New Name, New Outlook, Same Guy

Well, I've decided to try blogging again. I decided to ditch my ~~old~~ other blog as it was originally set up to be co-written by myself and my team teacher in our combined AP Calculus / AP Physics class. Well, that class no longer exists, and my buddy is no longer at our high school. Sad.

So...yeah.

As for me, I'm in a bit of a transition and trying to get back into the classroom. My intention for this blog is to attend to it weekly beginning this summer and document my journey back into the classroom...whatever it is going to look like.

I've been given a second chance; I intend to make the most of it!

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It Was a Good Day...

Taking a line out of Ice Cube's lyrics, 'Today was a good day'. Well, honestly it's been a pretty good couple of days as of late...and I hope it continues. This year I am teaching 5 classes of AP, and one geometry support class. Actually, my AP courses have converted into dual-credit credit courses with a 4-year University a couple hours away. That has created a whole new approach for me in my teaching as the district is covering 2/3 of the cost of the course for the students, so for just a little bit more than the cost of an AP exam, students can eliminate the stress associated with a one-day high stakes test and instead get the grade earned in the class over the course of the entire year. So my 2 sections of statistics, 2 sections of Calculus AB, and one new section of Calculus BC all the on this format. Because we can take a little bit more time now, I am really working on developing topics a bit deeper now and trying to get students to interact with the mathemat

Calculus Discoveries

Okay, this #MTBoSBlaugust thing is going to make me write, and I'm going to commit to it this year! This past year, I was one of several teachers in our building that piloted our high school's move into Standards-Based Grading, or Grading for Learning (GfL) as we're calling it. You can read more about my initial planning on this whole process here , as I really only intended to try it out in my AP Calculus AB course. I also presented on my journey at our Wisconsin Math Council State Math Conference last May, and you can view the slides here . I had originally planned to revamp the structure of my calculus course from the onset as AP scores were falling steadily over the previous 4-5 years, and it seemed that students just weren't grasping the material as readily as well compared to a decade earlier. So, that was my impetus for a total overhaul and a more integrated and spiraled approach to the topics. Since I was overhauling everything anyways, and I knew we wer

Time for a Reboot

My summer has been consumed with one overarching goal: bring a standards focus into our high school math curriculum. Since it looks like I'll be teaching Algebra 1 and Geometry in my return to the classroom (after teaching AP Calculus and AP Statistics before I left a year ago), I have tried to have a laser focus on aligning standards to what we assess and thus, what we will be teaching. Since early May, I have been combing through the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) and working to align what is expected in an Algebra 1 and Geometry course with what we actually teach. Boy, has that been fun! Once the school year ended, I had the opportunity to attend the FIRST Conference in Fond du Lac, WI in early June with some colleagues of mine and saw an AMAZING lineup of educators: Myron Dueck, Dylan Wiliam, Ken O'Connor, Todd Whitaker, Jay McTighe, Tom Guskey, Richard Cash, Lee Ann Jung; the list goes on and on. One thing the conference reaffirmed for me and my

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