Week 13 Reflection

Nov 16-20

The beginning of this week I was busy getting lessons and materials prepared for my days of absence on Wednesday-Friday. On Monday evening, I attended my first Benedum Steering Committee meeting, where teachers, principles, and board of education members discussed information about the school. I felt it was very beneficial to attend this meeting and hear more about what is going on in the school. I enjoy being involved and well informed about the processes and procedures of my PDS. On Tuesday, we had our last Education 600 meeting where we further discussed inquiry and also discussed the possibility of a new final format for our action research.

I left on Wednesday morning to attend NCTM's Regional conference in Nashville, TN with three of my fellow interns. This experience was definitely worth the trip! On Wednesday evening, the opening ceremony speaker was Dr. Larry Lesser of the University of Texas. Dr. Lesser discussed his strategy of teaching with music. He performed many of his original hits with used humor and math to parody songs. It was very entertaining and informative!

On Thursday, I attended sessions from 7:15am-4:30pm and felt that most of my sessions were great! The only downfall to the conference was the large number of attendees. About 4,600 people attended the conference which made it difficult, at times, to attend the sessions you wanted. Some of the sessions I attended on Wednesday included I3(cubed) where a middle school teacher talked about how she integrated Imagination, Inspiration, and Innovation. She discussed a lot of her "fun" and creative ways to teaching her geometry classes and her integration of technology. This was one of my favorites of the conference! I also attended "Is Math Real?: Sure, It Connects to Everything! where the speaker discussed real world applications and connections for mathematics- also very beneficial! Next, I attended "Writing, Games, and Learning Math Concepts in Advanced Classes" where I learned many good teaching strategies and also learned some more math songs. I attended "Math of Art" which I felt was not as applicable as I would have liked and is more suitable for small settings and "extra' projects rather than main instruction. My last session on Thursday was also one of my favorites of the conference and was entitled "Sustainability by the Numbers: Global Issues and Real-World Data for Middle School" where a woman presented lessons that integrated math and global issues, such as recycling, poverty, and waste. I absolutely loved the lessons and the integration of important global issues. I felt the lessons would really apply to students and would make them more interested and engaged in the world around them.

Friday was another long day of learning! I started out with another excellent, and one of my favorite, sessions entitled NASA eClips for Secondary School Students. A presenter discussed science applications to math and YouTube videos/clips that demonstrate real world applications for mathematics and science with NASA. These educational resources were definitely ones I am excited about using in the future and perhaps collaborating with science teachers about. On Friday, I also attended a session on Activities for Algebra where we played "battle ship" by plotting equations of lines and also did a lab to demonstrate volume by water displacement. A few of my other sessions this day I did not feel were greatly beneficial but dealt with integration of technology and more algebra concepts. One other highlight of my day was a session entitled "I'm Going to Be a Math Teacher: Why Didn't I Know This Before?" where a college professor from Lock Haven University of PA discussed how through his methods courses, he saw where deficiencies in understanding were forming. His explanation of "basic" concepts in a new way and different perspective was very enlightening. I really enjoyed this session and felt I learned a great deal from his top 10 things students/teachers "should already know" but have a deficiency in thorough understanding.

I think the NCTM conference helped me to learn so much! I gained main valuable resources and it helped me to think "outside the box" to innovatively create different lessons for the future. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to attend and feel that I will definitely attend other mathematics conferences in my future!