summer and haven't used it yet.

I found some things on the internet this year (mostly from the blog http://mathequalslove.blogspot.com/) 

and took some time to print and laminate them. This thing rocks and I think I'm addicted.

I spent most of last week in my room setting it up and organizing the math department closet. I am the unofficial math department head meaning that they don't have money in the budget to give me a stipend, but I am in charge of the math department. I don't really know what to do with this. There were only two of us last year and we had the same planning period and I would just go talk to him during that time. This year there are four of us, each teaching a different subject and I have more experience by one semester. 

I get to teach Algebra 1 this year! I am so excited since this is my favorite type of math. Originally, there were going to be two of us direct teaching it, but many of our students have already passed the EOC and just need credit recovery so the other teacher will be handling those students with the computer program we use. I will be direct teaching and I couldn't be more happy. Don't get me wrong, not having to prep every night like last year would be awesome, but now I actually get to TEACH EVERY DAY! I am planning on doing an interactive notebook that closely follows the district curriculum. I have gotten a lot of ideas from Sarah and her blog (I linked above) and I feel really good about this year. 

I am currently planning my first day of school activity and revising my syllabus that I made at the beginning of the summer. I am looking forward to school starting, but I am sad that summer is over. 

By the way, I booked my wedding venue and bought my dress this weekend. June 14 can't come fast enough.

It's been so long...

So it has been a while since I have posted anything. It has definitely been a busy summer. We had graduation, I attended my friends weddings three weeks in a row, my mom took me to NYC, I got engaged, I've been packing to move and I've been busy doing school stuff. I just realized today that we only have 40 days left until school starts..where has all the time gone?

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching (CAMT) in San Antonio. I was a little nervous to attend at first because I was the only one from my school going and I'm not one to be real outgoing in new situations but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun and I have many new resources that I can share with my math department. This conference has really made me excited to teach next year. I have come away with different perspectives of the math classroom. I would highly recommend this conference to anyone who teaches math- even elementary teachers can get some ideas.

This next week I am attending a professional development series through my district about relating to students. In my spare time, hopefully I can start setting up my classroom. I have about a thousand projects I need to do for my classroom decorations and will try to post them as I get them completed. 

My New Classroom!

My school is expanding next year and in doing that we are moving buildings. Some of the staff is less than thrilled about the change, but I am super excited. I don't know if it's because I will have a "real" classroom or actually get to teach structured lessons or even because it will be my first whole year of teaching, but I am counting down the days until next year starts.

This year, our entire program is computer based, self-paced with the exception of some supplemental direct instruction. For me, this was a wonderful first job since I never actually did student teaching. The environment was really relaxed for the first month and then things started changing. We started shifting our focus on TAKS and EOC prep and it was a back and forth as to what we were actually supposed to be doing- computer or direct instruction. In the middle of all of the chaos, I learned that next year Algebra 1 would be completely direct taught. I couldn't be more excited. I have spent the last month researching and creating my interactive notebook for next year. In addition to the complete direct taught approach, they are hiring 2 more math teachers!

With the expansion of our school, we are moving across the street to a bigger building (more than 6 classrooms) that actually feels like a school. Donna and I have been bugging our Principal for about a month now to go over and see the new school and finally she let us go yesterday! It was very exciting!

Let me tell you, I love my room. It is nice and spacious. I have a window, TWO white boards and tons of shelves! I also have circle tables which I'm excited to see how I'm going to incorporate them into my classroom arrangement. I had already planned on doing a lot of group work because I want to give my students every opportunity to be successful, I just wasn't planning on them always sitting in a group setting.

I got some good ideas from the teacher in the room now about lay out and she gave me some decoration ideas. We have one more week of school and then I have the entire summer to come up with awesome ideas for my classroom. I'll post about my interactive notebook and if I ever complete any of these decoration projects :)

Beyond Happy

I would like to apologize in advance for this long post :)

Yesterday was the long awaited day of getting TAKS scores back.

We had a total of 19 re-testers and 19 first-timers take the test in April. 

Since I was hired to be the Algebra 1 and TAKS tutorials teacher, I worked with most of these kids. (Now that is not to say that they worked with me.) I worked hard with these kids for the last 3 months getting ready for their tests. It was a very frustrating process for both me and the kids. They were tired of doing the work and didn't like being pushed and I was tired of them constantly complaining and having resistance to doing any work.

In March, I got to test the effectiveness of my curriculum I had put together for preparing for the TAKS.

Out of the 36 who took the math test, 26 had sat in my class at some point in the month before the test. Of these 26, 10 of them passed! I was so happy for them, but sad for the ones who didn't pass. This was the 3rd or 4th time taking it for most of these kids. Anyways, that was a 38% pass rate for me and a 28% pass in general. Considering when I was hired they told me the pass rate was 13% I'm thinking that was a good improvement in just 2 short months.

As the next 5 weeks went by and we awaited the results from the March testing, I started over in my TAKS review focusing mostly on the first time testers as well as continuing with the re-testers that had just tested. Well this was extremely difficult for the re-testers to find any motivation and some of the first timers thought they were "too smart" to do any of my review work. At one point I was about ready to just stop wasting my time in all the prep and quit doing the review but I had about 5 students who really worked hard and they encouraged me to keep doing my review. 

When the scores came out at the end of March, we were about 3 weeks away from testing again. Some of my students were not so happy, but to see the look on my students faces when I told them they passed was priceless! One boy thought I was joking with him and when I showed him his score, he jumped up and down and went running all over the school. This made me happy.

It came down to the day before the test in April and I told my students to ask me anything they still needed help with. Most of my students were silent. They just wanted to be quiet and have a free day-these are the students who didn't do so well. Other students asked me everything they had trouble with until the end of the period- these are the students who passed! Finally, there were the few students who had done no work all semester and told me to tell them everything they needed to know-these students really bothered me. 

Then yesterday, we finally got the scores back from this test! My students were growing impatient. A lot of them were depending on passing scores to be able to graduate in May. Like I said earlier, we had 19 re-testers and 19 first timers. Of the re-testers, only 3 of them passed. This was discouraging. But I was happy because the three that passed really studied hard. I had one of the ones who didn't pass come up to me and tell me that it was my fault that he didn't pass. I just told him okay and didn't argue about it. He was one of the kids who slept, talked, or was on the phone the entire time during my class. He only wanted to learn when it was convenient to him. I know that I tried and it without the student putting forth any effort only so much blame can be placed on you.

Anyways, 8 of the 19 first timers passed! That was a 42% pass rate which was even higher than March! I am so proud of my students who worked real hard and passed the test! It has been a joy these last two days getting to see their excitement as they finish their courses and get ready for life after graduation.

I will close with a quote from one of my passers! She said, "Thank you Ms. Meadows! I know I wouldn't have passed if I had stayed [at the other high school]! Now I get to graduate early and be successful in life" This right here is the reason that I became a teacher. I think graduation is going to bring many tears.

13 Days!

There are only 13 days left of school this year! I am excited about this, but also a little sad that I won't get to see some of my students next year. 

Today we got our TAKS scores back for the retesters and I was not so happy with the results. Although I can say with certainty that I completely expected the results. The ones who really worked with me passed and the ones who never came to class, were always complaining or never did the work did not pass. I am sad for them because they can't graduate in May now. We should be finding out the results for the first time testers later this week and I'm a little nervous. I have many students who are depending on the fact that they will pass and graduate so they can go to boot camp, start a job or go to college. 

Tomorrow is the last EOC of the year and it is mine-Algebra 1. Many of my EOC students came to our school at the end of February so I have only had 2 months to work with them. Most of them have no motivation to do anything to prepare, but I am confident that the five students I have really gotten to work with (who have also worked so hard) will be successful on their test! I (as well as most teachers at school) will be happy when all this testing is over and then it will just be a push to get them to finish up their credits and end the year. 

Thankful :)

This post goes out to my wonderful administration! I work at a very small school-there are 8 teachers total and 5 members of administration. Because it is so small we are kind of like a family. I have only worked here for a semester and some of these people have worked together for years and they have adopted me and made me feel very welcomed! I would not change this first teaching experience far anything. They keep telling me that I'm getting spoiled and if I ever move to a big school, I'm going to have a hard time adjusting.

Anyways, this week is Teacher Appreciation Week and yesterday my principal, counselor, and secretary bought all of us lunch. It wasn't just a sandwich tray, they got us OLIVE GARDEN! I love Olive Garden-it is probably my favorite restaurant. After they filled us up with yummy Italian food, the cafeteria worker from across the street made us all apple cobbler. Let me just say I was one happy teacher! But man was it hard to finish the rest of the day. It probably didn't help that it was dark and cloudy outside but I wanted to take a nap so bad. 

Then this morning they had donuts in the teacher's lounge for breakfast! I am just feeling very thankful of the awesome administration here at my school!

A little side story-after school I went to Hobby Lobby to buy my Mother's Day presents and as I mentioned earlier it was dark and cloudy. Well it wasn't raining much when I got there so I figured if I got in and out real fast then I would get home before the bad rain would hit. However, as soon as I stepped into Hobby Lobby it started POURING! I walked around a couple of times to wait it out but it didn't seem to be so I just sucked it up and left. That was a mistake--the streets were flooded, it was raining so hard I couldn't see, and it started hailing half way home. So now this Mother's Day present should mean a whole lot more to my mom!

Talent!

Oh my goodness my kids are so talented! 

I have one student, in particular, who can draw so well. He wants to be a tattoo artist and I think he will do very well! His pictures that he draws look so real. Some of them even look like they are printed off the computer. I am an awful artist and I have always been real impressed when people can draw so well. Anyways I told him to remember me when he gets all rich and famous for his art! 

I'll post some pictures as soon as my camera starts working.

Why?

You may be asking yourself "Why Bananas + Nuts = Apples?" Well here is the story for you:

I have had this blog for a while but I hadn't posted anything because I couldn't think of a title. So one day last week I went to the science teacher (who is my partner in crime here at school) and asked her if she could think of anything but we were both out of ideas. This is when I turned to my students for an idea. They are always coming up with weird, crazy things to say so I thought this would be easy for them. I was wrong. I gave them the parameters that it had to be cute, about math and it had to be appropriate. This was really hard for most of them. I had one boy jokingly come up with Bananas+Nuts=Apples (He told me that this was the way he views math---it just doesn't make sense). His idea was the only one that really even had anything to do with math so I picked it. He was real surprised when I picked his idea. He told me that my blog needed to have fruit all over it and I told him that if he would draw me a picture then I would make it my profile picture.

I PASSED!

Today, I take my PPR Exam. I am alternatively certified and had to pass my content exam before being hired, but I had to wait 3 months after working to take my PPR. I was planning on taking it this summer, but the district had other plans. So now here I am, a week before my students take their Algebra 1 EOC having to take a day off of work to take this thing. Let me tell you studying for this thing was hard. Not because the content is particularly hard, but because I have been out of school for almost 6 months now and I forgot how much I disliked the whole studying thing. But I took a couple of practice tests and did fine on them so I'm feeling confident for my test today.

...........

Well it is now Wednesday and I started this post on Monday. I have gotten my scores back and I PASSED! It was no real surprise but it is still satisfying to get good results back! I also finished all of the required projects for my certification program so I just have to get 27 more professional development hours and work another semester and I will get my standard certificate! This week I also signed my contract for next school year and will officially be teaching Algebra 1. 

First Blog Post Ever!

So this is my first blog post...EVER.

I thought I would start by telling you a little bit about me:

I went to Texas A&M and got my degree in Applied Math with Economics as my emphasis.

I am a math nerd. I absolutely love it and so far I have really enjoyed teaching it.

I took some education classes in college but in order to graduate in a timely fashion I did not do my student teaching and did an alternative certification program.

I got hired the day I graduated, which was real exciting.

I work at an alternative high school for students who are at risk for graduating.

I teach Algebra 1 and the TAKS prep class.

I have become really good friends with everyone I work with.

When I'm not at school (which is almost always these days), I enjoy hanging out with my boyfriend, my sister (aka my roommate) and my puppy.

I like to think of myself as crafty, but I don't have much time to do things.

I have recently become obsessed with Interactive Notebooks and I will be using one next year in my Algebra 1 class.