The Function(al) Teacher

Technology is a funny thing, isn't it?! In this day and age, we are all surrounded by technology and it has evolved so much within the past 15 years. I still remember when the internet was just emerging when I was a kid. We had dial-up and wouldn't be allowed to be online for extended periods of time otherwise the land line would be out of commission for too long and people wouldn't be able to reach us (unless you had two lines). But wow, how the times have changed. Ask kids these days and they will probably have no clue what dial-up even means! They will never have to suffer from those awful screeching noises as they wait to connect to the internet! But in a way, I feel like the early years of the internet were good because it meant that people weren't on it 24/7. We were only allowed to go on for short periods at a time or if we need to research something. Looking back, technology has come so far from what it was. We find it weird and almost inconvenient now, if ...

Liisa kickstarted last week's class by giving us some statistics. She talked about the four different levels of math courses that the Ontario secondary schools offer in grade 11. They are offered at the university level (MCR 3U), college level (MBF 3C), mixed (MCF 3M), and everyday / workplace (MEL 3E). She then had us make an educated guess on what percentage of students we think took each course. To my surprise, my guesses were pretty much spot on! I split my pie chart up almost the exact same way as the data. Liisa's stats were only specific to the District School Board of Niagara but I would assume that the stats would be pretty close province wide. Of course SES and location are important factors that would affect the data but probably not by much. Here was my prediction (I wrote the percentages in afterward when Liisa revealed the actual data): I based my estimates on my previous experience in high school. At my high school, most of the students took university mat...

I always used to think that the mixed and open courses would be a little more challenging to teach. My reasoning was because there would be such a vast variety of learning styles all in one room and I would have to cater to all of them. In mixed classes you seem to get the "university-level" students, the "college-level" students and the students who fall far and in between. Its just as it's name infers - it's a mix! However, as I grew in my education and learned more about becoming an effective teacher, I realized that the mark of a good teacher is one who includes differentiated instruction in ALL courses that they teach, regardless of grade level/stream and subject. This week, three of my classmates did their presentations on the grade 11 mixed course. I especially enjoyed Victoria's mini-lesson. Her lesson was on trigonometry and she created a scavenger hunt-esque activity. Each group would start with the question at their tables. Then, once they s...