troubles with class 1

After talking to some of my colleagues it sounds like they have had similar reactions with class one. They have to pull their teeth to get them motivated and working. That is similar to what I was seeing in my class. I had a large group not wanting to participate even though I was giving out points or chances for moon cakes like crazy. The other English teacher I was talking to was saying that he can't get them to work on English in his class they are always working on math homework or physics homework.

However I think my game helped some of the students who don't have a great grasp at English work at trying to use their English. They struggled some in the game, but they were trying their best. They really wanted a moon cake so they were doing their best to try and get one. I think they even came in third which won them a moon cake to share between the two of them. So I think there were some upsides to the game. It gave the weaker students a chance to shine and motivated them to use in English. I bought some chocolate over the weekend to hand out instead of moon cakes if I do something similar again.

I had to buy something else because the next lesson I put up a few AP problems from the 2008 exam and asked them to put up their choice of answer on their whiteboards. However then they asked if they got a prize. So I already saw them getting trained to do it for the goodies. I don't want them working for the goodies. I want them working because they know it is what is expected of them and because it will help prepare them for the exam. Although I think that they know the pressure of the test is there and they have had the pressure of so many tests thrust upon them. They have plenty of intrinsic motivation when it comes down to it that I think they just need a break from it and a little extrinsic motivation. I don't it is a different culture and the students work differently. It just bothers me and irks me that I need gimmicks to get them working. I just worry that they will be working for the chocolate. I think back to listening to Alfie Kohn in Equity class. It just goes against my educational philosophy and makes me worry what type of global citizen they will be. However I am learning a lot as the time goes by so maybe I will find a way to motivate the classes and students without the use of chocolate or other goodies. 

More thoughts on the game

The game went quite differently in class 1. I had a lot of students really interested in playing. However there were some students or teams that did not try at all. I told them they could get points towards getting a moon cake if they just answered if it was continuous or not. I am not sure how to motivate them. I may want to switch up the groups more or something. I think students were not working in pairs, but more individually. It worked somewhat. I asked the first two students who put up their boards to give a verbal answer. Then everyone who gave an answer gets a point. I wanted to be pair work so that they could get more practice in English. However I think the time pressure made people skip the step of talking to their partner. However I this class was much more engaged and go get em for those points. That was fun to see. This is the first time I had trouble discerning who put up their whiteboards first. They posed an interesting problem since I would say half the class or maybe a little more than half was engaged in the game. Some of the students who were not engaged were some of my smarter students. I am worried I am boring them. 

The changes I made to the game after playing it a couple times were to always call on the first two teams to put up their whiteboard. This gave more people more chances at points. It also provided an opportunity to listen to different explanations. I also decided on the second time I played it that each person on the first place team got a whole moon cake. The second place team had to split the moon cake between them. Then the third place team also split a moon cake. I thought this made it so enough teams got rewards and gave a chance for a prize for people with not as many points. 

So the game went well that third time, but it still needs to be fixed some more. I also seem to also not have enough planned for class one. When I see class one I have taught the lesson three times by then and so it goes so much faster because I know what I am doing more and I do it differently so that it goes smoother. However I hate having ten or fifteen minutes left. I may start pulling out some of the English games I learned in Beijing as a time filler. I mean it is good practice for their English and that is a goal of the AP center. I realized today that I could have done a game instead of filling the last bit of the class with me yammering on about this and that. 

So I am learning a lot from day to day. I am trying to improve my teaching from day to day. I feel much more relaxed and comfortable in the classroom. I think I had to be after being thrown back in right away after returning from Beijing and being sick on top of that. 

I still don't have the journals like I want them to be organized. I think I will spend some time next week working that out. Then I will collect them a week after we go over the set up. 

I will keep you updated as best I can about my classroom and my teaching. 

Game in Calculus

So today I played a game with my Calculus class. I think it went well, but I am wondering how to improve on it. I am hoping writing about it will help me think about improvements. 

So we had just finished talking about continuous functions. So the game was called Is it Continuous? 

The rules were these:

1. Two people per team

2. Keep track of points on whiteboard (each student has a small whiteboard)

3. One point for the correct answer

4. One point for each correct complete sentence used to explain your reasoning.

5. Points subtracted for speaking in Chinese

6. Points subtracted for not working as a team

7. Team who is first to lift their whiteboard will be called on first.

8. If the team that answers first has a correct answer, but an incorrect reasoning then another team has a chance at getting points. (This means teams have to listen to the answer and make sure they are ready with their answer as needed)

I had several questions with functions on an interval. So they had to decide if the function was continuous on the function. I think it went well. I had one team that kept being the first one to answer. They still weren't talking as much as I would have liked in their teams. It turned out that one team member would graph and the other would write on the white board. Then only one student from the team would speak. I need to find a way to get all of the students speaking. I wonder if next time I will make the other team member answer if the same team member has been answering each time.

The question that I really liked that got students thinking and speaking more was a problem that asked which of these real world situations represents a continuous function. I wish I could find more problems like that. 

I received two textbooks from the AP conference and I pulled the problems from them. I have been really enjoying one textbook because it has some really challenging questions. I know that my students want to be challenged so I have been pulling from that book a lot. I wanted to get a solutions manual for it for free from the publishers, but this book is not printed in China. I don't get what is troublesome or eye opening about a Calculus textbook. The only thing I can think is that they don't want population problems on finding Chinese population. 

The students really wanted to play the game and get points because the winning team received moon cakes. I got a large basket of moon cakes from the principal for the mid autumn festival. I knew I couldn't eat all of them by myself so I am giving some of them away to my classes. However I am saving some for myself. I had a few moon cakes before the festival and when I was in Beijing I was given moon cakes. I came back to the basket my principal gave me. I have not had that many yet so I am not sick of them yet. Plus now that mid autumn festival is over I won't be able to find them anywhere. 

So I am hoping the game goes better later today and tomorrow. I hope that with each time I play it I can think of a way to improve it so that all the students are speaking in English about why the function is continuous. If you would like to see the questions I used you can e-mail me at plattyl@gmail.com. 

I will keep you guys updated on other fun or interesting things that I do in my classroom. 

Glee Club

So students participate in clubs during 8th period from 3:45 to 4:30
every Tuesday and Wednesday. One student wanted to start a glee club
that consisted of listening and appreciating music. We tried to
explain to her that Glee club practiced songs and preformed. Then
another student proposed a pop and lock club. He wanted to do pop
dancing basically. So he proposed a dance club. We tried to convince
him that this club would fit in well with glee club since they sing
and dance. We had to combine clubs because there are only so many
teachers to be supervisors. He proposed this to the Glee club leader,
but their was a clash between their visions. Since these two students
disagreed then a senior who ran band club the previous year stepped
up. The other two students are juniors and hopefully can resolve their
issues to get along next year. They will be leaders next year during
their senior year. So basically I am dealing with the same drama of
Glee on TV. I definitively have a Rachel Barry personality. I am told
that they are even more intense than Rachel. I also have some warring
factions between the Dance people and the Singers. However on TV the
dancers sing and the singers dance. I got to get this message across.
It is going to be interesting.

I am really looking forward to it because I love music and I love
singing. I will have the students work on or try singing lots of
different songs. I hope to expose them to a lot of music like on Glee,
but still have time to prepare three or four songs for performances.

I will use my experience as student director to help run the Glee
club. I hope to listen to the students suggestions, but also direct
them as well. Kind of like Mr. Shu. One of the student leaders wants
to write songs. I know a little music theory and could help with that,
but I don't know how well that will work.

Music is a part of my soul and my life. So I am glad to welcome this
into part of my time teaching. Last year was the first year in
thirteen years that I was not singing in choir. Actually it was the
first year in probably 22 years that music did not take a form in my
life. Since in 22 years I always had a music class or at least one
choir to sing with (often there was way more than one). So I am glad
to have music back in my life.

However I am afraid I will never live up to Mr. Shu. I will also never
live up to some of the great directors I have had the great honor of
working with. I will never live up to doing as well as my director
from Corvallis, Carol Nelson, who inspired me to make music such a big
part of my life. She helped music come alive for me and become a vital
part of my life. I want my students to experience music like I did and
have that same impact. However I know I don't have the skills. I can't
wait until performance time where for once I can listen to a group I
helped teach and train. I have always been in the choir not in front
of it.

However I just got the club list and I have 24 students. Which is
fantastic except for the fact that it looks like I have all boys and
like three girls. I don't know what that means for parts. I guess I
will have the girls try to be sopranos. The boys that can sing higher
be sort of like soprano two's. Then have some tenor 2's of sort,
baritones, and bases. I am also worried I may have more dancers than
singers. We will see. It is funny because in the States it is totally
flipped. I will have to tell the club that next time we meet. I will
also have to perform a song for them. I am unsure of what I will sing.
I brought some sheet music with me of all of my favorite songs. So I
will probably sing one of those songs, but we will see which one I
pick . As well as can get ready for the group. When I had extra time
in one of my classes I sang for them. I sang whatever I still had
memorized.

Anyways thought I would tell you all about my plans for Glee club and
about the drama I am facing. I will take song suggestions as well. It
will be a fun year I think.

The First Week

So the first day I did introduction to myself. I showed them pictures
of Corvallis. I went through rules of my classroom and my syllabus.
Then I did a think, pair, share about what math is. I had them write
first, then share with their partner, and then with the class. I hope
to do more writing like this, but I am struggling to come up with
ideas for calculus. I have asked them to write what they think limit
means in English and what they thought it meant in math before we
started talking about limits though. I got some great answers about
what they thought math consists of and some great words used in the
class (most likely SAT words). Through all of the classes they had
some similarities and yet there were some differences. I think I will
make a wordle of the the three class responses. Then we played Set. I
explained the game to them. Then in small groups I had students find
as many sets as possible in a group of twelve cards. A lot of them
reverted to speaking Chinese. I tried to get them to speak in English
as much as possible. This will be something that I and the other
teachers will have to continually enforce. It took sometime for
students to understand the game. I don't blame them because I even had
trouble at being quick at it. I was told they like puzzles, games, and
challenges so that is why I had them play set. I am thinking of using
the set cards to split them into groups. I get sick of telling them to
turn to their partner. I think I am going to hand out the set cards
then tell them find someone with the same shape/color/shading/number
as you to be your partner. I think that will change the groups up and
get different types of students talking to each other.

I did a couple days of review and then we jumped into limits. I found
a great set of videos about limits. So I showed them in class and then
had students talk about them with their partner afterwards. Each video
was about 5 minutes long. I borrowed them from a website using
screener(screenr.com). I am hoping to do more of this as the year goes
on. I just gotta find those resources, but that is what the internet
and the prepping time is for.

I usually do a warmup that reviews the previous days materials and
sets them up for the days objectives. Then we go over the warmup as a
class. While they are working on the warmup I go around to each
student and ask which homework problems they had trouble with. Then we
go over the warmup. Then we go over the problems from the homework the
students requested. Then we move onto the lesson for the day. I make
sure to post the day's objective on the board as well as the homework.
Chinese students really want to see this and my bosses expect me to do
it as well.

I love warmup's and I love having plenty of time to do them in a 90
minute period. I include questions that they know the answers to and
others they don't. Sometimes the question requires them to write.
However I want to get them writing more. That is my big thing with my
math journals and AP wants Calculus with words so I need to get them
writing. It is tough though. I don't really have the journals set up
with the classes yet because I am waiting to get some separator so
that they can separate the notes and homework in their binder. This
time I am going to have them use loose leaf paper and a two ring
binder. As well as subject separators for their notes, their homework,
tests/quizzes, and of course glossary. I will still have them keep a
table of contents and they can just add loose leaf pages as needed.
Often Chinese students are not used to taking notes in a binder. They
are used to taking notes in their textbooks. So my journals will help
them get used to taking notes and keeping an organized binder. I think
I just thought of another idea right now. I think I will have them
look back over their notes and write a one page summary of what they
learned that week and what they still don't understand. That is
Calculus with words. Anyways if anyone can think of anything about
writing in Calculus I would love them help. I have looked on National
Council for Math Teachers (NCTM) and they didn't have much. However I
am looking forward to trying journals with the classes. I will
hopefully sit down with the class next week to organize their
journals.

Basically all the good teaching practices that we discussed in
Graduate school and that are done in America are expected here. You
are supposed to not do tons of direct instruction and try to vary
activities and teaching styles. This is mainly because direct
instruction is boring. However in China it should not be done because
that is how all of their Chinese teachers teach. I know ask is there
any questions is a bad teaching technique. Students have been
conditioned to make this mean that you are ready to move on to a new
subject. However in China they often don't ask questions because they
are too shy or because they are too worried about asking it in poor
English. You also need to differentiate your lesson just like you do
in America. However in the States we differentiate for TAG, 504's,
IEP's, or other special needs. In a Chinese classroom you will have
lower level students and some really high achieving students. However
I think that the lower student is similar to an average high school
student. Also a lot of times they understand the math of what they are
teaching, but not the English of it all. Like the students didn't know
how to do the review problems only because they couldn't figure out
what the question was asking not because they didn't know the math. So
I think in American classrooms when you differentiate you can a very
big gap between your lowest level students and your high level
students. The difference in students is not as dramatic in my
classroom.

I am thinking of separating the class into different groups during the
warmup. So my high achieving students can work on more challenging
questions while the lower level students work on some different
questions. This was suggested after my observation on Friday. I have
never thought about this. However this will get them talking. Then
each group can present a problem to the class. I am thinking of trying
this out as a differentiation technique. I have to do some cause a
student pointed out we were just finding derivatives when we were
working on limits. I told him limits are the foundation so we have to
work on them first and we will get to derivatives soon. This was a new
student to the program so he may have had derivatives at his other
school.

Chinese students also expect homework, but don't want too much. They
have high expectations for their teachers. They will say you are doing
great to your face, but will often talk to the center principal if
they have problems.

So that is what I have done so far with the classes, how my class is
set up, how I want to set up my class, and some educational
differences between Chinese students and American students. I hope you
enjoy this insight into my classroom.

I am really enjoying the classes and the students so far.

My Schedule

So I thought I would give you guys an overview of what my week looks
like and what the student's day looks like.

School starts at 7:50. Teachers are expected to be there at 7:20 if
they teach first period. I am always early because I like to use my
mornings prepping. Classes are segmented into 45 minute periods. I
believe the students have all of their Chinese classes for 45 minutes.
However we teach for 90 minutes. I love teaching block period so much
nicer and am enjoying my schedule so far. I teach three classes of
Calculus AB to High School juniors. I usually teach two classes a day.
However on Tuesdays I only teach one class. Class 3 meets Monday,
Wednesday, and Thursday during first and second period. Class 1 meets
Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday during third and fourth period. Class 2
meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during fifth and sixth period.
That means that I am teaching 4.5 hours each week. My center principal
requires us to stay at school for eight hours each day so that we are
available for students and seem like we want to be there. Therefore I
get around 35 hours of prep time during the week. I use the tons of
prep time wisely since Calculus is a difficult subject and I work
really hard to make each lesson interesting or fun.I believe this is
less teaching time and more prep time than most teachers get in the
States, but my salary is about the same as I would get as a first year
teacher in the States. But don't forget housing is getting paid for
and the cost of living is much lower. I think this makes it a real
nice job to have. I personally love it so far.

The students go to class for eight periods in the day. So they are in
class from 7:50 am until around 5:30. They have some breaks in the
middle and after lunch from 12:30 to 1:30 there is a break. That is
usually when students come into the office to ask questions. On
Tuesdays and Wednesdays the students have club meetings during 8th
period. So on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I have to stay until around
5:30pm to be a club advisor. I am the adviser for Glee club. I will
talk about that more later. Students have dinner on campus at 5:30 and
then after dinner they have mandatory study halls. Then it is to bed.
Most of the students live on campus and are from different parts of
the country.

The students wear khaki capris or skirts for a uniform. They have
polos or button up shirts as the other part of the uniform. I have to
make students put on their uniform in class. If it becomes too much of
a problem I am supposed to inform their banzheren or homeroom teacher.

Speaking of homeroom teachers. Each grade is separated into two
homerooms. The students in that class stay in the same room the whole
day. The students in the homeroom become very close. So teachers have
their own desk and computer in an office and go to the room which the
students are in. This is quite different from American education. This
also means that the rooms are not really decorated or personalized. I
was really looking forward to when I got my own room. I guess I will
have to wait. However this year there were around 80 juniors and 40 in
each homeroom. This was too many for one class and would not give the
students a Western learning atmosphere. The two homerooms were
separated into three classes. The students were sad to be separated
from the people who they spend practically the whole day with. This
also meant that students had to move from room to room which was new
to them. I think it will give them a taste of what it is like to go to
classes in American high schools. However often students visit during
the breaks and hate to leave to go back to their homeroom. Both of the
homerooms our on the third floor of the building. However class one
has to go upstairs to the 4th floor to one of the spare rooms to take
Calculus from me. So when I teach in that room the desks are not
cluttered with books. The rooms in on the third floors have all the
students textbooks, SAT study books, and all of their school books on
their desks. They are stacked high with stuff. They live in those
classrooms so all of their stuff is there. But because of this
separation class sizes are 27 or 28. That is much more manageable.

Our school year started September 1st. The semester ends around the
16th or 17th of January. We had last Monday off for Mid-Autumn
festival. Then I think we get a week off for national holiday in
October or November. We get a day off around Christmas. We hold a
Christmas party so that the kids know about the holiday. Then we get
two or three weeks off and second semester starts in February. So then
I have the students until May 9th the day of the AP Calculus test.
After the test my students will study for the SAT or TOEFL. They will
also work on getting college apps and personal statements for college
apps. However I stay until the beginning of July which is the end of
the school year. So I guess their school year is shifted back a month
since "winter break" is shifted back a month. However since I don't
have students from May on I am told I am going to be super bored.
Right now the other math teacher is teaching the grade 10 classes. So
we may taking turns teaching them and collaborate on the curriculum.
Anyways that just means you can visit me after May 9th.

I mentioned students studying for tests. When they are bored in class
they will take out flash cards. They will use some loaded words in
class. When they do I just know it had to be some SAT or TOFEL vocab
word. Last week I had a student who looked at her test score during
the break in the middle of my class. She ended up crying and was upset
the entire second half of my class. She did above average and
considering she was only a junior it was a really good score. I told
how when I took the SAT my junior year I did ok. However the next time
I took it I improved my score greatly. Mainly because I had been
exposed to more math. So I told she has plenty of time to improve. The
students will keep taking these tests until they get a perfect score.
This is a very different environment then I am used to. It is
interesting seeing the differences.

The other things to note is that students have a mandatory 30 exercise
time after the first block. They also do things called eye exercises.
They happen a couple times during the day. I believe they happen near
the end of the second block. They are also at the beginning of 5th
period. They think students eyes are strained from being in school so
long that they need to work them. They rub their face, temples, and
massage the scalp. It takes about ten minutes out of my class. None of
the students really like doing them, but they have to. I told them it
is just another hoop to jump through. I explained the phrase to them.

So that is an overview of the schedule and some key points in the
different education systems. If you have questions or want to know
more about a topic. Feel free to comment. I got the comments as
e-mails and I think I can reply back.