ONO MA WHAT???

It's ONOMATOPOEIA!!
No it's not a new lyric for The Lion King. It's a word that my Master Teacher presented me with right before class, asking me to teach it to the students. My first hurdle? I couldn't pronounce it! I kept fumbling over the pronunciation and eventually had to ask my students to help me. While they saw it as one big joke, I thought how terrible is it that the word I am to teach, I can't even pronounce!
The lesson continued just fine... I at least knew the definition: words that mimic the sounds they name. I was also able to provide some examples: meow, woof, shhhh, tick-tock, crunch (if you were eating a bag of chips), or clank (silverware hitting the plate).
I pointed out that even teachers can learn something new everyday!

Everyone Sees a Problem Differently

This is the main thing that I learned during this quarter; that everyone has a different way of thinking and seeing math. Of course, we hope that our students aren't like Lou Abbott of Abbott and Costello from the video above, but it is important to realize that we all approach a math problem differently.

What I enjoyed mostly from the class was the way to teach math using manipulatives, art, and other disciplines to reach a student. A teacher has to realize that there are linear thinkers and that there are creative thinkers and no matter where a student falls, math can be taught to reach all of them. It takes but only a minute during this age of technology to look up a hands on way to teach math. But most importantly, you have to reach a student and that may be by teaching a concept in a few different ways. That is what this class did. We created posters, we used technology, we cut paper and colored, we made spit balls, we solved riddles.... and during all this we learned math and how it relates to our everyday lives.

I loved the class and can't wait to use some of these strategies within my own classroom.

Can You Smell the Excitement?

I am down to only two weeks left in attending college classes (besides a few days in the spring) and I am giddy with excitement! I have spent the last 5 years attending college and needless to say, I feel great that I don't have to write anymore 5-10 page papers!! It has been a challenging road for a woman in her 40's who is also a mother, wife, homemaker, Girl Scout leader, and continuing volunteer for the community and I really don't mind giving myself a pat on the back!!

In the meantime, I will continue student teaching, all the while keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to land a job. I not only want to make a difference as a teacher, but I want to relieve some of the stress from my husband who has supported me emotionally, spiritually and financially through this five year process of helping me reach my dream.

I am so excited to begin full time student teaching... I have reached the point where I am constantly thinking about those students as if they were my own children. Staying up at night worrying about how to make them understand fractions, or how to get "J" to love reading, or how to make "D" understand that the social issues on the playground are terrible but that life really does get better.

It's a new chapter in the book and I can only hope that it all ends well....

Wolfram!

When a gal in my cohort was catching me up on what I had missed in class she started to tell me about Wolfram, to which I replied, "Oh, yes, I am familiar with it. I have the app on my iPhone" She responded, "Cassandra, you've been keeping this a secret form me?!"
It's not that I was keeping it a secret from her as much as from my children! You see Wolfram is a computational knowledge engine and in my words, "a mother's best secret!" You see I have a teenager and a tween, both who think they are smarter than me and when it comes to school work, sometimes they are right! I hate to admit this.. a future teacher.. but they are studying so many new things that I studied years ago that I need that little friendly refresher course and I can get it from Wolfram!
Yo can ask anything from weather to culture to money and finance to socioeconomic data to math! Yes, math! The best part for a parent? IT shows you how to "show your work" on a math problem. So when my teen comes home and needs help with her high school math I can look up how to do on Wolfram and show her.
As a parent, this is a great tool. As an adult I have pulled out my app to answer disagreements on certain facts at a party. As a future educator? I hate the thing! Only because, how will I know my students haven't discovered this app and are using it at home, therefore not learning the math? It's times like this in the technology age that teachers need to get creative. I don't mean creative as in introducing Glogster, but creative in how to teach math and other subjects so that we know our students are learning it. The struggle is introducing certain technologies to keep the students interested but not to introduce how to cheat. It's a whole new issue to ponder.