Angry Birds -vs- Math

Hi, my name is Sarah, and I'm an addict.

Yes, my doctor sent me home from an appointment last Wednesday with a diagnoses of the flu (no, I did not get my flu shot) and told me I couldn't go back to work until Monday.  Well, luckily we had Monday off so over my 5 day weekend in between watching bad tv and clearing out my dvr I got even more hooked to Angry Birds.  And then I had an ephinany..  and ephifany...  and epifany...  ugh, a genius idea!

Angry Birds -vs- Math!

Our state mandated test required to graduate college is quickly approaching (30 school days and counting until the next retest for the seniors) and I need a clever way to suck the kids into doing some not so fun math.

Over break I justified hooking my 6 and a half year old nephew and four year old niece on Angry Birds by saying 1 - they aren't fighting any more and we can keep them in separate rooms this way, and 2 - they're getting exposed to physics and math already!  (And yes I started throwing things up in the air to illustrate a parabola to both of them and they got it!)

Well, if they can get the math from it then my students can get it too!!!

So I'm on a mission.  Millard's TAKS Camp: Angry Birds -vs- Math version is now in developement.

Oh yea, and TM and circle that.  I'm trade marking it  :) 

I'll let you know how it goes and I'll post it once I'm done!






PS  Maybe later I'll explain how awesome of a stress reliever it is after some of my days at work.  Not to mention how much my cats love listening to the sounds from it.

SUCCESS!!!

So I literally just realized that I hadn't blogged about how well my "Keys to Math" students did on their TAKS retest in October.  We got the results shortly before Thanksgiving break and I've been diving deep into the data and crunching the numbers since then.

Last year in the October retest and traditionally we have had ~31% passing rate.  This year I kinda gently tossed the previous system out the window and the passing rate for students in my class as well as the school was 45%.  Here is where you picture me jumping up and down for joy and screaming like a little girl in my Associate Principals office.  And yes I really did that, and yes some of the admin was doing that with me.  :-)

As a result we are taking the system I hit the ground running with and expanding it while also having our Intervention teacher, let's call him "Stu" teach the same course but his is going to be more directed towards the 10th graders that have always struggled.

My principal, the sweetheart that he is asked me to start writing down the process that the students are doing so that, in his words "someday if you wanted to you could have it ready and go out and sell it to other school districts to implement it."  My response; "that would be awesome but I'm happy in my classroom and it seems like a pretty common sense approach to me."  My thoughts now are that I'm going to TM and a circle so that if someone else wants to do the leg work of presenting it to other schools that's awesome and I'll take the credit and royalties :)

So without further ado, here's what I have typed up so far.  I'm also going to share the MASSIVE spreadsheet I have come up with that has tons of the kids historical data in it (basically anything I could get access to).  Feel free to Oooh and Aah when you see the spreadsheet.  It's kinda like my baby.

Here's the whole process
Keys to Math Process

Here's where you can find all of the documents:
this is the one for the beginning of class or when the kid walks in your doors.
Personal TAKS Reflection

TEKS Tracking Chart

Helps me figure out what the kids need help with. Will be online next semester.
Daily Check




My baby <-- This is where you can Ooh and Ahh :) Everything File to Share


Template for Giving New Results
And yes the raw score means more to the Keys Kids than the scale score.

Earlier in the year as the students were still working their way through the steps before the test we had to present to our co-workers and some central admin through a gallery walk things we were trying in our PLC.  I threw this poster together totally last minute at request and got a lot of positive feedback from coworkers, students and the superintendents right hand woman.  Here's the pics of what the poster showed.  I'm going to be moving it to Glogster whenever I find the time.

HELP!!! Need out of the box ideas fast!

With the end of the semester rapidly approaching I don't know why I never took into consideration the fact that my "Keys to Math" students (the TAKS remediation students) would need to take a "midterm" for me and have something put in the gradebook.  The class is a local elective and for some of them won't count one way or another but now I'm pressed to come up with a "midterm" for these students to do.

I know what you're thinking.  "Duh Sarah!!!  Come on!  It's not like you can just have a party and actually expect the kids to show up for their grade."  As far as the details of this are concerned I just texted my AP and hopefully I will hear back from him soon.

Here's my issue:
These kids don't do well on tests.  And the focus of the class was to have them all work on their individual weak objectives, reflect on their progress, work in small groups, and take ownership of their own learning.  This happened for almost all of the students and I'm super thrilled.  BUT I can't give them a traditional or they will revolt.  Plus, the students were working on their own personal weak objectives so if I did come up with a so called test it would need to be tailored to the individual student.

So here's the deal:
I'm in need of ideas, activities (preferably computer/internet based) that aren't super crazy difficult but something that kid would enjoy the fun math challenge of and I could come up with a grade of.  And everyone needs to be able to succeed at it. 

Anything and everything would be greatly appreciated!  I hope everyone's having a great week so far.

What is this one about?

Why am I adding to the multitude of blogs out there about teaching you ask?

As of this upcoming school year I am going to be teaching a remediation math class to students that are struggling with passing our state mandated test to graduate. We only have about 3 more years (I believe) of this test as a graduation requirement before Texas moves to using an end of course exam requirement (STARR).

As well as the new class that I have to teach, which has no set scope and sequence or mandatory tests (so excited about that!) I am attempting to implement Standards Based Grading with this class. As of my last conversation with my AP I will have 2 sections along with my Geometry classes and I am being given free reign to experiment with ways to make these students feel successful and help them to finally pass this bleeping test.

Just a quick side note- when I was in high school (not that long ago) and I had to take our then skills based test (TAAS) required and they took away my calculator I failed the adding and subtracting portion of the exam. I wasn't the best student myself so I know what it is like to fail these tests as a student and have to retake them.

So that's a little about what this is going to be about. And of course the ventings that come from being a teacher and our education system. I would appreciate any feedback from those of you that have tried to implement these systems and your experiences.

Happy teaching!