mratzel's Profile

Two Things I Learned from my Students about Scaffolding

We're studying quadratics....and even the name usually strikes fear in the heart of the most competent adult. I didn't want it to be that way for my math students. I wrote a good lesson plan and then I let students... Continue reading

Posted May 9, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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NGSS are out!!!! How I see teacher voice in this collaborative process.

Back and forth the drafts and reviews would go. With each iteration, you could see the impact that the teacher's voice was having on the standards. I think that was probably the most gratifying thing about this work. So often things happen to me, as a down-in-the-trenches-teacher, and I have no voice, no input, no way to influence the process. Continue reading

Posted Apr 9, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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Thanks to Daily Desmos....overwhelmed but thrilled

I presented this as our class warmup today. I displayed this graph and asked them to recreate this on their graphing calculator. We havne't had much experience with graphs that look like this....in fact, almost none.....so it is many students... Continue reading

Posted Apr 1, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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Applying the test taking strategies to a real test--feedback from students

Getting ready for the test, I'm still refining and looking at different ways of prepping students to be more independent. Each student was to prepare a practice question for each topic covered on the test. The idea was for them... Continue reading

Posted Apr 1, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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2 Test Study Skills Tips for Math

One of the ways we are trying to vertically align between the 8th grade and the high school is to reduce the amount of teacher-generated study guides and test retakes during the 4th quarter of the 8th grade year. Fading... Continue reading

Posted Mar 29, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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Music as Magic Potion to Turn on Math Engagement

Neuroscientists can't explain it, but music is a great leveler. The absence of words, the touch of emotion has been a powerful potion in helping my students find their math mojo. I've been experimenting with incorporating all sorts of the... Continue reading

Posted Mar 27, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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Have you heard the love story of Mr. Radans and Mrs. Degree?

A fantastic video by one of my former students on converting one measurement to another. She used stop action video and it's informative and funny. I have her younger sister in my current math class and she helped with the... Continue reading

Posted Mar 12, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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Practicing Habits of Minds--students request a hashtag swag for their efforts

Extending this notion of mathematical discourse...we tackle another set of statements. Normally what I would have done to review the distributive property and its application to expressions and equations is to generate problem sets. Students would have practiced the procedure... Continue reading

Posted Jan 31, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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Dance P-A-R-T-Y with irrational numbers

Knowing I had to lead 8th graders in a discussion about rational & irrational numbers drew me back to junior high school math. Ugh. It made me shiver just to think about it. So boring. Remembering that I kept thinking... Continue reading

Posted Jan 28, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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Debating Always, Sometimes or Never ---furthering mathematical discourse

Students debated whether 8 statements about rational and irrational numbers were Always, Sometimes or Never true. Thanks to an activity posted by the Shell Center, University of Nottingham and UCBerkeley, I had the coolest lesson(s) with students about property of... Continue reading

Posted Jan 26, 2013 at Reflections of a Techie

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This is the cumulative body of information...

This is the cumulative body of information students found in 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th hour classes. Continue reading

Posted Dec 6, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Two steps for incorporate PBL learning in math class

I've been thinking, experimenting and testing out ideas about how to move math instruction forward in my classroom, using technology and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as much as I can. It's a daunting task even if I've done it before in... Continue reading

Posted Dec 1, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Love the way you can read PDF documents on my iPad...

Love the way you can read PDF documents on my iPad using the Kindle reader. I don't want to lug my whole computer on an upcoming trip but I have to read a PDF version of a book. Voila! I... Continue reading

Posted Dec 1, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Let's Count Goats---Number Sense continues in Algebra

Mem Fox starts kiddos thinking about numbers with her well known and loved book, "Let's Count Goats". Kids love to participate in telling you why something is going to happen the way it does. You'd think that number sense would... Continue reading

Posted Nov 18, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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On Halloween's eve....a witch's brew of YouTube, Geogebra & Questions

Mike's Car Wash is a pretty amazing place to get your car shiny and new. Maybe not such a good place for a person to go through a car wash though! The problem, for you as the new owner is... Continue reading

Posted Oct 28, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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2 days of intense mathematical proving and convincing

Sometimes, always, never is an engaging, open-ended Common Core aligned math activity where students must prove their ideas. They test out their assumptions and use those tests to construct proofs about their mathematical thinking. Continue reading

Posted Oct 23, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Common core math & diapers--how do they overlap?

Today we used Estimation 180 for the first time. @mr-stadel created it and it's a winner as far as I'm concerned. We've just come off an intensive digital unit on Geometer's Sketchpad, so this is a big change of pace.... Continue reading

Posted Oct 22, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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When am I ever going to use Algebra? Well....how much does that iPhone really cost you?

Through the problems that are suggested by YummyMath, I ran across one that is sure to captivate my Algebra students and give them a way to answer the question...."when am I ever going to use this math?" Just exactly how... Continue reading

Posted Oct 21, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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7 Math Blog Posts that Change my Class

Instead of just reading this past week, I've used the week to read and post comments. I really like this idea of posting comments to foster conversation between bloggers. I see this as an important next step in the development... Continue reading

Posted Oct 21, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Using Excel to expose data patterns

Working through finding data patterns, we were building paper bridges looking for relationships between # of layers, length and recording how many pennies it will take to break the bridge. This is a wonderful experiment from our math series, Thinking... Continue reading

Posted Oct 7, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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1 Important Question about using Phones in the Classroom

My quick question to everyone is this..... Is it best practice to encourage students to use their phones to record dates, bits of info from the board and set reminders? Jot your ideas below and many thanks. Continue reading

Posted Sep 30, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Changing all those m's and b's....linear practice can b fun

Introducing some fun into my algebra class. I found this practice game where slope and y-intercepts are changed with a random card draw You have to start with the playing board. Equation changes to m and b template, There are... Continue reading

Posted Sep 27, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Photos + Phones = Math HW Shifting to Ubiquitous Use

If this isn't a picture of today's student.....when I go over homework, students can use a paper planner or they can use their phones to record the assignments. To help students with this week's Algebra Review, I posted a proportion... Continue reading

Posted Sep 24, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Ride the Line...A Game for Parallel & Perpendicular

Last week we were investigating linear equations....in particular what parallel and perpendicular lines look like as equations, not just graphs. When you do all the graphing by hand or even on a handheld graphing calculator, this is pretty slow. Also... Continue reading

Posted Sep 9, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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Common Core Math--Ramping up Discourse with Sketchpad

We've been hard at it.....mathematical discourse can exhaust kids and their teacher. I'm worn out from a pretty excellent week. I've been helping students examine their conjectures....and track their mathematical thinking. We had an absolute blast thinking about what different... Continue reading

Posted Aug 31, 2012 at Reflections of a Techie

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