My 21st century classroom

This video is a video about the negatives about becoming a middle education teacher.  It shows you what kids can do and how they can act to make your life miserable.  Hopefully by viewing this I can help you to realize what you will actually go through when you become a middle education teacher.

This I believe

My Typical Classroom



The classroom I have set up is a very interesting classroom. I decided to organize my classroom by putting someone who is very social next to someone who is anti-social.  The reason I decided to do this was to hopefully keep my classroom organized and running smoothly. When I was in class I always sat next to my friends and was always distracting the classroom.  By doing this, you make sure to put people together that are not close so you can get more work done and be more productive.  Another great thing that comes from this is collaboration.  You have the talkative people talk tothe untalkative people to help get the juices flowing between everyone.  I hope to be able to get the classroom all working well together and be able to collaborate now and into the future.  When they first come into the classroom I write their names on the board and they must put their effort of the homework problem from last night up there.  They then must tell the class what they did and how they did it.  This is a great tool for communication skills, and is a daily routine except on days they have a test. Most people in middle school are very nervous about public speaking so by doing this they are able to build the skills they need to be able to talk to people and have those select skills in the future.For all my classes I really enjoy making sure that kids have the best chance at succeeding.  No one likes to fail a class, literally ruins peoples days.  Therefore, what I like to do is after I hand a test back I will go over it with the students and I give them the opportunity to earn half the points back.  How I do it is to have the kids find someone else that missed that same problem and they are able to use their resources to help improve your grade.  By doing this, kids are then able to work on their communication skills and collaboration skills but this is also a great way to promote student centered learning.  I am making sure that kids have the best opportunity to succeed and make sure I am as fair as possible. I also have a sofa and bean bag chair for people to sit in after a test to wait on everyone else to finish and give people the opportunity to have their space when other people are done.  I also have a tv in the front so we can watch funny videos on way to remember formulas from youtube and other sites. 

Lesson Plan for May 5, 2012

Lesson for the day: Plotting a Line on a graph

Today the class I will be teaching will be 7th grade math.  I will be teaching the kids how to plot a line today on a graph.  It is an accelerated class and for the most part the kids are very intelligent.  Every once in a while a kid will come in with a broken bone but other than that there are no drawbacks.  I don't have anyone other than caucasians in my classroom so i don't have any racial problems either.  The skills that I am going to focus on today are to make sure my kids are comfortable with the x and y axis and understand rise over run and y=mx+b equation.  As long as all my students understand this then they are able to easily plot a line on a graph.  They all also have graphing calculators so after they do the equation on paper they then put the equation into their calculators and are able to check their work as well. 

The kids will learn the words hyperbola, parabola, vertex and apex today in class.  These are all words that are the basis to start graphing points and lines on a graph.  For this exercise today kids will need a pencil/pen for notes, a notebook to write in, a ruler and a graphing calculator to check your work afterwords.  The kids will be assessed by taking a test at the end of the chapter.  I also plan on givign them a quiz on friday to make sure they understand what they are doing and to show me they have been doing their homework by putting one of the homework problems I assigned them on the quiz.

Technology Tool for my Classroom

I have my kids all register on cramster and Mr. Math to help them with their homework assignments.  On these websites they are also able to talk to other kids and teachers as well to help them when they are struggling.  I also gave the kids my email address which they can always email me with questions or problems(My email).  I also use the tv in my classroom to show the kids Youtube videos to help them remember formulas by showing them catchy jingles. Youtube is also a very good tool to use in the classroom.  I have used youtube to figure out equations and see problems.  I enjoy using this because anyone can use youtube and improve their math skills.  I will also use a Smart board in my classroom to hopefully improve their skills.  They will post the answers on the board and if they do it wrong we can easily fix it.  Many kids can use the smart board.  I plan on having the kids post their homework on the smart board and do projects together on the smartboard. The links to the videos are posted below. 

I plan on using Twitter to post my great ideas and hopefully share ideas with everyone across the web. I will also create a Facebook page for my class to be able to all communicate on it will be a classroom page and I will show the students how to use it and where they can post their questions.  Hopefully by doing this kids will be able to connect to each other and help each other succeed

Lakeshore Learning
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