It was very different teaching last year versus when I left teaching 17 years ago. So much has changed from technology to expectations. When I taught previously every high school used Geometers' Sketchpad and now there are free and easier to use programs like GeoGebra. Graphing calculators were a huge deal and it was hard to get students to buy them. We actually often had a class set or at least a few for the ones who could not afford them. Now if they do not have the calculators, they can use online programs like Desmos. Although I did not permit Desmos during tests since it was too hard to monitor what they were really doing on their devices with online searches and such. I discovered I liked Desmos better for some things because of the ease to use it. However, I still teach kids to use their graphing calculators because they are able to use them in standardized testing like the SAT and ACT.
The other major change to teaching is the online resources. Between blogs, online curriculum, Teachers Pay Teachers and so much more there is information and ideas everywhere. It used to be you had a few resource books and then other textbooks to pull from or had to make something up yourself. Now there is so much out there and so many ideas. I found some amazing resources for teaching. First, I will admit I tend to look at Teachers Pay Teachers for free resources on various topics. If I don't find a free resource I like, I look at the ones that cost money usually to get ideas and then create something myself. There are also simple worksheets at sites like Kuta.
One of my struggles last fall was figuring out the curriculum for my Consumer Math class. Our school did not have a set curriculum and the book was from the 1990s and thus very outdated. One of the first resources I found was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They offer free lessons for K-12 teachers to use with students. I also discovered you could order free posters, booklets and even some of the lessons printed from them. The office was quite excited when I got five or so large and heavy boxes! I actually have some of the posters haning in my room in my consumer section. This year I have a section of the back wall for each subject I will teach. We hung the consumer math posters with Velcro Command Strips so I can change them out with other ones depening on the topics I am teaching.
My next amazing resource for Consumer Math is Next Gen Personal Finance. They offer a semester, full year and now trimester consumer math curriculum that is free to download and use. It is almost all Google Docs, so it is easy to access and share. Plus, they have videos, games and different activities built in and extras you can add to any of the curriculum. In general, I love this curriculum and plan to use it for the full year this year. I didn't find it until halfway through the year last year. They offer things like a question of the day which ranges from various topics that are interesting and include things that go along with the various national history months. Scaffolded Math also offers a Consumer Math curriculum but it is not free. She does however have a Consumer Math Teacher Facebook Group to share ideas with other teachers. Needless to say with a year under my belt and all of these resources, I am feeling ready for Consumer Math this year!
At the end of last year, Hazel suggested I move my desk from the window corner to the front corner. I was never using my desk in the afternoon since the sun shone on my back and got too hot. We moved it and then we came up with a new arrangement for the desks. I found the kids were going to the tables closest to the door where the board was harder to see. Now we have all the desks in front of the board to force them to choose better seats. (Excuse some of the mess in my room, we are still in summer mode. I am tutoring a student every day and the head of the high school gathered books in my room plus Hazel is still helping decorate.) On the back wall you can see my three sections for my classes, Geometry, Consumer Math and Algebra 2. I found the lights on clearance last spring and grabbed some for my classroom. I hate using the overhead lights (and so do my students) and I find with the lights and three floor lamps we can get away with not turning them on even on dark days!
Over my board we hung most of the motivational posters I bought last year and some I got from American Mathematical Society. You can order posters from AMS for free (you have to pay shipping). There are 28 different ones including ones with Black mathematicians, female mathematicians, Latinx mathematicians, LGBTQ+ mathematicians as well as many about jobs involving math, etc. They have other resources that I have not explored much yet. Note the drawing on the board was left by another summer school student. I often have similar drawings left for me by the students. They seem to love to draw on white boards even though we have to erase them. It always seems a shame to erase their works of art.
In my Algebra 2 section I have some of last year's projects and some posters from AMS. The longer Function Transformation poster is free from Scaffolded Math. I backed it with some construction paper. I also made my own algebra posters involving intervals as well as function transformations. I'll share about my Wanted Poster in a bit!!
