Seating Chart Template

I've been having problems deciding what information to keep on my clipboard and what to keep elsewhere. I've already gone through several permutations:

1) Keep attendance only

2) Keep attendance and write everything else down randomly near their names

3) Keep attendance and behavior

4) Keep attendance on clipboard, behavior on board (This worked very well once I listened to the other teachers and did this. During my student teaching I was at a school with such bad discipline problems that the students would walk up to the board and wipe their names off, so I was reluctant to try it here. But, as I am continuously reminded, this is NOT Student Teaching High School. Putting their names up has freed up my clipboard space, held them accountable, and helped me not lose detentions!

5) Keep attendance and write HW and Class Participation points randomly near their names

And now I am on Seating Chart Method 6.0. I needed the following things:

1) Desks with enough space to write their names
2) Desks with spaces for attendance, tardies, MP (hw) points, and Classwork points
3) Desks that would be identifiably rectangular and not square so they looked like my class (OCD)
4) Desks big enough to write on
5) Desks small enough to fit 34 on my 8.5"x11" paper in the right configuration

After spending way too much time playing with Microsoft Paint (yes, the free app that comes next to the calculator) I came up with the following possibilities for desks:



I chose one of the diagonal ones as the best for my purposes, and wasted more time (hey, its my fall break; if this is the most fun I have...) making a diagonal version. My problem is that I like the simple and clean bitmap format for things like this, but Paint has so few tools - for instance, it can only rotate 90 degrees. After spending a lot of time measuring with my fingers on the screen I hit myself on the forehead and remembered what I had realized last semester - I'm a math teacher!

:-)

In other words, if you want to make a diagonal of a certain length, you can make a circle with that radius and use any line from the center to the circumference. Again, I could have done it faster by relearning Fireworks or buying Paint Shop Pro, but I'm a geek like that. Math in action!




I then created my seating chart - 8 groups, 4 students per group, with two additional individual seats for students that want/need to be by themselves until a group activity begins (at that time they will have to pull their chairs to the nearest group if they want participation points for the day).



Finally, to make transportation and sharing easier, I inserted the above pic into a Word document and added my turtle crawling onto the page from the bottom left corner.

The top boxes are for attendance every day of the week. If they are absent I mark a slash from the top right to bottom left corners of the rectangle. If they show up late you modify it by adding a line from the middle of the rectangle to the bottom right corner (so it looks like a sideways skewed "T" for tardy).

The two diagonal areas are for classwork and homework points. During bellwork I go around and check More Practice (my term for hw) and give them 1, 2, or 3 points and write that numeral in the first triangular section. During classwork I use the second triangle to deduct 1, 2, or 3 points if they are off-task. At the end of the day I can (theoretically - let's see how this works out!) quickly input these grades into Easy Grade Pro.

2 examples (1 absent student, 1 tardy student):



All these pics, and the Word document, can be found at the Sines of Learning Document Page. They are licensed under a Creative Commons non-Commercial license.

Enjoy!

Who I Am (First Day Survey)

Even though I haven't posted in several days, I've still been working on several ideas for my Algebra 1 classroom (except for the past two days, when I've been enjoying myself in Sedona). I'll try to catch this blog up to my work in the next few days. The following idea is stolen 95% from Dan Meyers at dy/dan.

He made up a first-day survey that was made up of all kinds of geometric shapes and it looked like so much fun compared to my previous list-surveys, I had to use it. But, I wanted to change the questions and his download was only in PDF form.

So, being the I-wanna-do-it-myself kind (which I have to watch out for, I know) I made my own. Its similar but not exactly the same as Dan's, and I centered it around the themes of past, present, and future:



The only questions about math are "What did your previous math teachers do that you liked/disliked?"

Right now, my plan is to use this as my bellwork on the first day, with my answers up on the document camera (doc cam) as an example. Then going over some basic rules and procedues, having everyone share from the survey, and ending with a mini-quiz that doesn't factor into their grades but helps me find out where they are in math.

I'm also considering taking the surveys and printing a second half on the back for day 2, with more math-centered questions. Then when I get them back a second time I'll have lots of info for each child on one sheet. On the other hand, if I scan them, it won't matter where the second page is. Still thinking on this one.

You can download Word and PDF copies of the Who I Am survey at the Sines of Learning Document Page. If you want to change the shapes or questions, open the Word file. The shapes are made using Word Insert>Picture>Autoshapes, and the questions are put in using Insert>Text Boxes. I made some of the text boxes go "sideways" by going to Format>Text Direction.

Have fun! And let me know what you think!

Class Logo - Turtle

When I find a new blog I really like I often go back to the beginning of its archives and read all the way through; by the end its like reading a rough draft of a book (and if its a good blog, of a good book!)

Right now I'm working my way through the archives of dy/dan, an overachiever math teacher with great tips on design, useful assessment, and education in general. He writes like he takes himself too seriously, which is tiring sometimes, but his blog is full of information and I've learned more than I can say - and I'm only as far as September 2007.

Anyway, on either his blog or a blog he linked to, I read about a teacher that each year painstakingly develops a "class logo" for his math class. The idea struck me, and I decided to do the same.

I've recently realized how much I love graphic design and art, though I have no training. I love to build web pages and actually, when I excitedly told my SO about my turtle, he suggested that he subcontract out the design part of his webpage-building work to me! So now I've got another thing to do this year ;-)

Anyway, for my computer art my main tool is......Microsoft Paint. :-/ Yup, that flimsy little app that comes along free with any version of Windows. I also use Microsoft Fireworks, but so far I draw things so infrequently that I keep forgetting what I've learned about Fireworks. So in the end I work mostly in Paint, moving to Microsoft Word or Fireworks for a couple of tools that Paint doesn't have.

So. With only Paint (and Fireworks to tilt and shrink it) as well as some Webdings fonts to get pi, the approximately equals sign, the multiplication star, and a capital J to outline, we have: my class turtle!



Okay, its not much...but I made it in Paint! And its CUTE! I plan to use it all over my class, since I'm going to have a kind of "turtle theme" (just some turtle-y stuff popping up here and there, when its not expected)

Also, the tail is the outline of the letter "J", which is in my name.

Please note, I would like it if you would not use, share, and/or change my turtle. You are welcome to absolutely anything else on this blog, but my turtle's kinda personal.

Anyway, I plan to put my tiny turtle in different places on all handouts and PPT presentations, just to give a kind of unifying theme to my class.

Yes, its totally amateurish compared to the giants of dy/dan and the School 2.0 proponents he loves to hate, but its a beginning! And, it's cute. I like it. For my first year, at least, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do."