Don't be afraid to ask for help, Part I

As a first-year teacher, one thing I try to do is get as much help as possible from veteran teachers. I recommend this to anyone who has started something new.

Today started off pretty well; the usual Thursday. I got to work early. I did my traffic duty. Then, when the bell rang, I went to the classroom to get ready for class. On Thursday mornings from 7:15-7:35, I stand by the traffic lane, where students get dropped off, making sure the cars keep moving. Pretty boring. After that I'm off to Period 1 (Algebra I). I set up my laptop and the ceiling-mounted projector for the instructions. What we did was a reading comprehension activity on an article about student enrollment in public schools. That went pretty well. "What does that have to do with Algebra" you might ask. It doesn't have anything to do with Algebra. Well, there was a graph portraying the student enrollment levels for the past 6 six in the San Diego Unified School District, but that wasn't the point. The point was to teach students how to read informational texts. Believe it or not, math teachers are reading teachers too.

The activity is called Think, Predict, Read, Connect. First they talk about what they think they know about student enrollment in groups. Then they write it down on a cool little worksheet I handed out. Then I told them the name of the article and told them to predict which ideas they thought of will be in the article. They read the text. Then they made connections between themselves and the article. Making connections is the key. It helps them create a better understanding of what they just read.

They next activity was pretty fun. We played Syllabus Jeopardy. Just like it Period 8 yesterday. Only this time (Period 1) we finished the game just in time.

Period 3 on the other hand didn't go as I had planned. It turned into a class discussion, which is okay with me as long as they read and make connections. A few of the students started ranting about how schools only care about student enrollment for the money. They asked me how I felt, but I tried to stay out of the discussion. Because they were getting in a discussion, I gave them more time on it. That time, however, bled into the time I had set for Jeopardy. Needless to say, we didn't finish. This was partly because of the overtime in the discussion and the messed up projector. For Period 3, I use another teacher's classroom and in his classroom, there is a shotty little LCD projector on a cart. It was working completely fine until a started Jeopardy. I was really irritated because it would have made Jeopardy a lot more fun for the students. On the other hand, I think I figured out the problem. See, it has been crapping out for a long time now. I think the projector overheats. We have long blocks, so they are on for long periods at a time. The ceiling-mounted projectors are of a much higher quality. It would make things a whole lot easier if we had one in there. Especially because I like using PowerPoint. Anyways, what I do on PowerPoint, I can do on the board. So I continued the game on the board. So we didn't finish, nor was it visually stimulating for the students, but that's okay. It wasn't a complete bust. Now on to prep.

Period 5 is another prep. I have 3 prep periods because I am an intern teacher. I teach 3 Algebra I classes, 1 MET class (I'll explain what that is later) and I have one collaboration period with the other 9th grade teachers. So 3 preps, 3 Algebra I classes, 1 MET and 1 collaboration makes 8 periods.

Half way through this prep, there was a fire alarm. Last week we just had a fire drill and last Tuesday, I went over emergency procedures with my advisory students, so I thought it was another drill. It was in fact a real fire drill. So after standing under the warm sun for nearly half an hour, we found out it was merely a piece of sawdust that flew into smoke detector.

Now off to advisory...

I think at this point I should stop and finish in a new post because it might be just as long.