Skip to main content

Maker Space! Near Pod! Class Flow! Tech OH MY!

     It has been a busy busy time since my last post!  Summer was filled with lots of great PD, brainstorming for a more innovative year, and some continuing education.  I spent my summer working on my STEM Education Certification through Texas A & M University.  We dove right in with a course on student centered learning environments and project based learning.  This really catapulted what I was already doing within my district.  I am in my districts cohort for project based learning and flipped classroom, so taking this course helped me prepare for the cohort and my classroom as well.  I also went to CAMT (Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching) this summer with my fellow teachers in San Antonio, TX and really focused on hands-on mathematics.


I also attended training for the newest Promethean boards and a great emerging software program called Class Flow.  I will post about Class Flow separately as there is so much to talk about!

     At the start of school, I found out that I was selected as a grant recipient for my school from the Marshall Education Foundation and the funds will be used to establish a Maker Space on my campus.  Now we fast forward to the 5th week of school and I'm still working at Texas A&M on my certification while teaching.  I was sad to have my Promethean Board moved out of the classroom, but since I knew it was coming, I focused on how to keep my students TECH happy!  As a STEM and math teacher, it isn't only about the math.  I'll give you a hint, it still involves Class Flow, and the incorporation of NearPod as well.

    Stay tuned this year to see how Projects are incorporated, STEM is running rampant, and our tech is getting better and better!  What are you doing this year??

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Spiral Review In All Its Glory (Decimal of the Day)

   The school district I am in has cumulative tests covering everything taught each six weeks.  The twist is, these tests are made by administrators and not teachers.  This really isn't a problem to me.  It is a learning tool for me and a teachable moment for my students on the importance of all material covered in class.       We as teachers can really get bogged down in the variables of a test like this.  By that I mean, oh the test question was worded funny or well they were only given one chance to show mastery on this, my students are _______ fill in the blanks, thoughts, and reasoning.  The one thing my school district did was have us put our scores up standard by standard right next to every other teacher in the district who had to teach the same thing we did.  My oh my did I fall short!  I say I fell short even though I had great reasoning as to why my scores looked the way they did... but upon further reflection ...

Already too busy for words!

I took Sunday off as a day of rest!  And of course, it was Mother's day so I spent the day with my Mother.  My Dad took us out to eat and we watched a movie and had ice cream later.  Yesterday... I just completely forgot to post!  So this post will be about what I did yesterday. Yesterday's focus was pertaining to the class I have this evening in Legal Issues.  I had a case brief that I needed to turn in for a homework assignment and NUMEROUS chapters in a law book to read.  Have you ever read a law book?  I have found that if you don't take it personal it can be rather dull reading.  By that I mean you have to really have a vested interest in what you are reading.  This really made me think about teaching and school in general. Kids today get a pretty bum rap all around where school is concerned.  They are unfocused, bored, discipline problems, and all kinds of things... but rarely do you hear what I think is the real reason why....